Kevlar body armor saves lives, and the high end vests can even stop armor piercing rounds. But that kind of protection comes at the cost of added heavy weight. A Czech Republic university is using ceramics that bring the weight of safety way down. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Month: February 2018
Afghanistan’s ArtLords Daub Walls With Messages of Defiance, Hope
Activists in Afghanistan are speaking out against corruption and spreading messages of peace and social justice with murals, many painted on concrete blast walls that have risen to ward off militant bombs.
The activists call themselves the ArtLords, as opposed to the warlords and drug lords who have brought so much strife and misery to Afghanistan, and say their art is a tool for social change.
“We’re painting against corruption, we’re painting against the injustices that are happening in society, for women’s rights,” said the group’s co-founder, Omaid Sharifi. “We’re encouraging people to come and join us, let’s raise our voices against all this nonsense.”
Blast walls have gone up along Kabul’s streets over the years, against a tide of violence as Taliban and other militants battle the government and U.S.-led forces, nearly 17 years after Afghanistan’s latest phase of war began.
Some city streets have been turned into concrete canyons, the walls shielding embassies, military camps, government offices and the homes of the rich.
On many of these grey slabs, the ArtLords have their say.
Watchful eyes peer from a wall protecting the headquarters of the main security agency.
“I can’t go to school because of your corruption. I can see you,” is the message on a mural of a girl on blast walls near the interior ministry.
Another mural, of a black SUV with its windows tinted, takes a dig at the powerful and privileged.
“What are you carrying, that your windows are black?” reads the message. “You don’t have a license plate and don’t stop for searches.”
A painting of a shoeshine boy says: “Don’t set off an explosion here, innocent people get killed.”
Other murals extol the city’s street-sweeper “heroes,” encourage anti-polio efforts, and call for women’s rights.
Sharifi says he always gets permission for his work, though it can be a struggle. The group gets commissions from Afghan and international groups for “awareness raising and advocacy” and sells smaller artworks.
Recently, on a cold, grey morning, the ArtLords were at the American University of Afghanistan, working on a mural on the tightly guarded campus to highlight resilience against violence.
A 2016 militant attack on the university killed 16 people and shattered its image as an island of liberalism and learning.
Students came to help paint a picture of a young man and woman picking up their books, with a phoenix rising and the words: “I am back because education prevails.”
“Kabul has been surrounded with blast walls which infuriate people but this art has a message of hope,” said student Faisal Imran, who took his turn with a brush.
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Experts: Underwater Archaeology Site Imperiled in Mexico
Pollution is threatening the recently mapped Sac Actun cave system in the Yucatan Peninsula, a vast underground network that experts in Mexico say could be the most important underwater archaeological site in the world.
Subaquatic archaeologist Guillermo de Anda said the cave system’s historical span is likely unrivaled. Some of the oldest human remains on the continent have been found there, dating back more than 12,000 years, and now-extinct animal remains push the horizon back to 15,000 years.
He said researchers found a human skull that was already covered in rainwater limestone deposits long before the cave system flooded around 9,000 years ago.
De Anda said over 120 sites with Maya-era pottery and bones in the caves suggest water levels may have briefly dropped in the 216-mile (347-kilometer) -long system during a drought about 1,000 A.D. And some artifacts have been found dating to the 1847-1901 Maya uprising known as the War of the Castes.
Humans there probably didn’t live in the caves, de Anda said, but rather went down to them “during periods of great climate stress, to look for water.”
Sac Actun is “probably the most important underwater archaeological site in the world,” he said.
But de Anda said pollution and development may threaten the caves’ crystalline water.
Some of the sinkhole lakes that today serve as entrances to the cave system are used by tourists to snorkel and swim. And the main highway in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo runs right over some parts of cave network. That roadway has been known to collapse into sinkholes.
Also, the cave with the stone-encased skull has high acidity levels, suggesting acidic runoff from a nearby open-air dump could damage skeletal remains.
The world’s other great underwater site, the sunken Egyptian city of Alexandria, is also threatened by pollution.
