Plague Spreading Rapidly in Madagascar

The World Health Organization warns a highly infectious, deadly form of pneumonic plague is spreading rapidly in Madagascar and quick action is needed to stop it. 

Pneumonic plague, which is transmitted from person to person, has been detected in several cities in Madagascar.  This worries the World Health Organization as the disease is highly contagious and quickly causes death without treatment.

Plague is endemic to Madagascar resulting in around 400 cases annually.  Most are cases of bubonic plague, which is spread by the fleas of rats and other small rodents.  The disease is usually confined to rural areas, but this year it has spread to large urban areas and port cities.

WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, says cases of bubonic, as well as the human transmissible pneumonic plague have been found in the capital Antananarivo and the port cities of Majunga and Toamasina.

“So far, 104 cases of plague were reported since the first case has been identified that was dating from the 23rd of August,” said Jasarevic. “So, from the 23rd of August to 28th September, 104 cases that have been reported, including 20 deaths.”

Jasarevic notes the fatality rate is more than 19 percent.  He tells VOA this outbreak is very dangerous and must be brought under control quickly.

“The plague epidemic season usually runs from September to April, so we really are at the beginning of the epidemic season of plague,” said Jasarevic. “And, we have already from the 23rd of August until yesterday—so that is like five-weeks-time—we had 104 cases and again half of those cases were pneumonic plague.”

WHO says urgent public health response in terms of surveillance and treatment is required.  The health agency has released $250,000 from its emergency fund to get immediate action underway.  It plans to appeal for $1.5 million to fully respond to the needs.

China Manufacturing Expands at Fastest Pace in 5 Years

An official survey released Saturday said that China’s factory activity expanded in September at the fastest pace in five years, as the country’s vital manufacturing sector stepped up production to meet strong demand.

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose to 52.4 in September, up from 51.7 in the previous month and the highest level since April 2012.

The report by the Federation of Logistics & Purchasing said production, new export orders and overall new orders grew at a faster pace for the month.

“The manufacturing sector continues to maintain a steady development trend and the pace is accelerating,” said Zhao Qinghe, senior statistician at the National Bureau of Statistics, which released the data. Zhao noted that the report found both domestic and global demand have improved.

However, in a separate report, the private Caixin/Markit manufacturing PMI slipped to 51.0 from 51.6, as factories reported that production and new orders expanded at slower rates last month.

Both indexes are based on a 100-point scale with 50 dividing expansion from contraction. But the federation’s report is focused more on large, state-owned enterprises while the Caixin survey is weighted to smaller, private companies.

Another official index covering non-manufacturing activity rebounded after two months of contraction, rising to 55.4 last month from 53.4 in August. That indicates momentum is picking up again in China’s service sector.

The reports come ahead of the ruling Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress set for next month, where top leaders will be reshuffled and authorities will outline economic policies.

Earlier this month, rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded China’s credit rating on government borrowing, citing rising debt levels that raise financial risks and could drag on economic growth.

Smart Windows Let Heat in During Winter, Keep It Out During Summer

Solar power is definitely the wave of the future. But in the future instead of a roof covered with solar panels, your own windows might not only be collecting power from the sun, but also helping your house conserve energy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.

Untangling US Tax System

Nearly all U.S. taxpayers say American tax law, which runs tens of thousands of pages, is an incredibly complicated, annoying mess. And there is no agreement on how to fix the problem. Republicans recently outlined a new effort they say will be clearer, fairer and helpful to the economy. Critics say the Republican plan would cut taxes for the rich and increase the U.S. debt. VOA’s Jim Randle looks at how the system is supposed to work, and what critics say is wrong.

Victoria & Abdul, American Made Based on Incredible True Stories

Two films on our radar this week are Stephen Frears’ heartwarming drama “Victoria & Abdul” and Doug Liman’s “American Made.” Both features offer intelligent, entertaining stories and a superb cast. VOA’s Penelope Poulou takes a look.

