Globalization in the 20th century facilitated the exchange of goods, ideas and technology. But it also helped spread deadly germs and viruses around the world. A new exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History illustrates the impact of these sometimes lethal biological linkages and looks back at the deadliest and scariest epidemics throughout history. Maxim Moskalkov has more.
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In New York, Auxiliary Police Officers act as liaison between communities and the police department. Recently, Gursoch Kaur made headlines when she became the first female Sikh officer to serve in the Auxiliary Unit wearing a dastar, the traditional Sikh turban. Usually dastars are worn by Sikh men, but some women choose to wear them to raise awareness about their religion. VOA reporter Aunshuman Apte spoke to Gursoch Kaur to learn why she made that choice and how the community is reacting.
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In New York, Auxiliary Police Officers act as liaison between communities and the police department. Recently, Gursoch Kaur made headlines when she became the first female Sikh officer to serve in the Auxiliary Unit wearing a dastar, the traditional Sikh turban. Usually dastars are worn by Sikh men, but some women choose to wear them to raise awareness about their religion. VOA reporter Aunshuman Apte spoke to Gursoch Kaur to learn why she made that choice and how the community is reacting.
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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will meet Russia’s energy minister next week in Washington, a person familiar with the situation said Friday, as the two countries compete to supply global markets with natural gas and crude.
Perry will meet Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Tuesday, in the context of the World Gas Conference in Washington, the source said.
Meetings between top energy officials from Russia and the United States, two of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, have been rare in recent years.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have cooled over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and as the Trump administration blames the Russian government for cyber attacks that targeted the U.S. power grid over the last two years.
The two countries are competing to sell natural gas to Europe. Russia’s Gazprom, the European Union’s biggest gas supplier, and several Western energy companies hope to open Nord Stream 2, a pipeline to bring Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany.
The United States, meanwhile, has begun some sales of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Poland and Lithuania, though LNG shipments can be more expensive than gas sent via pipeline.
The United States says the advantage of its LNG is dependability and stable pricing.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as did the administration of former President Barack Obama. Washington believes that the pipeline would give Russia, which has at times frozen deliveries to parts of Europe over pricing disputes, more power over the region.
The meeting comes as U.S. national security adviser John Bolton plans to visit Moscow next week to prepare for a possible meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Perry and Novak will also likely talk about oil markets. On Friday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in Vienna to raise oil output by a modest amount after consumers had called for producers to curb rising fuel prices.
Russia, which is not an OPEC member, began cooperating last year with the group for the first time, holding back production to support global oil prices. Before the Vienna OPEC meeting, Novak said Moscow would propose a gradual increase in output from oil-producing countries, starting in July.
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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will meet Russia’s energy minister next week in Washington, a person familiar with the situation said Friday, as the two countries compete to supply global markets with natural gas and crude.
Perry will meet Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Tuesday, in the context of the World Gas Conference in Washington, the source said.
Meetings between top energy officials from Russia and the United States, two of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, have been rare in recent years.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have cooled over Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and as the Trump administration blames the Russian government for cyber attacks that targeted the U.S. power grid over the last two years.
The two countries are competing to sell natural gas to Europe. Russia’s Gazprom, the European Union’s biggest gas supplier, and several Western energy companies hope to open Nord Stream 2, a pipeline to bring Russian gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany.
The United States, meanwhile, has begun some sales of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to Poland and Lithuania, though LNG shipments can be more expensive than gas sent via pipeline.
The United States says the advantage of its LNG is dependability and stable pricing.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as did the administration of former President Barack Obama. Washington believes that the pipeline would give Russia, which has at times frozen deliveries to parts of Europe over pricing disputes, more power over the region.
The meeting comes as U.S. national security adviser John Bolton plans to visit Moscow next week to prepare for a possible meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Perry and Novak will also likely talk about oil markets. On Friday, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed in Vienna to raise oil output by a modest amount after consumers had called for producers to curb rising fuel prices.
Russia, which is not an OPEC member, began cooperating last year with the group for the first time, holding back production to support global oil prices. Before the Vienna OPEC meeting, Novak said Moscow would propose a gradual increase in output from oil-producing countries, starting in July.
