International business in the United States and Europe, as well as Ukrainian state institutions, were among those affected by cyberattacks on Tuesday. The virus locked digital files and demanded payment for help to restore access to them. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Month: June 2017
Tech Innovations for Developing Countries
While technological revolution is changing much of the world, there are still areas that have seen only very small benefits, or none at all. There, people still live without electricity, clean water and basic healthcare. At a competition recently held in Washington, innovators presented affordable new devices, specially designed to help improve the lives of the world’s poorest. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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AP Explains: What is Ransomware?
Computers around the world were locked up and users’ files held for ransom in a cyberattack Tuesday that paralyzed some hospitals, government offices and major multinational corporations.
Here’s a look at how malware and ransomware work and what people can do if they fall victim to attacks.
What is malware and ransomware?
Malware is a general term that refers to software that’s harmful to your computer, says John Villasenor, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Ransomware is a type of malware that essentially takes over a computer and prevents users from accessing data on it until a ransom is paid, he says.
How does your computer become infected with ransomware?
In most cases, the software infects computers through links or attachments in malicious messages known as phishing emails.
“The age-old advice is to never click on a link in an email,” said Jerome Segura, a senior malware intelligence researcher at Malwarebytes, a company based in San Jose, California, that has released anti-ransomware software. “The idea is to try to trick the victim into running a malicious piece of code.”
The software usually is hidden within links or attachments in emails. Once the user clicks on the link or opens the document, their computer is infected and the software takes over.
But some of the major ransomware attacks recently, including last month’s WannaCry and the one spreading Tuesday, borrowed leaked National Security Agency code that permits software to spread quickly within an organization’s network.
How ransomware works
“Ransomware, like the name suggests, is when your files are held for ransom,” said Peter Reiher, a UCLA professor who specializes in computer science and cybersecurity. “It finds all of your files and encrypts them and then leaves you a message. If you want to decrypt them, you have to pay.”
The ransomware encrypts data on the computer using an encryption key that only the attacker knows. If the ransom isn’t paid, the data is often lost forever.
When the ransomware takes over a computer, the attackers are pretty explicit in their demands, Segura says. In most cases, they change the wallpaper of the computer and give specific instructions telling the user how to pay to recover their files.
Most attackers demand $300 to $500 to remove the malicious ransomware; the price can double if the amount isn’t paid within 24 hours. The demand in Tuesday’s attack was $300 per computer, according to security researchers.
Law enforcement officials have discouraged people from paying these ransoms.
How to avoid these attacks
The first step is being cautious, experts say. Users should also look for malicious email messages that often masquerade as emails from companies or people you regularly interact with online. It’s important to avoid clicking on links or opening attachments in those messages, since they could unleash malware, Villasenor says.
But Villasenor says there is “no perfect solution” to the problem.
Users should regularly back up their data and ensure that security updates are installed on your computer as soon as they are released. Up-to-date backups make it possible to restore files without paying a ransom.
WannaCry and Tuesday’s attack exploited vulnerabilities in some versions of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft has released software patches for the security holes, although not everyone has installed those updates.
Even so, the new malware appears to have a backup spreading mechanism, so that even if some computers were patched, they can still be hit if one or more machines in a network weren’t patched.
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Trump Hails ‘Energy Revolution’ as Exports Surge
President Donald Trump on Tuesday hailed an energy revolution marked by surging U.S. exports of oil and natural gas.
Trump cited a series of steps the administration has taken to boost energy production and remove government regulations that he argues prevent the United States from achieving “energy dominance” in the global market.
“Together, we are going to start a new energy revolution — one that celebrates American production on American soil,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the U.S. is on the brink of becoming a net exporter of oil, gas and other energy resources.
The self-proclaimed “energy week” follows similar policy-themed weeks on infrastructure and jobs.
At the White House, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the administration is confident officials can “pave the path toward U.S. energy dominance” by exporting oil, gas and coal to markets around the world, and promoting nuclear energy and even renewables such as wind and solar power.
“One of the things we want to do at [the Department of Energy] is to make nuclear energy cool again,” Perry said.
The focus on energy began at a meeting between Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with U.S. natural gas exports part of the discussion. Trump is expected to talk energy Wednesday with governors and tribal leaders, and he will deliver a speech Thursday at the Energy Department.
Arctic, Atlantic drilling
Trump signed an executive order in April to expand oil drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, reversing restrictions imposed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump has also pushed to revive U.S. coal production after years of decline. Coal mining rose by 19 percent in the first five months of the year as the price of natural gas edged up, according to Energy Department data.
U.S. oil and gas production have boomed in recent years, primarily because of improved drilling techniques such as fracking that have opened up production in areas previously out of reach of drillers.
A report released in January by the Energy Information Administration said the country is on track to become a net energy exporter by 2026, although the White House said Tuesday that net exports could top imports as soon as 2020.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke also focused on energy as he addressed the Western Governors’ Association in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana.
Zinke said increased offshore drilling could provide more than enough revenue to offset an $11.5 billion maintenance backlog in national parks.
