This Day in History: Famed Physicist Albert Einstein is Born in 1879
On this day in 1879, famed physicist Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany.
Best known for his theories of relativity, Einstein would toil alone with his obsessive queries of the universe for years in the Swiss patent office before gaining international recognition by winning the Nobel Prize for physics in 1921.
Space and time and E = mc 2
In 1905, Einstein addressed what he termed his special theory of relativity. In special relativity, time and space are not absolute, but relative to the motion of the observer.
In other words, Einstein posited that the universe was not static, but instead, expanding.
Thus, two objects traveling at great speeds with regard to each other would not necessarily observe simultaneous events in time at the same moment, nor agree on their measurements of space. He theorized that the speed of light, which is the limiting speed of any body having mass, is constant in all frames of reference.
He expanded on this theory, searching for a mathematical equation that could calculate his belief that mass and energy were equivalent. Einstein famously created that equation, known as E = mc 2.
General relativity
In 1916, he published The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity, which proposed that gravity, as well as motion, impact time and space.
According to Einstein, gravitation is not a force, as his longtime scientific hero Isaac Newton had argued; rather, Einstein believed gravity was a curved field in the space-time continuum, created by the presence of mass.
An object of very large gravitational mass, such as the sun, would therefore appear to warp space and time around it, which could be demonstrated by observing starlight as it skirted the sun on its way to earth.
In 1919, astronomers studying a solar eclipse confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity, propelling him to instant celebrity.
As a world-renowned public figure, he became increasingly political, taking up the cause of Zionism and speaking out against militarism and rearmament.
In his native Germany, this made him an unpopular figure. After Nazi leader Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Einstein renounced his German citizenship, freeing him from military service, and left the country. He later moved to the United States and became a U.S. citizen.
The atom bomb
In 1939, despite his lifelong pacifist beliefs, he agreed to write to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of a group of scientists who were concerned with American inaction in the field of atomic-weapons research.
“The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing.” Albert Einsten
Like the other scientists, he feared sole German possession of such a weapon.
He played no role in the subsequent Manhattan Project and later deplored the use of atomic bombs against Japan.
After the war, he called for the establishment of a world government that would control nuclear technology and prevent future armed conflict.
Later in life, he worked on a unified field theory, which he never completed to his or other scientists’ satisfaction.
Einstein died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1999, Time magazine named him Person of the Century.
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Burundi Says Malaria Reaches Epidemic Proportions
Health experts say more than 700 people have died of malaria so far this year in Burundi, prompting the government to declare the disease an epidemic.
The determination was based on findings of a survey by Burundian and World Health Organization experts, said Josiane Nijimbere, Burundi’s Minister of Health.
She said there have been 1.8 million cases of malaria registered since the beginning of the year — a huge number in a country with a population of less than 11 million.
The minister attributed the increase of malaria partly to climate change.
“There is a strong association between malaria and warm temperatures, which have led to significant increase in malaria cases because of the spread of mosquitoes,” Nijimbere told reporters Monday.
According to the World Health Organization, some 8.2 million Burundians — 73 percent of the total population — were affected by malaria in 2016. More than 3,800 died.
The health minister said government is dispatching doctors and health care providers to villages to care for patients who cannot afford to go to hospitals.
The government says it needs at least $31 million to fight the epidemic.
Aid agencies have warned that Burundi’s ongoing political crisis is hurting the economy and contributing to a humanitarian crisis.
The small African country has been in turmoil since President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a controversial third term in 2015. Some 400,000 Burundians have fled to neighboring countries to escape political violence and reported human rights abuses.
A U.N. report last month said the number of people in need of assistance increased from 1.1 million to at least 3 million.
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African Governments Learn to Block the Internet, but at Cost
The mysterious Facebook blogger kept dishing up alleged government secrets. One day it was a shadowy faction looting cash from Uganda’s presidential palace with impunity. The next was a claim that the president was suffering from a debilitating illness.
For authorities in a country that has seen just one president since 1986, the critic who goes by Tom Voltaire Okwalinga is an example of the threat some African governments see in the exploding reach of the internet – bringing growing attempts to throttle it.
Since 2015 about a dozen African countries have had wide-ranging internet shutdowns, often during elections. Rights defenders say the blackouts are conducive to carrying out serious abuses.
The internet outages also can inflict serious damage on the economies of African countries that desperately seek growth, according to research by the Brookings Institution think tank.