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“All I want to do is the Bataclan, the Bataclan.” Those are lyrics to a song released earlier in the year by rapper Medine. Two of his concerts are scheduled for the Bataclan theater in October. But not everyone wants to see the shows go on.
At issue, in part, are the words to another song by the artist, whose real name is Medine Zaouiche. In the song, “Don’t Laik,” one line goes, “I put fatwas on the heads of idiots.” The song was released in 2015 — the same year that France was hit by several terrorist attacks, including one targeting the Bataclan.
This is not the first time Medina has generated controversy. A decade earlier, he released an album titled Jihad — and he has been photographed in a T-shirt bearing the term, and a massive sword.
Now, thousands of people have signed a petition launched by the far right and demanding Medine’s concerts be canceled. Critics are tweeting their opposition via the hashtag #pasdemedineaubataclan, or “no Medine at the Bataclan.”
On French radio, far-right National Rally party head Marine Le Pen described Medine as an Islamic fundamentalist. His performance at the Bataclan, she said, is a threat to public order.
Victims’ associations are divided. Philippe Duperron, who heads one of them, is against the concerts taking place, out of respect for the victims and the memory of them.
Medine and his lawyers are fighting back. The rapper has criticized Islamic fundamentalism a number of times and says he is against violence. He says “Don’t Laik” is more of a slap at France’s tough secular creed, and that the jihad he refers to is an internal spiritual struggle, rather than violence.
“It’s been 15 years since I’ve criticized all forms of radicalism in my albums,” he posted recently on social media. Banning his concerts, he argues, amounts to caving in to the far right.
Medine’s arguments are drawing support, partly in the name of free expression. That appears to be the argument of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
Still, others argue the divisions over the rapper’s concerts are the worst outcome, at a time when the French should be united against terrorism.
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The human backup driver in an autonomous Uber SUV was streaming the television show “The Voice” on her phone and looking downward just before fatally striking a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix, according to a police report.
The 300-page report released Thursday night by police in Tempe revealed that driver Rafaela Vasquez had been streaming the musical talent show via Hulu in the 43 minutes before the March 18 crash that killed Elaine Herzberg as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk. The report said the crash, which marks the first fatality involving a self-driving vehicle, wouldn’t have happened had the driver not been distracted.
Dash camera video shows Vasquez was looking down near her right knee for four or five seconds before the crash. She looked up a half second before striking Herzberg as the Volvo was traveling about 44 miles per hour.
Vasquez told police Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see her prior to the collision. But officers calculated that had Vasquez been paying attention, she could have reacted 143 feet before impact and brought the SUV to a stop about 42.6 feet before hitting Herzberg.
“This crash would not have occurred if Vasquez would have been monitoring the vehicle and roadway conditions and was not distracted,” the report stated.
Tempe police are looking at a vehicular manslaughter charge in the crash, according to a March 19 affidavit filed to get a search warrant for audio, video and data stored in the Uber SUV.
The detective seeking the warrant, identified as J. Barutha, wrote that based on information from the vehicular homicide unit, “it is believed that the crime of vehicular manslaughter has occurred and that evidence of this offense is currently located in a 2017 Grey Volvo XC-90.”
A previously released video of the crash showed Vasquez looking down just before the crash. She had a startled look on her face about the time of the impact.
The National Transportation Safety Board, in a preliminary report issued last month, said the autonomous driving system on Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled.
The system is disabled while Uber’s cars are under computer control, “to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior,” the NTSB report said. Instead of the system, Uber relies on the human backup driver to intervene, the report stated. But the system is not designed to alert the driver.
Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona the day before the NTSB report was released, eliminating the jobs of about 300 people who served as backup drivers and performed other jobs connected to the vehicles. The company had suspended testing of its self-driving vehicles in Arizona, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto while regulators investigated the cause of the crash. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey prohibited Uber from continuing its tests of self-driving cars after Herzberg was run over.
Police initially determined that Vasquez was not impaired after giving her a field test.
Analysis of video taken from the vehicle shows Vasquez looked downward 204 times in the 11.8 miles traveled before the crash. While the SUV was in motion, Vasquez averted her eyes away from the roadway nearly a third of the time, according to the report.
