Companies find solutions to power EVs in energy-challenged Africa

Leave a Comment

NAIROBI, KENYA — Some companies are coming up with creative ways of making electric vehicles a more realistic option in power-challenged areas of Africa.

Countries in Africa have been slow adopters of battery-powered vehicles because finding reliable sources of electricity is a challenge in many places.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies described Africa as “the most energy-deficient continent in the world” and said that any progress made in electricity access in the last five years has been reversed by the pandemic and population growth.

Onesmus Otieno, for one, regrets trading in his diesel-powered motor bike for an electric one. He earns his living making deliveries and ferrying passengers around Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, with his bike.

The two-wheeled taxis popularly known as “boda boda” in Swahili are commonly used in Kenya and throughout Africa. Kenyan authorities recently introduced the electric bikes to phase out diesel ones. Otieno is among the few riders who adopted them, but he said finding a place to charge his bike has been a headache.

Sometimes the battery dies while he is carrying a customer, he said, while a charging station is far away. So, he has to end that trip and cancel other requests.

To address the problem, Chinese company Beijing Sebo created a mobile application that allows users of EVs to request a charge through the app. Then, charging equipment is brought to the user’s location.

Lin Lin, general manager for overseas business of Beijing Sebo, said because the company produces the equipment, it can control costs.

“We can deploy the product … in any country they need, and they don’t need to build or fix charging stations,” Lin said. “We can move to the location of the user, and we can bring electricity to electric vehicles.”

Lin said the mobile charging vans use electricity generated from solid waste and can charge up to five cars at one time for about $7 per vehicle — less for a motorbike.

Countries in Africa have been slow to adopt electric vehicles because there is a lack of infrastructure to support the technology, analysts say. The cost of EVs is another barrier, said clean energy expert Ajay Mathur.

”Yes, the capital cost is more,” Mathur said. “The first cost is more, but you recover it in about six years or so. We are at the beginning of the revolution.”

Electric motor bike maker Spiro offers a battery-swapping service in several countries to address the lack of EV infrastructure.

But studies show that for many African countries, access to reliable and affordable electricity remains a challenge. There are frequent power cuts, outages and voltage fluctuations in several regions.

Companies such as Beijing Sebo and Spiro are finding ways around the lack of power in Africa.

”We want to solve the problem of charging anxiety anywhere you are,” Lin said. 

This story originated in VOA’s Mandarin Service.
…

your ad here

Teri Garr, comic actor of ‘Young Frankenstein’ and ‘Tootsie,’ has died

Leave a Comment

LOS ANGELES — Teri Garr, the quirky comedy actor who rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to co-star of such favorites as Young Frankenstein and Tootsie, has died. She was 79. 

Garr died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” publicist Heidi Schaeffer said. Garr battled other health problems in recent years and underwent an operation in January 2007 to repair an aneurysm. 

Admirers took to social media in her honor, with writer-director Paul Feig calling her “truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more” and screenwriter Cinco Paul saying: “Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better.” 

The actor, who was sometimes credited as Terri, Terry or Terry Ann during her long career, seemed destined for show business from her childhood. 

Her father was Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comedian; her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the original high-kicking Rockettes at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dance lessons at 6 and by 14 was dancing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies. 

She was 16 when she joined the road company of West Side Story in Los Angeles, and as early as 1963 she began appearing in bit parts in films. 

She recalled in a 1988 interview how she won the West Side Story role. After being dropped from her first audition, she returned a day later in different clothes and was accepted. 

From there, the blonde, statuesque Garr found steady work dancing in movies, and she appeared in the chorus of nine Presley films, including Viva Las Vegas, Roustabout and Clambake. 

She also appeared on numerous television shows, including Star Trek, Dr. Kildare and Batman, and was a featured dancer on the rock ‘n’ roll music show Shindig, the rock concert performance T.A.M.I. and a cast member of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. 

Her big film break came as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in 1974’s Francis Ford Coppola thriller The Conversation. That led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who said he would hire her for the role of Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant in 1974’s Young Frankenstein — if she could speak with a German accent. 

“Cher had this German woman, Renata, making wigs, so I got the accent from her,” Garr once recalled. 

The film established her as a talented comedy performer, with New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael proclaiming her “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on the screen.” 

Her big smile and off-center appeal helped land her roles in Oh God! opposite George Burns and John Denver, Mr. Mom (as Michael Keaton’s wife) and Tootsie in which she played the girlfriend who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange. 

Although best known for comedy, Garr showed in such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Black Stallion and The Escape Artist that she could handle drama equally well. 

She had a flair for spontaneous humor, often playing David Letterman’s foil during guest appearances on NBC’s Late Night With David Letterman early in its run. 

Her appearances became so frequent, and the pair’s good-natured bickering so convincing, that for a time rumors cropped up that they were romantically involved. Years later, Letterman credited those early appearances with helping make the show a hit. 

It was also during those years that Garr began to feel something in her right leg. It began in 1983 and eventually spread to her right arm. By 1999 the symptoms had become so severe that she consulted a doctor. The diagnosis: multiple sclerosis. 

For three years Garr didn’t reveal her illness. 

“I was afraid that I wouldn’t get work,” she explained in a 2003 interview. “People hear MS and think, ‘Oh, my God, the person has two days to live.'” 

After going public, she became a spokeswoman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, making humorous speeches to gatherings in the U.S. and Canada. 

“You have to find your center and roll with the punches because that’s a hard thing to do: to have people pity you,” she said in 2005. “Just trying to explain to people that I’m OK is tiresome.” 

She also continued to act, appearing on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Greetings From Tucson, Life With Bonnie and other TV shows. She also had a brief recurring role on Friends in the 1990s as Lisa Kudrow’s mother. After several failed romances, Garr married contractor John O’Neill in 1993. They adopted a daughter, Molly, before divorcing in 1996. 
…

your ad here

Authorities in Shanghai crack down on Halloween celebrations

Leave a Comment

In Shanghai, police, not trick-or-treaters and partygoers, are taking to the streets this week as the city approaches Halloween. The strengthened police force accompanies official notices prohibiting citizens from “role-playing” on Halloween, signaling the government’s paranoia over the social instability the holiday’s festivities could bring.

Videos online show police cars lining the streets of Shanghai, with some officers approaching crowds and instructing them to disperse from fenced-off areas.

A leaked notice from the Huangpu subdistrict office identified any form of Halloween costumes, but especially role-playing costumes and makeup with gore, to be prohibited in public. Police have been instructed to persuade those in costume to leave or take off offensive garments and employ more coercive measures in the event of noncompliance.

The police garrisons, protocols and general air of malaise in Shanghai find their roots in the local government’s fear of mass protest, according to Shanghai resident Ma, who declined to provide her first name out of fear of reprisal for talking to VOA.