Uganda learned that lesson. In February 2016, amid a tight election, authorities shut down access to Facebook and Twitter as anger swelled over delayed delivery of ballots in opposition strongholds. During the blackout, the police arrested the president’s main challenger. Over $2 million was shed from the country’s GDP in just five days of internet restrictions, the Brookings Institution said.
The shutdowns also have “potential devastating consequences” for education and health, says the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, an organization founded by a mobile phone magnate that monitors trends in African governance.
As more countries gain the technology to impose restrictions, rights observers see an urgent threat to democracy.
“The worrying trend of disrupting access to social media around polling time puts the possibility of a free and fair electoral process into serious jeopardy,” said Maria Burnett, associate director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
In the past year, internet shutdowns during elections have been reported in Gabon, Republic of Congo and Gambia, where a long-time dictator cut off the internet on the eve of a vote he ultimately lost.
In Uganda, where the opposition finds it hard to organize because of a law barring public meetings without the police chief’s authorization, the mysterious blogger Okwalinga is widely seen as satisfying a hunger for information that the state would like to keep secret. His allegations, however, often are not backed up with evidence.
It is widely believed that Uganda’s government has spent millions trying to unmask Okwalinga. In January an Irish court rejected the efforts of a Ugandan lawyer who wanted Facebook to reveal the blogger’s identity over defamation charges.
“What Tom Voltaire Okwalinga publishes is believable because the government has created a fertile ground to not be trusted,” said Robert Shaka, a Ugandan information technology specialist. “In fact, if we had an open society where transparency is a key pillar of our democracy there would be no reason for people like Tom Voltaire Okwalinga.”
In 2015, Shaka himself was arrested on suspicion of being the blogger and charged with violating the privacy of President Yoweri Museveni, allegations he denied. While Shaka was in custody, the mystery blogger kept publishing.
“Who is the editor of Facebook? Who is the editor of all these things they post on social media? Sometimes you have no option, if something is at stake, to interfere with access,” said Col. Shaban Bantariza, a spokesman for the Ugandan government.
Although the government doesn’t like to impose restrictions, the internet can be shut down if the objective is to preserve national security, Bantariza said.
In some English-speaking territories of Cameroon where the locals have accused the central government of marginalizing their language in favor of French, the government has shut down the internet for several weeks.
Internet advocacy group Access Now earlier estimated that the restrictions in Cameroon have cost local businesses more than $1.39 million.
“Internet shutdowns – with governments ordering the suspension or throttling of entire networks, often during elections or public protests – must never be allowed to become the new normal,” Access Now said in an open letter to internet companies in Cameroon, saying the shutdowns cut off access to vital information, e-financing and emergency services.
In Zimbabwe, social media is a relatively new concern for the government following online protests launched by a pastor last year. Aside from blocking social media at times, the government has increased internet fees by nearly 300 percent.
In Ethiopia, where a government-controlled company has a monopoly over all telecom services, internet restrictions have been deeply felt for months. The country remains under a state of emergency imposed in October after sometimes deadly anti-government protests. Restrictions have ranged from shutting down the internet completely to blocking access to social media sites.
Just 30 days of internet restrictions between July 2015 and July 2016 cost Ethiopia’s economy over $8 million, according to figures by the Brookings Institution. The country has been one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies.
Ethiopia’s government insists social media is being used to incite violence, but many citizens are suspicious of that stance.
“What we are experiencing here in Ethiopia is a situation in which the flow of information on social media dismantled the traditional propaganda machine of the government and people begin creating their own media platforms. This is what the government dislikes,” said Seyoum Teshome, a lecturer at Ethiopia’s Ambo University who was jailed for 82 days last year on charges of inciting violence related to his Facebook posts.
“The government doesn’t want the spread of information that’s out of its control, and this bears all the hallmarks of dictatorship,” Seyoum said.
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Facebook Bars Developers from Using Data for Surveillance
Facebook barred software developers on Monday from using the massive social network’s data to create surveillance tools, closing off a process that had been exploited by U.S. police departments to track protesters.
Facebook, its Instagram unit and rival Twitter came under fire last year from privacy advocates after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a report that police were using location data and other user information to spy on protesters in places such as Ferguson, Missouri.
In response to the ACLU report, the companies shut off the data access of Geofeedia, a Chicago-based data vendor that said it works with organizations to “leverage social media,” but Facebook policy had not explicitly barred such use of data in the future.