“There’s a consequence when you put 94 percent of our offshore off limits. There’s a consequence of not harvesting trees. There’s a consequence of not using some of our public lands for creation of wealth and jobs,” he said.
Despite Trump’s withdrawal from the global Paris climate accord, Perry said the U.S. remains committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. He called nuclear power a key element to fight climate change.
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Arab Sanctions Put Crimp in Doha Hotels’ Business
A boycott imposed by four Arab nations that accuse Qatar of supporting terrorism is squeezing the tourism sector, and Doha’s hotels, which would normally be full in the Eid al-Fitr holiday, have seen steep falls in their occupancy rates.
A Reuters survey of five major hotels found average occupancy was around 57 percent at the start of the Eid festival on Sunday, which marks the end of the Ramadan fasting month, when friends and families eat and pray together and take holidays.
“We’re usually packed with Saudis and Bahrainis, but not this year,” a staff member at a five-star hotel said.
But Qatar’s official news agency QNA cited officials and managers in the hotel sector reporting hotel occupancy over the holiday period stood at more than 95 percent and denied reports of lower rates.
“They pointed to high tourist flows from the Sultanate of Oman and the State of Kuwait and a significant increase in demand from domestic tourism,” QNA said.
Free night at some hotels
QNA said an offer by some hotels to offer guests staying two nights at hotels a third night free had helped win high occupancy and that the sector has shown its ability to “diversify away from traditional markets.”
Aviation analyst Will Horton estimated Hamad International Airport, one of the Middle East’s busiest, would handle 76 percent as many flights in early July compared with the same period last year, a loss of about 27,000 passengers a day.
The airport said in a statement Tuesday that it had experienced a “very busy” Eid period with 580,000 passengers passing through between June 19 and June 25. It did not give comparative figures for last year’s Eid.
Visitors from the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council usually account for almost half of all visitors to Qatar. So a decision by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt to cut diplomatic and transport ties on June 5 hit traffic hard.
“Doha in early July, assuming the restrictions remain, will have less capacity than a year ago — a confronting figure for a region where every month sets year-on-year records,” said Horton, senior analyst at Australia’s CAPA Centre for Aviation.
There is no breakthrough in sight for the crisis, in which the four Arab nations issued an ultimatum to Doha to close Al Jazeera television, curb ties with Iran, shut a Turkish base and pay reparations. A defiant Doha has denied accusations of supporting terrorism and says the demands are unrealistic.
Airport losses
Hundreds of weekly flights to and from Qatar have already been canceled because of the dispute. Hamad airport stands to lose fees paid by airlines and passengers, as well as terminal revenue from duty free shops and restaurants.
Air links suspended by the four Arab states represented around 25 percent of flights by state-owned Qatar Airways, one of the region’s big three carriers.
Qatar Airways, whose hub is Hamad airport, said on Tuesday that 510,949 of its passengers had traveled through the airport in the past seven days. It did not give comparative figures.
Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker had said on June 14 the majority of its operations had not been affected by restrictions imposed by the four Arab states.
Elsewhere in the tourist sector, hotels, restaurants and other facilities have had to find new sources of services and goods — in some cases, at higher cost — because of the boycott, said Rashid Aboobacker, senior director at TRI Consulting in Dubai.
“A substantial drop in visitor arrivals is likely to force hotel and real estate developers to re-evaluate their strategies and priorities, potentially causing delays to some of the ongoing [tourism] projects,” he said.
Qatar’s 2022 FIFA World Cup organizing committee has said sanctions have not affected preparations for the tournament, and that alternative sources for construction materials have been secured.
Qatar has said 46,000 rooms will be available to host fans by the time of the World Cup. In March, it had 119 hotels with 23,347 rooms, according to the tourism authority.
Developing business and leisure tourism is part of Qatar’s drive to develop its economy away from reliance on oil and gas revenue.
Doha aims to raise the tourism sector’s contribution to GDP to 5.2 percent by 2030 from around 4.1 percent now, while raising the number of people employed by nearly 70 percent to 127,900.
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From Prague to Mongolia, Wild Horses Return to the Steppes
A quarter-century-old project to repopulate the steppes of Mongolia with wild horses was kept alive as four animals made the long trip back to their ancestral home from the Prague Zoo.
Driven to extinction in their homeland in the 1960s, the Przewalski’s horses survived in captivity before efforts began to re-introduce them to the arid desert and mountains along Mongolia’s border with China.
Zoos organized the first transport to Mongolia of the strong, stocky beasts in 1992.
For the past decade, Prague Zoo has been the only one continuing that tradition and it holds the studbook of a species whose ancestors – unlike other free-roaming horses such as the wild mustangs of the United States – were never domesticated.
The zoo completed its seventh transport last week, releasing four mares born in captivity in the Czech Republic, Germany and Denmark in the Gobi desert. They will spend the next year in an enclosed area to acclimatize before being freed.