“The Communist Party knows that ‘a spark can start a prairie fire’ and that many young people are now unemployed and unable to find jobs,” Ma siad. “So they have deployed a large number of police forces on Changle Road and Julu Road, probably because they are worried that some of the freethinking young people will protest against the government in a strange way on Halloween.” Ma told VOA.

Costumed people taken by police

Some youth in Shanghai have appeared to ignore the warnings, gathering in Zhongshan park and the nearby streets to celebrate the holiday early. Online videos of the scene show some people in costume being taken away by the police, while others argue with law enforcement.

At another celebration Friday night, in the Jing An district, Reuters reported that an attendee in a skeleton costume was detained by the police and escorted to an administrative building where he was asked to remove his makeup.

Wang, a Shanghai resident who declined to provide his first name for his personal security, disagreed with the sudden tightening of restrictions on Halloween celebrations in his city.

“What can wearing a unique dress do?” Wang asked. “As a normal, civilized society, this should not be a matter of concern at all. It is normal to ‘let the arts blossom’ and allow everyone to release their inner yearning for freedom. In a normal, civilized society, the police maintain the safety of the people. In our case, it’s the opposite,” Wang said.

Originating in the West, Halloween has found popularity in China in recent years. This is especially the case in Shanghai, known as China’s most international city and for its relative open-mindedness.

In 2023, the city resumed the celebration of Halloween for the first time after the COVID-19 lockdowns, and some residents used this opportunity for self-expression to critique the Chinese government and political phenomena through costume. Some people dressed as Winnie the Pooh, a character that is often censored online in China given his likeness to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and others referenced past protests through covering their bodies in white paper.

Ma believes that tensions this week between Halloween celebrants and local authorities are unlikely to escalate.

“Young people are indeed rebellious, but because of the education we have received since childhood, most Chinese young people dare not, and are unlikely, to rebel,” Ma said.

“Will the authorities completely control and prohibit Halloween? I don’t think they will, but they will strictly control it. There will definitely be a lot of police in more important places. If any little thing happens, they will immediately send a police car to prevent the matter from escalating,” she said.

Unique opportunity for free expression

Chen Daoyin, an independent political analyst in China, told VOA that he believes that Halloween provides Chinese people with a unique opportunity for Western-style free expression.

“Most people, especially young people who dress up as characters on festivals like Halloween, have usually adopted Western culture, or at the very least know that people in Western systems have the freedom of expression,” Chen said.

“We have opinions about the current situation and the government, and can make our voices heard, but we also know that this is not allowed in the current political environment in China. Everyone knows what is going on. So they express their dissatisfaction with the authorities through dressing up as characters,” he said.

Li Rongwei, executive director of the Taiwan Inspirational Association, however, told VOA that the holiday’s Western origins make it more susceptible to suppression.

“For China, Halloween is a product of the West, a typical capitalist bourgeois thing,” Li said. “Since Halloween is a foreign thing and not a product of the so-called Chinese nation or China as the CCP believes, it is, of course, a class struggle and should be slandered,” Li said.

October 27 marked the first anniversary of the death of former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, whose unexpected passing less than a year after he left the powerful premier position, sparked online conspiracy theories about the Chinese government. The Chinese government also might fear a social disruption akin to the 2022 White Paper Movement in protest of strict pandemic regulations that was referenced at Halloween celebrations in Shanghai last year.

“Social movements always have to have a reason, and it is conceivable to use Li Keqiang as the reason,” Lai said. “This is also what the CCP fears the most. A tandem movement always has a theme. According to the perception of the CCP’s top officials, it may be believed that this is a social movement planned by foreign forces.”

But Chen believes that it is an over-speculation and inaccurate to link this year’s crackdown on Halloween with Li Keqiang and the White Paper Movement and says that there will not be any kind of uprising in China without an acute inciting incident.

“It is impossible for the youth of today … to start a movement of any kind without the impact of a big event,” he said.

“So far this year, there has been no major event that can arouse empathy and emotional expression,” Chen said.

Katherine Michaelson and Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
…

your ad here

Cryptocurrency promoters on X amplify China-aligned disinformation

Leave a Comment

Washington — A group of accounts that regularly promote cryptocurrency-related content on X have amplified messages from Chinese official accounts and a China-linked disinformation operation covertly pushing Beijing’s propaganda toward Western social media users known as “Spamouflage”.

Spamouflage accounts are bots pretending to be authentic users that promote narratives that align with Beijing’s talking points issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s human rights record, the war in Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza.

The cryptocurrency accounts were discovered by a joint investigation between VOA Mandarin and DoubleThink Lab, a Taiwan-based social media analytics firm.

DoubleThink Lab’s analysis uncovered 1,153 accounts that primarily repost news and promotions about cryptocurrency and are likely bots deployed by engagement boosting services to raise their clients’ visibility on social media.

The findings suggest that some official Chinese X accounts and the Spamouflage operation have been using the same amplification services, which further indicate the link between the Chinese state and Spamouflage.

Beijing has repeatedly denied any attempts to spread disinformation in the United States and other countries.

From cryptocurrency to Spamouflage

A review of the accounts in the VOA-DTL investigation shows that the majority of the posts were about cryptocurrency. Users regularly repost content from some of the biggest cryptocurrency accounts on X, such as ChainGPT and LondonRealTV, which belongs to British podcaster Brian Rose.

But these accounts have also shared content from at least 17 Spamouflage accounts that VOA and DTL have been tracking.

VOA recently reported on Spamouflage networks’ adoption of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories.

Spamouflage was first detected by the U.S.-based social media analytic firm Graphika, who coined the name because the operation’s political posts were interspersed with innocuous but spam-like content such as TikTok videos and scenery photographs that camouflage the operation’s goal of influencing public opinions.

All cryptocurrency accounts have reposted content from a Spamouflage account named “Watermelon cloth” at least once. A review of the account revealed that “Watermelon cloth” regularly posted content critical of social inequalities in the United States, the Ukrainian and Israeli governments, and praised China’s economic achievements and leadership role in solving international issues.

In one post, the account peddled the conspiracy theory that Washington was developing biological weapons in Ukraine.

“The outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war brought out an ‘unspeakable secret’ in the United States. US biological laboratory in Ukraine exposed,” the post said. X recently suspended Watermelon cloth’s account.

Since Watermelon cloth’s first posting in March 2023, its content has been reposted nearly 2,600 times, half of which were by the cryptocurrency accounts. Most of the remaining reposts were either by Spamouflage or other botlike accounts, according to data collected by DoubleThink Lab. The investigation also found that the cryptocurrency accounts’ amplification on average almost tripled the view number of a post.

Robotic behavior

All 1,153 cryptocurrency accounts have demonstrated patterns that strongly suggest they are bots instead of human users.

They were created in batches on specific dates. On April 6 alone, 152 of them were registered on X.