“Our goal is to make our policy explicit,” Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy chief privacy officer, said in a post on the social network on Monday. He was not immediately available for an interview.
The change would help build “a community where people can feel safe making their voices heard,” Sherman said.
Racially charged protests broke out in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in the aftermath of the August 2014 shooting of black teenager Michael Brown by a white police officer.
In a 2015 email message, a Geofeedia employee touted its “great success” covering the protests, according to the ACLU report based on government records.
Representatives of Geofeedia could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday. The company has worked with more than 500 law enforcement agencies, the ACLU said.
Geofeedia Chief Executive Officer Phil Harris said in October that the company was committed to privacy and would work to build on civil rights protections.
Major social media platforms including Twitter and Alphabet Inc’s YouTube have taken action or implemented policies similar to Facebook’s, said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California.
Ozer praised the companies’ action but said they should have stopped such use of data earlier. “It shouldn’t take a public records request from the ACLU for these companies to know what their developers are doing,” she said.
It was also unclear how the companies would enforce their policies, said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, a nonprofit that opposes government use of social media for surveillance.
Inside corporations, “is the will there, without constant activist pressure, to enforce these rules?” Cyril said.
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FBI Official to Tech Word: Try to Understand Us
So what was the FBI doing at the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals in Austin, Texas, primarily known for music, movies and interactive media?
James Baker, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s general counsel, took the stage at a hotel in Austin, Texas, on Monday to present a human face to the issues of encryption and cyber security. He talked about the quandaries law enforcement grapples with in the digital age.
The FBI has been in the center of a maelstrom over Wikileaks disclosures about CIA practices, foreign government election tampering and whether President Donald Trump was subject to a wiretap when he was a presidential candidate.
Baker steered clear of those topics. Instead, he focused on an issue near to the heart of the tech-focused attendees: encryption of devices.
Still fresh in the audience’s minds was the San Bernardino, California, terror attack in 2015 that led to a standoff between law enforcement and Apple over one of the iPhones used by one of the attackers.
The FBI sought Apple’s help in getting access to the mobile phone. Apple balked, arguing that strong encryption was important to protect privacy. In the end, the government dropped its legal efforts to force Apple to open the phone and reportedly found other ways into the device.
But the case highlighted disagreements within American society, Baker said. In the last three months of 2016, the FBI received more than 2,000 devices from law enforcement agencies seeking access. The FBI had no solutions in nearly half of the devices.
“This is happening all the time,” he said. “It’s impeding investigations.”
While the questioner Jeffrey Herbst, chief executive of Newseum, spoke to Baker, audience members asked questions on Sli.do ( https://www.sli.do/ ), a web-based Q&A and polling platform for live events. Their focus showed an interest in the FBI’s greater maelstrom: “Is there any evidence that foreign governments tried to impact the campaign?” asked one questioner.
“We have to do a better job at explaining the cost of having better encryption,” Baker said. “We share the same goals. We disagree of the means.”
He suggested that lawmakers might break down the complex topic of encryption and look for areas where they can make progress, such as carving out new rules for devices law enforcement has in its possession to allow access. “What we don’t want to do is wait for an event to happen,” he said.
In the end, Baker said that the American people need to hold the FBI accountable and be skeptical about what it does, but also invest the time to understand the issues.
“The FBI has to deal with the reality of what is,” he said. “Not what we wish it to be.”
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Quality Physical Therapy Just a Mouse Click Away
Victims of stroke often face years of grueling, physical therapy, if they can even find a qualified therapist. Now a Portuguese inventor has created a computer program that delivers high quality, monitored therapy, and it’s just a mouse click away. Faith Lapidus narrates this report from Kevin Enochs.
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Startup Founders in Peru Tackle Misconceptions of Poverty
While Peru is best known for the ancient Inca city, Machu Picchu, for certain aspiring entrepreneurs, it’s also home to innovative, social enterprises. But doing good isn’t always enough when it comes to launching a startup in developing nations like Peru. VOA reporter Tina Trinh met with entrepreneurs who say they had to overcome their misconceptions of poverty.
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‘Beauty and the Beast’ Shelved in Malaysia Despite Approval
Walt Disney has shelved the release of its new movie “Beauty and the Beast” in mainly Muslim Malaysia, even though film censors said Tuesday it had been approved with a minor cut involving a “gay moment.”
