Solar power is definitely the wave of the future. But in the future instead of a roof covered with solar panels, your own windows might not only be collecting power from the sun, but also helping your house conserve energy. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Month: September 2017
Unintended Social Consequences Catching up to Facebook
Years of limited oversight and unchecked growth have turned Facebook into a force with incredible power over the lives of its 2 billion users. But the social network has also given rise to unintended social consequences, and they’re starting to catch up with it:
House and Senate panels investigating Russian interference in the 2016 elections have invited Facebook, along with Google and Twitter, to testify this fall. Facebook just agreed to give congressional investigators 3,000 political ads purchased by Russian-backed entities, and announced new disclosure policies for political advertising
Facebook belatedly acknowledged its role purveying false news to its users during the 2016 campaign and announced new measures to curb it. Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg even apologized, more than 10 months after the fact, for calling the idea that Facebook might have influenced the election “pretty crazy.”
The company has taken flack for a live video feature that was quickly used to broadcast violent crime and suicides; for removing an iconic Vietnam War photo for “child pornography” and then backtracking; and for allegedly putting its thumb on a feature that ranked trending news stories.
Facebook is behind the curve in understanding that “what happens in their system has profound consequences in the real world,” said Fordham University media-studies professor Paul Levinson. The company’s knee-jerk response has often been “none of your business” when confronted about these consequences, he said.
Moving fast, still breaking things
That response may not work much longer for a company whose original but now-abandoned slogan — “move fast and break things” — sometimes still seems to govern it.
Facebook has, so far, enjoyed seemingly unstoppable growth in users, revenue and its stock price. Along the way, it has also pushed new features on to users even when they protested, targeted ads at them based on a plethora of carefully collected personal details, and engaged in behavioral experiments that seek to influence their mood.
“There’s a general arrogance — they know what’s right, they know what’s best, we know how to make better for you so just let us do it,” said Notre Dame business professor Timothy Carone, who added that this is true of Silicon Valley giants in general. “They need to take a step down and acknowledge that they really don’t have all the answers.”
Hands-off Facebook
Facebook generally points to the fact that its policies prohibit misuse of its platform, and that it is difficult to catch everyone who tries to abuse its platform. When pressed, it tends to acknowledge some problems, offer a few narrowly tailored fixesand move on.
But there is a larger question, which is whether Facebook has taken sufficient care to build policies and systems that are resistant to abuse.
Facebook declined to address the subject on the record, although it pointed to earlier public statements in which Zuckerberg described how he wants Facebook to be a force for good in the world. The company also recently launched a blog called “Hard Questions” that attempts to address its governance issues in more depth.
But Sheryl Sandberg, the company’s No. 2 executive, offered an unexpected perspective on this question in a recent apology. Facebook “never intended or anticipated” how people could use its automated advertising to target ads at users who expressed anti-Semitic views. That, she wrote, “is on us. And we did not find it ourselves — and that is also on us.”
As a result, she said the company will tighten its ad policies to ensure such abuses don’t happen again.
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Researchers Seek Cheaper, Energy-efficient Ways of Producing Clean Water
Having enough clean drinking water has been a challenge in many parts of the world, whether it’s a place where water is scarce or abundant. The World Health Organization finds 3 in 10 people globally still lack safe drinking water at home.
The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced it is providing up to $15 million in funding for projects to develop solar desalination technology to create freshwater at a lower cost. Even before the announcement, researchers had been working on better ways to desalinate water.
“We can take any quality of water that we’re starting with and we can turn it into any quality of water that we desire at the end, and the only real challenge or limitation has to be overcome is how much does it cost and how much energy does it take to go from here to here,” said Eric Hoek, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Water Planet Inc.
Cheaper energy
Water treatment plants are largely driven by electricity. A cheaper source of energy is the sun.
“What’s changed in the last five to 10 years, solar has gotten cheap,” Hoek said.
“The only reason that that has not taken over the world at this point is that it’s still intermittent. The sun goes up and it comes down. You have power when it’s up and don’t when it’s down. What you need to make that a continuous base load is you need batteries, which you can charge up during the day, discharge at night, and the cost of batteries is still currently pretty high.”
Household system
Qilin Li at Rice University is building a desalination system that uses solar energy with broad drinking water applications for “individual households or small communities that live in remote locations, especially those who don’t have access to municipal water supply, don’t have a stable supply of electricity. This technology can be an ideal technology,” Li said.
Her solar-powered desalination system can “also benefit megacities in developing countries that don’t have the extensive water and power infrastructure we enjoy here in developed countries, and that kind of relief perhaps in not providing all the water for the whole city, but can relieve some of their need or dependency on the power grid,” Li said.
The goal of Li’s system is to make it modular and cost efficient so it could either meet the needs of a small household or a large community.
Li and her team created a reactor to distill water using heat from the sun. Water turns into vapor, goes through a porous membrane and becomes pure water. Li says a low cost coating on the membrane developed at Rice University makes this unique.
“So it (membrane) harvests the sunlight, converts the photon energy in the sunlight to heat highly efficiently to generate water vapor, and it also serves a separation function to keep the contaminants on the dirty side of the membrane and only allow pure water vapor to go through,” Li said.
Waste heat
The sun is not the only low cost source of energy. Amy Childress’ lab at the University of Southern California (USC) looks at how waste heat that comes from manufacturing can be used as a resource.