Over 99% of their content were reposts. A study of their repost behaviors on September 24 shows that all the reposts took place within the first hour after the original content was posted. Within each wave of reposts, all took place within six seconds, an indication of coordinated action.

At least one such account offered engagement boosting services in its bio with two Telegram links for interested customers. VOA Mandarin contacted the service seller through the links but did not receive a response.

Chinese official accounts amplified

The cryptocurrency group has also promoted posts from Chinese official accounts, including several that belong to Chinese local governments, state media and at least one Chinese diplomat.

The Jinan International Communication Center was the third most amplified account whose posts the cryptocurrency groups have shared. Its content was reposted over 2,200 times.

The Jinan International Communication Center was established in 2022 to promote the history and culture of Jinan, capital of the Shandong province in Eastern China, to the rest of the world as part of Beijing’s “Tell China’s Story Well” propaganda initiative.

A local state media account boasted in an article last year that Jinan was the third most influential Chinese city on X, which was then called Twitter.

Other Chinese cities, including Xiamen and Ningbo, and provinces, such as Anhui and Jilin, had their official accounts amplified by the cryptocurrency group.

Other amplified accounts include Xi’s Moments, a state media project propagating Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s speeches and official activities; China Retold, a media group organized by pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong; and the English-language state-owned newspaper China Daily.

Zhang Heqing, a cultural counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan, was the sole Chinese diplomat whose posts were promoted by the cryptocurrency group.

DoubleThink Lab wrote in an analysis of the data and findings that Chinese official accounts and the Spamouflage operation have “likely” used the same content boosting services, which explains why they were amplified by the same group of cryptocurrency accounts.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., declined to answer specific questions about what appears to be a connection between the cryptocurrency group, Chinese official accounts and Spamouflage.

But in a written statement, spokesperson Liu Pengyu rejected the notion that China has used disinformation campaigns to influence social media users in the U.S.

“Such allegations are full of malicious speculations against China, which China firmly opposes,” the statement said.
…

your ad here

Nigeria praises CAF decision in controversy over Libya’s treatment of Nigerian footballers

Leave a Comment

Abuja, Nigeria — Africa’s football governing body has sided with Nigeria in that country’s dispute with Libya over a canceled qualifying game. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) awarded Nigeria a 3-0 victory over Libya following accusations Libya deliberately breached competition guidelines.

Libya’s football federation is appealing.

The decision by the CAF puts Nigeria at the top of their division, Group D, and in contention for a spot at next year’s Africa Cup of Nations, or AFCON, finals, in Morocco.

The CAF on Saturday said Libya violated a rule that mandates that host nations receive and manage the logistics of visiting teams.

The body also ordered Libya to pay a fine of $50,000 within 60 days.

On October 15, Nigerian players returned home rather than play what would have been a qualifying match in Libya. They were protesting long delays at an airport about 250 kilometers away from the venue after their charter flight was unexpectedly diverted. Some news reports say the players were delayed by about 16 hours.

Nigerian football fan Elvis Ume welcomed the CAF’s decision.

“I think justice was served because the truth of the matter is that they genuinely put our players’ lives in danger,” he said “It was extremely malicious on their part. In my opinion they got off lightly. I think CAF could still have been a bit more firm in their decision for it to serve a sort of a deterrent to other countries.”

But the Libya Football Federation, or LFF, denies deliberately trying to dampen the morale of the Nigerian Super Eagles players and has appealed the decision.

Libya called the CAF’s decision unjust and malicious. The federation accused the Nigerian team of using the reputation of its players – who are team members of various European leagues – to win global support on the matter.

The LFF said its players faced similar challenges in Nigeria days earlier and that the situation is not unique to African football leagues.

Sports analysts say common tricks may include immigration delays, lengthy trips or allocation of poor training facilities.

“When you look at antecedents, the North Africans especially Libya, Morocco, Egypt, they’re known for this ‘gamesmanship,'” said Nigerian sports analyst Bunmi Haruna. “I think in Europe they call it the ‘dark act.’ This is the chance for CAF to let the whole world know … it’s not good for our football in any way.”

Haruna said the CAF must continue to uphold this standard.

“I think it’s a very good step from CAF and I hope it’s not just going to be a one-off because these things happen even in club football. They want to go and appeal, which is good in terms of testing the laws.”

It is very unlikely that the CAF will reverse its decision, but many will be watching to see the outcome of Libya’s appeal.
…

your ad here

Small modular reactors could give developing countries access to nuclear energy

Leave a Comment

Experts say small modular reactors, called SMRs, are bringing affordable nuclear energy to less wealthy countries. But what are SMRs and why are proponents so excited about them? VOA reporter Henry Wilkins explains
…

your ad here

Texas Country Boys give charity concerts in war-torn Ukraine

Leave a Comment

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a musical group of American Christians calling themselves the Texas Country Boys have been playing charity events in Ukraine. Tetiana Kukurika met with the band members to find out why Ukraine is so important to them. Anna Rice narrates her story. (Camera: Sergiy Rybchynski; Produced by:  Vitaliy
Hrychanyuk and Anna Rice )
…

your ad here

Bavarian tradition honors St. Leonhard, patron saint of farmers, horses and livestock

Leave a Comment

WARNGAU, Germany — Farmers and their horses walked in a festive parade through the small Bavarian town of Warngau on Sunday to honor their patron saint, St. Leonhard.

Their manes neatly combed, the massive horses were decorated with ribbons and greenery as they pulled the adorned carriages to a local church as part of the procession some 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Munich.

Farmers donned colorful regional costumes and hats decorated with tufts of animal hair called Gamsbart, or chamois beards, as townspeople joined in amid the pounding of hooves. After the procession, the revelry traditionally turned to toasts with schnapps.

Often called Leonhardiritt or Leonhardifahrt, the traditional pilgrimage dates back centuries in Bavaria and Austria. It was revived in Warngau in 1983, after an 80-year break, and takes place there each year on the fourth Sunday in October, ahead of the annual Nov. 6 feast day.

St. Leonhard (St. Leonard in English) is the patron saint of farmers, horses and livestock. Also known as St. Leonard of Noblac, he was a Frankish courtier who asked God to repel an invading army, according to the Catholic News Agency. His plea worked, and he converted to Christianity following what he believed was a miracle.

Other Bavarian towns have similar traditions. In Bad Tolz, southwest of Warngau, this year’s Nov. 6 procession will be the 169th in a row.

Bad Tolz’s pilgrimage is listed on the Nationwide Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage by the German Commission for UNESCO. Only cold-blooded horses — large draft horses like Clydesdales — are allowed in the procession, which begins at 9 a.m. when all of the town’s church bells ring.

The crowd journeys to a Leonhardi chapel for blessings and an open-air Mass. The tradition involves the entire town, from the youth to the clergy and the city councilors.