The country’s two main cinema chains said the movie, due for to begin screening Thursday, has been postponed indefinitely. No reason was given.
Film Censorship Board chairman Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid said he did not know why the film was postponed as was been approved by the board after a minor gay scene was axed. He said scenes promoting homosexuality were forbidden and that the film was given a P13 rating, which requires parental guidance for children under 13 years of age.
“We have approved it but there is a minor cut involving a gay moment. It is only one short scene but it is inappropriate because many children will be watching this movie,” Abdul Halim told The Associated Press.
He said there was no appeal from Disney about the decision to cut the gay scene.
Disney officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Star English-language newspaper cited the Disney company as saying the movie was postponed for an “internal review.”
The film’s characters include manservant LeFou, who plays the sidekick to the story’s villain Gaston, and, according to director Bill Condon, “is confused about his sexuality.” Condon has described a brief scene as a “gay moment.”
Russia last week approved the movie but banned children under 16 from watching it.
Malaysia’s censors in 2010 loosened decades of restrictions on sexual and religious content in movies, but still kept a tight leash on tiny bikinis, kisses and passionate hugs. The new rules allowed depiction of gay characters, but only if they show repentance or are portrayed in a negative light. Sodomy, even if consensual, is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and whipping in Malaysia.
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Madrid to Ban Old Cars by 2025 in Crackdown on Air Pollution
Madrid’s city government announced plans on Monday to ban the oldest and most polluting vehicles from the city center by 2025 in a bid to crackdown on air pollution.
The local government will prohibit the use within the city’s limits of gasoline cars registered before 2000 and diesel-powered cars registered before 2006, which at the moment account for 20 percent of all those registered.
The ban would lower nitrogen dioxide levels in the city by an estimated 15 percent, a poisonous gas behind respiratory problems, Madrid’s local government said in a presentation.
Madrid has failed to meet European Union-set limits on air quality for the last eight years. Other European cities such as Paris and Berlin have already put similar plans in place to curb emissions.
“This is plan A for air quality in Madrid. It’s plan A because there can’t be any plan B,” Madrid’s mayor Manuela Carmen said at an event to present the new plan.
Madrid’s local government has allocated 544 million euros ($580.83 million) to completing 30 measures included in the plan, which also encourages greater use of renewable energy and regenerating urban areas, according to the presentation.
your ad hereOpposing Groups in California Team Up Against Trump
Before Donald Trump’s election, Laurence Berland viewed political protest as a sort of curiosity. He was in a good place to see it: San Francisco’s Mission District, once an immigrant enclave in the country’s heartland of radicalism that is increasingly populated by people like him — successful tech workers driving up rents while enjoying a daily commute to Silicon Valley on luxury motor coaches.
Berland regarded the activism of his adopted city with a mix of empathy and bemusement, checking out Occupy Wall Street demonstrations and protests against the gentrification of his own neighborhood. But now there is less distance between him and activists on the street.
On a recent day, Berland stood with about 100 others — from software engineers like himself to those who work in tech company cafeterias — outside a downtown museum for a rally against Trump. A clipboard-carrying organizer approached Berland to ask if he wanted to join a network of grassroots activists, but Berland waved him away. He had already signed up.
In the place that fought against the Vietnam War and for gay rights and, more recently, has been roiled by dissent over the technology industry’s impact on economic inequality, an unlikely alliance has formed in the left’s resistance against Trump. Old-school, anti-capitalist activists and new-school, free-enterprise techies are pushing aside their differences to take on a common foe.
For years, these two strands of liberal America have been at each other’s throats. There’ve been protests against evictions of those who can’t afford the Bay Area’s ever-soaring rents. And think back, not so long ago, to the raucous rallies to block those fancy buses shuttling tech workers from city neighborhoods to the Silicon Valley campus of Google, where Berland once worked.
Cat Brooks, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, has seen the toll the tech industry has taken on some. Her daughter’s elementary school teacher just moved to a distant suburb after her rent skyrocketed, and Brooks thinks more tech money must find its way into local communities. She nevertheless welcomes the infusion of new energy to the protest arena.
“It’s not about the business of we were here first,” Brooks said. “We’re about the business of how can we support? Division at this time is not helpful.”
The tech industry opposition started when Trump imposed his initial travel ban on immigrants and refugees from seven majority-Muslim nations. The industry prides itself on its openness to immigrants, who comprise about one-quarter of the U.S. technology and science workforce and include the founders of iconic institutions.
