A recent report published by the National Academy of Sciences paints a grim picture of declining diversity in ocean life. The study spanned decades, and as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, researchers link a drop in species to a rise in ocean temperature. Camera: Reuters Produced by: Arash Arabasadi
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North Korea says it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s sports ministry said the decision was made “in order to protect players from the world public health crisis caused by COVID-19,” in a statement dated Monday. If North Korea follows through with the decision, it would be the first time it has skipped an Olympics since 1988, when the games were in Seoul. It is the first country to pull out of this year’s Tokyo games. The Tokyo games have been delayed a year due to the coronavirus but are set to begin July 23 with strict virus-prevention measures in place. North Korea, which is particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks, has imposed perhaps the world’s most stringent coronavirus prevention measures. For more than a year, the country has attempted to almost completely seal its borders and has implemented even stricter than usual domestic travel restrictions. North Korea insists its border restrictions have succeeded in keeping the virus out of the country — a claim largely dismissed by experts. Some Korea watchers express concern Pyongyang will use the pandemic to extend its draconian restrictions indefinitely to impose greater control on the population. North Korea has one of the world’s poorest countries, observers say, and does not have adequate health infrastructure. The coronavirus lockdown made things worse, with reports emerging of food and medicine shortages. Cherry blossom flowers bloom outside the Japan National Stadium, where opening and closing ceremonies and other events for Tokyo 2020 Olympics will be held, as a guard stands along the fence Tuesday, April 6, 2021, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)Impact on diplomacy The North’s decision to skip the Tokyo Olympics suggests the lockdown will not end anytime soon. But experts say Pyongyang could reverse its decision. “This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern,” tweeted Jean Lee, Director of the Korea Program at The Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.Has any other country announced it would skip #Tokyo2020 Olympics? This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern.https://t.co/rzvlS1ZL60— Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) April 6, 2021South Korea had proposed using the summer games as a catalyst for renewed sports diplomacy between the two Koreas. Such a strategy has worked in the past. In 2018, Seoul successfully converted inter-Korean sports cooperation at the Winter Olympics into a series of North-South meetings, which eventually led to talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. Those talks have now been stalled for more than a year. North Korea said last month it considers any talks a “waste of time” unless the United States changes its approach. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, leader of the country’s Democratic Party, has less than a year in office and is willing to resume talks with North Korea.North Korea Tops Agenda for US-Japan-South Korea MeetingDiscussions about Pyongyang follow recent provocative missile tests it conducted Some in South Korea are pushing for South and North Korea to jointly host the 2032 Olympic games, though it is far from clear whether Pyongyang would accept.
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Haiti does not have a single vaccine to offer its more than 11 million people over a year after the pandemic began, raising concerns among health experts that the well-being of Haitians is being pushed aside as violence and political instability across the country deepen.So far, Haiti is slated to receive only 756,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through a United Nations program aimed at ensuring the neediest countries get COVID-19 shots. The free doses were scheduled to arrive in May at the latest, but delays are expected because Haiti missed a deadline and the key Indian manufacturer is now prioritizing an increase in domestic demand.
“Haiti has only recently completed some of the essential documentation that are prerequisites for processing of a shipping order,” said Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a Geneva-based public-private partnership that is co-managing the U.N.-backed COVAX effort.
The country also didn’t apply for a pilot program in which it would have received some of its allotted doses early, according to the Pan American Health Organization. However, a spokeswoman commended its other pandemic efforts, including reinforcing hospital preparedness.
Meanwhile, a human rights research center cited in a new U.S. State Department report found Haiti’s government misappropriated more than $1 million worth of coronavirus aid. The report also accused government officials of spending $34 million in the “greatest opacity,” bypassing an agency charged with approving state contracts.
Lauré Adrien, general director of Haiti’s Health Ministry, blamed the vaccine delay on scrutiny of the AstraZeneca shots and concerns that the country lacks the necessary infrastructure to ensure proper vaccine storage, adding that his agency prefers a single-dose vaccine. AstraZeneca requires two doses.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have excellent conservation facilities,” he said. “We wanted to be sure that we had all the parameters under control before we received vaccine stocks.”
Adrien also noted all the money his agency received has been properly spent, but said he could not speak for other agencies. A presidential spokesman did not return calls for comment.
Many poorer countries have experienced long waits in getting COVAX vaccines as richer countries snapped up supplies, though most have received at least an initial shipment. Some took matters into their own hands, securing shots through donations and private deals.
Haiti’s lack of vaccines comes as it reports more than 12,700 cases and 250 deaths, numbers that experts believe are underreported.
Perceptions also remain a big challenge.In this March 14, 2020 file photo, boxes of rum are stacked as a duty free employee wears a mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic while working at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.While face masks remain mandatory at Haiti businesses, airport closures and curfews have long since been lifted, and other precautions are rare.
“People don’t really believe in the coronavirus,” said Esther Racine, a 26-year-old mother of two boys whose father died in the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
Racine once worked as a maid but began selling face masks at the beginning of the pandemic, making brisk business with some 800 sales a month. Now, she barely sells 200.
“Look around,” she said, waving at a maskless crowd bustling around her in downtown Port-au-Prince. The only customers nowadays are those who need a mask to enter a nearby grocery store, she said, adding that Haitians have other problems on their mind: “People worry more about violence than the virus.”
Ongoing protests and a spike in kidnappings and gang-related killings have some wondering how any vaccine will be administered given the lack of stability coupled with a growing number of people afraid to leave their homes.
Many also fear being inoculated, despite educational campaigns. In addition, some officials have raised concern about the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has recently come under scrutiny in Europe after a very small number of people who received it developed unusual blood clots.
“We can receive the vaccine and then discover with a heavy heart that the stocks expired a couple of months later because no one wanted to be vaccinated,” Adrien said.
