Star Wars Fans March with Glowing Lightsabers for Earth Hour
Twelve years after the inaugural Earth Hour observance in Australia, countries around the world continue joining the grassroots gesture against manmade CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions. This year in the Philippines, armed with lightsabers, fans of the movie Star Wars joined the world with a nod to a galaxy far, far away. Arash Arabasadi has more.
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German Train Car Arrives in New York for Auschwitz Exhibit
On a Sunday morning, a crane lowered a rusty remnant of the Holocaust onto tracks outside Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage — a vintage German train car like those used to transport men, women and children to Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.
The windowless boxcar is among 700 Holocaust artifacts, most never before seen in the United States, which are being prepared for one of the largest exhibits ever on Auschwitz — a once ordinary Polish town called Oswiecim that the Nazis occupied and transformed into a human monstrosity.
The New York exhibit opens May 8, the day in 1945 when Germany surrendered and the camps were liberated.
German-made freight wagons like the one in the exhibit were used to deport people from their homes all around Europe. About 1 million Jews and nearly 100,000 others were gassed, shot, hanged or starved in Auschwitz out of a total of 6 million who perished in the Holocaust.
That fate awaited them after a long ride on the kind of train car that’s the centerpiece of the New York exhibit.
“There were 80 people squeezed into one wooden car, with no facilities, just a pail to urinate,” remembers Ray Kaner, a 92-year-old woman who still works as a Manhattan dental office manager. “You couldn’t lie down, so you had to sleep sitting, and it smelled.”
She and her sister had been forced to board the train in August 1944 in occupied Poland, after their parents died in the Lodz ghetto where Jews were held captive.
The Germans promised the sisters a better new life.
“We believed them, and we schlepped everything we could carry,” she said. “We still had great hope.”
Once in Auschwitz, “they took away whatever we carried,” and prisoners were beaten, stripped naked and heads shaved bald.
Titled “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away,” the upcoming exhibit will transport visitors into the grisly faceoff between perpetrators and victims.
On display will be concrete posts from an Auschwitz fence covered in barbed and electrified wires; a gas mask used by the SS; a desk belonging to Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss; and a dagger and helmet used by Heinrich Himmler, the chief architect of Hitler’s “final solution.”
The collection of prisoners’ personal items includes a comb improvised from scrap metal; a trumpet one survivor used to save his life by entertaining his captors; and tickets for passage on the St. Louis, a ship of refugees whom the United States refused to accept, sending them back to Europe where some were killed by the Nazis.
The materials are on loan from about 20 institutions worldwide, plus private collections, curated by Robert Jan van Pelt, a leading Auschwitz authority, and other experts in conjunction with the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland and Musealia, a Spanish company that organizes traveling shows.
The New York one will run through Jan. 3.
The eight-decade-old box car brought to New York on a cargo ship came from a German auction, in terrible condition. Van Pelt’s team bought it and restored it.
“The dark, smelly car represents that moment of transition from the world of the living that people understood and trusted to the radically alien world of the camps where the doors opened and families were separated forever,” said van Pelt, whose relatives in Amsterdam lived down the street from Anne Frank’s family.
“The Nazis wanted to wipe out every last Jew in the world,” and at the end of a train trip, “this is where the last goodbyes were said.”
The exhibit items all belonged to somebody — most now gone, either because they were murdered in camps or survived and have since died. Some people who inherited artifacts came forward with stories attached to them.
Thousands of survivors live in New York City, among the last who can offer personal testimony.
And that’s why the exhibit is important, said real estate developer Bruce Ratner, the chairman of the museum’s board of trustees.
“While we had all hoped after the Holocaust that the international community would come together to stop genocide, mass murder and ethnic cleansing, these crimes continue and there are more refugees today than at any time since the Second World War,” said Ratner. “So my hope for this exhibit is that it motivates all of us to make the connections between the world of the past and the world of the present, and to take a firm stand against hate.”
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Center in Havana Opens to Preserve Hemingway’s Legacy
U.S. donors and Cuban builders have completed one of the longest-running joint projects between the two countries at a low point in bilateral relations.
Officials from the Boston-based Finca Vigia Foundation and Cuba’s National Cultural Heritage Council cut the ribbon Saturday evening on a state-of-the-art, $1.2 million conservation center on the grounds of Ernest Hemingway’s stately home on a hill overlooking Havana.
The center, which has been under construction since 2016, contains modern technology for cleaning and preserving a multitude of artifacts from the home where Hemingway lived in the 1940s and 1950s.
When he died in 1961, the author left approximately 5,000 photos, 10,000 letters and perhaps thousands of margin notes in roughly 9,000 books at the property.
“The laboratory we’re inaugurating today is the only one in Cuba with this capacity and it will allow us to contribute to safeguarding the legacy of Ernest Hemingway in Cuba,” said Grisell Fraga, director of the Ernest Hemingway Museum.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, spoke at the ceremony and called it a sign of the potential for U.S.-Cuban cooperation despite rising tensions between the Communist government and the Trump administration.
McGovern, who met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel and other Cuban officials during his visit, said that despite tensions over Venezuela, a Cuban ally, he still believed respectful dialogue was the most productive way of dealing with Cuba’s government.
The Trump administration has said it is trying to get rid of socialism in Latin America.
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New Exhibit Commemorates 50 Years of Gay Rights Movement
The streets around The Stonewall Inn are quiet now.
But 50 years ago in June 1969, this popular gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village was the site of violent confrontation when an unprovoked police raid triggered widespread outrage, resulting in several days of riots and demonstrations.
Many believe the uprising was the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement.
Now, a groundbreaking new exhibit titled “Rise Up: Stonewall and the LGBTQ Rights Movement” at the Newseum in Washington explores that tumultuous period in American history.
Exhibit writer Christy Wallover says the numerous displays focus on the courageous efforts of everyday Americans.
“This big movement was spurred on by people who wanted to make a change, whether that’s fighting for the right to work and serve, whether that’s parading in the streets and celebrating who you are, or whether that’s winning the right to marry.”
WATCH: New Exhibit Commemorates 50 Years of Gay Rights Movement
Marriage equality
Jim Obergefell was one of those people. He fought for marriage equality in the state of Ohio for him and his longtime partner, John Arthur.
They had been together for 18 years when Arthur was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and within two years was in at-home hospice care.
“Because we lived in Ohio, we were not able to get married,” Obergefell explained. So, the two chartered a medical jet and flew to Baltimore, Maryland, where same-sex marriage had become legal Jan.1, 2013.
They were married that year inside the airplane on the tarmac at Baltimore Washington International Airport by Arthur’s aunt Paulette Roberts.