“Sometimes, her face appears to react and show a smirk or laugh at various points during the times that she is looking down,” the report said. “Her hands are not visible in the frame of the video during these times.”
The office of Cristina Perez Hesano, an attorney for Herzberg’s daughter and husband, declined to comment on the police report. Attorney Pat McGroder, who represents Herzberg’s mother, father and son, didn’t immediately respond to a call late Friday morning seeking comment.
An Uber spokeswoman said in a prepared statement Friday morning that the company is cooperating with investigations while it does an internal safety review. “We have a strict policy prohibiting mobile device usage for anyone operating our self-driving vehicles. We plan to share more on the changes we’ll make to our program soon,” the statement said.
Use of a mobile device while an autonomous vehicle is moving is a fireable offense, and “this is emphasized on an ongoing basis,” the statement said.
After the crash, the ride-hailing company said it did a top-to-bottom safety evaluation, reviewing internal processes and safety culture. Uber also said it brought in former transportation safety board chairman Christopher Hart to advise the company on safety.
Both Vasquez and Uber could still face civil liability in the case, Uber for potentially negligent hiring, training and supervision, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who closely follows autonomous vehicles.
Vasquez could be charged criminally, and if there’s evidence that Uber or its employees acted recklessly, then charges against them are possible, Smith said. But charges against the company are not likely, he added.
“This should not have happened in so many ways and on so many levels,” Smith said. “This report, if true, makes things worse. And obviously it would not look good to a jury.”
Uber settled quickly with some of Herzberg’s family members but others have retained legal counsel.
The Yavapai County Attorney’s Office hasn’t set a deadline for deciding whether to bring charges, said Penny Cramer, assistant to County Attorney Sheila Polk. The prosecutorial agency declined to comment on the police report.
The case was handed to Polk’s office after the prosecutor’s office in metro Phoenix passed on the case, citing a potential conflict of interest. The agency in Phoenix had previously participated in a public-safety campaign with Uber.
On a body camera video the night of the crash, police gathered at the scene quickly realized that they were dealing with a big story because an autonomous vehicle was involved.
An officer who identifies himself as supervisor of the unit that investigates fatal crashes is seen asking a man who appears to be an Uber supervisor about getting video from the SUV and whether Uber’s lawyers have been contacted.
“You guys know as well as I know that this is going to be an international story,” the police supervisor says. “We want to make sure that we’re doing not only what we normally do and not doing anything different, but also making sure that everything’s above board and everything’s out in the open.”
The supervisor goes on to say that he’s going to communicate as honestly as he can. “I hope that you guys do the same because we’re going to be working together throughout this whole process from now, probably for months from now.”
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U.S. celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, who killed himself in a French hotel room earlier this month, had no narcotics or alcohol in his body when he died, a local prosecutor said on Friday.
Bourdain, host of CNN’s food-and-travel-focused “Parts Unknown” television series, was 61. Brash and opinionated, he had spoken openly about his use of drugs and addiction to heroin earlier in his life.
“No trace of narcotics, no trace of any toxic products, no trace of medicines, no trace of alcohol,” prosecutor Christian de Rocquigny told Reuters.
Bourdain, whose career catapulted him from washing dishes at New York restaurants to dining in Vietnam with President Barack Obama, hanged himself in a hotel room near Strasbourg, France, where he had been working on an upcoming episode of his TV series, according to CNN.
Michael Benanav has traveled around much of the world, chronicling in words and pictures nomadic communities from Mali, to Jordan to Mongolia. But when the photographer heard about the Van Gujjar tribe of Northern India, he knew he wanted to do more than just document their existence. He wanted to join them on a migration to better understand their nomadic way of life and culture.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose a 20 percent tariff on vehicles assembled in the European Union and shipped to the United States, in retaliation for European tariffs on American imports.
On Friday, the day new EU tariffs went into effect, Trump tweeted, “…if these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here!”
Auto industry experts say such tariffs could negatively impact the U.S. economy, as well as Europe’s.
“It’s really a tangle; it’s not a simple question” of cars being made in one place and sold in another, Kasper Peters, communications manager of ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, said Friday in an interview with VOA.
