In Ernest Cline’s novel “Ready Player One,” the main character drives a DeLorean because of “Back to the Future,” and uses a grail diary because of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” The films of Steven Spielberg loom large in the story littered with pop culture references. That the legendary filmmaker then ended up being the one to take Cline’s futuristic-nostalgic vision to the big screen is a small Spielbergian miracle.

“I hadn’t read anything that had triggered my own imagination so vividly where I couldn’t really shut it off,” said Spielberg, who, with “Ready Player One,” out Thursday, returns to the wide-eyed grand-scale blockbuster filmmaking that he made his name with.

The sci-fi spectacle with a reported $175 million production budget presents a near-future vision of a dystopian society that has all but abandoned the real world for an escapist virtual reality existence. In 2045, most people, including the teenage hero Wade (Tye Sheridan), spend their lives as avatars (Wade’s is a cooler version of himself named “Parzival”) in the virtual world of the OASIS – a VR game created by an eccentric genius, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who has promised his wealth to whomever wins and finds the “Easter egg.”

It’s because of Halliday, who, like its author, came of age in the 1980s, that the OASIS is chalk full of 80s nostalgia from Atari to Buckaroo Banzai. It’s also why Cline assumed that “Ready Player One” would be impossible to adapt. How would anyone be able to secure all the rights? 

That it ended up being Spielberg doing the asking helped a little, but producer Kristie Macosko Krieger is the one he credits for getting everything from Chucky to the Iron Giant in the film. She spent three years working with Warner Bros. to obtain all the necessary clearances from various studios. Some they didn’t use, like the main “Star Wars” icons (although you may spot an X-Wing or R2-D2 in a few frames), and some Spielberg just nixed himself, like the mothership from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” He didn’t want too many of his old movies in his new movie.

“There comes a point when I would have just had to defer to someone else who likes my movies and not make a movie about my movies,” Spielberg said. 

It meant co-screenwriter Zak Penn would have to lose a few of his Spielberg-inspired jokes and ideas that he’d written into the script before Spielberg signed on to direct, but he didn’t mind. 

“It would have taken you out of the narrative. He’s too iconic a director,” Penn said. “You’d be sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, this is from a Spielberg film.”’

But everything was on the table, from the song Cline walked down the aisle to (the Hall & Oats song “You Make My Dreams,” which plays during the credits) to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to “Last Action Hero,” Penn’s first movie which he had wanted Spielberg to direct. Penn, for his part, had said “no” to a proposed reference and was surprised when he saw one in the final cut. Cline had gone behind his back to persuade the folks at ILM to do it.

Most of the references amount to set-dressing, packing every frame in the OASIS with eggs that would take even the most eagle-eyed viewer multiple viewings to catch.

“My philosophy from the very beginning was, the story is out the front windshield and the pop culture references are out the side mirror,” Spielberg said. “And it’s your choice what you would like to look at.”

The production used cutting-edge technology to simulate the OASIS for the cast and crew with VR headsets that would give everyone a 360-degree view of what the virtual world looked like. And the film itself is a mash-up of past and present technologies, including motion capture, computer animation and even film stock, which Spielberg used to shoot the live-action sequences. 

“It was just a small little touch because I’m trying to keep, you know film, meaning the chemical, the chemistry of film, relevant and I’m just trying, until they close the last lab and stop making raw stock, to shoot everything I can on film,” Spielberg said. “It also gave the real world a more gritty flavor because when you shoot digitally, it’s much more like acrylic. And film is more like oil. You get that blend between that world of oil and the texture that an oil painting has with the film and you get the very smooth, almost antiseptic clarity of what the digital world looks like.”

Lena Waithe, who plays the tech-savvy Aech, said, “I love that he did that. The movie really represents where cinema is going and where it all began, which is really beautiful.”

Cline’s novel has already proved prophetic in the digital space. He says companies like Oculus and Google have copies on hand and, he’s been told, give them to people who come through the offices. And he thinks the movie, which will play globally, will have a more significant impact.