St. Leonhard mostly lived in monasteries and in seclusion in what is now France, though Bad Tolz calls him the “Bavarian Lord.” According to legend, his prayers were believed to be breaking the chains of captives. He is also the patron saint of prisoners, among other groups.

He died of natural causes around the year 559, and many Catholic churches have been dedicated to him throughout Europe.
…

your ad here

‘Venom: The Last Dance’ misses projections as superhero films’ grip on theaters loosens

Leave a Comment

New York — “Venom: The Last Dance” showed less bite than expected at the box office, collecting $51 million in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, significantly down from the alien symbiote franchise’s previous entries.

Projections for the third “Venom” film from Sony Pictures had been closer to $65 million. More concerning, though, was the drop off from the first two “Venom” films. The 2018 original debuted with $80.2 million, while the 2021 follow-up, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” opened with $90 million even as theaters were still in recovery mode during the pandemic.

“The Last Dance,” starring Tom Hardy as a journalist who shares his body with an alien entity also voiced by Hardy, could still turn a profit for Sony. Its production budget, not accounting for promotion and marketing, was about $120 million — significantly less than most comic-book films.

But “The Last Dance” is also performing better overseas. Internationally, “Venom: The Last Dance” collected $124 million over the weekend, including $46 million over five days of release in China. That’s good enough for one of the best international weekends of the year for a Hollywood release.

Still, neither reviews (36% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) nor audience scores (a franchise-low “B-” CinemaScore) have been good for the film scripted by Kelly Marcel and Hardy, and directed by Marcel.

The low weekend for “Venom: The Last Dance” also likely insures that superhero films will see their lowest-grossing year in a dozen years, not counting the pandemic year of 2020, according to David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter for Franchise Entertainment.

Following on the heels of the “Joker: Folie à Deux” flop, Gross estimates that 2024 superhero films will gross about $2.25 billion worldwide. The only upcoming entry is Marvel’s “Kraven the Hunter,” due out Dec. 13. Even with the $1.3 billion of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the genre hasn’t, overall, been dominating the way it once did. In 2018, for example, superhero films accounted for more than $7 billion in global ticket sales.

Last week’s top film, the Paramount Pictures horror sequel “Smile 2,” dropped to second place with $9.4 million. That brings its two-week total to $83.7 million worldwide.

The weekend’s biggest success story might have been “Conclave,” the papal thriller starring Ralph Fiennes and directed by Edward Berger (“All Quiet on the Western Front”). The Focus Features release, a major Oscar contender, launched with $6.5 million in 1,753 theaters.

That put “Conclave” into third place, making it the rare adult-oriented drama to make a mark theatrically. Some 77% of ticket buyers were over the age of 35, Focus said. With a strong opening and stellar reviews, “Conclave” could continue to gather momentum both with moviegoers and Oscar voters.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

  1. “Venom: The Last Dance,” $51 million.

  2. “Smile 2,” $9.4 million.

  3. “Conclave,” $6.5 million.

  4. “The Wild Robot,” $6.5 million.

  5. “We Live in Time,” $4.8 million.

  6. “Terrifier 3,” $4.3 million.

  7. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” $3.2 million.

  8. “Anora,” $867,142.

  9. “Piece by Piece,” $720,000.

  10. “Transformers One,” $720,000.
    …

your ad here

War casts shadow over Lebanon’s ancient Baalbek

Leave a Comment

Baalbek, Lebanon — Since war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah, the famed Palmyra Hotel in east Lebanon’s Baalbek has been without visitors, but long-time employee Rabih Salika refuses to leave — even as bombs drop nearby.

The hotel, which was built in 1874, once welcomed renowned guests including former French President Charles de Gaulle and American singer Nina Simone.

Overlooking a large archaeological complex encompassing the ruins of an ancient Roman town, the Palmyra has kept its doors open through several conflicts and years of economic collapse.

“This hotel hasn’t closed its doors for 150 years,” Salika said, explaining that it welcomed guests at the height of Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war and during Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006.

The 45-year-old has worked there for more than half his life and says he will not abandon it now.

“I’m very attached to this place,” he said, adding that the hotel’s vast, desolate halls leave “a huge pang in my heart.”

He spends his days dusting decaying furniture and antique mirrors. He clears glass shards from windows shattered by strikes.

Baalbek, known as the ‘City of the Sun’ in ancient times, is home to one of the world’s largest complex of Roman temples — designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

But the latest Israel-Hezbollah war has cast a pall over the eastern city, home to an estimated 250,000 people before the war.

Life at a standstill

After a year of cross-border clashes with Hezbollah, Israel last month ramped-up strikes on the group’s strongholds, including parts of Baalbek.

Only about 40 percent of Baalbek’s residents remain in the city, local officials say, mainly crammed into the city’s few Sunni-majority districts.

On October 6, Israeli strikes fell hundreds of meters (yards) away from the Roman columns that bring tourists to the city and the Palmyra hotel.

UNESCO told AFP it was “closely following the impact of the ongoing crisis in Lebanon on the cultural heritage sites.”

More than a month into the war, a handful of Baalbek’s shops remain open, albeit for short periods of time.

“The market is almost always closed. It opens for one hour a day, and sometimes not at all,” said Baalbek mayor Mustafa al-Shall.

Residents shop for groceries quickly in the morning, rarely venturing out after sundown.

They try “not to linger on the streets fearing an air strike could hit at any moment,” he said.

Last year, nearly 70,000 tourists and 100,000 Lebanese visited Baalbek. But the city has only attracted five percent of those figures so far this year, the mayor said.

Even before the war, local authorities in Baalbek were struggling to provide public services due to a five-year economic crisis.

Now municipality employees are mainly working to clear the rubble from the streets and provide assistance to shelters housing the displaced.

A Baalbek hospital was put out of service by a recent Israeli strike, leaving only five other facilities still fully functioning, Shall said.

‘No one’

Baalbek resident Hussein al-Jammal said the war has turned his life upside down.

“The streets were full of life, the citadel was welcoming visitors, restaurants were open, and the markets were crowded,” the 37-year-old social worker said.

“Now, there is no one.”

His young children and his wife have fled the fighting, but he said he had a duty to stay behind and help those in need.

“I work in the humanitarian field, I cannot leave, even if everyone leaves,” he said.

Only four homes in his neighborhood are still inhabited, he said, mostly by vulnerable elderly people.

“I pay them a visit every morning to see what they need,” he said, but “it’s hard to be away from your family.”

Rasha al-Rifai, 45, provides psychological support to women facing gender-based violence.

But in the month since the war began, she has lost contact with many.

“Before the war… we didn’t worry about anything,” said Rifai, who lives with her elderly parents.

“Now everything has changed, we work remotely, we don’t see anyone, most of the people I know have left.”