In March, ACEA Secretary General Erik Jonnaert noted the impact European carmakers with plants in the United States have on local economies. “EU manufacturers do not only import vehicles into the U.S. They also have a major manufacturing footprint there, providing significant local employment and generating tax revenue,” Jonnaert said in a statement.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said earlier this week that his department plans to wrap up by July or August an investigation into whether imported cars and car parts are a threat to national security. But Daniel Price, a former senior economic adviser to President George W. Bush, told The Washington Post that Trump’s threat of new tariffs “short-circuited the … process and conclusively undercut the stated national security rationale of that investigation.”
The new EU tariffs enacted Friday apply to billions of dollars’ worth of American goods — including jeans, bourbon and motorcycles.
The action is the latest response to Trump’s decision to tax imported steel and aluminum.
The U.S. is scheduled to start taxing more than $30 billion in Chinese imports in two weeks.
Like the EU, China has promised to retaliate immediately, putting the world’s two largest economies at odds.
A U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior vice president, John Murphy, was cited by the Associated Press as saying he estimates that $75 billion in U.S. products could be subjected to new foreign tariffs by the end of the first week of July.
Separately, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said, “The U.S. is abusing the tariff methods and starting trade wars all around the world.”
“Clarity [is] still lacking about how far things will ultimately go between [the] U.S. and China and the potential ripple effect for world trade,” said financial analyst Mike van Dulken.
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to apply tariffs, saying countries around the world had been exploiting the U.S.
A former White House trade adviser says Trump “has been so belligerent that it becomes almost impossible for democratically elected leaders — or even a non-democratic leader like [Chinese President] Xi Jinping — to appear to kowtow and give in.”
Phillip Levy, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, said, “The president has made it very hard for other countries to give him what he wants.”
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Retaliating against the Trump administration’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, India has raised duties on 29 U.S. goods worth about $240 million.
New Delhi made the announcement Thursday after Washington ignored its request to be exempted from the tariffs because its exports were tiny compared to others, such as China and the European Union. India accounts for about 2 percent of American imports of steel and aluminum, or $1.5 billion in sales.
India is the latest country to hit back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff increases on steel and aluminum imports.
Among the items on which India will impose higher tariffs are agricultural products such as almonds, apples, walnuts, chickpeas and lentils, as well as some stainless steel products. India is the world’s biggest buyer of U.S. almonds and among the biggest importers of apples. The new tariffs will go into effect August 4.
New Delhi imposed the retaliatory tariffs amid worries that the U.S. might target India’s more significant exports, such as pharmaceuticals.
“It is an appropriate signal,” said Rajiv Kumar of the government’s policy research organization, NITI Aayog. “I am hopeful that all this will die down.”
Although the Indian levies on American products are small compared with those involved in the U.S.-China spat, the trade friction between the two democracies signals discord and uncertainty at a time when they are developing a closer strategic partnership.
India is among the countries named by Trump as following trade practices unfair to the U.S.
Speaking at the Group of Seven summit in Canada earlier this month, he said, “This isn’t just G-7. I mean, we have India, where some of the tariffs are 100 percent. A hundred percent. And we charge nothing. We can’t do that.”
Trump has repeatedly said India imposes a punitive import duty on Harley-Davidson motorcycles whereas the U.S. has much lower duties on motorcycles imported from India. His complaint prompted New Delhi to cut the import duty from 75 percent to 50 percent on high-end bikes earlier this year.
For the time being, India has kept high-end motorcycles off the list of items selected for higher tariffs.
The U.S. tariffs and counter-tariffs are “opening a Pandora’s box whereby countries will impose, retaliate, somebody will act, somebody will react. This is going to be a process that will pull everybody down,” said economist Ram Upendra Das, who heads the Center for Regional Trade in New Delhi, a research organization of India’s Commerce Ministry. He calls it “a race to the bottom.”
A trade deficit in New Delhi’s favor of about $30 billion in their annual bilateral trade of approximately $125 billion has long been an irritant for Washington. India is on the Trump administration list of countries with which it had a large deficit.
Officials from New Delhi and Washington are expected to hold trade talks next week to try to bridge their differences.
But amid growing fears that the rising wave of protectionism signaled by the U.S. tariffs threatens emerging economies like India, economists are confident that the trade disputes will be short-lived. “It has to get corrected. We will have to see how long it takes,” said economist Das.