“The best thing that could ever happen to a science fiction writer is to write something that helps inspire the people who make it into a reality,” Cline said. “This movie could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

The OASIS, essentially, is not that distant of a reality. It’s also something of a cautionary tale about the perils of VR, or as, Spielberg said how, “too much of a good thing is too much.”

Whether or not audiences will flock to theaters to soak up the nostalgia and the visionary tech is a big question. Waithe said the film is a feel-good escape, and Sheridan stresses that it’s a, “great metaphor for the world that we live in in 2018 and the balancing act from your digital profile to your real world self.” Early tracking pegs the film, which has received strong reviews, for a $45 million opening. Spielberg might not have lost his touch, but mass audiences might also be too distracted to notice.

As for Cline, he still can’t believe his luck. 

“I tell people I’m just prepared for it to all be downhill from here. What could ever top this? I’m so lucky, I got to work with one of my heroes on a story that he helped inspire,” Cline said. “I’m just ready for the slow fade after this.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney is to put golfer Tiger Woods under the microscope in an upcoming documentary series based on a new biography of the 14-time winner of the sport’s major tournaments, Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions said Tuesday.

Gibney will use Tiger Woods, written by journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, as a foundation for the series. The book was released Tuesday.

Jigsaw did not say when production of the series would begin, and it has yet to be picked up by a distributor.

Woods, 42, the greatest golfer of his generation who closely guards his personal life and highly crafted image, is in the midst of his latest comeback from injury.

Woods did not speak with the biography’s authors but did allow his chiropractor to speak on the record.

The book, which is published by CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster, sits in the top 40 on Amazon’s best-seller list and has so far received favorable reviews.

It examines Woods’ life as a closely managed introverted child prodigy to a global marketing phenomenon, and his midcareer fall from grace as a string of affairs and injuries took a toll on his image and performance.

Gibney’s projects include the scripted Hulu miniseries The Looming Tower and the 2015 HBO Scientology documentary Going Clear. He won an Oscar in 2008 for his Afghan war documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.
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From: MeNeedIt

There is no sign that the United States is distancing itself from the World Trade Organization, and negotiations are underway to avert a global trade war, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said in a BBC interview broadcast Wednesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump has launched a series of tariff-raising moves, upsetting allies and rivals alike.

Trump is also vetoing the appointment of WTO judges, causing a backlog in disputes and threatening to paralyze what is effectively the supreme court of trade. Some trade experts have begun asking whether Trump wants to kill the WTO, whose 164 members force each other to play by the rules.

“I have absolutely no indication that the United Sates is walking away from the WTO. Zero indication,” Azevedo said in an interview on the BBC Hardtalk program, according to excerpts released early by the BBC.

Last month, Trump called the WTO a “catastrophe” and complained the United States had only a minority of its judges.

Correction

The next day, Azevedo gently set him straight, noting that the United States had an unusually good deal, since it had always had one of the seven judges.

Asked whether the WTO should be thinking about a Plan B without the United States, Azevedo told the BBC that he had not heard anything to suggest that such a situation was in the cards.

“Every contact that I have in the U.S. administration assures me that they are engaging,” he said.

The question of whether U.S. tariffs were legal could be settled only by a WTO dispute panel, but the damage from such unilateral actions would be felt much more quickly as other countries retaliated, leading to a global trade war, he said.

“I don’t think we are there yet, but we are seeing the first movements towards it, yes,” he said.

Nobody believed it was a minor problem, including those in the U.S. administration, and people were beginning to understand how serious the situation was and what impact it could have on the global economy, Azevedo said.

“There are still negotiations ongoing. … We want to avoid the war, so everything that we can do to avoid being in that situation, we must be doing at this point,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

A nearly decade-long makeover of King Tut’s tomb aimed at preserving one of Egypt’s most important archaeological sites and also one of its most popular tourist attractions is close to complete, the Getty Conservation Institute of Los Angeles said Tuesday.

The project has added a filtration system to keep out dust, humidity and carbon dioxide and a barrier to keep visitors from continuing to damage the tomb’s elaborate wall paintings. Other amenities include walkways and a viewing platform. 