Among those in Haiti who say they will not be vaccinated is Dorcelus Perkin, a brick factory owner. On a recent morning, the 60-year-old supervised more than a dozen employees working outdoors. No one was wearing any personal protective equipment.
“We can’t wear masks in the sun. We would be suffocating,” he said, adding that the sun kills the virus, something scientists have not proven.
Perkin also credited drinking a traditional green tea mixed with salt every day for his good health: “I believe more in these remedies than the vaccines. I don’t know what’s in the inside of these vaccines.”
International groups are behind most of the resources and educational campaigns related to COVID-19 in Haiti, with the Pan American Health Organization providing the government 500 test kits, along with instruction on lab diagnosis and virus detection. It also supplied thermometers, PPE and other items including megaphones and batteries as workers fanned out into rural areas. In addition, PAHO trained more than 2,800 health workers in Haiti and met with community leaders including Voodoo priests and traditional birth attendants to share information about protective measures and treatment centers.
In May 2020, the organization’s director said she was particularly concerned about the effects of a potential large-scale outbreak given Haiti’s frail health care system and the fact that many live in overcrowded households and lack access to clean water. But perplexed experts say that anticipated outbreak has not happened.
“It’s a surprise to a lot of people,” said Aline Serin, head of mission in Haiti for the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres. “For the moment, there is not enough research and documentation to explain why some countries were less affected by severe COVID-19 cases.”
Meanwhile, it’s unclear exactly when the country’s first vaccines, via COVAX, will arrive.
Haiti is among 92 low-income countries expected to receive them. It’s also among dozens that will be affected by last week’s announcement of a suspension of deliveries in March and April of doses made for the program by the Serum Institute of India – the world’s largest vaccine maker – amid a spike of coronavirus cases in India.
When the shots do become available, experts acknowledge it will be a struggle to get them into arms.
They would have to convince Haitians like Duperval Germain, a 55-year-old carpenter who said neither he nor his children will be getting a vaccine. He worries about falling ill from it and not being able to receive proper medical care.
“All these heads of state who have been here, any time they get sick, they all fly out of here,” he said. “If we get sick, where would we go? They can keep (the vaccines) to themselves. Use it in places that need it. Haiti doesn’t need the vaccine.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden is announcing Tuesday that every adult in the country will be eligible by April 19 to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, about two weeks earlier than his original May 1 date.
As the available supply of three vaccines expands in the U.S., Biden last week said that about 90% of U.S. adults would be eligible by the April 19 date, but he now is expanding that to all adults who want a shot in the arm.
National polls in the U.S., however, show that about 20% of adults say that for various reasons they will refuse to get vaccinated. Some have said they think it is unnecessary or that the injections could prove to be harmful, while other have expressed distrust in a government-run program.
The percentage opposed to the inoculations has declined over the last several months, as most people vaccinated have reported no or only temporary medical reactions lasting a day or so.
Biden, who was inoculated before taking office in January, is making the announcement at the White House after visiting a vaccination site in suburban Virginia outside Washington.
He is expected to make remarks on the “state of vaccinations” in the country. WATCH LIVE
The latest government figures show that more than 62 million Americans have been fully vaccinated, about 23% of the country’s adult population 18 and older. More than 107 million people have received at least one shot of the two-shot regimen required with either the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, or a smaller group of people with the single-shot doses produced by drug-maker Johnson & Johnson.
Originally, the U.S. made the vaccines available to older people and essential, front-line workers. The new eligibility date in two weeks will give all adults a chance then to schedule appointments for their shots at community health centers, pharmacies, drive-through vaccination sites in parking lots and elsewhere.
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Search and rescue efforts are underway for at least 72 people missing on several remote islands across eastern Indonesia in the wake of a tropical cyclone that struck the region last week. The torrential rains produced by Tropical Cyclone Seroja triggered flash floods and landslides that washed out bridges, downed trees and left roads thick with mud, which has complicated efforts by rescue crews to reach remote villages. At least 128 people have been killed, with thousands more displaced after their homes were damaged or destroyed. One of the worst incidents happened on Lembata island, where scores of homes were destroyed when the rains dislodged hardened lava sitting along the slopes of Mount Ili Lewotolok volcano. Tropical Cyclone Seroja also left a similar trail of destruction in neighboring East Timor, killing 27 people on the outskirts of the capital, Dili. Seasonal flash floods and landslides kill dozens annually in Indonesia. Two landslides in West Java province back in January killed 40 people. About half of the Pacific archipelago’s population, nearly 25 million people, live in areas where landslides are high-risk, according to the country’s disaster relief agency.
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North Korea says it will not participate in the upcoming Tokyo Olympics due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s sports ministry said the decision was made “in order to protect players from the world public health crisis caused by COVID-19,” in a statement dated Monday. If North Korea follows through with the decision, it would be the first time it has skipped an Olympics since 1988, when the games were in Seoul. It is the first country to pull out of this year’s Tokyo games. The Tokyo games have been delayed a year due to the coronavirus but are set to begin July 23 with strict virus-prevention measures in place. North Korea, which is particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks, has imposed perhaps the world’s most stringent coronavirus prevention measures. For more than a year, the country has attempted to almost completely seal its borders and has implemented even stricter than usual domestic travel restrictions. North Korea insists its border restrictions have succeeded in keeping the virus out of the country — a claim largely dismissed by experts. Some Korea watchers express concern Pyongyang will use the pandemic to extend its draconian restrictions indefinitely to impose greater control on the population. North Korea has one of the world’s poorest countries, observers say, and does not have adequate health infrastructure. The coronavirus lockdown made things worse, with reports emerging of food and medicine shortages. Impact on diplomacy The North’s decision to skip the Tokyo Olympics suggests the lockdown will not end anytime soon. But experts say Pyongyang could reverse its decision. “This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern,” tweeted Jean Lee, Director of the Korea Program at The Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.Has any other country announced it would skip #Tokyo2020 Olympics? This seems as much a political decision designed to snub/pressure Tokyo & Seoul as much as it is a public health concern.https://t.co/rzvlS1ZL60— Jean H. Lee (@newsjean) April 6, 2021South Korea had proposed using the summer games as a catalyst for renewed sports diplomacy between the two Koreas. Such a strategy has worked in the past. In 2018, Seoul successfully converted inter-Korean sports cooperation at the Winter Olympics into a series of North-South meetings, which eventually led to talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump. Those talks have now been stalled for more than a year. North Korea said last month it considers any talks a “waste of time” unless the United States changes its approach. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, leader of the country’s Democratic Party, has less than a year in office and is willing to resume talks with North Korea.North Korea Tops Agenda for US-Japan-South Korea MeetingDiscussions about Pyongyang follow recent provocative missile tests it conducted Some in South Korea are pushing for South and North Korea to jointly host the 2032 Olympic games, though it is far from clear whether Pyongyang would accept.
