China’s open policy toward technology firms is rapidly transforming its society into a Western-style consumer environment, ever hungry for new gadgets. As a casual visitor at this year’s Shanghai Consumer Electronics Show could easily see, robots created the highest interest. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Month: June 2017
Ivanka Trump’s Brand Distances Itself From China Shoemaker
Ivanka Trump’s fashion brand sought to distance itself from a Chinese manufacturer that has come under scrutiny after activists investigating labor conditions there were detained, saying the company last made its products three months ago.
In a statement released Wednesday, the brand’s president, Abigail Klem, said Ivanka Trump shoes, which are made by licensing partner Mark Fisher, have not been produced since March at the Huajian Group factory where alleged labor abuses occurred. She added “our licensee works with many footwear production factories and all factories are required to operate within strict social compliance regulations.”
But it is unclear whether that was really the end of the relationship.
Undercover workers
China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit, began scrutinizing Ivanka Trump supply chains more than a year ago, according to Li Qiang, the group’s executive director. Three China Labor Watch investigators went into Huajian Group factories undercover posing as workers in March, April and May of this year and found Ivanka Trump merchandise inside, Li said.
He said the investigators also found evidence of planned production, namely an April production schedule indicating pending orders for nearly 1,000 pairs of Ivanka Trump shoes due by the end of last month.
Now all three men are in jail, accused of using illegal recording devices to disrupt Huajian’s business. The U.S. State Department and Amnesty International have spoken out against the arrests. So far, Ivanka Trump and her brand have not.
Two days off a month?
China Labor Watch laid out its initial allegations in an April letter to Ivanka Trump. It said workers regularly put in more than 15 hours a day, with just two days off a month. It said most were paid by the piece, taking home just $363 a month for 300 hours of work, and that managers verbally abuse workers.
“China Labor Watch expects you, as an assistant to the president and an advocate for women’s rights, to urge your brand’s supplier factories to improve their conditions,” Li wrote in the letter. “Your words and deeds can make a difference in these factory workers’ lives.”
The Huajian Group says the undercover activists were out to steal trade secrets and denies the allegations of poor working conditions.
Global companies take a hit
Some argue that the arrest of independent monitors threatens to hamper the ability of global companies to adequately monitor their Chinese suppliers. China has rebuffed the State Department’s request to release the activists, saying the men will be dealt with under China’s own sovereign laws.
China has swept up hundreds of human rights lawyers and labor activists in recent years and has scrutinized groups with foreign ties, like China Labor Watch, much more closely.
Alicia Edwards, a State Department spokeswoman, said this week that the U.S. is concerned by “the pattern of arrests and detentions.” Labor activists, she added, are instrumental in helping American companies understand conditions in their supply chains and holding Chinese manufacturers accountable under Chinese law.
$10B Chinese Project in Myanmar Stirs Local Concern
Days before the first supertanker carrying 140,000 tons of Chinese-bound crude oil arrived in Myanmar’s Kyauk Pyu port, local officials confiscated Nyein Aye’s fishing nets.
The 36-year-old fisherman was among hundreds banned from fishing a stretch of water near the entry point for a pipeline that pumps oil 770 kilometers (480 miles) across Myanmar to southwest China and forms a crucial part of Beijing’s “Belt and Road” project to deepen its economic links with Asia and beyond.
“How can we make a living if we’re not allowed to catch fish?” said Nyein Aye, who bought a bigger boat just four months ago but now says his income has dropped by two-thirds because of a decreased catch resulting from restrictions on when and where he can fish. Last month he joined more than 100 people in a protest demanding compensation from pipeline operator Petrochina.
The pipeline is part of the nearly $10 billion Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone, a scheme at the heart of fast-warming Myanmar-China relations. Its success is crucial for the Southeast Asian nation’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Embattled Suu Kyi needs a big economic win to stem criticism that her first year in office has seen little progress on reform. China’s support is also key to stabilizing their shared border, where a spike in fighting with ethnic armed groups threatens the peace process Suu Kyi says is her top priority.
China’s state-run CITIC Group, the main developer of the Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone, says it will create 100,000 jobs in the northwestern state of Rakhine, one of Myanmar’s poorest regions.
Local suspicion
But many local people say the project is being rushed through without consultation or regard for their way of life.
Suspicion of China runs deep in Myanmar, and public hostility due to environmental and other concerns has delayed or derailed Chinese mega-projects in the country in the past.
China says the Kyauk Pyu development is based on “win-win” cooperation between the two countries.
Since Beijing signaled earlier this year that it might abandon the huge Myitsone Dam hydroelectric project in Myanmar, it has pushed for concessions on other strategic undertakings — including the Bay of Bengal port at Kyauk Pyu, which gives it an alternative route for energy imports from the Middle East.
Internal planning documents reviewed by Reuters and more than two dozen interviews with officials show work on contracts and land acquisition began before the completion of studies on the impact on local people and the environment, which legal experts said could breach development laws.
The Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone will cover more than 4,200 acres (17 square kilometers). It includes the $7.3 billion deep sea port and a $2.3 billion industrial park, with plans to attract industries such as textiles and oil refining.
A Reuters tally based on internal planning documents and census data suggests 20,000 villagers, most of whom now depend on agriculture and fishing, are at risk of being relocated to make way for the project.
“There will be a huge project in the zone and many buildings will be built, so people who live in the area will be relocated,” said Than Htut Oo, administrator of Kyauk Pyu, who also sits on the management committee of the economic zone.
He said the government has not publicly announced the plan, because it didn’t want to “create panic” while it was still negotiating with the Chinese developer.
Twin signings
In April, Myanmar’s President Htin Kyaw signed two agreements on the pipeline and the Kyauk Pyu port with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, as Beijing pushed to revive a project that had stalled since its inception in 2009.
The agreements call for environmental and social assessments to be carried out as soon as possible.