Nearly 100 tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, filed a court brief urging suspension of the ban, while Google co-founder Sergey Brin, a Russian immigrant, joined protests at San Francisco International Airport. That was followed by an unprecedented company-wide walkout at Google and now, on March 14, nationwide rallies are planned for a “Tech Stands Up” day of protest.
“People whose pedigree is knocking on doors and calling representatives and waving signs are getting together with people who design apps,” said Ka-Ping Yee, a software engineer from Canada who is a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and who works at a startup to help immigrants send cash home. “People are working with people who do really, really different things because they realize it’s an emergency.”
After the election he helped create an online pledge, signed by thousands of technology workers, against building databases for any potential Muslim registries or to aid deportations of immigrants.
Some aren’t so sure about sharing the streets because they don’t think they share the same goals.
Franki Velez, an Iraq War veteran on disability, stood outside an Oakland rental office recently with other longtime activists and renters fighting eviction. There was not a technology worker in sight, and she worried that they are missing the point anyway. They want to change, but preserve, a system that’s benefited them, she said, while protesters like her want to tear the system down and start from scratch.
“They don’t understand it’s a colonial system that’s never meant to be reformed,” she said.
Still, while their approaches can be strikingly different, Velez’s causes are increasingly being adopted by people not like her.
Velez’s group marched to a Wells Fargo branch to hand over a demand that the bank stop investing in the Dakota Access Pipeline. Two hours later, in the comfortable Silicon Valley suburb of Campbell, biotech executive Michael Clark drew cheers after telling a gathering of anti-Trump activists that he’d closed his Wells Fargo account to protest the pipeline.
Clark grew up in New Hampshire and then in Silicon Valley, when his mother took a job at Apple in the 1990s. He always considered himself a political independent, a moderate. But Trump’s election horrified him and, with a friend who runs a gourmet chocolate shop, he founded a chapter of the national liberal group “Indivisible” in Campbell.
“The country has moved so much to the right that puts me in the middle with people I wouldn’t have previously been aligned with,” Clark said. “It’s interesting that someone like me is on the same side as a lot of socialists.”
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‘Boaty McBoatface’ to Embark on First Mission
It’s not every day that an unmanned scientific submarine makes international headlines, but this sub is named Boaty McBoatface, and it is about to embark on its first mission.
The sub is operated by Britain’s National Environmental Research Council, which last year turned to the internet to name the group’s new $248 million research ship that is still under construction.
The online naming poll went viral, but NERC opted instead to name the ship the Royal Research Ship Sir David Attenborough, after the famous British naturalist.
Making sure not to anger the internet, NERC opted to use Boaty McBoatface for the drone sub.
Now, little Boaty is about to undertake its first mission, according to a NERC statement.
“Cute though it sounds, this unmanned submarine is part of a fleet of some pretty intrepid explorers,” it said. “This month they’ll begin their first mission, traversing a deep current that originates in Antarctica and flows through the Southern Ocean. They’ll be collecting data for the Dynamics of the Orkney Passage Outflow (DynOPO) project as they ‘fly’ through submarine waterfalls and rapids, shedding light on how global warming is changing our oceans.”
Boaty McBoatface will likely be operated from the RSS Sir David Attenborough when it is finished being built in 2019.
“Work continues on dry land for now, but she’ll be ready to ‘splashdown’ off the yard and into the blue early next year, whilst works will continue inside,” NERC said. “Then she’ll be taken for trials to make sure she’s seaworthy and her scientific equipment is working to perfection before she sets off for her first mission in 2019.”
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Converting Heat Into Electricity
Humankind wastes a lot of energy, but thanks to new technologies, it is increasingly affordable to harvest and use it. At a recent energy summit in Washington, one of the participating commercial firms exhibited photovoltaic cells that turn waste heat into electricity. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Ed Sheeran to Guest Star on ‘Game of Thrones’
Ed Sheeran will guest star in the upcoming season of “Game of Thrones.”
The show’s producers made the announcement Sunday night during a panel discussion at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Texas.
Producer David Benioff told the audience that they’ve been trying to get the 26-year-old British singer a spot on the show for years to surprise Sheeran fan Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark on the HBO fantasy drama.
The seventh season of “Game of Thrones” premieres on HBO July 16.
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Kim Kardashian West Opens Up About Paris Robbery
Kim Kardashian West is opening up about being held at gunpoint during a jewelry heist in Paris last year.
