Month: June 2017

Myanmar Mobile Project Helps Lift Young Workers Out of Poverty

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It’s six o’clock in the evening, Saw Ku Do reviews his English lessons shortly after finishing an 11-hour shift serving food and sweeping the floor at the tea shop where he works.

“Dog, cat, pig,” he said while looking at his notebook. Saw Ku Do, age 15, only has a second grade education. He dropped out of school to go to work to help support his family. He says his parents are day laborers and struggle to take care of their six children. “It’s not that I didn’t want to stay in school but I felt sorry for my parents,” Saw Ku Do said. “When we are broke we have to borrow money and have to repay with interest so it’s very difficult.”

Saw Ku Do said he gets one day off every other week and makes the equivalent of about 60 U.S. dollars per month. He sends most of it home to his parents who live in a village about eight hours away from Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital.

His story is a common one across Myanmar, also known as Burma, where more than a quarter of the population is impoverished. One out of five children ages 10 to 17 goes to work instead of school to help support their families. Many of them move away from small villages to work in tea shops in Myanmar’s cities. At night they often sleep on top of tables in their tea shops or on a piece of cardboard that’s spread out on the floor.

Child labor laws

Myanmar has laws prohibiting children under the age of 14 from working and until 16, they’re not allowed to work more than four-hours per day. However, enforcement is lax.

But while these kids often left the classroom years ago, there’s a program that’s bringing class to some of them.

It’s the Myanmar Mobile Education Project also known as myME. The program teaches subjects including math and English plus vocational training in fields such as hospitality and tailoring. Three nights a week, Saw Ku Do’s tea shop is converted into a makeshift classroom. “I hope to improve my education so I can have a better job,” he said.

The goal of myME is to help these tea shop workers get an education and skills so they’re not stuck in these low paying jobs for the rest of their lives. MyME trained Naw Aye Aye Naing, 20, to be a tailor. She now works at a boutique clothing store earning double what some tea shop workers make.

“MyME improved my life a lot,” she said.

The program’s executive director is Tim Aye-Hardy, a Myanmar native who moved to the United States in 1989. “When I came back to this country in 2012 and ‘13 I started to notice a bunch of young people who are on the streets at these tea shops, restaurants instead of in school that’s what really triggered me,” Aye-Hardy said. “I started asking questions: Why are they not in school? Why are so many kids out there?”

Myanmar’s economy and education system were crippled during nearly 50 years of military rule. The country has been undergoing political and economic changes during the past several years.

Climbing out of poverty

MyME’s annual $200,000 budget comes from private donations. The program teaches about 500 workers at 35 tea shops across Myanmar. But that’s just a small fraction of the more than one-million child workers in this country. “If we don’t help them they’ll never be able to climb out of this trap and then they might be so poor that their kids will also have to quit school to work just like they did,” Aye-Hardy said.

In Saw Ku Do’s English class, his teacher asks him what his favorite animal is. “It is a cat,” he replies.

Saw Ku Do dreams of owning his own business when he’s older. Saw Ku Do says he and his coworkers feel lucky to be part of myME. “If there’s no myME we will be stuck this way,” he said. “If we know more through myME we can get a new job.”

 
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World Food Prize Winner: Immense Challenges Lie Ahead

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This year’s World Food Prize has been awarded to African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina, for his work to improve the lives of millions of small farmers across the African continent —  especially in Nigeria, where he was once the agriculture minister.

Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, based in Des Moines, Iowa, said the $250,000 award reflected Adesina’s “breakthrough achievements” in Nigeria and his leadership role in the development of AGRA — the nonprofit Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.

For example, Quinn said, “our laureate introduced the E-Wallet system, which broke the back of the corrupt elements that had controlled the fertilizer distribution system for 40 years. The reforms he implemented increased food production by 21 million metric tons and led to and attracted $5.6 billion in private-sector investments that earned him the reputation as the ‘farmers’ minister.'”

Adesina is the sixth African to win what some consider the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture. He will accept the prize in October in the Midwestern state of Iowa, where farming is a mainstay of the economy.

Challenges ahead

As president of the African Development Bank, the 57-year-old economist said he is honored by the recognition of decades of work, but he noted to VOA that the challenges ahead in Africa are quite immense.

“The big issue is how we’re going to make sure that 250 million people that still don’t have food in Africa get access to food,” Adesina said. “The other one is, we still have 58 million African children that are stunted today and, obviously, stunted children today are going to lead us to stunted economies tomorrow.”

Almost 30 percent of the 795 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat are in Africa, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

While Africa imports $35 billion worth of food every year, Adesina says the money spent on food imports should instead go into food production.

“Our task ahead is to make sure that Africa fully feeds itself,” the bank president said. “That Africa conserves that $35 billion and Africa transforms its rural economies and creates new hope and prosperity for a lot of the young people.”

