Economy & business
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Tanzania, Uganda Launch Oil Pipeline Construction Project

The presidents of Tanzania and Uganda have laid the foundation stone for a crude oil pipeline project linking their two countries. The project materialized after Uganda abandoned an earlier plan to have the line go through Kenya to the port of Lamu. The pipeline is likely to bring big economic changes for the two countries. Mohammed Yusuf files from VOA’s Nairobi bureau with contributions from northern Tanzania by reporter Khaleed Abubakar Famau.

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Arts & Entertainment
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3-D Version of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ Set for Debut

The estate of Michael Jackson says a 3-D version of the late singer’s iconic “Thriller” video is set to debut at the Venice Film Festival more than 30 years after its original premiere.

 

The estate says the “latest available technology” was used to convert the 14-minute short film from an original 35mm negative to 3-D.

 

Although the film wasn’t reedited or recut in any way, director John Landis says he was able to “use the 3-D creatively” and promises “a rather shocking surprise.”

 

“Michael Jackson’s Thriller” debuted in theaters and on television in 1983. An hour-long documentary detailing the making of the video will also screen at the Venice festival, which runs from Aug. 30 to Sept. 9.

 

Jackson died in 2009 at the age of 50.

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Economy & business
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Kenya’s Herders Swap Livestock for Chilies as Drought Bites

At this time of year, Cherop Longiro and her husband are normally busy looking for grazing for their livestock. But their three cows died in the drought in March and they sold their 20 sheep, fearing they would meet the same fate.

“We had two options: either take them to the market and sell them at a throwaway price, or keep them, which was risky because they were most likely going to die,” said Richard Longiro from his farm in Kangorio village, West Pokot County.

Over the past year herders in Kenya’s Rift Valley have lost thousands of animals to worsening drought and erratic rainfall.

This is causing a growing number of them to switch to farming as a way to supplement their income.

Cherop and her husband now plant chilies – a crop resistant to drought – on a quarter-of-an-acre portion of their land, in addition to pawpaw, mangoes and bananas.

“Livestock had become so vulnerable to dry weather that we decided to start a new activity,” the mother of three told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Resistant to Drought

Chilies are a safe bet for farmers in times of drought as they do not require fertilizers or water once the roots are established in the soil, said Giuseppe De Bac, project manager in West Pokot County for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

FAO helped negotiate a three-year agreement for 200 farmers – many of whom have lost livestock – to sell chilies to La Fattoria, an Italian company with a processing plant in the southeast of the country, at a fixed price of 200 Kenyan shillings ($1.9) per kilo. The chilies are then exported to Italy.

A quarter-of-an-acre plot of land can hold 2,500 chili plants, with each plant yielding up to 1.5 kg of chilies in three years if well tended, said De Bac.

“That could get farmers as much as 250,000 shillings ($2,409) per year, compared to only 7,500 shillings ($72) when they grew maize,” he said.

Glenda Andiema, a marketing executive at La Fattoria, said the contract may be renewed at the end of the three-year period, “to involve more farmers if we see it is working well.”

Herders in the region are increasingly farming crops like maize or onions in addition to keeping livestock, said De Bac.

“But most of it was only for domestic consumption – we want to help them scale up their production and derive a reliable income from it,” he said.

Changing Behaviors

Although the village’s farmers are starting to embrace their new crop, De Bac said the initiative has been far from straightforward.

“Farmers in this region are used to keeping livestock and if they have to grow any crops, they mainly grow maize and vegetables for domestic consumption,” he said.

“Introducing them to high-value horticulture was not an easy task, even after praising the benefits of having access to a ready market.”

“[Chili] needs water in the early stages of growth, so we encourage farmers to plant on drip-irrigated plots,” he said.

FAO supplies the farmers with water storage tanks and drip irrigation kits, through funding from the Italian Agency for Development and Cooperation.

To date, however, some farmers prefer using sprinklers which are easier to use than the more water-efficient drip irrigation, he said.

Andiema explained that extension officers visit the village to ensure the farmers follow the correct practices, which will yield a high quality product.

La Fattoria may refuse to buy the chilies if they are of insufficient quality or quantity, she added.

Spreading the Risk

Putting farmers in touch with buyers is a good way to ensure they benefit from a ready market, while being contractually obliged to deliver produce of high quality, said Ann Mbaabu, director for market access at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, which supports smallholder farmers.

“However, the buyers must de-risk the farmers from poor yields by deploying monitoring officers on the ground to help them meet quality standards, or even linking them to insurers to provide a cushion against extreme weather,” she said.