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Steam and lava spurted Monday from a new fissure at an Icelandic volcano that began erupting last month, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of hikers who had come to see the spectacle. The new fissure, first spotted by a sightseeing helicopter, was about 500 meters (550 yards) long and about a kilometer (around a half-mile) from the original eruption site in the Geldinga Valley. The Icelandic Department of Emergency Management announced an immediate evacuation of the area. It said there was no imminent danger to life because of the site’s distance from popular hiking paths. The Icelandic Meteorological Office said the new volcanic activity wasn’t expected to affect traffic at nearby Keflavik Airport. The long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwest Iceland flared to life March 20 after tens of thousands of earthquakes were recorded in the area in the past three weeks. It was the area’s first volcanic eruption in nearly 800 years.People watch as lava flows from an eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland late on March 24, 2021.The volcano’s proximity to Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, about 32 kilometers (20 miles) away, has brought a steady stream of tourists to the area, even with the country in partial lockdown to combat the coronavirus. Around 30,000 people have visited the area since the eruption began, according to the Icelandic Tourist Board. Live footage from the area showed small spouts of lava coming from the new fissure. Geophysicist Magnus Gudmundsson said the volcanic eruption could be moving north from its original location. “We now see less lava coming from the two original craters,” he told The Associated Press. “This could be the beginning of second stage.” Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, averages one volcanic eruption every four to five years. The last one was at Holuhraun in 2014, when a fissure eruption spread lava the size of Manhattan over the interior highland region. In 2010, ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano shut down much international air travel for several days.
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Emergency crews labored around the clock Monday to prevent the collapse of a wastewater reservoir’s leaky containment wall near Tampa Bay, Florida, making steady progress after officials warned of an imminent threat of flooding over the weekend. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked with local public safety teams to drain the Piney Point reservoir, which has a capacity of about 480 million gallons, in a bid to prevent a major breach that could unleash a cascade of wastewater into the surrounding area, officials said. While the pumping operation appeared to diminish the immediate threat to hundreds of homes near Piney Point, a former phosphate plant, the wastewater drainage was being discharged to a nearby Gulf Coast seaport, posing environmental concerns there. The crisis began over the weekend when a worsening week-old leak in the containment wall prompted authorities to order the evacuation of more than 300 dwellings, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declaring a local state of emergency Saturday. Authorities said they were particularly concerned that tall stacks of phosphogypsum waste, an industrial byproduct from fertilizer manufacturing, might suddenly collapse and be swept into adjacent communities. Crews from the state Environmental Protection Department and Army Corps of Engineers teamed up Monday to “reassess the stability of that wall and a second breach that we might have found,” Jacob Saur, director of public safety for Manatee County, said in a video statement. Nevertheless, he and acting county administrator Scott Hopes said the imminent flood threat had eased Monday as expanded pumping operations lowered the volume of the reservoir, reducing stress on the containment structure holding back the wastewater. “By the end of the day today when the additional pumps come online, we will more than double the volume of water that we’re pulling out of that retention pool,” Hopes said at a news conference. Just less than 300 million gallons remained as of midday Monday, he said, adding that crews were looking to drain an additional “75 to 100 million gallons a day.” Tampa Bay fearsWastewater from the property, owned by a company called HRK Holdings, was being pumped into Port Manatee at the mouth of Tampa Bay, raising concerns that the nutrient-dense discharge could spawn algal blooms toxic to marine life in the estuary. “The biggest concern from our standpoint right now is the amount of nutrients being loaded into the lower Tampa Bay,” Ed Sherwood, executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, told radio station WMNF on Sunday. “This event, in probably five to 10 days, is introducing the amount of nutrients into the bay that we would want to see over an entire year.” U.S. Representative Vern Buchanan, a Republican who represents Florida’s 16th district, told reporters on Monday that reducing possible ecological harm from the draining was a top priority and that the Environmental Protection Agency was working with local agencies to monitor and mitigate the situation. “Just the fact that we’re running water into the Tampa Bay is not a great thing,” Buchanan said. “But the reality of it is, it seems like it’s the right thing to do right now.” Representatives for HRK Holdings could not immediately be reached for comment.
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Pop star The Weeknd has announced he will be donating $1 million to relief efforts in Ethiopia amid the country’s ongoing conflict in the Tigray region.A U.N. statement said his donation, the equivalent of 2 million meals, went to World Food Program USA, the U.S. affiliate of the United Nations World Food Program, and will be put towards providing lifesaving food for those affected.”My heart breaks for my people of Ethiopia as innocent civilians ranging from small children to the elderly are being senselessly murdered and entire villages are being displaced out of fear and destruction,” wrote the Super Bowl half-time singer on Instagram Sunday.The Weeknd, born Abel Makkonen Tesfaye, is the son of Ethiopian immigrants Makkonen and Samra Tesfaye.The conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region broke out in November when Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fighters attacked army bases in the region, prompting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to launch a military offensive to push the group out.Since then, thousands of civilians in the region have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes.The Ethiopian government now estimates 4.5 million people are in need of emergency food assistance and have asked the U.N. World Food Program to help support 1.4 million.