“With waste heat you’re going to have cycles and spikes. We’ve gone out to the field, measured waste heat at an industrial site. We come back. We plug that into our system, so that we can repeat that waste heat curve over and over and watch the response of membranes to the waste heat,” said Childress, who directs USC’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s environmental engineering program.
Her lab looks at how waste heat would impact the longevity and properties of a membrane.
Childress says the work in her lab will be helpful in the development of better membranes.
Filters in demand
There is high demand for membranes that help produce clean water. Water Planet’s PolyCera® membrane used to treat wastewater, is finding broader applications.
“We have a lot of interest now around the world, not just in industrial wastewater, but we’re actually making point-of-use under-the-sink water filters for applications in India, in China and here in the U.S. We’re making membranes that are being tested now for deployment offshore in sea water desalination to produce drinking water in barges and in platforms,” Hoek said.
With nearly 30 percent of the world’s population lacking safe drinking water at home, researchers will continue to work on harnessing free energy to clean water.
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Search for Cheaper, Energy-efficient Ways of Creating Clean Water
Having enough clean drinking water has been a challenge in many parts of the world, whether it is a place where water is scarce or abundant. The U.S. Department of Energy has just announced it is providing $15 million in funding for projects to develop solar desalination technology at a lower cost. But even before this announcement, researchers had been working on better ways of desalinating water. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Conservationists Work to Save World’s Rarest Cats
To the untrained eye, the Scottish wildcat looks quite similar to a normal domestic cat. But it is a unique species, and it could become extinct. As VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports, the greatest threat to these cats is other cats.
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US Officials Say Damaged Infrastructure Slows Aid Distribution in Puerto Rico
U.S. officials say damaged infrastructure in Puerto Rico has made it difficult to distribute aid and restore power quickly on an island devastated by Hurricane Maria. The Trump administration Thursday responded to critics for the second time this week, saying huge amounts of food, water and personnel have arrived, but damaged roads and debris are slowing distribution to the communities. Officials also said some of the reports about shortages are outdated. VOA’S Zlatica Hoke has more.
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As Germany Vows to Speed Integration, Refugees Unfazed by Rise of Far Right
The influx of more than a million asylum-seekers into Germany in 2015 is widely seen as driving the upsurge of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany or AfD party, which gained 13 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election. The government hopes to stem that rise by integrating the refugees as quickly as possible. Henry Ridgwell visited Berlin and spoke to some of the newcomers about their experience settling in Germany and their feelings over the success of the AfD.
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Telescope Moves Forward on Land Sacred to Native Hawaiians
A long-running effort to build one of the world’s largest telescopes on a mountain sacred to Native Hawaiians is moving forward after a key approval Thursday, reopening divisions over a project that promises revolutionary views into the heavens but has drawn impassioned protests over the impact to a spiritual place.
Hawaii’s land board granted a construction permit for the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope atop the state’s tallest mountain, called Mauna Kea, but opponents likely would appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Protesters willing to be arrested were successful in blocking construction in the past.
“For the Hawaiian people, I have a message: This is our time to rise as a people,” said Kahookahi Kanuha, a protest leader. “This is our time to take back all of the things that we know are ours. All the things that were illegally taken from us.”
No construction soon
Telescope officials don’t have any immediate construction plans and will consider its next steps, said Scott Ishikawa, a project spokesman. Officials previously have said they want to resume building in 2018.
“In moving forward, we will listen respectfully to the community in order to realize the shared vision of Mauna Kea as a world center for Hawaiian culture, education and science,” TMT International Observatory Board Chairman Henry Yang said in a statement.
Richard Ha, a Native Hawaiian farmer who supports the project, urged opponents to avoid confrontation.
“The possibility of getting the best telescope in the world … I don’t feel is the right battle to fight,” he said. “It will hurt our own people.”
While opponents say constructing the telescope will desecrate Mauna Kea, supporters tout the instrument’s ability to provide long-term educational and economic opportunities.
“This was one of the most difficult decisions this board has ever made,” state Board of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Suzanne Case said in a statement about the 5-2 decision.
Plans for the project date to 2009, when scientists selected Mauna Kea after a five-year around-the-world campaign to find the ideal site for what telescope officials said “will likely revolutionize our understanding of the universe.”
The project won a series of approvals from Hawaii, including a permit to build on conservation land in 2011. Protesters blocked attempts to start construction. Then in 2015, the state Supreme Court invalidated the permit, saying the board’s approval process was flawed, and ordered the project to go through the steps again.
Protests from the beginning
Protests disrupted a groundbreaking in 2014 and intensified after that. Construction stopped in 2015 after 31 demonstrators were arrested for blocking the work.
A second attempt to restart construction a few months later ended with more arrests and crews retreating.
Mehana Kihoi said being arrested while praying on the mountain was one of the most traumatic experiences of her life. She started going there to help heal from domestic violence, Kihoi told the land board earlier this month.
“For years, I carried grief and pain … until I went to the mauna,” she said, using the Hawaiian word for mountain.
Culture over money
Kanuha, a protest leader, dismissed the millions that telescope officials have paid toward educating youth on the Big Island in science, technology, engineering and math. So far, $3.5 million has been paid into the educational fund, even while the project’s construction permit was invalid.