Agriculture as ‘cool’ career

Adesina said he has worked to promote agriculture as a “cool” career for young people, so they can see their future in agriculture as a business, not just a way of life.

Gold lying in the ground in the rough can look like a clump of dirt, and won’t look like the extremely valuable metal it is unless it is cleaned and polished, Adesina said, and “that’s how it is with agriculture.”

“The size of the food and agribusiness market in Africa will rise to $1 trillion by 2030,” he added, “so this should be the sector where the millionaires and billionaires of Africa are coming out of.”

The African Development Bank launched an almost $800 million initiative last year called “Enable Youth.” The aim, Adesina said, “is to develop a new generation of young commercial farmers in both production, logistics, processing, marketing and all of that, all across the value chain.”
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Dead Sea Shrinkage Predicts Future Mega Drought

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The Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth, is getting lower. With less rainfall than average this year, experts say the water level could drop more than one and a third meters by October. But the lake’s shrinkage is not just a reflection of drier weather and increased water use. It’s a prediction of a future mega-drought. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Zika Cases Down Around the World from 2016

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The number of cases of Zika virus is way down around the world this year. Instead of treating new cases, doctors, health workers and researchers are freer to track and help those children with microcephaly, a disease caused by Zika-carrying mosquitoes. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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US Farmers Plow Through Uncertain Trade Environment

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Many Americans in rural parts of the United States voted to elect Donald Trump as president in 2016, despite his stance against trade agreements. In the wake of the President Trump’s announcement to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, or TPP, and now curbing trade with Cuba, VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports on how farmers in the Midwest state of Illinois are reacting, and adjusting, to the uncertain road ahead.
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Uber, Others Change Vietnam’s Motorbike Culture

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Nguyen Kim Lan used to make a decent living shuttling customers around town on his Honda motorbike. But his clientele has dwindled as young and tech-savvy Vietnamese increasingly use ride-hailing apps like Uber and Grab to summon cheaper, safer motorbike taxis.

 

The expansion of the ride-hailing services across Southeast Asia is shaking up traditional motorcycle taxi services that are a key source of informal work for people like Lan. In some cases, the Xe Om, or motorbike taxi, drivers are venting their anger in attacks on the new competitors.

 

Lan is just frustrated. He says his income has fallen to 20 percent to 30 percent of what it used to be. 

‘Picked up at the door’

 

“Nowadays, my frequent customers have all booked Grab and Uber, so they don’t come here anymore,” said Lan, 62, as he waited for customers at an intersection in downtown Hanoi. 

 

“Before, office workers would come here after work. Now they just sit in their offices and get picked up at the door,” he said. 

 

As elsewhere in the region, motorbikes are Vietnam’s main form of transportation, especially in the capital Hanoi and the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City. They can maneuver through crowded, narrow city streets more easily than cars and are less expensive to buy and run.

​First taxis, now motorbikes

Having invaded the conventional taxi market, ride hailing apps like Uber and Malaysia-based Grab are now elbowing aside the Xe Om with their UberMoto and GrabBike services.

 

Vietnam, a communist-ruled country of 93 million, has about 45 million motorbikes, the highest rate of motorcycle ownership per capita in Southeast Asia. About 3 million new motorbikes were sold last year. 

 

Practically everyone has mobile phones, and cheap Internet access has enabled most Vietnamese city dwellers to get online. 

 

Nguyen Tuan Anh, chairman of Grab Vietnam, said the number of GrabBike drivers has jumped from 100 when they first launched in late 2014 to more than 50,000, with hundreds joining every day.

 

The growth of passengers is “explosive,” he said. 

 

Many Vietnamese now prefer to use ride hailing apps, viewing their services as safer and cheaper, Tuan Anh said. “GrabBike brings transparency and that’s why customers love it. They know that they will not be cheated by the drivers.”

Hotspots of conflict

 

But Tuan Anh said he knows of more than 100 cases where GrabBike drivers were attacked in the past year, often by Xe Om drivers worried about losing business. 

 

Bus stations, hospitals and schools are hotspots for conflict. In one case, a GrabBike driver was stabbed in the lung. In another, police fired warning shots to disperse crowds of Xe Om and GrabBike drivers who were battling near a bus station in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

Similar problems have been reported in Thailand and Indonesia. 

 

Tuan Anh said GrabBike tells its drivers to be cautious and to seek help from police. 

 

Many Vietnamese seem keen to use such services despite the potential for conflict.

Cheaper, more convenient

 

Tran Thuc Anh, a 21-year-old video games designer, says she switched to using GrabBike to commute from bus stations to and from her office about six months ago.

 

It costs her half as much as using Xe Om did, she says. 

 

“I just need to be online to book a bike without going around to look for a traditional Xe Om, so it’s very convenient,” Thuc Anh said. 