In a preview of next week’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Kardashian West recalls seeing the gun “as clear as day.” Kardashian West emotionally describes the episode to her sisters in the clip. She says she thought there was “no way out” of the situation.
Kardashian West wasn’t physically harmed during the October incident. Ten suspects have been charged in connection with the case.
The 13th season of the Kardashians’ E! reality show premiered Sunday night.
your ad hereImmigration Tensions Seep into South by Southwest Music Fest
The trendsetting South by Southwest music festival is all about the next big thing, but the heated politics of the moment is stealing the show.
Tensions over immigration have put a heavy air over the typically breezy weeklong music bash that begins Monday and includes headliners The Avett Brothers, Weezer and the Wu-Tang Clan dropping into Austin, along with roughly 2,000 other acts from around the world.
It’s more than just promises of bands using SXSW as a stage for politically-charged performances in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration: The festival has come under fire itself for warning international artists that bad behavior could result in it making a call to U.S. immigration agents.
Unrelated, but still stoking concerns, was the Italian band Soviet Soviet posting on Facebook on Friday that it was denied entry into the U.S. Soviet Soviet claimed U.S. customs officials in Seattle said the band members needed work visas, but the band says it didn’t believe work visas were required for a promotional and unpaid tour.
Trump’s revised travel ban blocks new visas for people from six predominantly Muslim countries including Somalia, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya and Yemen. It also temporarily shuts down the U.S. refugee program. Unlike the original order, the new one says current visa holders won’t be affected, and it removes language that would give priority to religious minorities.
Matthew Covey, a New York-based immigration attorney who helps international performers obtain visas to enter the U.S., said the travel ban has unsettled artists who are not even from the impacted countries.
“Everybody is worried now,” Covey said “We’re getting calls from Danish jazz musicians saying, `Am I going to be OK?’ Yeah, probably. You’re a Danish jazz musician. But everybody is on edge.”
Covey is helping put on a SXSW showcase of artists exclusively from the list of banned countries in response to Trump’s order, although none of the performers currently live in those nations.
SXSW organizers had quickly come out against Trump’s travel ban, but later found themselves on the defensive over a contract provision warning that “SXSW will notify the appropriate U.S. immigration authorities” if a performer acts in ways that “adversely affect the viability of their official SXSW showcase.”
The language set off a storm of criticism and at least one performer announced plans to cancel. Organizers said the clause was a safeguard in the event of an artist doing something egregious — such as flouting rules about pyrotechnics or starting a brawl — but pledged to remove it from future contracts.
Zane Lowe, who runs Apple’s Beats 1 Radio and will be a keynote speaker at the festival, said he has taken more notice lately of music reflecting the times.
“I don’t believe that we’re in an era of a movement,” Lowe said. “But I believe that we’re in an era where, more than it has been in recent times, what’s going on in and around the music is going to have a very direct impact on what’s made.”
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Devotees Rejoice Over Hindu Festival of Colors
Hundred of devotees in northern India’s holy city of Mathura rejoiced over the Hindu festival of colors, ‘Holi’, on Sunday, as they gathered in large numbers at the mythical birth place of Lord Krishna.
Though ‘Holi’ is a single-day affair elsewhere in India, it is almost a 10-day festival across several parts of Uttar Pradesh province.
Men and women alike daubed each other in powdered colors and danced around the streets in merriment.
A tourist, Neha Sharma, said it was a special experience to witness ‘Holi’ in Mathura, which Hindu mythology denotes as the birthplace of Lord Krishna.
“I would like to say that we feel really good. In order to surrender to the love of Lord Krishna [Hindu God], people from within the country and abroad come here to watch colorful Holi,” said Sharma.
Priests at the ‘Nand Bhawan’ (residing place of Lord Krishna) sprayed water from water guns made of silver and gold.
Thousands of devotees and tourists from across the world throng Mathura during ‘Holi’ every year to revel in the festivities.
“I haven’t seen such Holi in my life. It is a beautiful Holi and I think this cannot happen anywhere in the world. We really missed this and have especially come from Canada to witness this Holi,” said a tourist, Avinash Sharma.
It is believed that Lord Krishna leaves his residing place and comes out to the courtyard to play ‘Holi’ with devotees during this day.
Celebrated at the onset of spring, ‘Holi’ also holds a mythological importance – that of the triumph of good over evil. It is also associated with the eternal love of Lord Krishna and his consort Radha.