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New Exhibit Examines Native American Imagery in US Culture
Bold. Visionary. A spectacular success.
The words in an online promotion for a new museum exhibit in Washington, D.C., describe an 1830 U.S. law that forced thousands of American Indians from their lands in the South to areas west of the Mississippi River.
Provocative, yes, says the co-curator of the exhibit “Americans” that opened last month at the National Museum of the American Indian. Bold and visionary in imagining a country free of American Indians. A spectacular success in greatly expanding wealth from cotton fields where millions of blacks worked as slaves.
“When you’re in the show, you understand bold and visionary become tongue in cheek,” co-curator Cecile Ganteaume said.
The exhibit that runs through 2022 has opened to good reviews and pushes the national debate over American Indian imagery — including men in headdresses with bows, arrows and tomahawks — and sports teams named the Chiefs, Braves and Blackhawks. The NFL’s Washington Redskins logo on one wall prompts visitors to think about why it’s described both as a unifying force in D.C. and offensive.
The exhibit falls short, some say, with an accompanying website and its characterization of the Indian Removal Act.
The online text is a perplexing way to characterize an effort that spanned multiple presidencies and at one point, consumed one-fifth of the federal budget, said Ben Barnes, second chief of the Shawnee Tribe.
The law led to the deaths of thousands of people who were marched from their homes without full compensation for the value of the land they left behind. And it affected far more tribes than the five that are highlighted online, he said.
“It made it seem like it was a trivial matter that turned out best for everyone,” he said. “I cannot imagine an exhibit at the newly established African-American museum that talked about how economically wonderful slavery was for the South.”
Ganteaume said the website isn’t encyclopedic and neither it nor the exhibit is meant to dismiss the experiences of American Indians. Instead, it challenges the depths at which people recognize indigenous people are ingrained in America’s identity and learn how it happened, she said.
Imagery vs. reality
An opening gallery has hundreds of images of American Indians — often a stoic chief in a Plains-style headdress or a maiden — on alcohol bottles, a sugar bag, motor oil, a missile mounted on the wall and a 1948 Indian Chief motorcycle.
Dozens of clips expand on how the imagery has permeated American culture in television and film.
But when historic or cartoonish images are the only perception people have of what it means to be Native, they can’t imagine American Indians in the modern world, said Julie Reed, a history professor at the University of Tennessee.
“Even when I’m standing in front of students, identified as a Cherokee professor, making the point from Day 1 that I’m still here and other Cherokee people are still here, I still get midterm exams that talk about the complete annihilation of Indian peoples,” she said.
Ganteaume said that while Native people have deep histories in other countries, the United States is more often fixated on using images of them.
Side galleries expand on what’s familiar to most Americans: the Trail of Tears, Pocahontas and the Battle of Little Bighorn. An orientation film on the invention of Thanksgiving starts with a once widely used television screen test featuring an Indian head and then questions the hoopla of the national holiday when America already had Independence Day.
Exhibit ‘makes you think’
Eden Slone, a graduate student in museum studies in the Washington, D.C., area, said she was impressed by the exhibit’s design and interactive touch tables. She never realized that Tootsie Pop wrappers featured an image of an American Indian in a headdress, holding a bow and arrow.
“I think the exhibition was carried out well and it definitely makes you think of Native American imagery,” she said. “When I see images like that, I’ll think more about where it came from.”
Reed, University of Tennessee professor and Cherokee woman, fears people will get the wrong impression about the Indian Removal Act from the website. An essay puts a positive spin on what Reed calls ethnic cleansing.
Yet, she plans to visit.
“I think there is legitimacy to say, come look at this exhibit. That’s a fair response to criticism,” Reed said. “I want to go and give the exhibit a fair shake because it may be brilliant and could do everything the website does not.”
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More Newborns Dying in West, Central Africa as ‘World Fails Poorest Babies’
More babies are dying each year in West and Central Africa even as child health improves overall, aid agencies said on Tuesday, calling the region’s newborn death rate a “hidden tragedy.”
