The U.S. on Tuesday reported its first case of a new and potentially deadly virus circulating in China, saying a Washington state resident who returned last week from the outbreak’s epicenter was hospitalized near Seattle.The man, identified only as a Snohomish County resident is in his 30s, was in good condition and wasn’t considered a threat to medical staff or the public, health officials said.U.S. health officials stressed that they believe the virus’ overall risk to the American public remained low.The newly discovered virus has infected about 300 people, all of whom had been in China, and killed six. The virus can cause coughing, fever, breathing difficulty and pneumonia. The U.S. joins a growing list of places outside mainland China reporting cases, following Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.A health official watches travelers on a thermographic monitor at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Jan. 21, 2020.Airports around the world have stepped up monitoring, checking passengers from China for signs of illness in hopes of containing the virus during the busy Lunar New Year travel season.Late last week, U.S. health officials began screening passengers from Wuhan in central China, where the outbreak began. The screening had been under way at three U.S. airports — New York City’s Kennedy airport and the Los Angeles and San Francisco airports. On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would add Chicago’s O’Hare airport and Atlanta’s airport to the mix later this week.What’s more, officials will begin forcing all passengers from Wuhan to go to one of those five airports if they wish to enter the U.S.The U.S. resident had no symptoms when he arrived at the Seattle-Tacoma airport last Wednesday, but he contacted doctors on Sunday when he started feeling ill, officials said. Lab testing on Monday confirmed he had the virus”The gentleman right now is very healthy,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the CDC.The hospital, Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, said in a statement that it expected the man would be monitored there at least until Thursday.CDC officials said they sent a team to Washington to try to track down people who might have come in contact with the man. The hospital also said it was contacting “the small number of staff and patients” who may have been with the man at a clinic.Health officials described the number of possible contacts since he got back to the U.S. as small.China numbersLast month, doctors began seeing the new virus in people who got sick after spending time at a food market in Wuhan. More than 275 cases of the newly identified virus have been confirmed in China, most of them in Wuhan, according to the World Health Organization.Pharmacist Liu Zhuzhen stands near a sign reading “face masks are sold out” at her pharmacy in Shanghai, Jan. 21, 2020.The count includes six deaths — all in China, most of them age 60 or older, including at least some who had a previous medical condition.Officials have said it probably spread from animals to people, but this week Chinese officials said they’ve concluded it also can spread from person to person.Health authorities this month identified the germ behind the outbreak as a new type of coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, some of which cause the common cold; others found in bats, camels and other animals have evolved into more severe illnesses.SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, belongs to the coronavirus family, but Chinese state media say the illness in Wuhan is different from coronaviruses that have been identified in the past. Earlier laboratory tests ruled out SARS and MERS — Middle East respiratory syndrome — as well as influenza, bird flu, adenovirus and other common lung-infecting germs.The new virus so far does not appear to be as deadly as SARS and MERS, but viruses can sometimes mutate to become more dangerous.Researcher: Don’t panicUniversity of Washington coronavirus researcher David Veesler said the public “should not be panicking right now.”The response has been “very efficient,” Veesler said. “In a couple of weeks, China was able to identify the virus, isolate it, sequence it and share that information.”Veesler added: “We don’t have enough data to judge how severe the disease is.”The CDC’s Messonnier said health officials expected to see more cases in the U.S. and around the world in the coming days.
…
Month: January 2020
Jeanine Cummins’ “American Dirt,” one of the year’s most anticipated and debated novels, is Oprah Winfrey’s new pick for her book club.“American Dirt,” published Tuesday, tells of a bookstore owner in Acapulco, Mexico, who loses much of her family to a murderous drug cartel and flees north on a terrifying journey with her 8-year-old son. The novel was acquired by Flatiron Books in 2018 in a reported seven-figure deal and has been talked about in the publishing world ever since. It has appeared on numerous lists of books to look for in 2020, has reached the top 20 on Amazon.com ahead of its release, and has been praised by everyone from John Grisham and Stephen King to Erika Sanchez and Sandra Cisneros.Winfrey, interviewed Friday by telephone, told The Associated Press that one blurb that stood out was novelist Don Winslow’s comparing “American Dirt” to John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”“And I remember thinking, Yeah right, you better know what you're talking about because I have a first edition ofGrapes of Wrath,’ and it sits on a pedestal in my living room,’“ Winfrey said. “Now I wouldn’t say this is Grapes of Wrath,' but I would say that ... I have been a news reporter, watched the news, seen the stories every day, seen the children at the border and my heart is wrenched by that. And nothing has done more (thanAmerican Dirt’) to make me feel the pain and desperation of what it means to be on the run. It’s changed the way I see the whole issue and I was already empathetic.”Cummins, who also spoke recently to the AP, says she first thought of the book in 2013 and was inspired for various reasons. Her husband emigrated from Ireland and she remembered the many years it took for him to get his green card, and the anxiety, before they married, that he might be deported. She also was moved by what she considered the media’s sensationalized coverage of immigration, and, more indirectly, by her lasting grief over a 1991 tragedy when two of her cousins were raped and forced off a bridge, falling to their deaths.“So many of the stories center on violent men and macho violent stories about people who commit atrocities,” she said. “My hope was to reframe the narrative and show it from the point of view of the people on the flip side of violence.”Cummins, who has ancestors from Ireland and Puerto Rico, said she spent extensive time in Mexico and met with many people on both sides of the border. Her novel has raised questions, however, over whether she, a non-Mexican and non-migrant, was suited for the narrative. Cummins herself has expressed doubts, writing in the book’s afterword: “I wished someone slightly browner than me would write it.” She then added that perhaps she could serve as a bridge. “I thought, `If you’re the person who has the capacity to be a bridge, why not be a bridge?”’ Cummins wrote.Cisneros has called “American Dirt” the “international story of our times,” but some other writers of Mexican heritage have criticized it. Myriam Gurba, whose work has been praised in O: The Oprah Magazine among other publications, has written online that Cummins reinforces “overly-ripe Mexican stereotypes, among them the Latin lover, the suffering mother, and the stoic man child.” David Bowles, a writer and translator, called the book “smug saviorism.”Over the past few days, The New York Times published contrasting reviews. Times critic Parul Sehgal labeled the novel’s characters “thin creations,” criticized the language as strained and even nonsensical, and concluded that the “book feels conspicuously like the work of an outsider.” Author Lauren Groff, reviewing the book for The New York Times Book Review, found herself completely immersed but wondering whether she should have accepted the assignment.“I could never speak to the accuracy of the book’s representation of Mexican culture or the plights of migrants; I have never been Mexican or a migrant,” wrote Groff, who nonetheless “kept turning the pages.”“’American Dirt’ is written for people like me,” Groff wrote, “those native to the United States who are worried about what is happening at our southern border but who have never felt the migrants’ fear and desperation in their own bodies. This novel is aimed at people who have loved a child and who would fight with everything they have to see that child be allowed a good future.”After her review ran, Groff tweeted: “I wrestled like a beast with this review, the morals of my taking it on, my complicity in the white gaze.” She called Sehgal’s take “better and smarter.”As a turning point in deciding to write the book, Cummins, 45, cited a conversation with Norma Iglesias-Prieto, a professor of Chicano and Chicana studies at San Diego State University. According to Cummins, Iglesias-Prieto told her, “We need as many voices as we can get.” (Iglesias-Preto recently told The Los Angeles Times that “everyone has the right to write about a particular topic even if you are not part of this community.”)Winfrey chose “American Dirt” last fall and, when asked (before the Times reviews ran) about the controversy, said she wasn’t aware of it. But she cited her own visceral response as a sign that Cummins had fulfilled a vital role for fiction.“She humanized this issue,” said Winfrey, who hopes to interview Cummins somewhere along the U.S-Mexico border. The interview will air March 6 on Apple TV Plus.Winfrey has been boosting sales for books, sometimes by hundreds of thousands of copies or more, since 1996. She has championed first-time authors such as Ayana Mathis, and has looked back to such classics as “Anna Karenina” and “A Tale of Two Cities.” Cummins’ novel, Winfrey’s third pick for the partnership with Apple she began last year, continues her recent pattern of choosing high-profile new releases, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Water Dancer” and Elizabeth Strout’s “Olive, Again.” Winfrey said she follows no pattern except that the books compel her to tell others about them.“There is no strategy. There is no plan,” she says. “I am open to all books.”Cummins is the author of three previous works: the novels “The Crooked Branch” and “The Outside Boy,” and the memoir “A Rip In Heaven,” about the assaults and deaths of her cousins. She is hoping to start soon on a new novel. Cummins says she hasn’t decided on a plot, but expects the setting will be tied to her background — Puerto Rico.
