More and more, people are installing video doorbells and surveillance cameras in and around their homes to protect against unwanted intruders. But while many consumers feel the devices provide some peace of mind, some observers are concerned that they trigger personal biases toward those captured on camera. VOA’s Julie Taboh has this report. Michelle Quinn contributed.
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Who said there is nothing new under the sun?
One of the hottest innovations for the non-polluting generation of electricity is floating photo-voltaics, or FPV, which involves anchoring solar panels in bodies of water, especially lakes, reservoirs and seas. Some projects in Asia incorporate thousands of panels to generate hundreds of megawatts.
FPV got a head start in Asia and Europe where it makes a lot of economic sense with open land highly valued for agriculture.
The first modest systems were installed in Japan and at a California winery in 2007 and 2008.
On land, a one-megawatt projects requires between one and 1.6 hectares.
Floating solar projects are even more attractive when they can be built on bodies of water adjacent to hydropower plants with existing transmission lines.
Most of the largest such projects are in China and India. There also are large-scale facilities in Brazil, Portugal and Singapore.
A proposed 2.1 gigawatt floating solar farm on a tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea in South Korea, which would contain five million solar modules over an area covering 30 square kilometers with a $4 billion price tag, is facing an uncertain future with a new government in Seoul. President Yoon Suk-yeol has indicated he prefers to boost nuclear over solar power.
Other gigawatt-scale projects are moving off the drawing board in India and Laos, as well as the North Sea, off the Dutch coast.
The technology has also excited planners in sub-Saharan Africa with the lowest electricity access rate in the world and an abundance of sunshine.
In countries that depend on a lot of hydropower, “there’s concerns around what does power generation look like during droughts, for example, and with climate change, we expect that we’ll see more extreme weather events. When we’re thinking about droughts, there is the opportunity to then have FPV as another renewable energy option in your toolkit essentially,” explained Sika Gadzanku, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. “So instead of depending so much on hydro, now you can use more FPV and reduce your dependence on hydro, during very dry seasons, to use your floating solar photovoltaics.”
A one percent coverage of hydropower reservoirs with floating solar panels could provide an increase of 50 percent of the annual production of existing hydroelectric plants in Africa, according to a study funded by the European Commission.
Challenges
There are potential flotovoltaic hazards, however. A plant caught fire in Chiba prefecture in Japan in 2019. Officials blamed a typhoon for shifting panels one atop another, generating intense heat and possibly sparking the fire at the 18-hectare facility containing more than 50,000 floating solar panels at the Yamakura Dam.
The most significant barrier to wider adoption of the technology, at present, is the price. It is more expensive to construct a floating array than a similarly sized installation on land. But with the higher costs there are additional benefits: Due to passive cooling of water bodies, the floating panels can function more effectively than conventional solar panels. They also reduce light exposure and lower the water temperature, minimizing harmful algae growth.
That all sounded promising to officials in the town of Windsor in northern California’s wine country. Nearly 5,000 solar panels, each generating 360 watts of electricity, are now floating on one of Windsor’s wastewater ponds.
“They’re all interlinked. Each panel gets its own float. And they actually move quite well with wave action and wind action,” . You’d be surprised how they can kind of just suck up the waves and ride them out without breaking or coming apart,” said Garrett Broughton, the senior civil engineer for Windsor’s public works department.
The floating panels are easy on the environment and Windsor’s budget, in which the wastewater plant’s electric bill was the town government’s largest
Town Council member Deborah Fudge pushed for the 1.78-megawatt project over an alternative of putting solar panels atop carports.
“They offset 350 metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly. And they also provide 90 percent of the power that we need for all of the operations for treating wastewater, for all the operations of our corporation yard and also for pumping our wastewater to the geysers, which, is a geothermal field, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north,” Fudge told VOA.
The town leases the floating panels from the company that installed them, which gives it a set price for electricity on a long-term contract, meaning Windsor is paying about 30 percent of what it previously spent for the same amount of power.
“It’s not like we’ve invested in something where we’re not going to get a payback. We’re getting a payback as we speak. And we’ll get a payback for 25 years,” said Windsor’s mayor, Sam Salmon.
The floating systems are not intended to fully blanket bodies of water, allowing for other activities to continue, such as boating and fishing.
“We do not assume the floating structure will cover the whole water body, it’s often a very small percentage of that water body,” NREL’s Gadzanku told VOA. “Even just from a visual perspective you don’t want to maybe see PV panels covering an entire reservoir.”
NREL has identified 24,419 man-made bodies of water in the United States as suitable for FPV placement. Floating panels covering little more than one-fourth the area of each these sites would potentially generate nearly 10 percent of America’s energy needs, according to the lab.
Among the sites is the 119-hectare Smith Lake, a man-made reservoir managed by Stafford County in Virginia to produce drinking water. It is also a site for recreational fishing adjacent to the U.S. Marine Corps’ Quantico base.
“Many of these eligible bodies of water are in water-stressed areas with high land acquisition costs and high electricity prices, suggesting multiple benefits of FP technologies,” wrote the study’s authors.
“It really is an option with a lot of proven technology behind it,” said Gadzanku.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Silicon Valley this week comes as the Biden administration is promoting more investment in technology but also enacting more restrictions on selling technology to businesses in China. Michelle Quinn reports.
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Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the Booker Prize on Monday for his second novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, about a dead war photographer on a mission in the afterlife.