“All the mares are looking very well, they are not hobbling, they are calm, eating hay and trying to test the taste of the new grass,” Prague Zoo veterinarian Roman Vodicka said after making observations a few days after the release.
Prague has released 27 horses in total and officials estimate around 190 are now back in the wild in the Gobi B park, where the most recent arrivals were sent.
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US Library of Congress, British Royal Archives to Host ‘Two Georges’ Exhibit
A new exhibition will examine the overlapping worlds of two figures bound together by history on different sides of the Atlantic — King George III and President George Washington.
Britain’s Royal Archives and the U.S. Library of Congress said on Wednesday that a new “Two Georges” exhibit, to be first shown in Washington in 2021, would tap into the libraries’ rich sources of historic knowledge to find parallels and contrasts between the two men.
A venue in Britain has yet to be decided.
“Linked and then ultimately separated by empire, the two Georges offer a distinctive perspective on this vital historical period,” the institutions said in a statement.
The first president of the United States and one of its founding fathers lived from 1732 to 1799. Washington is believed to have earned the respect of George III, his rival, who lived from 1738 to 1820 and was defeated in the American War of Independence.
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US Commerce Secretary: US, Europe Should Have Trade Accord
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Tuesday that the United States and the European Union should have a free trade agreement, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for work on such an accord to resume.
President Donald Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from an agreement with nations around the Pacific, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but the fate of a proposed trade deal with the EU has been less clear. Merkel vowed recently not to give up on that accord, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Ross told a conference in Berlin attended by Merkel that the U.S. had made a “conscious decision not to walk away from TTIP” when it ditched the Pacific accord. That, he said, signaled Washington’s receptiveness to trade negotiations with Europe.
“I stand before you tonight to say this in a more explicit fashion: We, as major trading partners of each other, should have a free trade agreement,” Ross said. He addressed the event, organized by a group linked to Merkel’s party, by video link after canceling a trip to Berlin on short notice.
“In contrast to the behavior of some other nations, the relatively small number of trade disputes between our countries augurs well for the enforceability of any such agreement,” Ross added.
The Trump administration sees “little point in negotiating treaties that will not be honored,” he said. “We believe that we have in Europe a good counterparty with whom we have had, and will continue to have, productive discussions that benefit all.”
He didn’t specify when talks should be held on an accord.
Merkel, speaking after Ross, said that “we should resume work on a trade agreement between the EU and the United States.”
“The multitude of problems that arise … can only be dealt with in structured trade negotiations with each other,” she said.
The Trump administration’s “America First” approach to trade has caused widespread concern in Europe and beyond. Trump also has criticized Germany for its sizeable trade surplus with the United States.
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LA City Council OKs Plans for George Lucas Museum
The Force was with George Lucas on Tuesday as the Los Angeles City Council moved with lightsaber speed to clear the way for a $1.5 billion Museum of Narrative Art the Star Wars creator plans to build down the road from his alma mater.
After hearing from Lucas himself, the council voted 14-0 to approve an environmental impact report and other requirements for the museum’s construction adjacent to the University of Southern California.
“For a very brief time I actually grew up here,” said Lucas, who earned a degree in film from USC. “That’s where I learned movies. That’s where I learned my craft. Basically where I started my career was in school here.”
Lucas said his museum won’t just focus on movies, however, but on the entire history of narrative storytelling, from the days of cave painting to digital film.
“I realized that the whole concept of narrative art has been forgotten,” he told the council.
With Tuesday’s approval, plans are to break ground in Exposition Park, south of downtown, as early as this year and open the museum to the public in 2021. The city says the project will cost taxpayers nothing because Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson, are footing the bill.
“It is the largest private gift in our city, in our state or in our nation’s history,” said Councilman Curren D. Price Jr., whose district takes in the park.
It will feature all forms of narrative storytelling, said the museum’s president, Don Bacigalupi. He said its exhibits will include story boards, costumes, props and various other elements that went into making Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and other classic films.
And, yes, there will be plenty of cool Star Wars stuff there, too.
“Everything from Luke Skywalker’s first lightsaber to Darth Vader’s costume and helmet,” said Bacigalupi.
The Lucas-Steven Spielberg Indiana Jones films also will be represented.
Interactive programs
Numerous interactive programs for children, film students, academics and others will be offered.
Lucas said he hopes the museum will serve as inspiration to people of all ages, but especially to children, encouraging them to create a better world.
Popular art, he said, is the glue that holds people together, that teaches them that while we may have differences, we have similar aspirations.
In addition to USC, the Museum of Narrative Art will be within close proximity to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the California Science Center and the California African American Museum.
Although Lucas’ affection for USC is clear — he and his foundation have given the school tens of millions of dollars over the years — it was once assumed he’d put his museum in his hometown of San Francisco. Or if not there, then his wife’s hometown of Chicago.
But when it came time to clear away all the bureaucratic hurdles, it was Los Angeles that prevailed.
“I wanted to put it in my hometown. They said no. Mellody wanted to put it in her hometown. They said no. We were both basically heartbroken,” Lucas said.