…
Spain’s new government declared a national climate emergency on Tuesday, taking a formal first step toward enacting ambitious measures to fight climate change.
The declaration approved by the Cabinet says the left-of-center Socialist government will send to parliament within 100 days its proposed climate legislation. The targets coincide with those of the European Union, including a reduction of net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
Spain’s coalition government wants up to 95% of the Mediterranean country’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2040. The plan also foresees eliminating pollution by buses and trucks and making farming carbon neutral.
Details of the plan are to be made public when the proposed legislation is sent to parliament for approval.
More than two dozen countries and scores of local and regional authorities have declared a climate emergency in recent years.
Scientists say the decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record.
Also Tuesday, young climate activists including Greta Thunberg told the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland they are not doing enough to deal with the climate emergency and warned them that time was running out.
…
The World Health Organization says the new coronavirus is likely to spread in China and other countries and is urging governments to implement preventive infection control measures in health facilities. The WHO confirms 278 cases of the disease, including six deaths, two in China and the other four in Thailand, Japan and South Korea.The WHO calls the coronavirus a fast-moving disease and says the number of cases and deaths is changing quickly. The agency is stepping up measures to get to the source of the infection as quickly as possible and to provide the public with information it needs to protect itself. The WHO will be convening an emergency committee meeting Wednesday to see whether the virus constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. A team of experts is in the city of Wuhan, China where the outbreak occurred. The experts are working with local health officials to investigate the source of the disease.Travelers pass through a health screening checkpoint at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan in southern China’s Hubei province, Jan. 21, 2020.WHO spokesman Tarek Jasarevic says not much is known about the new coronavirus. He says how the disease is transmitted, its severity, the extent to which it has spread or its source are unclear.”Based on current information, an animal source seems the most likely primary source of this outbreak, with limited human to human transmission occurring between close contacts,” he said. “Based on previous experience with respiratory illnesses, in particular with other coronavirus outbreaks and our analysis of data shared by China, human to human transmission is occurring.” Jasarevic says human-to-human transmission appears to be limited and it occurs between people who are in close contact with each other. He says the coronavirus infection can cause mild to severe symptoms and can be fatal. But reports of some new cases, he says, have tended to be mild.The coronavirus was discovered at the end of last year in a fish market in Wuhan. The World Health Organization says it is spreading widely and more cases should be expected in other parts of China and possibly in other countries in the coming days.Fears are growing that the mysterious virus could sicken a great many people during the upcoming lunar holiday, a time when millions of people in China travel within the country and abroad to be with their families. A number of airports around the world are screening travelers for the infection. The World Health Organization says that is one of the measures countries can use to identify possible carriers of the disease. However, it says the current known risks do not justify restrictions on travel or trade.
…
An immersive art installation in New York City has visitors captivated. The team behind the popular attraction? It’s part human and part machine-learning algorithms. VOA’s Tina Trinh looks at what happens when artificial intelligence becomes part of the creative process
…
Chinese health experts have confirmed that a new coronavirus that has now killed four people is contagious, raising fears that the virus could spread quickly among people.China’s National Health Commission said the virus, which causes a type of pneumonia, can be transmitted person-to-person and not just from animals to people, the official Xinhua news agency reported.Earlier Monday, Chinese health officials confirmed 136 new cases of the newly discovered virus — a huge spike — over the past three days, including the first cases in the capital, Beijing, and Shanghai. Heath officials in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began, say the number of cases now exceeds 200, with most of the confirmed cases described as mild. The latest confirmed fatality is an 89-old man in Wuhan. South Korean health officials said Monday they confirmed a case in a 35-year-old woman who flew from Wuhan to Incheon, South Korea. Thailand and Japan have also confirmed cases.Indonesia’s Health Ministry says it has increased health screenings of passengers from China at airports and ports to try to prevent the spread of the virus into Indonesia. The ministry’s disease control and prevention director general, Anung Sugihantono, told VOA that the Health Ministry is monitoring travelers, particularly those from China, with a thermal scan as well as distributing health alert cards.On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at three U.S. airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Airports in Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore are also doing the same. Chinese and U.S. health officials are particularly concerned because many of the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens are expected to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday that starts Jan. 25, both inside China and beyond. A coronavirus is one of a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. SARS, which also started in China, killed nearly 800 people globally during an outbreak nearly 20 years ago. Chinese health experts say they know little about the new strain, dubbed 2019-nCoV. They suspect the outbreak started in a Wuhan seafood market, which also sold other animals such as poultry, bats, marmots and wild game meat. The World Health Organization has said an animal source seemed to be “the most likely primary source” with “some limited human-to-human transmission occurring between close contacts.” The WHO is convening an emergency committee Wednesday to discuss the situation.Doctors in Wuhan, China’s seventh most populous city, have stepped up screening for suspected cases of pneumonia. They are urging people to be more conscious of their hygiene and to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze. Health officials are urging caution but say there is no reason to panic. The WHO is not recommending against travel to China, and China’s National Health Commission says the current outbreak is “preventable and controllable.” Of the new cases announced in the past few days, all involve adults ages 25 to 89. About half are male (78) and half are female (75), according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which translated the Wuhan health commission’s statement.Sasmito Madrim in Jakarta contributed to this report.