Five of the 10 most dangerous countries to be born are in West and Central Africa, with infants there 50 times more likely to die within a month than if they were born in Japan or Iceland, the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said in a report.
One in 16 pregnancies in the region results in stillbirth or death within a month — mostly preventable deaths caused by premature birth, labor complications or infection, UNICEF said.
“Neonatal health hasn’t really been addressed by governments or institutions,” UNICEF’s regional health specialist, Alain Prual, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
While the infant mortality rate is slowly declining, population growth means that the number of deaths is still increasing in West and Central Africa, Prual said.
For years aid agencies have focused on reducing deaths of children under five, which have dropped sharply, said Laurent Hiffler of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Yet babies are still dying at high rates in the first month after they are born, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Neonatal mortality reveals the weaknesses in the system,” said Hiffler, adding that it is difficult to address because it requires continuous care throughout pregnancy and birth. “It’s been a neglected tragedy … a hidden tragedy.”
Only one in two women in the region gives birth in a health facility, often because clinics are few and far between and they cannot afford to travel, according to UNICEF.
Even when women can access a health center, staff are often poorly trained and ill-equipped, added Hiffler.
MSF teaches women simple birth techniques that can be carried out at home, such as basic resuscitation skills and using skin-to-skin contact to warm up premature babies, he said.
While the number of deaths among children under the age of five globally has more than halved in the last 25 years, progress in ending deaths of children less than one month old has been much slower, said Henrietta Fore, the new UNICEF chief.
“Given that the majority of these deaths are preventable, clearly, we are failing the world’s poorest babies,” she said.
Babies born in Japan, Iceland and Singapore have the best odds of survival globally, while newborns in Pakistan, Central African Republic and Afghanistan are the worst off, UNICEF said.
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How US Coal Deal Warms Ukraine’s Ties With Trump
For the first time in Ukraine’s history, U.S. anthracite is helping to keep the lights on and the heating going this winter following a deal that has also helped to warm Kyiv’s relations with President Donald Trump.
The Ukrainian state-owned company that imported the coal told Reuters that the deal made commercial sense. But it was also politically expedient, according to a person involved in the talks on the agreement and power industry insiders.
On Trump’s side it provided much-needed orders for a coal-producing region of the United States which was a vital constituency in his 2016 presidential election victory.
On the Ukrainian side the deal helped to win favor with the White House, whose support Kyiv needs in its conflict with Russia, as well as opening up a new source of coal at a time when its traditional supplies are disrupted.
Trump’s campaign call to improve relations with the Kremlin alarmed the pro-Western leadership in Ukraine, which lost Crimea to Russia in 2014 and is still fighting pro-Moscow separatists.
However, things looked up when President Petro Poroshenko visited the White House on June 20 last year.
“The meeting with Trump was a key point, a milestone,” a Ukrainian government source told Reuters, requesting anonymity.
The Americans had set particular store by supplying coal to Ukraine.
“I felt that for them it is important,” said the source, who was present at the talks that also included a session with Vice President Mike Pence.
Despite Trump’s incentives, U.S. utilities are shutting coal-fired plants and shifting to gas, wind and solar power.
Ailing U.S. mining companies are therefore boosting exports to Asia and seeking new buyers among eastern European countries trying to diversify from Russian supplies.
Trump, who championed U.S. coal producers on the campaign trail, pressed the message after meeting Poroshenko.
“Ukraine already tells us they need millions and millions of metric tons right now,” he said in a speech nine days later. “We want to sell it to them, and to everyone else all over the globe who need it.”
The deal with Kyiv was sealed the following month, after which U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said: “As promised during the campaign, President Trump is unshackling American energy with each day on the job.”
The deal helped to “bolster a key strategic partner against regional pressures that seek to undermine U.S. interests,” Ross added, referring to past Russian attempts to restrict natural gas flows to its western neighbors.