That money isn’t the answer to improving the lives of Native Hawaiian youth, Kanuha said. Revitalization of language and culture through Hawaiian-focused education is what’s important, he said.
A group of Native Hawaiian telescope supporters formed a group called Perpetuating Unique Educational Opportunities. Some members had been against the telescope in the past, said the group’s attorney, Lincoln Ashida.
“We believe that with increased opportunities for children, that results in stronger families, which in turn benefits our community,” Ashida told the board.
A group of universities in California and Canada make up the telescope company, with partners from China, India and Japan. The instrument’s primary mirror would measure 98 feet (30 meters) in diameter. Compared with the largest existing visible-light telescope in the world, it would be three times as wide, with nine times more area.
Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano, has been the first choice, telescope officials said, calling it the best location in the world for astronomy. Its summit provides a clear view of the sky for 300 days a year, with little air and light pollution. They selected an alternate site in Spain’s Canary Islands if the telescope couldn’t be built in Hawaii.
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North Korean Workers Overseas Feeling Sanctions’ Squeeze
North Korean overseas workers are feeling the heat as countries are stepping up their efforts to implement U.N. sanctions against their motherland.
On Wednesday, the Polish foreign ministry told VOA’s Korea Service that Poland does not intend to issue new work permits to North Korean workers to comply with the two latest U.N. Security Council resolutions. These measures were passed in response to the Kim Jong Un regime’s long-range intercontinental ballistic missile launches and sixth nuclear test.
“The Ministry of the Family, Labour and Social Policy has sent out a communication to voivodship [provincial] offices asking them to withhold all decisions regarding applications for work permits concerning [North Korean] citizens,” the foreign ministry said in an email to VOA, “until the process of transposition and development of a common position by European Union member states regarding the scope and method of implementing the resolution is completed.”
Fewer North Koreans working in Poland
With not one work visa being issued to a North Korean national in 2016 and 2017, the number of North Koreans employed in Poland stood at about 400 as of January this year, a decline from 550 in July last year, according to the Polish government’s estimates. In 2014, the Polish consul in Pyongyang issued 147 work visas, and in 2015, 129 such visas were issued.
The Polish foreign ministry said Poland, which is one of the European Union countries that hires many North Korean laborers, does not have any systemic measures in place that would prevent citizens of other countries, including North Koreans, from taking up work in the country, imposing a work ban would represent “an unequivocal demonstration of discrimination on the grounds of nationality.”
“In this context, we welcomed Resolution 2371 of 5 August 2017 and 2375 of 11 September 2017, the first to refer to the employment of [North Korean] citizens abroad in so decisive terms,” the ministry said.
Since North Korea has long been accused of using money paid to its overseas workers to finance its weapons programs, the two latest U.N. resolutions for the first time included restrictive measures on North Korean laborers abroad, first banning the hiring of additional North Korean workers, then barring the renewal of their work contracts when they expire.
Residency permits not renewed
Similar action was taken by Kuwaiti authorities, who have stopped issuing entry visas of any kind to North Korean nationals and forbidding them from transferring their residency permits from one company to another, according to the country’s implementation report on U.N. Security Council resolution 2371 submitted to the council in late August.
“Expired residency permits are not renewed, and permit holders are requested to leave the country promptly once the permit has expired,” reads the report.
Also taking heed of the Security Council resolutions on North Korea are Senegal and Qatar. Senegal suspended the issuance of entry and short-stay visas to North Korean workers. Qatar discontinued issuing the approvals of employment requests and the renewal of residence of workers.
Jenny Lee contributed to this report.
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Turkey and Russia Agree on Need for De-escalation Zone in Syria
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday agreed to push for the creation of a “de-escalation” zone in Syria’s key northern province of Idlib to help end the civil war.
Erdogan said after talks in Ankara the pair agreed to “pursue more intensely” the implementation of a de-escalation zone in Idlib, which currently is under jihadist control.
The agreement is seen as a key step toward ending the civil war and ushering in the start of a peace process.
“All conditions are now created to stop the war in the Syria,” Putin declared at the joint press conference.
Civilian deaths concern Erdogan
According to reports, Erdogan raised concerns with Putin over the numbers of civilians being killed by the Russian bombing in Syria. Ankara and Moscow back rival sides in the Syrian civil war. Relations were plunged into a deep freeze following the 2015 downing of a Russian bomber by a Turkish jets. However, relations have recovered since rapprochement efforts began last year.
But analysts warns these ties are not binding.
“There will be always be a limit as to how significant and how convergent that relationship can be,” warned Sinan Ulgen, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Institute in Brussels. “There is history, there are differences how the two countries look at regional developments. So there will always be a limit.”
After several hours of talks over dinner, the two leaders underlined the importance of the deepening relationship between the two countries.
“The bilateral relations is getting stronger and stronger, and it’s very pleasing to both parties. We hope they prove to be much better in the future,” Erdogan said at the press conference, describing Putin as a “valuable friend.”
“The meeting was a good opportunity to exchange ideas,” Putin added. Both leaders described the talks as “fruitful.”
Missile system discussed
Putin stressed the importance of increasing bilateral trade. Ankara’s purchase of Russia’s sophisticated S400 missile system reportedly featured prominently in talks. The deal has irked Ankara’s NATO allies adding to fears over Turkey’s possible drift toward Russia
The rising tensions over Iraqi Kurds’ independence referendum vote also were featured in deliberations. Erdogan is taking a tough stance over the vote, fearing it could fuel secessionist demands among its own Kurdish minority.