Karunatilaka received a trophy from Queen Consort Camilla at the English language literary award’s first in-person ceremony since 2019. He also gets a 50,000 pound ($56,810) prize.
Set in 1990 Sri Lanka during the country’s civil war, Karunatilaka’s story follows gay war photographer and gambler Maali Almeida, who wakes up dead.
Time is of essence for Maali, who has “seven moons” to reach out to loved ones and guide them to hidden photos he has taken depicting the brutality of his country’s conflict.
“My hope for Seven Moons is that in the not-too-distant future … it is read in a Sri Lanka that has understood that these ideas of corruption, race baiting and cronyism have not worked and will never work,” Karunatilaka said in his acceptance speech.
“I hope it is read in a Sri Lanka that learns from its stories and that ‘Seven Moons’ will be in the fantasy section of the bookshop and will … not be mistaken for realism or political satire.”
This year’s shortlist of Booker Prize contenders included British author Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker, Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, Small Things Like These by Irish writer Claire Keegan, U.S. author Percival Everett’s The Trees and Oh William! by U.S. author Elizabeth Strout.
“This is a metaphysical thriller, an afterlife noir that dissolves the boundaries not just of different genres, but of life and death, body and spirit, east and west,” judges chair Neil MacGregor said of Karunatilaka’s book.
“It is an entirely serious philosophical romp that takes the reader to ‘the world’s dark heart’ — the murderous horrors of civil war Sri Lanka,” MacGregor added. “And once there, the reader also discovers the tenderness and beauty, the love and loyalty, and the pursuit of an ideal that justify every human life.”
Past winners of the Booker Prize, which was first awarded in 1969, include Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Yann Martel.
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Karim Benzema won the men’s Ballon d’Or for the first time on Monday after a brilliant season with Real Madrid capped by the Champions League and Spanish league titles.
The 34-year-old Benzema had his best season ever at Madrid, being the top scorer in both leagues. He scored 44 times with Madrid, including 15 in Europe’s top competition, and equaled Raúl González as the club’s second-highest scorer behind Cristiano Ronaldo.
Spanish player Alexia Putellas won the women’s trophy for the second straight year following another standout season with Barcelona.
Benzema won ahead of Liverpool’s Sadio Mané and Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne.
Benzema succeeded Lionel Messi, who won the award for a record-extending seventh time last year but was not among the nominees this time after his first season with Paris Saint-Germain.
For the first time this year, the Ballon d’Or was based on achievements from the past season. It had previously been awarded based on performances throughout calendar years.
Awarded by France Football magazine, the Ballon d’Or has been given out to men every year since 1956 when Stanley Matthews won. The women’s trophy was created in 2018, and both were canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic.
Benzema became the fifth Frenchman to win it after Raymond Kopa, Michel Platini, Jean-Pierre Papin and Zinedine Zidane, who was crowned in 1998, the year France won its first World Cup.
Benzema was not part of the France squad that triumphed at the 2018 World Cup in Russia but, barring an injury, will compete at the tournament in Qatar next month.
After nearly six years out following his involvement in a sex tape scandal, Benzema was recalled by France coach Didier Deschamps last year ahead of the European Championship and has played regularly since.
Leading an attack that also included Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo, Benzema played a crucial role last season to drive Madrid to a record-extending 14th European title, and his fifth since he joined from Lyon in 2009. The Frenchman was the tournament’s top scorer and found the net when it really mattered, with 10 of his goals in the knockout stages.
Putellas scored 42 goals and delivered 22 assists last season. She became the first player to win the award twice.
With Barcelona, she won the Spanish League and reached the Champions League final. She has been sidelined since July after injuring her left knee and undergoing surgery on the eve of the Women’s European Championship.
Putellas beat out fellow forwards Beth Mead of Arsenal and England and Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia for the award at the ceremony in Paris. A panel of international journalists chose the winners.
In other awards, the Kopa Trophy for the best under-21 player went to 18-year-old Barcelona midfielder Gavi, while Robert Lewandowski won the Gerd Müller award for the best striker of the year.
The Lev Yashin award for best goalkeeper went to Real Madrid’s Thibaut Courtois.
Ballon d’Or organizers added a humanitarian prize named after the late Brazil midfielder Socrates. The trophy went to Liverpool’s Sadio Mané for his charity work in Senegal including building a hospital and school donations.
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Long distance runners rely on endurance, determination and the ability to see. Today, steps are being taken to help runners with disabilities, including those who are blind or partially sighted, to compete. Andri Tambunan reports for VOA in this report narrated by Zulfian Bakar. Videographer: Andri Tambunan, Maria Iman-Santoso
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Relentless drought in China, East Africa, the U.S. West and northern Mexico, devastating floods in Pakistan and Kentucky, scorching heat waves in Europe and the Pacific Northwest, destructive cyclones in southern Africa and intense hurricanes in the U.S. and Central America make up just some of the recent extreme weather events that scientists have long predicted would be more intense with a warming climate.
“With just over one degree of warming since pre-industrial times, we are already seeing more extreme weather patterns,” said Elizabeth Robinson, director of the Grantham Research Institute in London.
Scientists have been tracking precisely how much the climate has already changed due to human activity. Temperatures around the world have been inching upwards.