Arthur died a few months later.
But Ohio did not recognize their marriage. Upon Arthur’s death, Obergefell could not be listed as Arthur’s surviving spouse. Obergefell sued the state.
The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Obergefell won. On June 26, 2015, marriage equality became the law of the land.
Symbolic artifacts
Obergefell loaned some of his most prized possessions to the Newseum to illustrate his story: the couple’s wedding rings that he had fused together after Arthur’s death; the jacket Obergefell wore when they married; and the bowtie he wore when the Supreme Court decision was announced.
Fighting back tears, Obergefell explained why he did it.
“Because it’s my marriage. It’s the love of my life. It’s the man I was willing to do anything for and to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to defend, and to protect, and to live up to my promises to him.”
Other items featured in the exhibit represent trailblazers such as Frank Kameny, who many consider the father of the LGBTQ rights movement.
His portable typewriter — on view in a display case — was used to create memos, pamphlets, “and everything he used to petition and protest the government,” Wallover explained.
There are also items from several U.S. politicians.
A red suit from Tammy Baldwin, who in 1998 became the first openly gay woman elected to Congress, and artifacts from Congressman Barney Frank, who revealed he was gay in an interview with The Boston Globe in 1987 after having served for three terms.
Also prominently featured is Harvey Milk, a leading human rights activist who became one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, and who was assassinated in 1978 after only a year in office.
There’s a letter of his that was in his jacket pocket when he was shot, according to Wallover.
For many, it’s personal
John Lake, who works for one of the sponsors of the exhibit, found it deeply personal.
“The 50th anniversary of Stonewall is so important to me personally, because I look back and all of the progress that’s been made has really happened within the course of my lifetime,” he explained.
Walking through the exhibit, he says he saw things that impacted his life “in a very real way.”
“Like seeing Jim Obergefell’s jacket that he was married in — that happened around the same time that I proposed to my husband,” he said. “So, to get that kind of grounding and to see those moments really coming to life for the community, it just really brings it home.”
While there have been great strides made in the gay rights movement over the past 50 years, many acknowledge there’s still much work to be done for the 4.5 percent of Americans — roughly 10 million people — who identify as LGBTQ, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer or Questioning.
“In the exhibit, we highlight the strides and the setbacks,” Wallover explained, pointing out that challenges remain for members of the LGBTQ community who are still striving for equality, such as transgender people.
“We talk about the transgender ban that’s currently in effect that the Supreme Court just upheld, and we also talk about the violence against that group, primarily transgender women of color,” she added. “So, we still have work to do.”
The exhibit, which will travel nationally after its run at the Newseum, includes educational resources for students and teachers.
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Some Conservative States Easing Access to Birth Control
Several Republican-led state legislatures are advocating for women to gain over-the-counter access to birth control in what they say is an effort to reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions.
State legislatures in Arkansas and Iowa, for example, are working on legislation that would allow women older than 18 the ability to receive birth control from a pharmacist rather than going first to a doctor for a prescription. The measures are seeing bipartisanship support in those states and come after similar laws have passed in nearly a dozen other states.
Arkansas legislation
Arkansas state Representative Aaron Pilkington, a Republican, said he started working on the bill after seeing “about a 15 percent decrease of teen births” after other states passed similar legislation. Arkansas consistently has one of the highest birth rates among teenagers in the country.
Pilkington said support for the bill “in many ways, it’s very generational. … I find that a lot of younger people and women are really in favor of this, especially mothers.”
According to the Oral Contraceptive (OCs) Over the Counter (OTC) Working Group, a reproductive rights group, more than 100 countries, including Russia, much of South America and countries in Africa, allow access to birth control without a prescription.
Women are required to get a doctor’s prescription to obtain and renew birth control in most of the U.S., much of Europe, Canada and Australia, according to the reproductive rights group.
Pilkington, who identifies as a “pro-life legislator,” said he brought the bill forward partly as an effort to counter unwanted pregnancies and abortions. The bill would require a doctor’s visit about every two years to renew the prescription.
Rural residents
Arkansas has a population of about 3 million people, a third of whom live in rural areas. Pilkington said the bill would likely benefit women who reside in rural areas or those who have moved to new cities and aren’t under a doctor’s care yet.
“A lot of times when they’re on the pill and they run out, they’ve gotta get a doctor’s appointment, and the doctor says, ‘I can’t see you for two months,’” he said. “Some people have to drive an hour and a half to see their PCP (primary care physician) or OB-GYN (obstetrician-gynecologist), so this makes a lot of sense.”
What Pilkington is proposing is not new. In 2012, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists endorsed the idea of making birth control available without a prescription. Today, at least 11 other states have passed legislation allowing for patients to go directly to the pharmacist, with some caveats.
In October, ahead of a tight midterm race, Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds raised a few eyebrows when she announced she would prioritize over-the-counter access to birth control in her state. Like Pilkington, she cited countering abortion as a main driver behind the proposed legislation. The bill closely models much of the language used in another Republican-sponsored bill In Utah that passed last year with unanimous support.
The planned Iowa legislation comes after the Republican-led state Legislature passed a bill in 2017 that rejected $3 million in federal funds for family-planning centers like Planned Parenthood.
The loss of federal funds forced Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit organization that provides health care and contraception for women, to close four of its 12 clinics in the state.
Since then, Jamie Burch Elliott, public affairs manager of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in Iowa, said that anecdotal evidence shows that sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies have gone up.
“With family planning, it takes time to see the impacts, so there are long-term studies going on to really study the impact of this,” said Burch Elliott. “Right away, we saw STI (sexually transmitted infections) and STD (sexually transmitted diseases) rates go up, particularly chlamydia and gonorrhea. As far as unintended pregnancy rates, we are hearing that they are rising, although the data is not out yet.”
Pro-life pushback
So far the Iowa legislation has received some pushback, mostly from a few pro-life groups.
The Iowa Right to Life organization has remained neutral on the issue of birth control, but the Iowa Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the bishops of Iowa, and Iowans for LIFE, a nonprofit anti-abortion organization, have come out against the bill, citing concerns that birth control should not be administered without a visit to a physician.
Maggie DeWitte, executive director of Iowans for LIFE, also pointed out that oral contraception can be an “abortifacient [that] sometimes cause abortions,” challenging Reynolds’ motivation for introducing the bill.
On the other hand, Iowa family-planning organizations and Democratic legislators are mostly on board.
“Policywise, I think this is really good,” said Heather Matson, a state representative of a district located just outside the state capital, Des Moines. She appreciated that insurance will still cover birth control, but took issue with the age restriction, saying she would like to see an option for people younger than 18. “Is it exactly the bill that I would have written, if given the opportunity? Not exactly.”