 

Many GrabBike drivers originally worked as Xe Om, but not all are willing to sign up. Older motorbike taxi drivers say they don’t know how to use online apps or lack the cash to buy smart phones. Others are put off by the cheaper fares GrabBike charges. 

 

But Nguyen Quang Trung, a 30-year-old salesman who began moonlighting for GrabBike six months ago, said Xe Om drivers who try to overcharge their customers are finished.

 

“Uber and Grab are safe and their fares are reasonable and customers see this,” Trung said. “Only elder people or those who are in hurry use traditional Xe Om. Young people and people who are not short on time never use Xe Om.”
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New Life on Freedom Fighter Harriet Tubman’s Maryland Trail

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Beside a quiet stream on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, a 19th century brick house that once served as a way station on the Underground Railroad can bring present-day visitors to tears as they gaze at the path where escaped slaves made their way to freedom.

 

The Jacob and Hannah Leverton house is among 36 sites along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. The 125-mile route has been getting fresh attention in recent months as the nation and the world take more notice of Tubman’s heritage as a hero of freedom.

Tubman, who escaped from slavery in antebellum Maryland to become a leading abolitionist, helped other slaves escape by guiding them north on the Underground Railroad and served as a Union spy during the Civil War.

 

“It’s hard to identify with George Washington, unless you’re an older white male. But when it comes to Tubman, there’s so many ways that people of all backgrounds and races … can find something that they can see in themselves that she has carried forward or she held herself,” says Kate Larson, an author and historian who has written about Tubman and worked as a consultant on the byway.

 

Fresh Attention

 

The famed Underground Railroad conductor is drawing admiration from new generations.

 

Plans to put her on the $20 bill have received prominent attention, stirring debate about the representation of old white historic figures on the nation’s currency and the lack of women and minorities.

This year, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution’s new National Museum of American History and Culture in Washington acquired a rare photograph of Tubman in her late 40s.

 

In March, the $21 million Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center opened, not far from her Maryland birthplace.

 

Long Road

 

The designated sites and nearby landscapes offer a comprehensive look into Tubman’s life and journeys along the Underground Railroad, an informal network that helped escaping slaves evade capture and reach free states such as nearby Pennsylvania.

 

After about 18 years of planning, the first stops along the byway were designated in 2013 to coincide with the centennial of Tubman’s death.

“This is just an opportunity for the world to know that Harriet has been a major part of our history in the United States of America,” said Victoria Jackson-Stanley, the first black woman elected mayor of Cambridge, the county seat, not far from where Tubman was born and raised a slave. “She’s a local home girl, as I like to say, but she’s an icon for freedom.”

 

Television Revival

 

Tubman was featured recently in “Underground,” a WGN television drama about the Underground Railroad.

 

Actress Aisha Hinds, who played Tubman, attributes the abolitionist’s increasing prominence partly to the divided times of the present.

 

“I feel like, contextually, what we’re living now is sort of a modern day manifestation and articulation of the times that Harriet Tubman was living and the obstacles that she transcended,” Hinds said at a conference on Tubman in Cambridge, Maryland.

 

Meanwhile, an HBO movie with Viola Davis starring as Tubman is in the works, based on Larson’s book, “Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero.”

 

Act of Defiance

 

The site of Tubman’s first known act of defiance against slavery is one of the most popular stops on the Tubman byway.

 

The Bucktown Village Store has been restored at a rural crossroads believed to be where Tubman refused a slave owner’s orders to help him detain another slave. When the other slave ran, the owner grabbed a 2-pound weight and threw it at him, hitting Tubman on the head and causing an injury that would trouble her for the rest of her life.

The inside still looks like a 19th century shop. The owners have some Tubman-related items, including a newspaper advertising a reward for Tubman and two of her brothers. Susan Meredith, who owns the site with her husband, says people have been stopping more frequently since the visitors’ center opened nearby.

 

“We see people from all over the world that come to see and step in the place that she was in,” Meredith says.

 

Still Developing

 

Some areas with significant links to Tubman’s early life are neither open to the public nor designated on the byway but could one day be purchased by the state. Some related sites have inconsistent hours, depending on when property owners are home, and are still developing under the added attention.

 

The Jacob and Hannah Leverton home, which is on the byway, offers mixed signals. A sign with the words “Private Drive” and “No Trespassing” stands at the foot of the drive, next to an interpretive marker that designates it as a byway stop.

Still, Michael McCrea, who bought the house in the mid-1980s, is enthusiastic about the byway and accommodates visitors, even though the sign remains.

 

“It’s fine,” he says, mentioning that visitors have been undeterred by the sign to get a closer look.

 

McCrea has shown people around the property. Some have cried, he says, while others solemn rub the bricks of the house.