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In comments at odds with his home state’s whiskey distillers, Kentucky’s Republican governor is downplaying fears that the European Union’s retaliatory tariffs could disrupt the booming market for the Bluegrass state’s iconic bourbon industry.
“There’s always the potential for some type of impact, but I don’t think it will be a tremendous impact,” Governor Matt Bevin said when asked about tariffs during a TV interview this week with Bloomberg.
Bevin, a regular at bourbon industry events celebrating new or expanded facilities, called the tariffs that took effect Friday a “money grab” by the EU, but sounded confident that Kentucky bourbon will expand its share of the vast European whiskey market.
“Europeans are still going to drink more bourbon this year than they did last year; they’re just going to pay more for it because their government is going to take some of it,” he said this week during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Bevin referred to Europe as a “small portion” of the bourbon market, but the Kentucky Distillers’ Association said EU countries accounted for nearly $200 million of the more than $450 million in total exports of Kentucky bourbon and other distilled spirits in 2017.
Kentucky whiskey exports to EU countries have grown more than 10 percent annually in the past five years, said the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, which represents dozens of distillers, large and small. Kentucky whiskey exports overall rose by a whopping 23 percent last year, it said.
The governor’s comments downplaying the effect of tariffs stood in stark contrast to the distillers’ group, which warned that duties on American whiskey would have a “significant impact” on investment and employment in the state’s $8.5 billion bourbon sector.
“As we have said for the past few months, there are no winners in a trade war, only casualties and consequences,” the Kentucky Distillers’ Association said in its statement, which was released shortly after Bevin’s comments but did not directly refer to the governor.
Tariffs will drive up the price of Kentucky whiskey in EU markets where customers have plenty of spirits to choose from.
If a trade war breaks out, bourbon wouldn’t be the state’s biggest casualty, said University of Kentucky economics professor Ken Troske.
Kentucky’s auto parts sector could be hit hard, since many of its products are shipped to auto assembly plants in Canada and Mexico, he said Friday. Many of those vehicles are sent to the U.S. for sale. “Kentucky is a big, big player in that,” Troske said.
As for the bourbon sector, he said: “I don’t think tariffs are going to slow the growth down that much.”
The EU’s tariff action comes in response to Republican President Donald Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on European steel and aluminum. Its retaliatory move targets other American goods including Harley Davidson bikes, cranberries, peanut butter and playing cards.
Kentucky produces about 95 percent of the world’s bourbon, with such brands as Jim Beam, Evan Williams, Wild Turkey, Maker’s Mark, Woodford Reserve and Four Roses. The industry supplies about 17,500 Kentucky jobs, according to the Kentucky Distillers’ Association.
The industry is in the midst of a building boom, with more than $1.1 billion in projects planned, under way or completed in the past five years, it said. The construction includes expanded production facilities and new tourism centers.
Bevin, who routinely lavishes praise on Trump, said this week that the back-and-forth trade actions reflect “a certain amount of posturing that’s going on. It’s part of the negotiation process.” The governor said the EU has more to lose in a trade dispute.
“If they want to play this game with the United States, ultimately they’re going to lose,” he said during the Bloomberg interview. “So I don’t see that this will have long-term implications on trade between the EU and the U.S. I really don’t, but especially as it relates to bourbon. People in Europe still love bourbon, they’re still going to buy it and the European Union will just make money off it.”
Other trade disputes
Bevin’s downplaying of tariffs ran counter to comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who said during a recent speech in Louisville that tariffs “will not be good for the economy” and expressed hope that “we pull back from the brink.”
American spirits makers are being targeted for duties in other trade disputes. Mexico imposed tariffs on U.S. whiskey in response to Trump administration duties on Mexican steel and aluminum, while other countries including China and Canada are taking aim at American spirits.
Wall Street has been closely monitoring threats of a trade war. Vivien Azer, an analyst at Cowen & Co., said in a recent note that tariffs could affect a “notable piece” of international sales for Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp. The producer of such brands as Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and Woodford Reserve tried to hedge against tariff-related price increases by stockpiling inventories overseas.
Small and mid-sized distilleries often don’t have the financial wherewithal to stockpile supplies. But even for the biggest distillers, stockpiling offers “only a short-term fix, as there’s only so much excess inventory” they could ship, Azer said.