“And then we said, ‘All right, let’s clear the boards and find a place that really wants it.’ ”
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U2 Bassist Clayton Thanks Band for Helping Him Through Addiction
In a frank and heartfelt speech, U2 bassist Adam Clayton thanked his bandmates of four decades for their support during his treatment and recovery for alcohol abuse years ago, and then joined them for a rollicking rendition of a few hits.
“We have a pact with each other,” said Clayton, 57, who was receiving an award from MusiCares, the charity arm of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. “In our band, no one will be a casualty. We all come home, or none of us come home. No one will be left behind. Thank you for honoring that promise, and letting me be in your band.”
He ended by quoting lyrics that Bono, U2’s frontman, had written when the band was starting out: “If you walk away, walk away, I will follow.” At that, his bandmates came out to join him, performing “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” “Vertigo” and, fittingly, “I Will Follow.”
The evening at the PlayStation Theater in Times Square also featured performances by rapper Michael Franti, Jack Garratt, reggae singer Chronixx, Macy Gray, and the Lumineers, who are currently appearing with U2 on their “Joshua Tree” tour.
‘I had to leave it behind’
Clayton was introduced by British record producer Chris Blackwell as someone who “lived through addiction and came out the other side, and has been courageous enough to admit it.”
Taking the stage, the bassist quipped: “I’m not used to achieving anything on my own.”
Turning serious, he said: “I’m an alcoholic, addict, but in some ways that devastating disease is what drove me towards this wonderful life I now have. It’s just that I couldn’t take my friend alcohol. At some point I had to leave it behind and claim my full potential.”
He said part of the reason he had a hard time quitting drinking was that “I didn’t think you could be in a band and not drink. It is so much a part of our culture.”
It was Eric Clapton, he said, who finally told him he needed help.
“He didn’t sugarcoat it. He told me that I needed to change my life and that I wouldn’t regret it,” Clayton said. He credited another friend, the Who’s Pete Townshend, for visiting him in rehab, where he “put steel on my back.”
As for his bandmates, Clayton said, “I was lucky because I had three friends who could see what was going on and who loved me enough to take up the slack of my failing. Bono, the Edge, and Larry [Mullen] truly supported me before and after I entered recovery, and I am unreservedly grateful for their friendship, understanding and support.”
Access to treatment
Clayton received the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award for his support of the MusiCares MAP Fund, which offers musicians access to addiction recovery treatment.
Arriving at the theater earlier, he told reporters the fund was especially important given the current epidemic of opioid addiction. “MusiCares … really provides funding for a lot of people to look into those things and find help,” he said.
He added that his bandmates had been supporting him for 40 years.
“You know, I guess they loved me before I knew how to love myself,” he said. “So it’s really important that they share this with me.”
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Not Just for Gamers and Techies, HoloLens Gets Down to Business
Tech enthusiasts may be drawn to HoloLens, the head-mounted holographic computer from Microsoft, but company executives say businesses also should consider how it can help improve their bottom line.
The wearable device allows users to interact with holograms using their gaze and simple hand gestures. Virtual interfaces are superimposed onto the immediate environment, combining the real world with a digital one. It’s a form of mixed reality that Microsoft executives say offers more than just entertainment value — it can be put to work in business scenarios.
“We’re seeing mixed reality broadly as a new kind of dimension, literally, of how we’re going to interact with information,” said Greg Sullivan, director of communications for the Windows and devices group at Microsoft.
Companies like German elevator maker Thyssenkrupp have begun experimenting with HoloLens. In a promotional video, an elevator repairman dons a HoloLens headset to begin a work order. The computer assesses the repair situation and displays holographic guidance, along with the ability to conference in an associate located remotely.
The associate can interact within the repair technician’s virtual workspace, “She can sit in her office in Germany and scale her expertise literally around the world … see what they’re seeing, guide them and even ink on their display,” Sullivan said.
WATCH: High-tech HoloLens in Action
Cirque de Soleil
Data visualization is another potential use for HoloLens.
“You can walk around the 3-dimensional representation of that data and it gives you powerful new insights, because as humans, we live in a 3-D world and we understand things better … if we interact with them in three dimensions,” Sullivan said.
That can be useful for creative industries. At Microsoft’s recent “Build” conference for software developers, set designers from Cirque de Soleil demonstrated how holographic versions of their theater sets allowed them to plan ahead. Team members wearing HoloLens could walk around and interact with true-to-scale holograms of their set designs, even inserting virtual avatars of real-life performers.
Architecture and engineering
Other industries that utilize 3-D modeling, like architecture and engineering, potentially can benefit from holographic computing, too. Trimble, a company specializing in GPS technologies, developed an application for HoloLens that allows architects and contractors to manipulate 3-D holographic designs and models in real-life environments, such as construction sites.
“You can have multiple people sharing an experience in mixed reality, look at a digital version of the project … and then make those changes in real time and all see them, and then go ahead and move right into production much, much quicker,” said Sullivan. “The efficiencies that are gained are really profound.”
