The once-powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was suspended from the British film academy Tuesday as allegations of his decades of sexual abuse continue to emerge.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts said in a statement Wednesday that Weinstein’s membership had been “suspended, effective immediately.”

The organization, which had previously received money from Weinstein to fund its charitable work, called his alleged sexual transgressions “completely unacceptable and incompatible with BAFTA’s values.”

Weinstein was fired by the board of his production company, the Weinstein Co., on Monday following an explosive New York Times report, in which 13 women accused him of sexually harassing or assaulting them.

On Tuesday, another report from the New Yorker emerged, in which three women accused Weinstein of raping them. Actresses Asia Argento and Lucia Evans went on the record in the New Yorker story to accuse Weinstein of raping them, while another woman chose to remain anonymous.

Among the accusers are some of Hollywood’s A-listers, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rosanna Arquette.

The New Yorker story says 16 current and former employees at the Weinstein Co. and Miramax either witnessed or knew of Weinstein’s sexual abuse. According to the report, all of those employees said Weinstein’s sexual deviancy was widely known within the two companies.

The 65-year-old Weinstein oversaw production of many popular films over the last 30 years, including Shakespeare in Love, Pulp Fiction, Sex, Lies and Videotape, The English Patient, Good Will Hunting and Lee Daniels’ The Butler. He ran Miramax and later the Weinstein movie companies with his brother Bob Weinstein.

His fall came quickly after the Times reported on his unwanted sexual advances on women stretching over nearly three decades. The story said Weinstein, who is known in Hollywood for his demanding control of film productions and angry outbursts, had paid confidential settlements to his female accusers.

In a statement last week, Weinstein said that “the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” Later, he claimed some of the newspaper’s claims were false and said he would sue for defamation.

Weinstein took a leave of absence from his company Friday, but on Sunday the board said that “in light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days,” it had told him that “his employment is terminated, effective immediately.”

High-profile reactions

Weinstein has been big donor in recent years to Democratic politicians in the U.S., including twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But with the sexual harassment revelations, Democratic political figures scrambled over the weekend to distance themselves from the disgraced filmmaker.

Several Democrat politicians, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren have promised to donate money they received from Weinstein to charities supporting women.

Clinton broke her silence on the matter Tuesday, saying she was “shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein.”

“The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated,” she added in a statement.

“Any man who demeans and degrades women in such fashion needs to be condemned and held accountable, regardless of wealth or status,” former President Barack Obama said in a statement Tuesday. “We should celebrate the courage of women who have come forward to tell these painful stories.”

President Donald Trump said over the weekend he’s “known Harvey Weinstein for a long time” and he is “not at all surprised” by the sexual abuse allegations.

Matt Damon’s first film, Good Will Hunting, won him his first Oscar after Weinstein took a chance on a script from Damon and fellow unknown, Ben Affleck.

“We know this stuff goes on in the world. I did five or six movies with Harvey. I never saw this,” Damon told CNN’s Deadline in an interview published Tuesday.

He added later in the interview: “This morning, I just feel absolutely sick to my stomach.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Attorneys for the Trump administration said a federal judge has no authority to second-guess a presidential permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline as they seek to stop a lawsuit that would block the project.

Justice Department attorneys are due in U.S. District Court in Montana on Wednesday to defend the administration’s March approval of the 1,179-mile pipeline — a lightning rod in the debate over what to do about climate change.

The TransCanada proposal would transport Canadian crude oil through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing system of lines to carry oil to Gulf Coast refineries.

The Obama administration rejected the project before the proposal was revived in March by President Donald Trump, who said it would create jobs and lead to greater energy independence.

Conservation groups and Native American organizations that sued over the project argue that an environmental review completed in 2014 was inadequate. They’ve asked U.S. District Judge Brian Morris to revoke its permit.

Government attorneys said in their motion to throw out the case that Morris can’t interfere because the Constitution gives Trump authority over matters of foreign affairs and national security.