While the studies are expected to take up to 15 months and have not yet started, CITIC has asked Myanmar to finalize contract terms by the end of this year so that the construction can start in 2018, said Soe Win, who leads the Myanmar management committee of the zone.
Such a schedule has alarmed experts who fear the project is being rushed.
“The environmental and social preparations for a project of these dimensions take years to complete and not months,” said Vicky Bowman, head of the Myanmar Center for Responsible Business and a former British ambassador to the country.
CITIC said in an email to Reuters it would engage “a world-renowned consulting firm” to carry out assessments.
Although large-scale land demarcation for the project has not yet started, 26 families have been displaced from farmland because of acquisitions that took place in 2014 for the construction of two dams, according to land documents and the landowners.
Experts say this violates Myanmar’s environmental laws.
“Carrying out land acquisition before completing environmental impact assessments and resettlement plans is incompatible with national law,” said Sean Bain, Myanmar-based legal consultant for the International Commission of Jurists, a human rights watchdog group.
School, development funds
CITIC says it will build a vocational school to provide training for skills needed by companies in the economic zone. It has given $1.5 million to local villages to develop businesses.
Reuters spoke to several villagers who had borrowed small sums from the village funds set up with this money.
“The CITIC money was very useful for us because most people in the village need money,” said fisherman Thar Sai Aung, who borrowed $66 to buy new nets.
Chinese investors say they also plan to spend $1 million during the first five years of the development, and $500,000 per year thereafter to improve local living standards.
But villagers in Kyauk Pyu say they fear the project would not contribute to the development of the area because the operating companies employ mostly Chinese workers.
From more than 3,000 people living on the Maday island, the entry point for the oil pipeline, only 47 have landed a job with the Petrochina, while the number of Chinese workers stood at more than double that number, data from labor authorities showed.
Petrochina did not respond to requests for comment. In a recent report it said Myanmar citizens made up 72 percent of its workforce in the country overall and it would continue to hire locally.
“I don’t think there’s hope for me to get a job at the zone,” said fisherman Nyein Aye. He had been turned down 12 times for job applications with the pipeline operator. “Chinese companies said they would develop our village and improve our livelihoods, but it turned out we are suffering every day.”
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Ant-hunting We Will Go!
Shining their flashlights into the darkest corners of Singapore, a small group of ant hunters searches for an elusive winged insect.
With luck, they will find a queen ant to lay eggs and start a colony under the watchful eye of a collector.
“You can search for a few hours without finding anything at all. So, it’s really luck,” Leland Tan, 14, said after he hit the jackpot, and found two queen ants in one night.
Singapore, a tropical city-state home to more than 40 ant species, has a small but growing community of ant collectors.
Ants Singapore, a Facebook group that has grown to 380 members since last December, aims to connect “ant lovers and even those who are interested in keeping ants.”
Followers share tips on catching and breeding ants, do-it-yourself ant farms and links to videos such as the giant killer ants in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
While most ants in Singapore are harmless, the insects are often regarded as a nuisance. That is something Chris Chan is hoping to change.
“I want people to look at ants differently,” said Chan, a 29-year-old Uber driver and member of Ants Singapore.
“Now, a lot of people still think that ants are pests, but with enough education, I can educate them that keeping ants can be safe,” he told Reuters Television.
Chan lives across the border in the southern Malaysian city of Johor Bahru with his girlfriend, her family and up to 30 ant colonies living in 10 formicariums, or ant farms.
Helen Teh, the mother of Chan’s girlfriend, said she was curious why the couple needed so much sand and wood in their home.
“He said, ‘Oh Auntie, I’m keeping ants,'” Teh said, recalling her initial surprise.
“Later, when I knew it is something that he loves … I said, ‘It’s no harm done,'” she said.
Chan has turned to social media to promote his hobby.
He has started a YouTube channel for new collectors and answers questions about ant care on the group’s Facebook page.
Chan also organizes ant-hunting trips to teach people how to find and catch the tiny insects that he says can hold his attention for hours.
“Some people can stare at an aquarium for hours. Same, just like my ants,” Chan said.
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In Major Breakthrough, Tiny Utah Firm Regenerates Skin, Hair in Pigs
A small U.S. biotech has successfully regenerated skin and stimulated hair growth in pigs with burns and abrasions, paving the way for a scientific breakthrough that could lead to the regeneration of fully functional human skin.
Salt Lake City-based PolarityTE Inc’s patented approach to tissue engineering is designed to use a patient’s own healthy tissue to re-grow human skin for the treatment of burns and wounds.
Despite recent advances in reconstructive surgery, plastic surgeons cannot give burn victims what they require the most — their skin.
Current approaches to treat serious burns are “severely limited” in their effectiveness and in some cases, are rather expensive, PolarityTE’s founder and CEO Denver Lough said in an interview.
Epicel, a skin graft widely used in burn units that is sold by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Vericel Corp, does not result in fully thick and functional skin — which is PolarityTE’s objective.
PolarityTE conducted its pre-clinical study on wounded pigs at an animal facility in Utah. The use of therapy resulted in scar-less healing, growth of hair follicles, complete wound coverage and the progressive regeneration of all skin layers, the company said.
As pig skin is more complex and robust than human skin, successful swine data is typically seen as a precursor to effectiveness in human trials.
PolarityTE expects to begin a human trial later this year and the cell therapy could hit the market 12 to 18 months thereafter, said Lough, who served as senior plastic surgery resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital before creating PolarityTE last year.
“If clinically successful, the PolarityTE platform could deliver the first scientific breakthrough in wound healing and reconstructive surgery in nearly half a century,” Lough said.
The technology also has the potential to develop fully-functional tissues, including bone, muscle, cartilage and the liver, PolarityTE said.
The company said it would “be opportunistic with financing,” to fund upcoming trials but declined to provide details.
PolarityTE is backed by pharma industry veteran Phil Frost, currently the chief executive of OPKO Health Inc, and a small number of other industry executives.