A matter of necessity
Ukraine was once a major producer of anthracite, a coal used in power generation, but it has faced a shortage in recent winters as it lost control of almost all its mines in eastern areas to the separatists.
Along with South Africa, Ukrainian-owned mines in Russia have been the main source of anthracite imports but this is fraught with uncertainty. In the past Moscow has cut off gas supplies to the country over disputes with Kyiv, while the Ukrainian government considered forbidding anthracite imports from Russia in 2017 although no ban has yet been imposed.
Overall anthracite imports shot up to 3.05 million tons in the first 11 months of 2017 from just 0.05 million in all of 2013 — the year before the rebellion erupted.
Neighboring Poland, which Trump visited in July, is also turning increasingly to U.S. coal. Its imports from the United States jumped five-fold last year to 839,000 tons, data from the state-run ARP agency showed.
In July Ukrainian state-owned energy company Centrenergo announced the deal with U.S. company Xcoal for the supply of up to 700,000 tons of anthracite.
Centrenergo initially said it would pay $113 per ton for the first shipment, a price industry experts and traders told Reuters was expensive compared with alternatives.
However, chief executive Oleg Kozemko said the cost varied according to the quality of the coal delivered, so Centrenergo had paid around $100 per ton on average for the 410,000 tons supplied by the end of 2017.
Kozemko said in an interview that the U.S. deal was Centrenergo’s only viable option after three tenders it launched earlier last year had failed.
“The idea to sign a contract with Xcoal was a matter of necessity,” he said. “We had agreements but they didn’t work out, because the pricing that they discussed with us and that we signed an agreement on didn’t work out.”
Data on the state tenders registry and documents seen by Reuters show that two of the tenders failed due to a lack of bids, while the results of the third were cancelled.
If that contract had worked out, Centrenergo would have paid around $96 per ton, according to Reuters calculations based on the exchange rate at the time of the tender in April.
Energy expert Andriy Gerus told Reuters the Xcoal deal “probably helps Ukraine to build some good political connections with the USA and that is quite important right now.”
Mutual desire
The anthracite for Centrenergo is mined in Pennsylvania, which backed Trump in 2016. This marked the first time a Republican presidential candidate had won the state since 1988, and followed Trump’s pledge to reverse the coal industry’s history of plant closures and lay-offs in recent years.
Centrenergo says it and Xcoal agreed the contract independently of their governments and without any political pressure. However, Kozemko said: “If talks between the heads of our countries helped in this, then we can only say thank you… It was a mutual desire.”
For the Ukrainian authorities, the diplomatic benefit is clear. When the first shipment of U.S. anthracite arrived in September, Poroshenko tweeted a photo of himself shaking hands with Trump in Washington.
“As agreed with @realDonaldTrump, first American coal has reached Ukraine,” he wrote.
Poroshenko’s press service said the deal “is an exact example of when the friendly and warm atmosphere of one conversation helps strengthen the foundations of a strategic partnership in the interests of both sides for the future.”
The Washington meeting also discussed U.S.-Ukrainian military and technical cooperation. Soon after, the Trump administration said it was considering supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine to counter the Russian-backed separatists.
In late December the U.S. State Department announced that the provision of “enhanced defensive capabilities” had been approved.
Kozemko said the Xcoal deal was likely to be only the beginning of Centrenergo’s trade relations with the United States as it is currently holding talks on supplies of bituminous coal, a poorer quality variety.
“It’s good that we studied the U.S. market because we had never looked at it before. We see big prospects for bituminous coal,” he said, adding that other Ukrainian firms were thinking similarly. “We showed how to bring coal from America and they are following our lead.”
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Brazil Gov’t Acknowledges Pension Bill Going Nowhere
Brazil’s political affairs minister Carlos Marun said on Monday that passage of a bill to overhaul the country’s costly social security system has effectively ground to a halt in Congress and would become a campaign issue in this year’s election.
Marun spoke to reporters after the head of the Senate, Eunicio Oliveira, said the federal government’s military intervention in Rio de Janeiro would, by the rules of the country’s constitution, block any vote on pension reform or any other measure requiring a constitutional amendment.