“The remedy that plaintiffs seek — an injunction against the presidential permit — is not available because such an order would impermissibly infringe on the president’s authority,” Justice Department attorney Bridget McNeil wrote.

The project’s economics have shifted considerably since the pipeline was proposed in 2008, with low oil prices and the high cost of extracting Canadian crude from Alberta’s oil sands now casting doubt on whether it would be profitable.

Opponents say those market changes undercut arguments from Keystone supporters that oil sands crude would get to consumers by another means if the pipeline was not built.

The opponents said the current market conditions should have been weighed by the State Department before it issued the permit.

“In a low oil market world, adding close to a million barrels a day of capacity out of the tar sands is a lifeline for that industry. You can’t say it’s going to find its way to market whether this pipeline is built,” said attorney Doug Hayes with the Sierra Club, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits.

A State Department spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on lawsuits.

A TransCanada executive in August raised doubts about Keystone’s prospects and said the Calgary-based company would decide later this year about whether to start construction.

Company spokesman Matthew John said Tuesday that the project was in the national interests of the U.S. and Canada. He declined to address the lawsuits or the pipeline’s economic prospects.

TransCanada last week canceled plans for a pipeline that would have carried crude from Alberta to New Brunswick on the Atlantic coast. The company cited regulatory delays and “the associated cost implications” faced by its Energy East Pipeline proposal.

Heated opposition

In the U.S., Keystone has faced heated opposition from landowners whose property would be crossed by the line and farmers who live downstream from river crossings.

Opponents planned a rally ahead of Wednesday’s hearing in Great Falls to draw attention to their concerns.

Among the protesters will be Dena Hoff, who farms along the Yellowstone River near the small city of Glendive, Montana, 13 miles downstream of where Keystone XL would cross the waterway. Hoff worries about a repeat of a 2015 oil pipeline spill into the Yellowstone at the edge of her property that fouled Glendive’s drinking water supply.

“They’re talking about endangering one of the most historic, iconic and economically important rivers in this part of the country,” she said.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission must decide by Nov. 23 whether to give approval. South Dakota and Montana regulators have approved the project.
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From: MeNeedIt

A study shows there has been a tenfold increase in the number of obese and overweight children and adolescents worldwide in just 40 years.

In one of the biggest epidemiological studies ever undertaken, scientists with the World Health Organization and Imperial College London analyzed height and weight data for 130 million people since 1975, to get their Body Mass Index or BMI.

The most dramatic changes have occurred in middle income countries in regions such as East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. Lead author, Professor Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London is surprised by the speed of change.

“Places that a few decades ago, there may have been very little obesity and a fair amount of underweight children, suddenly are bordering on having epidemics.”

In higher income countries, rates of childhood obesity have plateaued but remain very high. In that income group, the United States had the highest obesity rates.

Poor policymaking blamed

Researchers say the global obesity epidemic is a result of food marketing and poor policymaking across the globe.

“Rather than being an individual’s choice, it’s the hard environments that people choose their foods in  healthy foods being priced out of reach, and especially out of reach of the poor, and unhealthy foods being marketed aggressively, together with perhaps not having a safe play area for children, that are leading to weight gain,” says Ezzati.

Obesity is an underlying cause of many diseases later in life, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers. But Ezzati says it also has a big impact in childhood.

“It’s associated with a stigma, so psycho-social consequences for the children. There is some evidence that it actually affects the educational outcome for the children.”

Major health challenge

The study also looked at the number of underweight children, which still represents a major health challenge in the poorest parts of the world. India had the highest prevalence of moderately and severely underweight young people across the four decades.

“We really need to deal with the two issues at the same time. So we can’t wait to deal with underweight, and then worry about overweight and obesity. The transition happens really fast and they are all different forms of malnutrition,” says Ezzati.

Authors of the report are calling for policymakers to find ways to make healthy, nutritious food more available at home and school, especially in poorer families and communities, alongside higher taxes on unhealthy foods.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Tuesday sharply criticized technology companies that have built strongly encrypted products, suggesting Silicon Valley is more willing to comply with foreign government demands for data than those made by their home country.