Shares of the company rose as much as 16.5 percent to $20.98 on the Nasdaq, but pared most gains to trade up 1.6 percent in the midday session on Thursday.
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Automakers Move Toward Automatic Braking at Different Speeds
Big automakers are rushing to launch self-driving cars as early as 2021, but the industry’s major players are moving slowly when it comes to widespread deployment of a less expensive crash prevention technology that regulators say could prevent thousands of deaths and injuries every year.
Nissan said on Thursday it would make automatic braking systems standard on an estimated 1 million 2018 model cars and light trucks sold in the United States, compact sport utility vehicles, the Altima sedan, Murano and Pathfinder SUVs, Leaf electric car, Maxima sedan and Sentra small car.
Nissan sold about 1.6 million vehicles in the United States last year.
Rival Toyota has said it will make automatic emergency braking standard on nearly all its U.S. models by the end of this year.
No rush
Overall, however, most automakers are not rushing to make automatic brake systems part of the base cost of mainstream vehicles sold in the competitive U.S. market. The industry has come under pressure from regulators, lawmakers and safety advocates to adopt the technology, which can slow or stop a vehicle even if the driver fails to act.
So far, only about 17 percent of models tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety offered standard collision-avoiding braking. Many of the models with standard collision-avoiding brake systems are luxury vehicles made by European or Japanese manufacturers.
The systems require more sensors and software than conventional brakes, and automakers said they need time to engineer the systems into vehicles as part of more comprehensive makeovers.
Last year, 20 automakers reached a voluntary agreement with U.S. auto safety regulators to make collision-avoiding braking systems standard equipment by 2022.
Safety advocates have petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to begin a regulatory process to require the technologies, but the agency has said the voluntary agreement will result in faster deployment than a formal rule-making process. NHTSA says the technology could eliminate one-fifth of crashes.
Mark Rosekind, who then was NHTSA’s administrator, told Reuters last year that with 5 million crashes occurring per year, a “20 percent reduction means 1 million less. Those are big numbers.”
Investment possibilities
But customers would most likely experience the benefits of the technology infrequently. The technology to enable a car to drive itself is far more costly, but industry executives foresee autonomous vehicles driving revenue-generating transportation services that could be attractive to investors.
General Motors offers automatic braking as optional equipment on about two-thirds of its models. The company did not say Thursday how many vehicles have the technology as standard equipment. GM has not made public its plans to make the technology standard across its lineup.
“Any time you have a voluntary agreement you have a spectrum of implementation,” Jeff Boyer, GM’s vice president for safety, told Reuters this week. Asked when GM would roll out standard automatic braking, Boyer said, “Let’s just say we honor the voluntary commitment.”
Ford “has a plan to standardize over time,” the company said in a statement Thursday. Currently, automatic braking systems are optional on several 2017 Ford and Lincoln models, and will be offered on certain 2018 models, including the best-selling F-150 pickup truck.
Fiat Chrysler offers automatic braking as optional equipment in seven model lines, using cameras and radar to detect hazards ahead. The company has said it will meet the 2022 target for making the systems standard.
More expected
As 2018 models roll out during the second half of this year, more vehicles will offer automatic braking, said Dean McConnell, an executive with Continental AG’s North American business.
Continental’s automatic braking technology systems will be on certain Nissan models.
“We see it accelerating,” he said. “It varies. There are some [automakers] that are being aggressive” and others that are waiting.
Nissan did not disclose how much prices for vehicles would rise to offset the cost of standard automatic emergency braking.
Currently, Nissan, like most carmakers, offers automatic braking as part of a bundle of optional safety and technology features.
A 2017 Nissan Sentra compact sedan has a starting price of $17,875. To buy the car equipped with automatic braking requires spending another $6,820 for a Sentra SR with a premium technology package.
German auto technology suppliers Continental and Robert Bosch GmbH will supply the systems, Nissan said.
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Lab Fire-tests New Building Materials
New, lighter, cheaper, sustainable and recyclable building materials are entering the market every day as developers try to lower costs and shrink their carbon footprint. But how safe are those materials? Are they resistant to fire? VOA’s George Putic visited a new U.S. government facility that can provide scientific answers to such questions.
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Kenya Launches HIV Self-testing Kit
Kenya has become the latest African country to introduce HIV self-testing kits in a bid to get more people to know their status and seek treatment. The government estimates that there are as many as half a million people in Kenya who are HIV-positive but don’t know it. Lenny Ruvaga reports for VOA from Nairobi.
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‘Foundation 500’ List of Women CEOs Challenges Stereotypes
From a Peruvian trout farm manager to the head of an Indonesian meatball company, a list of 500 women entrepreneurs in emerging markets was launched Thursday to challenge the stereotype of a typical company boss and inspire women globally.
The “Foundation 500” list features the portraits and careers of 500 female entrepreneurs in 11 emerging markets where women are often refused the same access to education, financial services and bank loans as men.
The list, an initiative of humanitarian agency CARE and the nonprofit H&M Foundation, mirrors the Fortune 500 list of U.S. companies but highlights unusual chief executives, ranging from a Zambian woman who set up a mobile drug store to a woman in Jordan who set up a temporary tattoo studio.
Create role models
Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of Swedish retailer H&M, said the project was designed to create role models for women in emerging markets and challenging perceptions in developed countries of business leaders.
“The entrepreneur is our time’s hero and a role model for many young but the picture given of who is an entrepreneur is still very homogenous and many probably associate it to men from the startup world,” Persson said in an email.
He said all the women in the list had made an incredible effort.
“But one that stands out to me is Philomene Tia, a multi-entrepreneur from the Ivory Coast who has overcome setbacks such as war and being a refugee, and who has, in spite of it, always returned to the entrepreneurship to create a better future and a strong voice in society.”