 

“They just can’t believe that it’s here,” McCrea says.
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Berry, Rodriguez Speak Out on Diversity, Hollywood

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Halle Berry, the only black woman to ever win a best actress Oscar, said her 2002 win turned out to be meaningless, and Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez warned she might quit the action movie franchise unless filmmakers “show some love for women.”

Their comments proved a reality check for women in Hollywood on Wednesday, even as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it invited 298 more women to join its ranks in a bid to improve diversity at the organization behind the Oscars.

Berry in 2002 won the best actress Oscar for Monster’s Ball, becoming the first black woman to do so. Fifteen years on, she remains the only woman of color to get the honor.

“Wow, that moment really meant nothing. It meant nothing. I thought it meant something, but I think it meant nothing,” she told Teen Vogue editor Elaine Welteroth in a video interview at the Cannes Lion festival released late Tuesday.

Berry said she reached that troubling conclusion in 2016 when all 20 of the Oscar acting nominees were white, sparking the #OscarsSoWhite backlash.

“I was profoundly hurt by that, and saddened by that,” Berry said, adding that it had prompted her to want to start directing and producing to make more opportunities for actors of color.

Ready to quit

Elsewhere, Rodriguez, who plays Vin Diesel’s love interest in five of the eight Fast and Furious box office hits, suggested she was prepared to quit her role as tough street racer Letty Ortiz over the portrayal of women.

“F8 [the eighth film] is out digitally today,” she wrote on her Instagram account Tuesday above a montage of photos from the film. “I hope they decide to show some love to the women of the franchise on the next one or I just might have to say goodbye to a loved franchise.”

It’s not the first time Rodriguez has spoken out.

In an interview in May with Entertainment Weekly, she said women in action films should have “more female camaraderie, [and have] women do things independently outside of what the boys are doing — now that is truly the voice of female independence.”

The Fast and Furious franchise has taken in more than $5 billion at the box office worldwide since 2001, and two more films are planned for release in 2019 and 2021.
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Creator of Paddington Bear, Michael Bond, Dies at 91

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The writer who created the beloved children’s character Paddington Bear has died.

Michael Bond was 91. His publisher said he died Tuesday after a brief illness.

There are few children who do not recognize and love Paddington and his trademark rain hat and coat and suitcase.

Bond created Paddington in 1956 after spotting a teddy bear sitting alone in a London shop.

In his first adventure, “A Bear Called Paddington,” the character was described as a stowaway from “darkest Peru” who showed up at London’s Paddington train station wearing a sign saying “Please look after this bear. Thank you.”

Since his debut, Paddington has sold more than 35 million books in 40 languages, starred in movies and on television.

Shooting on a new Paddington film wrapped up this week.

Bond once said children are drawn to Paddington because of his “vulnerability.”
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America’s Cup Foiling Technology Set to Fly Beyond Racing Boats

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From water taxis that “fly” on hydrofoils to aircraft wings and cutting-edge car steering wheels, the America’s Cup has produced technology with potential far beyond its “foiling” catamarans.

With their focus on carbon fiber and aerodynamics, the teams that fought for the America’s Cup attracted partners including planemaker Airbus and automotive groups BMW and Land Rover who were keen to learn from them.

One area where this is likely to have an impact is in harnessing “foiling” technology, where the America’s Cup boats “fly” above the water on foils, cutting water resistance.

“Foiling in small electric boats will most likely appear on rivers in major cities. We are just at the beginning of the foiling adventure,” Pierre Marie Belleau, head of Airbus Business Development, who managed its partnership with Larry Ellison’s Oracle Team USA, told Reuters.

The space-age catamarans used in the 35th America’s Cup, which ended in victory for Emirates Team New Zealand this week, can sail at maximum speeds of 50 knots (92.6 kilometers per hour) and have more in common with flying than sailing.

For Jaguar Land Rover, which sponsored British sailor Ben Ainslie’s attempt to win the cup, the relationship is a strategic one with a focus on technology and innovation.

“We don’t just get our logo onto a sail,” Mark Cameron, the company’s Experiential Marketing Director, said by telephone, adding that the carmaker would be providing more designers to help Land Rover BAR with technology for their next campaign.

Land Rover produced a special steering wheel for Ainslie to use in the America’s Cup, with in-built gear shift paddles that allowed him to adjust the catamaran’s “flight” levels.

The relationship is similar between BMW and Oracle Team USA, with the German automaker focused on areas including the electronics in the wheel used by skipper Jimmy Spithill, the development of carbon fiber used to make the boat and its components, and the aerodynamic testing.

“We like to think of ourselves more as a partner than a sponsor. We have a very strong carbon fiber relationship,” Ian Robertson, who is the BMW management board member responsible for sales and brand, told Reuters between races.

“This is a dynamic sport that is developing fast. … It’s moving quickly just like the car industry is moving quickly. It’s all changing,” Robertson said.

