YCLOAK

Drinking Age: Oldest Evidence of Winemaking Found Near Tbilisi

By Yscien on Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Oenophiles take note: 5980 BC was a very good year for wine.

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery of the oldest-known evidence for winemaking, detecting telltale chemical signs of the fermented alcoholic beverage made from grapes in fragments of nearly 8,000-year-old earthenware jars at two sites about 30 miles (50 km) south of Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

The findings show that this important cultural achievement occurred earlier than previously known in the South Caucasus region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Until now, the oldest wine-making evidence had come from pottery from the Zagros Mountains in northwestern Iran dating to 5400-5000 BC.

“Alcohol had an important role in societies in the past just as today,” said University of Toronto archaeologist Stephen Batiuk, one of the researchers in the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Wine is central to civilization as we know it in the West,” Batiuk added. “As a medicine, social lubricant, mind-altering substance and highly valued commodity, wine became the focus of religious cults, pharmacopoeias, cuisines, economies and society in the ancient Near East.”

David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum who helped lead the research, said large jars called qvevri similar to the ancient ones are still used today for wine-making in Georgia.

The researchers performed biochemical analyses to find residual wine compounds the pottery had absorbed. University of Pennsylvania biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern found evidence of tartaric acid, an indication of brewing involving the Eurasian grape, as well as three associated organic acids: malic, succinic and citric.

The pottery was found at two Neolithic villages, once home to perhaps 60 people each, consisting of small mudbrick houses.

The villagers harvested wheat, raised sheep, goat and cattle, and used simple tools made of bone and volcanic glass called obsidian.

The grayish jars, some decorated with simple images of grape clusters and a man dancing, were roughly 32 inches (80 cm) tall and 16 inches in (40 cm) wide. Evidence of wine was spotted in eight jars, the oldest from about 5980 BC.

“The wine was probably made similarly to the traditional qvevri method in Georgia today, where the grapes are crushed and the fruit, stems and seeds are all fermented together,” Batiuk said.

This is not the earliest sign of any alcoholic beverage.

Evidence previously was found in China of a fermented alcoholic mix of rice, honey and fruit from about 7000 BC.
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Economy

Mexico Readying Economic Response if US Exits NAFTA

By Yeco on Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Mexico’s government is preparing a macroeconomic response in case U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on threats to quit the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an event which could wreak havoc on the Mexican economy and hurt the peso.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Monday the government and central bank were preparing a plan to address the possibility of a future without NAFTA, but gave few details.

The government has said it is examining how it could adjust Mexican legislation to give investors certainty about their investments if the almost 24-year-old NAFTA collapses.

Underpinning some $1.3 trillion in annual trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico, NAFTA has been a central pillar of recent Mexican economic development. Nearly 80 percent of Mexican exports are shipped to the United States.

Trade negotiators from the United States, Mexico and Canada meet in Mexico City this week to continue talks on overhauling the accord, and Videgaray reiterated the government’s position that the expectation was that talks would ultimately succeed.

Mexico would continue to work on diversifying trade, protect foreign investment, review possible changes to tariff barriers, and prepare a macro-economic response from the finance ministry and the central bank, Videgaray added.

“These are the four lines a plan B must include,” he told Mexican radio. “We have to be prepared for all the scenarios and one of the scenarios is that the United States leaves the treaty, and as we have said, that is not the end of the world, the Mexican economy is much bigger than NAFTA.”

Separately, the International Monetary Fund said in a report on Monday that ending NAFTA would bring back World Trade Organization “most-favored nation” tariffs, which would disrupt Mexican-U.S. trade, and could crimp economic growth, dampen capital inflows and raise risk premia.

The IMF suggested that among various policy responses at Mexico’s disposal, “temporary foreign exchange interventions and liquidity provision could help smooth extreme volatility.”

Concerns that Trump could follow through on his threats to dump NAFTA have battered the Mexican peso in recent weeks.

Additionally, Mexico should continue to implement its structural reforms and boost efforts to diversify trading relationships, which would increase competitiveness and help economic growth over the medium-term, the IMF said.

The IMF sees Mexico’s economy growing 1.9 percent next year after projected expansion of 2.1 percent in 2017.
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Science

Cost of Diabetes Epidemic Reaches $850 Billion a Year

By Yscien on Tuesday, November 14, 2017

The number of people living with diabetes has tripled since 2000, pushing the global cost of the disease to $850 billion a year, medical experts said Tuesday.

The majority of those affected have type 2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and lack of exercise, and the epidemic is spreading particularly fast in poorer countries as people adopt Western diets and urban lifestyles.

The latest estimates from the International Diabetes Federation mean that one in 11 adults worldwide have the condition, which occurs when the amount of sugar in the blood is too high.

The total number of diabetics is now 451 million and is expected to reach 693 million by 2045 if current trends continue.

The high price of dealing with the disease reflects not only the cost of medicines but also the management of a range of complications, such as limb amputations and eye problems.
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Economy

Bipartisan Analysis: Senate Bill Would Hike Taxes for 13.8 Million

By Yeco on Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Promoted as needed relief for the middle class, the Senate Republican tax overhaul would increase taxes for some 13.8 million moderate-income American households, a bipartisan analysis showed Monday.

The assessment by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation emerged as the Senate’s tax-writing committee began wading through the measure, working toward the first major revamp of the tax system in some 30 years.

Barging into the carefully calibrated work that House and Senate Republicans have done, President Donald Trump called for a steeper tax cut for wealthy Americans and pressed GOP leaders to add a contentious health care change to the already complex mix.

Trump’s latest tweet injected a dose of uncertainty into the process as the Republicans try to deliver on his top legislative priority. He commended GOP leaders for getting the tax legislation closer to passage in recent weeks and then said, “Cut top rate to 35% w/all of the rest going to middle income cuts?”

That puts him at odds with the House legislation that leaves the top rate at 39.6 percent and the Senate bill as written, with the top rate at 38.5 percent.

Trump also said, “Now how about ending the unfair & highly unpopular individual mandate in (Obama)care and reducing taxes even further?”

Overall, the legislation would deeply cut corporate taxes, double the standard deduction used by most Americans, and limit or repeal completely the federal deduction for state and local property, income and sales taxes. It carries high political stakes for Trump and Republican leaders in Congress, who view passage of tax cuts as critical to the GOP preserving its majorities at the polls next year.