While Matson represents one of the fastest-growing districts in the country, she pointed to the number of “health care deserts” in rural Iowa, where a shortage of OB-GYNs is leading to the closure of some maternity wards.
Like Planned Parenthood’s Burch Elliott, Matson agreed that this bill would be just one step in providing more access to birth control for women in rural parts of the state.
“Even before Planned Parenthood was defunded, there wasn’t great access to birth control in Iowa to begin with,” Burch Elliott said. “Having said that, [this bill] is not a solution. Pharmacists are never going to be a replacement for Planned Parenthood, for example, where you’ll get STI and STD screenings, and any other cancer screenings or other preventive care that you might need.”
Regardless of whether the bills pass in Des Moines or Little Rock, Arkansas Representative Pilkington expects other states to follow suit.
“As the times have changed and you have a lot of conservative states like Tennessee, Arkansas, Utah (pass this legislation), I think it makes it way less of a partisan issue” and more of a good governance issue, he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see other states kind of pushing this as well. Especially when they see the success that other states are having with this.”
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Neonatal Cuddlers Help Babies Get a Good Start
The environment in a neonatal intensive care unit can be overwhelming, as staff care for infants who are ill or were born premature. Many exhausted parents and loved ones can’t be with their newborns around the clock, but at one Long Beach, Calif., hospital, trained volunteers are stepping in to help. Known as NICU cuddlers, they give infants the human touch that is so vital to every baby. For VOA, Angelina Bagdasaryan visited the hospital and has this story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Ebola Treatment Center in Congo Reopens After Attack
An Ebola treatment center located at the epicenter of the current outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has resumed operations after it was attacked last month, the country’s health ministry said Saturday.
The center run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in the district of Katwa was set on fire Feb. 24 by unknown attackers, forcing staff to evacuate patients.
It reopened Saturday, the ministry said in a statement.
“For now it is managed by the ministry in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF,” it said, referring to the U.N. children’s fund.
Aid workers have faced mistrust in some areas as they seek to contain the Ebola outbreak, which has become the most severe in Congo’s history. The WHO has said the distrust is fueled by false rumors about treatments and preference for traditional medicine.
Another MSF center in Butembo was also attacked in late February but reopened a week later.
MSF has pulled out from the area since the two attacks and has not said when it might resume medical activities.
The current Ebola epidemic, first declared last August, is believed to have killed at least 561 people so far and infected over 300 more.
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US, China Face Off Over 5G in Cambodia
For techies and phone geeks, Digital Cambodia 2019 was the place to be.
More than a dozen high school students clustered at the booth for Cellcard, Cambodia’s leading mobile operator. Under the booth’s 5G sign, they played video games on their phones.
Hak Kimheng, a ninth grade student in Phnom Penh, said his mom bought him a Samsung smartphone a few months ago, when he moved to the capital city from nearby Kandal province to live with his uncle while attending school. Like moms everywhere, she thought the smartphone would help her stay in touch with her son.
But smartphones being smartphones and kids being kids, Hak Kimheng, 16, has used it to set up an account on Facebook, Cambodia’s favorite social media platform. He’s also downloaded Khmer Academy, a tutoring app filled with math, physics and chemistry lessons.
And for one hour a day, Hak Kimheng watches soccer on the YouTube app he downloaded. While it’s better than nothing, the internet connection is “slow … and the video image is not clear,” he said. “I want it to be faster. … It’ll be good to have 5G.”
Not far from the Cellcard booth, Cambodian government officials, ASEAN telecom and IT ministers, businesspeople, telecom and tech company representatives gathered for the opening ceremonies of Digital Cambodia 2019. The event, which ran from March 15 to March 17, attracted more than 100 speakers from throughout Southeast Asia, high level officials, businesspeople, researchers and telecom company representatives.
The discussions focused on 5G, which, with speeds as much as 100 times faster than 4G, will mean better soccer viewing for Hak Kimheng and faster connections for all users. But 5G will also be central to a world of smart cities filled with smart homes and offices replete with devices connected to the “internet of things” humming along amid torrents of personal, business and official data.
‘A milestone year’
David Li, CEO of Cambodian operations for the Chinese company, Huawei, which is facing challenges over security from the U.S., spoke first, promising to “help Cambodia obtain better digital technology to improve social productivity and national economy.”
Government ministers, one from finance and economy and one from posts and telecommunication, listened as Li continued, pointing out that Huawei Technologies Cambodia launched in 1999. “We have been operating 2G, 3G, 4G, and now we’re heading toward 5G,” he said.
“Currently we are the only industry vendor that can provide the intertwined 5G system. I believe this year 2019 will be a milestone year for 5G in Cambodia,” Li said.
While this next generation of mobile networks will take years to roll out, the U.S. and China are in a race over whose technology will set the standards for 5G networks, something which will have immediate commercial value and carry longer term strategic implications for developing the dominant platform for 6G.
Citing concern that Huawei is, like all Chinese companies, linked to the Beijing government, the U.S. has been urging allies not to let Huawei build their 5G networks. But in countries like Thailand, which is Cambodia’s neighbor and a U.S. ally, Huawei is building and testing a 5G network because authorities said its low cost trumped U.S. pressure.
Huawei has long maintained it doesn’t provide back doors for the Chinese government, pointing out the lack of evidence to support the allegations, according to Bloomberg.
William Carter, deputy director of the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said earlier this month that any country doing business with Huawei on 5G will have to deal with the risk of Chinese influence.
“And the question will be to what extent is that concern enough to overcome the price advantage and the service advantages and the integrated financing advantages doing business with Huawei,” he said.
Rich market
As more private businesses and government services move toward cashless payment and online data access, Cambodia is emerging as a rich market for 5G telecoms. Approximately 13.6 million people, or 82 percent of Cambodians, use the internet, and about 7 million use Facebook, the number of mobile subscriptions is around 19.5 million by January 2019, or 120 percent penetration, according to the Ministry of Posts.
Sok Puthyvuth, secretary of state at the posts and telecommunication told VOA Khmer that Cambodia is eager for 5G, urging private companies, including mobile operators and internet companies, “to make 5G available across the country.”
Thomas Hundt, CEO of Smart Axiata, one of Cambodia’s mobile telecommunications operators, told VOA Khmer only that the company is preparing for a 5G rollout, because users’ data consumption is overwhelming the 4.5G network. “We see an immediate need to come out with the next evolution of technology … at some point this year.”
Cellcard CEO Ian Watson, said the company is targeting a commercial launch of 5G services in the second quarter of 2019.