Plane sailing?

The America’s Cup catamarans use similar aerodynamics and load calculations to power their wings as commercial aircraft, which has led some skippers such as Spithill to become pilots.

Airbus is now considering applying the design and method of Oracle’s foils to the tips of aircraft, Belleau said, adding that this would need a two- to four-year certification process and require it to change its production method.

Airbus has also created a new generation of Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) microchips that were originally developed for the wings of its test aircraft and then adapted on board the Oracle boat to measure the wind speed and direction at all points on its almost 25-meter-high wing sail.

The sensors make it easier to tell if the wing sails are set efficiently, as wind speed and direction can vary from the top to bottom of the 25-meter wing of the America’s Cup boats — technology that could become standard in the marine leisure industry to replace less reliable wind instruments.

“I would be very surprised if this MEMS technology does not become standard in order to replace the classic anemometer,” Belleau said.

The Airbus A350-1000, one of Airbus’ twin-aisle, wide-body jetliners, is also flying every day using new instrumentation developed through the partnership.

Oracle used Airbus’ 3D printing and manufacturing process to produce stronger and lighter parts that Airbus has started to use on aircraft to replace titanium and aluminum.

“In 10 years from now … this technology will spread and will be on all the sailing boats in the market,” Belleau said. “In addition to the sporting competition, there is still this technological competition. … The story is not finished.”
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A Decade Ago, Apple’s iPhone Transformed the World

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In the two years leading up to June 29, 2007, when Apple’s iPhone went on sale, company co-founder Steve Jobs and a select team were hard at work secretly designing what would become a global game changer. 

The initiative even had a code name, “Project Purple.” By all accounts, the project was pained. 

Inside a secure room, a collection of super smart techies, ate, slept, worked way beyond the typical eight hour day, fought and, at times overthought, the design of this new slick mobile device.

​Before that day, flip phones, Blackberries and even the occasional pager were commonplace.

Pay phones were rarer still.

Photo gallery: America’s love affair with the ever-evolving phone

Ten years later, Jobs is no longer with us, having passed away in 2011.

But most of the public is hunched over a hand-held device, iPhone or not, accessing the internet, watching videos on demand, and conducting mobile banking. 

Time magazine published the final public video appearance of Jobs before he died after a 10-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple, of course, is still redesigning, and hopefully improving upon, that first, innovative cell phone.

Later this year, the iPhone 8 will be released amid much speculation and apparent premature leaks. 
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Head of Top US University for the Deaf Visiting Africa

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The first-ever deaf woman leader of a U.S. university for deaf students is touring Africa, hoping to learn and to teach institutions here how to provide for hearing-impaired students. In South Africa, an estimated one-fifth of the disabled population is hard of hearing. Anita Powell shares a portion of her interview with Gallaudet University President Roberta Cordano.
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Samsung Investing $380M in Newberry, Creating 950 Jobs

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Samsung is investing $380 million in South Carolina to manufacture home appliances, creating an estimated 950 jobs over the next three years.

State and company officials said Wednesday that Samsung is locating in the former Caterpillar plant in Newberry. Production is expected to start early next year.

 

The company says “premium home appliances” made in Newberry will include washing machines.

 

An event was to be held later Wednesday to celebrate the announcement.

 

Samsung Electronics America CEO Tim Baxter says the investment represents the South Korean company’s commitment to expanding its U.S. operations.

 

Samsung already operates a call center in Greenville County employing 800 people.

 

Gov. Henry McMaster says Samsung’s decision will “change the very fabric of the Newberry community.”

 

Rural Newberry County is home to fewer than 40,000 people.

 

 
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Europol: Tuesday’s Worldwide Cyberattack ‘More Sophisticated’ Than Previous Hacks

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A cyber-attack Tuesday that hit companies across the world is similar to a ransomware attack last month that targeted hospitals in Britain, although the most recent hack was potentially “more sophisticated,” according to the European police agency.

Europol director Rob Wainwright called the hack “another serious ransomware attack.” He said it bore resemblances to the previous “WannaCry” hack, but also showed indications of a “more sophisticated attack capability intended to exploit a range of vulnerabilities.”

The WannaCry hack sent a wave of crippling ransomware to hospitals across Britain in May, causing the hospitals to divert ambulances and cancel surgeries. Researchers eventually found a way to thwart the hack, but only after around 300 people had already paid the ransom.

The cyberattack Tuesday caused disruptions at companies in 64 different countries, including America’s Merck pharmaceutical company, Russia’s Rosneft oil giant, British advertising agency WPP and French industrial group Saint-Gobain.

It also disrupted operations Wednesday at India’s largest container port, adding to the headaches of governments and businesses affected by so-called ransomware code that takes a user’s data hostage until the victim agrees to pay for its release.