With few votes to spare, Republicans leaders hope to finalize a tax overhaul by Christmas and send the legislation to Trump for his signature.

The key House leader on the effort, Rep. Kevin Brady, said he’s “very confident” that Republicans “do and will have the votes to pass” the measure this week.

Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he doesn’t expect major changes to the bill as it moves to a final vote in the House. Still, he said Trump’s call for removing the requirement to have health insurance as part of the tax agreement “remains under consideration.”

Trump and the Republicans have promoted the legislation as a boon to the middle class, bringing tax relief to people with moderate incomes and boosting the economy to create new jobs.

“This bill is not a massive tax cut for the wealthy. … This is not a big giveaway to corporations,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, insisted as the panel had its first day of debate on the Senate measure.

Hatch also downplayed the analysis by congressional tax experts showing a tax increase for several million U.S. households under the Senate proposal. Hatch said “a relatively small minority of taxpayers could see a slight increase in their taxes.”

The committee’s senior Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, said the legislation has become “a massive handout to multinational corporations and a bonanza for tax cheats and powerful political donors.”

Tax increase for some

The analysis found that the Senate measure would increase taxes in 2019 for 13.8 million households earning less than $200,000 a year. That group, about 10 percent of all taxpayers, would face tax increases of $100 to $500 in 2019. There also would be increases greater than $500 for a number of taxpayers, especially those with incomes between $75,000 and $200,000. By 2025, 21.4 million households would have steeper tax bills.

The analysts previously found a similar magnitude of tax increases under the House bill.

A group of more than 400 millionaires and billionaires, including prominent figures such as Ben and Jerry’s founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, designer Eileen Fisher and financier George Soros, asked Congress to reject the GOP tax plan and not give cuts to the super-wealthy like themselves.

“We urge you to oppose any legislation that further exacerbates inequality,” they said in a letter made public Monday.

Neither bill includes a repeal of the so-called individual mandate of Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the requirement that Americans get health insurance or face a penalty. Several top Republicans have warned that including the provision would draw opposition and make passage tougher.

Among the biggest differences in the two bills that have emerged: The House bill allows homeowners to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes while the Senate proposal unveiled by GOP leaders last week eliminates the entire deduction. Both versions would eliminate deductions for state and local income taxes and sales taxes.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., asked whether the Senate’s proposed repeal of the property tax deduction could bring higher taxes for some middle-class Americans, acknowledged there would be some taxpayers who end up with higher tax bills.

“Any way you cut it, there is a possibility that some taxpayers would get a higher rate,” McConnell told reporters after a forum in Louisville, Kentucky, with local business owners and employees. “You can’t craft any tax bill that guarantees that every single taxpayer in America gets a tax break. What I’m telling you is the overall majority of taxpayers in every bracket would get relief.”
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Economy

Investors Leave Venezuela Meeting With No Clear Insight

By Yeco on Monday, November 13, 2017

Foreign investors walked a red carpet at a state palace Monday eager to hear strategies for reorganizing Venezuela’s billions in debt, but they left minutes later having learned no concrete plans to address the country’s financial crisis.

Vice President Tareck El Aissami, who headed the talks, used much of his time to rail against U.S. President Donald Trump and foreign lenders for leading what the government calls an “economic war” against this oil-rich nation.

But he also tried to assure creditors that debts will continue to be paid, echoing statements by President Nicolas Maduro that Venezuela has made more than $70 billion in debt payments since 2013.

“The state has fully honored its national and international commitments, especially with regard to external debt service,” El Aissami said in a televised broadcast. “Even with great sacrifice, we have paid every penny of our debt service.”

Those few investors who bothered to show up had few expectations for the meeting, which from the start was clouded in confusion.

Maduro invited investors to Caracas a little more than a week ago while announcing his goal of renegotiating a foreign debt that he said has become impossible to repay because of a U.S.-led financial “blockade” of the socialist-run country.

As Venezuela spent heavily on social programs under the late President Hugo Chavez, a time when global oil prices soared, its debt skyrocketed to over $120 billion, about half of which is in the form of dollar-denominated bonds. The drop in crude prices has ravaged the country that sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, leading to widespread shortages amid triple-digit inflation.

Strained relations between Venezuela and the United States are compounding the situation.

The Trump administration has sanctioned a growing list of Venezuelan officials, including the government’s top two debt negotiators, Economy Minister Simon Zerpa and El Aissami. The vice president is accused of being a major drug trafficker.

Washington has also barred U.S. companies from lending new money to Venezuela because of human rights abuses committed during months of anti-government protests and Maduro’s efforts to squash the opposition.

But in a sign the Trump administration might be willing to soften its stance, the Treasury Department said last week that it would consider allowing Americans to deal in new debt if any restructuring plan was backed by Venezuela’s opposition-controlled congress, whose authority has been steadfastly ignored by Maduro’s government.

Russ Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital Markets, said several U.S. investors he represents told him they wouldn’t bother attending. One said he couldn’t get a visa on such short notice and another reported planning to send an intern, citing the lack of information.

“You’d think they’d put it on the table and let you study it if there was some kind of proposal,” Dallen said. “There’s nothing. Just crickets.”

Also Monday, at an informal meeting to discuss Venezuela at the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called Venezuela “an increasingly violent narco-state” that threatens the world.

Venezuela’s U.N. ambassador, Rafael Ramirez, responded by denouncing the session.

“This is a hostile act from the United States and an interference that violates the sovereignty principles of a country that is a member of the United Nations,” he told reporters.

In Brussels earlier in the day, the European Union banned arms sales to Venezuela and set up a system to slap asset freezes and travel restrictions on Venezuelan officials as it seeks to ramp up pressure on Maduro. The weapons ban would stop sales of military equipment that could be used for repression or surveillance of Venezuelans.
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Economy

US Budget Deficit Up Sharply to $63.2 Billion in October

By Yeco on Monday, November 13, 2017

The federal government began its new budget year with an October deficit of $63.2 billion, up sharply from a year ago.

The Treasury Department reported Monday that the October deficit was 37.9 percent higher than the $45.8 billion deficit recorded in October 2016.

Both government receipts and spending were up for the month, with receipts climbing 14.3 percent to $235.3 billion, a record for the month of October. The larger spending figure was up a sizable 11.6 percent to $298.6 billion.

The deficit for the 2017 budget year, which ended on Sept. 30, totaled $666 billion, up 13.7 percent from a 2016 deficit of $586 billion.

