When it comes to autonomous vehicles, putting them in the relatively open skies may be easier than putting them on crowded roads. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports on how one branch of the military is investigating the use of autonomous helicopters.
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Month: December 2017
Venezuelans Scramble to Survive as Merchants Demand Dollars
There was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each.
Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up for years.
Though used to expensive repairs, this one was too much and put him out of business. “Repairs cost an arm and a leg in Venezuela,” said the now-unemployed 42-year-old Garcia, who has a wife and two children to support in the southern city of Guayana. “There’s no point keeping bolivars.”
For a decade and a half, strict exchange controls have severely limited access to dollars. A black market in hard currency has spread in response, and as once-sky-high oil revenue runs dry, Venezuela’s economy is in free-fall.
The practice adopted by gourmet and design stores in Caracas over the last couple of years to charge in dollars to a select group of expatriates or Venezuelans with access to greenbacks is fast spreading.
Food sellers, dental and medical clinics, and others are starting to charge in dollars or their black market equivalent – putting many basic goods and services out of reach for a large number of Venezuelans.
According to the opposition-led National Assembly, November’s rise in prices topped academics’ traditional benchmark for hyperinflation of more than 50 percent a month – and could end the year at 2,000 percent. The government has not published inflation data for more than a year.
“I can’t think in bolivars anymore, because you have to give a different price every hour,” said Yoselin Aguirre, 27, who makes and sells jewelry in the Paraguana peninsula and has recently pegged prices to the dollar. “To survive, you have to dollarize.”
The socialist government of the late president Hugo Chavez in 2003 brought in the strict controls in order to curb capital flight, as the wealthy sought to move money out of Venezuela after a coup attempt and major oil strike the previous year.
Oil revenue was initially able to bolster artificial exchange rates, though the black market grew and now is becoming unmanageable for the government.
Trim the Tree With Bolivars
President Nicolas Maduro has maintained his predecessor’s policies on capital controls. Yet, the spread between the strongest official rate, of some 10 bolivars per dollar, and the black market rate, of around 110,000 per dollar, is now huge.
While sellers see a shift to hard currency as necessary, buyers sometimes blame them for speculating.
Rafael Vetencourt, 55, a steel worker in Ciudad Guayana, needed a prostate operation priced at $250.
“We don’t earn in dollars. It’s abusive to charge in dollars!” said Vetencourt, who had to decimate his savings to pay for the surgery.
In just one year, Venezuela’s currency has weakened 97.5 percent against the greenback, meaning $1,000 of local currency purchased then would be worth just $25 now.
Maduro blames black market rate-publishing websites such as DolarToday for inflating the numbers, part of an “economic war” he says is designed by the opposition and Washington to topple him.
On Venezuela’s borders with Brazil and Colombia, the prices of imported oil, eggs and wheat flour vary daily in line with the black market price for bolivars.
In an upscale Caracas market, cheese-filled arepas, the traditional breakfast made with corn flour, increased 65 percent in price in just two weeks, according to tracking by Reuters reporters. In the same period, a kilogram of ham jumped a whopping 171 percent.
The runaway prices have dampened Christmas celebrations, which this season were characterized by shortages of pine trees and toys, as well as meat, chicken and cornmeal for the preparation of typical dishes.
In one grim festive joke, a Christmas tree in Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital and second city, was decorated with virtually worthless low-denomination bolivar bills.
Most Venezuelans, earning just $5 a month at the black market rate, are nowhere near being able to save hard currency.
“How do I do it? I earn in bolivars and have no way to buy foreign currency,” said Cristina Centeno, a 31-year-old teacher who, like many, was seeking remote work online before Christmas in order to bring in some hard currency.
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Branagh Teases Return of Old Friends in ‘Death on the Nile’
Kenneth Branagh is teasing the return of “old friends” in his planned sequel to “Murder on the Orient Express.”
Branagh is expected to both direct and reprise his role as the fancifully mustachioed lead character Detective Hercule Poirot in “Death on the Nile,” another mystery based on an Agatha Christie novel, which screenwriter Michael Green will return to adapt.
Branagh says he’s excited to gather an ensemble cast that could possibly include bringing back some “old friends” to explore “primal human emotions” like “obsessive love and jealousy and sex” that make for a “very dangerous atmosphere.”