Buses, fish and tattoos
Tia is the owner of a bus company in the Ivory Coast, a chain of beverage stores, a hotel complex, and a cattle breeding operation.
“I often tell other women that it is the force inside you and your brains that will bring you wherever you want to go. I mean, I started with nothing and I don’t even speak proper French, but look at me now,” she was quoted on the project’s website www.foundation500.com.
The women featured are from Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, Jordan, Zambia, Burundi, the Ivory Coast and Yemen.
One of the women portrayed is Andrea Gala, 20, a trout farm manager in Peru and president of the women-only Trout Producers Association.
“This business has worked out so well for us now we don’t depend on our fields anymore, which is hard work and often badly paid,” Gala said in a report on the project.
“With the association we want to open a restaurant one day, next to the trout farm, so we can attract more visitors. We want to turn the area into a tourist zone, where people can come and relax and enjoy our restaurant with trout-based dishes.”
The H&M Foundation, privately funded by the Persson family that founded retailer H&M, said this was part of a women’s empowerment program started with CARE in 2014 in Latin America, Asia and Africa.
As part of this project H&M Foundation Manager Diana Amini said about 100,000 women in 20 countries had received between 2,000-15,000 euros in seed capital and skills training to start and expand businesses.
In Burundi, the average rate of increase in income among women in the program was 203 percent in the three years to the end of 2016, she said.
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Israel’s in Love With Its Homegrown Wonder Woman Gal Gadot
For a country that takes pride in even the smallest successes of its international celebrities, the debut of Wonder Woman has sparked an Israeli lovefest for homegrown hero Gal Gadot.
A huge billboard overlooking Tel Aviv’s main highway is tagged with a provincial “we love you” greeting, her Hebrew-accented appearances in the international media are reported upon daily and throngs of fans cheer wildly upon seeing her on the big screen. Even Lebanon’s ban of the film hasn’t dampened the mood in Israel, where Gadot’s superhero status has been embraced as a national treasure.
“It’s so cool that someone from here is succeeding and is famous overseas. Everyone in the theater was so excited,” said 20-year-old Ela Hofshi of Jerusalem, who watched the movie on opening night. “I think all the enthusiasm here is very supportive and encourages her to keep growing in the world and representing us.”
Eager for diversions from politics and conflict with the Palestinians, Israelis often rejoice when one of their own breaks through on the international stage, whether it’s Omri Casspi in the NBA, medal-winning Olympic athletes or big-name model Bar Refaeli. But Gadot’s ascendance to stardom has entered a whole new stratosphere as she has assumed the identity of Wonder Woman in a box-office smash that raked in more than $100 million in its first weekend in theaters.
The role has instantly transformed Gadot into arguably the world’s most famous Israeli and the country’s most high-profile ambassador. In contrast to Refaeli, whose aloof demeanor, refusal to perform her compulsory military service and a tax-dodging scandal have alienated many Israelis, Gadot has been widely embraced. In interviews, she often speaks in accented English of her military service, a rite of passage for most Israeli Jews, which has made her even more beloved at home.
“She bears the burden of being Israeli with grace and you can see that fame hasn’t changed her,” said Ariel Oseran, 27. “She represents the `good Israeli’ and does us a great service. When she talks about the army, it shows that serving in the military is not a bad thing. It’s something inspiring. It makes every one of our female soldiers seem like Wonder Woman.”
Gadot grew up in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rosh Haayin and somehow stumbled into stardom. She was chosen Miss Israel in 2004 at the age of 18 and represented the country in the Miss Universe pageant that year. She then put off her modeling career to enlist in the military, where she served two years as a combat fitness instructor. In 2007, she took a part in the Maxim photo shoot “Women of the Israeli Army.”
After a year of law school, a casting director invited her to audition for a James Bond movie. She didn’t get the part, but it led to her big Hollywood break in 2008 when she was cast in the “Fast & Furious” movie franchise as Gisele Yashar, an ex-Mossad agent.
She first portrayed Wonder Woman in last year’s “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” before headlining this weekend’s release of “Wonder Woman,” the first Hollywood film exclusively devoted to the DC Comics heroine.
In promoting the film, Gadot made the rounds of American talk and late night shows, charming the hosts with her down-to-earth personality. In an interview with ABC’s morning show, Gadot, who recently gave birth to her second child, joked that being pregnant as Wonder Woman was harder than being a soldier in the Israeli army.
Gadot, who performs her own stunts, has attracted fans with a public image that empowers women. For the film’s Los Angeles premiere, she showed up in $50 flats from Aldo rather than pricey heels. When asked, she responded “it’s more comfortable.”
Her mother, Irit Gadot, a former gym teacher, said that’s just who her daughter is.
“She has a certain personal charm, a certain simplicity,” she told Israel’s Channel 10 TV. “What she is is what you see.”
In Israel, she has avoided the types of scandals that often plague celebrities and has been showered with love. Theaters have erupted into cheers when she appears on screen, and some fans even broke into tears of joy on opening weekend.
Locals excitedly noted how Gadot’s Israeli accent was mimicked by her co-stars as the supposed dialect of Wonder Woman’s idyllic Amazonian island of Themyscira.
Haaretz film critic Uri Klein praised her performance, which he said was “likely to contribute to the pleasure for those who want to envelop the viewing experience in national Israeli pride.”
Her identity has also made her a target of anti-Israel boycott activists who attacked her on Twitter as a “Zionist” and pushed to have the film banned in Lebanon. Opponents noted Gadot had praised Israel’s military on Facebook during the 2014 Israel-Gaza war, sending prayers to soldiers “who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas.” The military, while defending its actions as a response to Hamas rocket fire, nonetheless draw heavy international criticism for the heavy Palestinian civilian death toll.
Michal Kleinberg argued in a column on the Nana10 website that Gadot represented far more than mere national pride.