Many forecasters believe the deficit will rise higher in the current budget year, reflecting the impact of proposed tax cuts Congress is considering and hurricane relief.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in June that the deficit for the current budget year, which runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, would fall to $563 billion. However, that estimate did not include money for a tax cut being pushed by the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers. It also did not include increased spending to deal with three devastating hurricanes that have hit the U.S. mainland and territories.

Taking those developments into account, economists at JPMorgan Chase estimate that the deficit in the current budget year could climb to $675 billion, with the deficit in 2019 rising even higher to $909 billion.

Lawmakers passed a budget resolution that would provide for $1.5 trillion in additional deficits over the next decade to reflect the lost revenue from the pending tax cuts. The Trump administration contends the tax cuts will end up generating increased economic activity and will not be that expensive.

For October, the 11.2 percent rise in spending reflected an increase of $4 billion in spending by the Department of Homeland Security, with outlays rising from $4 billion in October 2016 to $8 billion last month, a jump that was attributed to higher spending for hurricane relief.

The 14.3 percent increase in revenues included a $12 billion increase in individual taxes, including payroll taxes for Social Security, compared to October 2016.

The government has run deficits in October for each of the past 64 years.
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Technology

Students Fight Digital Robots and Fake Accounts on Twitter

By Ytech on Monday, November 13, 2017

Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte, computer science students, recently stared at a screen in their Berkeley apartment showing the Twitter account of someone called “Red Pilled Leah.” They suspected she was a “bot,” short for robot.

Red Pilled Leah joined Twitter in 2011 and had 165,000 followers. The majority of her 250,000 tweets were retweets on political topics. Was she a human with strong opinions or an automated account that is part of a digital army focused on riling up Americans over divisive social and political issues?

Internet companies are under pressure to do more to crack down on such automated accounts, following scrutiny over Russian-backed efforts to influence the last U.S. presidential election. But companies are struggling over how to identify the malicious bots from the merely opinionated human users.

The two students at the University of California, Berkeley developed a software program called botcheck.me that looks for 100 characteristics in Twitter accounts that they say are common among bots.

Among them, tweeting every few minutes, gaining a lot of followers in a short time span and retweeting other accounts that are likely bots. In addition, bot accounts typically endorse polarizing political positions and propagate fake news, they say.

Concern about Twitter bots

Twitter says that less than five percent of its 69 million monthly active users in the U.S. are automated, but some researchers have pegged the bots at closer to 15 percent.

U.S. lawmakers say that bots on Twitter played a role in trying to upend the democratic process.

“Bots generated one out of every five political messages posted on Twitter over the entire presidential campaign,” said Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia.

Facebook requires its users to prove their identity. To get an account on Twitter, on the other hand, a user needs a phone number. And Twitter allows automated accounts for legitimate purposes, such as for companies to provide customer service or for public safety officials to spread the word regarding a possible danger.

But the company is also trying to crack down on bots and “other networks of manipulation,” the company said in a blog post.

Nonhuman Twitter behavior

Bhat and Phadte have worked on other projects, such as developing technology to determine the political bias of a news article or to detect fake news on Facebook.

They turned to Twitter after they noticed that many accounts tweeting about politics appeared to be “nonhuman,” Bhat said. These accounts gained a lot of followers fast and tweeted and retweeted frequently, about five times as much as a human account. They promoted polarizing views and fake news.

Launched in October, Botcheck.me has a 93.5 percent accuracy rate, the students say. However, they have heard from real people complaining that their accounts have been falsely identified as “bots.” When the algorithm makes a mistake, the two students say they investigate what went wrong and improve the program.

Phadte says it matters if a Twitter account is a human being or a robot.

“People are seeing political, polarizing opinions that aren’t accurate,” Phadte said. “People are getting angry at each other about stereotypes that are not really true.”

Bot-like characteristics

Bhat pressed a blue button next to Red Pilled Leah’s Twitter account. Botcheck.me scanned a person’s Twitter history and ran the tweets through an algorithm to predict if the account was actually a bot.

Sure enough, Botcheck.me said Red Pilled Leah, who claims to be an entrepreneur with a master’s degree in psychology, exhibits “bot-like characteristics.”

The students said they have contacted Twitter about their software, but haven’t heard back. Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment from Voice of America. However, the company has said that it can’t share details of how it’s determining which accounts are bots.

From their vantage point, the students say the bots are getting more sophisticated. A whole network of accounts will retweet a single tweet to spread a message quickly. And programmers can change bots’ behavior as detection methods improve. But the students say that only makes it more important to determine when messages are being spread by malicious actors.

“The reason why this really matters is that we formulate our views based on the information we have available to us,” Bhat said of the social media content. “When certain views are propagated on the network that is very artificial, it tends to influence the way we think and act. We think it is very horrific.”

To use botcheck.me, users can download a Google Chrome extension, which puts the blue button next to every Twitter account. Or users can run a Twitter account through the website botcheck.me.
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Economy

Trump Wrapping Up Asia Tour Dominated by North Korea, Trade

By Yeco on Monday, November 13, 2017

President Donald Trump is wrapping up 12-day, five-nation tour of Asia dominated by talks on the North Korea nuclear threat and bolstering trade.

After talks in Manila on Monday with the prime ministers of Australia and Japan, Trump promised to make a “major statement” on North Korea and trade when he returns to Washington this week. But he offered no details.

Trump’s meeting with Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull and Japan’s Shinzo Abe underscored the growing relationship between the three nations in the face of regional security issues. The top concerns include North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and countering China’s increasingly assertive maritime territorial claims.

“The key for us is to ensure very close trilateral cooperation so as to bring peace and stability on the ground,” said the Japanese leader, who has been displaying a united front against North Korea with Trump.

“We’ve got the same values and the same focus on ensuring that the North Korean regime comes to its senses and stops its reckless provocation and threats of conflict in our region,” Turnbull said. “Peace and stability have underpinned the prosperity of billions of people over many decades, and we’re going to work together to ensure we maintain it.”

Show of military force

A massive naval drill involving three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups was underway in western Pacific waters as a show of force.

The U.S. naval vessels and aircraft were joined by elements of the South Korean navy and Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force.

The three leaders met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. Trump said “big progress” had been made on trade but he did not offer further details.

Meeting with Duterte

Earlier Monday, the U.S. leader met with Philippines’ President Rodrigo Duterte, who hosted the ASEAN summit. Trump said the two have “a great relationship” and described their talks as “very successful.”