But Marun acknowledged what President Michel Temer’s critics believe is the real reason for holding up a pension vote: the unpopular bill never gained enough support and the government faced certain defeat.
“We don’t have the votes. I couldn’t guarantee we would have the votes by the end of February,” he said. That was the government’s deadline for passing the bill before lawmakers turned their attention to securing their seats in the October general election.
Pension reform is the cornerstone policy in Temer’s efforts to bring a bulging budget deficit under control. Generous pension benefits and early retirement have turned social security into the main driver of a deficit that cost Brazil its investment grade.
Marun, the cabinet minister charged with mobilizing coalition support in Congress, said pension reform would become a key issue in the election campaign if Congress did not take it up again.
The legislation to streamline social security, which required amending the constitution, was lined up for a first vote in the lower house of Congress this week.
But on Friday the government ordered the army to take over command of police forces in Rio de Janeiro state in a bid to curb violence driven by drug gangs, an intervention that blocks any constitutional changes during its duration.
Temer decreed the Rio intervention through Dec. 31, his last day in office.
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Latvia’s Banking Sector Rocked by US Probe, Central Bank Chief’s Detention
Latvia’s ABLV Bank sought emergency support Monday after U.S. officials accused it of helping breach North Korean sanctions while the country’s central bank chief faced bribery allegations, turning up the spotlight on its financial system.
The Baltic country, which is a member of the euro zone and shares a border with Russia, has come under increasing scrutiny recently as a conduit for illicit financial activities.
Last year, two Latvian banks were fined more than 2.8 million euros ($3.26 million) for allowing clients to violate sanctions imposed by the European Union and United Nations on North Korea. Three others received smaller fines.
ABLV said it had sought temporary liquidity support from the central bank after depositors withdrew 600 million euros, about 22 percent of total deposits, following a warning by the United States that it was seeking to impose sanctions on the bank.
Latvia’s third-biggest lender denied wrongdoing.
“We don’t participate in any illegal activities,” ABLV Bank Deputy CEO Vadims Reinfelds told a news conference. “There are no violations of sanctions.”
The bank said it would not look for a bailout from the government and that it had adequate liquidity and capital.
The European Central Bank had earlier stopped all payments by ABLV, citing the sharp deterioration in its financial position in recent days and saying a moratorium was needed to allow the bank and Latvian authorities to address the situation.
A source close to the matter said the moratorium would be short, giving ABLV just a few days to assess its situation.
Only solvent institutions may receive emergency liquidity support and should the ECB determine that ABLV cannot meet its financial, liquidity and capital obligations, it could start proceedings that may lead to the bank being wound down.
Latvia’s own central bank said it had agreed to provide 97.5 million euros worth of funding to ABLV but that the bank has yet to receive the money.
The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said on Feb. 13 that ABLV “had institutionalized money laundering as a pillar of the bank’s business practices.”
It linked some of the alleged activities to North Korea’s ballistic missiles program, saying bank executives and management had bribed Latvian officials to cover up their activities.
Central bank governor
Separately, Latvia’s anti-corruption authority released central bank Governor Ilmars Rimsevics, an ECB policymaker, who was arrested Saturday on suspicion of having solicited a 100,000 euro bribe. Rimsevics denied the allegations.
The Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau said its investigation was not connected to the probe into ABLV.
“[Rimsevics’ arrest] … is about demanding a bribe of no less than 100,000 euros,” the bureau’s head, Jekabs Straume, told reporters at a news conference Monday.
Neither the police nor the anti-corruption authority gave details of the alleged request for a bribe.
A lawyer for Rimsevics, who was arrested after police searched his office and home, said he would hold a news conference at 11:00 a.m. (1000 GMT) Tuesday.
“I disagree with it categorically,” Rimsevics told Latvian news portal Delfi following his release, referring to the bribery allegations.
Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis had earlier called on the central bank chief to quit, saying: “I can’t imagine that a governor of the Bank of Latvia detained over such a serious accusation could work.”