Tram IvTek, Cambodia’s minister of Posts and Telecommunications said at the opening ceremony of Digital Cambodia that the government “is strongly committed to connecting the country and to ensure the benefits of ICT (information and communications technology) reach the remotest corners as well as the most vulnerable communities” by 2020.
Aun Pornmoniroth, minister of economy and finance in a March 12 workshop on Cambodia’s digital economy, suggested it will take “five to 10 years or more to set up a complete digital economy and turn Cambodia’s economy into a technological leader.”
Meas Po, undersecretary of state at Ministry of Post, said the government has yet to decide which company it will partner with for building the 5G infrastructure but it has not ruled out Huawei or other Chinese companies. “In our country, we have our protective system, in other countries, they have theirs. We don’t allow anyone to just freely hack our data.”
Protecting privacy
Smart Axiata’s Hundt said his company wanted to a partner that would “guarantee to us that the equipment is solid and sound [and] our users’ data is safeguarded and the network is fully secured from cyber-security perspectives.”
Nguon Somaly, who earned a master’s degree in law and technology at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia, has written extensively on data privacy in Cambodia. She contends Cambodian social media users don’t have the data privacy concerns of users in the U.S. and Europe.
“Cambodian youths don’t really care about privacy [on social media], but people in [the] EU are concerned about their data privacy,” said Somaly, referring to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which restricts how personal data is collected and handled.
“That is money and it can be analyzed and generate income,” Somaly said. “China is not a free country and privacy is not their priority. Their priority is to generate business opportunities and income.”
Xu Ning, a reporter with VOA’s Mandarin Service, contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
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Stones Postpone Tour as Jagger Seeks Medical Treatment
The Rolling Stones are postponing their latest tour so Mick Jagger can receive medical treatment.
The band announced Saturday that Jagger was told by doctors “he cannot go on tour at this time.” The band added that Jagger “is expected to make a complete recovery so that he can get back on stage as soon as possible.”
No more details about 75-year-old Jagger’s condition were provided.
The Stones’ No Filter Tour was expected to start April 20 in Miami.
Jagger says in the statement he hates letting the fans down but he’s “looking forward to getting back on stage as soon as I can.”
Tour promoters AEG Presents and Concerts West advise ticketholders to hold on to their existing tickets because will be valid for the rescheduled dates.
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Jackson, Nicks Enter Rock Hall of Fame, Along With 5 British Bands
Stevie Nicks, who became the first woman inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Janet Jackson, the latest member of the Jackson clan to enter the hall, called for other women to join them in music immortality on a night they were honored with five all-male British bands.
Jackson issued her challenge just before leaving the stage of Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” she said, “in 2020, induct more women.”
Neither Jackson or Nicks were around at the end of the evening when another Brit, Ian Hunter, led an all-star jam at the end to “All the Young Dudes.” The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs was the only woman onstage.
Five British bands
During the five-hour ceremony, Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music thanked multiple bass players and album cover designers, the Cure’s Robert Smith proudly wore his mascara and red lipstick a month shy of his 60th birthday and two of Radiohead’s five members showed up for trophies.
During Def Leppard’s induction, Rick Allen was moved to tears by the audience’s standing ovation when singer Joe Elliott recalled the drummer’s perseverance following a 1985 accident that cost him an arm.
Jackson wanted to be a lawyer
Jackson followed her brothers Michael and the Jackson 5 as inductees. She said she wanted to go to college and become a lawyer growing up, but her late father Joe had other ideas for her.
“As the youngest in my family, I was determined to make it on my own,” she said. “I was determined to stand on my own two feet. But never in a million years did I expect to follow in their footsteps.”
She encouraged Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, producers of her breakthrough “Control” album and most of her vast catalog, to stand in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center for recognition, as well as booster Questlove. She thanked Dick Clark of “American Bandstand” and Don Cornelius of “Soul Train,” along with her choreographers including Paula Abdul.
Jackson was inducted by an enthusiastic Janelle Monae, whose black hat and black leather recalled some of her hero’s past stage looks. She said Jackson had been her phone’s screen-saver for years as a reminder to be focused and fearless in how she approached art.
Nicks blueprint for success
Nicks was the night’s first induction. She is already a member of the hall as a member of Fleetwood Mac, but only the first woman to join 22 men, including all four Beatles members, to have been honored twice by the rock hall for the different stages of their career.
Nicks offered women a blueprint for success, telling them her trepidation in first recording a solo album while a member of Fleetwood Mac and encouraging others to match her feat.
“I know there is somebody out there who will be able to do it,” she said, promising to talk often of how she built her solo career. “What I am doing is opening up the door for other women.”
Radiohead
David Byrne inducted Radiohead, noting he was flattered the band named itself after one of his songs. He said their album “Kid A” was the one that really hooked him, and he was impressed Radiohead could be experimental in both their music and how they conduct business.
“They’re creative and smart in both areas, which was kind of a rare combination for artists, not just now but anytime,” he said.
With only drummer Philip Selway and guitarist Ed O’Brien on hand, Radiohead didn’t perform; there was a question of whether any of them would show up given the group’s past ambivalence about the hall. But both men spoke highly of the honor.
“This is such a beautifully surreal evening for us,” said O’Brien. “It’s a big (expletive) deal and it feels like it. … I wish the others could be here because they would be feeling it.”
The Cure
The Cure’s Smith has been a constant in a band of shifting personnel, and he stood onstage for induction Friday with 11 past and current members. Despite their goth look, the Cure has a legacy of pop hits, and performed three of them at Barclays, “I Will Always Love You,” “Just Like Heaven” and “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Visibly nervous, Smith called his induction a “very nice surprise” and shyly acknowledged the crowd’s cheers. “It’s been a fantastic thing, it really has,” he said. “We love you, too.”
Def Leppard
Def Leppard sold tons of records, back when musicians used to do that, with a heavy metal sound sheened to pop perfection on songs like “Photograph” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” They performed them in a set that climaxed the annual ceremony.
Singer Joe Elliott stressed the band’s working-class roots, thanking his parents and recalling how his father gave them 150 pounds to make their first recording in 1978.
Besides Allen’s accident, the band survived the 1991 death of guitarist Steve Clark. Elliott said there always seemed to be a looming sense of tragedy around the corner for the band, but “we wouldn’t let it in.”
Roxy Music
Roxy Music, led by the stylish Ferry, performed a five-song set that included hits “Love is the Drug,” “More Than This” and “Avalon.” (Brian Eno didn’t show for the event).
Simon LeBon and John Taylor of Duran Duran inducted them, with Taylor saying that hearing Roxy Music in concert at age 14 showed him what he wanted to do with his life.