A joint statement released by the U.S. and Philippines said the two leaders condemned Pyongyang’s “unlawful nuclear weapons and missile development” and urged all nations, including those in the region, “to voice their opposition to these threatening programs and to take steps to downgrade their diplomatic and economic engagement with North Korea.

During a joint appearance, reporters tried to query whether Trump had raised the issue of human rights with Duterte. Duterte, facing strong criticism from human rights groups internationally, replied, “Whoa, whoa. This not a press statement. This is the bilateral meeting.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said of the meeting between Trump and Duterte: “The conversation focused on ISIS, illegal drugs, and trade. Human rights briefly came up in the context of the Philippines’ fight against illegal drugs.”

Duterte’s spokesman denied that.

“No, that issue was not raised,” Harry Roque said replying to a reporter’s question. “My understanding is he explained at length the Philippine policy on the war against drugs. And from the body language of the U.S. president, he seemed to be in agreement and he made an assurance that President Duterte has a friend in President Trump and he’s been an ally since he was elected into office.”

Sidestepping controversy

Earlier, as regional leaders gathered at a colorful ceremony to open the summit in Manila, Duterte sidestepped the controversy over his war on illegal drugs and its thousands of extrajudicial killings.

In opening remarks before the 17 other leaders at the summit’s plenary session, he called illegal drugs a “menace” that threaten “the very fabric of our society,” without mentioning methods of the response.

“I apologize for setting the tone of my statement in such a manner,” said Duterte. “But I only want to emphasize that our meetings for the next two days present an excellent opportunity for us to engage in meaningful discussions on matters of regional and international importance.”

The communique resulting from the talks is expected to announce that ASEAN will begin official negotiations for a code of conduct for the South China Sea, where several nations have conflicting territorial claims.

A number of countries have concerns about China’s increased militarization of disputed islands it controls.

Anti-Trump protests

For a second day Monday several thousand militant protesters marched in Manila, clashing with riot police who responded with truncheons, water cannons and sonic alarms to keep the demonstration out of sight of the delegates at the ASEAN Summit, which is surrounded by a security cordon.

Protesters burned an effigy of Trump on Monday. Some protesters pushed the police, organizer Renato Reyes told VOA News, who said “scores” of protestors had been injured and some had to be treated at an on-site clinic. The protesters shouted for Trump to leave and accused the United States, a former colonizer of the Philippines, of looking for overseas wars.

Local media reported 10 people were injured, including six police officers.

Trump has praised his hosts during the Asia tour, which included stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

“It was red carpet like nobody, I think, has probably ever seen,” Trump told reporters.

Ralph Jennings and Kenneth Schwartz contributed to this report.
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Economy

World Leaders to Meet Under All-Female Co-Chair Team at Davos 2018

By Yeco on Monday, November 13, 2017

The next World Economic Forum of world leaders and CEOs in Davos will be chaired by women including International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and IBM’s chief executive Ginni Rometty.

The seven co-chairs for the four-day event in January were announced in the face of criticism that the conference has in the past lacked female representation.

“Co-chairs… were chosen to reflect global stakeholders,” said a spokeswoman for WEF, adding the co-chairs were all leaders in their fields.

The co-chairs shape the program and lead discussions and panels. The theme of the 48th conference is to “explore the root causes of, and pragmatic solutions for, the manifold political, economic and social fractures facing global society,” WEF said.

WEF, in an annual report this month, found it will take another 217 years before women earn as much as men and have equal representation in the workplace, revealing an economic gap of 58 percent.

It is the second straight year the Swiss non-profit has recorded worsening economic inequality.

A typical representative of the more than 2,500 titans of industry and influence that each January descend upon the Alps has received the unofficial moniker of “Davos Man” — a sign of the further shift in representation and thinking still necessary to balance uneven gender dynamics.

Other co-chairs are Isabelle Kocher, head of French energy conglomerate Engie; Italian physicist and director general of the CERN particle physics research centre Fabiola

Gianotti; founder of the rural cooperative Mann Deshi Bank for women, Chetna Sinha; and International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrow.

Next year’s event will take place January 23-26, 2018.

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Science

US Participating in COP-23, Despite Rejection of Paris Climate Deal

By Yscien on Monday, November 13, 2017

The United States is participating in the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP-23) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement it will be leaving the Paris Climate Accords.

The State Department says a U.S. delegation is participating in the conference in Bonn, Germany.

A State Department statement Monday said, “The United States remains a Party in good standing to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and is participating in ongoing negotiations under the Framework Convention as well as the Paris Agreement, in order to ensure a level playing field that benefits and protects U.S. interests.”

The president announced in June the United States will leave the Paris climate agreement, which would obligate the United States to cut its overall greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels.

Trump, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt have all questioned how much human activity has contributed to climate change.
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Science

Pakistan, Afghanistan Report Historic Dip in Polio Cases

By Yscien on Monday, November 13, 2017

Afghanistan and Pakistan officially are now the only two nations across the globe to have reported wild polio virus cases so far this year, though the numbers of cases have declined to historic lows.

Armed conflicts, deadly attacks on polio vaccinators and instances such as lack of administrative oversight while reaching marginalized populations and anti-vaccine propaganda by Islamists are blamed for the failure to eradicate the crippling disease from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“As of 9 November 2017, there are 14 cases of wild polio virus globally — nine in Afghanistan and five in Pakistan — the lowest number recorded in history,” UNICEF reported Monday.

Pakistani officials reported 300 polio cases in 2014 and Afghan cases have gradually declined from 80 in 2011.

While the two countries have taken significant measures to overcome domestic challenges facing national immunization campaigns, UNICEF officials credit ongoing coordination between polio teams of Afghanistan and Pakistan for reducing cross-border transmission of the devastating disease.

A Kabul-based UNICEF spokesman, Kamal Shah, acknowledged political tensions between the two countries are not hampering counter-polio efforts. He says polio teams on both sides make sure children among thousands of daily border crossers get vaccinated.

“There is a good cooperation going on and we try our best to synchronize the dates of our [polio vaccination] campaigns. So, the efforts and the cooperation between the two countries is having a big hand in reducing the number of polio cases [on both sides],” Shah told VOA.

Divided families and more than three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan are mostly among daily crossers and serve as carriers of the virus, officials say.

Last week, Afghanistan’s ninth case of the year was confirmed in an eastern border region, with the virus linked to transmission that had occurred earlier in the year across the border in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, according to UNICEF.