New lights are also scheduled to be installed in the fall in the tomb of Tutankhamun, the legendary boy king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. His mummified body remains on display in an oxygen-free case.

The project was launched in 2009 by the Los Angeles institute, known worldwide for its conservation work, in collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities.

“This project greatly expanded our understanding of one of the best known and significant sites from antiquity, and the methodology used can serve as a model for similar sites,” Tim Whalen, the John E. and Louise Bryson director of the institute, said in a statement. 

Tutankhamun, just a child when he assumed the throne, was about 19 when he died. 

His tomb, discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter, was hidden for millennia by flood debris that preserved it intact and protected it from tomb raiders. 

Over the years humidity and dust carried in by visitors have caused damage, as have some visitors who scratched the wall paintings.

“Humidity promotes microbiological growth and may also physically stress the wall paintings, while carbon dioxide creates an uncomfortable atmosphere for visitors themselves,” said Neville Agnew, the institute’s senior principal project specialist. 

He added: “But perhaps even more harmful has been the physical damage to the wall paintings. Careful examination showed an accumulation of scratches and abrasion in areas close to where visitors and film crews have access within the tomb’s tight space.”

Conservationists also studied mysterious brown spots on some of the paintings that have baffled experts for years. They concluded they were caused by microorganisms that have since died and are causing no further damage. 

They decided to leave the spots there because they have penetrated into the paint layers and removing them would cause more damage. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Vietnamese singer and activist Do Nguyen Mai Khoi, an outspoken campaigner for free speech, was briefly detained at an airport in the capital Hanoi on Tuesday after flying home from Europe, her husband told Reuters.

Often dubbed a Vietnamese version of “Pussy Riot” or Lady Gaga because of her activism and provocative style, Mai Khoi was among dozens of dissidents on the watch-list of Communist-ruled Vietnam for her strong words against the system.

“When Mai Khoi landed at Noi Bai airport, at 9:15 am this morning, she texted me to say: ‘Love, I just landed’,” Mai Khoi’s Australian husband, Benjamin Swanton, posted on her Facebook page, which has some 46,000 followers.

“At 9:39 am, she texted another message: ‘Detained’.” Swanton wrote.

Mai Khoi updated her Facebook page later in the day to say that she has been released after eight hours.

“Thank you everyone for your care. I’m now on a public bus back to Hanoi,” Khoi said alongside a photo of herself she posted to the page.

Calls to authorities at Noi Bai International airport and Mai Khoi’s mobile phone went unanswered. Her husband confirmed she had been released.

“We have been evicted from our house three times now,” Swanton said.

At least 129 people are currently detained in Vietnam for criticizing or protesting against the government, according to a February report by Human Rights Watch.

A crackdown on dissent last year caused scores of activists to flee the country, according to Amnesty International.

Mai Khoi, who last year protested beside U.S. President Donald Trump’s motorcade during his visit to Vietnam by holding up a poster which said “[Expletive] on you Trump”, had not yet been subjected to a travel ban by the Vietnamese authorities.

The 34-year-old has courted controversy under a government which, despite overseeing sweeping economic reforms and growing openness to social change, does not tolerate criticism.

In 2016, she was one of a handful of activists who tried and failed to obtain a seat in the Communist party-dominated National Assembly. She met former U.S. president Barack Obama during his visit in Vietnam in 2015.

The title of her new album “Bat Dong”, which she had been in Europe to promote, translates to “Disagreement”. Her song “Please, sir” pleads with the leader of the Communist Party to allow ordinary Vietnamese people to sing, publish, share and travel freely.
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From: MeNeedIt

A growing American economy and passage of a Republican tax overhaul appear to be helping President Donald Trump lift his approval ratings from historic lows, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Trump remains unpopular with the majority of Americans, 58 percent. But 42 percent say they now approve of the job he’s doing as president, up seven points from a month ago. That’s a welcome change in trajectory for a White House that has been battered by chaos, controversies and internal upheaval.