No change on PKK
Moscow continues to resist Ankara’s calls to designate as a terrorist group the Kurdish rebel group the PKK which is fighting the Turkish state. Moscow supports the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG in its fight against Islamic State, despite Ankara accusing the group of being linked to the PKK.
“Turkish policymakers are well aware of the ambiguities of the Russia position that is the case in Russia’s relationship with the PKK. That has been the case of Russia’s backing of the YPG. There is no romantic expectation with Russia. It’s about hard politics,” according to analyst Ulgen.
But with Ankara currently continuing to have strained ties with some of its traditional western partners, in particular Washington, Erdogan appears ready to continue deepening ties with Moscow, with the implicit message to its NATO partners that Turkey always has alternatives.
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Pentagon Names Three-Star General to Head Up Puerto Rico Relief
The Pentagon has appointed Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan to lead all military hurricane response efforts in Puerto Rico.
Buchanan, a three-star general, is expected to arrive in Puerto Rico later Thursday, according to VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb.
The Trump administration has been criticized for not responding more quickly to the crisis in the U.S. territory, which was wracked by Hurricane Maria on Sept. 17.
On Thursday, Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert defended the eight-day period between the declaration of an emergency in Puerto Rico and the naming of a leader for recovery efforts.
“It didn’t require a three-star general eight days ago,” he told reporters at a White House news briefing. Bossert also said some of the information he has heard on the news has been out of date. “The coverage in some cases is giving the appearance that we are not moving fast enough,” he said.
He told reporters that currently there are 44 operational hospitals in Puerto Rico, out of 69 total.
Acting Homeland Secretary Elaine Duke told reporters at the same briefing that 200 gas stations are open for people to fuel their power generators.
Bossert also added, “The president and I have absolute, 100 percent confidence in what Secretary Duke, [FEMA Director] Brock Long, and the men and women of Puerto Rico are doing. They are going to get through this.”
FEMA regional administrator John Rabin told reporters Thursday that the U.S. government has so far delivered 1.1 million liters of water and about 1 million meals to the island of 3.5 million.
WATCH: US Officials Say Damaged Infrastructure Slows Aid Distribution in Puerto Rico
But he added that ships, not planes, are needed to get more supplies to the island.
“The only way we are going to get significant amounts of water and food is through ports and through barges and shipping,” he said. “You can’t get enough through the aircraft.”
He said officials are “very focused” on getting supplies from the ports to the distribution centers.
Army Brigadier General Richard Kim told reporters there are 4,400 Defense Department personnel in Puerto Rico, including Puerto Rican National Guard members.
Earlier Thursday, the Trump administration suspended a law that had been hampering delivery of desperately needed aid to hurricane victims, while House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief account would receive an additional $6.7 billion boost within days.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted Thursday that the law known as the Jones Act had been waived for 10 days at the request of Puerto Rico’s governor Ricardo Rossello.
Rossello said the island’s 3.4 million people are facing a humanitarian disaster. “This is the single biggest, major catastrophe in the history of Puerto Rico, bar none, and it is probably the biggest hurricane catastrophe in the United States,” Rossello told reporters as he delivered aid Wednesday in the southern town of Salinas.
The island’s power grid was nearly destroyed by two hurricanes that hit the island in rapid succession, leading officials to predict it may take many months to completely restore reliable electricity service — affecting access to medical treatments and running water, as well as depriving millions of air conditioning in tropical heat.
“Recovery is not going to be an overnight thing,” said Duke. “It is going to take a long time.”
Speaking to reporters Thursday after briefing President Donald Trump, Duke said, “Everything has been prioritized. We went to hospitals first, now we’re on gas stations. This is a conscious effort to make sure we don’t have loss of life.” She said the federal government has 7,200 troops and more than 2,500 others on the ground to assist with emergency response.
Among the top priorities, Duke said, is restoring communications. “We have to get, for instance, AT&T in. They are rebuilding the cellular phone system. That is the priority right now. We have food and water. We have plenty of diesel fuel,” she told reporters.
Officials acknowledged, however, that huge challenges still exist in aid delivery and in heading of a public health crisis. Thousands of 20-food containers of life-saving food and water that have arrived in recent days are stacked up on the docks in the port of San Juan, waiting for distribution. A shortage of truck drivers, however, is holding up the operation.
Trump is slated to visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands next Tuesday, but he has been roundly criticized for the slowness of Washington’s response to the island’s plight.
Critics had noted that Trump had issued Jones Act waivers more quickly following hurricanes that hit recently in Texas, Louisiana and Florida. After the president suggested that Puerto Rico was “in deep trouble in part because of problems that predated Hurricane Maria,” a Washington Post opinion piece bluntly asked, “Did Trump Just Figure Out Puerto Ricans are Americans?”
On Capitol Hill on Thursday, House Democrats called for urgent legislation to assist Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
During a briefing, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat, said she found conditions “shocking” when she visited the area last Friday.
“Those images were burned into my mind. Yet, what I also saw was inspiring. The spirit of the Puerto Rican people who refuse to quit, who will not give up and who want to get back to rebuilding the island they love,” she added.