Latvia joined the European Union in 2003 and adopted the euro currency at the start of 2014, a move that gave its central bank governor a seat on the ECB’s interest-rate-setting Governing Council.
The European Commission said Monday that Rimsevics’ detention was a matter for Latvian authorities.
Boom time
The economy of Latvia, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has boomed in recent years. Its commercial banking sector is dominated by Nordic banks alongside a number of privately-owned local lenders.
In its document detailing the allegations against ABLV, the FinCEN said the reliance of some parts of the Latvian banking system on non-resident deposits for capital exposed it to increased illicit finance risk. It said such deposits amounted to roughly $13 billion.
“Non-resident banking in Latvia allows offshore companies, including shell companies, to hold accounts and transact through Latvian banks,” FinCEN said, adding that criminal groups and corrupt officials may use such schemes to hide true beneficiaries or create fraudulent business transactions.
“[Former Soviet Union] actors often transfer their capital via Latvia, frequently through complex and interconnected legal structures, to various banking locales in order to reduce scrutiny of transactions and lower the transactions’ risk rating.”
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Togo Charity Wins Award for Improving Access to Safe Drinking Water
An African charity that improved access to drinking water and sanitation and reduced the chance of cholera deaths in a village in Togo was on Monday awarded the Kyoto World Water Grand Prize.
The award is granted every three years for outstanding grassroots projects to solve water issues in developing nations.
Judges said the project by the Christian Charity for People in Distress (CCPD), which helped 290 villagers, had cut the risk of disease and death in a community prone to cholera outbreaks.
“The organization provided a serious and coherent project, with proper monitoring, and demonstrated above all an excellent efficiency,” said Jean Lapègue, a board member of the World Water Council, which adjudicates the award.
Judges also praised the project’s use of ecological toilets as an alternative to pit latrines, Lapègue told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.
More than 60 percent of Togo’s population lives below the poverty line, and many people lack reliable access to drinking water, education, health and electricity, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
In addition, the UNDP said Togo’s natural resources are becoming increasingly scarce, particularly clean water.
The CCPD will receive the award and the 2 million Japanese yen prize ($19,000) at a ceremony next month in the Brazilian capital Brasilia during the eighth World Water Forum.
Lapègue said the prize should help CCPD to extend its project in rural areas of Togo — a former French colony of 8 million people in West Africa — and would help connect the charity to other actors in the water and sanitation sector.
The award is co-organized by the Japan Water Forum and the World Water Council. CCPD is the second African charity to win — Uganda’s Katosi Women Development Trust won in 2012.
Greek Carnival Celebrations Get Little Flour Power
For a few hours every year, residents and visitors of this pretty Greek seaside town have a license to lose their civility.
They have what’s known as a “flour war” — participants pelt each other with bags of dyed flour along the coastal road lining Galaxidi’s old harbor.
It’s an explosion of color that takes place every Clean Monday, an Orthodox Christian holiday marking the start of Lent and the end of the carnival season which holds onto many of the country’s pre-Christian traditions.
Some 200 kilometers (120 miles) west of Athens, Galaxidi only has about 1,700 inhabitants but it was once an important trading port. Its influence declined with the advent of steam power in the 19th century.
Some of the town’s former grandeur remains, including many of its traditional stone houses.
The town only acquired a proper road link to the rest of central Greece in the 1960s, leaving much of Galaxidi with the appearance of a Greek island.
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Officials: Aid Sector Must Innovate to Deliver Value for Money
The humanitarian sector lacks creativity and must innovate to deliver more value for the money, officials said Monday, amid fears of a funding shortfall following the Oxfam sex scandal.
Aid groups must make better use of technology — from cash transfer programs to drones — to improve the delivery of services, said a panel of government officials in London.
“For far too long, when faced with a challenge, we’ve looked inward and crafted a solution that doesn’t work for the communities we’re meant to serve,” said Mark Green, head of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“Be it in London or [Washington] D.C., we humanitarians are way behind in terms of creativity,” he added.