Pakistan and Afghanistan share a 2,600-kilometer largely porous border. However, there are only two crossings, Torkham and Chaman, that Pakistani authorities allow for visitors to travel in either direction.

Shah says most of the recently reported polio virus cases have been transmitted through the Chaman crossing, prompting officials to focus vaccination efforts on the adjoining Afghan border town of Spin Boldak.

“[E]specially in 2017, most of the cases we have, the genetic link of the virus is linked with a polio virus in Baluchistan. That is why Spin Boldak is called the epicenter of polio in the region,” he noted.

The southwestern Pakistani border province of Baluchistan is where Chaman crossing is located.

UNICEF’s Shah explained that despite intensified hostilities in Afghanistan, anti-polio efforts are effectively bringing down the number of cases in the country because vaccinators are able to conduct campaigns even in areas controlled by the Taliban insurgency.

“In all areas, which are under the government or the areas which are under the control of anti-government elements, the polio program is implemented in those areas as well that is why we are successful to reduce the number of cases [in Afghanistan],” he noted.

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Economy

EU Approves Sanctions, Arms Embargo Against Venezuela

By Yeco on Monday, November 13, 2017

The European Union has approved economic sanctions, including an arms embargo on Venezuela.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels announced the measures on Monday in response to regional elections last month, which they say worsened the country’s crisis.

The weapons ban is intended to prevent the government of President Nicolas Maduro from purchasing military equipment that could be used for repression or surveillance.

The sanctions also include setting up a system for asset freezes and travel restriction on some past and present Venezuelan officials close to Maduro.

Spain has long pushed for sanctions on those close to Maduro, but the EU has been divided over whom to target.

In Monday’s statement, ministers said they would focus on security forces, government ministers and institutions accused of human rights violations, and the disrespect of democratic principles or the rule of law.

Last Thursday, the U.S. imposed financial sanctions on 10 current and former Venezuelan officials because of corruption and abuse of power allegations related to Maduro’s crackdown on the opposition.

The EU also stressed that it would not recognize Venezuela’s pro-Maduro Constituent Assembly, whose 545 members took office in August and sidelined the opposition-led National Assembly. The EU said its creation has only served to “further erode democratic and independent institutions.”
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Technology

Modern Technology Packs, Flies, Delivers Online Purchases

By Ytech on Monday, November 13, 2017

Flying drones are nothing new in the skies, but online retailers have been investing in them as a way to deliver goods faster and to those in hard-to-reach rural areas. But the automation doesn’t stop there. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Science

Poor Regions of Uganda Feeling the Heat of Climate Change

By Yscien on Monday, November 13, 2017

While climate change is being discussed this week in Germany, it’s being felt by farmers and ranchers around the world. But it’s hitting subsistence farmers in places like Uganda particularly hard. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Economy

Venezuela Sets Foreign Debt Meeting for Monday Afternoon

By Yeco on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Venezuela’s foreign debt renegotiation committee will meet with creditors at 2 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Monday at the government’s “White Palace” in downtown Caracas, the finance minister said on Saturday.

“Once again, we invite investors to register their participation in this meeting,” Simon Zerpa, who is also the finance boss of state oil company PDVSA but is on a U.S. sanctions list for alleged corruption, said in a Tweet.

Foreign investor sources had said Zerpa and committee head Tareck El Aissami, who is Venezuela’s vice president but also on a U.S. blacklist for alleged drug traffickers, would probably sit out the meeting to allay any fears about meeting them.

But Saturday’s exhortation by Zerpa, and the location of the meeting right opposite the Miraflores presidential palace, appear to indicate the meeting will not be a low-profile affair.

Socialist leader Nicolas Maduro’s move a week ago to summon bondholders for talks about “restructuring” and “refinancing” some $60 billion in bonds has spooked markets worried Venezuela is heading for a default amid U.S. financial sanctions.

President Donald Trump’s measures against the Maduro administration, which it accuses of being a “dictatorship” that has impoverished Venezuela’s 30 million people through corruption and incompetence, effectively bar U.S. banks from rolling over the country’s debt into new bonds.

Venezuela did, however, appear to be honoring its most recent debt payment: a $1.2 billion payment due on a bond from state oil company PDVSA. Two investors told Reuters they had finally received payment, albeit delayed.

It is unclear how widespread investor participation in Monday’s meeting in Caracas will be. U.S.-based creditors are not prohibited from attending the meeting, but are barred from dealings with officials like Zerpa and El Aissami.
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Economy

Emirates Airlines Orders 40 Boeing 787s in $15B Deal

By Yeco on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Emirates Airlines agreed to buy 40 Boeing 787-10s in a deal worth more than $15 billion.

The purchase was announced Sunday at the Dubai Air Show by the largest airline in the Middle East.

Deliveries of the wide-body, twin-engine planes are set to begin in 2022.

Boeing’s website says the aircraft typically carries 330 passengers with a range of 11,900 kilometers.

The manufacturer says the 787 is 25 percent more fuel-efficient than the aircraft it replaces.

Also, Azerbaijan Airlines announced a $1.9 billion deal for more 787s, five to carry passengers and two more to haul freight.
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Science

Pair, Linked by Face Transplant, Finally Meet

By Yscien on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Standing in a stately Mayo Clinic library, Lilly Ross reached out and touched the face of a stranger, prodding the rosy cheeks and eyeing the hairless gap in a chin she once had known so well.

“That’s why he always grew it so long, so he could try to mesh it together on the chin,” she told Andy Sandness, as he shut his eyes and braced for the tickle of her touch on new nerve endings in the face that had been her husband’s.

Sixteen months after transplant surgery gave Sandness the face that had belonged to Calen “Rudy” Ross, he met the woman who had agreed to donate her high school sweetheart’s visage to a man who lived nearly a decade without one.

First meeting

The two came together last month in a meeting arranged by the Mayo Clinic, the same place where Sandness underwent a 56-hour surgery that was the clinic’s first such transplant. With her toddler Leonard in tow, Ross strode toward Sandness, tears welling in her eyes as they tightly embraced.

Ross had fretted before the meeting, fearful of the certain reminders of her husband, who took his own life. But her stress quickly melted away: Without Calen’s eyes, forehead or strong cheeks, Sandness didn’t look like him, she told herself.

Instead, she saw a man whose life had changed through her husband’s gift, newly confident after 10 years of hiding from mirrors and staring eyes.