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The Supreme Court sided Monday with Google in an $8 billion copyright dispute with Oracle over the internet company’s creation of the Android operating system used on most smartphones worldwide.To create Android, which was released in 2007, Google wrote millions of lines of new computer code. But it also used 11,330 lines of code and an organization that’s part of Oracle’s Java platform.Google had argued that what it did is long-settled, common practice in the industry, a practice that has been good for technical progress. And it said there is no copyright protection for the purely functional, noncreative computer code it used, something that couldn’t be written another way. But Oracle said Google “committed an egregious act of plagiarism,” and it sued.The justices ruled 6-2 for Google Inc., based in Mountain View, California. Two conservative justices dissented.Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that in reviewing a lower court’s decision, the justices assumed “for argument’s sake, that the material was copyrightable.””But we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use. Hence, Google’s copying did not violate the copyright law,” he wrote.Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Samuel Alito that he believed “Oracle’s code at issue here is copyrightable, and Google’s use of that copyrighted code was anything but fair.”Only eight justices heard the case because it was argued in October, after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg but before Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court.The case has been going on for a decade. Microsoft, IBM and major internet and tech industry lobbying groups had weighed in, in favor of Google. The Motion Picture Association and the Recording Industry Association of America were among those supporting Oracle.The case is Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc., 18-956.
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Ever since the pandemic lockdown began in the U.S. in March 2020, the pet adoption business has been booming. But trend hasn’t just been good for the animals. Lesia Bakalets has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Andrey Degtyarev
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Tara VanDerveer hugged each of her Stanford players as they climbed the ladder to cut down the nets, capping a taxing whirlwind journey and ending an exhaustive women’s college basketball championship drought for the Cardinal. It took 29 years, that included 10 weeks on the road this season because of the coronavirus, for VanDerveer and the Cardinal to be crowned the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women’s basketball champions again. “We had some special karma going for us,” VanDerveer said. “Sometimes you have to be lucky. I’ll admit it, we were very fortunate to win.” Haley Jones scored 17 points and Stanford beat Arizona 54-53 Sunday night, giving the Cardinal and their Hall of Fame coach their first national championship since 1992. “Getting through all the things we got through, we’re excited to win the COVID championship,” VanDerveer said. “The other one was not quite as close, the last one. But we are really excited. No one knows the score, no one knows who scored, it’s a national championship.”Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer cuts down the net after the championship game against Arizona in the women’s Final Four NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, April 4, 2021, at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Stanford won 54-53.It was not a masterpiece by any stretch with both teams struggling to score and missing easy layups and shots, but Stanford did just enough to pull off the win — it is second straight by a point. Stanford (31-2) built a nine-point lead in the fourth quarter before Arizona (21-6) cut it to 51-50 on star guard Aari McDonald’s 3-pointer. After a timeout, Jones answered with a three-point play with 2:24 left. That would be Stanford’s last basket of the game. McDonald got the Wildcats within 54-53 with 36.6 seconds left converting three of four free throws. “I just owe it all to my teammates, they have confidence in me when I don’t have confidence in myself,” said Jones, who was honored as the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. “I saw they needed me to come up big and I did.” The Cardinal, after another timeout could not even get a shot off, giving Arizona one last chance with 6.1 seconds left, but McDonald’s contested shot from the top of the key at the buzzer bounced off the rim. “I got denied hard. I tried to turn the corner, they sent three at me. I took a tough, contested shot and it didn’t fall,” said McDonald, who fell near midcourt, slumped in disbelief while the Cardinal celebrated. It has been quite a journey for VanDerveer and the Cardinal this season. The team was forced on the road for nearly 10 weeks because of the coronavirus, spending 86 days in hotels during this nomadic season. “It was a long, very difficult journey being on the road, sleeping in hotels, living out of your bag. It is just a lot. You’re on the bus, you’re on planes all the time and there’s just never really an end in sight so it’s difficult,” Jones said. “But I think from that experience and losing on the road and dropping one at home I think it just really kind of grew this extra like chip on our shoulder almost.” The team did not complain and went about their business and now have another NCAA championship. Along the way the Hall of Fame coach earned her 1,099th career victory to pass Pat Summitt for the most all time in women’s basketball history. Now the 67-year-old coach has a third national title to go along with the ones she won in 1990 and 1992. That moved her into a tie with Baylor’s Kim Mulkey for third most all time behind Geno Auriemma and Summitt. VanDerveer had many great teams between titles, including the ones led by Candice Wiggins and the Ogwumike sisters — Nneka and Chiney, but the Cardinal just could not end their season with that elusive win in the title game until Sunday night. It was the first women’s basketball championship for the Pac-12 since VanDerveer and Stanford won the title in 1992. The last time a team from the conference was in the title game was 2010 when the Cardinal lost to UConn. That game was also played in the Alamodome — the site of every game in this tournament from the Sweet 16 through Sunday’s championship game. The entire NCAA Tournament was played in the San Antonio area because of the COVID-19 pandemic. While Stanford had history on its side, Arizona has been building under coach Adia Barnes, who was the fourth Black woman to lead her team to the championship game, joining Carolyn Peck, Dawn Staley and C. Vivian Stringer. Peck and Staley won titles. Barnes starred for the Wildcats as a player in the late 90s and came back to her alma mater five years ago. She guided the team to the WNIT title in 2019 and led them to their first NCAA title game ever. This was the team’s first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2005 — although the Wildcats would have made the tournament last season had it not been canceled by the coronavirus. McDonald, who followed her coach from Washington as a transfer, has been a huge reason for the team’s success. The 5-foot-6 guard struggled against the Cardinal, finishing with 22 points while going 5-for-20 from the field. The Wildcats were trying to be only the fourth team to trail by double digits and win a championship. These teams met twice during the regular season and Stanford rolled past Arizona both times, winning by double digits in each game. This one came down to a final chance for the Wildcats, but they fell just one-point short.