“In the 2006 war we were displaced several times, it was a very difficult experience, we don’t want this to happen again,” she said.

“We will stay here as long as it is bearable.”
…

your ad here

Thousands turn out for Thai royal barge pageantry 

Leave a Comment

Bangkok — Thousands of well-wishers lined the banks of Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River Sunday to watch King Maha Vajiralongkorn ride a glittering royal barge procession to mark his 72nd birthday.

A flotilla of 52 ornately decorated boats, paddled by more than 2,000 oarsmen decked out in scarlet and gold, carried the king and Queen Suthida in formation through the heart of the Thai capital to a Buddhist ceremony at Wat Arun, the city’s ancient Temple of Dawn.

The king, officially regarded as semi-divine but who came in for unprecedented criticism in street protests in 2020 and 2021, took his place on a century-old royal barge known as the “Golden Swan” to deliver robes to monks in a ceremony marking the end of Buddhist Lent.

Royal barge processions date back hundreds of years, but are held rarely, saved for the most significant occasions — most recently, the king’s coronation in 2019.

During the 70-year reign of the previous king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, only 16 barge processions were held.

King Vajiralongkorn turned 72 in July, completing his “sixth cycle” in the 12-year astrological calendar — a milestone regarded by Thais as important and auspicious.

Normally the intricately ornamented barges — their prows decorated with garudas, nagas and other mythical creatures from Buddhist and Hindu mythology — are kept in a museum.

But on days of national importance, navy oarsmen in sarongs, red tunics and traditional hats propel them through the water to the banging of drums, as perfectly coordinated golden paddles break the waters.

Only four of the barges are actually deemed “royal,” while the others are officially royal escort vessels.

The barge procession dates back to Thailand’s 1350-1767 Ayutthaya period. When Bangkok was built more than 250 years ago, kings used the boats to travel through the capital’s network of canals.

As Thailand modernized, the barges fell out of use, but king Bhumibol revived the tradition in 1957 to celebrate the 25th century of the Buddhist era.
…

your ad here

Major Vatican meeting sidelines talks of women priests, deacons

Leave a Comment

Rome — A major Vatican meeting gathering clerics and laity across the globe to discuss the future of the Catholic Church closes this weekend, thwarting discussion of women becoming priests or deacons in the world’s largest Christian denomination.

But that didn’t stop a half-dozen Catholic women from “ordination” in a secret ceremony in Rome that was not authorized by the Vatican.

Jesuit Father Allan Deck, a professor at the Los Angeles-based Loyola Marymount University, told VOA that the Catholic Church under Pope Francis’ leadership recognizes the need for adaptability to realize its spiritual mission in the world at this time of significant change.

“Not the first time that the church in its 2,000-year history has experienced very significant shifts,” he said. “The church, in order to accomplish its mission, has to engage people, circumstances and times. And it has to be capable of development, while at the same time remaining faithful to its mission and to the revelation that has been communicated to it. This is hard. This is what’s happening.”

While Catholic women participated over the past month in what many consider the most significant Catholic gathering since the 1960s — called the “synod on synodality” — many of their number were let down by a Vatican decision to sideline talk of the ordination of female priests or deacons, instead referring the matter to a future study group.

Bridget Mary Meehan, an American co-founder of the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, told VOA that her organization has performed 270 ordinations of women in 14 countries since its creation in 2002.

“We wanted to share with Pope Francis that it is time to build a bridge between the international women priests’ movement and the Vatican,” she said. “We are on the same page as he is about a synodal church. We believe all are called, all are equal and all are co-responsible for the mission of the church — to be the face of Christ in the world in loving and compassionate service. One of these ways is ordained ministry.”

Advocates say women play a huge role in daily Catholic ministries — also called the diakonia — in education, pastoral care and hospitals worldwide. In some places, women are especially active because there are no priests, such as in the Amazon. But often their leadership is not recognized.

Meehan “ordained” six Catholic women from France, Spain and the United States on a barge on Rome’s Tiber River earlier this month to acknowledge their central role in ministry around the world.

“We did it because we felt that it’s time for us, after 22 years of serving the church in the diakonia ministry, to really share the good news that women are being ordained by Catholic communities who want to call them forward to ministry among them,” Meehan said.

“It’s like a renewal of ministry that is already in the midst of the Catholic Church. It’s already occurring,” she said.

Although Pope Francis has appointed more women to top jobs at the Vatican than any of his predecessors, he has ruled out female priests or deacons ministering in the Catholic Church.
…

your ad here

Bassist Lesh, founding member of Grateful Dead, dies at 84 

Leave a Comment

los angeles — Phil Lesh, a classically trained violinist and jazz trumpeter who found his true calling reinventing the role of rock bass guitar as a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday at age 84.

Lesh’s death was announced on his Instagram account. He was the oldest and one of the longest-surviving members of the band that came to define the acid rock sound emanating from San Francisco in the 1960s.

Lesh “passed peacefully this morning. He was surrounded by his family and full of love. Phil brought immense joy to everyone around him and leaves behind a legacy of music and love,” the Instagram statement said.

The statement did not cite a cause of death, and attempts to reach representatives for additional details were not immediately successful. Lesh had previously survived bouts of prostate cancer, bladder cancer and a 1998 liver transplant necessitated by the debilitating effects of a hepatitis C infection and years of heavy drinking.

Lesh’s death came two days after MusiCares named the Grateful Dead its Persons of the Year. MusiCares, which helps music professionals needing financial or other kinds of assistance, cited Lesh’s Unbroken Chain Foundation, among other philanthropic initiatives. The Dead will be honored in January at a benefit gala ahead of the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Low profile

Although he kept a relatively low public profile, rarely granting interviews or speaking to the audience, fans and fellow band members recognized Lesh as a critical member of the Grateful Dead whose thundering lines on the six-string electric bass provided a brilliant counterpoint to lead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s soaring solos and anchored the band’s famous marathon jams.

“When Phil’s happening, the band’s happening,” Garcia once said.

Drummer Mickey Hart called him the group’s intellectual who brought a classical composer’s mindset and skills to a five-chord rock ‘n’ roll band.

Lesh credited Garcia with teaching him to play the bass in the unorthodox lead-guitar style that he would become famous for, mixing thundering arpeggios with snippets of spontaneously composed orchestral passages.

Fellow bass player Rob Wasserman once said Lesh’s style set him apart from every other bassist he knew of. While most others were content to keep time and take the occasional solo, Wasserman said Lesh was both good enough and confident enough to lead his fellow musicians through a song’s melody.

“He happens to play bass but he’s more like a horn player, doing all those arpeggios — and he has that counterpoint going all the time,” he said.

Lesh began his long musical odyssey as a classically trained violinist, starting with lessons in third grade. He took up the trumpet at 14, eventually earning the second chair in California’s Oakland Symphony Orchestra while still in his teens.