The tense whodunit “Murder on the Orient Express” featured an all-star cast including Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz and Michelle Pfeiffer. It was a global hit after its release in early November. Branagh says he was glad to see audiences responding to his quirky portrayal of Poirot and looks forward to seeing how that will evolve in the sequel.
“One of the things that I liked – really loved doing here that the audience responded to was that Hercule Poirot, for all his intellectual power, got dragged into it, got dragged into feeling it. And I think it’s a hell of a trip, that trip down the Nile. So I think it would be great to see how he, how his heart, responds to that kind of intensity,” he said.
Christie’s 1937 novel, “Death on the Nile,” was previously adapted into a 1978 film starring Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, Mia Farrow and Maggie Smith.
With a wealth of source material to draw from, Branagh also endorses the idea of a Poirot-slash-Christie “cinematic universe” – the popular term for a series of interlocking films that bring various characters together.
“I think there are possibilities, aren’t there? With 66 books and short stories and plays, she – and she often brings people together in her own books actually, so innately – she enjoyed that,” he says. “You feel as though there is a world – just like with Dickens, there’s a complete world that she’s created – certain kinds of characters who live in her world – that I think has real possibilities.”
However, Branagh says he hasn’t exactly floated that idea with any of the brass at 20th Century Fox.
“I bet they’ve been thinking about it though,” he says.
“Murder on the Orient Express” will be released on home video in the coming months. “Death on the Nile” is in the early stages of pre-production.
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Starfish Making Comeback After Syndrome Killed Millions
Starfish are making a comeback on the U.S. West Coast, four years after a mysterious syndrome killed millions of them.
From 2013 to 2014, Sea Star Wasting Syndrome hit sea stars from British Columbia to Mexico. The starfish would develop lesions and then disintegrate, their arms turning into blobs of goo.
The cause is unclear but researchers say it may be a virus.
Now, starfish are rebounding. The Orange County Register says sea stars are being spotted in Southern California tide pools and elsewhere.
Kaitlin Magliano of the Crystal Cove Conservancy says four adult starfish were recently spotted at Newport Beach. She calls them a treasure and says it’s good to see the stars surviving and thriving.
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8 Eastern US States Sue EPA Over Air Pollution
Eight Eastern U.S. states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding that it order tougher controls on some Midwestern states over air pollution blowing eastward.
New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is leading the lawsuit, saying the Trump administration had failed to impose congressionally mandated anti-pollution standards on parts of the Midwest.
“Millions of New Yorkers are breathing unhealthy air as smog pollution continues to pour in from other states,” Schneiderman said.
The other that are part of the lawsuit are Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. They want the courts to overturn the EPA’s decision to exclude nine mostly Midwestern states from what is called the Ozone Transport Region.
States within the region, established under the Clean Air Act, are required to control emissions from coal plants and other sources.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt declined to add those states to the region by an October deadline.
The EPA said it could not comment on outstanding legal matters.
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California Preps for Pot-infused Fare, From Wine to Tacos
The sauvignon blanc boasts brassy, citrus notes, but with one whiff, it’s apparent this is no normal Sonoma County wine. It’s infused with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that provides the high.
Move over, pot brownies. The world’s largest legal recreational marijuana market kicks off Monday in California, and the trendsetting state is set to ignite the cannabis culinary scene.
Chefs and investors have been teaming up to offer an eye-boggling array of cannabis-infused food and beverages, weed-pairing supper clubs and other extravagant pot-to-plate events in preparation for legalization come Jan. 1.
Legal pot in states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado and California’s longstanding medical marijuana market already spurred a cannabis-foodie movement with everything from olive oil to heirloom tomato bisques infused with the drug.
Cannabis-laced dinners with celebrity chefs at private parties have flourished across Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego in recent years, but a medical marijuana card was required to attend.
With that requirement gone, the edibles market is expected to boom, though manufacturers face a host of regulations, and doctors fear the products could increase emergency room visits and entice youth. Marijuana industry analysts predict edibles for the recreational marijuana market will top $100 million in sales in 2018.
“Californian’s culinary expertise is far more refined from college kids making pot brownies in a dorm,” said John Kagia of Frontier Data, a cannabis market research firm.
Expect a slew of vegan and gluten-free choices and low-dose snacks from trail mixes to chocolates. And they may well be served at a gym or Pilates studio.
“This is the dawn of the Amsterdam-style cafe in the U.S.,” Kagia said. “We expect to see spaces that are targeted to cannabis consumers that capitalize on the arts and entertainment offerings of California and really create unique and elevated experiences.”