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Chinese tech giants are expanding in Singapore as they face a crackdown at home and growing pressure in other key markets — but they may struggle to find talent in the city-state. Messaging-and-gaming behemoth Tencent is opening a hub and TikTok owner ByteDance is on a hiring spree after establishing a regional headquarters, while e-commerce giant Alibaba is investing in property and recruiting. The tech firms are shifting their focus to booming Southeast Asian markets as authorities tighten the screws at home amid concerns about the platforms’ growing power. China’s regulators have launched a blitz on the sector, hitting several firms with heavy fines, and threatening to slice up massive companies whose reach now extends deep into the daily lives of ordinary Chinese. Meanwhile, festering tensions between Washington and Beijing after an assault on Chinese tech titans during Donald Trump’s presidency make the United States an unattractive prospect, and problems abound elsewhere. “Chinese tech companies are facing regulatory pressures and sanctions from governments in other countries, notably the U.S. but also other nations such as India,” Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit, told AFP. India has banned a swathe of Chinese apps since a border clash last year, while the European Union and other Western powers recently imposed sanctions over China’s treatment of the Muslim Uyghur minority, prompting retaliatory sanctions. But Singapore, a prosperous financial hub, maintains good ties with Beijing and the West, and tech firms have come to view it as a safe bet to expand their operations without upsetting either side. In the current climate of geopolitical uncertainty “Singapore is considered as a more neutral country,” Chen Guoli, professor of strategy at the Singapore campus of business school INSEAD, told AFP. Hiring spree In addition, long-running turmoil in traditional rival Hong Kong may have dimmed the territory’s appeal, although observers stress other factors are likely more important. The influx of Chinese cash will be welcome in Singapore, whose economy has been hammered by the coronavirus and which is seeking to build itself up as a tech center. It is already home to major offices of U.S. tech titans Facebook, Google and Twitter, while ByteDance recently moved into bigger offices in the financial district and has launched a hiring drive. Between September and February, a third of ByteDance’s job postings were in Singapore, more than twice the ads it placed in China, with a focus on hiring specialized engineers, said Ajay Thalluri, an analyst with data and analytics firm GlobalData. Meanwhile, Alibaba last year bought a 50 percent stake in an office tower, where its e-commerce unit Lazada is the main tenant, while its affiliate, fintech giant Ant Group, won a license to operate a wholesale digital bank in the city-state. Alibaba “is building teams in Singapore with significant key senior and mid-level job postings related to talent acquisition, product management, and legal compliance,” said Thalluri. The e-commerce firm, co-founded by Jack Ma, has come under fierce pressure in China, with authorities pulling the plug on Ant’s record initial public offering in November. Talent crunch ByteDance and Tencent, which announced its Singapore expansion plans in September, say they are primarily focused on growing their businesses in Southeast Asia, a booming region of 650 million, rather than avoiding tensions elsewhere. By building up their Singapore presence, the tech giants are hedging their bets in case frictions with the West hit a new nadir, analysts say. Chen of INSEAD said Chinese companies needed a “plan B” in case they had to separate their global and Chinese operations, in which case Singapore could become their international hub. However, a major challenge in expanding in the city, with a population of just 5.7 million, is recruiting workers with the correct skills. “Technology is developing and accelerating at a speed that far surpasses the supply of talent needed to scale,” said Daljit Sall, senior director for information technology at the Singapore office of global recruitment firm Randstad. Singapore is trying to attract overseas talent, although that may cause unease in a country where there are already concerns about the large foreign population, while schools are offering courses to prepare youngsters for tech jobs. Nevertheless, “there still remains an urgent need to fill these skills gaps now,” Sall said.
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The officer who Cassandra Quinto-Collins says kneeled on her son’s neck for over four minutes assured her it was standard protocol for sedating a person experiencing a mental breakdown. “I was there watching it the whole time,” Quinto-Collins told The Associated Press. “I just trusted that they knew what they were doing.” Angelo Quinto’s sister had called 911 for help calming him down during an episode of paranoia on Dec. 23. His family says Quinto did not resist the Antioch, California, officers — one who pushed his knee on the back of his neck, and another who restrained his legs — and the only noise he made was when he twice cried out, “Please don’t kill me.” The officers replied, “We’re not going to kill you,” the family said. Police deny putting pressure on his neck. Three days later, the 30-year-old Navy veteran and Filipino immigrant died at a hospital. It is the latest stark example of the perils of policing people with mental health issues. In response to several high-profile deaths of people with mental health issues in police custody, lawmakers in at least eight states are introducing legislation to change how law enforcement agencies respond to those in crisis. The proposals lean heavily on additional training for officers on how to interact with people with mental health problems. It is a common response when lawmakers face widespread outcry over police brutality like the U.S. saw last year following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But none of the proposals appear to address the root question: Should police be the ones responding when someone is mentally ill?A passerby stops to take a photo of a George Floyd picture hanging on the fence surrounding the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis where the trial for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin continues on April 2, 2021.In California, lawmakers introduced legislation on Feb. 11 that, among other things, would require prospective officers to complete college courses that address mental health, social services and psychology, without requiring a degree. In New York, lawmakers in January proposed an effort to require law enforcement to complete a minimum of 32 credit hours of training that would include techniques on de-escalation and interacting with people who have mental health issues. The proposal came nearly a year after Rochester, New York, officers put a spit hood over Daniel Prude’s head and pressed his naked body against the street until he stopped breathing. The victim’s family, like Quinto’s, said they had called 911 for help after Prude, who is Black, began having a mental health episode. Similarly, in Utah, the mother of 13-year-old Linden Cameron called 911 in September because he was having a breakdown and she needed help from a crisis intervention officer. Salt Lake City police ended up shooting him multiple times as he ran away because they believed he made threats involving a weapon. He was hospitalized, and no weapon was found. The officers were not crisis intervention specialists but had some mental health training. Last month, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation that will create a council to standardize training for police crisis intervention teams statewide. At least 34 states already require officers to have training or other education on interacting with people who have physical or mental health conditions. But law enforcement experts say updated training is needed and agencies are far behind. “The training