The average global temperature today, which tends to be compared to estimates for the pre-industrial era that kickstarted the mass burning of fossil fuels, has shot up between 0.9 and 1.2 degrees Celsius (1.6 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1850, in large part due to human activity, according to estimates in the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Most of that warming has happened from 1975 onwards, at a rate of 0.15 Celsius (0.27 Fahrenheit) to 0.2 Celsius (0.36 Fahrenheit) per decade.
Most people are living in areas that have heated up more than the global average, “partly that is urbanization — people move into cities, which are urban heat islands — and partly populations growing,” Robinson said. Urban areas, packed with plenty of heat-absorbing infrastructure like roads and buildings and less cooling tree cover, become “islands” of warmer weather.
Sea levels, which have swelled due to both warming, expanding oceans and the melting of ice over land, have also been jumping up more rapidly. In the twentieth century, seas were rising by about 1.4 millimeters (0.06 inches) a year, but that’s doubled to 3.6 millimeters a year (0.14 inches) in the past fifteen years, data suggests. Seas have risen by about 21 to 24 centimeters (8 to 9 inches) so far since 1880 on average, according to estimates, with the IPCC suggesting this will likely be up to 43 to 84 centimeters (17 to 33 inches) by 2100.
While the climate and global temperatures have fluctuated throughout the Earth’s history, it is the rate of change that is most alarming to researchers. Fossil fuels — made up of ancient decomposing plants and animals deep in the earth — have been dug up at extraordinary rates. Scientists are now starting to pinpoint “details about rates and magnitudes and timing of changes” as well as the varying impact on regions, said Brown University climate scientist Kim Cobb.
With the planet already facing the effects of climate change, adapting to hazards is one major way humans can limit the damage. Weather-related disaster deaths are generally trending lower globally as forecasts, preparedness and resilience improves, scientists say.
“The extent to which people are harmed by an extreme weather event is strongly influenced by government policies,” Robinson said, but added that “there are limits to adaptation.”
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The rapper formerly known as Kanye West is offering to buy right-wing friendly social network Parler shortly after being booted off Twitter and Instagram for antisemitic posts.
Parlement Technologies, which owns the platform, and West, legally known as Ye, said the acquisition should be completed in the fourth quarter, but details like price were not revealed. Parlement Technologies said the agreement includes the use of private cloud services via Parlement’s private cloud and data center infrastructure.
Ye, was locked out of Twitter and Instagram a week ago over antisemitic posts that the social networks said violated their policies. In one post on Twitter, Ye said he would soon go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” according to internet archive records, making an apparent reference to the U.S. defense readiness condition scale known as DEFCON.
Ye is no stranger to controversy, once suggesting slavery was a choice and calling the COVID-19 vaccine “the mark of the beast.” Earlier this month, he was criticized for wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to his collection at Paris Fashion Week.
The potential purchase of Parler would give Ye control of a social media platform and a new outlet for his opinions with no gatekeeper.
“In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves,” Ye said in a prepared statement.
The acquisition could also breathe new life into Parler, which has struggled amid competition from other conservative-friendly platforms like Truth Social. Parler, which launched in August 2018, didn’t start picking up steam until 2020. But it was kicked offline following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. A month after the attack, Parler announced a relaunch. It returned to Google Play last month.
“This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech,” Parlement Technologies CEO George Farmer said in a prepared statement.
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The members of K-pop band BTS will serve their mandatory military duties under South Korean law, their management company said Monday, effectively ending a debate on exempting them because of their artistic accomplishments.
Big Hit Music said the band’s oldest member, Jin, will revoke his request to delay his conscription at the end of the month and undertake the required conscription steps. The six other members also plan to serve in the military, according to the company’s notice to financial regulators, which it described as management-related information that could possibly affect investment decisions.
Big Hit issued another statement on Twitter, saying the company and BTS members are “looking forward to reconvening as a group again around 2025 following their service commitment.”
No further information on the timing of their service was given. The band members performed together in Busan over the weekend in support of the city’s EXPO bid, which will be their last concert as a group until they finish serving in the military, according to their label.
“Each BTS member for the time being will focus on their individual activities based on their plans to serve in the military,” Hybe Corp., the parent company of Big Hit, said in an email to The Associated Press.
The announcement came after Lee Ki Sik, commissioner of the Military Manpower Administration, told lawmakers this month that it would be “desirable” for BTS members to fulfil their military duties to ensure fairness in the country’s military service.
After enlisting, Jin and other BTS members will receive five weeks of combat training before being assigned to specific units and duties, according to officials at the Military Manpower Administration, who stressed that the singers would go under the same process as other South Korean men.
While South Korea’s military for years had assigned enlisted entertainers to duties related to producing radio and TV material promoting the military, the “entertainment soldier” system was retired in 2013 following complaints over fairness.
Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup had said in August that if BTS members join the military, they would likely be allowed to continue practicing and to join back with the group for tours overseas.
Whether the BTS members must serve in the army had been a hotly debated issue in South Korea as Jin faced possible enlistment early next year. Jin turns 30 in December, the age at which men can no longer delay enlistment. Other members are currently between 25 and 29 years old, with Suga turning 30 in March.
Under South Korean law, most able-bodied men are required to perform 18-21 months of military service, but special exemptions had been granted for athletes and artists who excel in certain international competitions that have been tied with national prestige.
The band — its other members being J-Hope, RM, Jungkook, V and Jimin — launched in 2013 and has a legion of global supporters who call themselves the “Army.”