The problems at Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai involved a terminal run by Danish shipping outfit A.P. Moller-Maersk.

From Europe to US

The company had said Tuesday as the attack was spreading largely in Europe and the United States that the malicious code was affecting terminals “in a number of ports.”

Australia’s Cyber Security Minister Dan Tehan told reporters Wednesday that officials have not yet confirmed the same computer virus was responsible for ransomware attacks on two Australian companies, but that “all indications would point to” that being the case.

Banks, government offices and airports in Ukraine were among the first to report the cyberattack.

A U.S. National Security Council spokesman said the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other agencies are “working with public and private, domestic and international partners to respond to this event and provide technical information for prevention and remediation.”

“Individuals and organizations are discouraged from paying the ransom as this does not guarantee access will be restored,” the spokesman added.

Europol’s European Cybercrime Center has told anyone affected by Tuesday’s attack to report the crime to national police, and encouraged them not to pay any ransom requested by hackers.

Eternal Blue

The computer virus used in the attack includes code known as Eternal Blue, a tool developed by the NSA that exploited Microsoft’s Windows operating system and which was published on the internet in April by a group called Shadowbrokers. Microsoft released a patch in March to protect systems from that vulnerability.

Tim Rawlins, director of the Britain-based cybersecurity consultancy NCC Group, says these attacks continue to happen because people have not been keeping up with effectively patching their computers.

“This is a repeat WannaCry type of outbreak and it really comes down to the fact that people are not focusing on what they should be focusing on, the very simple premise of patching your systems,” Rawlins told VOA.

Jeff Seldin and Victor Beattie contributed to this report.

WATCH: What is ransomware?
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Festival Spotlights Folk Traditions in Crafts, Music and Dance

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Summertime is festival time across the United States, and the nation’s capital is no exception. Thousands of DC area residents recently flocked to the 37th Annual Washington Folk Festival at Maryland’s Glen Echo Park. The two-day event welcomed people of all ages with traditional music, dancing and crafts from local artists representing cultures from many parts of the world. Amber Wihshi has more. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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After 2018 in NYC, Grammys Will Return to LA

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The 2018 Grammy Awards will be held in New York City, but the show will return to Los Angeles for four years beginning in 2019.

 

The Recording Academy announced Wednesday it signed a four-year deal with the AEG entertainment company to host the show at the Staples Center.

 

The academy says the show brings an estimated economic benefit of $82 million to Los Angeles each year it is held.

 

The upcoming Grammy Awards will mark its 60th anniversary when it takes place at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 28, 2018. Nominees will be announced Nov. 28.

 

CBS has a contract to air the Grammys through 2026. The show has been held at the Staples Center for 17 out of the last 18 years.

 

 

 
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Analysts: Thailand Taking Bet on Legalizing Casinos

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More than 80 years after Thailand introduced gambling laws, analysts say the nation is betting on legalizing casinos in hopes of boosting tourism and being a player in regional casino development. Gambling in Thailand is officially banned, apart from the state-run lottery and betting on horses at the Bangkok Turf Club; but, illegal betting and underground casinos have proliferated.

Visanu Vongsinsirikul, a lecturer in economics at Dhurakij Pandit University, and a specialist in the gaming industry, said a decision on casino gambling is likely after the next general elections, expected in late 2018.

“After the election this issue [of the casinos] will be raised again. When the election passes it means the government has the rights of the [electorate]. So the government will dare to make a decision about this. I’m quite sure that Thailand will have a legal casino, they will have in the near future,” Visanu told VOA.

A series of governments over the past decade set out plans to legalize casinos. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra led an initial plan to legalize a casino in Pattaya before he was ousted by the military in a 2006 coup. Since 2014, the proposals have been given fresh momentum, with backing in 2016 from senior government and police officials. Current Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has expressed caution over the plans.

Visanu said initial planning has placed at least one major casino resort in the greater Bangkok area with another expected in the resort destination of Phuket Island in southern Thailand.

Oversight, transparency

Rattaphong Sornsuphap, from Rangsit University’s College of Social Innovation, said a priority for any government will be to ensure oversight and transparency in the management of any casino.

“First thing is the government or government agencies are able to have control over [the casino]. But the management needs to be at a professional level. A professional casino – being a professional I mean the system of management, transparency and accounting – everything,” Rattaphong said.

Research by Rangist University says up to 10 underground casinos had been operating in the greater Bangkok area prior to the military takeover in 2014 with annual gross income between $5 billion and $5.6 billion annually. Sungsidh Piriyarangsan, dean of Rangsit’s College of Social Innovation, has been quoted as saying tax revenues alone could reach $2.78 billion once casinos are legalized.

Rattaphong said that from the major casinos operating across the Greater Mekong region – with Malaysia and Singapore included, total revenues were estimated at almost $50 billion in 2015, up from $34.2 billion in 2010.