While echoing many arguments made by previous senior U.S. law enforcement officials, Rosenstein struck a harder line than his predecessors who led the Obama Justice Department, dismissing attempts to negotiate with the tech sector as a waste of time and accusing companies of putting sales over stopping crime.

“Company leaders may be willing to meet, but often they respond by criticizing the government and promising stronger encryption,” Rosenstein said during a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, according to a copy of his remarks. “Of course they do. They are in the business of selling products and making money. … We are in the business of preventing crime and saving lives.”

Rosenstein’s first lengthy comments on encryption signaled a desire for Congress to write legislation mandating that companies provide access to encrypted products when a law enforcement agency obtains a court order.

Tech companies and many cybersecurity experts say requiring law enforcement access to encrypted products will broadly weaken cybersecurity for everyone. U.S. officials have countered that default encryption settings hinder their ability to collect evidence needed to pursue criminals.

Previous officials have urged such an approach, but Rosenstein more directly criticized Silicon Valley. He cited a series of media reports to suggest U.S.-based companies are more willing to accede to demands for data from foreign governments than they are from the United States.

The remarks were quickly denounced by supporters of strong encryption.

“Despite his attempts at rebranding, a government backdoor by another name will still make it easier for criminals, predators and foreign hackers to break into our phones and computers,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement.

The decades-old feud over encryption reignited last year when the Justice Department attempted to force Apple Inc to break into an iPhone used by a gunman during a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

The clash subsided when an unidentified third party outside the government came forward with a way to crack the phone.

Some U.S. lawmakers expressed interest in legislation that would require companies to help law enforcement access encrypted data. The effort crumbled due to a lack of political support and a decision by the Obama administration to not endorse it.
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From: MeNeedIt

Washington state sued President Donald Trump on Monday over his decision to let more employers claiming religious or moral objections opt out of providing no-cost birth control to women.

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who successfully sued to block Trump’s initial travel ban early this year, announced his latest lawsuit on Monday, three days after the new rules were issued.

Other Democratic-leaning states, including Massachusetts and California, sued on Friday, as did the American Civil Liberties Union.

Trump’s policy is designed to roll back parts of former President Barack Obama’s health care law, which required that most companies cover FDA-approved birth control as preventive care for women, at no additional cost. Among those FDA-approved methods is the morning-after pill, which some religious conservatives call an abortion drug even though scientists say it has no effect on pregnant women.

Victory for religious freedom?

The Trump administration touted the new policy as a victory for religious freedom, and the announcement thrilled the social conservatives who make up a key part of the president’s supporters. Asked about court challenges during a briefing Friday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the new rules are legal.

“The president believes that the freedom to practice one’s faith is a fundamental right in this country, and I think all of us do,” she said. “And that’s all that today was about — our federal government should always protect that right.”

But Ferguson said it violates the First Amendment, because it requires individuals to bear the burden of religions to which they don’t belong, as well as the equal-protection requirements of the Fifth Amendment, because it affects women but not men.

Unfair, unlawful, unconstitutional

“President Trump’s contraception rules are unfair, unlawful, and unconstitutional,” Ferguson said in a news release.

The rules could affect more than 1.5 million Washington workers and dependents who receive health coverage through an employer’s self-funded plan, Ferguson said. Some might have to turn to state-funded programs to receive contraceptive coverage, he said.

The vast majority of companies have no qualms about offering birth control benefits through their health plans.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The Hollywood establishment, slow to react to the initial sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein, began speaking out against him more forcefully Monday after the powerful studio boss was fired by his own company.

Among those weighing in were his longtime allies and beneficiaries Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Kevin Smith and Judi Dench. They spoke up with a combination of disgust over his alleged behavior and remorse or defensiveness over their own business entanglements with him. Even the actors’ labor union SAG-AFTRA joined the chorus in condemning the disgraced movie mogul, calling reports of his alleged conduct “abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Director Kevin Smith, whose movies Clerks and Chasing Amy were produced by Weinstein, noted on Twitter that the producer financed the first 14 years of his career.