Green was speaking at an event hosted by the Overseas Development Institute, a think-tank, to launch the Humanitarian Grand Challenge, an initiative by the U.S., British and Canadian governments to promote innovation across the aid sector.
Britain’s aid minister Penny Mordaunt said aid groups must learn from communities’ and the private sector’s creativity in addressing challenges including climate shocks and malnutrition.
Mordaunt cited innovations such as cash transfer programs — whereby recipients receive cash electronically rather than aid provisions — as one way to deliver humanitarian aid better, faster and cheaper, while also giving communities autonomy.
Other promising technologies include gathering data on mobile phones and the use of drones to determine where the most urgent needs are in humanitarian crises, according to Mordaunt.
Green said the United States had spent $8 billion on aid in 2017, of which 80 percent went to services in conflict zones.
“Less than 1 percent of that money, however, went into innovations and ways to improve the delivery of aid services.”
British charity Oxfam has come under fire this month over sexual misconduct accusations against its staff in Haiti and Chad which have threatened its U.K. government and EU funding.
Several industry experts have warned that the backlash against Oxfam could drive charities to cover up cases of sex abuse for fear of losing support and funding from the public, donors and governments.
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Trump Blasts Oprah Over 60 Minutes Episode
U.S. President Donald Trump blasted media mogul Oprah Winfrey on Twitter on Sunday night over a segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes program and again said he hoped she would face him as an opponent in the 2020 presidential race.
Actress and television host Winfrey, now a contributor to the CBS program, led a panel of 14 Republican, Democrat and Independent voters from Grand Rapids, Michigan in a wide ranging discussion about Trump’s first year in office.
Trump tweeted: “Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes. The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!”
Winfrey has told various media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, that she is not running for president, but has considered it, after there was much recent media speculation.
The panelists ranged from voters who said “I love him more and more every day,” to others questioning Trump’s stability, saying, “All he does is bully people.”
Winfrey made no declarative statements for or against the president in the program. But she did ask questions ranging from whether the country is better off economically to whether respect for the country is eroding around the world.
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Legendary African Filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo Dies at 64
Colleagues say prolific filmmaker Idrissa Ouedraogo has died in his home country of Burkina Faso.
The National Union of Burkina Faso Filmmakers on Sunday announced Ouedraogo’s death at the age of 64 from an undisclosed illness.
During his career Ouedraogo produced more than 40 films including “Tilai,” which won the Grand Prix at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. In 1993, his film “Samba Traore” was featured at the Berlin Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear prize.
In a tweet, Burkina Faso’s president praised Ouedraogo’s “immense talent,” saying he had helped to bring “Burkina and African cinema beyond our borders.”
Ouedraogo also had served on the jury at the Ouagadougou film festival known as FESPACO.
Russian Athlete Suspected of Doping
A Russian athlete is suspected of breaching doping rules at the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.
Russian curlers said that a coach on their team told them late Sunday (South Korean time) that mixed doubles bronze medalist Alexander Krushelnitsky tested positive for meldonium, a substance banned in 2016.
Russian Curling Federation president Dmitry Svishchev would not confirm the name of the athlete.
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) said on Monday that a second sample from the athlete had been taken and results would be available in 24 hours.
If confirmed positive by the second test, the incident could keep Russia’s team from being reinstated and marching under the national flag at the closing ceremony.
Svishchev said it was possible that athlete’s food or drink had been tampered with, suggesting that rival Russian athletes or Russia’s political enemies could be responsible.
Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova was suspended for 15 months after testing positive for meldonium at the Australian Open in 2016. For ten years she had used meldonium, a drug designed for people with heart problems.
Although the idea of a curler using performance-enhancing drugs may seem strange, the sport demands a high level of physical fitness at the Olympic level.