“It made me proud,” Ross said of the 32-year-old Sandness. “The way Rudy saw himself … he didn’t see himself like that.”

Two men, similar tale

Sandness and Calen Ross lived lives full of hunting, fishing and exploring the outdoors before their struggles consumed them, 10 years and hundreds of miles apart.

Sandness put a rifle below his chin in late 2006 in his native Wyoming and pulled the trigger, destroying most of his face. Ross shot himself and died in southwestern Minnesota a decade later.

By then, Sandness had receded from contact with the outside world, ashamed of his injuries — surgeries to rebuild his face had left him a quarter-sized mouth, and his prosthetic nose frequently fell off.

Hope first came in 2012 when the Mayo Clinic started exploring a face transplant program and again in early 2016 when he was wait-listed for the procedure.

Ross had agreed to donate her husband’s lungs, kidneys and other organs to patients. Then LifeSource, a Midwestern nonprofit organization that facilitates organ and tissue donations, broached the idea of a donation for a man awaiting a face transplant at the clinic.

Ross and Sandness’ ages, blood type, skin color and facial structure were such a near-perfect match that Sandness’ surgeon, Dr. Samir Mardini, said the two men could have been cousins.

Ross consented, despite her hesitation about someday seeing her husband’s face on a stranger. Eight months pregnant at the time, she said one reason to go forward was that she wanted the couple’s child to one day understand what his father did to help others.

Simple tasks treasured

More than a year after a surgery that took a team of more than 60 medical professionals, Sandness is finding a groove in everyday life while still treasuring the simple tasks he lost for 10 years, such as chewing a piece of pizza.

He’s been promoted in his work as an oilfield electrician and is expanding his world while still prizing the anonymity that comes with a normal face.

“I wouldn’t go out in public. I hated going into bigger cities,” he said. “And now I’m just really spreading my wings and doing the things I missed out on — going out to restaurants and eating, going dancing.”

Life with a transplanted face takes work, every day. Sandness is on a daily regimen of anti-rejection medication. He’s constantly working to retrain his nerves to operate in sync with his new face, giving himself facial massages and striving to improve his speech by running through the alphabet while driving or showering.

“I wanted to show you that your gift will not be wasted,” Sandness told Ross.

Like family now

Mardini and the rest of Sandness’ medical team have delighted in seeing their patient and friend open up since the procedure, going out of his way to talk with strangers whose gaze he once hid from.

“It turns out Andy is not as much of an introvert as we thought,” Mardini said. “He’s enjoying these times, where he’s missed out on 10 years of his life.”

Ross and Sandness say they feel like family now. They plan to forge a stronger connection, and Sandness said he’ll contribute to a trust fund for Leonard’s education.

On the day of their meeting, the boy stared curiously at Sandness at first. But later, he walked over and waved to be picked up. Sandness happily obliged.

For Ross, just meeting Sandness felt like a huge release, a way to get past a year filled with grieving, funeral planning, childbirth and gut-wrenching decisions about organ donations.

“Meeting Andy, it has finally given me closure,” she said, her voice choking as it trailed off. “Everything happened so fast.”
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Economy

West Virginia Mine Sites Touted for Agriculture Potential

By Yeco on Sunday, November 12, 2017

West Virginia could produce profitable niche crops grown on reclaimed mine sites.

At least that’s what Nathan Hall, president of Reclaim Appalachia envisions.

Hall spoke about uses for reclaimed sites at the West Virginia Good Jobs Conference last Tuesday at Tamarack. The goal of the conference is to bring together entrepreneurs, funders, local community leaders and government agencies to trade ideas, provide mentorship and support entrepreneurs in southern West Virginia.

Reclaim’s first operational site is next to the Buck Harless Wood Products Industrial Park in Holden, a property owned by the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority.

Former miners

Reclaim and Refresh Appalachia have partnered to develop an active commercial agroforestry site, which is on about 50 acres of land that was mined and reclaimed in the late 1990s, managing crops including blackberries, hazelnuts, lavender and pawpaws. The site also has animals including chickens, hogs, goats and honeybees, which are managed with “rotational grazing techniques.”

Hall said he first started work on the Mingo County site early last year. The business has five full time crew members and one crew chief. Of those six employees, four are former coal miners.

According to Reclaim’s website, the organization intends to replicate the model on more mined properties and on a larger scale.

“With any post surface mine landscape, this model works well,” Hall said. “It’s especially suited to areas where it’s not feasible to turn into a big shopping center or a golf course.”

Long-term approach

Hall said the model is designed to be long term and said sites like these may not see profit until a few years down the road.

“This approach is never profitable in year one or even year two,” he said. “It’s more of a three-five year horizon to get into the black. A lot of agricultural investments like this are longer term.

“With animals, you have to establish a breeding stock. It takes some time before you’re able to send animals to slaughter,” Hall said. “And with perennial plants, it takes a year of establishment to get fruit, sometimes three to four years. We are looking at this as a longer-term investment but this is a pretty common way to invest in projects you see on the West Coast and the Northeast. A lot of investors know this is not a quick turnaround.”

However, down the road, Hall said he envisions West Virginia as being primary producers of niche produce on the East Coast.

“If we produce enough at a low cost and upgrade to high value products, move it six to nine hours away, there is a huge amount of ways to use these lands in ways that we’ve barely started to scratch the surface,” he said.

Crops, animals for rocky soil

Hall mentioned the possibility of products including lavender or grapes — plants that can thrive in the rocky soil.

“You could even have things like goat meat, which is something you don’t think about as something to eat in this area,” Hall said. “There are huge markets for it, maybe not here but the conditions are great for these sites.”

Hall spoke about some of the struggles with using these sites including the rocky terrain itself.

“You think about nice farmland where there is this loose, fluffy, brown soil you can almost scoop your hand into,” he said. “This soil, you can’t get a shovel to go more than 2 inches. The only thing that can survive is something with a shallow breeding system.”

Controlling invasive species

Another issue is invasive species of plants that were planted for reclamation. However, Hall said animals including goats and hogs can eat the shrubby plants while also adding nutrients to the soil.

“I’m a fan of high-intensity rotational grazing,” he said. “You have people out there tending fences and maintaining the animals and the site regularly. It has a more diversified income. And there is a benefit to the land through manure and reducing unwanted vegetation. You can eventually replant to better quality pastures if you do rotational.”