that police have received for the past I’d say 25 years has not changed significantly, and it’s out of date, and it doesn’t meet today’s realities,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank. “I mean the last thing a mother wants when they call the police is for an officer to use force. Especially in a situation that didn’t call for it because the officers weren’t trained in how to recognize a crisis.” Some of the new legislation looks to strengthen or improve standards. But because mental health training is a mandate in a majority of states, some advocates and experts believe it may never fully prepare officers on how to respond. The Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit dedicated to getting treatment for the mentally ill, concluded in a 2015 report those with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than others. “The solution that would have the most impact on the problem is to prevent people with mental illness from encountering law enforcement in the first place,” said Elizabeth Sinclair Hancq, co-author of the report. Since that is not always possible, she said, another solution is to create co-responder programs where a social worker or other mental health professional assists officers on such calls. That is what Philadelphia introduced in October, weeks before officers fatally shot Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man, within a minute of arriving at his address for the third time in a day while he was having a mental health crisis. Police said Wallace ignored commands to drop a knife. Other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, have similar programs. For families of victims, who now say they regret calling 911 for help, required training and legislative reform are long overdue. “In retrospect, it wasn’t the smartest idea to call the police,” said Isabella Collins, the 18-year-old sister of Quinto, who died in California. “But I just wanted him to be able to calm down, and I thought that they could help with that.” Antioch police did not release details of Quinto’s death for more than a month. Police Chief Tammany Brooks has denied that officers used a knee or anything else to put pressure on Quinto’s head, neck, or throat. An investigation and autopsy are underway. The department did not respond to a request for comment. Quinto’s family filed a wrongful-death claim against the city in February, claiming he “died as a direct consequence of the unreasonable force used against him.” “I guess it was really naive of me to think that he wouldn’t get hurt,” Collins said.
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The death toll from the natural disasters spawned by torrential rains across eastern Indonesia has risen to 55, according to new figures issued Monday by the country’s disaster relief agency. Landslides wiped out dozens of homes in Lamenele village on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province shortly after midnight Saturday, with flash flooding striking other parts of the province, including nearby Lembata island. A spokesperson for the Natural Disaster Mitigation Agency said at least 42 people are missing, with hundreds of people forced to evacuate their homes.People carry a man injured during a flood in Ile Ape, on Lembata Island, East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia, April 4, 2021.The rains, landslides and floods have washed away bridges, downed trees and left roads thick with mud, complicating search and rescue efforts. In neighboring East Timor, 21 people have died after the heavy rains triggered flash flooding and landslides on the outskirts of the capital, Dili, according to officials who spoke to news agencies. Seasonal flash floods and landslides kill dozens annually in Indonesia. 40 people died in two landslides in West Java province in January. About half of the country’s population, nearly 25 million people, live in areas where landslides are high-risk, according to the country’s disaster relief agency.
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A new documentary on Ernest Hemingway — powered by vast but little-known archives kept at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston — is shedding new light on the acclaimed novelist.”Hemingway,” by longtime collaborators Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, premiering on PBS on three consecutive nights starting April 5, takes a more nuanced look at the author and his longstanding reputation as an alcoholic, adventurer, outdoorsman and bullfight-loving misogynist who struggled with an internal turmoil that eventually led to his death by suicide at age 61.The truth about the man many consider America’s greatest 20th-century novelist — whose concise writing style made him an outsized celebrity who became a symbol of unrepentant American masculinity — is much more complex, Novick said.”We hope this film opens up opportunities to look at Hemingway in different ways,” said Novick, who has created several other documentaries with Burns including “The Vietnam War” and “Prohibition.” “There is a complexity beneath the surface.”That complexity would have been nearly impossible to detail without the largest-in-the-world Hemingway collection that ended up at the JFK Library, thanks to the widows of Hemingway and Kennedy.Although the two men never met, they admired each other and corresponded briefly. Hemingway was invited to Kennedy’s inauguration but couldn’t attend because of an illness, said Hilary Justice, the Hemingway scholar in residence at the library.When Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary Hemingway, was deciding what to do with her late husband’s effects, she asked Jackie Kennedy if they could be housed at the JFK Library.The archives contain Hemingway’s manuscripts — including “The Sun Also Rises” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” — personal correspondence and about 11,000 photographs.Much of the material used in the documentary has not been widely seen in public, if at all, Novick said.Burns had been to the JFK Library on multiple occasions for several functions but had no idea of the extent of the Hemingway archives until they started researching the film, which has been in the works for years.”The Hemingway collection was central to the process,” Burns said. “It helped us understand just what a disciplined writer he was.”Much of the documentary deals with Hemingway’s complicated relationship with the women in his life, from his mother and sisters to the nurse he fell in love with while recovering from wounds suffered in World War I to his four wives.”So much of what he did in life was about love: running to it, running from it and ruining it,” Burns said.While considered the archetype of American manhood, the truth about Hemingway’s masculinity was more complex, the filmmakers found.As a child, Hemingway’s mother treated him and one of his sisters as twins, often dressing them in identical outfits, sometimes as boys, sometimes as girls. He explored gender fluidity both in his books and in life, letting his hair grow as his wives cropped theirs short.”We wanted to push back against this idea that Hemingway didn’t like women,” Novick said.Novick’s favorite part of the collection were Hemingway’s manuscripts, many handwritten on store-bought notebooks. They show in great detail his thinking process as he wrote, rewrote, amended and edited his works through cross-outs, scribbles and notes in the margins.Hemingway, for example, wrote dozens of endings to “A Farewell to Arms” — as many as 47, according to one count.”You can trace how each work developed, from first draft to final manuscript,” she said.For Burns, the most striking thing about the collection are the pieces of shrapnel dug from Hemingway’s body after he was almost killed as a teenager while driving a Red Cross ambulance in World War I. Burns can’t help but think that such a profound near-death experience had a major impact on the rest of Hemingway’s life, and contributed to his death.”There’s a huge amount to be learned and new interpretations of his work and life in here,” she said.