Unintended Social Consequences Catching up to Facebook

Years of limited oversight and unchecked growth have turned Facebook into a force with incredible power over the lives of its 2 billion users. But the social network has also given rise to unintended social consequences, and they’re starting to catch up with it:

House and Senate panels investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections have invited Facebook, along with Google and Twitter, to testify this fall. Facebook just agreed to give congressional investigators 3,000 political ads purchased by Russian-backed entities, and announced new disclosure policies for political advertising
Facebook belatedly acknowledged its role purveying false news to its users during the 2016 campaign and announced new measures to curb it. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg even apologized, more than 10 months after the fact, for calling the idea that Facebook might have influenced the election “pretty crazy.”
The company has taken flack for a live video feature that was quickly used to broadcast violent crime and suicides; for removing an iconic Vietnam War photo for “child pornography” and then backtracking; and for allegedly putting its thumb on a feature that ranked trending news stories.

Facebook is behind the curve in understanding that “what happens in their system has profound consequences in the real world,” said Fordham University media-studies professor Paul Levinson. The company’s knee-jerk response has often been “none of your business” when confronted about these consequences, he said.

Moving fast, still breaking things

That response may not work much longer for a company whose original but now-abandoned slogan — “move fast and break things” — sometimes still seems to govern it.

Facebook has, so far, enjoyed seemingly unstoppable growth in users, revenue and its stock price. Along the way, it has also pushed new features on to users even when they protested, targeted ads at them based on a plethora of carefully collected personal details, and engaged in behavioral experiments that seek to influence their mood.

“There’s a general arrogance — they know what’s right, they know what’s best, we know how to make better for you so just let us do it,” said Notre Dame business professor Timothy Carone, who added that this is true of Silicon Valley giants in general. “They need to take a step down and acknowledge that they really don’t have all the answers.”

Hands-off Facebook

Facebook generally points to the fact that its policies prohibit misuse of its platform, and that it is difficult to catch everyone who tries to abuse its platform. When pressed, it tends to acknowledge some problems, offer a few narrowly tailored fixesand move on.

But there is a larger question, which is whether Facebook has taken sufficient care to build policies and systems that are resistant to abuse.

Facebook declined to address the subject on the record, although it pointed to earlier public statements in which Zuckerberg described how he wants Facebook to be a force for good in the world. The company also recently launched a blog called “Hard Questions” that attempts to address its governance issues in more depth.

But Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s No. 2 executive, offered an unexpected perspective on this question in a recent apology. Facebook “never intended or anticipated” how people could use its automated advertising to target ads at users who expressed anti-Semitic views. That, she wrote, “is on us. And we did not find it ourselves — and that is also on us.”

As a result, she said the company will tighten its ad policies to ensure such abuses don’t happen again.

In films ‘Victoria & Abdul’ and ‘American Made,’ Life is Stranger than Fiction

Two films on our radar this week are Stephen Frears’ heartwarming drama Victoria & Abdul about the deep friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant Abdul Karim between 1887 and 1901, and Doug Liman’s American Made about Barry Seal, a 1970s audacious American pilot, who, during the Nicaraguan Crisis worked for the CIA, the DEA and the Colombian cartel. 

As different as these two films are, they are both based on true stories, proving yet again that often life is stranger than fiction. Both films feature intelligent plots and superb acting.

WATCH: Victoria & Abdul, American Made Based on Incredible True Stories

Victoria & Abdul

Stephen Frears’ film Victoria and Abdul, opens in 1887, with the festivities for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, celebrating her 50-year reign. 

Abdul Karim, a young Muslim clerk from Agra, India, is sent to the banquet all the way from India to present the queen with a gift from India, a ceremonial coin. To the dismay of Queen Victoria’s courtiers, the Indian servant strikes a deep friendship with the octogenarian Queen Victoria, defying class and racial boundaries.

According to the movie, Abdul Karim impressed the British sovereign with his depth of spirit and good looks. Soon the unlikely friends became inseparable, discussing philosophy, literature, even Indian cuisine. In a span of 14 years, Abdul Karm became the queen’s confidant and munshi, her teacher, in Urdu.

But the queen’s courtesans and her family, sidelined by Abdul, questioned her sanity and considered her removal.

Historian and author Shrabani Basu based her book of the same title on the queen’s journals in Urdu and on Karim’s private diary. Basu discovered Abdul Karim’s personal diary in possession of Karim’s surviving nephew Abdul Rashid in 2010, over a century after the queen’s death. 

This was the only document on the relationship between royal and servant that survived the wrath of Queen Victoria’s children. Immediately after her death in 1901, the royals evicted Queen Victoria’s munshi, burned everything he had received from the queen and swiftly shipped him and his family to India. In 1909 Abdul Karim died in Agra leaving his diary as his only testimonial of his deep friendship with the empress.