According to Haron Kibet, the county administrator in West Pokot, the fact that a community that has always relied on livestock is now pursuing an alternative source of income is a positive step.

“It will put them in a much stronger position to deal with tough climate conditions,” he said.

Some of the farmers have delivered their first crop of chilies to drying centers and will receive their first payment in September once the produce has been collected.

“This is an exciting moment for us, because for the first time we are growing a crop which we know we will sell, to whom and for how much,” said chili farmer Pamela Chepkorir.

($1 = 103.7500 Kenyan shillings)

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Arts & Entertainment
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Rocks Are Star Attractions at Utah Parks

“Ditch your car” is one of the first bits of advice from author Edward Abbey, for anyone wanting to visit Utah’s vast desert landscapes.

“You can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the … contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus,” he writes in Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, based on his two seasons (1956 and 1957) working as a park ranger in Utah.

Abbey was inspired by the western state’s stunning red rock formations that were shaped into other-worldly spires and dramatic arches by geological forces over millions of years.

Some of the most beautiful can be found at five of Utah’s most popular national park sites, known as “The Mighty 5.” National parks traveler Mikah Meyer planned to visit all of them.

Superstar of arches

There are more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches at Arches National Park, making up the world’s largest collection, and Mikah must have been thinking about Edward Abbey as he parked his van and took to the park’s numerous trails by foot.

He says he could see firsthand why it’s one of the most visited parks in the state, with 1.6 million visitors last year.

“Even outside of the park and all around Utah, there are these arches that just naturally form from the rock eroding, but in Arches National Park are some of the most magnificent … either really large, or there’s two or three all clustered together, there’s a double arch where you can see through two arches at once, and then of course there’s Delicate Arch.”

The massive, red-hued structure is considered by many the most famous natural stone arch in the world. “It’s this perfect arch that seems to come out of nowhere,” Mikah said, “because it’s essentially on its own on top of a hill with a giant vista and mountains behind it.” So it’s not surprising that visitors “one by one, take their time running or walking into the arch to take their picture,” he added.

After his visit to Arches, Mikah accepted a complimentary boat tour on the nearby Colorado River with Canyonlands by Night & Day jet boat company.

“It gives you a perspective of this land which many people describe as Mars with water because it’s just so arid, and so red and orange looking,” Mikah explained. “It’s this really cool juxtaposition not only of views, but of the wildlife that survives in the desert.”

He saw rattlesnakes, salamanders, chipmunks, frogs and deer in and around the river.

Island in the sky

The massive Canyonlands National Park, the next stop on Mikah’s Mighty 5 adventure, has three distinct districts: The Needles, Island in the Sky and the Maze.

The Needles District is home to a large collection of hoodoos, which Mikah described as “giant rock structures that look like giant fingers sticking out of the earth.” Visitors are able to hike around them.

But his favorite was the Island in the Sky district, which he reached just in time for sunset.

“This is where you’re able to drive along a scenic road that takes you along all these incredible overlooks that give you expansive views of the canyon and of the rivers, and it’s a wow moment,” he said. “It’s the take-your-breath-away, audibly say ‘wow!’ moment.”

Heart of red rock country

From Canyonlands, it was on to Capitol Reef National Park, which Mikah described as “a mix of all the other parks.”

“You have some stunning cliffs, some canyon views, some natural rock arches,” he said. “Just a nice blend of all the other Mighty 5 parks.”

In the coming days, Mikah plans to visit the other two of the Mighty 5 parks — Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks.

‘Bloody rocks’

In the introductory remarks to Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey noted that many of the places he wrote about in 1967 were “already gone or going under fast.”

 

“This is not a travel guide but an elegy. A memorial,” he wrote. “You’re holding a tombstone in your hands. A bloody rock. Don’t drop it on your foot — throw it at something big and glassy. What do you have to lose?”

Mikah has nothing to lose. He plans to continue on his journey to visit all 417 National Park Service sites at full speed, and explore as many of those “tombstones” and “bloody rocks” while he can.

Mikah invites you to follow him on his epic journey by visiting him on his website TCBMikah.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

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Science & Health
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Poached Eels: US Strikes at Illegal Harvests as Value Grows

Changes in the worldwide fisheries industry have turned live baby American eels into a commodity that can fetch more than $2,000 a pound at the dock, but the big demand and big prices have spawned a black market that wildlife officials say is jeopardizing the species.

Law enforcement authorities have launched a crackdown on unlicensed eel fishermen and illicit sales along the East Coast.