…
The number of people infected with a new strain of coronavirus in China tripled over the weekend and is spreading from Wuhan to other major cities. The new cases of pneumonia-like illness caused by the virus has been detected in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Scientists have also confirmed that the virus can be spread from human to human, which is bad news for China as it prepares for the Spring Holiday which is the busiest travel season. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
…
Unhealthy levels of smog have choked Bangkok for more than a week, as the Thai capital’s residents fume over the ineffectiveness of government measures to combat the problem.As thick haze blanketed the city Monday, pollution levels soared to 95 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5 particle at noon in some areas, according to the government’s Pollution Control Department, which described that level as very unhealthy. The maximum level considered safe by the government is 50.PM 2.5 particles are small enough to penetrate deeply into the lungs, which can cause both short-term bronchial problems as well as serious long-term health issues.Bangkok’s smog crisis results from still air and an excessive amount of ultrafine dust from vehicle emissions and other activities, Pollution Control Department Director-General Pralong Damrongthai explained in a Monday press release. He said smog is being trapped close to the ground by a blanket of warm air in what meteorologists call an inversion.A thick layer of smog covers central Bangkok, Thailand, Jan. 20, 2020.Bangkok residents have grown frustrated with the lack of progress in improving the situation. A survey by the National Institute for Development Administration released on Sunday showed 81% of the 1,256 local residents questioned agreed the government is ineffective in solving the problem. Only 2.7% of respondents approved of the government’s efforts.The Pollution Control Department issued a 52-page national action plan in October for combating dust pollution problems, but it is unclear how many, if any, of the measures it suggested were implemented. The plan mostly included guidelines for government agencies, but also discussed possible precautions and ways to measure pollutants.Burning of fields is cited as the main reason for smog outside of Bangkok, with provinces in the central and northern regions of Thailand also blanketed in haze.Tara Buakamsri of the environmental group Greenpeace said the current situation shows the government’s strategy is failing.”They probably think that the situation happens just only few days or few weeks and then it’s gone, therefore, no concrete or long-term measures have been launched by the government,” he said.Tara also said the official maximum “safe level” of PM 2.5 of 50 micrograms per cubic meter over 24 hours was set too high.”That level cannot protect people’s health,” he said. He urged the maximum safe level be reduced to 35, as it is in other places such as the United States.
…
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears set to give the go-ahead for Chinese telecom giant Huawei to play a role in the development of Britain’s 5G wireless network — a move that risks jeopardizing intelligence-sharing between Britain and America, according U.S. officials. Despite last-ditch lobbying by the U.S. to block Huawei, British officials say it is a “foregone conclusion” Johnson will allow Huawei participation.That would confirm a “provisional” decision made by his predecessor, Theresa May. Last year, she said Huawei should be allowed to build some so-called “non-core” parts of Britain’s future 5G data network, discounting U.S. alarm.Johnson’s final decision could come as early as this week, officials say.For a year, the Trump administration has urged Britain to ban Huawei from participating in the development of Britain’s fifth-generation wireless network. U.S. officials say there’s a significant risk that the company, which has close ties to Chinese intelligence services, will act as a Trojan horse for Beijing’s espionage agencies, allowing them to sweep up data and gather intelligence.FILE – Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrive at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Oct. 16, 2019.Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have urged all Western allies to shun Huawei on security grounds. They have specifically warned Downing Street that Britain’s participation in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing arrangement — the U.S.-led Anglophone intelligence pact linking Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain — would be imperiled.Australia and New Zealand have banned Huawei from developing their 5G networks. As yet, Canada has not.Senior U.S. security officials flew to London last week and warned Johnson and his ministers that allowing Huawei to supply even some non-core equipment of the future 5G network would be “nothing short of madness.”Cost factorBut Johnson has faced strong counter lobbying from China — and also from British telecom providers and mobile phone companies. They have already been installing Huawei technology to start setting up the new network in more than 70 cities in Britain. They warn that delaying the rollout of 5G would cost the British economy billions of pounds. Ripping out masts and other equipment already in place would cost British providers hundreds of millions of pounds and could delay by up to five years the 5G network.Last week, Johnson expressed frustration with the U.S. over the issue, saying in a BBC radio interview that he didn’t want “to prejudice our national security or our ability to co-operate with Five Eyes intelligence partners,” but that he wanted Britain to have “access to the best possible technology. We want to put in gigabit broadband for everybody.”Johnson added, “If people oppose one brand or another, then they have to tell us what’s the alternative.”Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson gestures as he speaks at the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London, Britain, Jan. 20, 2020.U.S. officials reportedly told Johnson that Britain shouldn’t prioritize costs over security.Johnson has some U.S. supporters.”It is a difficult decision for a number of countries, the U.K. being one of them,” said Robert Manning, an analyst at the Atlantic Council.Huawei alternativesManning sympathizes with Johnson’s complaint that the U.S. isn’t offering any alternatives to Huawei.”On one level, this is all a fallout from America First policy. We should have sat down with our allies a long time ago to sort out what you have to worry about and what you might have some leeway on. There is a certain demonization going on, ” he told VOA.British technology experts say it is easier for the U.S. to avoid using Huawei equipment, as it is building a less sophisticated 5G network and doesn’t require the advanced antenna-sharing technology Huawei has developed. They say Huawei will provide not just faster mobile data connection but easier connectivity between internet-based devices, from laptops and smart refrigerators to self-driving cars.U.S. giants Cisco and Qualcomm are the go-to 5G equipment suppliers in America. But like Europe’s Ericsson and Nokia, they can’t currently provide the same advanced equipment as Huawei or at the same low price.Security risksBritish intelligence agencies are split on whether Huawei poses a security risk. Andrew Parker, head of MI5, believes U.S. alarm is overblown. He has said publicly that the security risks can be managed if Huawei has access to the less sensitive parts of the new network, and is monitored closely and its equipment screened.He has also discounted U.S. threats to review intelligence-sharing, saying there is “no reason to think” Washington would follow through with its threat, as the U.S.-U.K. partnership is “very close and very trusted.”But U.S. officials have told VOA that Parker is wrong to think that U.S. intelligence agencies would overlook the spying fears. They also warn that a possible Johnson fudge, whereby Huawei’s equipment would be allowed in less sensitive parts of the network, wouldn’t assuage their concerns.Top officials at Britain’s GCHQ, the eavesdropping spy agency and the country’s largest intelligence, aren’t as sanguine as Parker, and remain worried about the risks of handing Huawei unprecedented access to British citizens’ sensitive data.FILE – An analyst points to a screen at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s electronic intelligence service, in London, March, 14, 2014.They agree with U.S. intelligence assessments that restricting Huawei to the “edges” of the new network would make little difference to the security risk. They told Britain’s Sunday Times that giving Huawei such access would be akin to “letting a fox loose in a chicken coop.”Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who when in office ruled out using Huawei for 5G development, said the nature of 5G technology made it impossible to separate the core from non-core elements of the future network. He said Huawei could be forced by Chinese law to hand over information to Beijing’s espionage agencies.”Do you want to give China the capability to materially interfere with what will become one of the most fundamental technological platforms in the modern economy?” he said in a radio interview last week.The Chinese government says Huawei is a private company and poses no security risk to the West. Huawei has dismissed U.S. allegations that it could undermine Britain’s national security as “baseless speculation.”Beijing has also made thinly veiled threats, suggesting a decision to ban Huawei could result in Britain being punished when it comes to trade and investment.Britain hopes to pull off post-Brexit trade deals with both Washington and Beijing to help compensate for reduced trade with Europe.