“Now I know while I was profiting, others were in terrible pain,” Smith wrote. “It makes me feel ashamed.”

Weinstein, 65, was fired Sunday by the Weinstein Co., the studio he co-founded, three days after a bombshell New York Times expose alleged decades of crude sexual behavior on his part toward female employees and actresses, including Ashley Judd. The Times said at least eight settlements had been reached with women.

Streep, who once called Weinstein “God” while accepting the Golden Globe for The Iron Lady, condemned his alleged conduct as “inexcusable” while also saying she did not know about it before.

“The disgraceful news about Harvey Weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported,” Streep said in a statement.

Stories of his behavior, she said, were not universally known in Hollywood.

“Harvey supported the work fiercely, was exasperating but respectful with me in our working relationship, and with many others with whom he worked professionally,” Streep continued. “If everybody knew, I don’t believe that all the investigative reporters in the entertainment and the hard news media would have neglected for decades to write about it.”

Similarly, Dench, whose awards and nominations have been inextricably linked for two decades to Weinstein, first at his company Miramax and then at the Weinstein Co., said in a statement that she was “completely unaware” of the “horrifying” offenses.

“I offer my sympathy to those who have suffered and wholehearted support to those who have spoken out,” she wrote.

Dench won a best supporting actress Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and a nomination for Philomena.

Not all were completely blindsided, however.  

Kate Winslet, who won an Oscar for The Weinstein Co.’s The Reader said in a statement that the alleged behavior is “without question disgraceful and appalling.”

“I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumors, maybe we have all been naïve,” Winslet wrote.

Glenn Close had also heard the “vague rumors” of his inappropriate behavior toward.

“Harvey has always been decent to me, but now that the rumors are being substantiated, I feel angry and darkly sad,” Close said in a statement to the New York Times. “I’m angry, not just at him and the conspiracy of silence around his actions, but also that the `casting couch’ phenomenon, so to speak, is still a reality in our business and in the world: the horrible pressure, the awful expectation put on a woman when a powerful, egotistical, entitled bully expects sexual favors in exchange for a job.”

Close called on everyone to unite on both an institutional and personal level to create a new culture of, “respect, equality and empowerment.”

In ousting him from the company, the Weinstein board of directors said it was reacting to “new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days.” It did not elaborate.

A studio insider who was not authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the Weinstein Co. plans to change its name.

Also, Weinstein’s name will be stripped from the TV series Waco and Yellowstone, among other projects.

Actress Lena Dunham tweeted Sunday night, “Easy to think Weinstein company took swift action but this has actually been the slowest action because they always always knew.”

Under Weinstein’s leadership, the Weinstein Co. has been a dominant force at the Oscars. It accomplished the rare feat of winning back-to-back best picture Academy Awards with The King’s Speech and The Artist.

In recent years, however, Weinstein’s status has diminished because of money shortages, disappointing box-office returns and executive departures.

His other movie credits over the years include Pulp Fiction and The English Patient.

Since the Times article, more accounts of predatory behavior have followed.

In a HuffPost report, TV anchor Lauren Sivan detailed an alleged 2007 encounter with Weinstein. Sivan, then working at a New York cable channel, said Weinstein cornered her in the hallway of a New York City restaurant closed to the public and masturbated in front of her.

Sivan said she had rejected an attempt by Weinstein to kiss her, and he responded: “Well, can you just stand there and shut up?”

The swift fall of one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures has turned up the pressure on many in the industry to speak out.

“What Harvey Weinstein did was abhorrent. He admits he did it. Why should anyone be silent in their disgust and support for his victims?” director Judd Apatow said on Twitter.

SAG-AFTRA said in its statement Monday said that everyone has the right to work in an environment free of discrimination and harassment. It provided the number for their safety hotline too.

“There is more to be done by all of us to ensure the safety of women in the industry,” the organization said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Environmental groups are outraged over the Trump administration wanting to overturn an Obama-era plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt announced Monday he will scrap the Clean Power Plan, declaring “the war on coal is over.”