Prominent Puerto Rican and Caribbean athletes and entertainers have urged the administration to act more forcefully to help victims who have been without basic needs for days. The singer Rihanna, a native of Barbados, Thursday posted a picture of a New York Daily News front page pleading with the president to act.
Apparently stung by the criticisms, administration officials have emphasized the complexity of delivering aid to the storm-ravaged territory.
“This is an insular island, a territory that stands some distance from the United States,” Bossert said.
“The constraints and limitations are different from a contiguous state here in the United States. We can position hundreds of trucks in Florida or Texas for restoration of line services. We can’t do that in Puerto Rico.”
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Even With Billions Online, Digital Gender Divide Persists
Around the world, women are using technology to overcome barriers in education and employment. Getting online, however, remains a challenge for many women in developing countries.
In the United States, the issue isn’t access to technology, but the lack of women pursuing technical careers.
Beginning Oct. 4 in Orlando, Florida, female leaders will discuss the digital gender divide at Voice of America’s town hall at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the world’s largest gathering of women technologists.
“The tech ecosystem has, sadly, not been welcoming to women,” said Y-Vonne Hutchinson, founder of ReadySet, a diversity consultancy that works in the tech industry.
Women struggle for access
Globally, women struggle for access to technology. Proportionally, the number of women using the internet is 12 percent lower, compared to men. In the least developed countries, only one in seven women is using the internet, compared to one in five men, according to a 2017 study.
“The digital divide is basically this phenomenon that some people have more access to digital technology than others or use it more than others, which is actually an unavoidable thing,” said Martin Hilbert, an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. “Every innovation that comes to society doesn’t form uniformly from heaven. It diffuses through society.”
In a study of 25 countries in Africa and Latin America, Hilbert noted that if he adjusted for income, education and job opportunities, more women than men were online. “The fact that they turn up less is because they have less access to money, education and work opportunities,” he said.
Cultural barriers
Women also face some cultural barriers, said Nighat Dad, executive director of the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan.
The biggest reason she sees for why women are not getting online is what she describes as “the cultural norms or the family values.”
“The middle-class families or lower-class families think that access to computers or access to technologies is a boy’s basic rights and not the girls’ because the girls don’t need it,” she said.
Tara Chklovski, founder and chief executive of Iridescent, an organization that works to promote girls in tech worldwide, said her organization has worked with local partners to overcome barriers.
“There’s a country in Africa, where it is not cool for girls to own phones, only middle-age men,” she said. “When we came in and said we want to teach girls, they said why don’t you teach boys or why don’t you teach these men. We had to work for many years to address barriers.”
Women ‘held to higher bar’
In the U.S., there is a lively debate over why women continue to lag behind men in the tech industry. Women make up about 20 percent of companies’ technical workforce and about the same in leadership roles, said Caroline Simard, research director at the Clayman Institute of Gender Research at Stanford University.
“Often women are held to a higher bar to be successful,” said Simard. “They have to work harder to prove the same amount of competence.”
And when it comes to venture capitalists, who finance the startup ecosystem, not many are women.
“I joke in my profession, I don’t have to stand in line for a bathroom,” said Kate Mitchell, a partner at Scale Venture Partners. “Five to 10 percent of investing partners are women, depending what study you look at.”
VOA town hall
Women in tech roles inside a firm are at a higher risk of leaving the profession mid-career. Some say they felt they never belonged.
At VOA’s town hall at the Grace Hopper Celebration, leaders in technology will talk about what it will take to continue to close the digital gender divide.
“For the first time in history, technology can really help girls have a strong voice and help us have a society that has equality,” said Chklovski.
Deana Mitchell contributed to this report.
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Officials Praise Large Gang Roundups in US, Central America
Authorities in the U.S. and Central America say they have indicted thousands of violent street gang members since March, including a powerful MS-13 leader who allegedly ordered bloodshed on the East Coast while imprisoned in El Salvador.
Law enforcement officials planned to announce the arrests Friday in Miami, where Justice Department officials are meeting with attorneys general from the so-called Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The notoriously brutal street gang has roots in Central America and the U.S., and authorities are touting the indictments of 3,800 members in six months as a sign that bolstered cooperation among the countries is paying off.
MS-13 has become a prime target of the Trump administration, which discusses its violence in suburban, immigrant communities in an effort to build support for a broader crackdown on immigration. President Donald Trump directed federal law enforcement to focus resources on combating transnational gangs during his first weeks in office. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions flew to El Salvador in July, in part to learn more about how the gang’s activities there affect crime in the U.S.
Rewarding work for prosecutors
Sessions’ aggressive work against MS-13 is one way he continues to carry out Trump’s agenda at the Justice Department, even as the president remains openly critical of his decision months ago to recuse himself from the investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia. During a White House dinner with conservative leaders this week, Trump expressed “almost disdain” for Sessions when asked about a technical matter involving the Justice Department, according to a participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
For federal prosecutors who have long worked to quash the gang, the new emphasis has been rewarding.
The arrests include more than 70 people in the U.S. during roundups in Los Angeles, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, the Long Island suburbs of New York and Columbus, Ohio. Among those charged is Edwin Manica Flores, known as “Shugar,” who investigators say led the gang’s East Coast operation from prison in El Salvador, according to a racketeering indictment unsealed in Boston Thursday. It says he encouraged recruitment in the U.S. and taught his counterparts ways to evade law enforcement.