Chris Silva, research director at Gartner, agrees. “3-D models in health care, extremely complex design documents … they’re a natural fit for something like HoloLens, where stepping into the data really can help get the job done better,” Silva said.
Big investment
But like many new technologies, HoloLens’ price tag initially may deter widespread adoption. The device retails for $3,000 for a developer edition and $5,000 for a business edition that comes bundled with enterprise applications.
“The biggest risk is making an investment in this technology and not having a plan for how it gets used,” Silva said. “These are devices that are two, maybe even three, times the cost of the average laptop, and much more expensive than a mobile device. They’re new, and therefore the organizations aren’t always sure how they’re going to use them.”
Silva recommends that companies take a pilot approach to the technology by introducing it to a single group, picking one process to improve upon and analyzing the subsequent results.
Microsoft’s long-time presence on office desktops means HoloLens eventually could transform everyday workspaces.
“When we look at the average worker model, where this type of technology starts literally replacing people’s monitors on their desks, somebody like Microsoft is well positioned to capture that,” Silva said. “They can plug HoloLens into the way they’re doing business today.”
Overall, Silva is excited for future developments in the mixed reality space.
“This is definitely the next frontier of mobile devices … this could be the next thing that replaces the desktop PC, the iPad, the smartphone in your pocket.”
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Facebook Announces It Now Has 2 Billion Users
Facebook announced Tuesday that it now has more than 2 billion users.
Facebook, which was a social website available only to Harvard University students when it was launched in 2004, has recently been criticized for giving extremist groups an easy way to disseminate content over the internet.
CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed the “Facebook community” after Tuesday’s announcement and defended the social media website, saying that he was proud of the role his company was playing in connecting people around the world.
Facebook’s user base is bigger than the population of any single country, and of six of the seven continents. It represents more than a quarter of the world’s 7.5 billion people.
The company uses its huge size advantage to lure advertisers, offering them targeted marketing capabilities based on its data about users. The number of advertisers topped 5 million in April, the company said.
Facebook’s growth has increasingly come from outside the United States, Canada and Europe. Three years ago, those regions accounted for 38 percent of users; in the first quarter of this year, the figure was about 30 percent.
To increase penetration rates in developing nations, Facebook has introduced stripped-down versions of its apps that use less data, and it has been developing solar-powered drones to extend internet connectivity around the planet.
This report contains information from Reuters and AP.
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Review Shows Concussions Ignored in World Cup
Professional football players are still not getting properly checked for concussions, despite a pledge by the sport’s governing body. That was obvious from a review of footage from the games in FIFA’s 2014 World Cup, the international men’s football championship held every four years.
The review, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that out of 81 head collisions there were only 12 assessments that fit the minimum requirements.
Co-author Michael Cusimano, a neurosurgeon at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, told VOA, “There were only two collisions [where] I could be happy and confident that a proper assessment was actually done.”
According to the 2012 Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport, of which FIFA was a signatory, players showing any sign of concussion should immediately be withdrawn from play and assessed by a health care professional on the sideline. But players in the World Cup only received that full assessment 15 percent of the time.
More than half of the time, an assessment was done on the field or by a referee or another player. And 26 percent of the time, they received no assessment at all, despite showing as many as three signs of concussion. Those symptoms include being slow to get up, disorientation, obvious disequilibrium, unconsciousness, seizure-like movements, and head clutching.
The impact of concussions can accumulate over years and may lead to trouble with memory, attention, depression, anxiety, and early onset dementia. In rare cases, repeated blows to the head over a short period of time, even mild ones, can lead to death.
A concussion ignored
There was obviously something wrong with Christoph Kramer during the final game of the World Cup. The German player was struck on the side of his head by a shoulder and thrown to the ground. Following a brief assessment on the pitch, he was returned to play, despite showing at least three signs of concussion. After 13 minutes of strange, confused behavior, he was removed from the game.
A referee later told the Gazzetta dello Sport, “Shortly after the blow, Kramer came to me asking: ‘Ref, is this the final?’” The referee told teammates, but Kramer continued to play.
“Had he been injured to his knee and couldn’t walk there would be no doubt that he would have been taken off,” Cusimano said, “so why are we treating people with brain injuries any different than people who have, say, a leg injury?”
In response, FIFA soon created a policy to allow referees to stop play for as long as three minutes, so that players can receive an on-pitch assessment by health care personnel. But it is only at the discretion of the referee. This is not enough for Cusimano. He points out it was an on-pitch assessment that failed to catch Kramer’s apparent concussion, and it takes at least seven minutes to properly diagnose the condition. So he wants to see mandatory assessments on the sidelines, just as the 2012 Consensus advises.
‘Whole world is watching’
FIFA declined a request to speak with VOA, but shared a written statement highlighting their recent rule change, and their participation in the most recent International Consensus Conference on Concussion.
“Protecting the health of football players is and will remain a top priority in developing the game,” it said.