It is the most awaited festival among the Hindus, especially among the youth. People of all ages forget mutual differences and smear powdered colors on each other.
Security tight at Pakistan celebrations
In Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, around 400 local Hindus gathered in the Swami Narayan Mandir, one of the city’s Hindu temples, to playfully splash colors on one another.
Non-Muslims make up only about three percent of the 190 million population of Muslim-majority Pakistan.
“The Holi festival is basically the biggest festival of the Hindu community. During this festival people visit each other’s houses, distribute sweets, and greet their friends. In the evening, people get together in one place to worship and daub colors on one another,” said a Hindu doctor Pardeep Kumar. “The purpose of sprinkling colors is to paint the entire society in one color so that the differences in the society can be brought to an end.”
Security was exceptionally tight around all Hindu temples across the country, and worshippers had to undergo a thorough search before they entered venues of the festival.
Holi, perhaps the least religious of Hindu festivals, is widely recognized for the throwing and applying of colored water and powders on friends and family, which gives the holiday its common name “Festival of Colors.”
Holi is primarily observed in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka but also in countries with large Hindu populations such as Suriname, Malaysia, Guyana, South Africa, United States, Mauritius, and Fiji.
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Robot Leopard Draws Attention to Big Cat Conservation
A leopard showed up in London this week, sharing space with the lions of Trafalgar Square. The cat was no more real than the famous bronze lions and was there to point out that big cats like leopards and lions are in trouble all around the world. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Foodscaping Offers Chance to Grow Food Amid Flowers, Shrubs
An emerging foodscape frontier offers opportunity for anyone to grow and eat organic. Brie Arthur shows Maryland residents how to grow food plants alongside flowers and shrubs as a way to increase bio-diversity and feed the community. Bronwyn Benito has the story.
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Office Space of the 21st Century
Sharing services are a growing trend in 21st economies. In London, the Spacehop website provides a marketplace where people who have unused living spaces can meet those looking for short-term work places. VOA’s Faiza Elmasry has more. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Joni Sledge, Member of Sister Sledge, Dies
Joni Sledge, who with her sisters recorded the enduring dance anthem We Are Family, has died, the band’s representative said Saturday.
She was 60.
Sledge was found dead in her home by a friend in Phoenix, Arizona, Friday, the band’s publicist, Biff Warren, said. A cause of death has not been determined. He said she had not been ill.
“On yesterday, numbness fell upon our family. We welcome your prayers as we weep the loss of our sister, mother, aunt, niece and cousin,” read a family statement.
Sister Sledge
Sledge and her sisters Debbie, Kim and Kathy formed the Sister Sledge in 1971 in Philadelphia, their hometown, but struggled for years before success came.
“The four of us had been in the music business for eight years and we were frustrated. We were saying: ‘Well, maybe we should go to college and just become lawyers or something other than music, because it really is tough,”’ Joni told The Guardian in an interview last year.
But then they met Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers of the hit group Chic, and their breakout soon came.The pair wrote and produced their album We Are Family, and soon the women had their first major hit with disco jam The Greatest Dancer, which became a top 10 hit in May 1979. It would sampled years later for Will Smith’s hit Getting Jiggy Wit It.
Biggest hit
But their biggest hit would come a month later with the title track, an infectious dance anthem that celebrated their familial connection with the refrain, “We are family, I got all my sisters with me.” While it celebrated their sisterhood, the 1979 hit so also became an anthem for female empowerment and unity. It would become their signature hit, and was nominated for a Grammy. Both the song and album sold more than 1 million copies.
The women also had a hit with a cover of the Mary Wells song My Guy in 1982, but would never duplicate the success they had in the 1970s. Still, Sister Sledge continued; while sister Kathy left the group for a solo career, the trio of sisters continued to perform and record, including a performance for Pope Francis in 2015.
Warren said they last performed together in concert in October.
Joni Sledge is survived by an adult son, her sisters and other relatives.
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Two Critically Ill After Drinking Wolfsbane Tea
Two people are critically sick in San Francisco after drinking tea from the same Chinatown herbalist.
The tea leaves bought at Sun Wing Wo Trading Company contained the plant-based toxin aconite, the Department of Public Health said Friday.
A man in his 50s last month and a woman in her 30s this month became critically ill within an hour of drinking the tea, and both remain hospitalized, health officials said.