…
More than a half-century later, Tommie Smith and John Carlos are cemented into Olympic lore — their names enshrined in the Olympic Hall of Fame in the United States, their portrait an indelible fixture on the universal sports landscape.As for that raised-fist salute that transformed them into Olympic icons, while also symbolizing the power athletes possess for the short time they’re on their biggest stage — it’s still forbidden.Such was the warning this month in the announcement by the IOC, whose athletes’ commission banned kneeling and hand gestures during medals ceremonies and competiton. It’s all part of an attempt to tamp down political demonstrations at this summer’s Tokyo Games.”The eyes of the world will be on the athletes and the Olympic Games,” IOC President Thomas Bach said, in delivering an impassioned defense of the rules.FILE – U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos stare downward and extend gloved hands skyward in a Black power salute after winning medals in the 200-meter run at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, Oct. 16, 1968.IOC athlete’s rep Kirsty Coventry portrayed the guidance as a way to provide some clarity on an issue that has confounded both athletes and authorities for decades.The issue, always bubbling, surfaced last year when two U.S. athletes — Gwen Berry and Race Imboden — used medal ceremonies to make political statements at the Pan American Games. Those gestures brought a strong rebuke from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic committees, but the groups still appear confused and conflicted about the entire matter. (The USOPC didn’t welcome Smith and Carlos to an officially sanctioned event until 2016. )The IOC got its athletes’ commission, which has often contradicted key athlete movements in other Olympic areas, to get out front on the issue and offer its advice. It was essentially no different from what the IOC itself has been touting for years. Not surprisingly, some view it as an out-of-touch, retrograde attempt to stifle an increasingly outspoken generation of athletes.The mushrooming of live TV, to say nothing of the outlets now available on social media, has empowered athletes — the best examples from recent years would be Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, but there are dozens more — to use sports to send a message.Rapinoe’s reaction to the IOC announcement: “We will not be silenced.” As much as her play, Rapinoe’s outspoken fight for equal pay for the U.S. women’s soccer team underscored the American victory in the World Cup last year and made her, in the minds of many, the most influential athlete of 2019.”So much for being done about the protests,” Rapinoe wrote on Instagram last weekend. “So little being done about what we are protesting about.”Disciplinary actionThe athletes’ commission said disciplinary action would be taken “on a case-by-case basis as necessary” and listed the IOC, the sports federations and the athletes’ national governing bodies as those who will have authority to make the call. It made no mention of what the sanctions could be. In that respect, it added confusion, and might have served to emphasize the power disparity between the athletes, who are the show, and the agencies who run this multibillion-dollar enterprise and, for all intents and purposes, control the invitation list.Among the other questions not answered in the guidance document:* Who, exactly, will adjudicate the individual cases and how will cases be adjudicated?* Who, exactly, will have ultimate responsibility for implementing sanctions?While those questions went unanswered, the document did include the reminder that “it is a fundamental principle that sport is neutral and must be separate from political, religious or any other type of interference.”Political historyThat concept, however, runs counter to long thread of Olympics-as-politics storylines that have dominated the movement since it was founded in 1896.A truncated list includes:* Hitler’s hosting of the 1936 Games (winter and summer) in Nazi Germany.* IOC President Avery Brundage’s ham-handed handling of South Africa’s status in the Olympics during apartheid.* The 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Games.* The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, followed by the Soviet Union’s boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Games.* The IOC’s awarding of the 2008 Olympics to Beijing, in part compelled by promises to shine a light on the country’s attempt to improve human rights.More recently, Bach has found the committee a permanent place at the United Nations, used the Pyeongchang Games in South Korea to strive for better relations between the Koreas, and spent ample time negotiating deals with leaders who have been kind enough to spend billions to stage the Olympics.FILE – International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach delivers a speech during the closing ceremony of the 2014 Nanjing Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, August 2014.Though the IOC would argue that there are still places to make political statements in the Olympic space — news conferences and social media among them —it does not condone them on the field of play or the medals stand. It made all the more striking the picture the IOC tweeted out last Monday: Bach posing on a mountain with athletes in uniform from the United States and Iran at the Youth Olympic Games — a political statement during a time of strife that is designed to forward the long-held IOC-driven credo that the Olympics promote peace.IOC membersPeace itself is dependent on politics, and the people who run the Olympics are well connected to that world.No fewer than nine members of IOC itself are princes, princesses, dukes or sheiks — and that list doesn’t include the multitude of government officials involved in organizations that branch out of the IOC. For instance, half the World Anti-Doping Agency’s board comes from governments across the globe.Bach has singled out political concerns as a major divider in the Russian doping scandal that has embroiled the Olympics the past five years — implying it’s as much an East vs. West issue as one based on decisions that stem from painstakingly accumulated evidence.The latest move comes in the run-up to what figures to be a divisive election year in the United States, the country that sends the largest contingent to the Olympics, wins the most medals and often lands some of the most outspoken athletes on the podium.Smith and Carlos were booted from Mexico City after their protest. If history — to say nothing of Rapinoe’s reaction — is any guide, the IOC could be placed in the position to decide whether to make that same sort of statement again.
…
Malawi this month opened the first African Drone and Data Academy, with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF. The academy aims to improve drone technology skills across Africa, beginning with Malawi and neighboring countries.Karen Asaba developed an interest in drones at Uganda Flying Labs, a Kampala-based drone mapping and data hub. As a student at Malawi’s just opened African Drone and Data Academy, she gets to learn how to build one.”Right now, we are learning how to assemble a drone from the start, considering its weight, considering the central gravity, considering the GPS and all the electronics that are involved in making the drone,” she said.Asaba is one of 26 students from across Africa in the first three-month course at the academy, learning to construct and pilot drones.Instructors are seen teaching students at the African Drone and Data Academy in Malawi. (Lameck Masina/VOA)The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is backing the program, which this year is expected to train 150 students.UNICEF says the academy, and the launch of Africa’s first drone corridor in Malawi in 2016, will promote drones for development and humanitarian use.Rudolf Schwenk, the country representative for UNICEF in Malawi, says the drones will have broad practical applications.”For example, transporting medical supplies to remove areas or transporting samples very fast, where it will take a lot of time to transport them. We have also worked on emergency preparedness and response because with data and drone imagery, you can see where flooding will happen,” Schwenk said.Thumbiko Nkwawa Zingwe, a student at the newly-launched African Drone and Data Academy, says the course he has taken there has insipred him to start a space agency in Malawi. (Lameck Masina/VOA)The drone course was developed with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech.Kevin Kochersberger, an associate professor at Virginia Tech, explained the course’s components.”We go through three modules in this program. They have gone [through] drone logistics, drone technologies so they become very functional in drone[s] – not only being pilots, but they operate and maintain the drones as well,” Kochersberger said.The drone academy has inspired some students like Thumbiko Nkwawa Zingwe to reach for the stars.I have a vision that I can start a first Malawian space agency, which can be utilizing geo-information data for different applications. For example, here in Malawi we are so susceptible to floods as a geo-hazardous anomaly,” Zingwe said.The African Drone and Data Academy’s first graduates are expected in March.The academy plans to partner with Malawi University of Science and Technology for a free master’s degree program in drone technology by 2022.
…
Robert De Niro received the Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award Sunday to praise for his illustrious career and thunderous applause from his fellow performers, but spent much of his acceptance speech on politics.
“There’s right and there’s wrong, and there’s common sense and there’s abuse of power,” said De Niro, who received a standing ovation that lasted nearly a minute after Leonardo DiCaprio presented him with the award. About half of the room stood and applauded when De Niro said it was his responsibility to speak about politics and seemingly took aim at President Donald Trump, whose name he didn’t mention.
“As a citizen, I have as much right as anybody — an actor, an athlete, anybody else — to voice my opinion,” De Niro said. “And if I have a bigger voice because of my situation, I’m going to use it whenever I see a blatant abuse of power.”
De Niro became the 56th recipient of the guild’s highest honor during the ceremony held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
The actor has been a frequent, and occasionally profane, critic of Trump, but kept his criticism Sunday G-rated. He ended the politics portion of his speech by saying, “That’s all I’m going to say.”
DiCaprio praised the actor for his authenticity during his introduction, saying he’s been watching De Niro since the age of 13. DiCaprio recounted how his his father at the time suggested he pattern his early acting skills after the “Raging Bull” star.