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Green-Wood Cemetery in New York – one of the oldest and largest American cemeteries – now has its own artist-in-resident. Anna Nelson tells us more in this report narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Vladimir Badikov
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NASA’s Ingenuity mini-helicopter has been dropped on the surface of Mars in preparation for its first flight, the U.S. space agency said.The ultra-light aircraft had been fixed to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on February 18.”Mars Helicopter touchdown confirmed!” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted Saturday.”Its 293 million mile (471 million kilometer) journey aboard @NASAPersevere ended with the final drop of 4 inches (10 centimeter) from the rover’s belly to the surface of Mars today. Next milestone? Survive the night.”Swing low, sweet helicopter…@NASAPersevere is slowly and carefully deploying the #MarsHelicopter, Ingenuity. The tech demo is currently unfolding from its stowed position and readying to safely touch down on the Martian surface. See upcoming milestones: https://t.co/TNCdXWcKWEpic.twitter.com/3AyaiHOH2k
— NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) March 30, 2021A photograph accompanying the tweet showed Perseverance had driven clear of the helicopter and its “airfield” after dropping to the surface.Ingenuity had been feeding off the Perseverance’s power system but will now have to use its own battery to run a vital heater to protect its unshielded electrical components from freezing and cracking during the bitter Martian night.”This heater keeps the interior at about 45° F (7° C) through the bitter cold of the Martian night, where temperatures can drop to as low as -130° F (-90° C),” Bob Balaram, Mars Helicopter Project chief engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in an update on Friday. “That comfortably protects key components such as the battery and some of the sensitive electronics from harm at very cold temperatures.”Over the next couple of days, the Ingenuity team will check that the helicopter’s solar panels are working properly and recharging its battery before testing its motors and sensors ahead of its first flight, Balaram said.Ingenuity is expected to make its first flight attempt no earlier than April 11, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted.Ingenuity will be attempting to fly in an atmosphere that is one percent the density of Earth’s, which makes achieving lift harder — but will be assisted by gravity that is one-third of our planet’s.The first flight will involve climbing at a rate of about three feet (one meter) per second to a height of 10 feet (three meters), hovering there for 30 seconds, then descending back to the surface.Ingenuity will be taking high-resolution photography as it flies.Up to five flights of gradual difficulty are planned over the month.The four-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft cost NASA around $85 million to develop and is considered a proof of concept that could revolutionize space exploration.Future aircraft could cover ground much quicker than rovers, and explore more rugged terrain.
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Nine-year-old Nadja Pivoff from Boston, Massachusetts, has been drawing since she could hold a pencil. It’s been especially important to her during the COVID lockdown, as Genia Dulot reports from Boston.
Camera: Genia Dulot
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A grand parade Saturday conveyed 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies in special capsules across Cairo to a new museum home where they can be displayed in greater splendor.The convoy transported 18 kings and four queens, mostly from the New Kingdom, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) to the southeast.FILE – The entrance to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo is pictured Oct. 1, 2019. The mummies of 18 ancient Egyptian kings and four queens were paraded through the streets of Cairo to the National Museum on April 3, 2021.Authorities shut down roads along the Nile for the elaborate ceremony, designed to drum up interest in Egypt’s rich collections of antiquities. Tourism has almost entirely stalled because of COVID-19 related restrictions.As the royal mummies arrived at the museum, which was officially inaugurated Saturday, cannons fired a 21-gun salute. President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi stood by as the mummies filed past on vehicles bedecked with golden pharaonic motifs.The heads of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO and the World Tourism Organization were also present at the ceremony.Each mummy had been placed in a special capsule filled with nitrogen to ensure protection, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said. They were carried on vehicles designed to cradle them and provide stability.Workers prepare for the transfer of 22 mummies from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, in Cairo, Egypt, April 1, 2021.’Civilized’ display”We chose the Civilization Museum because we want, for the first time, to display the mummies in a civilized manner, an educated manner, and not for amusement as they were in the Egyptian Museum,” Hawass said.Archaeologists discovered the mummies in two batches at the complex of mortuary temples of Deir Al Bahari in Luxor and at the nearby Valley of the Kings beginning in 1871.The oldest is that of Seqenenre Tao, the last king of the 17th Dynasty, who reigned in the 16th century B.C. and is thought to have met a violent death.The parade also included the mummies of Ramses II, Seti I and Ahmose-Nefertari.Fustat, the home of the new museum, was the site of Egypt’s capital under the Umayyad dynasty after the Arab conquest.”By doing it like this, with great pomp and circumstance, the mummies are getting their due,” said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo. “These are the kings of Egypt, these are the pharaohs. And so, it is a way of showing respect.”
