Making decorative gingerbread houses is a Christmas tradition in several countries. A New York City museum has gone a step further by using the humble holiday cookie to construct a stunning tribute to the Big Apple. Aron Ranen has the story.
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WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet.
Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered.
“If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic,” he said.
A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions.
Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses.
Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, “It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.”
Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics.
Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions on VPNs would amount to “violating the right to privacy under international law, restricting people’s access to information, and suppressing free expression.”
Qibla Ayaz, former chairman of CII, told VOA Deewa it seems as if a government agency has reached out to the religious body seeking its stance on the VPN issue.
“Similar requests were sent by the government in 2023,” he said.
The CII is a constitutional body in Pakistan that advises the legislature on whether a certain law is repugnant to Islam, namely to the Quran and Sunna.
According to activists and experts, CII’s declarations on technology use are unwarranted and will only strengthen the government’s digital suppression of social media users.
Haroon Baloch, a Pakistani digital rights activist, believes the proposed restrictions on VPNs are aimed at suppressing political dissent.
“First, the government had compliance challenges with X. And when the platform did not agree with the government’s requests, then it banned X. And when X was available with the help of VPN, the government is planning to ban the VPN now,” Haroon told VOA.
Pakistan banned X in February and installed firewalls to restrict access to certain online content. But consumers are using VPNs to access restricted networks and content and to hide their identities and locations.
Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir told a gathering at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute on November 16 that technology has played a pivotal role in the dissemination of information, but “the spread of misleading and incorrect information has become a significant challenge.”
In a speech to religious leaders in Islamabad earlier in August, Munir said, “Anarchy is spread through social media.”
A directive in October from the Interior Ministry asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block “illegal” VPNs that had not registered by the end of November.
The Interior Ministry charged in a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which oversees the internet and mobile industry and has broad powers over online content and the licensing of service providers, that terrorists are increasingly using VPNs to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan.
“Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications,” the letter said, adding that pornography sites are frequently accessed using VPNs.
“These trends … warrant the prohibition of unauthorized virtual private networks in order to address critical threats,” the letter said.
The 2024 “Freedom on the Net” report published by Freedom House says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has historically implemented policies that undermine internet freedom, removed content without a transparent process and instituted wholesale bans on platforms.
This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service.
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WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top cleric has declared that virtual private networks, or VPNs, are unlawful, igniting a debate on privacy rights and access to information amid a government crackdown on the internet.
Allama Raghib Naeemi, head of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), issued a decree saying it makes no difference whether a VPN is registered or unregistered.
“If attempts are made to access indecent or immoral sites, character assassination is done, statements are being made against national security, or if various incidents of religious blasphemy are being spread through it, then [using] it would completely be un-Islamic,” he said.
A VPN protects online privacy by creating a secure connection and is used to access blocked content, protect data from hackers and support remote work or secure transactions.
Several internet service providers in Pakistan expressed concerns Tuesday over the possible imposition of blanket restrictions on VPNs, warning that the move would anger users and impact online businesses.
Shahzad Arshad, chairman of the Wireless and Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, said in a statement, “It is essential to recognize that blanket restrictions or sweeping narratives around tools like VPNs risk alienating segments of society, particularly those who rely on these tools for entirely legitimate purposes, such as IT exports, financial transactions, and academic research.”
Arshad, in reference to CII’s declaration, said technology is neutral and that how it is used determines whether it is aligned with ethics.
Amnesty Tech, part of Amnesty International, said last week on X that imposing restrictions on VPNs would amount to “violating the right to privacy under international law, restricting people’s access to information, and suppressing free expression.”
Qibla Ayaz, former chairman of CII, told VOA Deewa it seems as if a government agency has reached out to the religious body seeking its stance on the VPN issue.
“Similar requests were sent by the government in 2023,” he said.
The CII is a constitutional body in Pakistan that advises the legislature on whether a certain law is repugnant to Islam, namely to the Quran and Sunna.
According to activists and experts, CII’s declarations on technology use are unwarranted and will only strengthen the government’s digital suppression of social media users.
Haroon Baloch, a Pakistani digital rights activist, believes the proposed restrictions on VPNs are aimed at suppressing political dissent.
“First, the government had compliance challenges with X. And when the platform did not agree with the government’s requests, then it banned X. And when X was available with the help of VPN, the government is planning to ban the VPN now,” Haroon told VOA.
Pakistan banned X in February and installed firewalls to restrict access to certain online content. But consumers are using VPNs to access restricted networks and content and to hide their identities and locations.
Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir told a gathering at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute on November 16 that technology has played a pivotal role in the dissemination of information, but “the spread of misleading and incorrect information has become a significant challenge.”
In a speech to religious leaders in Islamabad earlier in August, Munir said, “Anarchy is spread through social media.”
A directive in October from the Interior Ministry asked the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to block “illegal” VPNs that had not registered by the end of November.
The Interior Ministry charged in a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, which oversees the internet and mobile industry and has broad powers over online content and the licensing of service providers, that terrorists are increasingly using VPNs to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan.
“Of late, an alarming fact has been identified, wherein VPNs are used by terrorists to obscure and conceal their communications,” the letter said, adding that pornography sites are frequently accessed using VPNs.
“These trends … warrant the prohibition of unauthorized virtual private networks in order to address critical threats,” the letter said.
The 2024 “Freedom on the Net” report published by Freedom House says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has historically implemented policies that undermine internet freedom, removed content without a transparent process and instituted wholesale bans on platforms.
This story originated in VOA’s Deewa Service.
…
Artificial intelligence was much discussed and demonstrated at the Africa Tech Festival in Cape Town, South Africa earlier this month. The conference highlighted how technology is changing industries on the continent. Vicky Stark filed this report.
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NEW YORK — Arthur Frommer, whose “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.
Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.
“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”
Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry’s best-known brands, self-publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957.
“It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s debut.
The Frommer’s brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.
Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel “because it leads to a more authentic experience.” That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.
It didn’t hurt that his books hit the market as the rise of jet travel made getting to Europe easier than crossing the Atlantic by ship. The books became so popular that there was a time when you couldn’t visit a place like the Eiffel Tower without spotting Frommer’s guidebooks in the hands of every other American tourist.
Frommer’s advice also became so standard that it’s hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. “It was really pioneering stuff,” Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks “that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B — well, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Arthur.”
“Arthur did for travel what Consumer Reports did for everything else,” said Pat Carrier, former owner of The Globe Corner, a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The final editions of Frommer’s groundbreaking series were titled “Europe from $95 a Day.” The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. But the Frommer publishing empire did not disappear, despite a series of sales that started when Frommer sold the guidebook company to Simon & Schuster. It was later acquired by Wiley Publishing, which in turn sold it to Google in 2012. Google quietly shut the guidebooks down, but Arthur Frommer — in a David vs. Goliath triumph — got his brand back from Google. In November 2013 with his daughter Pauline, he relaunched the print series with dozens of new guidebook titles.
“I never dreamed at my age I’d be working this hard,” he told the AP at the time, age 84.
Frommer also remained a well-known figure in 21st century travel, opinionated to the end of his career, speaking out on his blog and radio show. He hated mega-cruise ships and railed against travel websites where consumers put up their own reviews, saying they were too easily manipulated with phony postings. And he coined the phrase “Trump Slump” in a widely quoted column that predicted a slump in tourism to the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected president.
Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and grew up during the Great Depression in Jefferson City, Missouri, the child of a Polish father and Austrian mother. “My father had one job after another, one company after another that went bankrupt,” he recalled. The family moved to New York when he was a teenager. He worked as an office boy at Newsweek, went to New York University and was drafted upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1953. Because he spoke French and Russian, he was sent to work in Army intelligence at a U.S. base in Germany, where the Cold War was heating up.
His first glimpse of Europe was from the window of a military transport plane. Whenever he had a weekend leave or a three-day pass, he’d hop a train to Paris or hitch a ride to England on an Air Force flight. Eventually he wrote “The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” and a few weeks before his Army stint was up, he had 5,000 copies printed by a typesetter in a German village. They were priced at 50 cents apiece, distributed by the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes.
Shortly after he returned to New York to practice law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he received a cable from Europe. “The book was sold out, would I arrange a reprint?” he said.
Soon after he spent his month’s vacation from the law firm doing a civilian version of the guide. “In 30 days I went to 15 different cities, getting up at 4 a.m., running up and down the streets, trying to find good cheap hotels and restaurants,” he recalled.
The resulting book, the very first “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” was much more than a list. It was written with a wide-eyed wonder that verged on poetry: “Venice is a fantastic dream,” Frommer wrote. “Try to arrive at night when the wonders of the city can steal upon you piecemeal and slow. … Out of the dark, there appear little clusters of candy-striped mooring poles; a gondola approaches with a lighted lantern hung from its prow.”
Eventually Frommer gave up law to write the guides full-time. Daughter Pauline joined him with his first wife, Hope Arthur, on their trips starting in 1965, when she was 4 months old. “They used to joke that the book should be called ‘Europe on Five Diapers a Day,'” Pauline Frommer said.
In the 1960s, when inflation forced Frommer to change the title of the book to “Europe on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day,” he said “it was as if someone had plunged a knife into my head.”
Asked to summarize the impact of his books in a 2017 Associated Press interview, he said that in the 1950s, “most Americans had been taught that foreign travel was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially travel to Europe. They were taught that they were going to a war-torn country where it was risky to stay in any hotel other than a five-star hotel. It was risky to go into anything but a top-notch restaurant. … And I knew that all these warnings were a lot of nonsense.”
He added: “We were pioneers in also suggesting that a different type of American should travel, that you didn’t have to be well-heeled.”
To the end of his life, he said he avoided traveling first class. “I fly economy class and I try to experience the same form of travel, the same experience that the average American and the average citizen of the world encounters,” he said.
As Frommer aged, his daughter Pauline gradually became the force behind the company, promoting the brand, managing the business and even writing some of the content based on her own travels. Her relationship with her father was both tender and respectful, and she summed it up this way in a 2012 email to AP: “It’s wonderful to have a working partner whose mind is a steel trap, and who doesn’t just have smarts, but wisdom. His opinions, whether or not you agree with them, come from his social values. He’s a man who puts ethics at the center of his life, and weaves them into everything he does.”
In addition to Pauline, Frommer’s survivors include his second wife, Roberta Brodfeld, and four grandchildren.
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ISANTI, Minn. — The young Buddhist lama sat on a throne near an altar decorated with flowers, fruits and golden statues of the Buddha, watching the celebrations of his 18th birthday in silence, with a faint smile.
Jalue Dorje knew it would be the last big party before he joins a monastery in the Himalayan foothills — thousands of kilometers from his home in a Minneapolis suburb, where he grew up like a typical American teen playing football and listening to rap music.
But this was not an ordinary coming-of-age celebration. It was an enthronement ceremony for an aspiring spiritual leader who from an early age was recognized by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders as a reincarnated lama.
From the stage, he saw it all: The young women in white long bearded masks who danced, jumping acrobatically and twirling colorful sticks to wish him luck in a tradition reserved for dignitaries. The banging of drums. The procession of hundreds – from children to elderly — who lined up to bow to him and present him with a “khata” — the white Tibetan ceremonial scarves that symbolize auspiciousness.
From a throne reserved for lamas, he smelled the aroma of Tibetan dishes prepared by his mother over sleepless nights. He heard the monks with shaved heads, in maroon and gold robes like his own, chant sacred mantras. Behind them, his shaggy-haired high school football teammates sang “Happy Birthday” before he cut the first slice of cake.
One of his buddies gave him shaker bottles for hydrating during training at the gym; another, a gift card to eat at Chipotle Mexican Grill.
“I was in awe!” Dorje recalled later. “Usually, I’d be at the monk section looking up to whomever was celebrating. But that night it was for me.”
Watching Monday Night Football and memorizing ancient Buddhist prayers
Since the Dalai Lama’s recognition, Dorje has spent much of his life training to become a monk, memorizing sacred scriptures, practicing calligraphy and learning the teachings of Buddha.
After graduation in 2025, he’ll head to northern India to join the Mindrolling Monastery, more than 11,500 kilometers from his home in Columbia Heights.
Following several years of contemplation and ascetism, he hopes to return to America to teach in the Minnesota Buddhist community. His goal is “to become a leader of peace,” following the example of the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Gandhi.
“There’s going to be a lot of sacrifice involved,” Dorje said. But he’s not new to sacrifices.
He remembered all the early mornings reciting ancient prayers and memorizing Buddhist scriptures, often rewarded by his dad with Pokémon cards.
“As a child, even on the weekend, you’re like: ‘Why don’t I get to sleep more? Why can’t I get up and watch cartoons like other kids.’ But my dad always told me that it’s like planting a seed,” he said, “and one day it’s going to sprout.”
It all began with the process of identifying a lama, which is based on spiritual signs and visions. Dorje was about four months old when he was identified by Kyabje Trulshik Rinpoche, a venerated master of Tibetan Buddhism and leader of the Nyingma lineage. He was later confirmed by several lamas as the eighth Terchen Taksham Rinpoche — the first one was born in 1655.
After the Dalai Lama recognized him at age 2, Dorje’s parents took him to meet the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism when he visited Wisconsin in 2010.
The Dalai Lama cut a lock of Dorje’s hair in a ceremony and advised his parents to let their son stay in the U.S. to perfect his English before sending him to a monastery.
Dorje is fluent in English and Tibetan. He grew up reading the manga graphic novel series “Buddha,” and is an avid sports fan. He roots for the Timberwolves in basketball, Real Madrid in soccer, and the Atlanta Falcons in football. He even keeps a rookie card of wide receiver Drake London pasted to the back of his phone, which he carried wrapped in his robes during his party.
On the football field, playing as a left guard, his teammates praised his positivity, often reminding them to have fun and keep losses in perspective.
“It’s someone to look up to,” said Griffin Hogg, 20, a former player who took Dorje under his wing. He said they learned from each other and credits Dorje with helping him find his spirituality. “I’m more of a relaxed person after getting to know him and understanding his own journey.”
While Dorje tries to never miss Monday Night Football, he’s always there to help with any event hosted by the local Tibetan community, one of the largest in the United States.
“He has one foot in the normal high school life. And he has one foot in this amazing Tibetan culture that we have in the state of Minnesota,” said Kate Thomas, one of his tutors and the teachings coordinator at Minneapolis’ Bodhicitta Sangha Heart of Enlightenment Institute.