Although not a well-known seafood item like the Maine lobster, wriggling baby eels, or elvers, are a fishery worth many millions of dollars. Elvers often are sold to Asian aquaculture companies to be raised to maturity and sold to the lucrative Japanese restaurant market, where they mainly are served grilled.

But licensed U.S. fishermen complain poaching has become widespread, as prices have climbed in recent years. In response, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies are investigating clandestine harvesting and sales.

Operation Broken Glass, a reference to the eels’ glassy skin, has resulted in 15 guilty pleas for illegal trafficking of about $4 million worth of elvers. Two people are under indictment, and more indictments are expected. 

In Maine, more than 400 licensed fishermen make their living fishing for elvers in rivers such as the Penobscot in Brewer and the Passagassawakeag in Belfast every spring. They say law enforcement is vital to protecting the eels and the volatile industry.

Ballooning demand

Randy Bushey of Steuben has been fishing for elvers since 1993. He said he saw his income balloon from as little as $5,000 per year in the 1990s to more than $350,000 in 2012. He said tighter quotas mean he’s earning less these days, and in the most recent season he made about $57,000.

“I’ve seen the best, and I’ve seen the worst,” Steuben said. “I want to see it preserved. I want to see it straightened out.”

The elvers are legally harvested in the U.S. only in Maine and South Carolina. The American eel fishery was typically worth $1 million to $3 million per year until 2011, when the economics of the industry changed. Asian and European eel stocks dried up, and the value of American eels grew to more than $40 million in 2012 because of demand in China, South Korea and other Asian countries.

Illegal elver trade

Investigators also turned their eyes to poaching in 2011, the Department of Justice told The Associated Press. The investigation of people who catch, sell or export elvers illegally has ranged from Maine to South Carolina; a New York seafood distributor was among those netted.

In one case, federal prosecutors said, three men pleaded guilty in November 2016 to trafficking more than $740,000 worth of elvers harvested illegally from the Cooper River in the Charleston, South Carolina, area. In another, Richard Austin pleaded guilty in federal court in Norfolk, Virginia, to trafficking more than $189,000 in illegally harvested elvers from 2013 to 2015.

The federal agencies involved in the poaching investigations say there’s no end date for their probe. The Department of Justice declined to speculate on how many poachers there are and how many arrests are expected. A conviction for violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits illegal wildlife trade, can carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and a fine of as much as $250,000.

Investigators go undercover to track poachers, posing as people illegally fishing for elvers. They also follow eel migrations, hoping to catch illegal fishermen on the spot. Investigators also track catch records, which are required by states, to look for possible illegal fishing and selling along the supply chain.

The legwork is necessary because illegal trade in elvers jeopardizes the species’ long-term sustainability, said Jeffrey H. Wood, acting assistant attorney general with the Department of Justice’s environmental division.

Maine’s fishery for elvers is the biggest on the East Coast, making it the sole reliable source of the eels in the U.S. To prevent overfishing, fishermen are limited to catching them for only a few weeks every spring.

Eels and the ecosystem

The eels hatch in the ocean waters of the Sargasso Sea, a weedy patch of the Atlantic Ocean between the West Indies and the Azores. They then follow currents back to rivers and streams from Greenland to Brazil. Mature eels that avoid hazards including fishermen’s nets, predatory fish and the turbines of hydroelectric plants will one day return to spawn in the Sargasso.

The baby eels are tiny at the time of harvest, weighing only a few grams when they are scooped with dip-nets or trapped with larger nets that resemble small soccer goals.

A well-managed eel fishery is critical to the health of the rivers and streams they swim in, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Deputy Chief of Law Enforcement Ed Grace. Eels are important to the marine ecosystem because they serve as both predator and prey, feeding on fish and mollusks and serving as food for larger fish, seabirds and turtles.

“While the big charismatic animals like bears, big cats and eagles tend to grab all the public attention, it’s often the smaller, more obscure animals that are crucial to regional ecosystems and economies,” Grace said.

Some eels harvested in Maine eventually return to the U.S. to be sold in Japanese restaurants, usually grilled and served on rice. 

Sunny Chung, chef and owner at Yobo in Portland, gets Maine eels from American Unagi, the only American eel farm in the state. He described Maine eels as a top-notch product and “the only eel that we use.”

Going after scofflaw fishermen will help ensure the eels keep filling that commercial role, said U.S. Rep. Jeffrey Pierce, a Republican from Dresden who is adviser to the Maine Elver Fishermen’s Association.

“We are committed to ending these problems,” Pierce said. “It behooves us to.”

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Silicon Valley & Technology
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Google Exec Denounces Employee’s Views on Female Workers

Silicon Valley’s efforts to promote workforce diversity haven’t yielded many results — unless you count a backlash at Google, where a male engineer blamed biological differences for the paucity of female programmers.