After building a huge following in Asia, BTS expanded its popularity in the West with its 2020 megahit “Dynamite,” the band’s first all-English song that made it the first K-pop act to top Billboard’s Hot 100. The band has performed in sold-out arenas around the world and was even invited to speak at United Nations meetings.
Since South Korea’s draft interrupts young males in their professional careers or studies, the dodging of military duties or creation of exemptions is a highly sensitive issue. Opinion surveys in recent weeks showed that the public was split over whether the BTS members should serve in the military.
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says it will commit $1.2 billion to the effort to end polio worldwide.
The money will be used to help implement the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s strategy through 2026. The initiative is trying to end the polio virus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two endemic countries, the foundation said in a statement Sunday.
The money also will be used to stop outbreaks of new variants of the virus. The announcement was made Sunday at the World Health Summit in Berlin.
The foundation says in a statement on its website that it has contributed nearly $5 billion to the polio eradication initiative. The initiative is trying to integrate polio campaigns into broader health services, while it scales up use of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2.
The group also is working to make national health systems stronger, so countries are better prepared for future health threats, the statement said.
“The last steps to eradication are by far the toughest. But our foundation remains dedicated to a polio-free future, and we’re optimistic that we will see it soon,” said foundation CEO Mark Suzman.
The eradication initiative is a public-private partnership led by a group of national governments that includes the Gates Foundation, Rotary International, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Elon Musk said Saturday his rocket company, SpaceX, would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds,” a day after he said it could no longer afford to do so.
Musk tweeted: “the hell with it … even though starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding ukraine govt for free.”
Musk said Friday that SpaceX could not indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine. The service has helped civilians and military stay online during the war with Russia.
Although it was not immediately clear whether Musk’s change of mind was genuine, he later appeared to indicate it was. When a Twitter user told Musk “No good deed goes unpunished,” he replied “Even so, we should still do good deeds.”
The billionaire has been in online fights with Ukrainian officials over a peace plan he put forward which Ukraine says is too generous to Russia.
He had made his Friday remarks about funding after a media report that SpaceX had asked the Pentagon to pay for the donations of Starlink.
SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.
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Sitting on a 7,000-hectare stretch of land in southwest Florida, Babcock Ranch has made a name for itself as the first solar-powered town in the United States. Its power comes from nearly 700,000 solar panels that supply energy to more than 2,000 homes and other buildings, including a health center and schools.
Syd Kitson, founder of the planned community, envisioned an environmentally friendly energy-efficient city. His dream became a reality in 2018.
“I believe deeply in respecting the environment and wanted to prove that you could build this new city and work hand-in-hand with the environment,” said Kitson, CEO of the real estate firm Kitson & Partners. “Our water management system is based around natural floodways. We also have 7,000 hectares we are preserving.”
The preserve protects natural habitats, scenic landscapes and water resources.
“It was just the kind of community my husband and I were looking for,” Shannon Treece told VOA. “We liked that the town was built for sustainability, including solar energy.”
Today, Babcock Ranch is also known as the town that came out practically unscathed Sept. 28, when Hurricane Ian came roaring through the area bringing record-breaking storm surges and winds over 160 kph.
Nearby Fort Myers by the Gulf of Mexico was devastated.
Babcock Ranch was built on a higher elevation to be above the storm surge. And the buildings were constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds.
Because of that, Shannon Treece and her family are among the 4,600 residents who decided to ride out the storm.
“It was a little scary,” she said of being in a hurricane for the first time. “We couldn’t see anything since we had blocked all the windows with storm shutters, but we could hear debris hitting the house. I am glad our house held up.”
Nancy Chorpenning and her husband also decided to stay put.
“The hurricane sounded like a locomotive coming through. But we never lost our electricity, access to the internet or our water,” she told VOA.
That’s because power lines from Babcock Ranch’s solar array and utility plants are underground, which shields them from high winds and bad weather, Kitson said.
Huge retaining ponds protect the homes from flooding, and the streets are designed to soak up floodwaters.
When building the town, “we spent a lot of time making sure Babcock Ranch was storm ready,” Kitson said. “We had minor damage from Hurricane Ian, like some downed small trees and torn roof shingles, but within a day, we were almost back to normal.”
Chorpenning thinks there are lessons to be learned from Babcock Ranch.
“We can be a model for other communities, showing the importance of water management and using solar energy,” she said. “We’re also showing how neighborhoods can live in concert with nature, partly by requiring that native plant species be planted in the community.”
The blueprint for the town is to grow into a much larger city. The developers have their sights set on constructing thousands more of the environmentally friendly homes, which would increase the population to 50,000 residents.
“I hope we are setting a good example for others to follow as we continue to protect the natural environment at the same time,” Kitson said.
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Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo is undergoing treatment in Atlanta for a brain tumor, the NBA announced Saturday.
Mutombo has been one of the NBA’s global ambassadors for years, and recently appeared at Hall of Fame enshrinement events in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a pair of preseason games in Saitama, Japan.
He also appeared with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at an event in the Congo, Mutombo’s native country, in August.
“He is receiving the best care possible from a collaborative team of specialists in Atlanta and is in great spirits as he begins treatment,” Mutombo’s family said in a statement distributed by the NBA. “Dikembe and his family ask for privacy during this time so they can focus on his care. They are grateful for your prayers and good wishes.”
The family did not release any other details, including what prompted the discovery of the tumor.