“His specificity in detail and his fearless pursuit of authenticity in his work have influenced not only myself, but entire generations,” said DiCaprio, who co-starred with De Niro in “This Boy’s Life” in 1993. The two will co-star in Martin Scorsese’s upcoming “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“He has given us career-long explorations of the human conditions,” DiCaprio said.
After accepting the honor, De Niro thanked DiCaprio for his words then said he was ready to get back to work. DiCaprio carried De Niro’s award for him while the pair walked off stage, handing it back to his idol once in the wings.
“As actors, we don’t take victory laps,” De Niro said. “We’re too worried about what our next job will be. It makes me very happy to know that my next job will be working with you and Marty. At least I know that I have another year of health insurance.”
De Niro is a two-time Oscar winner for his supporting role in “The Godfather: Part II” and best actor in “Raging Bull.” In 2011, he was also honored with the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for his impact on the world of entertainment and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom five years later.
Through his career, De Niro has worked with some of Hollywood’s top directors, but he’s best known for his collaborations with Scorsese. The veteran actor had his breakthrough performance in Scorsese’s 1973 film “Mean Streets” before their partnership flourished in other standout projects including “Taxi Driver,” “Goodfellas,” “Casino” and “The Irishman.” Those films helped De Niro become known for tough-minded and dark characters who sometimes displayed a violent nature.
DiCaprio called De Niro and Scorsese the “greatest partnership in cinema history.”
Later in his career, De Niro had some light-hearted roles, exploring his comedic persona in films such as in the “Meet the Fockers” and “Analyze That” franchises along with “Joker.”
“Robert De Niro is elemental,” DiCaprio said Sunday. “It feels as if he’s always been here, and will always be here.”
…
The head of a Chinese government expert team says human-to-human transmission has been confirmed in an outbreak of a new coronavirus.
State media said Monday that the leader of the National Health Commission team said two people in southern China caught the diseases from family members.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that it’s “extremely crucial” to take every possible measure to combat a new coronavirus that has infected 217 people in the country.
His remarks, cited by state broadcaster CCTV, came the same day that the country reported a sharp rise in the number of people infected by the novel form of viral pneumonia, including the first cases in the capital.
The outbreak comes as the country enters its busiest travel period, when millions board trains and planes for the Lunar New Year holidays.
“The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan and other places must be taken seriously,” Xi said, according to CCTV. “Party committees, governments and relevant departments at all levels should put people’s lives and health first.”
They should “ensure that the masses have a quiet, peaceful and joyous Spring Festival,” he added.
Health authorities in the central city of Wuhan, where the viral pneumonia appears to have originated, said an additional 136 cases have been confirmed in the city, which now has a total of 198 infected patients. As of the weekend, a third patient had died.
Five individuals in Beijing and 14 in southern China’s Guangdong province have also been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, state broadcaster CCTV reported Monday evening. A total of seven suspected cases have been found in other parts of the country, including in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in the southwest and in Shanghai.
The outbreak has put other countries on alert as millions of Chinese travel for Lunar New Year. Authorities in Thailand and in Japan have already identified at least three cases, all involving recent travel from China.Travelers wear face masks as they walk outside of the Beijing Railway Station in Beijing, Jan. 20, 2020.South Korea reported its first case Monday, when a 35-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan tested positive for the new coronavirus one day after arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport. The woman has been isolated at a state-run hospital in Incheon city, just west of Seoul, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.
At least a half-dozen countries in Asia and three U.S. airports have started screening incoming airline passengers from central China.
Videos posted online show people in protective suits checking one-by-one the temperatures of plane passengers arriving in Macao from Wuhan. A man surnamed Yang who works for the Macao Health Bureau confirmed over the phone that such checks are taking place in the southern Chinese region.
Many of the initial cases of the coronavirus were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, which was closed as authorities investigated.
Since hundreds of people who came into close contact with diagnosed patients have not gotten sick, the municipal health commission maintains that the virus is not easily transmitted between humans, though it has not ruled out limited human-to-human transmission.
China’s National Health Commission said experts have judged the current outbreak to be “preventable and controllable.”
“However, the source of the new type of coronavirus has not been found, we do not fully understand how the virus is transmitted, and changes in the virus still need to be closely monitored,” the commission said in a statement Sunday.
Coronaviruses cause diseases ranging from the common cold to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS first infected people in southern China in late 2002 and spread to more than two dozen countries, killing nearly 800. The Chinese government initially tried to conceal the severity of the SARS epidemic, but its cover-up was exposed by a high-ranking physician.
“In the early days of SARS, reports were delayed and covered up,” said an editorial in the nationalistic Global Times. “That kind of thing must not happen again in China.”
“We have made great strides in medicine, social affairs management and public opinion since 2003,” the editorial said.
Xi instructed government departments Monday to promptly release information on the virus and deepen international cooperation.
China has notified and maintained close communication with the World Health Organization and other relevant countries and regions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular news briefing.
Wuhan has also adopted measures to control the flow of people leaving the city, Geng said.
The virus causing the current outbreak is different from those previously identified, Chinese scientists said earlier this month. Initial symptoms of the novel coronavirus include fever, cough, tightness of the chest and shortness of breath.
On the Weibo social media platform, which is widely used in China, people posted prevention advice such as wearing masks and washing hands. State broadcaster CCTV recommended staying warm, increasing physical activity, eating lightly and avoiding crowded places. Some people said they had canceled their travel plans and were staying home for Lunar New Year.
…
Chancellor Angela Merkel has asked her conservative lawmakers to wait until after a March EU summit before taking a position on whether China’s Huawei can take part in the rollout of Germany’s 5G network, sources involved in their talks said.Merkel believes European Union coordination on the issue is important and she has been unable to bridge differences within her CDU/CSU bloc, the sources said.Merkel’s conservatives are divided on whether to support a proposal by their Social Democrat (SPD) junior coalition partners that, if approved, would effectively shut out the Chinese technology giant from the network.
…
Everyone knows that the global corporate tax system needs to be overhauled, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said on Monday, backing changes to global rules that are currently under consideration.The growth of internet giants such as Apple has pushed international tax rules to the limit, prompting the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to pursue global
reforms over where multinational firms should be taxed.
The reforms being examined center around the booking of profits by multinational firms in low-tax countries such as Ireland where they have bases — and where Cook was speaking on Monday — rather than where most of their customers are.
“I think logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled, I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system. I’m hopeful
and optimistic that they [the OECD] will find something,” Cook said.
“It’s very complex to know how to tax a multinational… We desperately want it to be fair,” the Apple CEO added after receiving an inaugural award from the Irish state agency responsible for attracting foreign companies recognizing the contribution of multinationals in the country.
Apple is one of Ireland’s largest multinational employers with 6,000 workers and both it and the Irish government have gone to court to fight a European Union order that Apple must pay 13 billion euros ($14.41 billion) in back taxes to Dublin.
The appeal to the EU’s second-highest court began in September and could run for years. Cook said Apple’s belief that “law should not retrofitted” was at the heart of the case and that the company had great faith in the justice system.
Apple’s commitment to Ireland, which became its first European operation in 1980, was “unshakable,” Cook said.
The Apple chief executive also said that more regulation was needed in the area of privacy and must go further than the 2018 European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy laws
that handed regulators there significantly more powers.