The poll suggests that at least some of the president’s improving standing is tied to the economy, which has steadily grown and added jobs, continuing a trajectory that began under President Barack Obama. Nearly half of Americans surveyed — 47 percent — say they approve of how Trump is handling the economy, his highest rating on any issue. When it comes to tax policy, 46 percent of Americans back Trump’s moves.

For Republicans, that offers a glimmer of hope as they stare down a difficult midterm election landscape and a surge of Democratic enthusiasm. With few other legislative victories from Trump’s first 14 months in office, GOP lawmakers have largely pinned their hopes for keeping control of Congress on middle-class voters feeling the impact of the tax law.

‘Fortunes will rise and fall’

“Our fortunes will rise and fall with the economy and specifically with the middle-class tax cut this fall,” said Corry Bliss, executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan. Bliss urged Republican candidates to view the law as “an offensive, not defensive weapon.”

One of the GOP’s challenges, however, will be keeping the economy and tax overhaul in the spotlight through the fall given the crush of other matters roiling the White House and competing for Americans’ attention. At the White House Monday, the daily press briefing was dominated by questions about the president’s alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, a relationship he denies. Each week has seemed to bring a new departure among the president’s closest advisers. And many days, Trump is more inclined to use his Twitter megaphone to try to discredit the investigation into possible campaign contacts with Russia than promote the tax overhaul. 

Republican operatives acknowledge that even if they can break through the clutter, they still have a ways to go when it comes to explaining the $1.5 trillion tax plan to Americans. Democrats have aggressively cast the measure, which permanently slashes the tax rate for corporations and reduces taxes for the wealthiest Americans, as a boon for the rich that offers comparatively little for the middle class.

The Democratic message does appear to be breaking through with voters. Among those Americans who are familiar with the new law, 77 percent believe it helps large corporations and 73 percent say it benefits the wealthy, while 53 percent say it helps small businesses. Americans are evenly divided on whether the measure helps the middle class.

Republicans argue Democrats risk overreaching by downplaying the impact that even a small windfall from the tax bill can have for a family and individual. According to the AP-NORC poll, nearly half of those who receive a paycheck — 46 percent — say they’ve seen an increase in their take-home pay as a result of the tax law.

Heather Dilios, a 46-year-old social worker from Topsham, Maine, is among them. Dilios, a Republican, estimates she’s now taking home between $100 to $200 more per paycheck as a result of the new tax law, more than she expected when Trump signed the legislation.

Dilios said it’s more than the dollar amount that’s driving her support for the law.

“It’s more about being able to keep what is rightfully mine rather than giving it to the government,” she said.

Overall, taxes and the economy are the brightest spots for Trump, who gets lower numbers from voters on a range of other issues, including his handling of North Korea (42 percent), trade (41 percent), gun control (39 percent) and the budget deficit (35 percent).

Trump has benefited from an increasingly healthy economy that has boosted consumer and business sentiment. The 4.1 percent unemployment rate is the lowest since 2000 without the same kinds of excesses that fueled that era’s tech bubble.

Continuation of momentum

While Trump attributes the gains to his tax cuts and deregulation efforts, many economists say conditions so far are largely a continuation of the momentum from the gradual expansion that began during the Obama administration.

Trump’s most recent policy moves have also rattled financial markets and raised questions about the prospect of an economic slowdown. He slapped hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, though his administration has issued waivers to several countries. And last week, he moved to slap $60 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to promise swift retaliation.

The full scope and impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs won’t be known for some time, but the initial reaction from Americans is decidedly mixed. The AP-NORC poll finds that 38 percent support the steel and aluminum tariffs and 29 percent are opposed.

The poll also finds that just 32 percent of Americans think the tariffs will lead to an increase in jobs, compared with 36 percent who think it will lead to a decrease. Forty percent think it will lead to an increase in consumer prices, while 39 percent think it will lead to a decrease.

———

The AP-NORC poll of 1,122 adults was conducted March 14-19 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.
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From: MeNeedIt

Extremely rare Chinese musical instruments and works of art dating from 9,000 years ago are on display for the first time in the U.S. The archaeological treasures, mostly found in tombs in central China, give viewers a glimpse of the musical life of the ancient societies. VOA’s June Soh takes us to the exhibit at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
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From: MeNeedIt

Uber Technologies has agreed to sell its Southeast Asian business to bigger regional rival Grab, the ride-hailing firms said on Monday, marking the U.S. company’s second retreat from an Asian market.