Director Frears offers captivating cinematography while Dame Judi Dench portrays a free-spirited Queen Victoria and Indian actor Ali Fazal embodies a charming and loyal Adbul Karim. 

Though the film does not depict a romantic relationship between the two, it does hint to it. Dench describes the queen’s reaction to Karim: 

“She had a ready eye for somebody good-looking, which he is very, so it was easy to imagine a kind of tired, poor person suddenly looking up and seeing this wonderful good-looking young man. How lovely somebody at last beautiful to look at,” Dench said.

But, author Basu says, “At the heart of this book is a story of friendship, a friendship of two different people from two different specters of this world, one is the Empress of India, one is a clerk from Agra jail, and somewhere they have a bond they find this link and a common space.”

​American Made

American Made, by Bourne Identity filmmaker Doug Liman, offers a satirical look at the political crisis in Nicaragua. 

It shows the involvement of the United States in the revolution during the late 1970s and 1980s through the perspective of pilot Barry Seal, who, for the right price, delivers guns to Nicaragua on behalf of the CIA, and cocaine into the U.S. on behalf of the Colombian cartel. Somewhere in between, Seal also works for the DEA.

Tom Cruise offers an engaging interpretation as Barry Seal, piloting the plane and doing all the stunts throughout the film. Cruise explains what drew him to the character:

“He just couldn’t help himself,” Cruise said. “He just had to live this life. He literally when you are talking about someone living on the edge, he didn’t even realize he was on the edge. He was just living life and not really thinking of necessary ramifications and what’s going to happen.”

As in most of his action film projects, Cruise pushes his boundaries. 

“I don’t make a movie just to make a movie,” he said. “It’s not what interests me. What interests me is the passion of cinema, the passion of storytelling. That’s when it gets very exciting, not just a job. I love this too much.”

Travel by Rocket From New York to Tokyo in 30 Minutes?

U.S. billionaire innovator Elon Musk has unveiled plans for a new rocket that would allow passengers to travel from one continent to another in about 30 minutes.

At a presentation Friday in Adelaide, Australia, Musk showed a video of images of a rocket taking off in New York and landing in various places around the world, including Tokyo and Shanghai.

He said the New York-Shanghai trip could be done in 39 minutes, while a trip from Bangkok to Dubai would take 27 minutes and Tokyo to Delhi would be 30 minutes.

He added that the cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft.

Musk noted there is no weather outside the Earth’s atmosphere to interfere with travel times and said that once you are beyond the atmosphere, “it would be as smooth as silk, no turbulence, nothing.”

“If we are building this thing to go to the moon and Mars, then why not go to other places on Earth as well?” Musk said.

Musk, who founded and runs the company SpaceX along with the electric luxury car company Tesla, has long been making plans for rockets to travel to Mars.

Musk said SpaceX plans its first trip to Mars in 2022, carrying only cargo with a key mission to find the best source of water on the Red Planet. That mission would be followed by the first manned mission in 2024. He said the company was aiming to start construction on the first spaceship in the next six to nine months.

Musk said space flights to enable people to travel from one continent to another could help to pay for future missions to Mars.

Top 5 Songs for Week Ending Sept. 30

We’re liberating the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending September 30, 2017.

Last week featured a rare treat: a Hot Shot Debut single in the Top Five. We’re happy to announce that this week, history repeats itself.

Number 5: Sam Smith “Too Good At Goodbyes”

It happens in fifth place, where Sam Smith re-surfaces.

Sam tallies his sixth Top 20 – and his third Top Five – hit, “Too Good At Goodbyes”. Back home in the U.K., the news is even better, where it becomes Sam’s sixth number one. This is the opening single from his upcoming second album. It’s been three years since he dropped “In The Lonely Hour.” Sam says he wants the album to update us on his love life… which according to him is still terrible.

Number 4: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber aren’t suffering too terribly with “Despacito”: the former 16-week champ weakens a slot in fourth place.

Fans of Daddy Yankee are helping him aid victims of natural disasters. Last week, he went on social media to elicit donations for those devastated by Hurricane Maria in the Caribbean, and the massive earthquake in Mexico. Working with several charities, he collected donations of diapers, batteries, bottled water and other essentials. Daddy Yankee also joined forces with Feeding America, which will bring food donations to 78 municipalities in Puerto Rico.