That includes ethnic options in a state with the largest immigrant population in the U.S.
“Now you see all kinds of cuisines,” said Cristina Espiritu of the 420 Foodie Club, which has promoted cannabis food events in Southern California that have included everything from Mediterranean dishes to Filipino specialties. “There’s going to be infused tacos, infused burritos. I think because of the diversity and creativity in California, this is going to explode.”
But Espiritu worries regulations could make certain aspects of the culinary experience accessible only to the elite in places like Beverly Hills.
Kitchens for those making edibles to sell must be licensed. And organizers must pay $5,000 a year for a license to host up to 10 events, and depending on the size, they may be required to hold them at a fairground. Cities can pose additional fees and ban an event altogether.
Regulations prohibit manufacturers from producing cannabis products for retail sale that include perishable items that could pose a health risk, such as dairy, seafood, fresh meat, or food or beverages appealing to children. It’s still unclear if those rules would apply to a chef-hosted dinner or cooking class that people have paid for.
Edible products must be produced in serving sizes with no more than 10 milligrams of THC and no more than 100 milligrams of THC for the total package.
Drug policy expert and Stanford Law School professor Robert J. MacCoun said the regulations are too lax. Edibles already being sold in the medical marijuana industry vary widely in their potency, so people get more stoned than they planned and can end up in emergency rooms.
The bright packages appeal to children, who often are too young to read warning labels, MacCoun said. He thinks edibles should be restricted to plain brown or white packaging.
“Everyone sees this as a kind of new gold rush in the way that it will make a lot of money, but I think we need to be more careful about how this rolls out,” he said.
Many see California’s recreational marijuana business mirroring its wine industry, with people seeking weed pairings, cannabis farm tours and products made from organic, local plants.
Rebel Coast Winery’s THC-infused sauvignon blanc is made from Sonoma County grapes, but the alcohol is removed in compliance with regulations that prohibit mixing pot with alcohol.
It smells like marijuana, meeting another requirement that it not be confused with a food or beverage that does not contain pot.
Founder Alex Howe is planning high-end dinner parties in Los Angeles in early 2018 to debut the $59.99 bottle of wine. Each bottle contains 16 milligrams of THC, and the company says on average, people feel the effects in under 15 minutes.
“We really wanted to mimic that ritual of opening a bottle of wine at dinner, or at a party with friends or while watching a movie, which is something so familiar to people, especially in California,” he said.
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Vietnam Unveils 10,000-strong Cyberunit to Combat ‘Wrong Views’
Vietnam has unveiled a new, 10,000-strong military cyberwarfare unit to counter “wrong” views on the Internet, media reported, amid a widening crackdown on critics of the one-party state.
The cyber unit, named Force 47, is already in operation in several sectors, Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted Lieutenant General Nguyen Trong Nghia, deputy head of the military’s political department, as saying at a conference of the Central Propaganda Department on Monday in the commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City.
“In every hour, minute and second we must be ready to fight proactively against the wrong views,” the paper quoted the general as saying.
Communist-ruled Vietnam has stepped up attempts to tame the internet, calling for closer watch over social networks and for the removal of content that it deems offensive, but there has been little sign of it silencing criticism when the companies providing the platforms are global.
Its neighbor China, in contrast, allows only local internet companies operating under strict rules.
The number of staff compares with the 6,000 reportedly employed by North Korea. However, the general’s comments suggest its force may be focused largely on domestic internet users, whereas North Korea is internationally focused because the internet is not available to the public at large.
‘Bad and dangerous content’
In August, Vietnam’s president said the country needed to pay greater attention to controlling “news sites and blogs with bad and dangerous content.”
Vietnam, one of the top 10 countries for Facebook users by numbers, has also drafted an internet security bill asking for local placement of Facebook and Google servers, but the bill has been the subject of heated debate at the National Assembly and is still pending assembly approval.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc. said Vietnam had “built up considerable cyberespionage capabilities in a region with relatively weak defenses.”
“Vietnam is certainly not alone. FireEye has observed a proliferation in offensive capabilities. … This proliferation has implications for many parties, including governments, journalists, activists and even multinational firms,” a spokesman at FireEye, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.
“Cyberespionage is increasingly attractive to nation states, in part because it can provide access to a significant amount of information with a modest investment, plausible deniability and limited risk,” he added.