But if the trade dispute drags on, “we would generally expect the tariff impact to subside over time as pricing and consumer purchase behavior adjusts,” Azer wrote.
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A report published Friday by Europe’s top human rights body finds xenophobia and hate speech are on the rise across the region. Despite progress in some areas, the Council of Europe finds minorities, including Muslims, Jews, homosexuals and Roma, face stigma, intolerance and sometimes exclusion across its 48 member states. A citizens’ initiative aims to bridge these divisions through dialogue. From the northern French city of Caen, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA on so-called “Living Libraries.”
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A report published Friday by Europe’s top human rights body finds xenophobia and hate speech are on the rise across the region. Despite progress in some areas, the Council of Europe finds minorities, including Muslims, Jews, homosexuals and Roma, face stigma, intolerance and sometimes exclusion across its 48 member states. A citizens’ initiative aims to bridge these divisions through dialogue. From the northern French city of Caen, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA on so-called “Living Libraries.”
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Turkey announced Thursday that it would impose tariffs on $1.8 billion worth of U.S. goods in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
The World Trade Organization said the new Turkish tariffs would amount to $266.5 million on products including cars, coal, paper, rice and tobacco.
Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said in a statement that Turkey would not allow itself “to be wrongly blamed for America’s economic challenges.”
He continued, “We are part of the solution, not the problem.”
On Wednesday, the EU announced that it had compiled a list of U.S. products on which it would begin charging import duties of 25 percent, a move that could escalate into a full-blown trade war, especially if U.S. President Donald Trump follows through with his threat to impose tariffs on European cars.
“We did not want to be in this position. However, the unilateral and unjustified decision of the U.S. to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU means that we are left with no other choice,” EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said in a statement.
The commission, which manages the daily business of the EU, adopted a law that places duties on $3.2 billion worth of U.S. goods, including aluminum and steel products, agricultural products, bourbon and motorcycles.
Malmstrom said that the EU response was consistent with World Trade Organization rules and that the tariffs would be lifted if the U.S. rescinded its metal tariffs, which amount to $7.41 billion.
Trump slapped tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum on the EU, Canada and Mexico, which went into effect at the beginning of June.
Canada said it would impose retaliatory tariffs on $12.5 billion worth of U.S. products on July 1.
Mexico imposed tariffs two weeks ago on a range of U.S. products, including steel, pork and bourbon.
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A report by the U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights finds 40 million people in the United States live in poverty, 18.5 million live in extreme poverty and more than 5 million live in conditions of absolute poverty.
Special Rapporteur Philip Alston called the United States the most unequal society in the developed world. He said U.S. policies benefit the rich and exacerbate the plight of the poor.
He said the policies of President Donald Trump’s administration stigmatize the poor by insisting those receiving government benefits are capable of working and that benefits, such as food stamps, should be cut back significantly. He said the government’s suggestions that people on welfare are lazy and do not want to work misrepresent the facts.
“The statistics that are available show that the great majority of people who, for example, are on Medicaid are either working in full-time work — around half of them — or they are in school or they are giving full-time care to others,” Alston said.
He said 7 percent of people were not working.
Worst of the West
In his report, which will be delivered Friday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Alston noted the United States had the highest rate of income inequality among Western countries, with the top 1 percent of the population owning more than 38 percent of total wealth. He said the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion in tax cuts would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and would worsen the situation of the poor.
The U.N. investigator told VOA that at the completion of each of his country fact-finding missions, he issues what he calls an end-of mission statement. That, he said, gives some governments the opportunity to immediately respond.
“The U.S. chose not to do that, and since then there has not been any official response to either that end-of-mission statement or to the final report, which has now been out for a couple of weeks,” he said.
As is common practice, after Alston formally presents his report to the Human Rights Council, the concerned country has a right of reply. Though the United States has withdrawn as a member of the council, it still has the right to respond to the report as an observer country.
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One Iceland fan went to primary school with a player’s father. Another supporter’s son used to regularly wait on the team at a bar. And yet another fan is related by marriage to the squad’s chef.