He said stacking systems including orchards and animals have been efficient in maintaining the land along with adding a larger labor force.

“You have the animals in between the orchard growth keeping the areas maintained,” he said. “It’s benefiting the roots and the trees. You’re also able to sell the meat and eggs while harvesting fruit and berries.”

Not the first attempt

Hall isn’t the first or the only person to grow crops on reclaimed mine sites. Hall mentioned one in particular back in the 1990s in Kentucky where there was a hog farm on a former mine site.

“There are a lot of activity in these spaces,” he said. “We are more focused on stacking systems and having this multifaceted approach. Other folks want one piece. It’s an interesting time to be involved. We can learn from each other and grow a new sector of the economy.”
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Science

Californian, Who Identifies as Non-binary: ‘I Am Who I Am’

By Yscien on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Thanks to a new law, California residents who do not identify as either male or female can choose a third option on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates. VOA’s Genia Dulot spoke with a Berkeley resident who is that third option, known as non-binary.
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Technology

ANYmal Has Four Legs, Good Balance, and Batteries Included

By Ytech on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Prepare to be amazed … and possibly terrified. Engineers in Zurich have created a four-legged robot that may one day do labor that is dangerous for humans. It’s also equipped with thermal cameras, which means the “ANYmal” may one day keep an eye on you. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Economy

US Again Raising Beef for Chinese Consumers

By Yeco on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Ranchers in the Midwestern U.S. state of Nebraska are raising beef for tables in China, reopening trade suspended more than a decade ago during concerns over mad cow disease. From Nebraska, VOA reporter Abby Sun tells us how U.S. beef producers are changing to meet Chinese food-safety requirements.
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Science

Legionnaires Sickens 12 in California, Including 9 at Disneyland

By Yscien on Sunday, November 12, 2017

Disneyland has shut down and decontaminated two cooling towers following an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that sickened 12 people, nine of them guests or employees at the theme park in Anaheim, county health officials said Saturday.

One of the three cases of the respiratory illness not linked to Disneyland was fatal in an individual who had additional health issues, said Jessica Good of the Orange County Health Care Agency.

The chief medical officer for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Pamela Hymel, said in a written statement that after learning of the Legionnaires’ cases, park officials ordered the cooling towers treated with chemicals to destroy the bacteria and shut them down.

Cooling towers provide cold water for various uses at Disneyland and give off a vapor or mist that could have carried the Legionnella bacteria.

Disneyland, which opened in 1955 and attracts tens of thousands of visitors a day, is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

Hymel said that local health officials had assured them that there was no longer any risk to guests or employees of the park.

There was no information on the condition of the remaining 11 victims because of patient confidentiality laws.

Good said an investigation of the Legionnaires’ cluster discovered that the 12 people sickened by the serious lung disease had traveled to, lived in, or worked in Anaheim during September.

Ten of the victims, who ranged in age from 52 to 94, were hospitalized.

Legionnaires’ disease can cause potentially fatal respiratory illness and pneumonia. Older people and those with health issues are particularly at risk.

According to the Orange County health agency, Legionella is becoming more common in the United States and in Orange County, where 55 cases have been reported through October 2017, compared with 53 for all of 2016 and 33 in 2015.

Symptoms develop two to 10 days after exposure, the OCHCA said, and include fever, chills, cough, muscle aches and headaches. It is treated with antibiotics, which can improve symptoms and shorten the length of illness.

The disease is not contagious.
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Technology

Cambodian Netizens Face New Risks as Government Tightens Online Controls

By Ytech on Sunday, November 12, 2017

In Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries, the rapid improvement in internet connectivity and availability of affordable smartphones has been a great leveler.

Many of its roughly 15 million urban and rural inhabitants have gained, in a short time, access to mobile internet and social media, which provide relatively free communication and independent, nongovernment sources of information.

Some tech-savvy Cambodian activists, like Ngeth Moses, began to harness the internet to foster social change years ago.

Ngeth Moses, head of the Media/ICT Unit with the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights in Phnom Penh, has campaigned online through social media platforms for political freedom and human rights causes.

Ngeth Moses has also trained dozens of members of NGOs and youth organizations on how to use online campaigning and online expression platforms, such as Open Cyber Talk.

In the past year or so, however, the optimism among activists about the positive impact of greater internet access has given way to growing fears as the Cambodian government stepped up efforts to curtail online freedom of expression and political opposition.

“I’m more cautious now before posting or commenting [on] anything political online,” Ngeth Moses said, because of the growing state scrutiny of online content and the increase in reprimands or arrests of netizens.

At the same time, however, Prime Minister Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) have actively raised their online profile ahead of the national elections next year in an attempt to reach millions of new social media users.

Tightening online control

In early 2016, a new law increased the government’s authority over the telecommunications industry to include “overbroad surveillance powers” that pose “a threat to the privacy of individual users,” according to the U.S. think tank Freedom House.

The law includes punishments for several offensives, among them a prison term of seven to 15 years for threatening “national security,” a charge that the local human rights group Licadho said is vague and open to political abuse.

A pending cybercrime law is also raising concerns about legal limits on what users are allowed to post on the internet.

In 2016, the court used an older law to punish online dissent when it sentenced university student Kong Raiya to 18 months in prison for incitement over a Facebook post that criticized the CPP.

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) has been increasingly targeted over online statements.

Senator Hong Sok Hour was sentenced to seven years in prison for allegedly posting false documents on Facebook in 2016. On October 25, King Norodom Sihamoni pardoned him at Hun Sen’s request.

Last month, a 20-year-old fruit vendor was arrested in western Cambodia and reportedly charged with incitement and public insult for Facebook posts said to defame Hun Sen and the Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk.

“The situation of internet freedom in Cambodia is of increasing concern,” said Ramana Sorn, who coordinates the Protecting Fundamental Freedoms Project of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, adding that the government’s technological ability to collect the communications and social media data from individual users has expanded exponentially.

“In the current political climate, social media users must be keenly aware of the risks related to what they are posting and sharing on Facebook and other web platforms,” Ramana Sorn said.

Nop Vy, media director of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, echoed these concerns, saying, “Human rights and social workers who are using the social media platforms feel insecure in communicating and publishing their information.”

Government plays down concerns

Government spokesmen told VOA Khmer that the activists’ criticism was overblown and that prosecutions over online content concerned only those who defamed others or posed genuine threats.