Vietnam denies such charges.
Vietnam has in recent months stepped up measures to silence critics. A court last month jailed a blogger for seven years for “conducting propaganda against the state.”
In a separate, similar case last month, a court upheld a 10-year jail sentence for a prominent blogger.
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Ghana-born Teen is First African American Woman on US Olympic Speedskating Team
At the age of 5, Maame Biney immigrated to the U.S. from Ghana to live with her father. She was an energetic child, and her father wanted to channel that energy into a sport. One day, they drove by a local ice rink in Reston, Virginia, where a sign in front read “Learn to Skate.”
Biney’s father asked if she wanted to give it a try.
“I brought her here, in this particular rink, and she just tried it,” her father, Kweku Biney, said. “And the first day she got on the ice I was scared, you know. I thought she was going to break her head open, so I said, ‘What did I get myself into? This is risky.'”
But Biney was a natural. “She took that thing in stride, and I was just surprised, you know, the way she was skating,” he said. “And she just looked like somebody who’s been doing it for probably a few months prior to that day.
Biney was hooked. Every morning she would bounce out of bed to wake up her father for the early morning practices. She tried figure skating first, but a coach noticed how fast she was and encouraged her to take up speedskating. She competed in local events before moving up to the U.S. Junior Championships, where she won a bronze medal.
This month, she qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team after finishing first in the women’s 500-meter trial in Kearns, Utah. At age 17, she is the youngest speedskater on the U.S. team and the first African American woman to represent the country as a speedskater.
“First time I met Maame, she was 9,” said Sooan Yoo, Biney’s coach in Reston. “Now she’s almost my height as she’s gaining age, and she’s representing the USA team.”
Despite her accomplishments, the high schooler doesn’t take herself too seriously.
“I just hope that everyone sees how fun the sport is when you can just go fast and just be awesome. Not that I am awesome or anything, but just — you feel good about yourself, so yeah. Be proud of yourself. That’s it,” she said.
Biney’s achievements have earned her fans around the world, particularly in West Africa, where skating isn’t common. She hopes girls watch her and become inspired to pursue their own dreams.
“Since speedskating or any ice sport isn’t really an option back in Africa, I would just tell all the little kids back there just to find something that you love, and be happy,” she said. “And just have fun with it. Because why are you going to do something if you don’t have fun?”
Biney hopes to do more than just have fun when she competes at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in February. Her event, the 500 meter, is the shortest and requires intense sprinting ability. She said her strategy is simple: “Go fast and don’t fall.”
Her teammates say her easygoing attitude belies her hard work and competitive spirit. Her team, Dominion Speedskating, practices six to seven days a week.
“She is really kind and everything. She’s really caring,” said 15-year-old Dominion teammate Joonsuh Oh. “Everyone loves her when you first see her. She seems kind of intimidating because you just never know her. But if you actually meet her, she’s really friendly, and when she skates, she’s amazing.”
Despite intense pressure, Biney’s father hopes she can just soak up the moment and have fun. He said seeing her walk with Team USA during the opening ceremony will be enough of a reward. Anything more will be a bonus, he said.
“Once you stay focused, everything will fall in place” he said. “That’s it. That’s all I got for her. She doesn’t need to be afraid of anything, and I don’t think she is.”
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‘Every Day Africa’ Project Aims to Undermine Stereotypes
When schoolchildren in Washington, D.C. are asked to say the first thing that comes to mind about Africa, they use words like hot, desert, sand, poverty, hunger, war and Ebola.
These are all accurate things to say about that part or the world — but they reflect an “incomplete” picture, says writer Austin Merrill, who together with photojournalist Peter DiCampo has set out to document African reality beyond common stereotypes.
They are the founders of Every Day Africa, an Instagram community of photographers who strive to capture ordinary moments of life, such as children picking flowers in a field, or girlfriends chatting at a coffee shop. Their Instagram following has topped 370,000.
In addition to the Instagram feed, the book “Every Day Africa, 30 Photographers Re-Picturing the Continent,” recently hit bookstores in Europe, the United States and certain countries on the African continent. The book is filled with images documenting life in Africa that aim to shatter misconceptions often found in Western media.
Readers see a teenager rollerblading in the streets of Dakar, a DJ playing music in Lagos, a couple looking at the Atlantic Ocean in Cape Town. The book displays the full diversity and visual richness of African life.