“I think more regulation is needed in this area, it is probably strange for a business person to be talking about regulation but it has become apparent that companies will not
self-police in this area,” he said.
“We were one of the first to endorse GDPR, we think it is overall extremely good, not only for Europe. We think it’s necessary but not sufficient. You have to go further and that further is required to get privacy back to where it should be.”
…
Google’s chief executive called Monday for a balanced approach to regulating artificial intelligence, telling a European audience that the technology brings benefits but also “negative consequences.”Sundar Pichai’s comments come as lawmakers and governments seriously consider putting limits on how artificial intelligence is used.“There is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated. The question is how best to approach this,” Pichai said, according to a transcript of his speech at a Brussel-based think tank.He noted that there’s an important role for governments to play and that as the European Union and the U.S. start drawing up their own approaches to regulation, “international alignment” of any eventual rules will be critical. He did not provide specific proposals.Pichai spoke on the same day he was scheduled to meet the EU’s powerful competition regulator, Margrethe Vestager.Vestager has in previous years hit the Silicon Valley giant with multibillion-dollar fines for allegedly abusing its market dominance to choke off competition. After being reappointed for a second term last autumn with expanded powers over digital technology policies, Vestager has now set her sights on artificial intelligence, and is drawing up rules on its ethical use.Pichai’s comments suggest the company may be hoping to head off a broad-based crackdown by the EU on the technology. Vestager and the EU have been the among the more aggressive regulators of big tech firms, an approach U.S. authorities have picked up with investigations into the dominance of companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon.“Sensible regulation must also take a proportionate approach, balancing potential harms with social opportunities,” he said, adding that it could incorporate existing standards like Europe’s tough General Data Protection Regulation rather than starting from scratch.While it promises big benefits, he raised concerns about potential downsides of artificial intelligence, citing as one example its role in facial recognition technology, which can be used to find missing people but also for “nefarious reasons” which he didn’t specify.In 2018, Google pledged not to use AI in applications related to weapons, surveillance that violates international norms, or that works in ways that go against human rights.
…
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that it’s “extremely crucial” to take every possible measure to combat a new coronavirus that has infected more than 200 people in the country.His remarks, cited by state broadcaster CCTV, came the same day that the country reported a sharp rise in the number of people infected by the novel form of viral pneumonia, including the first cases in the capital.The outbreak comes as the country enters its busiest travel period, when millions board trains and planes for the Lunar New Year holidays.”The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan and other places must be taken seriously,” Xi said, according to CCTV. “Party committees, governments and relevant departments at all levels should put people’s lives and health first.”Health authorities in the central city of Wuhan, where the viral pneumonia appears to have originated, said an additional 136 cases have been confirmed in the city, which now has a total of 198 infected patients. As of the weekend, a third patient had died, bringing the death toll to three.Five individuals in Beijing and 14 in southern China’s Guangdong have also been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, state broadcaster CCTV reported Monday evening. A total of seven suspected cases have been found in other parts of the country, including in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in the southwest and in Shanghai.The outbreak has put other countries on alert as millions of Chinese travel for Lunar New Year. Authorities in Thailand and in Japan have already identified at least three cases, all involving recent travel from China.South Korea reported its first case Monday, when a 35-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan tested positive for the new coronavirus one day after arriving at Seoul’s Incheon airport. The woman has been isolated at a state-run hospital in Incheon city, just west of Seoul, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.At least a half-dozen countries in Asia and three U.S. airports have started screening incoming airline passengers from central China.Videos posted online show people in protective suits checking one-by-one the temperatures of plane passengers arriving in Macao from Wuhan. A man surnamed Yang who works for the Macao Health Bureau confirmed over the phone that such checks are taking place in the southern Chinese region.Many of the initial cases of the coronavirus were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, which was closed as authorities investigated.Since hundreds of people who came into close contact with diagnosed patients have not gotten sick, the municipal health commission maintains that the virus is not easily transmitted between humans, though it has not ruled out limited human-to-human transmission.China’s National Health Commission said experts have judged the current outbreak to be “preventable and controllable.””However, the source of the new type of coronavirus has not been found, we do not fully understand how the virus is transmitted, and changes in the virus still need to be closely monitored,” the commission said in a statement Sunday.Coronaviruses cause diseases ranging from the common cold to SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. SARS first infected people in southern China in late 2002 and spread to more than two dozen countries, killing nearly 800. The Chinese government initially tried to conceal the severity of the SARS epidemic, but its cover-up was exposed by a high-ranking physician.”In the early days of SARS, reports were delayed and covered up,” said an editorial in the nationalistic Global Times. “That kind of thing must not happen again in China.””We have made great strides in medicine, social affairs management and public opinion since 2003,” the editorial said.China is putting forth its “utmost efforts to tackle the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Monday.The government has notified and maintained close communication with the World Health Organization and other relevant countries and regions, Geng said, adding that Wuhan has adopted measures to control the flow of people leaving the city.The virus causing the current outbreak is different from those previously identified, Chinese scientists said earlier this month. Initial symptoms of the novel coronavirus include fever, cough, tightness of the chest and shortness of breath.On the Weibo social media platform, which is widely used in China, people posted prevention advice such as wearing masks and washing hands. State broadcaster CCTV recommended staying warm, increasing physical activity, eating lightly and avoiding crowded places. Some people said they had canceled their travel plans and were staying home for Lunar New Year.
…
The first stage of an extradition hearing for a senior executive of Chinese telecom giant Huawei begins Monday in a Vancouver courtroom, a case that has infuriated Beijing, set off a diplomatic furor and raised fears of a brewing tech war between China and the United States. Canada’s arrest of chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s legendary founder, in late 2018 at America’s request shocked Beijing. Huawei represents China’s ambitions to become a technological power, but has been the subject of U.S. security concerns for years. Beijing views Meng’s case as an attempt to contain China’s rise. “This is one of the top priorities for the Chinese government. They’ve been very mad. They will be watching this very closely,” said Wenran Jiang, a senior fellow at the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. Washington accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It says Meng, 47, committed fraud by misleading HSBC Bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran. In this file photo taken on Nov. 6, 2019, the logo of Chinese telecom giant Huawei is pictured during the Web Summit in Lisbon.Meng, who is free on bail and living in one of the two Vancouver mansions she owns, denies the allegations. Meng’s defense team has pointed to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump they say suggest the case against her is politically motivated. Meng was detained in December 2018 by Canadian authorities in Vancouver as she was changing flights — the same day that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for trade talks. Prosecutors have stressed that Meng’s case is separate from the wider trade dispute, but Trump undercut that message weeks after her arrest when he said he would consider intervening in the case if it would help forge a trade deal with Beijing. China and the U.S. reached a “Phase 1” trade agreement last week, but most analysts say any meaningful resolution of the main U.S. allegation — that Beijing uses predatory tactics in its drive to supplant America’s technological supremacy — could require years of contentious talks. Trump had raised the possibility of using Huawei’s fate as a bargaining chip in the trade talks, but the deal announced Wednesday didn’t mention the company. Huawei is the biggest global supplier of network gear for cellphone and internet companies. Washington has pressured other countries to limit use of its technology, warning they could be opening themselves up to surveillance and theft. “I think this is the beginning of a technological war along ideological fronts,” said Lynette Ong, an associate professor at the University of Toronto. “You are going to see the world divided into two parts. One side would use Chinese companies and the other side would not use Chinese companies because they are weary of the political implications of using Chinese platforms.”James Lewis at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said the U.S. wanted to send a message with Meng’s arrest and that there is good evidence that Huawei willfully violated sanctions. “The message that you are no longer invulnerable has been sent to Chinese executives,” Lewis said. “No one has held China accountable. They steal technology, they violate their WTO commitments and the old line is, ‘Oh, they are a developing economy, who cares.’ When you are the second-largest economy in the world you can’t do that anymore.” The initial stage of Meng’s extradition hearing will deal with the issue of whether Meng’s alleged crimes are crimes both in the United States and Canada. Her lawyers filed a a motion Friday arguing that Meng’s case is really about U.S. sanctions against Iran, not a fraud case. Canada does not have similar sanctions on Iran. The second phase, scheduled for June, will consider defense allegations that Canada Border Services, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI violated her rights while collecting evidence before she was actually arrested. The extradition case could take years to resolve if there are appeals. Virtually all extradition request from Canada to the U.S. are approved by Canadian judges. In apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest, China detained former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor. The two men have been denied access to lawyers and family and are being held in prison cells where the lights are kept on 24-hours-a-day. “That’s mafia-style pressure,” Lewis said. China has also placed restrictions on various Canadian exports to China, including canola oil seed and meat. Last January, China also handed a death sentence to a convicted Canadian drug smuggler in a sudden retrial. “Canada is fulfilling the terms of its extradition treaty but is paying an enormous price,” said Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “This is the kind of world we’re living in now, where countries like Canada are at risk of getting squeezed in major power contests.”