Climate change skeptic

Pruitt made his announcement at a coal miners’ supply store in Kentucky — a southern state whose coal industry has suffered from big job loses, in part because of a declining demand for coal and restrictions on coal burning plants.

Pruitt, like President Donald Trump, is a climate change skeptic. He sued the EPA numerous times when he was Oklahoma attorney general.

He believes the Obama White House overstepped its authority by setting carbon dioxide emission standards that Pruitt says are hard for coal and other industries to meet.

No federal agency, Pruitt said, “should ever use its authority to declare war on any sector of our economy.”

Environmental groups furious.

“With this news, Donald Trump and Scott Pruitt will go down in infamy for launching one of the most egregious attacks ever on public health,” Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said.

“The damage caused by Trump’s willful ignorance will now have myriads of human faces, because he’s proposing to throw out a plan that would prevent thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of childhood asthma attacks every year.”

The Obama Clean Power Plan has yet to take effect. The Supreme Court put it on hold last year until it can rule on whether the plan is legal.

Meanwhile, Pruitt’s decision to throw it out will certainly face a number of legal challenges from environmental groups and state attorneys general.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

American Richard H. Thaler was awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize for Economics — officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

The award committee said Thaler was chosen “for his contributions to behavioral economics.”

“By exploring the consequences of limited rationality, social preferences, and lack of self-control,” Thaler “has shown how these human traits systematically affect individual decisions as well as market outcomes,” the Swedish Academy said.

Thaler developed the theory of “mental accounting,” explaining how people simplify financial decision-making by creating separate accounts in their minds, focusing on the narrow impact of each individual decision rather than its overall effect.

Thaler was born 1945 in East Orange, New Jersey and received his Ph.D. in 1974 from the University of Rochester, New York. He is a Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Illinois.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award Monday. It carries a $1.1 million prize.
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From: MeNeedIt

Nuclear proliferation watchdog CTBTO is using its worldwide array of monitoring stations to authenticate possible nuclear explosions, including the one claimed last month by North Korea. Kevin Enochs reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Surgery plays a major role in diagnosing cancer and finding out how far it may have spread. But soon, instead of waiting for the lab results, surgeons could learn exactly where a tumor is located almost immediately, during surgery, using a device shaped like a pen. VOA’s Deborah Block reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

The rise and fall of flamboyant, ferocious Ezekiel Dlamini, a black South African boxer known as “King Kong” who was jailed for murder, inspired a 1959 musical whose black cast performed for multi-racial audiences, testing the apartheid system of that era. Now the musical that helped to propel the careers of singer Miriam Makeba and trumpeter Hugh Masekela is back on the stage in South Africa.

“King Kong: Legend of a Boxer” highlights the jazz infused with indigenous influences that flourished in some black urban areas, particularly Johannesburg’s Sophiatown, in racially segregated South Africa in the 1950s, as well as the underworld of gangsters and bars known as shebeens accompanying the creative ferment. The backdrop, while not explicitly addressed in the play, is the white minority rule that systematically marginalized the country’s black majority.

The show, which ends a run at the Joburg Theatre on Sunday and returns to The Fugard Theatre in Cape Town on Dec. 12, is a cautionary tale. In 1957, Dlamini fatally stabbed girlfriend Maria Miya, an act that resonates in a country whose high rate of violent crime counts many women among its victims.

One theme in the musical is “the importance of understanding and owning your power but also taking responsibility for it,” said Nondumiso Tembe, a Los Angeles-based South African actor playing the role of Joyce, a host at a bar called Back o’ the Moon who becomes romantically entangled with the boxer. Tembe noted that the killing of women “has sort of become an epidemic in our society today.”

In a reminder of that scourge, President Jacob Zuma last week condemned the fatal shooting of eight women and girls, reportedly members of the same family, in a village in KwaZulu-Natal province and said curbing violence against women is a priority for his government. Police are investigating whether the killings were the result of a family feud or were linked to political rivalries that periodically turn violent in the region.