Number 3: Logic Featuring Alessia Cara & Khalid  “1-800-273-8255”

Logic bumps it up two slots to third place with “1-800-273-8255” featuring Alessia Cara and Khalid.

This is now the highest-charting single in Hot 100 history with a telephone number as its title. Back in 1982, the rock band Tommy Tutone peaked at number four with “867-5309/Jenny.” Actually, no fewer than seven songs bearing phone number titles have made it into the Hot 100.

Number 2: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”

Cardi B remains a strong contender at number two with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).” 

Cardi recently said she was going to push back her album, originally slated for an October release. Posting on Twitter, rapper J Cole advised her not to pressure herself to release an album…just keep dropping strong singles.

Number 1: Taylor Swift “Look What You Made Me Do”

Taylor Swift stays strong atop the Hot 100 for a third week with “Look What You Made Me Do.”

Did you know Taylor threw a Halloween party last year? Naturally, it drew top celebs: model Gigi Hadid was there along with Camila Cabello, who dressed as a “Grandma Who Couldn’t Find Her Cat Because She Sat On It.”

We’ll find our way to number one next week and we hope you’ll join us.

 

IMF Chief tells Central Bankers to not Dismiss Bitcoin

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has a message for the world’s central bankers: Don’t be Luddites.

Addressing a conference in London on Friday, Lagarde said virtual currencies, which are created and exchanged without the involvement of banks or government, could in time be embraced by countries with unstable currencies or weak domestic institutions.

“In many ways, virtual currencies might just give existing currencies and monetary policy a run for their money,” she said. “The best response by central bankers is to continue running effective monetary policy, while being open to fresh ideas and new demands, as economies evolve.”

The most high-profile of these digital currencies is bitcoin, which like others can be converted to cash when deposited into accounts at prices set in online trading. Its price has been volatile, soaring over recent years but falling sharply earlier this month on reports that China will order all bitcoin exchanges to close and one of the world’s most high-profile investment bankers said bitcoin was a fraud.

For now, Lagarde said, digital currencies are unlikely to replace traditional ones, as they are “too volatile, too risky, too energy intensive and because the underlying technologies are not yet scalable.”

High-profile hacks have also not helped, she noted. One notable failure was that of the Mt. Gox exchange in Japan in February 2014, in which about 850,000 bitcoins were lost, possibly to hackers. Following that, Japan enacted new laws to regulate bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.

But in time, she argued, technological innovations could address some of the issues that have kept a lid on the appeal of digital currencies.

“Not so long ago, some experts argued that personal computers would never be adopted, and that tablets would only be used as expensive coffee trays, so I think it may not be wise to dismiss virtual currencies,” Lagarde said.

Lagarde’s comments appear at odds with the views of JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who this month described bitcoin as a fraud and said he’d fire any of his traders if they caught dealing in the digital currency.

In a speech laying out the potential changes wrought by financial innovations, Lagarde also said that over the next generation, “machines will almost certainly play a larger role” in helping policymakers, offering real-time forecasts, spotting bubbles, and uncovering complex financial linkages.

“As one of your fellow Londoners – Mary Poppins – might have said: bring along a pinch of imagination!”

Kenyans Cycle Toward Healthier Hearts

Cardiovascular disease is a growing health concern in Kenya and around Africa. In Nairobi, 100 motorcycle taxi drivers are riding stationary bicycles and being trained to provide emergency resuscitation using automatic electronic defibrillators. It’s all part of an ongoing campaign to raise awareness about heart health in Kenya. Lenny Ruvaga reports from Nairobi.

Researchers Seek Cheaper, Energy-efficient Ways of Producing Clean Water

Having enough clean drinking water has been a challenge in many parts of the world, whether it’s a place where water is scarce or abundant. The World Health Organization finds 3 in 10 people globally still lack safe drinking water at home.

The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced it is providing up to $15 million in funding for projects to develop solar desalination technology to create freshwater at a lower cost. Even before the announcement, researchers had been working on better ways to desalinate water.

“We can take any quality of water that we’re starting with and we can turn it into any quality of water that we desire at the end, and the only real challenge or limitation has to be overcome is how much does it cost and how much energy does it take to go from here to here,” said Eric Hoek, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Water Planet Inc.