Northern Triangle
Law enforcement in the Northern Triangle arrested hundreds more, including members of the rival 18th Street gang, seizing guns and luxury cars and in some cases entire businesses, officials said.
U.S. cases are so often linked to those in Central America that investigators from all of the countries will use the Miami visit as a chance to swap intelligence and share strategies that can help build cases against gang members in the U.S., said Kenneth A. Blanco, acting head of the Justice Department’s criminal division.
“The fact that we are hitting them on both sides is really what’s important,” Blanco said.
MS-13 is believed by federal prosecutors to have more than 10,000 members in the U.S., a mix of immigrants from Central America and U.S.-born members. The gang originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s then entrenched itself in Central America when its leaders were deported.
Entire towns under gang control
MS-13 and rival groups in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras now control entire towns, rape girls and young women, kill competitors and massacre students, bus drivers and merchants who refuse to pay extortion. That violence has prompted a migration of people trying to escape, especially children, some of whom are then recruited into the gang once in the U.S.
Associates in the U.S. send money to gang leaders in El Salvador, who use it to buy weapons and cellphones. Gang leaders imprisoned there use the phones to instruct members in the U.S. to kill rivals and extort immigrants. Authorities say the indictment in Boston illustrate how the gang operates.
“The more work we do down there, the more it helps us up here,” said David Rybicki, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division, who oversees the organized crime and gang unit. “We can’t effectively work on our cases here without information from El Salvador.”
Good timing
The timing of the get-together is critical, as the indictments will change gang dynamics, said Zach Terwilliger, who prosecuted gangs in the Eastern District of Virginia before taking a position in the deputy attorney general’s office.
“The gang feels as though it’s under a microscope,” he said.
Dismantling gangs like MS-13 has always been a goal of federal prosecutors, but Sessions has made it a priority of his Justice Department, in comparison to his predecessors, who viewed other threats as more urgent, like homegrown extremism and cyberattacks from foreign criminals.
Beyond Brexit: EU Looks at Future for Its 27 Other Nations
Germany and France are in sync on what it will take to strengthen the European Union once its breakup with Britain is completed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday as leaders of the 27 remaining members of the bloc met for a two-day summit.
“As far as the proposals are concerned, there is a high degree of agreement between Germany and France, but of course we still have to talk about the details,” Merkel said ahead of a summit dinner of EU leaders.
French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker set out their visions for the bloc’s future in recent days with keynote speeches on reforming the EU to keep it together.
In the past, that idea often was held back by a halfhearted Britain. The U.K. decision to leave the bloc has provided a new impetus for the others to move ahead. Thursday’s summit dinner was the first time EU leaders would make a joint assessment of plans for putting the visions into practice.
Up until now, Merkel was absorbed in a national election campaign. That left the EU limelight to Macron, who planned to elaborate on his plans for a more perfect Europe during the dinner.
Macron offered a way forward on Tuesday during a speech in which he described the EU as too slow, weak and ineffective. He called for a joint budget, shared military force and harmonized taxes.
“He made clear that Germany and France want to work very closely together. I also find the proposals for the harmonization of corporate taxes, for example, and insolvency law between Germany and France positive,” Merkel said before heading into a bilateral meeting with Macron.
Juncker, for his part, insisted two weeks ago that the EU’s economy was healthier than it has been for more than a decade and ready to move on from Brexit.
British Prime Minister Theresa May also was to attend the dinner — the menu includes mushroom cappuccino, roasted black Angus beef with eggplant caviar and juniper sauce, and chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet — and Brexit will never be far away from the discussions.
The more upbeat tone after this week’s divorce negotiations between the UK and the EU would only increase this.
“Our future is now so intertwined with Brexit. To talk about Brexit cannot be dissociated from how we will build a future of 27,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders during a briefing Thursday.
Like many others, founding nation the Netherlands will be looking at France and Germany to drive the EU onwards.
Gender Justice? Women Judges to Dominate Colombia War Tribunals
Women will make up more than half of all judges in Colombia’s war tribunals, a historic move that gives women an equal say in building peace after half a century of war.
Under a peace deal signed last year between the government and rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), war tribunals will seek to prosecute those responsible for human rights atrocities committed in the civil war.
Women will account for 53 percent of those people selected to serve as court judges, promoting gender equality in the top echelons of justice.
“The top courts have been a restricted space for women, especially for Afro-Colombian and indigenous women,” said Xiomara Balanta, an Afro-Colombian woman, and one of 27 female judges out of 51 people appointed.
While Colombia has made progress in recent decades in increasing women’s participation in politics and the judiciary, gender parity is still a distant goal.
“We’re properly prepared to participate .. this is a historic moment,” Balanta told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Colombia’s war has claimed the lives of 220,000 people, and women have borne the brunt of the conflict, including sexual violence, rape and forced displacement.
Of the women judges appointed, more than 10 percent are Afro-Colombian and a further 10 percent come from indigenous groups.
Having a more gender equal and ethnically diverse set of judges means they are more likely to recognize that Colombia’s war affected different groups in society in different ways.
“Women have an affinity for gender issues .. that women, and the LGBT community, have suffered [the conflict] and have felt pain in different ways,” Balanta said.