“This is not one of ours who managed to squeeze into a fashion show or an important competition, it’s one of ours in the most leading role a woman can get in a Hollywood film,” she wrote. “Gadot is objectively [really!] perfectly cast for the role. It’s not that Hollywood has a shortage of beautiful, fit, athletic brunettes, but an Israeli actress has something a Hollywood one doesn’t. As much as it sounds cliche, she offers a sort of chutzpah, spice and relatability.”
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Cruise Dances With Undead in ‘The Mummy’
Of all the supernatural forces slung in Alex Kurtzman’s The Mummy (and, believe me, there are a lot), none can compete with the spectacle of Tom Cruise, at 54.
He and his abs are almost creepily ageless. So it’s almost fitting that in one of the typically bonkers scenes in The Mummy, Cruise awakes naked and unscathed alongside cadavers in a morgue, where he bewilderedly removes the tag attached to his toe. Indefatigable and un-killable, Cruise really is the undead. He’s like the anti-Steve Buscemi.
Yet Cruise and The Mummy — the opening salvo in Universal’s bid to birth its Dark Universe monster movie franchise — are a poor fit, and not the good kind, like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
There’s plenty of standard, cocky Tom Cruise leading-man stuff here: running, swimming, daredevil airplane acrobatics, more running. But his relentless forward momentum is sapped by the convoluted monster mishmash that engulfs The Mummy, a movie conceived and plotted like the monster version of Marvel. Increasingly, Cruise — like big-budget movies, themselves — is running in circles.
Tomb unearthed
He plays Nick Morton, a roguish Army sergeant who plunders antiquities from Iraq with his partner Chris Vail (Jake Johnson). In a remote village they, along with archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), unearth a giant Egyptian tomb bathed in mercury.
In it lies the Egyptian princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who was mummified alive (imagine that wrapping job) after trying to unleash the evil Egyptian god of Set while killing her Pharaoh father, his second wife and the newborn baby that would deny her the throne. Naturally, she’s going to get loose.
Hers and other backstories are shown as The Mummy stumbles out of its grave, vainly trying to organize the story around two burial sites (the other is in London), the strange visions that begin plaguing Morton, and a quixotic (or merely capitalistic) gambit to stitch together a unifying principle for the Dark Universe. Mysterious apocalyptic happenings (a swarm of crows, a horde of rats, occasional ghouls) prompt a series of helter-skelter chase scenes that eventually lead Morton and Halsey to Prodigium, a stealth organization led by the dapper Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russell Crowe) that controls monstrous outbreaks, including those of its schizophrenic leader.
Prodigium would seem to be the connecting tissue for Universal’s shared universe, with plans for Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, The Creature From the Black Lagoon and more in the works. Much of The Mummy hinges on Boutella’s vengeful and vaguely misogynistic monster (she for some reason needs a man — Morton, it turns out — to really do damage). But much of the film endeavors to set up the characters — maybe even famous phantoms — to come.
Why the universe?
Where these films could be fun is in seeing a talented star play a big, theatrical character that would honor the ghosts of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp are already lined up, so who knows? But the desperate need to graft them into a larger comic-book-like “world” — and a thinly conceived one, at that — suggests there won’t be much room for any actor to breathe.
For now we’re cursed with The Mummy, a messy and muddled product lacking even the carefree spirit of the Brendan Fraser Mummy trilogy. There are moments of humor in the script by David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dylan Kussman, but Cruise isn’t the one (maybe Chris Pratt?) to pull off aloofly referring to the mummy as “the chick in the box.”
Almost to the degree that he was in The Edge of Tomorrow, Cruise is put through the ringer. A spiraling cargo plane spins him like laundry. He careens through a double-decker bus. His rib cage is yanked. Cruise remains, as ever, eminently game. But he, like us moviegoers, might have to start wondering: What god have we angered?
The Mummy, a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG-13.
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Archaeologists Discover Aztec Ball Court in Heart of Mexico City
The remains of a major Aztec temple and a ceremonial ball court have been discovered in downtown Mexico City, shedding new light on the sacred spaces of the metropolis that Spanish conquerors overran five centuries ago, archaeologists said on Wednesday.
The discoveries were made on a nondescript side street just behind the city’s colonial-era Roman Catholic cathedral off the main Zocalo plaza on the grounds of a 1950s-era hotel.
The underground excavations reveal a section of what was the foundation of a massive, circular-shaped temple dedicated to the Aztec wind god Ehecatl and a smaller part of a ritual ball court, confirming accounts of the first Spanish chroniclers to visit the Aztec imperial capital, Tenochtitlan.
“Due to finds like these, we can show actual locations, the positioning and dimensions of each one of the structures first described in the chronicles,” said Diego Prieto, head of Mexico’s main anthropology and history institute.
Archaeologists also detailed a grisly offering of 32 severed male neck vertebrae discovered in a pile just off the court.
“It was an offering associated with the ball game, just off the stairway,” said archaeologist Raul Barrera. “The vertebrae, or necks, surely came from victims who were sacrificed or decapitated.”
Some of the original white stucco remains visible on parts of the temple, built during the 1486-1502 reign of Aztec Emperor Ahuizotl, predecessor of Moctezuma, who conquistador Hernan Cortes toppled during the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
Early Spanish accounts relate how a young Moctezuma played against an elderly allied king on the court and lost, which was taken as sign that the Aztec Empire’s days were numbered.
The building would have stood out because of its round shape among the several dozen other square temples that dominated the Aztecs’ most sacred ceremonial space before the 1521 conquest.
Aztec archaeologist Eduardo Matos said the top of the temple was likely built to resemble a coiled snake, with priests entering though a doorway made to look like a serpent’s nose.
Once excavations finish, a museum will be built on the site, rubbing shoulders with modern buildings in the capital.
Mexico City, including its many colonial-era structures with their own protections, was built above the razed ruins of the Aztec capital, and more discoveries are likely, Matos said.