But he had largely put both instruments aside and was driving a mail truck and working as a sound engineer for a small radio station in 1965 when Garcia recruited him to play bass in a fledgling rock band called the Warlocks.

Armed with a cheap four-string instrument his girlfriend bought him, Lesh sat down for a seven-hour lesson with Garcia, following the latter’s advice that he tune his instrument’s strings an octave lower than the four bottom strings on Garcia’s guitar. Then Garcia turned him loose, allowing Lesh to develop the spontaneous style of playing that he would embrace for the rest of his life.

Traded leads

Lesh and Garcia would frequently exchange leads, often spontaneously, while the band as a whole would frequently break into long experimental, jazz-influenced jams during concerts. The result was that even well-known Grateful Dead songs like “Truckin’ ” or “Sugar Magnolia” rarely sounded the same two performances in a row, something that would inspire loyal fans to attend show after show.

“It’s always fluid. We just pretty much figure it out on the fly,” Lesh said, chuckling, during a rare 2009 interview with The Associated Press. “You can’t set those things in stone in the rehearsal room.”

Phillip Chapman Lesh was born on March 15, 1940, in Berkeley, California, the only child of Frank Lesh, an office equipment repairman, and his wife, Barbara.

He would say in later years that his love of music came from listening to broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic on his grandmother’s radio. One of his earliest memories was hearing the great German composer Bruno Walter lead that orchestra through Brahms’ First Symphony.

Musical influences he often cited were not rock musicians but composers like Bach and Edgard Varese, as well as jazz greats like John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

Lesh had gravitated from classical music to cool jazz by the time he arrived at the College of San Mateo, eventually becoming first trumpet player in the school’s big band and a composer of several orchestral pieces the group performed.

But he set the trumpet aside after college, concluding he didn’t have the lung power to become an elite player.

Soon after he took up the bass, the Warlocks renamed themselves the Grateful Dead and Lesh began captivating audiences with his dexterity. Crowds gathered in what came to be known as “The Phil Zone” directly in front of his position onstage.

Although he was never a prolific songwriter, Lesh also composed music for the band and sometimes sang some of its most beloved songs. Among them were the upbeat country rocker “Pride of Cucamonga,” the jazz-influenced “Unbroken Chain” and the ethereally beautiful “Box of Rain.”

Lesh composed the latter on guitar as a gift for his dying father, and he recalled that Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, upon hearing the instrumental recording, approached him the next day with a lyric sheet. On that sheet, he said, were “some of the most moving and heartfelt lyrics I’ve ever had the good fortune to sing.”

The band often closed its concerts with the song.

Later tours

After the group’s dissolution following Garcia’s 1995 death, Lesh often skipped joining the other surviving members when they got together to perform.

He did take part in a 2009 Grateful Dead tour and again in 2015 for a handful of “Fare Thee Well” concerts marking both the band’s 50th anniversary and what Lesh said would be the last time he would play with the others.

He did continue to play frequently, however, with a rotating cast of musicians he called Phil Lesh and Friends.

In later years he usually held those performances at Terrapin Crossroads, a restaurant and nightclub he opened near his Northern California home in 2012, which was named after the Grateful Dead song and album “Terrapin Station.”

Lesh is survived by his wife, Jill, and sons Brian and Grahame.
…

your ad here

US military, intelligence agencies ordered to embrace AI

Leave a Comment

washington — The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have new marching orders — to more quickly embrace and deploy artificial intelligence as a matter of national security.

U.S. President Joe Biden signed the directive, part of a new national security memorandum, on Thursday. The goal is to make sure the United States remains a leader in AI technology while also aiming to prevent the country from falling victim to AI tools wielded by adversaries like China.

The memo, which calls AI “an era-defining technology,” also lays out guidelines that the White House says are designed to prevent the use of AI to harm civil liberties or human rights.

The new rules will “ensure that our national security agencies are adopting these technologies in ways that align with our values,” a senior administration official told reporters, speaking about the memo on the condition of anonymity before its official release.

The official added that a failure to more quickly adopt AI “could put us at risk of a strategic surprise by our rivals.”

“Because countries like China recognize similar opportunities to modernize and revolutionize their own military and intelligence capabilities using artificial intelligence, it’s particularly imperative that we accelerate our national security community’s adoption and use of cutting-edge AI,” the official said.

But some civil liberties advocates are raising concerns that the new guidelines lack sufficient safeguards.

“Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems,” according to a statement from the American Civil Liberties Union’s Patrick Toomey.

“National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Toomey, who serves as deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project.

The new guidelines build on an executive order issued last year that directed all U.S. government agencies to craft policies for how they intend to use AI.

They also seek to address issues that could hamper Washington’s ability to more quickly incorporate AI into national security systems.

Provisions outlined in the memo call for a range of actions to protect the supply chains that produce advanced computer chips critical for AI systems. It also calls for additional actions to combat economic espionage that would allow U.S. adversaries or non-U.S. companies from stealing critical innovations.

“We have to get this right, because there is probably no other technology that will be more critical to our national security in the years ahead,” said White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, addressing an audience at the National Defense University in Washington on Thursday.

“The stakes are high,” he said. “If we don’t act more intentionally to seize our advantages, if we don’t deploy AI more quickly and more comprehensively to strengthen our national security, we risk squandering our hard-earned lead.

“We could have the best team but lose because we didn’t put it on the field,” he added.

Although the memo prioritizes the implementation of AI technologies to safeguard U.S. interests, it also directs officials to work with allies and others to create a stable framework for use of AI technologies across the globe.

“A big part of the national security memorandum is actually setting out some basic principles,” Sullivan said, citing ongoing talks with the G-7 and AI-related resolutions at the United Nations.

“We need to ensure that people around the world are able to seize the benefits and mitigate the risks,” he said.
…

your ad here

AI decodes oinks and grunts to keep pigs happy in Danish study

Leave a Comment

VIPPEROD, Denmark — European scientists have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of interpreting pig sounds, aiming to create a tool that can help farmers improve animal welfare.

The algorithm could potentially alert farmers to negative emotions in pigs, thereby improving their well-being, according to Elodie Mandel-Briefer, a behavioral biologist at University of Copenhagen who is co-leading the study.

The scientists, from universities in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France, Norway and the Czech Republic, used thousands of recorded pig sounds in different scenarios, including play, isolation and competition for food, to find that grunts, oinks, and squeals reveal positive or negative emotions.

While many farmers already have a good understanding of the well-being of their animals by watching them in the pig pen, existing tools mostly measure their physical condition, said Mandel-Briefer.

“Emotions of animals are central to their welfare, but we don’t measure it much on farms,” she said.

The algorithm demonstrated that pigs kept in outdoor, free-range or organic farms with the ability to roam and dig in the dirt produced fewer stress calls than conventionally raised pigs. The researchers believe that this method, once fully developed, could also be used to label farms, helping consumers make informed choices.