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Riding a 270-kilogram Walking Robot
Robotic wheelchairs are already available in some countries. But what if a disabled person needs to travel over a bumpy stretch of a road or climb stairs? A lab in South Korea is experimenting with a walking robot with a comfortable seat for a human operator. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Anti-Corruption Police Arrest Latvian Central Bank Chief
Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis assured the country and Europe “there is no sign of danger,” after anti-corruption police arrested the head of the Latvian central bank Saturday.
“For now, neither I, nor any other official, has any reason to interfere with the work of the Corruption Prevention Bureau,” Kucinskis said.
Neither Kucinskis nor the police gave any reason why central bank governor Ilmars Rimsevics was arrested. But a police spokeswoman said there will be an announcement “as soon as possible.”
The Latvian government plans an emergency meeting Monday.
Along with heading the Baltic nation’s central bank, Rimsevics is also one of 19 governors on the European Central Bank.
The U.S. Treasury Department has proposed sanctions against a major Latvian bank for alleged money laundering linked to North Korea’s weapons program.
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Tiny Pacemakers Could Be Game Changers for Heart Patients
Some new, tiny pacemakers are making headway around the world. One type is keeping 15,000 people’s hearts beating in 40 countries, according to the manufacturer. Studies show these small pacemakers are safe. And, as VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, doctors expect the technology will help more heart patients over time.
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Modest Designer Finds Fashion Connects People
New York’s Fashion Week is known as a showcase for top designers’ clothing. Among those whose clothes were on the runway at the recent Fall Fashion Week, is Vivi Zubedi, who designs modest clothing for Muslim women. Anshuman Apte reports from New York.
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Big Rigs Almost Driving Themselves on the Highway
Four automakers in Japan, including Mitsubishi and Isuzu, have road-tested a form of driverless technology. The big rigs are all equipped with a type of adaptive cruise-control system as a step toward removing the one feature you’d expect to see in the cab: a driver. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Missing Klimt Drawing Returned to Lentos Museum in Austria
A 100-year-old drawing by one of Austria’s most celebrated artists has come out of hiding.
Gustav Klimt’s drawing, Two Reclining Figures, has resurfaced after being lost from the Lentos Museum in Linz for decades, apparently hidden in the home of a former assistant at the museum who retired in 1977.
The drawing, which shows two female figures in blissful repose among fluffy bedcovers, was found after the assistant, whose name has not been released, left directions in her will that it be returned to the museum after her death. When she died in December 2017, her personal documents included instructions on where to find the drawing. It was stashed in a closet in her home.
“We were very surprised at this discovery,” said Julius Stieber, director of culture and education for the city of Linz. “We’d received a letter, but no one expected the drawing to be returned.”
Other works missing
The drawing will now be included in a 100-year retrospective showcasing the works of Klimt, as well as Austrian painters Egon Schiele and Koloman Moser on the centenary of their deaths. All three died in 1918.
Along with the Klimt drawing, three works by Schiele went missing after the four pieces were loaned to the museum, then known as the New Gallery, in 1951 by the artist and collector Olga Jager. Her family eventually brought a lawsuit and were awarded more than $10 million for the loss of the artworks.
A spokesman for the city of Linz said there were “no serious indications” that the assistant had taken the Schiele pieces along with the Klimt.
While the Klimt drawing will be returned to the family after the exhibition ends in May — in return for a refund of that part of their settlement — the search is still on for the pieces by Schiele. Officials hope the publicity from the exhibition may help unearth the missing artworks.
A police spokesperson told the Austrian news agency APA that anyone who may have possession of a lost artwork “should ask themselves if they are handling stolen goods, and do the reasonable thing and come forward.”
Another Klimt piece
One of Klimt’s best-known works is Adele Bloch-Bauer, a 1907 portrait that became the subject of a high-profile custody battle between Austria and Austrian-American Maria Altmann, a descendant of the family who owned the painting before it was confiscated by authorities during the Nazi era. The fight was chronicled in a book and movie known as Woman in Gold.
Altmann reclaimed the work in 2006 and sold it to a collector later that year for a record $135 million. It is now on display at the Neue Gallerie in New York City.
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