…
“Parasite” has officially infected Hollywood’s award season. Bong Joon Ho’s Korean class satire became the first foreign language film to take top honors from the Screen Actors Guild on Sunday, setting itself up as a legitimate best picture contender to the front-runner “1917” at next month’s Academy Awards. The best ensemble win for “Parasite” came over the starry epics “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” and “The Irishman.” It was a surprise but only to a degree. “Parasite,” up for six Oscars including best picture, has emerged as perhaps the stiffest competition for Sam Mendes’ “1917,” which won at the highly predictive Producers Guild Awards on Saturday. But “Parasite” was the clear crowd favorite Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, where even the cast’s appearance introducing the film drew a standing ovation. Yet until the SAG Awards, the many honors for “Parasite” have seldom included awards for its actors, none of whom were nominated for an Oscar. “Although the title is ‘Parasite,’ I think the story is about coexistence and how we can all live together,” said Song Kang Ho, one of the film’s stars, through a translator. Because actors make up the largest percentage of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, their picks are closely watched as an Academy Awards harbinger.Jennifer Aniston accepts the award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series for “The Morning Show” at the 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall, Jan. 19, 2020, in Los Angeles.But the last two years, the SAG ensemble winner has not gone on to win best picture: “Black Panther” last year and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” in 2018. And this year’s front-runner, “1917,” more acclaimed for its technical acumen, wasn’t nominated by the screen actors. If “Parasite” can pull off the upset at the Feb. 9 Oscars, it would be the first foreign language film to do so.Before the win for “Parasite,” the SAG Awards were most notable as a reunion for Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. They each took home awards and celebrated the other’s win. Pitt is headed toward his first acting Academy Award for his supporting performance in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” and he added to his front-runner status with a win from the actors’ guild. Along the way, his speeches have been full of one-liners and he didn’t disappoint Sunday. Pitt, who said he was nursing a flu, looked down at his award and said, “I’ve got to add this to my Tinder profile.”He added: “Let’s be honest, it was a difficult part. A guy who gets high, takes his shirt off and doesn’t get on with his wife. It was a big stretch.” The audience laughed and clapped, including — as the cameras captured — Aniston, his ex-wife.Aniston later won an award of her own for best female actor in a drama series for the Apple TV Plus show “The Morning Show.” “What!” she said upon reaching the stage. Aniston finished her speech with a shout-out to her “Murder Mystery:” co-star Adam Sandler, whose performance in “Uncut Gems” has gone mostly unrewarded this season despite considerable acclaim. “Your performance is extraordinary and your magic is real. I love you, buddy,” said Aniston. Backstage, Pitt watched Aniston’s acceptance speech. After she got off stage, they warmly congratulated each other on their first individual SAG Awards. Along with Pitt, all the Oscar favorites kept their momentum, including wins for Renee Zellweger (“Judy”), Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”) and Laura Dern (“Marriage Story”). Joaquin Phoenix reacts as he accepts the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role for “Joker” at the 26th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.As expected, Phoenix took best performance by a leading male actor. After individually praising each fellow nominee, Phoenix concluded with a nod to his Joker predecessor. “I’m standing here on the shoulders of my favorite actor, Heath Ledger,” said Phoenix. Dern also further established herself as the best supporting actress favorite with a win from the actors guild. On her way to the stage, she hugged her father, Bruce Dern, part of the “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” ensemble. Phoebe Waller-Bridge continued her awards sweep for “Fleabag,” a winner at the Emmys and the Golden Globes. Waller-Bridge added a SAG win for best female actor in a comedy series and took a moment to reflect on the show’s parade of accolades. “This whole thing really has been a dream, and if I wake up tomorrow and discover it was just that, then thank you,” said Waller-Bridge. “It’s been the most beautiful dream.” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” also continued its streak, winning best comedy series ensemble for the second straight year, along with a win for Tony Shalhoub. But accepting the ensemble award, the show’s shocked Alex Borstein said she had voted for “Fleabag.” “Honestly this makes no sense,’ said Borstein. “‘Fleabag’ is brilliant.'” Robert De Niro was given the guild’s lifetime achievement award, an honor presented by Leonardo DiCaprio who, like De Niro, is a frequent leading man for Martin Scorsese. (The two co-star in Scorsese’s upcoming “Killers of the Flower Moon.”) A raucous standing ovation greeted the 76-year-old actor. De Niro, a fiery critic of Donald Trump, referenced the president in his remarks. “There’s right and there’s wrong. And there’s common sense and there’s abuse of power. As a citizen, I have as much right as anybody — an actor, an athlete, anybody else — to voice my opinion,” said De Niro. “And if I have a bigger voice because of my situation, I’m going to use it whenever I see a blatant abuse of power.” “Game of Thrones” closed out its eight-season run with wins for Peter Dinklage for best male actor in a drama series and for best stunt ensemble work. “The Crown” took best ensemble in a drama series. And both “Fosse/Verdon” stars — Michelle Williams and Sam Rockwell — won for their performances in the miniseries.