Cheaper energy

Water treatment plants are largely driven by electricity. A cheaper source of energy is the sun.

“What’s changed in the last five to 10 years, solar has gotten cheap,” Hoek said.

“The only reason that that has not taken over the world at this point is that it’s still intermittent. The sun goes up and it comes down. You have power when it’s up and don’t when it’s down. What you need to make that a continuous base load is you need batteries, which you can charge up during the day, discharge at night, and the cost of batteries is still currently pretty high.”

Household system

Qilin Li at Rice University is building a desalination system that uses solar energy with broad drinking water applications for “individual households or small communities that live in remote locations, especially those who don’t have access to municipal water supply, don’t have a stable supply of electricity. This technology can be an ideal technology,” Li said.

Her solar-powered desalination system can “also benefit megacities in developing countries that don’t have the extensive water and power infrastructure we enjoy here in developed countries, and that kind of relief perhaps in not providing all the water for the whole city, but can relieve some of their need or dependency on the power grid,” Li said.

The goal of Li’s system is to make it modular and cost efficient so it could either meet the needs of a small household or a large community.

Li and her team created a reactor to distill water using heat from the sun. Water turns into vapor, goes through a porous membrane and becomes pure water. Li says a low cost coating on the membrane developed at Rice University makes this unique.

“So it (membrane) harvests the sunlight, converts the photon energy in the sunlight to heat highly efficiently to generate water vapor, and it also serves a separation function to keep the contaminants on the dirty side of the membrane and only allow pure water vapor to go through,” Li said.

Waste heat

The sun is not the only low cost source of energy. Amy Childress’ lab at the University of Southern California (USC) looks at how waste heat that comes from manufacturing can be used as a resource.

“With waste heat you’re going to have cycles and spikes. We’ve gone out to the field, measured waste heat at an industrial site. We come back. We plug that into our system, so that we can repeat that waste heat curve over and over and watch the response of membranes to the waste heat,” said Childress, who directs USC’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s environmental engineering program.

Her lab looks at how waste heat would impact the longevity and properties of a membrane.

Childress says the work in her lab will be helpful in the development of better membranes.

Filters in demand

There is high demand for membranes that help produce clean water. Water Planet’s PolyCera® membrane used to treat wastewater, is finding broader applications.

“We have a lot of interest now around the world, not just in industrial wastewater, but we’re actually making point-of-use under-the-sink water filters for applications in India, in China and here in the U.S. We’re making membranes that are being tested now for deployment offshore in sea water desalination to produce drinking water in barges and in platforms,” Hoek said.

With nearly 30 percent of the world’s population lacking safe drinking water at home, researchers will continue to work on harnessing free energy to clean water.

Search for Cheaper, Energy-efficient Ways of Creating Clean Water

Having enough clean drinking water has been a challenge in many parts of the world, whether it is a place where water is scarce or abundant. The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced it is providing $15 million in funding for projects to develop solar desalination technology at a lower cost. But even before this announcement, researchers had been working on better ways of desalinating water. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.

Conservationists Work to Save World’s Rarest Cats

To the untrained eye, the Scottish wildcat looks quite similar to a normal domestic cat. But it is a unique species, and it could become extinct. As VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports, the greatest threat to these cats is other cats.

New Dipstick Test Quickly Discovers People with Zika Virus

A new simple dipstick test can provide fast results for people who may have contracted the Zika virus or dengue fever. People who fear they may have been exposed to the mosquito-borne viruses can seek immediate help. And women can be tested for the Zika virus before they get pregnant to ensure their babies are not born brain-damaged. VOA’s Deborah Block reports.

Telescope Moves Forward on Land Sacred to Native Hawaiians

A long-running effort to build one of the world’s largest telescopes on a mountain sacred to Native Hawaiians is moving forward after a key approval Thursday, reopening divisions over a project that promises revolutionary views into the heavens but has drawn impassioned protests over the impact to a spiritual place.

Hawaii’s land board granted a construction permit for the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope atop the state’s tallest mountain, called Mauna Kea, but opponents likely would appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Protesters willing to be arrested were successful in blocking construction in the past.

“For the Hawaiian people, I have a message: This is our time to rise as a people,” said Kahookahi Kanuha, a protest leader. “This is our time to take back all of the things that we know are ours. All the things that were illegally taken from us.”