Researchers decided to analyze the World Cup because of the size of the audience. Over a billion people tuned in. That means that the World Cup provides an opportunity to set an example for how to handle concussions. They hope that better policy at the premier sporting event might not just protect those playing in the World Cup, but those playing in little leagues too.
“The whole world is watching,” said Dr. Cusimano. “FIFA has all the ability to do this properly.”
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Senate Republicans Struggle to Keep Health Overhaul Alive, Delay Vote
U.S. Senate Republican leaders struggled Tuesday to keep alive their effort to overhaul the country’s key health law, postponing a vote after an independent analysis concluded that 22 million people would lose their insurance over the next decade if their proposal was adopted.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told his Republican colleagues he would delay a planned vote this week until after the weeklong recess centered on the July Fourth national holiday commemorating the country’s 18th-century independence from England.
Several Republican lawmakers had said they would not even vote to start debate on the party’s proposal, which forced McConnell to drop his plan to hold a final vote by week’s end before lawmakers left Washington for the holiday.
“Legislation of this complexity always takes longer than anyone wants,” McConnell said after agreeing to the delay. “We think we’re going to get legislation that’s better than the status quo.”
However, Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the leader of the minority Democrats, said, “The Republican bill is rotten to the core.” He said Democrats would work with Republicans to improve the existing law if they abandoned their effort to cut health care spending for the poor and curb taxes on the wealthy.
Some Republican opponents of the health law changes said the plan would cost too many poor Americans their insurance, while others thought the changes did not go far enough in overturning key provisions of the seven-year-old law championed by former President Barack Obama and popularly known as Obamacare.
Only two votes to spare
Senate Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate. With all Democrats opposed to repealing the existing law, Republicans can lose only two supporters in order to pass their proposal, with Vice President Mike Pence prepared to cast the deciding vote in the event of a 50-50 deadlock.
But at least four Republicans said they would vote against even starting debate on the plan, while others had also expressed reservations about the proposal, leaving their votes in doubt.
One of the opponents, Senator Susan Collins of the northeastern state of Maine, said proposed funding cuts of nearly $800 billion in Medicaid, the government’s health care program for the poor, “hurt the most vulnerable Americans” and that access to health care in rural parts of her state would be threatened.
Another opponent, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, said it was worse to “pass a bad bill than to pass no bill.”
CBO estimates
Opposition to the Republican overhaul grew Monday after the independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said 22 million people would lose their health insurance over the next decade under the Republican plan, only a million fewer than the estimate made by the CBO for the bill the House of Representatives narrowly approved last month. The CBO said Monday that the Senate bill would reduce the federal deficit by $321 billion by 2026, compared with a $119 billion reduction for the House version.
The White House criticized the CBO as having a “history of inaccuracy” in estimating the effects of health care laws. It further reiterated that President Donald Trump was committed to repealing and replacing Obamacare, saying the program “has failed the American people for far too long.”
No mandatory purchases
Both the House and Senate proposals would end the requirement that Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine. They would phase out subsidies to help lower-income people buy insurance, curb taxes on the wealthy and cut hundreds of billions of dollars in funding over the next several years for the government’s health care program for the poor and disabled.
If the Senate eventually approves its version of an overhaul, either the House would have to pass the same bill or reconcile its version with the Senate’s before Trump could sign it into law.
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The Heaviest Deadweight in the World
When we’re buying groceries by weight, being a few grams off may not be a big deal. But we do expect the store scales to be calibrated to show the exact measure. The situation becomes more complicated when we want to know the exact measure of something weighing a hundred tons or more. VOA’s George Putic visited a lab that calibrates large-force instruments.
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Asserting ‘Dominance,’ Trump Seeks Boost for US Energy Exports
President Donald Trump on Thursday will lay out his plan for reducing regulations to boost already-abundant U.S. production of oil, natural gas and coal and export it around the world, creating American jobs and helping allies.
Trump will deliver an address on his administration’s new mantra of “energy dominance” at the Energy Department, officials told reporters. They declined to give details on how he would tweak existing regulations that have not stopped a surge in exports.
“We’ve gone from the age of scarcity now to the age of abundance when it comes to American energy,” Mike Catanzaro, a White House energy policy aide, told reporters.
“We want to use those abundant resources for good here at home and for good abroad as well,” Catanzaro said.
Trump’s speech comes a week before he meets in Warsaw with leaders of a dozen central and eastern European nations who are eager to see more U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) in their markets as an alternative to Russian gas.
Trump is stopping at the summit on his way to the G20 in Hamburg, Germany, where he is expected to meet face-to-face for the first time in his presidency with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Shipments of LNG will play a big part in the “energy dominance” strategy, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told reporters, but so will exports of coal and U.S. technology that helps reduce emissions from coal-fired plants, he said.
Perry said he discussed the potential for U.S. coal exports to Ukraine with President Petro Poroshenko during his visit to Washington last week.
The Trump administration believes in an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy, Perry said – borrowing the energy catch-phrase of the Obama administration.