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North Atlantic right whales gave birth over the winter in greater numbers than scientists have seen since 2015, an encouraging sign for researchers who became alarmed three years ago when the critically endangered species produced no known offspring at all.Survey teams spotted 17 newborn right whale calves swimming with their mothers offshore between Florida and North Carolina from December through March. One of those calves soon died after being hit by a boat, a reminder of the high death rate for right whales that experts fear is outpacing births.The overall calf count equals the combined total for the previous three years. That includes the dismal 2018 calving season, when scientists saw zero right whale births for the first time in three decades. Still, researchers say greater numbers are needed in the coming years for North Atlantic right whales to rebound from an estimated population that’s dwindled to about 360.”What we are seeing is what we hope will be the beginning of an upward climb in calving that’s going to continue for the next few years,” said Clay George, a wildlife biologist who oversees right whale surveys for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “They need to be producing about two dozen calves per year for the population to stabilize and continue to grow again.”Warmer waters for reproducingRight whales migrate each winter to the warmer Atlantic waters off the Southeastern U.S. to give birth. Trained spotters fly over the coastline almost daily during the calving season, scanning the water for mothers with newborns.Survey flights over Georgia and Florida ended Wednesday, the last day of March, typically the season’s end. Spotters will monitor waters off the Carolinas through April 15, hoping to pick up any overlooked newborns as the whales head north to their feeding grounds.This season’s calf count matches the 17 births recorded in 2015. Right whale experts consider that number fairly average, considering the record is 39 births confirmed in 2009.FILE – This Georgia Department of Natural Resources photo shows a North Atlantic right whale mother and calf in waters near Cumberland Island, Ga., March 11, 2021.Scientists suspect a calving slump in recent years may have been caused by a shortage of zooplankton to feed right whales in the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy off Nova Scotia. They say the uptick in births this season could be a result of whales being healthier after shifting to waters with more abundant food sources.”It’s a somewhat hopeful sign that they are starting to adjust to this new regime where females are in good enough condition to give birth,” said Philip Hamilton, a right whale researcher at the New England Aquarium in Boston.Regardless, conservationists worry that right whales are dying — largely from manmade causes — at a faster rate than they can reproduce.Since 2017, scientists have confirmed 34 right whale deaths in waters off the U.S. and Canada — with the leading causes being entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with boats and ships. Considering additional whales were documented in the same period with serious injuries they were unlikely to survive, researchers fear the real death toll could be at least 49.That would exceed the 39 right whale births recorded since 2017.”If we reduced or eliminated the human-caused death rate, their birth rate would be fine,” Hamilton said. “The onus should not be on them to reproduce at a rate that can sustain the rate at which we kill them. The onus should be on us to stop killing.”New rulesThe federal government is expected to finalize new rules soon aimed at decreasing the number of right whales tangled up in fishing gear used to catch lobster and crabs in the Northeast. Proposals to reduce vertical fishing lines in the water and modify seasonal restricted areas have been met with heated debate. Fishermen say the proposed rules could put them out of businesses, while conservation groups insist they aren’t strict enough.Allison Garrett, a spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said the agency is also considering adjustments to federal rules that since 2008 have imposed speed limits on larger vessels in certain Atlantic waters during seasonal periods when right whales are frequently seen. An agency report in January found mariners’ compliance with the speed rules have improved overall, but still lagged below 25% for large commercial vessels at four ports in the Southeast.
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While it may not yet be planting season outside, inside some New Jersey shipping containers, it’s always spring. Vladimir Lenski has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Producer: Marcus Harton.Cameras: Max Avloshenko, Dmitrii Vershinin.
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A grand parade will convey 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies in specially designed capsules across the capital Cairo on Saturday to a new museum home where they can be displayed in greater splendor.The convoy will transport 18 kings and four queens, mostly from the New Kingdom, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, about 5 kilometers to the southeast.Authorities are shutting down roads along the Nile for the elaborate ceremony, designed to drum up interest in Egypt’s rich collections of antiquities when tourism has almost entirely stalled because of COVID-19 related restrictions.Each mummy will be placed in a special capsule filled with nitrogen to ensure protection, and the capsules will be carried on carts designed to cradle them and provide stability, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said.“We chose the Civilization Museum because we want, for the first time, to display the mummies in a civilized manner, an educated manner, and not for amusement as they were in the Egyptian Museum,” he said.Workers prepare for the transfer of 22 mummies from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, in Cairo, Egypt, April 1, 2021.Archaeologists discovered the mummies in two batches at the complex of mortuary temples of Deir Al Bahari in Luxor and at the nearby Valley of the Kings from 1871.The oldest is that of Seqenenre Tao, the last king of the 17th Dynasty, who reigned in the 16th century BC and is thought to have met a violent death.The parade will also include the mummies of Ramses II, Seti I, and Ahmose-Nefertari.Fustat was the site of Egypt’s capital under the Umayyad dynasty after the Arab conquest.“By doing it like this, with great pomp and circumstance, the mummies are getting their due,” said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo.“These are the kings of Egypt; these are the pharaohs. And so, it is a way of showing respect.”
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A grand parade will convey 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies in specially designed capsules across the capital Cairo on Saturday to a new museum home where they can be displayed in greater splendor.The convoy will transport 18 kings and four queens, mostly from the New Kingdom, from the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Fustat, about 5 kilometers to the southeast.Authorities are shutting down roads along the Nile for the elaborate ceremony, designed to drum up interest in Egypt’s rich collections of antiquities when tourism has almost entirely stalled because of COVID-19 related restrictions.Each mummy will be placed in a special capsule filled with nitrogen to ensure protection, and the capsules will be carried on carts designed to cradle them and provide stability, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said.“We chose the Civilization Museum because we want, for the first time, to display the mummies in a civilized manner, an educated manner, and not for amusement as they were in the Egyptian Museum,” he said.Archaeologists discovered the mummies in two batches at the complex of mortuary temples of Deir Al Bahari in Luxor and at the nearby Valley of the Kings from 1871.The oldest is that of Seqenenre Tao, the last king of the 17th Dynasty, who reigned in the 16th century BC and is thought to have met a violent death.The parade will also include the mummies of Ramses II, Seti I, and Ahmose-Nefertari.Fustat was the site of Egypt’s capital under the Umayyad dynasty after the Arab conquest.“By doing it like this, with great pomp and circumstance, the mummies are getting their due,” said Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo.“These are the kings of Egypt; these are the pharaohs. And so, it is a way of showing respect.”
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