…
Chinese health officials in the central city of Wuhan confirmed 136 new cases of a new coronavirus — a huge spike — over the past three days.The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission says the total number of cases of the virus now exceeds 200, including two new cases in Beijing and one in Shenzhen in southern China. Most of the confirmed cases are described as mild, but three deaths have been reported.Doctors in Wuhan, China’s seventh most populous city, have stepped up screening for suspected cases of pneumonia. They are urging people to be more conscious of their personal hygiene and to cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze.On Friday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at three airports — San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Airports in Japan, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore are also screening passengers.Passengers on a flight that arrived Saturday morning in San Francisco said they went through the screening and it was an easy procedure. Their temperature was taken and they filled out a form.Chinese and U.S. health officials are particularly concerned because many of the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens are expected to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday that starts Jan. 25, both inside China and beyond.FILE – A man leaves the Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where a man who died from a respiratory illness was being treated, in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Jan. 12, 2020.A coronavirus is one of a large family of viruses that can cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. SARS, which also started in China, killed nearly 800 people globally during an outbreak 17 years ago.Chinese health experts know little about the new strain, dubbed 2019-nCoV, in Wuhan, especially how it is transmitted. They suspect the outbreak started in a Wuhan seafood market, which also sold other animals such as poultry, bats, marmots and wild game meat, but some patients say they were never there.Health officials are urging caution but say there is no reason to panic. The World Health Organization is not recommending against travel to China, and China’s National Health Commission says the current outbreak is “preventable and controllable.”According to the latest information received and WHO analysis, there is evidence of limited human-to-human transmission of the virus, the WHO tweeted Sunday. This is in line with experience with other respiratory illnesses and in particular with other coronavirus outbreaks.While there is currently no clear evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, we do not have enough evidence to evaluate the full extent of human-to-human transmission. This is one of the issues that @WHO is monitoring closely.While there is currently no clear evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission, we do not have enough evidence to evaluate the full extent of human-to-human transmission.This is one of the issues that @WHO is monitoring closely.— World Health Organization Western Pacific (@WHOWPRO) January 19, 2020Of the new cases announced this weekend, all involve adults ages 25 to 89. About half are male (78) and half are female (75), according Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which translated the Wuhan commission’s statement.Of the 198 patients confirmed so far, 28 have recovered or been discharged. Of the 170 people still in the hospital, 126 have mild illness, 35 are listed as severe, and 9 are in critical condition. Three deaths have been now reported. Hospitalized patients in Wuhan are isolated at a designated facility.The number of close contacts under monitoring has risen from 763 to 817, and monitoring is still under way for 90. So far no related cases have been found in contacts.
…
U.S. health officials are at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York screening passengers traveling from Wuhan, a city in central China, where a viral pneumonia has spread. Michelle Quinn spoke to passengers arriving in San Francisco.
…
Amid a spike in violent extremism around the world, a communications researcher is experimenting with a novel idea: whether people can be “inoculated” against hate with a little exposure to extremist propaganda, in the same manner vaccines enable human bodies to fight disease.The idea is based on something called attitudinal inoculation, a technique that aims to build people’s resistance to negative influences by exposing them to weaker forms of those influences. Developed in the 1960s, the method has been used to help teenagers resist peer pressure to start smoking. In 2018, Kurt Braddock, a communications professor at Penn State University, conducted a study to see whether attitudinal inoculation could be used against extremism. The results, published in the journal Terrorism and Political Violence in November, look promising. Data showed a ‘very cool story’The data came back showing a very, very cool story about how inoculation works in this context,” Braddock said in an interview.“I found that if you inoculate people against extreme right-wing propaganda or extreme left-wing propaganda, they tend to argue against that propaganda more than if you don’t inoculate them,” Braddock said. “They tend to feel more anger towards the source of the propaganda than those you don’t inoculate. And they tend to think that the extremist groups that produce the propaganda are less credible than if you didn’t inoculate them.”Two-step methodAs with other attitudinal inoculation studies, Braddock’s experiment on 357 participants — randomly selected from a survey website — entailed two steps. The first involved warning them that the propaganda material they were about to encounter had been very effective in changing the views of people such as the participants. “That makes them think that maybe their beliefs and attitudes aren’t as secure as they think they are and if they encounter this propaganda it might change their minds,” Braddock said. Counter argumentsThen they were given counter arguments. For example, they were told that exhortations to violence could be refuted by arguing that “protest is fine but violence doesn’t solve the issue,” Braddock said.Once “inoculated,” the participants (except for a small control group) were invited to read propaganda material produced by two extremist groups — the now-defunct left-wing Weather Underground and the neo-Nazi group National Alliance — and asked to register their reaction.The response exceeded Braddock’s expectations: those who had been inoculated were more likely than the control group to reject both groups. “The differences were significant,” Braddock said.Caveats to findingsAs significant as they were, the findings came with caveats. One reviewer noted that the study used propaganda from a group that is no longer around. Another questioned the reliability of such experiments, noting that exposure to propaganda is just one risk factor for radicalization. A more important question is whether the lab-tested method has real-world application. Braddock acknowledges the limitations. To test out his idea in the real world, he said he plans to conduct follow-up studies on young people who are actively targeted by extremist propaganda.‘Real-world testing’That’s the next step,” he said. “I’m really curious to see what shakes out in real world samples.” Jesse Morton, an-ex jihadi who runs a support organization for former extremists, said the study has some potential use. Social media companies and educational institutions could potentially use it to develop preventive tools, Morton said.”There’s a lot of push on [social media companies] to do something about the right-wing extremist threat in general, but I think schools and universities are those that are most set up for benefiting from it,” Morton said.Google pilot programUnder pressure to clamp down on violent content, social media companies have rolled out a variety of anti-extremism tools in recent years. In 2017, Google launched the “ReDirect Method,” a pilot program that prompted viewers searching for extremist videos on YouTube to watch more positive content. In some ways, Morton said, the Redirect Method is similar to the anti-hate vaccine Braddock is testing. “We can’t just think about prevention and isolation,” Morton said. “We have to think about the realm of prevention in countering violent extremism, as if it is directly connected to every facet of the radicalization process.”
…
What we now call soul food originally came out of black culture in the southern United States. At its core, soul food is a hearty, spicy food rich with the calories and protein African Americans needed to make it through long days of hard work, first as slaves on plantations and then after Emancipation working as sharecroppers on farms in the rural south. But over time soul food has become high cuisine and it’s at the heart of some great Washington, DC, restaurants. VOA’s Unshin Lee reports.
…
The World Health Organization reports there is no evidence of human-to-human spread of the new coronavirus that has sickened dozens, but says the possibility cannot be ruled out. Investigations are continuing, aimed at identifying the source of the new Coronavirus. Late last year, China reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause. Many were linked to a fish market in Wuhan, central China’s largest city. The World Health Organization reports 41 people have been infected with the disease in China, including two deaths. Additionally, two infections have been identified in Thailand and one in Japan among people who had traveled to Wuhan. The spread of the disease outside of China is raising concern among health officials and the general public. Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that range from the common cold to MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, and SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. They can be spread from animals to humans, but also from human to human. Maria Van Kerkhove, the head of WHO’s Emerging Diseases and Zoonoses Unit, notes transmission between humans was limited during previous MERS and SARS outbreaks. However, she warns disease spread can be amplified, particularly in health care facilities.”There is also the possibility of super-spreading events. The global community is very familiar with what happened with SARS in the past and this is something that is on our radar that is possible and what we need to prepare ourselves for,” said Van Kerkhove.The 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, which originated in China, infected more than 8,000 people globally and killed 774. Van Kerkhove says it is important to identify the pathogen and find the source of the outbreak, including the animal source.”We need to better understand the modes of transmission. I mentioned the zoonotic transmission. So, how are people getting infected from a potential animal source,” said Van Kerkhove. “And, is there any evidence of human-to-human transmission. From the information that we have, it is possible that there is limited human-to-human transmission, potentially among families. But it is very clear right now, that we have no sustained human-to-human transmission.”A new scientific study in Britain indicates the coronavirus outbreak may be more serious than reported. The British experts report as many as 1,700 people may have been sickened by the disease, which can range from mild respiratory symptoms to severe disease and death. International airports in the United States and a number of countries in Asia, including Hong Kong, Thailand, and Malaysia, have stepped up screening procedures of travelers coming from China. The World Health Organization urges countries to be vigilant, but does not advise any travel restrictions.
…