“You can see that he’s comfortable playing a role of sitting on a throne, of participating and being honored as a respected person in his community, as a religious figure. And yet, as soon as he has the opportunity, he wants to go and hang out with his high school buddies,” she said. “That’s testimony to his flexibility, his openness of mind.”
Listening to rap and making Tibetans proud
For years, he has followed the same routine. He wakes up to recite sacred texts and then attends school, followed by football practice. He returns home for tutoring about Tibetan history and Buddhism. Then he might practice calligraphy or run on a treadmill while listening to BossMan Dlow, Rod Wave and other rappers.
Although he was officially enthroned in 2019 in India, an estimated 1,000 people gathered at the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota for his recent ceremony.
“He unites us – Jalue is always here for us,” said Zenden Ugen, 21, a family friend and neighbor who performed Tibetan dances at the event.
“I wish him the best in life because being born and not being able to choose your life must be very hard,” Ugen said. “But he has a responsibility and him being able to take on that responsibility, I’m very inspired by him. I just hope he keeps being who he is.”
Dorje’s proud uncle, Tashi Lama, saw him grow up and become a Buddhist master.
“He’s somebody who’s going to be a leader, who’s going to teach compassion and peace and love and harmony among living beings,” he said about his nephew, often referred to as “Rinpoche” — a Tibetan word that means “precious one.”
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The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT has sparked debate in higher education, raising questions about ethics and integrity in teaching, learning and knowledge creation. In South Africa, some academic institutions are taking a proactive approach, integrating AI into their curricula. Experts say this step is not only innovative but also helps level the playing field among students. Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg.
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Los Angeles — Moviegoers were not exactly feeling the Christmas spirit this weekend, or at least not based on their attendance at “Red One” showings.
The big budget, star-driven action comedy with Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans sold $34.1 million in tickets in its first weekend in theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. It easily topped a box office populated mostly by holdovers.
For traditional studios, a $34.1 million debut against a $200 million-plus production budget would be a clear indication of a flop. Some even peg the budget closer to $250 million. But “Red One” is an Amazon MGM Studios release with the luxury of playing the long game rather than relying solely on global box office where Johnson tentpoles often overperform. The film may have a life on Prime Video for years to come.
“Red One,” in which Johnson plays Santa’s bodyguard, was originally built to go straight-to-streaming. It was greenlit prior to Amazon’s acquisition of MGM. One interpretation of its lifecycle is that the theatrical earnings are not only just a bonus, but an additive gesture toward struggling theaters looking for a consistent stream of new films.
“Amazon has 250 million plus worldwide subscribers to the platform. It’s similar to the way Netflix, I think, looks at stuff for their platform,” said Kevin Wilson, head of distribution for Amazon MGM Studios. “There’s a there’s a massive value for a movie like this in terms of how many eyeballs you’re going to get.”
The first major studio holiday release since 2018, “Red One” opened on 4,032 screens, including IMAX and other large formats, on an otherwise quiet weekend for major releases.
“We’re really happy with the results,” Wilson said. “I think when you look at the theatrical marketplace that’s sometimes unforgiving, especially for original films, this is a good result for us.”
Since 2020, only seven films that weren’t sequels or based on another piece of intellectual property have opened over $30 million (including “Oppenheimer” and “Nope.”)
Warner Bros. is handling the overseas release, where it has made an estimated $50 million in two weekends from 75 territories and 14,783 screens.
Still, it’s certainly not a theatrical hit in North America. Even “Joker: Folie à Deux” made slightly more in its first weekend. “Red One,” directed by Jake Kasdan and produced by Johnson’s Seven Bucks, was roundly rejected by critics, with a dismal 33% Rotten Tomatoes score. Jake Coyle, in his review for The Associated Press, wrote that it “feels like an unwanted high-priced Christmas present.”
Audiences were kinder than they were to “Joker 2,” giving it an A- CinemaScore, suggesting, perhaps, that the idea of it becoming a perennial holiday favorite is not so off-base.
“Red One” is also overperforming in the middle of the country, Wilson said, and perhaps will have a nice holdover over Thanksgiving as a different option to the behemoths on the way.
Sony’s “Venom: The Last Dance” added $7.4 million this weekend’s box office to take second place, bringing its domestic total to $127.6 million. Globally, its total stands at $436.1 million.
Lionsgate’s “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” landed in third with $5.4 million. That much more modestly budgeted Christmas movie has already nearly doubled its $10 million production budget in two weeks. Fourth place went to A24’s Hugh Grant horror “Heretic,” with $5.2 million, bumping its total gross to $20.4 million.
Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot” rounded out the top five in its eighth weekend in theaters with an additional $4.3 million. The animated film surpassed $300 million worldwide.
This weekend is a bit of a stopover before the Thanksgiving tentpoles arrive. Next week, “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” face off in theaters with “Moana 2”, which also stars Johnson, sailing in the Wednesday before the holiday.
“Gladiator II” also got a bit of a head start internationally, where it opened in 63 markets this weekend to gross $87 million. That’s a record for filmmaker Ridley Scott and for an R-rated international release from Paramount. It opens in the U.S. and Canada on Nov. 22.
Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore, said that the “Red One” is helping set into motion a momentum leading into the Thanksgiving corridor.
The upcoming releases, he said, “will finally bring some excitement to what has been a somewhat quiet post-Labor Day moviegoing marketplace.”
Dergarabedian added that it could be “one of the biggest revenue generating Thanksgiving periods in box office history.”
Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
“Red One,” $34.1 million.
“Venom: The Last Dance,” $7.4 million.
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” $5.4 million.
“Heretic,” $5.2 million.
“The Wild Robot,” $4.3 million.
“Smile 2,” $3 million.
“Conclave,” $2.9 million.
“Hello, Love, Again,” $2.3 million.
“A Real Pain,” $2.3 million.
“Anora,” $1.8 million.
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Beirut — Hundreds of cultural professionals, including archeologists and academics, called on the United Nations to safeguard war-torn Lebanon’s heritage in a petition published Sunday ahead of a crucial UNESCO meeting.
Several Israeli strikes in recent weeks on Baalbek in the east and Tyre in the south — both strongholds of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah — hit close to ancient Roman ruins designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.
The petition, signed by 300 prominent cultural figures, was sent to UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay a day before a special session in Paris to consider listing Lebanese cultural sites under “enhanced protection.”
It urges UNESCO to protect Baalbek and other heritage sites by establishing “no-target zones” around them, deploying international observers and enforcing measures from the 1954 Hague Convention on cultural heritage in conflict.
“Lebanon’s cultural heritage at large is being endangered by recurrent assaults on ancient cities such as Baalbek, Tyre and Anjar, all UNESCO world heritage sites, as well as on other historic landmarks,” says the petition.
It calls on influential states to push for an end to military action that causes destruction of damage to sites, as well as adding protections or introducing sanctions.
Change Lebanon, the charity behind the petition, said signatories included museum curators, academics, archaeologists and writers in Britain, France, Italy and the United States.
Hezbollah and Israel have been at war since late September, when Israel broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Enhanced protection status gives heritage sites “high-level immunity from military attacks”, according to UNESCO.