No construction soon

Telescope officials don’t have any immediate construction plans and will consider its next steps, said Scott Ishikawa, a project spokesman. Officials previously have said they want to resume building in 2018.

“In moving forward, we will listen respectfully to the community in order to realize the shared vision of Mauna Kea as a world center for Hawaiian culture, education and science,” TMT International Observatory Board Chairman Henry Yang said in a statement.

Richard Ha, a Native Hawaiian farmer who supports the project, urged opponents to avoid confrontation.

“The possibility of getting the best telescope in the world … I don’t feel is the right battle to fight,” he said. “It will hurt our own people.”

While opponents say constructing the telescope will desecrate Mauna Kea, supporters tout the instrument’s ability to provide long-term educational and economic opportunities.

“This was one of the most difficult decisions this board has ever made,” state Board of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Suzanne Case said in a statement about the 5-2 decision.

Plans for the project date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year around-the-world campaign to find the ideal site for what telescope officials said “will likely revolutionize our understanding of the universe.”

The project won a series of approvals from Hawaii, including a permit to build on conservation land in 2011. Protesters blocked attempts to start construction. Then in 2015, the state Supreme Court invalidated the permit, saying the board’s approval process was flawed, and ordered the project to go through the steps again.

​Protests from the beginning

Protests disrupted a groundbreaking in 2014 and intensified after that. Construction stopped in 2015 after 31 demonstrators were arrested for blocking the work.

A second attempt to restart construction a few months later ended with more arrests and crews retreating.

Mehana Kihoi said being arrested while praying on the mountain was one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. She started going there to help heal from domestic violence, Kihoi told the land board earlier this month.

“For years, I carried grief and pain … until I went to the mauna,” she said, using the Hawaiian word for mountain.

Culture over money

Kanuha, a protest leader, dismissed the millions that telescope officials have paid toward educating youth on the Big Island in science, technology, engineering and math. So far, $3.5 million has been paid into the educational fund, even while the project’s construction permit was invalid.

That money isn’t the answer to improving the lives of Native Hawaiian youth, Kanuha said. Revitalization of language and culture through Hawaiian-focused education is what’s important, he said.

A group of Native Hawaiian telescope supporters formed a group called Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities. Some members had been against the telescope in the past, said the group’s attorney, Lincoln Ashida.

“We believe that with increased opportunities for children, that results in stronger families, which in turn benefits our community,” Ashida told the board.

A group of universities in California and Canada make up the telescope company, with partners from China, India and Japan. The instrument’s primary mirror would measure 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter. Compared with the largest existing visible-light telescope in the world, it would be three times as wide, with nine times more area.

Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano, has been the first choice, telescope officials said, calling it the best location in the world for astronomy. Its summit provides a clear view of the sky for 300 days a year, with little air and light pollution. They selected an alternate site in Spain’s Canary Islands if the telescope couldn’t be built in Hawaii.

Hundreds of Species Arrive in US on Japanese Tsunami Debris

Nearly 300 species of fish, mussels and other sea critters hitchhiked across the Pacific Ocean on debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, washing ashore alive in the United States, researchers reported Thursday.

 

It is the largest and longest marine migration ever documented, outside experts and the researchers said. The scientists and colleagues combed the beaches of Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii and tracked the species to their Japanese origins. Their arrival could be a problem if the critters take root, pushing out native species, the study authors said in Thursday’s journal Science.

 

“It’s a bit of what we call ecological roulette,” said lead author James Carlton, a marine sciences professor at Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

It will be years before scientists know if the 289 Japanese species thrive in their new home and crowd out natives. The researchers roughly estimated that a million creatures traveled 4,800 miles (7,725 kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean to reach the West Coast, including hundreds of thousands of mussels.

 

Invasive species is a major problem worldwide with plants and animals thriving in areas where they don’t naturally live. Marine invasions in the past have hurt native farmed shellfish, eroded the local ecosystem, caused economic losses and spread disease-carrying species, said Bella Galil, a marine biologist with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, Israel, who wasn’t part of the study.

‘Jaw-dropping diversity’

A magnitude 9 earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a tsunami March 11, 2011, that swept boats, docks, buoys and other man-made materials into the Pacific. The debris drifted east with an armada of living creatures, some that gave birth to new generations while at sea.