“We’ve been working this area for nearly 40 years, and there’s always construction of some kind … and so we take advantage of that and get involved,” he said.
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Moroccan Fossils Shake Up Understanding of Human Origins
The understanding of human origins was turned on its head on Wednesday with the announcement of the discovery of fossils unearthed on a Moroccan hillside that are about 100,000 years older than any other known remains of our species, Homo sapiens.
Scientists determined that skulls, limb bones and teeth representing at least five individuals were about 300,000 years old, a blockbuster discovery in the field of anthropology.
The antiquity of the fossils was startling – a “big wow,” as one of the researchers called it. But their discovery in North Africa, not East or even sub-Saharan Africa, also defied expectations. And the skulls, with faces and teeth matching people today but with archaic and elongated braincases, showed our brain needed more time to evolve its current form.
“This material represents the very root of our species,” said paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who helped lead the research published in the journal Nature.
Before the discovery at the site called Jebel Irhoud, located between Marrakech and Morocco’s Atlantic coast, the oldest Homo sapiens fossils were known from an Ethiopian site called Omo Kibish, dated to 195,000 years ago.
“The message we would like to convey is that our species is much older than we thought and that it did not emerge in an Adamic way in a small ‘Garden of Eden’ somewhere in East Africa. It is a pan-African process and more complex scenario than what has been envisioned so far,” Hublin said.
The Moroccan fossils, found in what was a cave setting, represented three adults, one adolescent and one child roughly age 8, thought to have lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
These were found alongside bones of animals including gazelles and zebras that they hunted, stone tools perhaps used as spearheads and knives, and evidence of extensive fire use.
An analysis of stone flints heated up in the ancient fires let the scientists calculate the age of the adjacent human fossils, Max Planck Institute archaeologist Shannon McPherron said.
There is broad agreement among scientists that Homo sapiens originated in Africa. These findings suggest a complex evolutionary history probably involving the entire continent, with Homo sapiens by 300,000 years ago dispersed all over Africa.
Morocco was an unexpected place for such old fossils considering the location of other early human remains. Based on the shape and age of the Moroccan fossils, the researchers concluded that a mysterious, previously discovered 260,000-year-old partial cranium from Florisbad, South Africa also represented Homo sapiens.
The Jebel Irhoud people had large braincases that lacked the globular shape of those today. Max Planck Institute paleoanthropologist Philipp Gunz said the findings indicate the shape of the face was established early in the history of Homo sapiens, but brain shape, and perhaps brain function, evolved later.
But given their modern-looking face and teeth, Hublin said, these people may have blended in today if they simply wore a hat.
Homo sapiens is now the only human species, but 300,000 years ago it would have shared the planet with several now-extinct cousins in Eurasia – Neanderthals in the west and Denisovans in the east – and others in Africa.
Hublin did not hazard a guess as to how long ago the very first members of our species appeared, but said it could not have been more than 650,000 years ago, when the evolutionary lineage that led to Homo sapiens split from the one that led to the Neanderthals.
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Mexican Sugar Producers Want Probe of US Corn Syrup Imports
Mexican sugar producers want an investigation into suspected dumping in Mexico by U.S. fructose producers even after a U.S.-Mexico deal on access to the U.S. sugar market, the head of the Mexican sugar industry group said Wednesday.
The sugar lobby last month said it had asked the Mexican economy ministry to investigate U.S. high-fructose corn syrup imports, saying there was evidence of dumping.
Mexico Tuesday conceded to U.S. demands for changes in the terms of Mexican access to the lucrative U.S. sugar market, but U.S. sugar producers refused to endorse the deal.
The agreement would avert possible steep U.S. import duties on Mexican sugar and had been seen as lowering the risk of Mexico slapping its own import duties on U.S. high-fructose corn syrup as a retaliatory measure.
“This issue with the U.S. sugar industry is not over,” Juan Cortina, the head of Mexican sugar industry group (CNIAA), told reporters at an event in Mexico City where he said the group would keep pressing for a fructose probe in Mexico.
The sweetener trade has been a longstanding source of disputes between the two countries that are preparing to start talks with Canada to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo on June 1 said he was reviewing the request by the Mexican sugar lobby to initiate the investigation.
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US Small Businesses in Clean Energy Sector Still Hope for Best
Small-business owners who install solar panels or help customers use clean energy don’t seem fazed by President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, saying they expect demand for their services will still keep growing.
They’re confident in two trends they see: A growing awareness and concern about the environment, and a desire by consumers and businesses to lower their energy costs.
“It’s an economic decision people are making, although it also makes environmental sense,” said Suvi Sharma, CEO of Solaria, a Fremont, California-based company that designs and sells solar energy panel systems.
Trump said he was putting U.S. interests ahead of international priorities in leaving the agreement that would, among other things, require the U.S. and other countries to report greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon after China, and carbon is one of the gases that scientists cite as a key factor in global warming.
Reaction to withdrawal split
Many of the nation’s largest companies opposed Trump’s move, and some have already committed to reducing emissions and are spending billions to do it.
Small business advocacy groups are split over the impact of a U.S. withdrawal. The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council doesn’t believe Trump’s action will hurt the United States.
“Even without the U.S.’s formal participation in the pact, we believe our nation will continue to lead in carbon reduction and clean energy,” said Karen Kerrigan, CEO of the group. “The market is demanding as much and the private sector and investment are responding.”
But the Small Business Majority, which has supported limits on greenhouse gas emissions as a way to help the environment and the economy, said the U.S. needs government policies that “promote the development of renewable energy and the implementation of energy efficiency standards.”
“America’s entrepreneurs understand that the future of our economy and the job growth associated therewith depends upon policies that move us forward, not backward,” said John Arensmeyer, the group’s CEO.
The American Sustainable Business Council also warned that global warming would hurt companies, giving them “a chaotic and unsustainable future of business disruptions from rising seas and changing weather patterns.”