“Criminal prosecutions and sanctions, conducted by the competent authorities, may apply in cases where individuals do not respect the enhanced protection granted to a cultural property,” it said.
In Baalbek, Israeli strikes on November 6 hit near the city’s Roman temples, according to authorities, destroying a heritage house dating back to the French mandate and damaged the historic site.
The region’s governor said “a missile fell in the car park” of a 1,000-year-old temple, the closest strike since the start of the war.
The ruins host the prestigious Baalbek Festival each year, a landmark event founded in 1956 and now a fixture on the international cultural scene, featuring performances by music legends like Oum Kalthoum, Charles Aznavour and Ella Fitzgerald.
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DAEJEON, South Korea — Imagine a wheelchair equipped with wheels flexible enough to navigate all manner of obstacles from curbs to humps and even staircases.
Or perhaps an unmanned delivery vehicle using the same wheels that takes the stairs to deliver food and groceries right to your door.
This is what researchers from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) envision for their “morphing” wheel, which can roll over obstacles up to 1.3 times the height of its radius.
Inspired by the surface tension of water droplets, it goes from solid to fluid when it encounters impediments.
Other possible applications include robots that spy on the enemy in the battlefield.
The KIMM team also hopes that morphing wheels will eventually be used with two- and four-legged robots – currently limited in movement efficiency and susceptible to vibration – that can carry payloads that need stable movement in industrial settings.
“The goal is to make this viable for speed up to 100 kph, or the speed of an average car,” said Song Sung-hyuk, principal researcher at KIMM.
Wheels developed for a similar purpose such as nonpneumatic or airless tires have flexibility but are limited in their ability to overcome obstacles, said Song, who is a member of KIMM’s AI robotics research team.
The morphing wheel consists of an outer hoop of a chain and a series of spoke wires running through the hub. The stiffness of the spokes – and hence the wheel – is automatically regulated by a sensor as it reacts to the terrain.
Song’s team demonstrated to Reuters a prototype wheelchair mounted on morphing wheels as it climbed stairs with 18-cm steps with a life-size dummy sitting in it. The team has also tested a device mounted with the wheel at speeds of up to 30 kph.
The morphing wheel was featured on the cover of the journal Science Robotics in August.
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BEIJING/HONG KONG — A 22-year-old Chinese woman’s account of how she was lured into the country’s illegal surrogacy industry before suffering a miscarriage went viral on Chinese social media this week and raised heated debates over women’s rights and social inequality.
Surrogacy is banned in China, and authorities have vowed to severely crack down on illegal practices, including the buying and selling of sperm, egg and surrogacy services.
The incident comes as Chinese authorities grapple with how to increase the country’s birth rate as more young couples put off having children or opt to have none.
China’s population fell for a second consecutive year in 2023 and Beijing in October rallied local governments to direct resources towards fixing China’s population crisis to create a “birth-friendly” society.
Zhang Jing, 22, told state-backed Phoenix TV magazine that she donated her eggs out of financial desperation and then agreed to “rent out her uterus” to be impregnated for a total of 30,000 yuan ($4,152).
If she “successfully” delivered the baby, she would be paid a total of 240,000 yuan. At five months pregnant, she experienced severe complications and had to have an abortion.
Zhang’s story amassed more than 86 million views and 10,000 comments on Chinese social media platform Weibo, with the hashtag “#2000s-born Surrogate Miscarriage Girl Speaks Out#.”
The majority of comments strongly opposed surrogacy. Some warned that legalizing surrogacy in China could lead to increased competition that would lower compensation and further devalue women.
“No woman could escape this if surrogacy were legalized,” one user wrote, while another said, “Legalizing surrogacy would drive down prices and commodify women.”
Zhang’s story ignited calls for a more thorough crackdown on illegal surrogacy by authorities, with some commenters warning that allowing the black market to continue to operate could even normalize human organ trafficking.
“Life should not be traded as a commodity,” one user wrote. “If this extends to the sale of organs, it will only get darker and darker, and women will have no future.”
The incident comes a few weeks after a 28-year-old pregnant woman who acted as a surrogate in China’s southwestern city of Chengdu was allegedly abandoned by her surrogacy agency.
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BEIRUT — Declassified 1970s-era U.S. spy satellite imagery has led a British-Iraqi archeological team to what they believe is the site of a seventh-century battle that became decisive in the spread of Islam throughout the region.
The Battle of al-Qadisiyah was fought in Mesopotamia — in present-day Iraq — in the A.D. 630s between Arab Muslims and the army of the Sassanid Persian dynasty during a period of Muslim expansion. The Arab army prevailed and continued on its march into Persia, now Iran.
A joint team of archeologists from the U.K.’s Durham University and the University of Al-Qadisiyah stumbled across the site while undertaking a remote sensing survey to map the Darb Zubaydah, a pilgrimage route from Iraq’s Kufa to Mecca in Saudi Arabia built more than 1,000 years ago. The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Antiquity.
While mapping the route, the team noticed that a site some 30 kilometers south of Kufa in Iraq’s southern Najaf province — a desert area with scattered plots of agricultural land — had features that closely matched the description of the al-Qadisiyah battle site described in historic texts.
William Deadman, a specialist in archaeological remote sensing at Durham University, said the Cold War era satellite images are a commonly used tools by archeologists working in the Middle East, because the older images often show features that have been destroyed or altered and would not show up on present-day satellite images.
“The Middle East has developed so much in the last 50 years, both agricultural expansion and urban expansion,” he said. Some of the distinguishing features at the al-Qadisiyah site, such as a distinctive trench, were “much more pristine and clear” in the 1970s images, he said.
A survey on the ground confirmed the findings and convinced the team that they had correctly identified the site.
The key features were a deep trench, two fortresses and an ancient river that was reportedly once forded by elephant-mounted Persian troops, said Jaafar Jotheri, a professor of archeology at the University of Al-Qadisiyah who is part of the team that made the discovery. The survey team also found pottery shards consistent with the time period when the battle took place.
Jotheri said that Iraqis of his generation, who grew up under the rule of Saddam Hussein, were all familiar with the battle in minute detail, down to the names of the generals on both sides.
The battle at the time had political connotations — Iraq was engaged in a devastating war with Iran through much of the 1980s. Saddam pointed to the Battle of Qadisiyah as a harbinger of victory for Iraq.
Like most children growing up in that era, Jotheri said he had watched a popular movie about the battle multiple times as it was on regular rotation on television.
In the post-Saddam era, al-Qadisiyah has become something of a political litmus test. Iraqis’ views of the battle vary depending on their feelings toward Iran, which has expanded its influence in the country since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam.
“There is some political and religious context in this battle, because now, of course, we have religious differences, ethnic differences, political differences in Iraq and we read or we view everything based on our … differences,” Jotheri said. But he added, “We all agree that it is a very important battle, a decisive one, and we all know about it.”
The team plans to begin excavations at the site in the coming year, Jotheri said.
The discovery comes as part of a broader project launched in 2015 to document endangered archaeological sites in the region.
It also comes at the time of a resurgence of archeology in Iraq, a country often referred to as the “cradle of civilization,” but where archeological exploration has been stunted by decades of conflict that halted excavations and led to the looting of tens of thousands of artifacts.