His widely shared memo, titled “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” also criticizes Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for “alienating conservatives.”

Google’s just-hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, responded with her own memo, saying Google is “unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success.” She said change is hard and “often uncomfortable.”

The dueling memos come as Silicon Valley grapples with accusations of sexism and discrimination. Google is also in the midst of a Department of Labor investigation into whether it pays women less than men, while Uber’s CEO recently lost his job amid accusations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.

Leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, have said they are trying to improve hiring and working conditions for women. But diversity numbers are barely changing .

The Google employee memo, which gained attention online over the weekend, begins by saying that only honest discussion will address a lack of equity. But it also asserts that women “prefer jobs in social and artistic areas” while more men “may like coding because it requires systemizing.”

The memo, which was shared on the tech blog Gizmodo, attributes biological differences between men and women to the reason why “we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership.”

The employee, whose identity hasn’t been released, was described in news reports as a software engineer.

While his views were broadly and publicly criticized online, they echo the 2005 statements by then-Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who said the reason there are fewer female scientists at top universities is in part due to “innate” gender differences.

Brande Stellings, senior vice president of advisory services for Catalyst, a nonprofit advocacy group for women in the workplace, said the engineer’s viewpoints show “how ingrained, entrenched and harmful gender-based stereotypes truly are.”

“It’s much easier for some to point to `innate biological differences’ than to confront the unconscious biases and obstacles that get in the way of a level playing field,” Stellings wrote in an email.

Google, like other tech companies, has far fewer women than men in technology and leadership positions. Fifty-six percent of its workers are white and 35 percent are Asian, while Hispanic and Black employees make up 4 percent and 2 percent of its workforce, respectively, according to the company’s latest diversity report .

Tech companies say they are trying, by reaching out to and interviewing a broader range of job candidates, by offering coding classes, internships and mentorship programs and by holding mandatory “unconscious bias” training sessions for existing employees.

But, as the employee memo shows, not everyone at Google is happy with this.

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Arts & Entertainment
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2 Members of Russian Punk Band Pussy Riot Detained

Two members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were briefly detained Monday after rallying for the release of a Ukrainian filmmaker outside his Siberian prison.

During Sunday’s protest in Yakutsk where Oleg Sentsov is serving his sentence, the band members unfurled a banner on a nearby bridge that read “Free Sentsov!”

Longtime Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina tweeted that she and Olga Borisova were taken to a police station following their detention earlier in the day and faced a court hearing over charges of holding an unauthorized rally.

Borisova later said on Facebook that she and Alyokhina were released after a judge found flaws in the case. It was unclear if the police would refile charges.

A Russian military court convicted Sentsov, who comes from the Crimean Peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, of conspiracy to commit terror attacks and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

Sentsov, who made two short movies and the 2012 feature film “Gamer,” denied the charges, which he and his supporters denounced as political punishment for his opposition to Crimea’s annexation.

The U.S. and the EU have criticized his conviction and called for his release, and numerous cultural figures in Russia and abroad have urged the Russian government to free him.

Pussy Riot is a loose collective and most of its members perform anonymously. The balaclava-clad women rose to prominence with their daring outdoor performances critical of President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s ruling elite.

An impromptu “punk prayer” at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior that derided the ties between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin got them into trouble in 2012.

Three band members were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for the stunt. Alyokhina and another member, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, spent nearly two years in prison.

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Arts & Entertainment
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Malta Restores Forgotten War Rooms, Hewn into the Rocks in WWII

In a vast network of tunnels carved into the rocks under the Maltese capital Valletta, faded maps of the Mediterranean hint at the place’s role in directing key battles in World War II.

Malta is now restoring the 28,000 square meters (300,000 square feet) of tunnels, planning to open a huge section to the public.

The compound, hidden under the picturesque port city perched on cliffs above the sea, was built by the British and served as the staging ground for major naval operations. The British military withdrew in 1979 and the compound was abandoned for almost 40 years.

German and Italian forces bombarded Malta intensively between 1940 and 1942 to try gain control of the Mediterranean, but did not manage to force the British out. During the Cold War, the tunnels were used to track Soviet submarines.

Over the years, water and humidity have let rust and mold spread. Some rooms have been vandalized, but traces of the military apparatus that once occupied the complex still remain.

Military cot beds, tangled cables and dust-covered rotary phones litter the rooms.

The Malta Heritage Trust, a non-governmental preservation group, began the multi-million-dollar restoration of the site in 2009.

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