Whether business owners outside energy-related industries are likely to support the Paris accord may depend on how much they’re worried about climate change, and whether they’re concerned about saving on energy bills.
Demand, awareness growing
A private equity firm that invests in clean energy companies doesn’t expect Trump’s action to have much impact on U.S. companies whose business is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Neil Auerbach, CEO of Hudson Clean Energy in Teaneck, New Jersey, said the U.S. has been able to move away from carbon fuels with more use of natural gas and renewables.
Arcadia Power, which helps consumers and companies switch to wind and solar power for their electricity, has seen orders rise 5 percent from its usual pace since Trump’s announcement last week, says Ryan Nesbitt, president of the Washington, D.C.-based company. Demand was particularly strong for the electricity supply plans the company offers through solar power producers.
“They sold out over the weekend. We’re scrambling to get more,” Nesbitt said. Some customers who signed up for Arcadia’s service said they were doing so in response to Trump’s announcement, Nesbitt says.
State and local environmental laws, which can be tougher than federal statutes and regulations, have contributed to the growth of small businesses in the energy sector. So companies that help businesses track and report their carbon and other emissions shouldn’t see their business disappear if the U.S. isn’t part of the Paris accord.
At ERA Environmental Management Solutions, whose customers include companies that use paints and other chemicals, “nobody’s coming out and telling us they’re going to stop doing a project,” owner Gary Vegh said.
But Vegh, whose company is based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, says companies are also reacting to changing perspectives.
“Each generation is getting more educated about the environment,” Vegh said. “Even preschool and elementary children — the new generation is already aware.”
Barry Cinnamon’s homeowner customers buy solar panels because they believe the climate is in trouble. “They understand from a science and engineering perspective that there’s a problem and there’s a solution,” said Cinnamon, the owner of Cinnamon Solar in Campbell, California.
Installing solar panels on a home can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, so owners aren’t expecting an immediate windfall from lower energy prices — they’re willing to wait five or 10 years for their investment to pay off, Cinnamon says.
For some owners, it’s the “what ifs” that are worrisome. Many business customers at Vitaliy Vinogradov’s lighting business base their buying decisions on tax rebates for green LED fixtures.
“What I am afraid of is that this may be a slippery slope — where eventually green technology loses subsidies, rebates, or gets taxed,” said Vinogradov, whose Modern Place Lighting is located in Pensacola, Florida.
Saagar Govil, CEO of Cemtrex Inc., an environmental technology company, fears it will lose business in the U.S. because there may be less need for his equipment that monitors and destroys greenhouse gases. He hopes the Farmingdale, New York-based company will be able to sell those products overseas, and in states that have pledged to follow the Paris accord.
“But until we start to see something concrete, it’s unclear how that will fly,” he said.
Some business owners, however, think Trump’s action will ultimately help their companies. John-Paul Maxfield, whose Denver-based Waste Farmers sells agricultural products and technology to greenhouse operators, believes it will raise awareness of global warming.
“It reinforces the need for alternative systems in the face of climate change,” Maxfield said.
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Study Examines Factors Associated With High African Newborn Mortality Rate
Nearly 16,000 young children die every day around the world, says researcher Sue Grady, citing U.N. figures. The Michigan State University medical geographer says newborns account for about half of the deaths.
A U.N. study of neonatal mortality around the world found that Africa has the highest rate, at 28 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In a study pertaining to 14 sub-Saharan African countries, Grady and her student investigators found that neonatal mortality was significantly associated with, among other factors, home births, where babies are delivered without the supervision of a trained professional.
Grady said many of the newborns succumbed immediately after birth to asphyxiation or an inability to take their first breath. Other common causes of death were infection and diarrhea from unclean water.
Grady said newborn deaths in East and West Africa could be dramatically reduced if babies were delivered in medical facilities with trained personnel standing by.
“Focusing on real hygienic conditions as the baby is being delivered, really cleaning the umbilical cord well [and] being very, very careful as far as the water the baby receives after birth” are critical, she added.
Targeting resources
The study conducted by Grady and colleagues is aimed at informing the United Nations in its global efforts to reduce infant mortality by targeting resources where they are most needed.
Since 1990, when the U.N. Millennium Development Goals were adopted, infant mortality has decreased 53 percent, from nearly 12 million deaths a year to about 6 million.
Those goals have been replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals, a universal call to action to reduce scourges of poverty.
In Africa, Grady said, many women can not afford or access medical care or prefer to deliver their babies at home, surrounded by family and community. Newborn mortality also increases with the age of the mother, she noted.
And a disturbing trend also was found: More female babies were dying than male infants. Grady’s study, which looked at more than 344,000 births in East and West Africa, did not identify the possible causes for that, but “we do know there is some bias, so we would want to better understand why female infants were less likely to survive.”
The findings were published in the journal Geospatial Health.
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Facebook Launches Features to Connect US Users, Elected Officials
Facebook announced three new features Wednesday that are intended to boost civic engagement among users in the United States on its platform by connecting them more easily with their elected representatives.
The new offerings come as the social media juggernaut has sought to rehabilitate its image as a credible source of information following a wave of criticism after last November’s presidential election that the company did too little to combat misleading or wholly fabricated political news stories during the campaign.
Among the features, Facebook will now allow a user to turn on a “Constituent Badge” to identify himself as living in his elected official’s district. The opt-in badge will be visible when a user comments on content shared by his federal, state and local representatives.
Facebook also announced “Constituent Insights,” which allows elected officials and other users to find local news stories that are popular in their districts.
“District Targeting” creates a new preset audience selection that lets politicians’ pages target posts to people likely to be their constituents.
Facebook has continued to come under attack from prominent Democrats and some technology experts despite a raft of changes it has made in recent months that seek to help users consume more legitimate political news.
Hillary Clinton, who ran for president as a Democrat last year but lost to President Donald Trump, a Republican, said last week that Facebook was flooded with false information about her during the campaign and that people were understandably misled.