The industry’s first big consolidation in Southeast Asia, home to about 640 million people, puts pressure on Indonesia’s Go-Jek, which is backed by Alphabet’s Google and China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd.

A shake-up in Asia’s fiercely competitive ride-hailing industry became likely earlier this year when Japan-based SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund made a multibillion-dollar investment in Uber. SoftBank owns stakes in most major global ride services companies, and executives have indicated they favored consolidation.

SoftBank already had investments in Grab and India’s Ola, and Vision Fund Chief Executive Rajeev Misra had urged Uber to focus less on Asia and more on profitable markets such as Latin America, a person familiar with the matter said.

Grab President Ming Maa told Reuters that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son was “highly supportive” of the deal, which he called “a very independent decision by both” Grab and Uber.

Uber will take a 27.5 percent stake in Singapore-based Grab and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join Grab’s board. Grab was last valued at $6 billion after a financing round in July.

“It will help us double down on our plans for growth as we invest heavily in our products and technology,” Khosrowshahi said in a statement.

The Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) said it has the mandate to review whether any mergers will result in a “substantial lessening of competition” and take any action to intervene in the deal, but it has yet to receive notice from the companies.

The deal will help bolster Grab’s meal-delivery service, which will merge with Uber Eats, compete with Go-Jek. Go-Jek has become a dominant player and powerful rival in Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy, and it has rapidly expanded beyond ride hailing to digital payments, food delivery and on-demand cleaning and massage.

Ride-hailing companies throughout Asia have relied heavily on discounts and promotions, driving down profit margins and increasing pressure for consolidation.

Uber, which is preparing for a potential initial public offering in 2019, lost $4.5 billion last year and is facing fierce competition at home in the United States and across Asia, as well as a regulatory crackdown in Europe.

Uber invested $700 million in its Southeast Asia business.

Uber previously sold operations in China and Russia to local rivals under former CEO Travis Kalanick. The deal with Grab is the first operations sale by Khosrowshahi, who started in September.

More consolidation

But Uber’s CEO does not want to make these mergers a pattern, and said he has no plans to do another sale in which it consolidates its operations in exchange for a minority stake in a rival.

“It is fair to ask whether consolidation is now the strategy of the day, given this is the third deal of its kind…The answer is no,” Khosrowshahi said in a note to employees that was shared with Reuters. “One of the potential dangers of our global strategy is that we take on too many battles across too many fronts and with too many competitors.”

SoftBank is also an investor in India’s Ola, another competitive and costly market where rivals have heavily subsidized rides in an effort to gain market share. But a source familiar with Uber’s strategy said the company was going to step up its battle with Ola in India, where Uber has close to 60 percent of the market, by some estimates, but is losing money.

SoftBank’s Misra sees opportunities for mergers and joint ventures between SoftBank-backed ride-hailing companies, particularly for collaborating on research and development, but the investor would never get actively involved with management decisions, the person familiar with the matter said.

Uber includes the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America among its core markets — regions where it has more than 50 percent market share and is profitable or sees a path to profitability.
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From: MeNeedIt

A bitter optimism is felt at the end of the marathon, two-part AIDS play “Angels in America” and one of its stars, Andrew Garfield, shares some of that hope, especially with so many young people in the #NeverAgain movement demanding gun law changes and begging not to be cut down by bullets.

Garfield said the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning work resonates as much today as it did when it first premiered more than 25 years ago, citing Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., and around the country.

“These incredibly inspiring, beautiful young people organized the March for Our Lives,” he said Sunday at an opening night party. “You have teenagers who are wiser than the elders of our population, teenagers who are wiser and smarter and who are being forced to fight for simply being alive.”

He added:”Thank God they are doing what they are doing, and we need to stand with them and follow them and help them lead.”