Rattaphong said at least 32 major casinos are operating along the border with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

Big draw

The regional casinos are a regular draw for Thai gamblers, as the establishments even offer buses to pick up players from the capital, Bangkok, and transport them to the Cambodian border town of Poipet, just over two hours away.

In 2015, Thai analysts said senior representatives from U.S.-based Las Vegas Sands, operator of the Marina Bay Sands Casino in Singapore, held high-profile talks with members of the Thai government and offered to spend up to $6 billion on a 450-room entertainment and casino complex in central Bangkok.

Dhurakij Pundit University’s Visanu said past research has focused on three existing regional models that could be adopted for the Thai market.

These include the style of Malaysia’s integrated resort at Genting, of the Singapore model evidenced by the Marina Bay Sands Casino, or a style similar to casino developments in Macau, which has several entertainment and gaming venues.

A spokesperson for the Singapore-based Marina Bay Sands casino told VOA in email comments the casino operator was monitoring the situation in Thailand. Researchers say based on recent surveys, there is a growing trend among Thais backing the casino reform legislation.

A senior academic, who asked not to be named, said any official moves to legalize casinos will require the full support of the most senior members of the Thai government.

He said there was also some reticence among members of the Thai public over the plans and the need to ensure transparency as well as for income generated from the casinos to be used for social welfare benefits to win public backing.

Gaming industry analysts say Thailand, backed by strong international investor interest, could post revenues from casino and resort operations similar in size to Singapore, which currently generates about $4 billion in gross gaming revenue from its two integrated resorts – Marina Bay and Resorts Bay Sentosa.

Thailand’s booming tourism sector, with more than 30 million visitors annually, including some 10 million from China, is a target market for the casino and leisure industry.
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Cairo Airport to Screen Passengers from Sudan for Cholera

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Egypt’s Cairo airport has started screening passengers arriving from Sudan for signs of cholera because of a reported outbreak there, the head of airport quarantine said Wednesday.

Similar measures are already carried out in the Cairo airport for people arriving from Yemen due to an epidemic there.

“The number of doctors and health monitors in arrival halls has increased to monitor the flights and examine passengers coming from infected areas,” Head of Airport Quarantine Medhat Qandil said.

Qandil said any suspected cholera cases would be isolated and sent to hospitals. Even if passengers do not show symptoms, their details will be recorded so they can be monitored by Egyptian health authorities, he said.

Sudan’s government has not officially declared a cholera outbreak, reporting instead on cases of “Acute Watery Diarrhea,” the World Health Organization (WHO) told Reuters.

On June 1, the United States embassy in Sudan’s capital Khartoum said there were confirmed reports of cholera in some areas of Sudan, including the greater Khartoum area, that have resulted in fatalities.

Between August 2016 and June 23, 2017, a total of 19,666 suspected cases of “Acute Watery Diarrhea” were reported in Sudan, including 355 deaths, the WHO said. The outbreak affects 12 out of 18 of Sudan’s states.

“The rainy season usually lasts from in June to August and may exacerbate the situation if no adequate preventative interventions can be implemented in time,” a WHO spokesman said.

Neighboring South Sudan has been experiencing a cholera outbreak since mid-2016, according to WHO information.

The World Health Organization said Tuesday that a major cholera outbreak in Yemen may have reached its halfway mark as a massive emergency response has begun to curb its spread two months into the epidemic.

The WHO is responding to Sudan’s cholera outbreak by supporting health workers, running education campaigns and distributing medical supplies.
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Kenya’s New HIV Treatment Offers Hope for Patients

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Kenya is set to be the first African country to introduce better HIV treatment for people living with the disease that causes AIDS. In partnership with the Kenyan government, UNITAID and the World Health Organization have introduced a generic first-line drug for people living with HIV. 

 

Speaking at a news conference in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, Dr. Peter Kimuu, the head of health policy and planning at the Ministry of Health, said this new first-line drug, known as Dolutegravir (DTG), has few side effects and patients living with HIV are less likely to develop resistance.

“DTG offers better tolerability, fewer adverse drug reactions, fewer drug to drug interactions and higher genetic barrier to resistance,” he said.

 

UNITAID

One of the key partners in the initiative is UNITAID, a global health initiative working to end Tuberculosis, Malaria and HIV/AIDS epidemic.

 

UNITAID donated approximately 148,000 bottles of DTG to Kenya’s Health Ministry, which will cover about one percent of the patients living with HIV in the country.

 

Robert Matiru, the director of operations at UNITAID, told VOA the economic and health benefits of the new line of treatment will go a long way in ensuring key populations get much needed treatment.

 

“When you bring a product that is cheaper to make, that is of higher efficacy, meaning better treatment outcomes of course you’re going to realize saving and savings are so critical in this day and age because as we know funding is constrained and in some cases declining,” he said.