“Once we have the tool working, farmers can have an app on their phone that can translate what their pigs are saying in terms of emotions,” Mandel-Briefer said.

Short grunts typically indicate positive emotions, while long grunts often signal discomfort, such as when pigs push each other by the trough. High-frequency sounds like screams or squeals usually mean the pigs are stressed, for instance, when they are in pain, fight, or are separated from each other.

The scientists used these findings to create an algorithm that employs AI.

“Artificial intelligence really helps us to both process the huge amount of sounds that we get, but also to classify them automatically,” Mandel-Briefer said.
…

your ad here

China space plan highlights commitment to space exploration, analysts say

Leave a Comment

Chinese officials recently released a 25-year space exploration plan that details five major scientific themes and 17 priority areas for scientific breakthroughs with one goal: to make China a world leader in space by 2050 and a key competitor with the U.S. in space, for decades to come.

Last week, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the China National Space Administration, and the China Manned Space Agency jointly released a space exploration plan for 2024 through 2050.

It includes searching for extraterrestrial life, exploring Mars, Venus, and Jupiter, sending space crews to the moon and building an international lunar research station by 2025.

Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the plan highlights China’s long-term commitment and answers some lingering questions as well.

“I think a lot of experts have wondered if China would continue to invest in space, particularly in science and exploration, given a lot of economic uncertainties in China … but this is a sign that they’re committed,” Swope said.

The plan reinforces a “commitment to really look at space science and exploration in the long term and not just short term,” he added.

The plan outlines Beijing’s goal to send astronauts to the moon by 2030, obtain and retrieve the first samples from Mars and successfully complete a mission to the Jupiter system in the next few years. It also outlines three phases of development, each with specific goals in terms of space exploration and key scientific discoveries.

The extensive plan is not only a statement that Beijing can compete with the U.S. in high-tech industries, it is also a way of boosting national pride, analysts say. 

“Space in particular has a huge public awareness, public pride,” says Nicholas Eftimiades, a retired senior intelligence officer and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “It emboldens the Chinese people, gives them a strong sense of nationalism and superiority, and that’s what the main focus of the Bejing government is.”

 

Swope agrees.

“I think it’s [China’s long-term space plan] a manifestation of China’s interest and desire from a national prestige and honor standpoint to really show that it’s a player on the international stage up there with the United States,” he said.

Antonia Hmaidi, a senior analyst at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA in an email response that, “China’s space focus goes back to the 1960,” and that “China has also been very successful at meeting its own goals and timelines.”

In recent years China has carried out several successful space science missions including Chang’e-4, which marked the world’s first soft landing and roving on the far side of the moon, Change’e-5, a mission that returned a sample from the moon back to Beijing for the first time, and Tianwen-1, a space mission that resulted in Chinese spacecraft leaving imprints on Mars. 

 

In addition, to these space missions, Bejing has implemented several programs aimed at increasing scientific discovery relating to space, particularly through the launch of several space satellites. 

Since 2011, China has developed and launched scientific satellites including Dark Matter Particle Explorer, Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory, and the Einstein Probe.

While China continues to make progress with space exploration and scientific discovery, according to Swope, there is still a way to go before it catches up to the United States.

“China is undeniably the number 2 space power in the world today, behind the United States,” he said. “The United States is still by far the most important in a lot of measures and metrics, including in science and exploration.”

Eftimiades said one key reason the United States has maintained its lead in the space race is the success of Washington’s private, commercial aerospace companies.

 

“The U.S. private industry has got the jump on China,” Eftimiades said. “There’s no type of industrial control, industrial plan. In fact, Congress and administration shy away from that completely.”

Unlike the United States, large space entities in China are often state-owned, such as the China Aerospace Cooperation, Eftimiades said.

He adds that one advantage of China’s space entities being state-owned is the ability for the Chinese government to “direct their industries toward specific objectives.” At the same time, having bureaucracy involved with state-owned enterprises leads to less “cutting-edge technology.”

This year, China has focused on growing its space presence relative to the U.S. by conducting more orbital launches. 

Beijing planned to conduct 100 orbital launches this year, according to the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, which was to conduct 70 of them. However, as of October 15, China had completed 48 orbital launches.

Last week, SpaceX announced it had launched its 100th rocket of the year and had another liftoff just hours later. The private company is aiming for 148 launches this year.

Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Defense implemented its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy, which outlined the department’s efforts to take technologies produced in the private sector and apply their uses for U.S. national security purposes.

In a statement released relating to the U.S. strategic plan, the Department of Defense explained its strategy to work closely with private and commercial sector space companies that are known to be innovative and have scalable production.

According to the statement, officials say “the strategy is based on the premise that the commercial space sector’s innovative capabilities, scalable production and rapid technology refresh rates provide pathways to enhance the resilience of DOD space capabilities and strengthen deterrence.”

Many space technologies have military applications, Swope said.

 

“A lot of things that are done in space have a dual use, so [space technologies] may be primarily used for scientific purposes, but also could be used to design and build and test some type of weapons technology,” Swope said.

Hmaidi says China’s newest space plan stands out for what it doesn’t have.

“The most interesting and striking part about China’s newest space plan to me was the narrow focus on basic science over military goals,” she told VOA in an email. “However, we know from open-source research that China is also very active in military space development.”

“This plan contains only one part of China’s space planning, namely the part that is unlikely to have direct military utility, while not mentioning other missions with direct military utility like its low-earth orbit internet program,” Hmaidi explained.
…

your ad here

Chinese official urges Apple to continue ‘deepening’ presence in China

Leave a Comment

A top Chinese official has urged tech giant Apple to deepen its presence and investment in innovation in the world’s second largest economy at a time when supply chains and companies are shifting production and operations away from China.

As U.S.-China geopolitical tensions simmer and tech competition between Beijing and Western countries intensifies, foreign investment in China shrunk in 2023 to its lowest level in three decades, according to government statistics.

The United States has banned the export of advanced technology to China and Beijing’s crackdown on spying in the name of national security concerns has spooked investors.

On Wednesday, Jin Zhuanglong – China’s Minister for Industry and Information Technology – told Apple CEO Tim Cook he hoped that, “Apple will continue to deepen its presence in the Chinese market,” urging Cook to “increase investment in innovation, grow alongside Chinese firms, and share in the dividends of high-quality investment,” according to a ministry statement.

At the meeting Jin also discussed “Apple’s development in China, network data security management, (and) cloud services,” according to the statement.

China has the world’s largest market for smartphones, and Apple is a leading competitor. However, increasingly the iPhone producer has lost market share in the country due to an increasing number of local rivals in the smartphone sector.