 

“The diversity was somewhat jaw-dropping,” Carlton said. “Mollusks, sea anemones, corals, crabs, just a wide variety of species, really a cross-section of Japanese fauna.”

 

The researchers collected and analyzed the debris that reached the West Coast and Hawaii over the last five years, with new pieces arriving Wednesday in Washington. The debris flowed across the North Pacific current, as other objects do from time to time, before it moved north with the Alaska current or south with the California current. Most hit Oregon and Washington.

 

Last year, a small boat from Japan reached Oregon with 20 good-sized fish inside, a kind of yellowtail jack native to the western Pacific, Carlton said. Some of the fish are still alive in an Oregon aquarium. Earlier, an entire fishing ship, the Sai sho-Maru, arrived intact with five of the same 6-inch fish swimming around inside.

Co-author Gregory Ruiz, a Smithsonian marine ecologist, is especially interested in a Japanese parasite in the gills of mussels. Elsewhere in the world, these parasites have taken root and hurt oyster and mussel harvests and they hadn’t been seen before on the West Coast.

Much of debris is plastic

 

The researchers note another huge factor in this flotilla: plastics.

 

Decades ago, most of the debris would have been wood and that would have degraded over the long ocean trip, but now most of the debris — buoys, boats, crates and pallets — are made of plastic and that survives, Carlton said. And so the hitchhikers survive, too.

 

“It was the plastic debris that allowed new species to survive far longer than we ever thought they would,” Carlton said.

 

James Byers, a marine ecologist at the University of Georgia in Athens, who wasn’t part of the study, praised the authors for their detective work. He said in an email that the migration was an odd mix of a natural trigger and human aspects because of the plastics.

 

“The fact that communities of organisms survived out in the open ocean for long time periods (years in some cases) is amazing,” he wrote.

Actress Louis-Dreyfus Says She’s Battling Breast Cancer

Emmy-winning comedic actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus said Thursday that she was battling breast cancer, and she highlighted the case for universal health care in the United States.

Louis-Dreyfus, 56, who plays foul-mouthed fictitious former U.S. President Selina Meyer on HBO’s Veep, said, “1 in 8 women get breast cancer. Today, I’m the one,” in a short post on her social media platforms.

“The good news is that I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring family and friends, and fantastic insurance through my union. The bad news is that not all women are so lucky, so let’s fight all cancers and make universal health care a reality,” she wrote.

She did not give any further details of her health status.

Time Warner’s HBO network said Louis-Dreyfus received the diagnosis a day after the Emmy Awards this month, where she won a record sixth consecutive Emmy for comedy actress for her role as Meyer. The Emmys are U.S. television’s highest honor.

HBO added that her diagnosis played no part in its decision to end Veep after next season, and that writers would keep working on the final season while production would be adjusted around the actress’ schedule.

“Our love and support go out to Julia and her family at this time. We have every confidence she will get through this with her usual tenacity and undaunted spirit, and look forward to her return to health and to HBO for the final season of Veep,” HBO said in a statement.

Louis-Dreyfus achieved fame in the 1990s for her role as Elaine Benes on NBC’s Seinfeld, which also won her an Emmy.

Tree-trimming Company Hit With Record Fine for Hiring Undocumented Workers

The government has fined U.S. tree-trimming company a record $95 million for knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants.

U.S. prosecutors said the fine against Philadelphia-based Asplundh Tree Expert Co. was the largest criminal penalty ever imposed in an immigration case.

Prosecutors said company managers deliberately looked the other way while supervisors knowingly hired thousands of undocumented workers between 2010 and 2014.

The prosecutors said this gave Asplundh a large workforce ready to take on emergency weather-related jobs across the country, putting its competitors at an unfair disadvantage.

A federal investigation into Asplundh was opened in 2015 and the company said it had since taken a number of steps to end “the practices of the past.”

“We accept responsibility for the charges as outlined, and we apologize to our customers, associates and all other stakeholders,” company Chairman Scott Asplundh said.

Was Hefner Oppressor or Liberator? Women Debate His Legacy

Oppressor or liberator? Feminist in a silk robe, or pipe-smoking exploiter? Opinions were flying a day after Hugh Hefner’s death over just what he did — and didn’t do — for women.