Rights groups applauded the move, saying it was “without precedent” and an “early victory” for women to ensure they play their rightful role as leaders in peace building.
“We celebrate this triumph of women in decision-making scenarios,” the National Summit of Women and Peace, a network of women’s rights group in Colombia, said in a statement.
Ensuring female participation strengthens prospects for sustainable peace, while having women at the negotiating table increases the chance of a peace accord lasting 15 years by 35 percent, according to a 2015 study by the International Peace Institute.
Under the accord, Colombia will have a so-called ‘Special Jurisdiction for Peace’ (JEP) of tribunals, truth commissions and investigative units to try former rebel fighters, state military and civilians who have committed rights abuses.
Balanta said judges will hear thousands of testimonies over the next 15 years of human rights atrocities, including rape, forced disappearances and massacres, aiming to uncover the truth about what happened during the war.
Lawmakers are currently debating a bill to provide the legal framework for the JEP, with a decision expected in November.
War tribunals are likely to come under great scrutiny and pressure by those Colombians who demand tougher sanctions and jail time for FARC rebels.
“Colombia has to understand this is a process that requires reconciliation and forgiveness,” Balanta said. “It’s about restorative and not just punitive justice.”
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Brazil Poll Shows Temer Approval Plummets on New Graft Charges
The approval rating for Brazilian President Michel Temer’s scandal-plagued government has sunk further since new corruption charges were brought against him, and 92 percent of Brazilians do not trust him, a new poll published on Thursday showed.
The survey by pollster Ibope said the number of people who consider Temer’s government “bad” or “terrible” rose to 77 percent from 70 percent in the previous survey carried out in July. The proportion of those who rate his government as “great” or “good” slipped to just 3 percent from 5 percent.
Only 6 percent of Brazilians still trust Temer, down from 10 percent, the poll said.
The government’s approval rating collapsed in July after Temer was hit by a first corruption charge that was blocked by Congress in August, which saved him from standing trial before the Supreme Court.
But federal prosecutors filed new accusations against him of obstructing justice and being a member of a criminal organization in a corruption case involving the owners of the world’s largest meatpacker JBS SA.
They accused Temer of taking bribes in return for political favors and of conspiring to buy the silence of a witness who could implicate the president.
The lower house of Congress, which has the authority to decide whether a president should be put on trial, is expected to vote on the new charges in mid-October at the earliest.
Analysts expect the Congress to again reject a Supreme Court trial for Temer, putting him on course to serve out his term until the end of 2018.
But the corruption debate will delay passage of his plan to overhaul Brazil’s costly pension system, a key measure to bring a gaping budget deficit under control.
“He was already a very unpopular president proposing unpopular measures. Now there is the perception that he, his cabinet and his ruling coalition are involved in a series of wrongdoings,” said Lucas de Aragão, partner at the Brasilia-based political risk consultancy Arko Advice.
Temer’s ratings have fallen below the worst result of his predecessor Dilma Rousseff, whom he succeeded when she was impeached last year.
Rousseff and her Workers Party called her ouster a “coup” orchestrated by Temer and his allies so they could shield themselves from corruption investigations.
Thursday’s poll was commissioned by the National Confederation of Industry lobby and surveyed 2,000 people between Sept. 15-20 across Brazil. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
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Switzerland Tests Delivery by Drone in Populated Areas
Drones will help deliver toothbrushes, deodorant and smartphones to Swiss homes this fall as part of a pilot project, the first of its kind over a densely populated area.
Drone firm Matternet, based in Menlo Park, California, said Thursday it’s partnering on the Zurich project with Mercedes-Benz’s vans division and Swiss e-commerce startup Siroop. It’s been approved by Switzerland’s aviation authority.
Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos says the drones will take items from a distribution center and transport them between 8 to 16 kilometers to awaiting delivery vans. The van drivers then bring the packages to homes. Raptopoulos says drones will speed up deliveries, buzzing over congested urban streets or natural barriers like Lake Zurich.
The pilot comes as Amazon, Google and Uber have also been investing in drone delivery research.
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Greece: 25 Migrants Rescued, 1 Child Dies in Boat Accident
More than 20 migrants or refugees were rescued and one child died Thursday on a Greek island after the boat they set sail in overnight from the nearby Turkish coast either capsized or sank, Greek authorities said.
A vessel from the European border agency Frontex patrolling the area initially picked up six people – one man, two women and three children – it spotted in the sea off the small southeastern island of Kastellorizo in the early hours of Thursday, the Greek coast guard said. The six were transported to land immediately because one of the children, a 9-year-old girl, needed medical attention, but she later died, the coast guard said. Another four of the survivors were hospitalized.
Greek authorities launched a search operation with patrol boats and a helicopter, and crews later found and rescued another 20 people – five children, two women and 13 men – who had managed to swim to a rocky coast on the island. One of the group was also hospitalized.
It was unclear what type of vessel the migrants had used and whether it sank or capsized. The coast guard said all on board had been accounted for and there were no missing people reported. Those injured were being transported to a hospital on the island of Rhodes.
Greece was the preferred route for refugees and migrants fleeing war and poverty in their homelands to seek access into the European Union until last year, when an EU-Turkey deal drastically reduced the number of people heading to Greek islands from the Turkish coast.