“Without Roxy Music, there really would be no Duran Duran,” he said.
The soft-spoken Ferry thanked everyone from a succession of bass players to album cover designers.
“We’d like to thank everyone for this unexpected honor,” he said.
The Zombies
The Zombies, from rock ’n’ roll’s original British invasion, were the veterans of the night. They made it despite being passed over in the past, but were gracious in their thanks of the rock hall. They performed hits “Time of the Season,” “Tell Her No” and “She’s Not There.”
Zombies lead singer Rod Argent noted that the group had been eligible for the hall for 30 years but the honor had eluded them.
“To have finally passed the winning post this time — fantastic!”
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US Uses Obscure Agency to Target Chinese Foreign Investments
For decades, it was virtually unknown outside a small circle of investors, corporate lawyers and government officials.
But in recent years, the small interagency body known as the Committee for Investment in the United States has grown in prominence, propelled by a U.S. desire to use it as an instrument of national security and foreign policy.
This week, the panel made headlines after it reportedly directed Chinese gaming company Beijing Kunlun Tech to divest itself of Grindr, a popular gay dating app, because of concern the user data it collects could be used to blackmail military and intelligence personnel.
Operating out of the Treasury Department, the nine-member CFIUS (pronounced Cy-fius) reviews foreign investments in U.S. businesses to determine whether they pose a national security threat.
Notification was voluntary
Until last year, notifying the panel about such investments was voluntary, something Kunlun and California-based Grindr took advantage of when they closed a deal in 2016.
But given growing U.S. concern about Chinese companies with ties to Beijing buying businesses in sensitive U.S. industries, the committee’s rare intervention to undo the deal was hardly a surprise, said Harry Broadman, a former CFIUS member.
“I think anyone who was surprised by the decision really didn’t understand the legislative history, legislative landscape and the politics” of CFIUS, said Broadman, who is now a partner and chair of the emerging markets practice at consulting firm Berkley Research Group.
The action by CFIUS is the latest in a series aimed at Chinese companies investing in the U.S. tech sector and comes as the Trump administration wages a global campaign against telecom giant Huawei Technologies and remains locked in a trade dispute with Beijing. The U.S. says the state-linked company could gain access to critical telecom infrastructure and is urging allies to bar it from participating in their new 5G networks.
While the administration has yet to formulate a policy on Huawei, the world’s largest supplier of telecom equipment, the latest CFIUS action underscores how the U.S. is increasingly turning to the body to restrict Chinese investments across a broad swath of U.S. technology companies.
“CFIUS is one of the few tools that the government has that can be used on a case-by-case basis to try to untangle [a] web of dependencies and solve potential national security issues, and the government has become increasingly willing to use that tool more aggressively,” said Joshua Gruenspecht, an attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Washington, who represents companies before the committee.
CFIUS’s history has long been intertwined with politics and periodic public backlash against foreign investment in the U.S.
OPEC investments
In 1975 it was congressional concern over the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) investments in U.S. stocks and bonds that led President Gerald Ford to set up the committee through an executive order. It was tasked with monitoring the impact of foreign investment in the United States but had little other authority.
In the years that followed, backlash against foreign acquisitions of certain U.S. firms led Congress to beef up the agency.
In 1988, spurred in part by a Japanese attempt to buy a U.S. semiconductor firm, Congress enshrined CFIUS in law, granting the president the authority to block mergers and acquisitions that threatened national security.
In 2007, outrage over CFIUS’s decision to approve the sale of management operations of six key U.S. ports to a Dubai port operator led Congress to pass new legislation, broadening the definition of national security and requiring greater scrutiny by CFIUS of certain types of foreign direct investment, according to the Congressional Research Service.
But by far the biggest change to how CFIUS reviews and approves foreign transactions came last summer when Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018.
Slated to be fully implemented in 2020, the new law vastly expanded CFIUS’s jurisdiction and authority, requiring foreign companies that take even a non-controlling stake in a sensitive U.S. business to get the committee’s clearance.
While the new law did not mention China by name, concern about Chinese investments and national security dominated the debate that led to its enactment.
“There is no mistake that both the congressional intent and the executive intent has a clear eye on the role of China in the transactions,” Broadman said.
Threats to ‘technological superiority’
Under interim rules issued by the Treasury Department last fall, investments in U.S. businesses that develop and manufacture “critical technologies” in one or more of 27 designated industries are now subject to review by CFIUS. Most of the covered technologies are already subject to U.S. export controls. The designated industries are sectors where foreign investment “threatens to undermine U.S. technological superiority that is critical to U.S. national security,” according to the Treasury Department. They range from semiconductor machinery to aircraft manufacturing.
The new regulations mean that foreign companies seeking to invest in any of these technologies and industries must notify CFIUS at least 45 days prior to closing a deal. CFIUS will then have 30 days to clear the deal, propose a conditional approval or reject it outright. If parties to a transaction do not withdraw in response to CFIUS’s concerns, the president will be given 15 days to block it.
To date, U.S. presidents have blocked five deals — four of them involving Chinese companies. One was blocked by the late President George H.W. Bush in 1990, two by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and 2016, and two by President Donald Trump.
The number is deceptively small. A far greater number of deals are simply withdrawn by parties after they don’t get timely clearance or CFIUS opens a formal investigation. According to the Treasury Department, of the 942 notices of transactions filed with CFIUS between 2009 and 2016, 107 were withdrawn during the review or after an investigation.
In recent years, CFIUS has reviewed between 200 and 250 cases per year, according to Gruenspecht. But the number is likely to exceed 2,000 a year under the new CFIUS regime, he added.
The tighter scrutiny has raised questions about whether the new law strikes the right balance between encouraging foreign investment and protecting national security.
“I think the short answer is it’s too early to tell,” Gruenspecht said. However, he added, if the new law “becomes a recipe for taking foreign investment off the table for whole realms of new emerging technology, that crosses a lot of boundaries.”
Concern in Europe
The U.S. is not the only country toughening screening measures for foreign investment. In December, the European Union proposed a new regulation for members to adopt “CFIUS-like” foreign investment review processes.
Gruenspecht said that while foreign investors are not “thrilled” about the additional CFIUS scrutiny, “a lot of Western nations are also saying, actually, ‘We totally understand the rational behind CFIUS and we’re looking to implement our own internal versions of CFIUS ourselves.’ ”
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Facebook Beefs Up Political Ad Rules Ahead of EU Election
Facebook said Friday it is further tightening requirements for European Union political advertising, in its latest efforts to prevent foreign interference and increase transparency ahead of the bloc’s parliamentary elections.