Each person grew weak then had life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms that required resuscitation and intensive care.
Aconite, also known as monkshood, helmet flower and wolfsbane, is used in Asian herbal medicines. But it must be processed properly to be safe.
Health officials are working to find the original source of the tea leaves, and they are warning others to stop consuming it.
“Anyone who has purchased tea from this location should not consume it and should throw it away immediately,” said Dr. Tomás Aragón, health officer for the city and county of San Francisco. “Aconite poisoning attacks the heart and can be lethal.”
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Somalis in Kenya Fight Stereotypes Through Film
You’ve heard of Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood, but have you heard of Eastleighwood? Eastleigh is a primarily Somali district of Nairobi known to some as little Mogadishu. A group of young people there has been making films to counter stereotypes and radicalization. Rael Ombuor has the story for VOA from Nairobi.
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Converting Heat to Electricity
Humankind wastes a lot of energy, but thanks to new technologies, it is increasingly affordable to harvest and use it. At a recent energy summit in Washington, one of the participating commercial firms exhibited photovoltaic cells that turn waste heat into electricity. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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In Maryland, Visitors Can Follow Harriet Tubman’s Footsteps
A new visitors’ center on the Eastern Shore explores the history of one of Maryland’s most famous figures, the Underground Railroad conductor, abolitionist and Civil War spy Harriet Tubman.
The $21 million Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center is in Church Creek, about a two-hour drive from Baltimore. It opens Saturday to the public, four years after its groundbreaking.
Free events scheduled for the grand opening weekend include children’s activities, presentations by a Tubman re-enactor, tours of a legacy garden that will discuss escape methods used by Tubman, and talks by rangers and others.
A ribbon-cutting was held at the site on Friday, designated by the U.S. Congress in 1990 as Harriet Tubman Day. Tubman died on March 10, 1913, at a home for the elderly she founded in Auburn, New York.
Tubman’s great-great-niece, Valerie Manokey, attended the ribbon-cutting and said she feels “pride, honor, love and resolution,” now that the center is opening.
“We made it,” said Manokey, who is 81 and lives in nearby Cambridge, Maryland. “And I am truly proud to say: ‘Yes, I am the niece of Harriet Tubman.”
History
Visitors will see a short video introduction to Tubman’s life and her formative years in Maryland. A permanent exhibit focuses on Tubman and the Underground Railroad resistance movement in Maryland, including Tubman’s brutal treatment at the hands of slave owners, her escape to freedom, and her later rescues of hundreds of slaves.
The center consists of four connected buildings depicting Tubman in sculpture during different stages of life, from her youth to her work on the Underground Railroad. Videos and panel illustrations on the walls tell of her strong sense of family, community and religious faith. Her roles in the Civil War as a nurse, scout and spy are represented. The center also has a shop and a research library.
Looking at Tubman
The center includes a new bronze bust of a youthful Tubman, who was born as a slave named Araminta Ross in 1822 in Madison, about 10 miles away. The bust is displayed on a pedestal so that the top of the head reaches her height – just 5 feet tall. The base includes wood from a former Maryland landmark – the 460-year-old Wye Oak – and a cedar tree.
The bust was made by Eastern Shore artist Brendan Thorpe O’Neill, who studied photos of Tubman in her 60s, then sought to show how she would have appeared when younger. Thorpe sculpted another bust of Tubman in 2014 for display at Government House, the governor’s mansion in Annapolis.
What She Saw
The visitor center is on a 17-acre site next to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge . It includes sweeping views of the marshy refuge, and paths through a landscape that has changed little since Tubman’s time in the early to mid-1800s. It preserves routes she likely would have navigated as an adult leading other slaves to freedom.
Journeys, Old and New
The visitor center is a gateway to the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway, a self-guided driving tour. The route includes 125 miles of countryside and shoreline in Maryland’s Dorchester and Caroline counties. It offers 36 points of interest, including places where Tubman lived and historically significant sites related to the Underground Railroad.
Visiting
The center is managed in a partnership of the Maryland Park Service and the National Park Service, and is a sister park to the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn.
This new center includes environmentally friendly elements, such as rain barrels, vegetative roofs and bio-retention ponds. A 2,600-square-foot pavilion outside has a stone fireplace and picnic tables. It’s open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. There is no entry fee. A park website says there are no food or drink options at the site, but visitors are welcome to pack lunch or snacks and use the water fountains.
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