Both DiCampo and Merrill invited a diverse “community of photographers” from all over the continent to contribute to the Instagram project and the book. Some are professionals, while others are skilled amateurs.
Ethiopian-American writer Maaza Mengiste prologues the book in an essay focusing on the power of the ordinary. “We sometimes forget that no matter what is happening in our lives, ordinary moments find a way to move forward,” Mengiste writes.
Normality
Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill, both Americans, met while serving with the Peace Corps in Ivory Coast. In 2012, they received a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in Washington to cover the aftermath of Ivory Coast’s civil war.
While they were interviewing refugees and soldiers, Merrill remembers that around them “the vast majority of life was pretty normal, but that wasn’t coming through in the story that we were trying to put together.”
“We were seeing all these other moments, that were much sort of truer to our daily life experience in that part of the world,” says DiCampo.
So, they took their cellphones and started to photograph what was around them. They felt, says Merrill, that the normal, everyday scenes of life “might be the most important thing we had to tell about that place, about that moment, instead of the crisis story.”
Media organizations tend to focus on breaking news, often triggered by an evolving crisis. Africa has many of those; but, as Di Campo puts it, “It’s quite difficult to have a global understanding when all you see of other parts of the world are really extreme stories.”
This is the gap that the “Everyday Africa” book is trying to fill; to look at the continent from the inside and from different perspectives.
DiCampo and Merrill, with the support of the Pulitzer Center, have also created media workshops that train elementary school students in the United States on how to document their lives and recognize stereotypes.
“We use the story of how we we created Every Day Africa,” said DiCampo, “to engage the students in a discussion of how media representation affects them, their lives and their communities and we use our photography to teach basic photography lessons, so that by the end of the workshop, they have an everyday project for their own school or community.”
This social media model has hit a nerve. “The Every Africa platform on Instagram may very well be the biggest visual library of the continent,” writes Ghanaian photographer Nana Kofi Acquah.
“To task African photographers with the burden of changing how the continent is perceived, might be overwhelming,” writes Acquah; but, he adds, “a picture of the real Africa” is slowly emerging.
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Eastern Libya to Stage Conference in March to Rebuild Benghazi
Authorities in eastern Libya have announced a conference in March to drum up support to rebuild the country’s second-largest city Benghazi heavily damaged during three years of fighting between military forces and Islamist fighters.
The announcement signals a desire to demonstrate a return to normality in the port, where top military commander Khalifa Haftar declared the end of a campaign to oust Islamist fighters in July.
Clashes have sporadically continued in some isolated areas, while life has returned in the rest of the city, though some districts were almost completely destroyed by shelling and air strikes.
A forum titled “International Conference and Exhibition for rebuilding Benghazi city” will be held from March 19-21, the organizers said in an invitation posted online, adding that a six-day exhibition would be held the same month.
Haftar is aligned with a government and parliament in eastern Libya which was listed as the conference’s sponsor.
He has rejected a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.
The United Nations has sought to bridge differences between the two sides, part of a conflict since Muammar Gadhafi was toppled in 2011. Talks were suspended in October.
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Oil Prices Rise on Libyan Pipeline Blast
Oil moved higher above $65 a barrel on Tuesday, within sight of its highest since mid-2015, supported by an explosion on a crude pipeline in Libya and voluntary OPEC-led supply cuts.
The move towards restart of a key North Sea pipeline, Forties, capped the rally. The pipeline is being tested after repairs and full flows should resume in early January, its operator said on Monday.
Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose 19 cents to $65.44 a barrel at 1447 GMT. Prices hit $65.83 on December 12, the highest since June 2015. U.S. crude added 24 cents to $58.71.
“The confirmation that Forties is coming back … has the potential for capping Brent,” said Olivier Jakob, analyst at Petromatrix.
Trading activity was thin due to the Christmas holiday in many countries.
Oil turned positive following the explosion at the Libyan pipeline, which feeds the Es Sider terminal. It was not immediately clear what impact the blast will have on Libyan output, which has been recovering in recent months after being hampered for years by conflict and unrest.
Brent has risen 17 percent in 2017. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, plus Russia and other non-members, have been withholding output since January 1 to get rid of a glut.
The producers have extended the supply cut agreement to cover all of 2018.
Iraq’s oil minister said on Monday there would be a balance between supply and demand by the first quarter, leading to a boost in prices. Global oil inventories have decreased to an acceptable level, he added.