“We know he will approach this challenge with the same determination and grit that have made him a legend on and off the court,” Atlanta Hawks principal owner Tony Ressler said.
The 56-year-old Mutombo spent 18 seasons in the NBA, playing for Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, New York and the then-New Jersey Nets. The 7-foot-2 center out of Georgetown was an eight-time All-Star, four-time defensive player of the year, three-time All-NBA selection and went into the Hall of Fame in 2015 after averaging 9.8 points and 10.3 rebounds per game for his career.
Mutombo last played during the 2008-09 season and has worked extensively for charitable and humanitarian causes since. Blinken lauded him when the pair were together in the Congo, telling Mutombo, “You’ve done so much to bring the world together.”
Mutombo speaks nine languages and founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation in 1997, concentrating on improving health, education and quality of life for the people in the Congo. His foundation led the building of a 170-bed hospital in Kinshasa, the capital city, and that facility has treated nearly a half-million people regardless of their ability to pay for care.
He also has served on the boards of many organizations, including Special Olympics International, the CDC Foundation and the National Board for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.
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Two women have been charged with criminal damage after climate change protesters threw soup on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery, British police said Saturday.
A video posted by the Just Stop Oil campaign group, which has been holding protests for the last two weeks in the British capital, showed two of its activists on Friday throwing tins of Heinz tomato soup over the painting, one of five versions on display in museums and galleries around the world.
The gallery said the incident had caused minor damage to the frame, but the painting was unharmed. It later went back on display.
Police said two women, aged 21 and 20, would appear later at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged with “criminal damage to the frame of van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting”.
Another activist will also appear in court, accused of damaging the sign outside the New Scotland Yard police headquarters in central London.
Police said in total 28 people had been arrested during protests on Friday.
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An Iranian filmmaker said the Islamic republic barred him from travelling to the London Film Festival over his support for the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini that he called a “great moment in history.”
“I was prevented by the Iranian authorities from boarding my flight to London on Friday,” Mani Haghighi said in a video message to festival-goers tweeted by the British Film Institute (BFI).
“They gave me no reasonable explanation for this actually rude behavior.”
Outrage over Amini’s death on Sept. 16, three days after she was arrested by Iran’s notorious morality police, has fueled the biggest wave of street protests and violence seen in the country for years.
In response, the clerical state’s security forces have waged a brutal crackdown that has claimed the lives of dozens of protesters as well as a campaign of mass arrests of artists, dissidents, journalists and sports stars.
The BFI said Haghighi had been due to attend the London Film Festival for his latest film Subtraction, but the Iranian authorities “confiscated his passport and he could not leave.”
In the video message, the 53-year-old Iranian director, writer and actor said he believed the authorities had prevented him from going abroad over his support for the Amini protest movement.
“A couple of weeks ago I recorded an Instagram video in which I criticized Iran’s mandatory hijab laws and the crackdown on the youth who are protesting it and so many other instances of injustice in their lives.
“Perhaps the authorities thought by keeping me here they could keep a closer eye on me, perhaps to threaten me and shut me up.
“Well, the very fact that I’m talking to you now in this video kind of undermines that plan,” he said.
Haghighi said, however, that he had no regrets about being forced to stay in Iran as a “prisoner” in his own country.
“Let me tell you that being here in Tehran right now is one of the greatest joys of my life.
“I cannot put into words the joy and the honor of being able to witness first-hand this great moment in history and I would rather be here than anywhere else right now.
“So if this is a punishment for what I’ve done, then by all means, bring it on.”
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In a remote village in India, a siren can be heard from the local temple every night at 7 p.m. — signaling the commencement of a daily “digital detox.” For the next 90 minutes, the population of 3,000 in Sangli district’s Mohityanche Vadgaon lays aside all the electronic gadgets in the vicinity, including mobile phones and television sets.
The second siren goes off at 8:30 p.m., indicating the end of the intermission. Until then, the villagers are encouraged to focus on activities such as reading, studying and engaging in verbal conversation with one another.
Proponents of the initiative carried out at a village in the Maharashtra state of India say it is the solution to the “screen addiction” afflicting residents in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and brings back the value of human connection.
The tactic was devised by Vijay Mohite, “the sarpanch” (Indian head of the village council) at Mohityanche Vadgaon.
Jitender Dudi, the chief administrator of district development in Sangli, brought Mohite’s idea into fruition.
‘Mobile phone addicts’
Jayawant Mohite, who retired from teaching at school in the village two months ago said that the children turned into what he called “mobile phone addicts” after the COVID-lockdowns started and they were made to attend classes online, using mobile phones, in 2020.
“Students were found engrossed in their mobile phones for hours, even after online classes ended for the day. Once regular offline classes began last year, most of them were very inattentive in the classes and were found losing interest in academics,” the former teacher told VOA.
“After interacting with the families of the students, we discovered that they were still spending long hours on their mobile phones before and after school hours. We counselled them and their families, but could not wean the students off their mobile phones. Finally, we approached the ‘sarpanch’ of our village and apprised him of the situation,” Mohite said.
The concerned schoolteachers of the village also told the sarpanch that if the habit of overusing or misusing mobile phones by the students was not controlled swiftly, the future of the students would be doomed.
Dr. J.R. Ram, a clinical psychiatrist in Kolkata, said, “extended screen time can result in several adverse effects, but during the pandemic, the forced incarceration of young people at home has amplified its impact.”
He said that it becomes an obstacle for students’ progress in learning.