The former Spider-Man actor, who has been on Broadway before in “Death of a Salesman,” has transferred Tony Kushner’s seven-hour masterpiece from London to Broadway. “Angels in America” dramatizes the early days of the AIDS crisis in 1980s and the effects of Reaganism.

In his final monologue, Garfield’s character says: “The dead will be commemorated. And we’ll struggle on with the living. And we are not going away. We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward.”

Kushner has said that all his plays, and this one in particular, seem to thrive under Republican administrations. But he said Sunday the current Donald Trump administration is like none that he has ever seen.

“There have been many bad Republican administrations. I would argue that, with the possible exception of some parts of the Eisenhower administration, it’s all been pretty terrible. This is indescribably worse than anything we’ve had before, so maybe this is the moment when the play will really hit big,” Kushner said.

The play also stars Nathan Lane, Lee Pace, Denise Gough, and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett. It is directed by Tony- and Olivier-winner Marianne Elliott.

Garfield said Kushner’s dogged optimism for a broken-down world and craving for life itself makes his words so appealing in 2018.

“It does feel like we are dreaming of a better future. I think that is what Tony is trying to do with the play. He’s giving us a very accurate depiction of the hell we are in, and then he is giving us a way out, which is through community, empathy, remembering about the sacredness of life — all life — and the mystery of longing for more life,” Garfield said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Indonesia’s strict crackdown on illegal foreign fishing boats is paying off, according to new research.

Kicking out interlopers has relieved pressure on the country’s overtaxed fisheries at no cost to its domestic industry, the study says, and may point the way for other countries to make their fisheries more sustainable.

About a third of the world’s commercial fish populations are overfished, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. 

One study estimated that restoring depleted fisheries would ultimately generate $53 billion in additional annual profits. 

But reducing overfishing usually means putting unpopular restrictions on local fishers to allow populations to recover.

“Telling fishers to stop fishing for a few months or years would be something that’s not that realistic,” said study lead author Ren Cabral at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Violators will be sunk

But in Indonesia, as in many developing countries, locals are only part of the equation. Many foreign vessels fished the country’s waters, often illegally.

The study notes that the country lost an estimated $4 billion per year to illegal fishing before 2014, when the government banned foreign fishing vessels in its waters.

Since then, more than 300 ships found violating the ban were evacuated and sunk.

Cabral and colleagues wanted to see what the impact had been.

Using government registries, vessel tracking data and satellite imagery, they saw a drop of more than 90 percent in the time foreign vessels spent in Indonesian waters. That meant at least a quarter less fishing activity overall.

“That’s huge,” Cabral said.

The study is published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. 

“You have a large benefit, but the cost to local people is zero,” said marine biologist Boris Worm at Dalhousie University, who was not involved with this research.

Do this first

“This paper argues, I think convincingly, that this is the first thing you should do: if you want to fix fisheries in your country, first, kick out the fishers that don’t need to be there,” he added.

Worm notes that the study could only account for large vessels that are required to carry tracking equipment. It could not assess what smaller vessels are doing.

“You’re really only seeing the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “The tip of the iceberg is getting smaller, which is good in this case. But there are a whole lot of problems below.”

With foreign fishing boats out of the way, local fishers are filling in the gap. If not managed properly, they could undo the benefits of fighting illegal fishing, Cabral said.

If Indonesia continues to ban illegal fishing and also manages local fishing sustainably, the study estimates profits would be 12 percent higher in 2035 compared to today.

On the other hand, if local fishing remains unchanged, 2035 profits would drop by half as fish populations declined.

“The next step would be Indonesia managing their local fishing effort,” Cabral added. “If they do that, they can definitely get the benefit from their policies.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Kenya has agreed to accelerate a health agreement it signed with Cuba last year and bring 100 doctors from the country to fill gaps in Kenyan hospitals.  Fifty Kenyan doctors will also be sent to Cuba for specialized training.  

The Kenyan government says the deal to import Cuban doctors would help counter gaps in Kenya’s medical facilities.

Kenya Cabinet Secretary for Health Sicily Kariuki explains.