On one side, there were those who saw Hefner’s dressing women in bunny costumes with cottontails on their rears, or displaying them nude in his magazine with a staple in their navels, as simple subjugation of females, no matter how slick and smooth the packaging. On the other were those who felt the Playboy founder was actually at the forefront of the sexual revolution, bringing sexuality into the mainstream and advancing the cause of feminism with his stand on social issues, especially abortion rights.

“I think it’s disgusting,” said feminist author Susan Brownmiller, of the praise she’d been seeing on social media since Hefner’s death Wednesday at age 91. “Even some of my Facebook friends are hewing to the notion that, gee whiz, he supported abortion, he supported civil rights. … Yes he was for abortion, [because] if you convince your girlfriend to get an abortion because she got pregnant, you don’t have to think about marrying her! I mean, that was his point.”

Most offensive to Brownmiller was what she called Hefner’s equating the word “feminist” with “anti-sex.”

“It wasn’t that we were opposed to a liberation of sexual morality,” she said, “but the idea that he would make women into little bunnies, rabbits, with those ears. … That was the horror of it.”

It was Brownmiller, in fact, who confronted Hefner nearly a half-century ago on Dick Cavett’s talk show, saying to his face, “Hugh Hefner is my enemy.” As a startled Hefner fiddled with his pipe, she added: “The day that you are willing to come out here with a cottontail attached to YOUR rear end …” The audience roared.

Brownmiller attributed some of the glowing tributes to Hefner in part to “an American tradition of saying nice things about the departed.”

For Kathy Spillar, executive editor of Ms. Magazine, the accolades were a result of something deeper: a decades-long public relations strategy of Playboy to sanitize what she called an empire devoted to the subjugation of women.

“From the beginning, they tried to sell it as women’s liberation,” said Spillar, who also directs the Feminist Majority Foundation. “And so they made huge outreach efforts over the years to women’s rights groups.” But there was nothing liberating about it, Spillar said: “Those photographs of women certainly aren’t empowering of those women. They’re there for the pleasure of men.”

“He was right about one thing,” Spillar added. “Sex sells. But it sells to men. And to put women in those horrible costumes that Gloria Steinem wrote about! Talk about sexual harassment, talk a hostile work environment.” She was referring to the famous magazine expose that a young Steinem went undercover to write, training as a Playboy bunny in a New York club — bunny suit and all.

Hefner himself, obviously, saw it very differently.  “The truth of the matter is the bunnies were the pre-feminist feminists,” Hefner told the Associated Press in 2011. “They were the beginning, really, of independent women. The bunnies were earning more money than, in many cases, their fathers and their husbands. That was a revolution.”

To Kathryn Leigh Scott, a former bunny at the New York club, much of what Hefner said then rings true. Scott trained at the club in January 1963, at age 19, she says, with six other bunnies, one of them Steinem. She said she had fun, and made good money. She later wrote a book, The Bunny Years, to counter the view that Steinem portrayed in her article.

“I did not feel exploited,” Scott says now. “As a matter of fact, I felt that I was exploiting Playboy — because I was earning very good money in a very safe environment, certainly safer than that many of my friends were working in at the time.”

Did Hefner advance or exploit women? Scott says she can see both sides. “But when you think of what he did to support Roe v. Wade for example, and civil rights, and what I know from his treatment of me, he did a lot to help women,” she said.

In the wake of Hefner’s death, many celebrities tweeted affectionate messages. “Thank you for being a revolutionary and changing so many people’s lives, especially mine,” wrote television personality and former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy. “We’ve lost a true explorer, a man who had a keen sense of the future,” wrote writer-producer Norman Lear. “We learned a lot from you Mr. Hefner.”

For feminist author and blogger Andi Zeisler, the main question was why Hefner was getting so much credit.

“He’s getting a disproportionate amount of credit for the sexual revolution,” said Zeisler, founder of the nonprofit Bitch Media. “It was a confluence of factors. He had nothing to do with the development of oral contraception, which I could argue was really the main driver of the sexual revolution where women were concerned.

“I think it’s safe to say that anything progressive that Hugh Hefner was for, he was for because it also benefited white men,” Zeisler said.

As for Steinem, who briefly wore that bunny suit in the early `60s, she preferred not to comment so close to Hefner’s death.

“Obit time,” she wrote in an email, “is not the time for truth-telling. People will now be free to tell it, but later.”