“Surfing on the internet—that is, multi-tasking deprives students of their ability to concentrate for longer periods when they need to study,” Ram said. “They get used to scrolling on social media, watching videos and exchanging text messages during classes. Such a situation can have negative consequences on one’s cognition or thinking ability.”
Sarpanch Mohite told VOA that he held meetings with other village leaders and started devising strategies to stop the misuse and overuse of the technology by the students.
“Some leaders said that it was impossible to distance the children from their mobile phones, adding that they had never heard of any community that had succeeded in such an initiative. Some other leaders said that we should try to do something. ‘There’s nothing to lose, in case we fail,’ they said,” Mohite said.
The villagers, however, were won over by the collaborative awareness program orchestrated by the village council employees, retired schoolteachers, anganwadi (rural childcare center) workers and members of Accredited Social Health Activist- a nation-wide community health service network, or ASHA, composed of female community health workers.
The women in the village played a crucial role in the digital detox initiative.
“We gathered the village women, including the mothers of the students, and explained to them how the misuse of mobiles was destroying the future of the children,” Sarpanch Mohite told VOA. “When we proposed the idea of a digital detox, they all agreed with our concerns about the children and supported our idea, too.”
ASHA workers, who were also instrumental in persuading the villagers to embrace the idea of a digital detox, are local women trained to create awareness on health issues in their communities, according to the National Institute of Health and Welfare, India.
‘Mandatory practice’
The daily digital detox is now observed as a mandatory practice by the residents of Mohityanche Vadgaon, with a locality-wise team ensuring that every villager is adhering to the discipline.
“In August, we made a public announcement, requesting the villagers to help implement the ‘No Mobile, No TV, for 1.5 Hours Daily’ proposal. On August 15—observed as Independence Day in India—we introduced Digital Detox at our village in our style.
“Initially, some families were not cooperating. But, in such cases, their neighbors would report the cases to our village leaders, and our volunteers would immediately arrive at the houses of those families to convince them otherwise.
Every family at the village is now complying with our digital detox rule,” Vijay Mohite told VOA.
“After we have got a very good response from the villagers, we are pondering over an idea to extend the ‘No mobile, No TV’ time to two or even 2.5 hours in near future,” the sarpanch added.
Word on the initiative at Mohityanche Vadgaon has traveled fast that five other villages in Sangli district have emulated Mohite’s concept and implemented similar steps.
Rajubhai Mujawar, a resident of a nearby Nerli village, said that a daily ban on mobile and TV for 90 minutes will be introduced where he lives soon.
“The children have become mobile addicts. We have decided to introduce the rule of ‘No mobile, No TV’ for 1.5 hours daily in our village soon, following what Mohityanche Vadgaon village has done,” he said.
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Astronomers have observed the brightest flash of light ever seen, from an event that occurred 2.4 billion light-years from Earth and was likely triggered by the formation of a black hole.
The burst of gamma rays — the most intense form of electromagnetic radiation — was first detected by orbiting telescopes Sunday, and its afterglow is still being watched by scientists across the world.
Astrophysicist Brendan O’Connor told AFP that gamma ray bursts that last hundreds of seconds, as this one did, are thought to be caused by dying massive stars, greater than 30 times bigger than our sun.
The star explodes in a supernova, collapses into a black hole, then matter forms in a disk around the black hole, falls inside, and is spewed out in a jet of energy that travels at 99.99% the speed of light.
The flash released photons carrying a record 18 teraelectronvolts of energy — that’s 18 with 12 zeros behind it — and it has impacted longwave radio communications in Earth’s ionosphere.
“It’s really breaking records, both in the amount of photons, and the energy of the photons that are reaching us,” said O’Connor, who used infrared instruments on the Gemini South telescope in Chile to take fresh observations early Friday.
“Something this bright, this nearby, is really a once-in-a-century event,” he added.
“Gamma ray bursts in general release the same amount of energy that our sun produces over its entire lifetime in the span of a few seconds — and this event is the brightest gamma ray burst.”
The gamma ray burst, known as GRB 221009A, was first spotted by telescopes including NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and the Wind spacecraft Sunday morning Eastern time.
1.9 billion-year-old movie
It originated from the direction of the constellation Sagitta and traveled an estimated 1.9 billion years to reach Earth — less than the current distance of its starting point, because the universe is expanding.
Observing the event now is like watching a 1.9 billion-year-old recording of those events unfold before us, giving astronomers a rare opportunity to glean new insights into things like black hole formation.
“That’s what makes this sort of science so addictive — you get this adrenaline rush when these things happen,” said O’Connor, who is affiliated with the University of Maryland and George Washington University.
He added that though the initial burst may have been visible to lucky amateur astronomers, it has since faded out of their view.
Over the coming weeks, he and others will continue watching for the signatures of supernovas at optical and infrared wavelengths, to confirm that their hypothesis about the origins of the flash are correct, and that the event conforms to known physics.
Supernova explosions are also predicted to be responsible for producing heavy elements — such as gold, platinum, uranium — and astronomers will also be on the hunt for their signatures.
Astrophysicists have written in the past that the sheer power of gamma ray bursts could cause extinction-level events here on Earth.
But O’Connor pointed out that because the jets of energy are very tightly focused, and aren’t likely to arise in our galaxy, this scenario is not something we should worry much about.