In recent years, the digs have returned and thousands of stolen artifacts have been repatriated.
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BANGKOK — In case you can’t get enough of the little pygmy hippo Moo Deng from Thailand, there’s now an official song featuring the internet’s favorite baby animal — released in four languages for her global fans.
The upbeat 50-second song Moodeng Moodeng, available in Thai, English, Chinese and Japanese versions, features simple lyrics like “Moo Deng Moo Deng, boing boing boing/ Mommy Mommy, play with me.” Its music video consists of short clips of the baby hippo bouncing, playing with her keeper or hanging out with her mom, Jona.
The catchy number was produced and written by well-known Thai composer Mueanphet Ammara, and released by one of Thailand’s largest music companies, GMM Music.
Moo Deng — the name literally means “bouncy pork,” a type of meatball, in Thai — became a global phenomenon just a month after she was unveiled on Facebook by the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand’s southern Chon Buri province.
Fans say her name compliments her chaotic personality. Moo Deng likes to “deng,” or bounce, and her giddy bouncing has appeared all over social media in countless memes. Her image has been used by sports teams and businesses.
The hippo, now 4 months old, has drawn a huge number of visitors to the zoo, which is around a two-hour drive away from the capital of Bangkok. The zoo estimated it has received 3,000 to 5,000 visitors a day on average in the past few months, and it’s selling clothes, bedding and other merchandise based on Moo Deng.
Zoo director Narongwit Chodchoi has said the increasing income from Moo Deng will help its breeding programs for many endangered species like the pygmy hippopotamus, which is threatened by poaching and loss of habitat. The species is native to West Africa and there are only 2,000-3,000 of them left in the wild.
The zoo sits on 800 hectares of land and is home to more than 2,000 animals.
All four versions of the Moo Deng song are available on YouTube and streaming platforms including Spotify and Apple Music.
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Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power in the sport, has died. He was 82.
USA Gymnastics said Karolyi died Friday. No cause of death was given.
Karolyi and wife, Martha, trained multiple Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the U.S. and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
“A big impact and influence on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached her to gold for Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.
Yet Karolyi’s strident methods sometimes came under fire, most pointedly during the height of the Larry Nassar scandal.
When the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was effectively given a life sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment, over a dozen former gymnasts came forward saying the Karolyis were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for years.
While the Karolyis denied responsibility — telling CNN in 2018 they were unaware of Nassar’s behavior — the revelations led to them receding from the spotlight. USA Gymnastics eventually exited an agreement to continue to train at the Karolyi Ranch north of Houston, though only after American star Simone Biles took the organization to task for having them train at a site where many experienced sexual abuse.
The Karolyis receded from the spotlight in the aftermath after spending 30-plus years as a guiding force in American gymnastics, often basking in success while brushing with controversy in equal measure.
The Karolyis defected from Romania to the United States in 1981. Three years later Bela helped guide Retton — all of 16 — to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. At the 1996 Games in Atlanta, he memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor after Strug’s vault secured the team gold for the Americans.
Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics women’s elite program in 1999 and incorporated a semi-centralized system that eventually turned the Americans into the sport’s gold standard. It did not come without a cost. He was removed from the position after the 2000 Olympics when it became apparent his leadership style simply would not work, though he remained around the sport after Martha took over for her husband in 2001.
While the Karolyis approach helped the U.S. become a superpower — an American woman has won each of the last six Olympic titles and the U.S. women earned the team gold at the 2012 and 2016 games under Martha Karolyi’s leadership — their methods came under fire.
Dominique Moceanu, part of the “Magnificent 7” team that won gold in Atlanta, talked extensively about her corrosive relationship with the Karolyis following her retirement. In her 2012 memoir, Moceanu wrote Bela Karolyi verbally abused her in front of her teammates on multiple occasions.
“His harsh words and critical demeanor often weighed heavily on me,” Moceanu posted on X Saturday. “While our relationship was fraught with difficulty, some of these moments of hardship helped me forge and define my own path.”
Some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, she and Karolyi took a photo recreating their famous scene from the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her onto the medals podium after she vaulted on a badly sprained ankle.
Being a gymnastics pied piper was never Karolyi’s intent. Born in Clug, Hungary, (now Romania) on September 13, 1942, he wanted to be a teacher, getting into coaching in college simply so he could spend more time with Martha.
After graduating, the couple moved to a small coal-mining town in Transylvania. Looking for a way to keep their students warm and entertained during the long, harsh winters, Karolyi dragged out some old mats and he and his wife taught the children gymnastics.
The students showed off their skills to their parents, and the exhibitions soon caught the eye of the Romanian government, which hired the Karolyis to coach the women’s national team at a time when the sport was done almost exclusively by adult women, not young girls.
Karolyi changed all that, though, bringing a team to the Montreal Olympics with only one gymnast older than 14.
It was in Montreal, of course, where the world got its first real glimpse of Karolyi. When a solemn, dark-haired sprite named Nadia Comaneci enchanted the world with the first perfect 10 in Olympic history, a feat she would duplicate six times, Karolyi was there to wrap her in one of his trademark bear hugs.
Romania, which had won only three bronzes in Olympic gymnastics before 1976, left Montreal with seven medals, including Comaneci’s golds in the all-around, balance beam and uneven bars, and the team silver. Comaneci became an international sensation, the first person to appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated, Time and Newsweek in the same week.
Four years later, however, Karolyi was in disgrace.
He was incensed by the judging at the Moscow Olympics, which he thought cost Comaneci a second all-around gold, and the Romanian government was horrified that he had embarrassed the Soviet hosts.
“Suddenly, from a position where we’ve been praised and considered the foremost athletes in the country, I was stigmatized,” he once said. “I thought they could put me away for political misconduct.”
When he and Martha took the Romanian team to New York for an exhibition in March 1981, they were tipped off that they were going to be punished upon their return. Despite not speaking any English and with their then-6-year-old daughter, Andrea, still in Romania, they decided to defect.
“We knew what kind of risks we were taking, because nobody was guaranteeing us anything,” Martha Karolyi once said. “We started out with a suitcase and a little motel room. From there, it’s gradually improved.”
The couple made their way to California, where they learned English by watching television and Bela did odd jobs. A chance encounter with Olympic gold medalist Bart Conner — who would later marry Comaneci — at the Los Angeles airport a few months later led to the Karolyis’ first coaching job in the United States.
Within a year, their daughter had arrived in the U.S. and the Karolyis had their own gym in Houston. It soon became the center of American gymnastics, turning out eight national champions in 13 years.
Three years after the Karolyis left Romania, Retton became the first American to win the Olympic all-around title, scoring a perfect 10 on vault to claim gold at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. Retton also posted the highest score in the team competition as the Americans won the silver, their first team medal since 1948.
Four years later, Phoebe Mills, another Karolyi gymnast, won a bronze on balance beam. It was the first individual medal for an American woman at a non-boycotted games. And in 1991, Kim Zmeskal — “the little Kimbo,” as Bela Karolyi called her — became the first American to win the world all-around title.
“My biggest contribution was giving the kids the faith that they can be the best among the best,” Karolyi once said. “I knew that if the Americans could understand they were not inferior … then they can be groomed like international, highly visible athletes.”
But as Karolyi’s resume grew, so did the criticism.