However, some EU politicians criticized the social media giant, saying the measures will make pan-European online campaigning harder.
Under the new rules, people, parties and other groups buying political ads will have to confirm to Facebook that they are located in the same EU country as the Facebook users they are targeting.
That’s on top of a previously announced requirement for ad buyers to confirm their identities. It means advertisements aimed at voters across the EU’s 28 countries will have to register a person in each of those nations.
“It’s a disgrace that Facebook doesn’t see Europe as an entity and appears not to care about the consequences of undermining European democracy,” Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the parliament’s liberal ALDE group, said on Twitter. “Limiting political campaigns to one country is totally the opposite of what we want.”
The response underscores the balancing act for Silicon Valley tech companies as they face pressure from EU authorities to do more to prevent their platforms being used by outside groups, including Russia, to meddle in the May elections. Hundreds of millions of people are set to vote for more than 700 EU parliamentary lawmakers.
Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, said it will start blocking ads that don’t comply in mid-April.
The company will ask ad buyers to submit documents and use technical checks to verify their identity and location.
Facebook statement
“We recognize that some people can try and work around any system but we are confident this will be a real barrier for anyone thinking of using our ads to interfere in an election from outside of a country,” Richard Allen, Facebook’s vice president of global policy solutions, said in a blog post.
Facebook said earlier this year that EU political ads will carry “paid for by” disclaimers. Clicking the label will reveal more detailed information such as how much money was spent on the ad, how many people saw it, and their age, gender and location.
The ad transparency rules have already been rolled out in the U.S., Britain, Brazil, India, Ukraine and Israel. Facebook will expand them globally by the end of June.
Twitter and Google have introduced similar political ad requirements.
Facebook is also making improvements to a database that stores ads for seven years, including widening access so that election regulators and watchdog groups can analyze political or issue ads.
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Agnes Varda, French New Wave Pioneer, Dies at 90
Agnes Varda, the French New Wave pioneer who for decades beguiled, challenged and charmed moviegoers in films that inspired generations of filmmakers, has died. She was 90.
Varda’s production company, Cine-Tamaris, said Varda died early morning Friday at her home in Paris from cancer.
With a two-tone bowl haircut, the Belgian-born Varda was a spirited, diminutive figure who towered over more than a half century of moviemaking. Her first film, made at the age of 27, “La Pointe Courte,” earned her the nickname Grandmother of the New Wave, even though she — the sole woman among the movement — was a contemporary of its participants, including Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Demy, whom she later married.
A photographer-turned-filmmaker, Varda’s films fluctuated between fiction and documentary, often blurring the line in between. Her 1962 breakthrough, “Cleo From 5 to 7,” followed a glamorous woman (Corinne Marchand) in real time across Paris while she awaited results of a cancer exam. In her 2017 Oscar nominated road trip “Faces Places,” she traversed the French countryside with the street artist JR, pasting giant images of people they encountered on building facades.
“Life comes through the frame and through the stock. It’s like a filter,” Varda said in an interview in 2017. “I feel I am an artist but I am a movie maker. I make a film with my hands. I love the editing, I love the mixing. It’s a tool to make other people exist. It’s giving understanding between people.”
Varda worked almost right up to her death, releasing the scrapbook documentary “Varda by Agnes” earlier this year. She had originally intended her 2008 cinematic memoir “Beaches by Agnes” to be her swan song but, to her surprise, ended up with another decade of work. “I’m 90 and I don’t care,” she says into the camera in “Varda by Agnes.”
In 2015, Varda was given an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2017, she was given an honorary Academy Award. But she was more content, she said, “in the margins.” “I’m flattered,” she said of the Oscar, “but not that much.”
Varda’s films quickly became feminist landmarks and she a champion of women behind the camera. One of the only female filmmakers in France when she started, she led an insurgency that continued, in greater number, through her life. At the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, she helped preside over a protest for gender equality on the red carpet steps of the festival’s central Palais with 81 other women.
At the premiere of what she called her “feminist musical,” “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t,” in 1977, she introduced “a film about women who were also people.” Her “Vagabond,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1985, followed a young female drifter (Sandrine Bonnaire) discovered dead in a freezing ditch.
“When I started, my point was not to be a woman,” said Varda. “I wanted to do radical cinema.”
Varda’s death was immediately felt across the movie industry. The Cannes Film Festival said: “The place she occupied is irreplaceable. Agnes loved images, words and people. She’s one of those whose youth will never fade.” “Moonlight” filmmaker Barry Jenkins recalled a legend whose “life and work were undeniably fused.”
Arlette Varda was born in Brussels, Belgium on May 30, 1928 to a French mother and Greek father. Varda, who later changed her name to Agnes, started as a photographer after studying literature and arts. In 1951, she was appointed official photographer of the Theatre National Populaire, and remained in that position for the next decade.
In 1954, well before Godard and Francois Truffaut became the emblematic figures of the New Wave, Varda’s first movie, “La Pointe Courte,” followed a couple going through a crisis in the small port of Sete on the Mediterranean coast. The movie was cut by Alain Resnais but was regarded as too radical at the time and only had a limited release. Varda contrasted the young couple’s story with the local villagers’ struggle to survive, eventually linking the two seemingly disparate ways of life.
She deliberately used a real fishing village, wanting to give the film the look of a documentary. “I’ve always been using reality as a texture to understand better,” she said. “I like for stories to look true.”
She made several documentary shorts, but inadequate funds prevented Varda from making her next feature, “Cleo From 5 to 7,” until 1961. Backed by French businessman Georges de Beauregard, who had supported Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless,” the film studied Cleo’s evolvement from a shallow pop star to an authentic human being capable of understanding pain in herself and others.
“I obliged myself to follow the time. Ninety minutes, one after another. Real time and real geography,” said Varda. “I filmed all the steps, all the streets. What she does, it could be retraced. I gave myself something difficult because inside the difficulty, I wanted to hear her heart beating.”
The widely hailed “Cleo” built anticipation for her next film, “Happiness,” which won the Silver Bear award at the 1965 Berlin Festival.
Varda married Demy, the “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” director, in 1962 and two were married until his death in 1990. They worked separately but alongside each other, regularly occupying opposite sides of the courtyard of their Paris home.
The filmmaking couple also spent several years in Hollywood in the late `60s. Demy made “Model Shop” there while Varda befriended Jim Morrison of the Doors (she was one of just a handful of people to attend Morrison’s 1971 funeral in Paris’ Pere Lachais cemetery), filmed the Los Angeles-set “Lions Love” and interviewed the imprisoned Black Panther leader Huey Newton for the 1968 documentary “Black Panthers.”