That is earlier than predicted in OPEC’s latest official forecast, which calls for a balanced market by late 2018.
While the OPEC action has lent support to prices all year, the unplanned shutdown of the Forties pipeline on December 11 pushed Brent to its mid-2015 high.
Forties plays an important role in the global market as it is the biggest of the five North Sea crude streams underpinning Brent, the benchmark for oil trading in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Rising production in the United States is offsetting some of the OPEC-led cuts.
The U.S. rig count, RIG-OL-USA-BHI, an early indicator of future output, held at 747 in the week to December 22, according to the latest weekly report by Baker Hughes.
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Minister: Sudan to Devalue Pound Currency in January
Sudan is to devalue its currency to 18 Sudanese pounds per dollar in January from the current exchange rate of 6.7, the finance minister said on Tuesday.
The International Monetary Fund urged Sudan earlier this month to float its currency to boost growth and investment, but the government has ruled out a market-determined exchange rate.
The devaluation which includes the customs exchange rate — the rate used to calculate customs duties — is timed to take place when the 2018 budget begins, in the first week of January, Finance Minister Mohamed Othman Rukabi told Reuters.
Traders said the black market rate jumped to 27 SDG per dollar from 25 SDG per dollar on Tuesday after the devaluation was announced.
“The whole budget for the new year is based on a an official rate of 18 SDG per dollar. We expect the results of this policy to be positive for the Sudanese economy,” he said.
The Sudanese pound has weakened sharply against the dollar since Washington lifted 20-year-old economic sanctions in October, encouraging traders to step up imports and putting pressure on scarce hard currency.
Businesses are unable to secure their hard currency needs at the official peg of 6.7 pounds to the dollar and are forced to resort to a parallel market.
To stem the flow of scarce currency out of the banking system, Sudan announced emergency measures last month after the pound fell to a record low of 27 against the dollar on the black market.
The country also imposed tight restrictions on imports of luxury goods, directing remaining liquidity toward “sectors that boost growth,” the central bank said.
The import-dependent country has suffered both from the sanctions and from the secession of the south in 2011, when it lost three-quarters of its oil output, its main source of foreign currency.
The IMF last year agreed to loan Sudan’s neighbur Egypt $12 billion if it implemented tough fiscal reforms.
Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Nadine Awadalla and John Davison; Editing by Robin Pomeroy.
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Beijing Tops China’s ‘First Green Development’ Index, but Sinks in Public Opinion
China published its first “green development” index on Tuesday, listing regional governments which promote environmentally friendly development, with Beijing coming out top, though it came second-to-last in a survey of public satisfaction.
The heavily polluted capital was first in the ranking of 31 provinces and regions for 2016, which was published by the National Bureau of Statistics, followed by Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, while Tibet and Xinjiang were the lowest ranked regions.
Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing and is home to several cities with some of the worst air pollution in the world, was ranked 20th.
President Xi Jinping said in October that fighting pollution was one of China’s key tasks through 2020, and the government has vowed to reduce air pollution across 28 northern cities this winter.
“By measuring overall progress on ecological civilization construction over the last year, the annual evaluation guides all regions to push forward green development, and implement ecological civilization construction,” statistics bureau head Ning Jizhe wrote in a note along with the data release.
The National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Communist Party’s Organization Department jointly published the data with the statistics bureau.
While Beijing was top in the green index, the capital came in 30th out of 31 regions in a separate survey of public satisfaction with the environment published along with the green index data on the statistics bureau website.
Tibet came in first in public satisfaction with the environment.
In explaining the discrepancy, Ning wrote that the two indicators measured different things.
The green index was based on 55 statistical parameters and took into account investment in cleaning up the environment and use of resources, and reflected progress on moving towards a better environment.
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Muscle Stem Cells Respond Differently to Aging and Injury
Why do our muscles recover from injury, but lose mass and strength as we age? A new study looked for the answer to why muscle stem cells respond differently to aging and to injury. VOA’s Faith Lapidus reports the findings could affect therapy for injuries, diseases and aging.
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Scientists Toughening Coral Against Climate Change
Coastal communities around the world depend on coral reefs for food, storm protection and tourism. But many reefs are suffering under the onslaught of climate change. Scientists are fighting back, however. VOA’s Steve Baragona visited labs in Florida where researchers aim to help reefs adapt to a hotter future.