With a population of around 350,000, Iceland is the smallest nation to ever qualify for a World Cup. So, for fans descending on Russia for the Nordic island’s first ever appearance at the tournament, the national team is often a deeply personal affair, with many supporters boasting blood ties or personal links with the players.
Bjarni Arnason, a 31-year-old Icelandic architect who travelled to Volgograd to watch his team play Nigeria in Group D on Friday, fondly recalled playing handball at high school with Iceland defender Ragnar Sigurdsson.
“He was really good!” laughed Arnason, decked out in the Iceland jersey on Thursday. “He was so good that the football team wanted him to just play football.”
The connections go on: A pal of Arnason is best friends with the wife of Iceland’s goalkeeper while a cousin played football with another player.
And Arnason’s father, in Volgograd for the game too, is old friends with the father of Alfred Finnbogason, who scored against twice world champions Argentina in their opening game on Saturday which ended 1-1.
“I added an 11 on my Iceland team shirt in honor of my friend’s son,” said Arni Sigurdsson.
But, true to Iceland’s no-frills reputation, that’s as far as the preferential treatment goes.
“I cheer for the team. I don’t cheer extra hard for anyone. We are probably all related somewhat anyway!” added engineer Sigurdsson, 61, with a chuckle.
That attitude is reflected on the pitch too. Coach — and part-time dentist — Heimir Hallgrimsson insists that all players are treated equally.
‘Cinderella story’
The team had a thrilling run at 2016 European championship, eliminating big-name England and advancing to the quarter-finals, propelled by their “thunder-clapping” fans and Viking imagery.
Iceland’s “Cinderella story” has smitten many football aficionados, especially those disgusted by corruption scandals engulfing FIFA and put off by the diva-like attitude of some leading players.
But one downside to hailing from such a small place is that privacy is not always an option.
Iceland fan Svavar Asmundsson said his son used to regularly pour drinks for members of Iceland’s team while working at a bar in capital Reykjavik.
“It was all good … But some of them are a little crazier than the others!” said Asmundsson, a 59-year-old who works in the fishing industry.
Still, the close-knit community never feels suffocating, said the father of midfielder Birkir Bjarnason, who was also in Volgograd to see his son play Nigeria.”
Africa’s most populous country with close to 200 million people, some 571 times Iceland’s population.
“I know who the fathers and mothers of all the players are. Many parents I knew before, but most of them I met after they started to play together,” said the midfielder’s father Bjarni Sveinbjornsson, a 55-year-old electrician. “It’s kind of a family.”
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One Iceland fan went to primary school with a player’s father. Another supporter’s son used to regularly wait on the team at a bar. And yet another fan is related by marriage to the squad’s chef.
With a population of around 350,000, Iceland is the smallest nation to ever qualify for a World Cup. So, for fans descending on Russia for the Nordic island’s first ever appearance at the tournament, the national team is often a deeply personal affair, with many supporters boasting blood ties or personal links with the players.
Bjarni Arnason, a 31-year-old Icelandic architect who travelled to Volgograd to watch his team play Nigeria in Group D on Friday, fondly recalled playing handball at high school with Iceland defender Ragnar Sigurdsson.
“He was really good!” laughed Arnason, decked out in the Iceland jersey on Thursday. “He was so good that the football team wanted him to just play football.”
The connections go on: A pal of Arnason is best friends with the wife of Iceland’s goalkeeper while a cousin played football with another player.
And Arnason’s father, in Volgograd for the game too, is old friends with the father of Alfred Finnbogason, who scored against twice world champions Argentina in their opening game on Saturday which ended 1-1.
“I added an 11 on my Iceland team shirt in honor of my friend’s son,” said Arni Sigurdsson.
But, true to Iceland’s no-frills reputation, that’s as far as the preferential treatment goes.
“I cheer for the team. I don’t cheer extra hard for anyone. We are probably all related somewhat anyway!” added engineer Sigurdsson, 61, with a chuckle.
That attitude is reflected on the pitch too. Coach — and part-time dentist — Heimir Hallgrimsson insists that all players are treated equally.
‘Cinderella story’
The team had a thrilling run at 2016 European championship, eliminating big-name England and advancing to the quarter-finals, propelled by their “thunder-clapping” fans and Viking imagery.