Other coaches were irritated by his brash personality and ability to always find his way into the spotlight. When Retton won gold, Karolyi leaped a barrier — he had an equipment manager’s credential, not a coach’s — so he could scoop Retton up in a hug — right in front of the TV cameras, of course.
He could be a harsh taskmaster, calling his gymnasts names, taunting them for their weight and pushing them to their limits.
Even those warm embraces weren’t always quite what they seemed.
“A lot of those big bear hugs came with the whisper of ‘Not so good,’ in our ears,” Retton wrote.
Yet Retton and Comaneci remained close with Karolyi, making appearances with him at gymnastics events or sitting with him at competitions. Zmeskal had her wedding at the Karolyi ranch.
Karolyi briefly retired after the 1992 Games in Barcelona, where he led the Americans to their first team medal, a bronze, at a non-boycotted Olympics in 44 years. But he kept his gym and summer camps, and by 1994 was again coaching elite-level gymnasts after Zmeskal asked him to help in her attempt to make the Atlanta Games.
Zmeskal didn’t make the Atlanta squad. But two of Karolyi’s other gymnasts, Strug and Moceanu, did, and it was Strug who provided one of the signature moments of the Olympics.
The Americans went into their final event in team finals, vault, trying to hold off Russia for their first-ever title at an Olympics or world championships. Despite injuring her left ankle when she fell on her first vault attempt, Strug went ahead with her second attempt, believing — wrongly — the Americans needed her score to clinch the gold.
With Karolyi shouting, “You can do it!” Strug sprinted down the runway, soared high above the vault and landed on both feet — ensuring it was a clean vault — before pulling her left leg up. After saluting the judges, she fell to her knees and had to be carried off the podium. Tests would later show she had two torn ligaments in her ankle.
As the rest of the Americans gathered on the podium to receive their gold medals, Karolyi carried Strug back into the arena, cradling her in his arms.
But even that drew criticism. Many said Karolyi never should have encouraged Strug to vault on her injured ankle in the first place and then should have stayed out of the spotlight rather than carrying her to the podium.
“Bela is a very tough coach and he gets criticism for that,” Strug said at the time. “But that’s what it takes to become a champion. I don’t think it’s really right that everyone tries to find the faults of Bela. Anything in life, to be successful, you’ve got to work really hard.”
The Karolyis retired again after the Atlanta Olympics. But after the U.S. women finished last in the medal round at the 1997 world championships, USA Gymnastics asked Bela Karolyi to come back.
He agreed — but only if he could implement a semi-centralized training system. Rather than a patchwork system of individual coaches who had their own philosophies, Karolyi would oversee the entire U.S. program. Gymnasts could still train with their own coaches, but there would be regular national team camps to ensure they were meeting established training and performance standards.
Though the idea was sound, Karolyi was not the right person to be in charge. Coaches who had been his equal chafed at his heavy-handedness, and were annoyed by his grandstanding. Gymnasts resented his bluster and demands.
By the time the Americans left the Sydney Olympics, about the only thing everyone agreed on was that Karolyi needed to step away.
He stepped aside and was replaced by his wife. Martha Karolyi’s standards were just as high — if not higher — than her husband’s, but on the surface, she was more willing to listen to other opinions.
“She’s more diplomatic. Absolutely,” Bela Karolyi said before the 2012 Olympics. “I’m wild. The opposite.”
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ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Jake Paul beat boxing legend Mike Tyson by unanimous decision to win an intergenerational heavyweight battle in Texas on Friday that failed to live up to its enormous hype.
The bout between the 27-year-old social media influencer-turned-prizefighter Paul and the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion Tyson was streamed live on Netflix and played out in front of a sold-out crowd at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Those fans were left largely disappointed as Tyson showed his age and was never able to generate any offense against his younger opponent, landing just 18 punches to Paul’s 78.
“First and foremost, Mike Tyson — it’s an honor to be able to fight him,” said Paul. “It was as tough and hard as I thought it would be.”
Tyson, who wore a knee brace, never mounted much of a challenge after being wobbled by some left hands in the third round but did enough defensively to avoid taking any serious damage.
He acknowledged after the contest to fighting through a leg injury.
“Yeah, but I can’t use that as an excuse. If I did, I wouldn’t be in here,” Tyson said. “I knew he was a good fighter. He was prepared, I came to fight. I didn’t prove nothing to anybody, only to myself. I’m not one of those guys that live to please the world. I’m just happy with what I can do.”
Tyson, one of the most fearsome heavyweight champions during his heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was in his first professional fight in nearly 20 years. He was noncommittal when asked if he would return to the ring again.
“I don’t know. It depends on the situation,” he said.
Paul (11-1) said he can now fight anyone he wants, possibly even Mexican Canelo Alvarez, after being the main attraction in the mega event that brought out a star-studded crowd and 72,300 fight fans.
“This is the biggest event, over 120 million people on Netflix,” he said. “We crashed the site, the biggest U.S. boxing gate, $20 million, in U.S. history, and everyone is next on the list.”
Taylor beats Serrano
In the co-main event earlier in the evening, Ireland’s Katie Taylor retained her super lightweight title by beating Puerto Rico’s Amanda Serrano in a controversial unanimous decision after a violent affair.
Serrano came forward throughout the fight, but their heads crashed together hard in the early stages, resulting in a deep cut over Serrano’s right eye. The referee later took a point off Taylor for head butts.
In the end all three judges scored it 95-94 for Taylor, who denied accusations from Serrano’s corner that she was fighting dirty.
Taylor won the pair’s previous meeting, at New York’s Madison Square Garden in April 2022, and said there would be a third meeting.
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OME, Japan — Deep in a dark warehouse the sake sleeps, stored in rows of giant tanks, each holding more than 10,000 liters of the Japanese rice wine that is the product of brewing techniques dating back more than 1,000 years.
Junichiro Ozawa, the 18th-generation head of Ozawa Brewery, founded in 1702, hopes sake-brewing will win recognition as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, when the decision is made next month.
“We always think about the people who’re enjoying our sake when we make it. I’m now so excited, imagining the faces of all the people around the world,” he told reporters Wednesday during a tour of his brewery on the pastoral outskirts of Tokyo.
Sake, the drink of choice for the nobility in “The Tale of Genji” — Japan’s most celebrated work of literature — has been widening its appeal, boosted by the growing international popularity of Japanese cuisine.
Sake exports from Japan total more than 41 billion yen ($265 million) a year, with the biggest destinations being the U.S. and China, according to the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association.
That’s up from about 22 billion yen in 2018. But exports still make up a tiny fraction of overall sake production in Japan. Brazil, Mexico and Southeast Asia, as well as France and the rest of Europe, all places where Japanese restaurants are gaining popularity, are starting to take a liking to sake.
What’s key to sake-making, which takes about two months, including fermentation and pressing, are the rice and the water.
For a product to be categorized Japanese sake, the rice must be Japanese. The relatively soft quality of freshwater in Japan, like the supplies provided by the two wells at Ozawa Brewery, is also critical.
Among Ozawa’s sake is the full-bodied aromatic Junmai Daiginjo, one of the top offerings, with 15% alcohol content and costing about 3,630 yen ($23) for a 720-milliliter bottle.