Despite the deal and the overcrowded conditions in the camps on the Greek islands, hundreds still make the journey every week, using often unseaworthy and overcrowded inflatable dinghies or small wooden boats.
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Moldovan Official Says Joining EU is Key Priority
A top Moldovan official says its parliament plans to amend the constitution to explicitly state that joining the European Union is a key goal for the ex-Soviet republic.
Moldova, located between Ukraine and Romania, has been divided between moving closer to the EU and returning to the Russian orbit.
Parliament speaker Andrian Candu acknowledged that Moldovans lost confidence in pro-European politicians after some of them were accused of involvement in the looting of $1 billion from Moldovan banks in 2014. But he says trust is slowly being restored with a series of anti-corruption measures.
The ruling Democratic Party says changing the constitution will clarify Moldova’s future regardless of election results and other developments.
Many Moldovans favor closer relations with Russia. Pro-Russian President Igor Dodon was elected last year.
Catalan Official Calls for EU Support Ahead of Referendum
Catalonia’s foreign affairs chief has appealed for support from the European Union before a disputed referendum calling for independence from Spain.
Raul Romeva, speaking to journalists Thursday in Brussels, said that EU institutions need to “understand that this is a big issue.” Romeva spoke a day after Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont accused the EU, in an interview with The Associated Press , of “turning its back” on Catalonia in its conflict with Spain’s central government.
Romeva accused the Spanish government of a “brutal crackdown” on Catalan officials to try to prevent Sunday’s referendum, which Spain considers to be illegal, and that it’s “generated an unprecedented level of shock.”
He said that he doesn’t expect violence, because “it’s not in the Catalan DNA to use violence to solve political problems.”
Twitter to Meet With Congressional Committees in Russia Election Probe
Representatives from Twitter are due to speak Thursday with members of the House and Senate intelligence committees in connection with the ongoing probes into Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. elections.
The closed-door sessions follow similar briefings earlier this month with Facebook, which has also agreed to provide lawmakers with 3,000 Russia-linked ads involving divisive social and political issues that were placed on its platform.
The committees are examining the spread of false news stories and whether anyone in the United States aided in targeting content to certain users. In the case of Twitter, that includes examining so-called bot accounts that are set up to quickly and automatically spread information.
“Twitter deeply respects the integrity of the election process, a cornerstone of all democracies, and will continue to strengthen our platform against bots and other forms of manipulation that violate our Terms of Service,” the company said in a statement, while noting it is cooperating with the investigation.
The meetings with technology companies have so far been closed to the public, but both the House and Senate intelligence committees are planning to hold public hearings about the use of online tools in connection with efforts to influence the election.
The committees have invited Facebook, Twitter and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, to appear, with the House panel planning to hold its hearing in October and the Senate committee in early November.
Boost Trump, hurt Clinton
U.S. intelligence agencies said in a report earlier this year that it was their assessment Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign aimed at the U.S. election in order to boost President Donald Trump’s chance of winning while hurting the campaign of Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.
Trump has expressed skepticism of the conclusion, including in July saying, “I think it could very well have been Russia, but I think it could well have been other countries, and I won’t be specific.”
The president, who has frequently criticized the media, on Wednesday used Twitter to suggest Facebook worked with television news companies and top U.S. newspapers to work against him during the election.
Reaction from Facebook CEO
“Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a response to Trump’s tweet.
“After the election, I made a comment that I thought the idea misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was a crazy idea,” Zuckerberg added. “Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it. This is too important an issue to be dismissive. But the data we have has always shown that our broader impact — from giving people a voice to enabling candidates to communicate directly to helping millions of people vote — played a far bigger role in this election.”
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Human Rights Improve in Somalia, Big Challenges Remain
A report finds significant improvement is being made in human rights in Somalia, but it notes huge challenges to continued progress, compounded by conflict, drought and poverty, remain to be overcome.
The report, which has been submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, says both natural and man-made factors are to blame for ongoing human rights abuses in Somalia. A major concern is the violation of the right to life. The report says Al-Shabab militants are killing military personnel and civilians through improvised explosives, ambushes, assassinations and other random attacks.
It also blames fighting between clan militias for civilian casualties. And the report notes severe drought conditions in the country are contributing to a dire situation.
Drought, poverty
Bahame Tom Nyanduga is the Independent Expert on human rights in Somalia and author of the report. He says drought has caused widespread displacement as people search for food for themselves and their cattle. He says food shortages have led to increased child malnutrition and death. Growing poverty, he warns, is putting entire communities at risk of exploitation.
“Somali youth have continued to fall victims of human traffickers due to lack of opportunity in the country, and many of them have ended up in slavelike conditions in some transit countries, while trying to cross the treacherous Mediterranean and the Sinai routes to Europe,” he said. “Recently, human traffickers abandoned tens of Somali youths in the Red Sea off the Yemen coast, tragically leading to loss of life to several of the victims.”
Rights of women
Nyanduga also expresses concern about the rights of women. He says they are victimized by harmful traditional practices. He also says sexual and gender-based violence are prevalent and cases of gang rape of girls and women by youths and unknown armed men in uniform continue to be reported and go unpunished.
He also criticizes the lack of freedom of expression and attacks on journalists and other media professionals. The Independent Expert urges the government of Somalia to strengthen its laws and judicial system to better promote and protect human rights.
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