U.S. domestic energy prices have plunged in recent years because of the natural gas boom, crowding out competing sources of power, including coal and nuclear. Dozens of nuclear power reactors are in danger of shutting down over the next several years as a result.
The Trump administration wants to make sure the United States remains “technologically and economically engaged” in the nuclear industry, Perry said. “If we do not, then China and Russia will fill that void,” he said.
But he said the administration would not be “wildly supportive” of subsidizing any sectors of the energy industry.
Perry said energy supports in the tax code would be examined as the administration and Congress look at tax reform later this year.
“I think we’ll have a good healthy conversation about the energy sector and tax incentives, subsidies – all of that needs to be on the table and we need to have a conversation about it,” Perry said.
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Flower Lovers Flock to Vermont Bog for Wild Orchids
Each spring and summer, a Vermont bog yields a rare spectacle — hundreds of wild orchids in bloom, drawing visitors from around the country.
The bulbous pink and white showy lady’s slippers (Cypripedium reginae) are on full display among the ferns, bushes and chirping birds at Eshqua Bog in Hartland.
This particular orchid, considered rare in Vermont and a number of other states and different from the more common pink lady’s slipper, thrives in Eshqua, because of the wet, sunny conditions, with soils containing peat and lime.
Mary English drove about an hour from Landgrove, Vermont, to see the orchids on Thursday. When she arrived, she had the bog to herself.
“I just wandered through by myself. It was very special. It’s like being in a South American country,” she said.
A boardwalk allows visitors of all ages and abilities access to the bog and an up-close look at the plants.
“Gosh, aren’t they beautiful?” said Heather Crawley, of Maryville, Tennessee, as she studiously photographed the orchids with a special lens on Thursday. “To think it’s natural, too.”
Visitors can also walk a half-mile trail.
The area is technically a fen because it’s less acidic than a bog and fed by groundwater containing nutrients like calcium and magnesium from the area bedrock, according to the Nature Conservancy, which owns and manages the preserve along with the New England Wild Flower Society. The sanctuary includes an 8-acre (3.2-hectare) wetland and 33 surrounding acres (13.4 hectares).
Other orchids also bloom, like yellow lady’s slipper in late May and early June and the white bog orchid around now.
The lime-rich groundwater also helps to yield pitcher plants, insectivorous sundew and other plants.
But the orchids are typically the main show for visitors.
“The orchids love it at Eshqua, and people love to see the orchids,” said Rose Paul, of the Nature Conservancy.
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Move to Rename Harlem Neighborhood Sparks Outrage Over Erasing Black History
New York City real estate companies’ attempts to rename a Harlem neighborhood “SoHa” have enraged longtime residents of the historically black enclave, who say the move erases the community’s rich cultural history.
The neighborhood served as home and inspiration to generations of leading African-Americans, including activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Malcolm X, who dubbed it “Seventh Heaven.” Artists such as poet Langston Hughes and singers Harry Belafonte and Ella Fitzgerald also lived there.
The “SoHa” name, echoing the high-priced, largely white Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo in lower Manhattan, has begun appearing in real estate listings for apartments located between 110th Street and 125th Street, and Realtor Keller Williams boasts a “SoHa Team” of agents on its website.
Keller Williams did not respond to a request for comment.
Harlem’s U.S. Congressman Adriano Espaillat vowed to introduce a House resolution to protect Harlem from being renamed.
“#WeRHarlem! And we refuse to be called by any other name! #NY13 #HarlemStrong,” @RepEspaillat wrote on Twitter on Monday.
The tweet accompanied a photograph of the famed Apollo Theater, where Fitzgerald made her singing debut at age 17 on Amateur Night in 1934.
Espaillat said the congressional resolution he plans to introduce this week “supports imposing limitations on the ability to change the name of a neighborhood based on economic gain.”
“I along with leaders and constituents of this community stand united to vigorously oppose the renaming Harlem in yet another sanctioned gentrification,” he said in an email. “This is an incredibly insulting attempt to disown Harlem’s longtime residents, legacy, and culture.”
Jamie McShane, a spokesman for the Real Estate Board of New York, an industry association, said the group supports existing state regulations, which prohibit real estate brokers from using “a name to describe an area that would be misleading to the public.”
Harlem is not the only historically black U.S. neighborhood to have its image challenged by eager real estate agents.
Further north, parts of the South Bronx have been christened the “Piano District,” a reference to its former instrument manufacturing base.
In Washington, D.C., real estate firms have recast the Shaw neighborhood around historically black Howard University as North End of Shaw.
Both sparked outrage among longtime residents, particularly after developers who pushed the Piano District name change threw a “Bronx is Burning” themed Halloween party in 2015 that focused on the neighborhood’s 1970’s decay, complete with a bullet-riddled car sculpture.
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Food Prize Laureate: Future of African Youth Lies in Agriculture, Not Europe
Making agriculture profitable and “cool” for young people in Africa is key to lifting millions out of poverty and stemming migration to Europe, said the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB).