Karakuti Nigorizake is unrefined sake, murky and not clear like usual sake, with 17% alcohol content and a rugged no-nonsense taste. It sells for 2,420 yen ($16) for a 1,800 milliliter bottle.
The religious connotations of sake are evident at the brewery. The big cedar-leaves ball hanging under the eaves is a symbol of a shrine for the god of sake-making. In Japan, sake is used to purify and to celebrate. Sips from a cup signify the sealing of a marriage.
“Sake is not just an alcoholic beverage. It is Japanese culture itself,” said Hitoshi Utsunomiya, director of the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association.
The UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation is given to not just historical monuments but also practices passed down generations, such as oral traditions, performing arts, rituals and festivals.
It’s not meant to be used for commercial purposes. But sake officials make no secret of their hope that it will boost global sales, helping the tradition stay alive amid competition from beer, wine and other modern beverages.
Among previous Intangible Cultural Heritage inclusions are Kabuki theater and Gagaku court music from Japan, as well as Sona, which are drawings on sand in Angola; the Chinese zither called guqin and Cremonese violin craftsmanship from Italy. Washoku, or Japanese cuisine, won the honors in 2013.
One reason for sake’s growing popularity around the world is that its smooth flavor goes well with varieties of food, including sushi, spicy Asian and Western dishes, says Max Del Vita, a certified sake sommelier and co-founder of The Sake Company, an import and distribution retailer in Singapore.
“These brewers are cultural stewards, passing down techniques through generations and blending ancient practices with quiet innovation,” he told The Associated Press. “Sake is more than a drink. It is a living embodiment of Japan’s seasonal rhythms, community values and artistic heritage.”
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CHANGCHUN, China — Crouch through the small metal door and walk down the dark tunnel, and even before you step into the abandoned air raid shelter, the air reverberates with pounding techno beats. Young Chinese holding booze and cigarettes shake and sway in a red-lit passageway, below a big screen rolling through quotations from Chairman Mao.
This is an underground rave in China, part of a subculture growing in hidden corners of the nation’s cities, even as its political and cultural mainstream grow increasingly controlled, staid and predictable.
For Chinese ravers, these gatherings — often called “ye di,” or “wild dances” — not only offer a rare space for unfettered fun, but signal resistance to the narrowly prescribed future a rigid society expects for them.
By day, Xing Long works in the office of a state-owned company in Changchun, an industrial city in China’s northeastern rust belt region.
By night, he’s a DJ and underground rave organizer, a side gig that offers an escape from the humdrum of reviewing corporate contracts.
“My job cannot make me feel I fulfilled my values,” he said. “Going to work is like executing a prewritten program.”
Chinese young people face intense pressure and high expectations from the society around them. In recent years, facing bleak economic prospects, Chinese youth culture has been swept by a series of viral slang terms to describe frustration and hopelessness: ” 996 ” — the brutal 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week work schedule many companies ask of employees. “Involution” — an endless treadmill of pointless competition that fresh graduates face. ” Lying flat” — the growing trend among young people of giving up all ambition and aiming to do as little as possible.
Techno dance parties are an escape from all that for people like Xing. Every time he walks into a rave, the 31-year-old said, his brain “jolts awake like a bang.”
Xing first learned about techno music from a documentary made by the American media company Vice.
“My eyes brightened up when I heard it,” he said. “I should’ve listened to this kind of music earlier.”
Xing began going to raves in Shenzhen, a southern city with a population of 17 million, but when he moved home in 2021 he realized no one else was organizing them.
“I want this city to have an underground techno music scene,” he said. “I want to listen to it myself, so I want to make it happen.”
Xing said that the underground techno scene fascinated him because it’s “real” even if not perfect, bad, not in the right order, or broken.
“It’s not a beautiful thing that was deliberately produced into a mold to present to the mainstream.”
In recent years, space for culture and creativity has been shrinking in China as the authorities have ramped up censorship of concerts, shows, and other cultural events. Comedians have been silenced after joking about topics considered politically sensitive. A growing number of independent bookstores and creative spaces have shut down under pressure, while state-sanctioned media promotes uplifting, often saccharine narratives.
Yet underground raves are free from all those limitations because they sprout in gray zones. Hidden from public view, they skirt formal approval processes, neither supported nor suppressed by the state.
Feng Zhe, 27, a rave organizer in Shenyang, a northeastern city about 400 miles from Beijing, said raves are about “refusing to be disciplined by society.”
“This is probably not how the world functions nowadays,” he said, adding that societies want to make people follow their rules and be useful but “underground culture is useless.”
“Most people are going to be repressed,” Feng said.
But for most rave organizers, the real meaning of underground rave culture is simply having fun. Loong Wu, a 26-year-old art student, started organizing raves in 2021 during COVID-19 lockdowns out of boredom.
“My original intention was just to break through the boredom,” she said. “When you are truly enjoying it, you don’t think about meanings.”
On one recent Saturday night, civil servants, students, an ex-firefighter, girls with dyed hair, and a man with a full-face mask and goggles filed into a bar tucked behind a flower shop in downtown Changchun to attend one of Xing’s raves.
They danced to fast-paced industrial techno spun by Du Jizhe, a local part-time DJ who works in HR by day.
He said it’s the natural soundtrack of auto manufacturing cities like Changchun and Detroit, which prides itself on being the birthplace of techno. For Du, techno evokes childhood memories of the auto factory where his father worked.
“Techno is basically industrial noise like hammering and mechanical sounds,” Du said “These noises exert a subtle influence on people’s ears in industrial cities.”
Chen Xiangyu, a fashion student in an oversized black T-shirt with hair dyed blond, a black leather choker, a lip piercing, and smoky eye makeup, said raves are a pure release.
“The first time I came, I thought to myself, I don’t know anyone, no one knows me, so nobody’s paying any attention to how I dance, so long as I’m happy, it’s all good,” she said. “I shouldn’t care too much about what others think.”
Even at raves, illegal drugs are rarely seen in China, but promoters still face risks from authorities who have little patience for unapproved social gatherings.
Advertisements promoting raves are often cryptic, with only a date, a DJ line-up, and the cost of admission. Sometimes, the location won’t be revealed until an hour ahead of the party. Some organizers require guests to cover their phone’s camera with a sticker.
Loong Wu said her requirements for a rave spot were no CCTV cameras, no security, and no nearby residents. Even those aren’t a guarantee — local police once busted one of her raves in an industrial port.
“It was pathetic how few such places exist in the city,” she said.
Frustrated with how hard it was to find a good rave spot, she once organized a public party where she put her DJ equipment on a cart and pushed it through city streets as revelers danced alongside.
“Restrictions exist for sure, but that’s exactly why we need to create our own scene,” she said. “We always need ‘wild dances.’ We always need to dance outside of set rules.”
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MELBOURNE, Australia — How do you remove children from the harms of social media? Politically the answer appears simple in Australia, but practically the solution could be far more difficult.
The Australian government’s plan to ban children from social media platforms including X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram until their 16th birthdays is politically popular. The opposition party says it would have done the same after winning elections due within months if the government hadn’t moved first.
The leaders of all eight Australian states and mainland territories have unanimously backed the plan, although Tasmania, the smallest state, would have preferred the threshold was set at 14.