“We need those multiple opinions, but we do not want those insulting or organizing any subversive campaigns against other people’s reputations — they will face legal consequences,” said Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers.

“Only those having a hidden agenda are concerned about it,” CPP spokesman Sok Eysan said. “Those who have nothing to hide, they need not worry about being surveilled or monitored.”

The rising online repression comes, however, amid a nationwide crackdown on political opposition and independent media ahead of the July 2018 national elections.

On September 3, CNRP Chairman Kem Sokha was arrested and charged with treason.

Hun Sen announced the CNRP would be dissolved, and many party members, including deputy party leader Mu Sochua, have fled Cambodia since the first week of October, fearing arrest.

Also in September:

The 24-year-old independent English-language newspaper The Cambodia Daily closed after receiving a $6 million tax bill;
The Phnom Penh office of U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia Khmer-language news broadcaster was closed;
Local FM radio stations were ordered to stop carrying the Khmer news broadcasts by RFA and the Voice of America; some independent FM stations were shut down;
And the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute was expelled after years of operation.

This crackdown, seen as the worst in 20 years, prompted widespread international condemnation and threats of action from the European Union and the United States, but Cambodia, which relies on China’s political support and largesse, appears unmoved.

Greater access to information

Despite the broad crackdown, millions of Cambodians are now on Facebook and connected through digital communications apps, sometimes encrypted.

Experts said any repressive government will find it hard to check the spread of independent information that can inform the public of politically sensitive issues.

In 2015, internet/Facebook became the main information channel for Cambodians, with 30 percent of netizens using it to access information, surpassing the more state-controlled TV (29 percent) and radio (15 percent), according to an Asia Foundation report.

The improved access to online information “often wakes people up and makes [them] more likely to be critical of the government,” said Mike Godwin, an internet freedom expert and a senior fellow with the U.S.-based R Street Institute.

“In fact, efforts to suppress [online] dissent probably will not work as well as they had hoped because they may have the effect of awaking citizens to their unhappiness,” he said.

When popular political analyst Kem Ley was assassinated last year, his funeral march in the capital, Phnom Penh, drew hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom reportedly learned of the event through online messages and posts that quickly went viral.

Cambodia’s capacity and effort to control online content, however, are still less than those of its mainland Southeast Asian neighbors, according to Freedom House, which ranked the country on its 2016 Freedom on the Internet Index as “partly free.”

Strongman seeks ‘likes’

Amid the tightening government control on online dissent, Hun Sen and his CPP have sought to expand their social media use to reach out to the public ahead of the national elections next year. In 2013 elections, the CPP narrowly beat the CNRP in a disputed result.

The 65-year-old strongman has urged officials to use Facebook, and he has presented a warm, revitalized image on his Facebook page, which he began in 2015 and has 8.5 million followers. Some photos show him driving passenger cars, attending family outings and frequently exercising.

Some researchers have said that the Cambodian government has formed a nationwide program with “cyberunits” run at local levels, which spread countless pro-CPP messages, denounce the opposition and attack government criticism on social media.

Ngeth Moses, the tech-using activist, said the CPP’s recent embrace of social media only belied the worsening freedom of expression in Cambodia, as could be seen in the controls exercised over pro-CPP Facebook pages.

“Commenters on the prime minister’s [Facebook] page have been followed and if these comments contained inappropriate words, there were people who got the commenters to apologize,” he said. “On the surface, the internet freedom in Cambodia looks better than in some other countries in ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations], but in practice it is not.”
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Technology

Bots Battle for Ball, and Globe, in Robot Olympiad

By Ytech on Sunday, November 12, 2017

The World Robot Olympiad, being held in Costa Rica this weekend, shows human athletes still have little to worry about: Sweat and glory do not compute well when relegated to faceless automatons.

But the same may not be true for workers, especially those in menial or transport activities where robots are steadily taking over. Think factory assemblers and sorters, or even self-driving cars.

Some of the technology behind the robot revolution could be seen in the Olympiad, which gathered more than 2,500 people from more than 60 countries in a vast hall on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose — the first time the event, now in its 14th year, has been held in the Americas.

Pint-sized robots packed with sensors and rolling on plastic wheels showed their football skills by battling rivals on miniature soccer fields.

Others rolled across tables seeking out blocks of certain colors and sizes to grab and place within demarcated zones.

It was all more than child’s play for the contestants representing their countries, aged from 6 to adult.

“It’s so difficult,” said Hassan Abdelrahem Alqadi, 17, from the United Arab Emirates.

“We have to do it in the system and make the robot take the color and go to the pieces that we want. So it’s very difficult,” he said.

The teen, who hopes to be a mechanical engineer in the oil industry, admitted he had picked up tips from watching other competitors’ practice sessions. He and other tech-savvy youngsters crowded around dozens of tables — computers or robots in their hands — to observe.

Environmental theme

At one table, a group of Australian teens fine-tuned their contraptions trying to win possession of a palm-sized transparent “soccer” ball containing a sensor. The robots were able to detect the ball, grab it while fending off rivals, and protect the goal area.

Being at the Olympiad, surrounded by equally bright peers from around the world, was eye-opening for the teens.

“We’ve never been to an international competition before, so it’s a new experience. I can really only compare it to the competitions we’ve had in Australia — in Australia, we’ve done pretty well,” said Tiernan Martin, 13.

The competition over the weekend was being judged in several age categories, as well as in the football, university and open tournaments.

This year, the environment was the overriding theme — an area in which Costa Rica is at the forefront.

Thus, robots had to show their usefulness in sustainable tourism (identifying protected areas), carbon neutrality (planting trees) and clean energy (seeking out the best places to set up wind turbines.

Robots ‘help humanity’

Costa Rica’s science and technology minister, Carolina Vasquez Soto, told AFP her country won the right to host the Olympiad — hitherto held mostly in Asia — “for the participation we’ve had in sustainability, because we are contributing to that with more and bigger resources.”

On the larger question of what robots and artificial intelligence now represent for human workers, the national organizer for the World Robot Olympiad, Alejandra Sanchez, was upbeat.

While some see robots as a threat to jobs, she said she saw them as an opportunity.

“I think it’s really good. It’s good they replace human beings in some tasks. But we are not being discarded — we’re changing the functions for human beings,” she said.

“Before, a human being was the one painting cars, for example. Now we have a robot painting vehicles and a human being controlling the robot. … So, it’s a personal opinion, but I believe robots are here to stay, and here to help humanity.”
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