She said she wanted Facebook to curate its network more aggressively.
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Facebook to Provide Data Maps to Help Agencies After Natural Disasters
Facebook is working with three global relief organizations to provide disaster maps — close to real-time data about where people are, where they are moving, and whether they are in danger in the hours and days after a flood, fire or earthquake.
The social networking giant — with nearly 2 billion users, or about 25 percent of the world’s population — said it has agreed to provide maps to UNICEF, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the World Food Program, the food-assistance branch of the United Nations.
“We are excited about this,” said Tony Wicks, a data strategist at UNICEF. “Facebook has vast amounts of data.”
The company will provide maps of data in the aggregate. No Facebook user will be identified, the firm said.
After a disaster, “the first thing you need is data, which is extremely scarce and perishable,” said Molly Jackman, a public policy manager at Facebook. But Facebook, particularly in areas with a high concentration of users, can “present a more complete picture of where people are,” she said.
Types of maps
Facebook will offer the organizations three types of disaster maps that will be updated as frequently as possible.
Facebook’s location density maps show where people are located before, during and after a disaster. In addition to using satellite images and population estimates, these maps also draw from Facebook users who have their location data setting turned on.
Facebook’s movement maps show how people move during and after a disaster, and can help organizations with directing resources. For example, Facebook created maps after the 7.8-magnitude earthquake in Kaikoura, New Zealand, last year to show where people were going in the days after the quake struck.
Facebook’s Safety Check maps are based on where Facebook users are when they use the firm’s Safety Check service to tell friends and family they are safe. Facebook will create maps showing areas where people are declaring themselves safe and where help may be needed.
For example, after a disaster, “we might know where the house is, but we don’t know where the people are,” said Dale Kunce, global lead for information communication technology and analytics for the American Red Cross.
“Our first reaction may be to go to where the devastation happened,” Kunce said. “But maybe most people are 10 miles away, staying with families when they reported they were safe. So the place to go may be where they are. We’re excited to see what the possibilities and potential are.”
Snapshots
Wicks, of UNICEF, said the partnership is at the beginning stages, but daily snapshots of where populations are have the potential to help his organization with disaster planning. For example, knowing how close people are to a health facility and how long it takes for them to travel to a medical clinic can help with decisions such as where to deploy medical services in case of a disaster.
The data maps will be most helpful in places where internet connectivity is high and in regions with a lot of Facebook users, Wicks said.
“Are these data representative of the populations we are trying to serve?” Wicks asked. “That’s the key question.”
Facebook said that it intends to make it possible for other organizations and governments, including local organizations, to be part of the program.
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Ryan Won’t Commit to Treasury Timetable for Debt Increase
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that he won’t commit to holding a vote to increase the government’s borrowing authority this summer.
The Wisconsin Republican instead says the House will vote on such debt legislation before the government defaults — but not necessarily by an August deadline requested last month by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
“We’re going to address the debt ceiling before we hit the debt ceiling,” Ryan told reporters.
Increasing the so-called debt limit is needed to avert a first-ever default on U.S. obligations such as interest payments and Social Security benefits.
Increasing the debt limit requires legislation by Congress and is invariably a headache. Conservative Republicans say they would like to condition lifting the government’s almost $20 trillion borrowing limit on passing cuts to other government programs.
Mnuchin wants an increase in the debt limit as quickly as possible and has said spending cuts can wait until later.
But White House budget director Mick Mulvaney has said he would like spending cuts to accompany a debt increase. Such a public difference of opinion is unusual, but it has now become clear the Mnuchin is taking the lead for the administration.
“The Treasury secretary is and should always be the person in charge of debt limit negotiations, debt limit legislation. That’s a natural thing. Every Treasury secretary is in charge of that,” Ryan said.
Ryan won’t commit to a debt measure that’s free of add-ons. He supported the most recent debt increase, negotiated with the Obama administration, which was paired with a two-year budget plan that lifted agency spending limits and imposed modest spending cuts.
“We’re going to work with them on this,” Ryan said. “We’re having long, ongoing conversations with our members about how to address this and we’ll address it before we hit the debt limit.”
The government has officially hit its borrowing capacity, but Mnuchin is using accounting maneuvers to maintain the government’s solvency for the time being.
Mnuchin hasn’t publicly said when Treasury will run out of options to avert a default, but outside experts have estimated that the government probably won’t run out of money until September or later.
Friendship Found to Top Family for Health and Happiness
A strong network of friends and family has long been seen as a key component of happiness, but a new study suggests friends may be more important than family.
Researchers at Michigan State University also found the importance of friendship on health and happiness grows as people get older.
“Friendships become even more important as we age,” said William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology at MSU. “Keeping a few really good friends around can make a world of difference for our health and well-being. So it’s smart to invest in the friendships that make you happiest.”
To reach their conclusions, the researchers looked at just over 271,000 participants in a health and happiness survey as well as nearly 7,500 participants in a survey about “relationship support” in older adults suffering chronic illness.
In the first group, both family and friendships were influential in overall health and happiness, but in the second group, friendships “became a stronger predictor of health and happiness at advanced ages.”
Furthermore, in the second group, researchers said strained friendships led to increased chronic illness, but with supportive friends, respondents reported being happier.
One reason, according to Chopik, is that relationships are optional in that we can maintain them with people who make us feel good and discard those who don’t. Family, on the other hand, are not normally optional and while often enjoyable, can also involve negative feelings.
“There are now a few studies starting to show just how important friendships can be for older adults. Summaries of these studies show that friendships predict day-to-day happiness more and ultimately how long we’ll live, more so than spousal and family relationships,” he said.
“Friendships help us stave off loneliness, but are often harder to maintain across the life span,” he added. “If a friendship has survived the test of time, you know it must be a good one, a person you turn to for help and advice often and a person you wanted in your life.”
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