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Annual Winter Fishing Festival Under a Frozen Lake in China
Atop a lake covered by thick ice, fishermen in Northeast China cast out the first net for this year’s winter fishing festival. It’s an ancient yearly tradition that these days is as much an international spectator sport as it is a source of food. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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‘Sound of Music’ Actress Heather Menzies-Urich Dies at 68
Actress Heather Menzies-Urich, who played one of the singing von Trapp children in the 1965 hit film, “The Sound of Music,” has died. She was 68.
Her son, actor Ryan Urich, told Variety that his mother died late Sunday in Frankford, Ontario, Canada. She had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
Menzies-Urich played Louisa von Trapp, the third-oldest of the seven von Trapp children in the film adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical that starred Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
“The Sound of Music” captured five Academy Awards, including best picture.
Variety reports that Menzies-Urich is survived by two other children, several grandchildren and a great grandchild.
Her husband, actor Robert Urich, died in 2002.
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Rohingya Refugees Face Financial Problems in Bangladesh
Many Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh facing diminished income are supplementing their needs with work in the camps. Steve Sandford talks to a few young and old entrepreneurs who have set up new businesses in the refugee zones.
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Israel Regulator Seeks to Ban Bitcoin Firms From Stock Exchange
Israel’s markets regulator said on Monday he will propose regulation to ban companies based on bitcoin and other digital currencies from trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE).
Shmuel Hauser, the chairman of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), told the Calcalist business conference he will bring the proposal to the ISA board next week. If approved, it would be subject to a public hearing and then the TASE bylaws would need to be amended.
“If we have a company that their main business is digital currencies we would not allow it. If already listed, its trading will be suspended,” Hauser said, adding the ISA must find the appropriate regulation for such companies.
Bitcoin plunged by 30 percent to below $12,000 on Friday as investors dumped the cryptocurrency after its sharp rise to nearly $20,000. It recouped some losses to trade above $14,000 on the Bitstamp platform, down 9 percent on the day.
“We feel that the prices of bitcoin behave like bubbles and we don’t want investors to be subject to that volatility and uncertainty,” Hauser said. “There is an importance to signal to the market where things are… Investors should know where we stand.”
Earlier this month, Hauser had said bitcoin-based companies would not be included in TASE indexes and that there was a need for a suitable regulatory framework for such instruments given that the global market value of all digital currencies grew in 2017 to $300 billion from $18 billion.
The proposal will likely be the last for Hauser, who will step down next month after 6-1/2 years as ISA chief.
“But once it’s on its way it will continue to be pursued,” said Hauser, who will be replaced by Anat Guetta.
He said he hopes she will promote easing capital gains taxes and focus on regulatory enforcement.
Somalia Once Again to Host International Soccer Matches
The Somali Football Federation (SFF) has announced plans to host international games beginning next year because of improving security, the head of the body has announced.
President of the SFF, Abdiqani Said Arab, says the time has come for Somalia to organize home games in the country’s soccer stadiums in 2018.
“Due to the betterment of the security situation in Somalia we have decided to stage our home games at home,” Arab said in a statement.
“The Somali people have the right to watch their national team play at home and we have to make that happen now that the country is going ahead.”
Arab said his federation will first invite East African soccer national teams to play friendly matches with the Somali national team.
He said staging friendly matches will be followed by hosting regional soccer tournaments, such as the CECAFA (Council for East African and Central Africa Football). SFF has not released the dates and fixtures of international matches to be played at home for next year.
Somalia hosted its last international match in Mogadishu in 1988. Following the collapse of the state in 1991, the Somalia national soccer team was forced to play its home games abroad in a neutral country, mainly in the region, like Djibouti and Ethiopia, denying it the all-important home advantage that other teams enjoy against opponents.
The Confederation of African Football chief Ahmad Ahmad approved Somalia’s plan to host international soccer games when he visited Mogadishu in April.
Somalia soccer has made steady development over the years despite the country’s difficulties.
In April 2012, a suicide bomber killed both the head of the Somali Olympic Committee, Aden Yabarow Wiish, and the president of Somali Football Federation, Said Mohamed Nur. But in December that same year, the SFF completed installing an artificial turf at Mogadishu stadium. Two years later in December 2015, the soccer body had showed the first-ever live stream of a football game on TV.
And in August this year, it was a bright night for Mogadishu as the first soccer game was played at night in more than 30 years.
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