Iceland’s “Cinderella story” has smitten many football aficionados, especially those disgusted by corruption scandals engulfing FIFA and put off by the diva-like attitude of some leading players.
But one downside to hailing from such a small place is that privacy is not always an option.
Iceland fan Svavar Asmundsson said his son used to regularly pour drinks for members of Iceland’s team while working at a bar in capital Reykjavik.
“It was all good … But some of them are a little crazier than the others!” said Asmundsson, a 59-year-old who works in the fishing industry.
Still, the close-knit community never feels suffocating, said the father of midfielder Birkir Bjarnason, who was also in Volgograd to see his son play Nigeria.”
Africa’s most populous country with close to 200 million people, some 571 times Iceland’s population.
“I know who the fathers and mothers of all the players are. Many parents I knew before, but most of them I met after they started to play together,” said the midfielder’s father Bjarni Sveinbjornsson, a 55-year-old electrician. “It’s kind of a family.”
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Hymns sung to the Greek gods thousands of years ago resonated from ancient musical instruments in Athens on Thursday, transporting a transfixed audience to antiquity.
The phorminx, the kitharis, the krotala and the aulos — string and wind instruments reconstructed by musical group Lyravlos — echoed among marble statues in Athens’s National Archaeological Museum as part of World Music Day celebrations.
A family of musicians, Lyravlos have recreated exact replicas of the ancient instruments from natural materials including animal shells, bones, hides and horns.
Music was an integral part of almost every aspect of ancient Greek society, from religious, to social to athletic events.
Today only some 60 written scores of ancient Greek music have survived, said Lyravlos member Michael Stefos.
Stefos said they interpret them as best they can, relying on the accuracy of their recreated instruments.
“Joking aside, ancient CDs have never been found,” he said. Their performance included a hymn to the god Apollo, pieces played at the musical festival of the ancient Pythian Games in Delphi and during wine-laden rituals to the god Dionysus.
Michael’s father Panayiotis Stefos, who heads the group, travels to museums at home and abroad studying ancient Greek antiquities and texts in order to recreate the instruments.
“Usually each instrument has a different sound. It is not something you can make on a computer, it will not be a carbon copy,” said Stefos.
The difference with modern day instruments? “If someone holds it in their arms and starts playing, after a few minutes they don’t want to let it go, because it vibrates and pulsates with your body,” he said.
French tourist Helene Piaget, who watched the performance, said it was “inspiring.”
“One sees them on statues, on reliefs, and you can’t imagine what they might sound like,” she said.
World Music Day is an annual celebration that takes place on the summer solstice.
…
Hymns sung to the Greek gods thousands of years ago resonated from ancient musical instruments in Athens on Thursday, transporting a transfixed audience to antiquity.
The phorminx, the kitharis, the krotala and the aulos — string and wind instruments reconstructed by musical group Lyravlos — echoed among marble statues in Athens’s National Archaeological Museum as part of World Music Day celebrations.
A family of musicians, Lyravlos have recreated exact replicas of the ancient instruments from natural materials including animal shells, bones, hides and horns.
Music was an integral part of almost every aspect of ancient Greek society, from religious, to social to athletic events.
Today only some 60 written scores of ancient Greek music have survived, said Lyravlos member Michael Stefos.
Stefos said they interpret them as best they can, relying on the accuracy of their recreated instruments.
“Joking aside, ancient CDs have never been found,” he said. Their performance included a hymn to the god Apollo, pieces played at the musical festival of the ancient Pythian Games in Delphi and during wine-laden rituals to the god Dionysus.
Michael’s father Panayiotis Stefos, who heads the group, travels to museums at home and abroad studying ancient Greek antiquities and texts in order to recreate the instruments.
“Usually each instrument has a different sound. It is not something you can make on a computer, it will not be a carbon copy,” said Stefos.
The difference with modern day instruments? “If someone holds it in their arms and starts playing, after a few minutes they don’t want to let it go, because it vibrates and pulsates with your body,” he said.
French tourist Helene Piaget, who watched the performance, said it was “inspiring.”
“One sees them on statues, on reliefs, and you can’t imagine what they might sound like,” she said.
World Music Day is an annual celebration that takes place on the summer solstice.
…