“The target is to bring 100 specialized doctors from Cuba.  One is because of the  HR resource gap that we have,” said Kariuki. “We are careful not to crowd the place with general doctors and therefore the aim of my ministry is to bring forward critical care physicians at that level – family physicians, physicists, oncologists and surgeons dealing with plastic reconstructive surgery, dealing with orthopedic surgery and dealing with neurosurgery.

Each Kenyan county is expected to get at least two of the specialist doctors.

But Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union chairman Samuel Oroko says the move will not address the systemic dysfunction in Kenya’s health system.

“There are no drugs, theaters are not functioning, laboratories are not functioning, so even if they come and the systems are not functioning, they are coming just to be idle and they may not get equipment to use to train our own,” said Oroko. “So we need to look at all angles of our health system, not just bringing them because of bringing, but to ensure the system is functional so that they can operate.”

The agreement will also see Kenya work with Cuba on collaborative research projects, training for healthcare workers, and collaborations in fields such as genetic engineering and biotech work.

Former Kenyan Minister of Medical Services, Professor Anyang Nyongo, visited Cuba and says Kenya will benefit from the agreement.

“As health minister I came here and we were trying to work things together and I actually proposed some things that we needed to do, for example malaria vector control, collaborating with teaching, engineering, and a biotechmology center, but unfortunately we did not get far,” said Nyongo. “What gives me satisfaction this time is that the president is determined we implement these long standing proposals of collaboration between us and Cuba.

Oroko says the medical union is not against any collaboration or partnership with other governments.

“Our appeal and advice is that as we consider bringing expertise from other countries, we need to exhaust what we have locally,” said Oroko. “And if we lack capacity locally we should focus on training our own so that they can be able to manage the patients in Kenya.”

The union says more than 1,200 Kenyan doctors have been unemployed since May 2017.

“Equally we do have a number of doctors who have qualified, both general practitioners and specialists, who have not been employed and they are Kenyans,” said Oroko.

Kariuki says there are plans to absorb the graduate doctors into the healthcare system, but she says Kenya would still not be able to meet the recommended doctor to patient ratio.

Oroko says about 4,300 doctors work in the public sector for Kenya’s 38.6 million people.

“There is the required number of doctors we are supposed to have per facility, and it is public knowledge, the WHO requires that we have one doctor per 1,000 patients in any given population, currently in Kenya we have one doctor per 24,000 patients,” said Oroko. “… Where are they going to get the money to employ the ones coming from Cuba?”

The union blocked attempts by the government to bring in doctors from Tanzania at the height of its three month strike last year.  The agreement ending the strike called for pay increases and medical rick allowances. 

 
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. stocks surged Monday as fears eased about the possibility of an all-out trade war with China over competing tariff increases.

The closely watched Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 key stocks jumped by more than 1.5 percentage point in New York in early-day trading and other indexes were also advancing sharply. Earlier, Asian stocks were mixed, while European indexes edged down for the day.

Global markets plummeted last week after U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on $60 billion worth of Chinese imports in an effort to trim $100 billion off the $375 billion trade deficit the U.S. recorded last year with China. Beijing immediately vowed to retaliate with higher import duties on U.S. goods.

But there were signs Monday of easing of tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC that U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are talking with Chinese officials about trade issues between the two countries. Mnuchin told Fox News he was “cautiously hopeful” that the U.S. would reach a deal to keep China from imposing tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. exports.

The Trump administration is asking China to lower tariffs on U.S. car exports and open its markets to U.S. financial service companies. Bloomberg News reported that Mnuchin called China’s Liu He to congratulate him on his appointment as China’s vice premier for economic policy and that the two officials discussed ways the two countries could mutually agree to close the wide trading gap between the two countries.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said China would be willing to meet with U.S. officials to work out the two countries’ trade issues, while China’s foreign ministry urged the U.S. to “stop economic intimidation” over tariffs.

While avoiding mention of the tariff dispute and last week’s sharp drop in stock prices, Trump boasted about the performance of the U.S. economy.

“The economy is looking really good,” he said in a Twitter comment. “It has been many years that we have seen these kind of numbers. The underlying strength of companies has perhaps never been better.”
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From: MeNeedIt