But a vocal assortment of experts in the fields of technology and child welfare have responded with alarm. More than 140 such experts signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemning the 16-year age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”
Details of what is proposed and how it will be implemented are scant. More will be known when legislation is introduced into the Parliament next week.
The concerned teen
Leo Puglisi, a 17-year-old Melbourne student who founded online streaming service 6 News Australia at the age of 11, laments that lawmakers imposing the ban lack the perspective on social media that young people have gained by growing up in the digital age.
“With respect to the government and prime minister, they didn’t grow up in the social media age, they’re not growing up in the social media age, and what a lot of people are failing to understand here is that, like it or not, social media is a part of people’s daily lives,” Leo said.
“It’s part of their communities, it’s part of work, it’s part of entertainment, it’s where they watch content – young people aren’t listening to the radio or reading newspapers or watching free-to-air TV – and so it can’t be ignored. The reality is this ban, if implemented, is just kicking the can down the road for when a young person goes on social media,” Leo added.
Leo has been applauded for his work online. He was a finalist in his home state Victoria’s nomination for the Young Australian of the Year award, which will be announced in January. His nomination bid credits his platform with “fostering a new generation of informed, critical thinkers.”
The grieving mom-turned-activist
One of the proposal’s supporters, cyber safety campaigner Sonya Ryan, knows from personal tragedy how dangerous social media can be for children.
Her 15-year-old daughter Carly Ryan was murdered in 2007 in South Australia state by a 50-year-old pedophile who pretended to be a teenager online. In a grim milestone of the digital age, Carly was the first person in Australia to be killed by an online predator.
“Kids are being exposed to harmful pornography, they’re being fed misinformation, there are body image issues, there’s sextortion, online predators, bullying. There are so many different harms for them to try and manage and kids just don’t have the skills or the life experience to be able to manage those well,” Sonya Ryan said.
“The result of that is we’re losing our kids. Not only what happened to Carly, predatory behavior, but also we’re seeing an alarming rise in suicide of young people,” she added.
Sonya Ryan is part of a group advising the government on a national strategy to prevent and respond to child sexual abuse in Australia.
She wholeheartedly supports Australia setting the social media age limit at 16.
“We’re not going to get this perfect,” she said. “We have to make sure that there are mechanisms in place to deal with what we already have which is an anxious generation and an addicted generation of children to social media.”
A major concern for social media users of all ages is the legislation’s potential privacy implications.
Age estimation technology has proved inaccurate, so digital identification appears to be the most likely option for assuring a user is at least 16.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, an office that describes itself as the world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online, has suggested in planning documents adopting the role of authenticator. The government would hold the identity data and the platforms would discover through the commissioner whether a potential account holder was 16.
The skeptical internet expert
Tama Leaver, professor of internet studies at Curtin University, fears that the government will make the platforms hold the users’ identification data instead.
The government has already said the onus will be on the platforms, rather than on children or their parents, to ensure everyone meets the age limit.
“The worst possible outcome seems to be the one that the government may be inadvertently pushing towards, which would be that the social media platforms themselves would end up being the identity arbiter,” Leaver said.
“They would be the holder of identity documents which would be absolutely terrible because they have a fairly poor track record so far of holding on to personal data well,” he added.
The platforms will have a year once the legislation has become law to work out how the ban can be implemented.
Ryan, who divides her time between Adelaide in South Australia and Fort Worth, Texas, said privacy concerns should not stand in the way of removing children from social media.
“What is the cost if we don’t? If we don’t put the safety of our children ahead of profit and privacy?” she asked.
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ROME — The ancient Roman Colosseum will be the venue of gladiator fights — albeit staged — for the first time in two millennia under a $1.5 million sponsorship deal with Airbnb that aims to promote “a more conscious tourism.”
But some visitors to the monument Thursday, as well as housing activists, were skeptical about the value of the arrangement, citing ongoing controversies in many cities over the role of short-term rental platforms in fueling overtourism and limiting affordable housing for residents and students.
Under the deal announced by Airbnb and the Colosseum on Wednesday, the sponsorship by the short-term rental giant will cover the renewal of an educational program inside the ancient Roman amphitheater covering the history of the structure and gladiators.
Eight of the platform’s users and their plus-ones will be able to participate in faux gladiator fights after the Colosseum’s closing time on May 7-8, taking the same underground route used by gladiators in ancient Rome to reach the arena. People can apply for the experience on November 27 at no cost, and the “gladiators” will be chosen by lottery.
The superintendent of the Colosseum Archaeological Park, Alfonsina Russo, told The Associated Press that the deal is in conjunction with the release of Ridley Scott’s new film “Gladiators II,” which opened in Italy on Thursday.
Russo characterized the sponsorship arrangement as one of the many such deals to help finance projects at the park.
The Italian fashion brand Tod’s, for example, has funded a multimillion renovation of the Roman monument, including a cleaning, replacing the locking system of arches with new gates and redoing the subterranean areas.
Alberto Campailla, the coordinator of the Nonna Roma nonprofit organization that focuses on housing and food for the poor, called the campaign with Airbnb “a disgrace,” and a form of “touristification.”
Airbnb and other platforms offering short-term rentals “are literally driving people out of not only the city center, but also the outskirts and suburban neighborhoods,” Campailla said.
Tourists from other European cities grappling with overtourism also took issue with the deal.
“It seems to me that the purpose of the Colosseum today is to be a tourist attraction, but not to create an amusement park within it,” said Jaime Montero, a tourist visiting from Madrid. “In the end, tourism eats the essence of the cities, here in Rome, as in other capitals.”
Visiting from Naples, Salvatore Di Matteo saw the deal as “yet another takeover of the territory” by big companies.
“If they start to touch sacred monuments such as the Colosseum here in Rome, it is obviously something that should make us think and is, in any case, a bit worrying,” he said.
The Colosseum is the most important and largest amphitheater constructed by the ancient Romans. Built in the 1st century, it was the center of popular entertainment, hosting hunts and gladiator games, until the 6th century.
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Brussels — The European Commission on Thursday fined Meta Platforms $840.24 million over abusive practices benefiting Facebook Marketplace, it said in a statement, confirming an earlier report by Reuters.
“The European Commission has fined Meta … for breaching EU antitrust rules by tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace to its personal social network Facebook and by imposing unfair trading conditions on other online classified ads service providers,” the European Commission said.
Meta said it will appeal the decision, but in the meantime, it will comply and will work quickly and constructively to launch a solution which addresses the points raised.
The move by the European Commission comes two years after it accused the U.S. tech giant of giving its classified ads service Facebook Marketplace an unfair advantage by bundling the two services together.
The European Union opened formal proceedings into possible anticompetitive conduct of Facebook in June, 2021, and in December, 2022, raised concerns that Meta ties its dominant social network Facebook to its online classified ad services.
Facebook launched Marketplace in 2016 and expanded into several European countries a year later.
The EU decision argues that Meta imposes Facebook Marketplace on people who use Facebook in an illegal “tie” but Meta said that argument ignores the fact that Facebook users can choose whether to engage with Marketplace, and many do not.
Meta said the Commission claimed that Marketplace had the potential to hinder the growth of large incumbent online marketplaces in the EU but could not find any evidence of harm to competitors.
Companies risk fines of as much as 10% of their global turnover for EU antitrust violations.
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