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Robbie Coltrane, the baby-faced comedian and character actor whose hundreds of roles included a crime-solving psychologist on the TV series “Cracker” and the gentle half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 72.
Coltrane’s agent, Belinda Wright, said he died Friday at a hospital in his native Scotland, and but did not immediately release other details. She called him “forensically intelligent” and “brilliantly witty” in just one of many tributes made to him.
“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who decades ago said Coltrane was her first choice to play Hagrid, tweeted Friday that he was “an incredible talent, a complete one off.”
“I was beyond fortunate to know him, work with him and laugh my head off with him,” she wrote.
Born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, Scotland, Coltrane was in his early 20s when he began pursuing an acting career and renamed himself in honor of jazz musician John Coltrane.
He had a notable screen career, with credits including “Mona Lisa,” “Nuns on the Run” and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of “Henry V” when he broke through on his own as a hard-bitten criminal psychologist in “Cracker,” the 1990s TV series for which he won best actor at the British Academy Television Awards three years running.
He went on to appear in all eight “Harry Potter” movies as the young wizard’s mentor and had a wide variety of other parts, including a Russian crime boss in the James Bond thrillers “GoldenEye” and “The World is Not Enough” and Pip’s guardian Mr. Jaggers in a 2012 adaptation of Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” More recently, he received rave reviews for playing a beloved TV star who may harbor a dark secret in the 2016 miniseries “National Treasure.”
On Friday, his “Nuns on the Run” co-star Eric Idle tweeted that he had been talking about Coltrane, “wondering where he was,” when he learned of his death.
“Such a bright and brilliant man. A consummate actor, an extraordinarily funny comedian and an amazing actor. He was also a very good friend,” Idle wrote.
Wright said Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his ex-wife Rhona Gemmell and his children, Spencer and Alice.
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Cybersecurity experts say that the October 10 attack on at least 14 U.S. airport websites, including those in Los Angeles and Chicago, appears to be the work of the Russian hacking group Killnet. As Mike O’Sullivan reports, the disruptions were a minor inconvenience for airline passengers, but experts say they highlight a major threat.
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Young researchers and students are competing in a disaster challenge at a natural hazards forum in the Australian city of Brisbane.
The government-funded organization Natural Hazards Research Australia has said more Australians “than ever before are exposed to the damage and destruction of floods, bushfires, cyclones, heatwaves and storms.”
It reported that Australia has experienced 28 disasters that have cost more than $630 million, and 16 of these have occurred since 2000.
Experts have said that research is essential to improve Australia’s readiness for natural calamities.
At the inaugural Natural Hazards Research Forum in Brisbane, young researchers have been asked to solve a key conundrum in preparing communities for floods, fires and storms; how can disaster authorities get potentially life-saving advice to the “unengaged, the moving,” such as tourists or “the hard to reach”?
The winning entry aims to reach international tourists through Wi-Fi — essentially captive portals that compel visitors in flood or fires zones, for example, to watch a survival video before they can log onto the Internet at hotels, cafes or other destinations.
Mark Owens from the Country Fire Authority, an emergency service in the Australians state of Victoria, told VOA that the videos would be tailored for various locations and seasons.
“Making sure the message we actually get to them will actually change their behavior but also get them to do that for the future again and again, and that is why the videos will be tailored and changed seasonally, or, you know, if there is a La Niña coming through again,” he said. “So, you know, it might then really focus on floods for a big period of time instead of bushfire.”
Parts of Victoria state are currently facing one of the biggest floods in decades.
There have been rescues and evacuations along the Maribyrnong River in the city of Melbourne.
Thousands of people are also under evacuation orders for flooding in the states of New South Wales and Tasmania.
Two climatic phenomena — La Niña and the Indian Ocean Dipole — are fueling the flooding. Both occur naturally and are influenced by warmer ocean temperatures. They are dumping above-average rainfall across much of Australia, and experts say they are being super-charged by climate change.
Sydney is having its wettest year on record. More than 2 meters of rain have fallen on Australia’s biggest city, breaking the previous record set in 1950.
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Europe faces a higher-than-usual chance of a cold blast of weather before the end of the year, but the winter overall is likely to be warmer than average, the continent’s long-range weather forecaster said Thursday.
Temperatures this winter will be crucial for homeowners worried about the record cost of heating their homes, and for European policymakers seeking to avoid energy rationing because of reductions in Russian gas supplies.
“We see the winter as being warmer than usual,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service that produces seasonal forecasts for the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
“Nevertheless, there is a still a significant chance of a block situation, which can lead to cold temperatures and low wind over Europe,” he told AFP as the service issued a monthly update to its forecasts.
A so-called block or blocking pattern in the winter can bring stable, often wind-free weather accompanied by freezing temperatures.
“This was looking more likely in November, but there now looks like a pronounced probability of a cold outbreak in December,” Buontempo added.
The ECMWF produces weather modelling with data from a range of national weather services around Europe.
Its forecasts are based on indicators such as ocean and atmospheric temperatures, as well as wind speeds in the stratosphere, but do not have the accuracy of short-range reports.
The models provide the “best information possible, to give a hint, to guide our decisions,” Buontempo said.
The European winter was expected to be warmer than usual because of the La Nina global weather phenomenon, which is related to cooling surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean.
“We know that in a La Nina year, the latter part of the European winter tends to favor westerly winds, so warm and wet,” Buontempo said.
The agency will update its winter season forecast next month when it will have greater confidence because “all the drivers for the winter will be more active,” he said.