She and Demy had two children together: Mathieu Demy and Rosalie Varda, who both found career in French filmmaking. Varda is survived by both.
Demy’s death fueled Varda’s late period of documentaries, including several heartfelt tributes to her husband including 1991’s “Jacquot de Nantes.”
“I had to stay alive even though he died. I made two films about him. Then I went off and I did cinema. Fiction films are beautiful but documentaries put you at peace with the world. You try to make the world understandable, make the people come near to you.”
One of those documentaries, the 2000 film “The Gleaners and I,” is considered by some her masterwork. Documenting people who live off the garbage thrown out by others, it’s a meditation on waste and reuse, art and death.
“Filming, especially a documentary, is gleaning,” Varda told IndieWire. “Because you pick what you find. You bend. You go around. You are curious.”
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Students Mix Tech, Fashion Wearables for the Disabled
Most of us don’t give much thought to getting dressed every day, but for the elderly and disabled, seemingly simple tasks – like buttoning a shirt – can prove complicated. Fashion design students recently looked at low-tech ways to make clothes smarter. Tina Trinh reports.
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US Seniors Use Marijuana to Ease Pain, Fight Sleeplessness
Once stigmatized and banned across the United States, marijuana is now legalized in many parts of the country, primarily for medicinal use, but increasingly also for recreation. As cannabis becomes mainstream, Americans in their 70s and 80s who used to get high on marijuana in their youth, are now using cannabis-infused products to relieve old age aches and pains. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has this report.
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Graphene Begins to Realize its Potential
At one atom thick, graphene is one of those miracle materials that many say is the stuff of the future. The future may be now as graphene’s potential is being realized as the key to quick efficient 5G networks, and the future of telecommunications. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Surgeons Perform First HIV-to-HIV Kidney Transplant
For the first time, a person living with HIV has donated a kidney to a transplant recipient also living with HIV.
A team from Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore performed the surgery March 25.
“A disease that was a death sentence in the 1980s has become one so well-controlled that those living with HIV can now save lives with kidney donation,” Dr. Dorry Segev, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said Thursday at a news conference.
Organs have been transplanted from an HIV-positive cadaver to an HIV-positive patient; however, HIV is known to cause kidney disease, so people living with HIV have not previously been able to donate kidneys.
Segev said he and his colleagues researched more than 40,000 people living with HIV, looking specifically at kidney health. They found that people whose HIV was under control have the same health risks as those without HIV, and are healthy enough to donate kidneys.
In addition, antiretroviral therapy allows people with HIV to have a normal lifespan.
Stigma of HIV
Dr. Christine Durand, an infectious disease and cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins, said the transplant procedure advances medicine while helping defeat the stigma associated with HIV.
“It challenges providers and the public to see HIV differently,” she said. “Every successful transplant shortens the waitlist for all patients, no matter their HIV status.”
Durand and Segev are leading HOPE in Action, an effort that encompasses multiple national studies exploring the feasibility, safety and effectiveness of HIV-to-HIV transplantation. Currently, HIV to non-HIV organ donations are not legal.
The donor
The kidney donor, Nina Martinez, has had HIV since early childhood. She decided she wanted to be a donor after watching a TV drama about the first living kidney donor with HIV.
“Some people believe that people living with HIV are sick, or look unwell,” said Martinez, who works to eliminate the stigma surrounding HIV. “As a policy advocate, I want people to change what they believe they know about HIV. I don’t want to be anyone’s hero. I want to be someone’s example, someone’s reason to consider donating.”
After corresponding with Segev, Martinez traveled to Baltimore last year for an evaluation. The surgical team at Johns Hopkins found that Martinez had healthy kidneys and a very low amount of HIV in her blood.
People with well-controlled HIV who don’t have a history of diabetes, uncontrolled high blood pressure, or protein in their urine could be healthy enough to donate.
Segev said both the donor and the recipient are doing well. The recipient has asked to remain anonymous.
About 113,000 people are on the transplant waiting list in the United States. The longest wait is for a kidney. About 20 Americans die each day while waiting.
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UN Chief Urges ‘Greater Ambition’ in Tackling Climate Change
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned Thursday that climate change was moving faster than international efforts to mitigate it.
“It is important that we tackle climate change with much greater ambition,” Guterres told reporters at the launch of a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) annual report on the subject.
The report warns that key climate change indicators are becoming more pronounced.
Levels of carbon dioxide — a main driver of global warming — are the highest they have been in 3 million years, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As a result, oceans are heating up and their waters are becoming more acidic, affecting all kinds of marine life.
Higher temperatures
Temperatures on land are also rising — 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record, and the years 2015 to 2018 were the four warmest in global temperature record-keeping, the WMO report said.
The secretary-general said it was necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent over the next decade in order to be carbon neutral globally by 2050.
“If not, it will be irreversible, not to be able to achieve the goals that were established in Paris,” Guterres said of the 2015 climate agreement. “We are very close to the moment in which it will no longer be possible to come to the end of the century with only 1.5 degrees. We have very few years to reverse these trends, because the concentrations of CO2 [carbon dioxide] in the atmosphere will not disappear.”
The aim under the Paris Agreement is to keep the planet from warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Scientists hope to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“We have both the technical and financial means to reach the 1.5 percent target,” WMO chief Petteri Taalas told reporters at the launch.
But if the world fails to make the necessary changes quickly, the U.N. warned, a warming planet can lead to all sorts of difficulties. Droughts and floods could destroy crops and livestock, causing food insecurity; changes in the oceans will affect fishing and ecosystems; rising sea levels could jeopardize large coastal cities; and humans will feel health effects from pollution and heat waves. Such upheavals will also lead to more displaced persons, increased migration and social instability.
Weather disasters
Extreme weather events are already on the rise, with this month’s Cyclone Idai just the most recent example. The storm’s deadly winds and huge rainfall struck parts of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, killing hundreds and wiping out homes and livelihoods. Last year, the report counted 14 weather- and climate-related disasters in the United States, costing nearly $50 billion in damage.
The U.N. is hosting a summit in September on the margins of the annual General Assembly gathering of leaders that it hopes will mobilize new climate mitigation and adaptation initiatives.
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US Housing Department Charges Facebook With Housing Discrimination
Facebook was charged with discrimination by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because of its ad-targeting system.
HUD said Thursday Facebook is allowing advertisers to exclude people based on their neighborhood by drawing a red line around those neighborhoods on a map and giving advertisers the option of showing ads only to men or only to women.
The agency also claims Facebook allowed advertisers to exclude people that the social media company classified as parents; non-American-born; non-Christian; interested in accessibility; interested in Hispanic culture or a wide variety of other interests that closely align with the Fair Housing Act’s protected classes.