Akinwumi Adesina was named the winner of this year’s World Food Prize on Monday for his decades-long work to boost food production in his native Nigeria, increase access to credit for small farmers across Africa and transform the continent’s agriculture.
Kenneth Quinn, president of the Des Moines, Iowa-based World Food Prize Foundation, said the $250,000 award reflected Adesina’s “breakthrough achievements” as Nigeria’s minister of agriculture and his critical role in the development of the nonprofit Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.
Adesina, 57, told Reuters he was humbled by the award but felt his work to ensure Africa could feed itself was “uncompleted business.”
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.
“When I look at Africa today, I see that many rural areas unfortunately have become zones of economic misery,” Adesina said in a phone interview ahead of the award’s announcement.
No sector has greater potential to revive those areas than agriculture, but investments are needed to make it attractive for young people, many of whom risk their lives migrating in search of better opportunities in Europe, Adesina said.
“We must make agriculture cool for young people,” he said. “The key is to make agriculture a business. Agriculture is not a way of life, is not a development activity, it’s a business.”
Africa has 65 percent of the world’s uncultivated arable land but imports food for $35 billion every year, a bill that is expected to swell to $110 billion by 2025, he said.
“It makes no sense. That is food Africa should be producing, processing, selling and exporting,” he said. “Africa in the future should not only feed itself, but it must contribute to feeding the world.”
Toward this end, agriculture must become more industrialized, with farmers gaining better access to seeds, fertilizer, credit, power and infrastructure, he said.
Farmers should be supported to transform from producers of raw materials, such as cocoa and cotton, to manufacturers of finished goods such as chocolate and garments, which have less volatile prices, Adesina said.
To accelerate growth, the AfDB aimed to invest $12 billion in the energy sector, hoping to leverage another $50 billion from the private sector, he said.
Last year, AfDB had invested $800 million to support young agro-entrepreneurs in eight countries and planned to extend the scheme to 30 nations, he added.
Adesina called on governments and institutional investors, such as pension and insurance funds, to “see the gold” in African agriculture and invest in it to unlock its potential. He said he was convinced the future billionaires of Africa would come from agriculture.
“I don’t believe that the future of African youth lies at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea,” he said. “The future of African young people lies in a more prosperous and inclusive Africa, and there is no other sector that has greater power to create growth than the agricultural sector.”
Adesina was named winner of the World Food Prize, regarded as the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for agriculture, in a ceremony on Monday at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington.
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Pakistani Farmers Get Tips via Text
The latest farm tools on the job in Pakistan are cell phones and satellites. A new program is using satellite data to estimate how much water a field needs, and then texting this information to farmers.
The hope is to prevent overwatering. A 2013 report from the Asian Development Bank called Pakistan “one of the most water-stressed countries in the world,” with a 30-day storage capacity, well below the recommended capacity of 1,000 days. The per capita water resources are on par with those of Syria, where drought has helped to fuel a civil war.
The water crisis is being driven by several factors: climate change, an expanding population, local mismanagement and a greater demand on farmers. It threatens to destabilize relations between Pakistan and India, who share the Indus River.
Turning off the spigot
Overwatering is costly for farmers trying to make ends meet. While Pakistan continues to suffer from chronic fuel shortages, farmers must use diesel motors to pump groundwater onto their fields. The lower the water table, the more fuel it takes to pump it to the surface.
And overwatering also reduces crop yields. But many older farmers learned their trade at a time when the water ran freely, and the risks of under-watering are so great that farmers still err on the side of too much irrigation. The Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) found that rice farmers were using more than three times as much water as they needed to.
The PCRWR reached out to the Sustainability, Satellites, Water, and Environment research group (SASWE) at the University of Washington, hoping to use science to inform irrigation choices.
Pakistan’s program started last spring with a 700-farmer pilot. As of January, 10,000 farmers were receiving messages like this one: “Dear farmer friend, we would like to inform you that the irrigation need for your banana crop was 2 inches during the past week.”
The messages come from a fully-automated system that does everything from downloading publicly available satellite data and distributing the text messages to using models to compute how much each farmer needs to irrigate.
A nationwide effort
PCRWR plans to scale up the program for use across the nation, and expects millions of farmers to participate. But first they are reviewing the system. They want to know how easy it is for farmers to use, and how many actually follow the irrigation advisories. And they want to know how accurate it is and how effective it is at saving farmers money.
They are collecting feedback from farmers over the phone.
“I haven’t seen any report yet,” Faisal Hossain of SASWE told VOA, but “we got a story last month from one of the farmers who was telling us how he was able to get, I think, for every acre 700 kilograms more of wheat than his neighbor.” The farmer credited the irrigation advisories.
There are challenges to expansion. They may need to do more work to persuade farmers to trust the technology. As more farmers use it on smaller farms in areas with more varied terrain, the satellite data resolution may not be precise enough for accurate measurements. And small farmers may not be comfortable relying on cell phone technology.
But for the most part, cell phones already are fairly ubiquitous in Pakistan. Last year, the Punjab government reported that it would be giving out 5 million smartphones to farmers.
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