Independent energy experts expect Europe to be able to withstand Russia’s gas cuts this winter, providing temperatures stay in line with or above the long-term average.
Governments have almost filled their strategic gas reserves and consumers are being urged to reduce their consumption.
The International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy consultancy, believes that temperatures about 10% below average over the winter would put strain on the European gas system.
It has also said a late cold spell, when gas stocks are expected to be low, could be the “Achilles heel of European gas supply security.”
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Still, just 6.9% of those eligible have gotten the omicron-tailored vaccine
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A monkeypox outbreak has been confirmed in the town of Mbonge, health authorities in Cameroon say, but armed separatists are preventing workers from investigating suspected cases.
Cameroon government officials say health workers have been deployed to the districts of Kumba and Mbonge to communicate to hundreds of civilians with suspected monkeypox infections to immediately isolate and avoid contact with other people and animals, including pets.
Kumba and Mbonge are districts located in Cameroon’s English-speaking southwest region near the border with Nigeria.
Emmanuel Lenya Nefenda, the highest ranking Cameroon public health official in Kumba, said civilians are being educated after a suspected monkeypox infection was confirmed in Kumba. He said the case was reported after the confirmation by Cameroon public health officials of a monkeypox outbreak in Bole Bakundu, a village in Mbonge.
In order to prevent the spread of the highly contagious monkeypox, Nefenda said people should avoid contact with wild animals, avoid eating wild animals, and wear clean clothes, as opposed to “bush clothes” that may have had contact with rats or other animals.
Nefenda spoke from Kumba via the messaging app WhatsApp.
The government says one case of monkeypox was confirmed in Kumba, and the patient is receiving treatment in a hospital isolation ward. Several dozen specimens have been collected from suspected patients and sent to specialized laboratories in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, for laboratory examinations.
Health officials are warning civilians to take suspected patients to hospitals, and not to herbalists or African traditional healers in villages. But villagers say ongoing battles between separatists and government troops make it impossible for suspected patients to be transported to hospitals, which are far from towns.
Separatists on social media platforms, including Facebook and WhatsApp, say any health worker sent by Cameroon’s central government in Yaounde should obtain an authorization from fighters.
But the government says only Cameroon state officials can assure the safety of health workers assisting people suspected of monkeypox infections.
Eko Eko Filbert, the highest government official in charge of public health in Cameroon’s English-speaking Southwest region where Kumba and Mbonge are located, said armed groups should allow medical staff members to render humanitarian services.
Monkeypox is contagious, he said, but can be contained with the help of health workers.
Eko said no health official deployed to assist civilians suspected of monkeypox infection has been attacked, but that frightened health workers are scared of going out to search for patients and suspected patients.
The government says it will protect both its citizens and health workers.
The U.N. says Cameroon is a monkeypox endemic country but displacement away from established surveillance systems due to armed conflicts increase the risk of undetected transmission.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said 21 countries in the past week reported an increase in monkeypox cases, mostly in the Americas, which accounted for almost 90% of all cases reported last week.
The WHO says cases in the global monkeypox outbreak have topped 70,000 and warned that a decline in new cases does not mean people should drop their guard, as the slowdown in new cases worldwide could be the most dangerous time in the outbreak.
The U.N. says the disease causes fever, muscular aches and large boil-like skin lesions.
Taiwan lifted all its COVID-19 entry restrictions Thursday, allowing tourists unfettered access to the self-ruled island after more than 2 1/2 years of border controls.
Hong Kong and Taiwan, together with mainland China, required most visitors to complete a mandatory quarantine period throughout the pandemic, even as most countries reopened their borders to tourists.
Visitors are no longer required to quarantine upon entry, or take any PCR tests. Instead, they will need to monitor their health for a week after arriving, and obtain a negative result on a rapid antigen test the day they arrive. If people want to go out during the weeklong monitoring period, they need a negative test from either that day or the day before.
There are also no longer any restrictions on certain nationalities being allowed to enter Taiwan.
Dozens of visitors from Thailand were among the first to arrive under the new rules at Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport, which serves the capital Taipei, on a Tiger Air flight that landed shortly after midnight.
Tourists like 32-year-old Mac Chientachakul and his parents were excited to visit the island.
“Hot pot is my favorite dish in Taiwan,” Chientachakul said. “It’s my first thing to do … I miss it so much.”
Sonia Chang, a travel agent, said the changes are good for both the tourism industry and Taiwanese residents, who can now travel abroad without having to quarantine when they get home.
Valaisurang Bhaedhayajibh, a 53-year-old business development director of a design firm, called the new rules convenient.
“We don’t have to do the test before coming here, and also after arriving,” he said. “We are still required to do the self-test every two days, and everything has been provided” by Taiwanese authorities, including the rapid testing kits.
At a welcome ceremony in the Taoyuan airport’s arrival hall, the travelers from Thailand were met by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau’s director, Chang Shi-chung, who handed out gifts.
Taiwan’s tourism bureau estimated that a total of 244 tourists from some 20 tour groups will arrive Thursday.
With both Hong Kong and Taiwan getting rid of restrictions and welcoming back tourists, mainland China remains one of the few places in the world adamant in keeping borders closed and sticking to a “zero-COVID” strategy to stamp out the virus. Hong Kong ended its mandatory quarantine policy for inbound travelers late last month, requiring just a three-day self-monitoring period.
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