 

According to Kenya’s Health Ministry about one-and-a-half million people are living with HIV. The introduction of the new generic first-line drug will be an added arsenal in the fight against the scourge.

 

Speaking to VOA at the launch of the new drug, Dr. Martin Sirengo, the head of the National Aids & STI control Programme (NASCOP), was upbeat about the new line of treatment. However, he says challenges still exist.

 

“We have a challenge in the sense that DTG is not available commercially to the scale that we can start everyone on it,” he said. “It’s a new drug so the manufacturing is yet to catch up that’s why we are starting small, number two we have moved the treatment from where we used to combine different pills into a regiment into what we call a fixed dose combination pill, which is basically a tablet containing three drugs. DTG is a single drug so we have to formulate the regiment with other two drugs.”

 

Living with HIV

Daugthie Ogutu, the executive director at African Sex Workers Alliance, an organization that addresses human and health rights violations against sex workers, has been living with HIV for the last fifteen years.

Ogutu has been on Dolutegravir (DTG) for three months. She says the difference between this new line of treatment, compared to the old one, is the diminished side effects that go along with taking the medication.

 

“The side effects are significantly less. I haven’t experienced any side effects using it and I think that’s just my experience but you know with treatment it differs from patient to patient but what I can attest to is that the side effects of this one if I compare with the side effects I had with Efavirenz, whereby I had a loss of weight, loss of appetite, I became severely anemic and that became basically my condition,” said Ogutu. “I haven’t been able to experience that with this new drug. So I think it’s a plus that we are now changing to medication that’s being used in developed countries.”

 

However Ogutu, whose organization African Sex Workers Alliance, has membership in 30 African countries, argues that more focus should be shifted to adherence.

“There’s a challenge and even for those living with HIV, adherence sticking to your drugs and finishing your drugs,” said Ogutu. “There’s a lot more that still needs to be done around providing psycho social support for people living with HIV and I think we are losing it in all this conversation around prevention and I think it should be a slogan in this year’s World Aids Day ‘People living with HIV lives matter.'”

 

According to the World Health Organization, more than 18 million people globally were receiving antiretroviral treatment. Dolutegravir (DTG) is set to be introduced in two other early adopter countries, Nigeria and Uganda. 
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Global Cyberattack Hits Indian Port

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A global cyberattack disrupted operations Wednesday at India’s largest container port, adding to the headaches of governments and businesses affected by so-called ransomware code that takes a user’s data hostage until the victim agrees to pay for its release.

The problems at Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai involved a terminal run by Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk.  The company had said Tuesday as the attack was spreading largely in Europe and the United States that the malicious code was affecting terminals “in a number of ports.”

Australia’s Cyber Security Minister Dan Tehan told reporters Wednesday that officials have not yet confirmed the same computer virus was responsible for ransomware attacks on two Australian companies, but that “all indications would point to” that being the case.

Ukraine targeted first

Banks, government offices and airports in Ukraine were among the first to report the cyberattack.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko tweeted a photo of his black computer screen, saying the government’s headquarters had been shut down.

Other international firms that reported being affected include America’s Merck pharmaceutical company, Russia’s Rosneft oil giant, British advertising giant WPP and French industrial group Saint-Gobain.

“We confirm our company’s computer network was compromised today as part of global hack. Other organizations have also been affected,” Merck said on Twitter.

A U.S. National Security Council spokesman said the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and other agencies are “working with public and private, domestic and international partners to respond to this event and provide technical information for prevention and remediation.”

“Individuals and organizations are discouraged from paying the ransom as this does not guarantee access will be restored,” the spokesman added.

Ransom demands 

Europol’s European Cybercrime Center has told anyone affected by Tuesday’s attack to report the crime to national police and encouraged them not to pay any ransom requested by hackers.

“What is interesting about this particular case is that the email system that is supposed to be used to deposit the Bitcoin ransoms has actually been disabled, so the hackers in this case may not get what they bargained for,” Cedric Leighton, who operates his own crisis management consultancy, told VOA.

WATCH: Related video report

 

Eternal Blue

The computer virus used in the attack includes code known as Eternal Blue, a tool developed by the NSA that exploited Microsoft’s Windows operating system and which was published on the internet in April by a group called Shadow Brokers.  Microsoft released a patch to protect systems from the exploit in March.

A similar ransomware attack last month named “WannaCry” affected computer systems in 150 countries.

Tim Rawlins, director of the Britain-based cybersecurity consultancy NCC Group, says these attacks continue to happen because people have not been keeping up with effectively patching their computers.

“This is a repeat WannaCry type of outbreak and it really comes down to the fact that people are not focusing on what they should be focusing on, the very simple premise of patching your systems,” Rawlins told VOA.

WATCH: Ransomeware basics facts
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