Some South African commentary on “King Kong” has recalled Oscar Pistorius, the South African double-amputee athlete who was imprisoned for murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day in 2013.

Dlamini was a gambler and brawler from a rural village who flouted conformity and gained a big following in Johannesburg, becoming South Africa’s “non-European” heavyweight champion. (Black and white boxers were not allowed to fight each other in those days.) An old photograph shows him bare-chested, wearing chains that he donned to show his humiliation after losing a fight.

Eventually, he “became involved with local gangsters and succumbed to bouts of drunkenness and with that came an increasingly violent and paranoid lifestyle,” the musical’s program says. He killed Miya after a quarrel, according to reports. Dlamini asked to be put to death after he was convicted, but was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. Soon after that, he drowned in a prison reservoir in what was believed to be a suicide.

A 1979 remake of “King Kong” got bad reviews and quickly collapsed.

In this year’s version, Dlamini is played by Andile Gumbi, who had the role of Simba in “The Lion King” on Broadway and elsewhere. Briton Jonathan Munby directs.

In the original show in South Africa, Makeba played Joyce, Dlamini’s lover, but was soon bound for bigger success in the United States. She died in 2008. Masekela, who was 19 when he performed in “King Kong,” said Saturday that he was canceling commitments in the near future because of prostate cancer.

The original show, a huge success in South Africa that also toured Britain, featured composer Todd Matshikiza and a mostly white management and production team. Nelson Mandela, an amateur boxer, attended the opening night of the musical that embodied the potential for multi-racial collaboration at a time when South Africa’s racist rule was staunchly enforced.

By skirting the injustices of apartheid, the original “King Kong” production dodged any move by authorities to shut it down. Similarly, the musical could have faced a crackdown if white actors had joined the all-black cast on stage, said Pat Williams, who wrote the original lyrics.

Williams, who lives in Britain, said a big difference between the 1959 and 2017 shows is that the current actors are professionals, while some in the old cast were inexperienced with theater but all too familiar with the grit and hardship of life in apartheid South Africa.

“It was their own lives they were putting on the stage,” she told The Associated Press. “The result was electric.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The World Solar Challenge began Sunday with 42 solar cars crossing Australia’s tropical north to its southern shores, a grueling 3,000 kilometer (1,864 mile) race through the outback.

The race from the northern city of Darwin to the southern city of Adelaide is expected to take a week for most cars, with speeds of 90-100 kilometers per hour (55-62 mph) powered only by the sun.

The fastest time was achieved by Japan’s Tokai University in 2009, completing the transcontinental race in 29 hours and 49 minutes.

Belgian team Punch Powertrain started first Sunday after recording a trial time of 2:03.8 for 2.97 km (1.78 miles), hitting an average speed of 83.4 kilometers per hour (51.5mph).

But reigning 2015 champions Nuon from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands believes it has a good chance of retaining the prize.

“All the cars look completely different (this year), and all we know is we’ve got a good car, we’ve got it running perfectly the last couple of days and we’re confident we’re going to do everything to win,” tour manager Sarah Benninkbolt said Sunday.

Race director Chris Selwood said the biennial event has attracted one of the best fields ever, with teams from more than 40 countries.

“This is the 30th anniversary of the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge and competitors want to be part of that. They have been drawn to the challenge of new regulations which reduced the solar array size without limiting the size of the solar car,” Selwood said.

Teams come from countries including the United States, Japan, Germany, Chile, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Belgium, Sweden, Iran, South Korea, India, Hong Kong, South Africa, Poland, Thailand, Turkey, Canada, Taiwan and Australia.

The Northern Territory Minister for Tourism and Culture, Lauren Moss said her government’s A$250,000 (US$194,150) sponsorship of the race showed it was committed to achieving 50 percent renewable energy for the territory by 2030.

“Innovation is at the heart of the event and the technology showcased this year will influence continuing solar innovation for vehicles and householders in the future,” she said.

“This event is a great promotion for the NT — it shows our ability to innovate to the world.”
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From: MeNeedIt