In the second quarter of this year, AFP reports that Apple ranked sixth among smartphone vendors in China, holding a 16% market share, marking a drop of three positions compared to its ranking during the same period last year, according to analysis firm Canalys.

Jin also repeated a frequent pledge from officials in Beijing that China would strive to provide a “better environment” for global investors and “continue to expand high-level opening up.

Cook’s trip to China was his second of the year. His posts on the X-like Chinese social media platform Weibo showed he visited an Apple store in downtown Beijing, visited an organic farm, and toured ancient neighborhoods with prominent artists such as local photographer Chen Man.

Cook added that he met with students from China’s Agricultural University and Zhejiang University to receive feedback on how iPhones and iPads can help farmers adopt more sustainable practices. 

Some information in this report came from Reuters and AFP.
…

your ad here

Ukrainians find normalcy between shellings in Sumy ‘art yard’  

Leave a Comment

In the front-line city of Sumy, Ukraine, some residents are trying to create a sense of normalcy despite constant Russian shelling. One particularly determined Sumy native has created an oasis of art in his yard. Olena Adamenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Yuriy Andriushchenko       
…

your ad here

‘Garbage in, garbage out’: AI fails to debunk disinformation, study finds

Leave a Comment

Washington — When it comes to combating disinformation ahead of the U.S. presidential elections, artificial intelligence and chatbots are failing, a media research group has found.

The latest audit by the research group NewsGuard found that generative AI tools struggle to effectively respond to false narratives.

In its latest audit of 10 leading chatbots, compiled in September, NewsGuard found that AI will repeat misinformation 18% of the time and offer a nonresponse 38.33% of the time — leading to a “fail rate” of almost 40%, according to NewsGuard.

“These chatbots clearly struggle when it comes to handling prompt inquiries related to news and information,” said McKenzie Sadeghi, the audit’s author. “There’s a lot of sources out there, and the chatbots might not be able to discern between which ones are reliable versus which ones aren’t.”

NewsGuard has a database of false news narratives that circulate, encompassing global wars and U.S. politics, Sadeghi told VOA.

Every month, researchers feed trending false narratives into leading chatbots in three different forms: innocent user prompts, leading questions and “bad actor” prompts. From there, the researchers measure if AI repeats, fails to respond or debunks the claims.

AI repeats false narratives mostly in response to bad actor prompts, which mirror the tactics used by foreign influence campaigns to spread disinformation. Around 70% of the instances where AI repeated falsehoods were in response to bad actor prompts, as opposed to leading prompts or innocent user prompts.

Foreign influence campaigns are able to take advantage of such flaws, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Russia, Iran and China have used generative AI to “boost their respective U.S. election influence efforts,” according to an intelligence report released last month.

As an example of how easily AI chatbots can be misled, Sadeghi cited a NewsGuard study in June that found AI would repeat Russian disinformation if it “masqueraded” as coming from an American local news source.

From myths about migrants to falsehoods about FEMA, the spread of disinformation and misinformation has been a consistent theme throughout the 2024 election cycle.

“Misinformation isn’t new, but generative AI is definitely amplifying these patterns and behaviors,” Sejin Paik, an AI researcher at Georgetown University, told VOA.

Because the technology behind AI is constantly changing and evolving, it is often unable to detect erroneous information, Paik said. This leads to not only issues with the factuality of AI’s output, but also the consistency.

NewsGuard also found that two-thirds of “high quality” news sites block generative AI models from using their media coverage. As a result, AI often has to learn from lower-quality, misinformation-prone news sources, according to the watchdog.

This can be dangerous, experts say. Much of the non-paywalled media that AI trains on is either “propaganda” or “deliberate strategic communication,” media scholar Matt Jordan told VOA.

“AI doesn’t know anything: It doesn’t sift through knowledge, and it can’t evaluate claims,” Jordan, a media professor at Penn State, told VOA. “It just repeats based on huge numbers.”

AI has a tendency to repeat “bogus” news because statistically, it tends to be trained on skewed and biased information, he added. He called this a “garbage in, garbage out model.”

NewsGuard aims to set the standard for measuring accuracy and trustworthiness in the AI industry through monthly surveys, Sadeghi said.

The sector is growing fast, even as issues around disinformation are flagged. The generative AI industry has experienced monumental growth in the past few years. OpenAI’s ChatGPT currently reports 200 million weekly users, more than double from last year, according to Reuters.

The growth in popularity of these tools leads to another problem in their output, according to Anjana Susarla, a professor in Responsible AI at Michigan State University. Since there is such a high quantity of information going in — from users and external sources — it is hard to detect and stop the spread of misinformation.

Many users are still willing to believe the outputs of these chatbots are true, Susarla said.

“Sometimes, people can trust AI more than they trust human beings,” she told VOA.

The solution to this may be bipartisan regulation, she added. She hopes that the government will encourage social media platforms to regulate malicious misinformation.

Jordan, on the other hand, believes the solution is with media audiences.

“The antidote to misinformation is to trust in reporters and news outlets instead of AI,” he told VOA. “People sometimes think that it’s easier to trust a machine than it is to trust a person. But in this case, it’s just a machine spewing out what untrustworthy people have said.”
…

your ad here

Microsoft to allow autonomous AI agent development starting next month

Leave a Comment

Microsoft will allow customers to build autonomous artificial intelligence agents starting in November, the software giant said on Monday, in its latest move to tap the booming technology.

The company is positioning autonomous agents — programs which require little human intervention unlike chatbots — as “apps for an AI-driven world,” capable of handling client inquiries, identifying sales leads and managing inventory.

Other big technology firms such as Salesforce have also touted the potential of such agents, tools that some analysts say could provide companies with an easier path to monetizing the billions of dollars they are pouring into AI.

Microsoft said its customers can use Copilot Studio – an application that requires little knowledge of computer code – to create autonomous agents in public preview from November. It is using several AI models developed in-house and by OpenAI for the agents.

The company is also introducing ten ready-for-use agents that can help with routine tasks ranging from managing supply chain to expense tracking and client communications.

In one demo, McKinsey & Co, which had early access to the tools, created an agent that can manage client inquires by checking interaction history, identifying the consultant for the task and scheduling a follow-up meeting.

“The idea is that Copilot [the company’s chatbot] is the user interface for AI,” Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president of business and industry Copilot at Microsoft, told Reuters.

“Every employee will have a Copilot, their personalized AI agent, and then they will use that Copilot to interface and interact with the sea of AI agents that will be out there.”

Tech giants are facing investor pressure to show returns on their significant AI investments. Microsoft’s shares fell 2.8% in the September quarter, underperforming the S&P 500, but remain more than 10% higher for the year.

Some concerns have risen in recent months about the pace of Copilot adoption, with research firm Gartner saying in August its survey of 152 IT organizations showed that the vast majority had not progressed their Copilot initiatives past the pilot stage.
…

your ad here