HUD, which is pursuing civil charges and potential monetary awards that could run into the millions, said Facebook’s ad platform is “encouraging, enabling, and causing housing discrimination” because it allows advertisers to exclude people who they don’t want to see their ads.
The claim from HUD comes less than a week after Facebook said it would overhaul its ad-targeting systems to prevent discrimination in housing , credit and employment ads as part of a legal settlement with a group that includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Fair Housing Alliance and others.
The technology at the heart of the clashes is what has helped turned Facebook into a goliath with annual revenue of close to $56 billion.
It can offer advertisers and groups the ability to direct messages with precision to exactly the crowd that they want to see it. The potential is as breathtaking as it is potentially destructive.
Facebook has taken fire for allowing groups to target groups of people identified as “Jew-haters” and Nazi sympathizers. There remains the fallout from the 2016 election, when, among other things, Facebook allowed fake Russian accounts to buy ads targeting U.S. users to enflame political divisions.
The company is wrestling with several government investigations in the U.S. and Europe over its data and privacy practices. A shakeup this month that ended with the departure of some of Facebook’s highest ranking executives raised questions about the company’s direction.
The departures came shortly after CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out a new “privacy-focused” vision for social networking. He has promised to transform Facebook from a company known for devouring the personal information shared by its users to one that gives people more ways to communicate in truly private fashion, with their intimate thoughts and pictures shielded by encryption in ways that Facebook itself can’t read.
However, HUD Secretary Ben Carson said Thursday there is little difference between the potential for discrimination in Facebook’s technology, and discrimination that has taken place for years.
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” Carson said. “Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday.
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British Report Finds Technical Risks in Huawei Network Gear
British cybersecurity inspectors have found significant technical issues in Chinese telecom supplier Huawei’s software that they say pose risks for the country’s telecom companies.
The annual report Thursday said there is only “limited assurance” that long-term national security risks from Huawei’s involvement in critical British telecom networks can be adequately managed.
The report adds pressure on Huawei, which is at the center of a geopolitical battle between the U.S. and China.
The U.S. government wants its European allies to ban the company from next-generation mobile networks set to roll out in coming years over fears Huawei gear could be used for cyberespionage.
The report noted that Britain’s cybersecurity authorities did not believe the defects were a result of “Chinese state interference.”
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Trump: FBI and DOJ to Review Smollett Case
President Donald Trump says the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice will review the case of Jussie Smollett, after Chicago police dropped charges against the television actor who was accused of falsely reporting being a target of a hate crime.
Writing on Twitter, Trump called the case “outrageous” and an “embarrassment to our Nation.” So far there has been no statement from the FBI or Justice Department on the matter.
Smollett’s attorneys announced Tuesday their client’s record had been “wiped clean.
A spokeswoman for the Cook Country prosecutor’s office said “After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case.” She added that Smollett will forfeit a $10,000 bond payment.
But Chicago police as well as mayor Rahm Emanuel have spoken out angrily about the development. “This is without a doubt a whitewash of justice,” Emanuel said, complaining that the grand jury in the case heard “only a sliver” of the evidence.
Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson said, “”Do I think justice was served? No. What do I think justice is? I think this city is still owed an apology.”
Smollett, who is black and gay, responded publicly to the decision, thanking family, friends, and fans who supported him and vowing, “I have been truthful and consistent on every level since day one. I would not be my mother’s son if I was capable of one drop of what I have been accused of.”
Smollett reported in January that he had been sent a threatening letter and was then attacked on the street by two men he didn’t know who wrapped a rope around his neck and attempted to pour bleach on him while yelling racial and homophobic slurs. He also said they yelled, “this is MAGA country,” referring to President Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
Police later said that Smollett had staged the attack himself, paying two physical trainers $3,500 to carry it out.
Smollett plays a gay character on the television show “Empire,” which is filmed in Chicago.
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NY County Declares Emergency Over Measles Outbreak
So far this year, more than 300 people have contracted measles in 15 states in the U.S. Almost half of those cases occurred in Rockland County, just north of New York City.
Because of the outbreak, which has lasted nearly six months, county officials have declared a state of emergency and are banning anyone who is unvaccinated from frequenting public places.
“Anyone who is under 18 years of age and is not vaccinated against the measles will be prohibited from public places until the declaration expires in 30 days or until they receive their first shot of MMR,” said Ed Day, county executive.
WATCH: New York County Declares Emergency Over Measles
Public places include shopping malls, restaurants, buses and trains. Police will not be asking for vaccination records, but parents can face a fine of $500 and as much as six months in jail if they refuse to vaccinate their children.
The outbreak is concentrated in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
‘Roll of the dice’
The county executive says it is a matter of getting parents to understand how dangerous measles is.
“Every new case is a roll of the dice,” Day said. “It could bring on pneumonia, encephalitis, the swelling of the brain, or cause premature birth, which can lead to complications and even death.”
And, he said, it’s a matter of keeping those who can’t get vaccinated safe.
“What about the infants who are out there with mom and dad? My newborn grandson is an infant. What about those who are pregnant and those with compromised immune systems like cancer patients and survivors? These are the people we all need to step up for,” Day said.
Vaccine rates vary
Vaccine rates in the U.S. are still high. A CDC study found that 94 percent of children in the U.S. receive the first dose of vaccines that protect against measles, mumps, rubella and other vaccine preventable diseases.
But vaccines that require boosters, including the vaccine against measles, had lower rates of coverage.
Some states allow parents who oppose vaccinating their children for religious or philosophical reasons to opt out. Vaccination rates in these states have dropped steadily. And as they have dropped, cases of measles have increased.
Vaccines proven safe
Some parents wrongly believe vaccines can cause autism in children. Study after study has shown that not to be true. Dr. Frank Esper, a pediatrician with the Cleveland Clinic, defends vaccinating children.
“These vaccines are well shown to be safe,” he said. “We have tested them. We have followed children who have received these vaccines. We know how safe they are.”
Still, some parents remain unconvinced. Rockland County is offering free measles vaccinations in an effort to end the outbreak.
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New York County Declares Emergency Over Measles Outbreak
So far this year, more than 300 people have had measles in 15 states in the U.S. Almost half have occurred in Rockland County just north of New York City. County officials are now banning anyone who is unvaccinated from frequenting public places. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.
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Students Mix Tech, Fashion Wearables for Disabled
Most of us don’t give much thought to getting dressed every day, but for the elderly and disabled, seemingly simple tasks like buttoning a shirt can prove complicated. Fashion design students recently looked at low-tech ways to make clothes smarter. VOA’s Tina Trinh reports.
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