A New Orleanslike musical funeral procession with a band set in Vietnam and a transgender fire-eater are all a part of a multimedia traveling exhibit by a Ho Chi Minh City-based artist collective called The Propeller Group.

The exhibit is showing at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston.

Vietnamese-American Brittany Trinh has seen the exhibit more than once. The film titled, The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music, is Trinh’s favorite piece in the exhibit.

“First it was the music and then the way that it was being filmed, and I just felt like I was a part of it.” Trinh said, “I just felt really connected to it in a strange way.”

The Propeller Group’s origins

Founded in 2006, three artists make up the core of The Propeller Group: Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Phu Nam Thuc Ha, and Matt Lucero. All have multicultural backgrounds.

Two of these founders were born in Vietnam and had to leave the country with their families because of the Vietnam War. Lucero is Native American with Spanish roots. All three grew up and were educated in countries including the United States and Singapore before going to Vietnam to live and work as artists.

“It was the end of the Vietnam War, and then the Cold War occupied so much of our kind of upbringing until, you know the early ’90s. And so that had always kind of affected how we thought and become something that haunted us,” Nguyen said.

These artists have backgrounds in filmmaking, but they found shooting video in public in Communist Vietnam was difficult, and their cameras were almost confiscated. To work around this, they formed an advertising firm that allowed them more freedom to shoot video in public.

“You’ll see propaganda and really slick advertising, and that was the space that Vietnam was in, and that was the space the Propeller Group came out of, looking at those kind of dichotomies and those collisions and ideologies,” Nguyen said.

“We were doing the advertising, the commercial work by day, and by night we were kind of developing our own artistic conceptual practice,” he said.

US exhibit

While the group rarely is allowed to show its work in Vietnam because of censorship, there is a traveling exhibit of its work showing in the United States. Themes of life and death can be seen in the pieces of multimedia works of art.

One film in the exhibit looks at the Vietnamese rituals surrounding funerals, which includes a transgender fire-eater.

“It’s a moment for them to perform and to express themselves without being stopped by the police. Then it becomes a moment of resistance in public as well, that’s one thing that kind of drew us to looking at these rituals and these traditions,” Nguyen said. “It’s (rituals) something that’s always in flux, and I think part of that comes from the many, many kinds of wars that Vietnam has been engaged in over the last few centuries,” he said.

How people die and live as a result of politics and ideologies and the impact of globalism also are themes seen in a time-lapse video of what happens when a motorcycle called the Honda Dream is left outside overnight in Vietnam. The motorcycle was stripped bare.

“So this motorbike that was once a symbol of the future and of economic mobility now is a symbol for something else. The Honda Dream becomes this physical manifestation of how ideas of capital and communism have kind of shifted over the last 10, 15, 20 years in a communist society,” Nguyen said.

Exhibit well received

The exhibit’s Houston curator says the city’s Vietnamese American community has been especially receptive to this exhibit.

“Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the United States. It’s also one of the cities that has one of the largest populations of Vietnamese. This exhibition will resonate and will bring forth questions and will open conversations about the identity of Vietnamese Americans,” said Javier Sanchez Martinez, Blaffer Art Museum’s Curatorial Fellow.

Nguyen says he hopes the exhibit will inspire the audience to re-examine how they think about history and the different narratives that affect their current way of thought.

The exhibit is organized by Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston’s Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Phoenix Art Museum.

The Propeller Group’s exhibit will travel next to the San Jose Museum of Art.
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From: MeNeedIt

There is an emerging contemporary art scene in Vietnam, and it includes a collective of Ho Chi Minh City-based artists who come from multicultural backgrounds called The Propeller Group. While the group rarely shows its work in Vietnam because of censorship, there is a traveling exhibit of its work in the U.S. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports on how themes of the Cold War, life and death are represented in the multimedia exhibit now in Houston’s Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston.
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From: MeNeedIt

Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. said Friday they plan to spend $1.6 billion to set up a joint-venture auto manufacturing plant in the U.S. — a move that will create up to 4,000 jobs. 

The plant will have an annual production capacity of about 300,000 vehicles and will produce Toyota Corollas for the North American market. Mazda will make cross-over models there that it plans to introduce to that market, both sides said.

The companies will split the cost for the plant equally. 

Toyota said that it changed its plan to make Corollas at a plant in Mexico, now under construction, and instead will produce Tacoma pickups there. 

EV rumors

The Japanese automakers were reportedly planning to work together to develop electric vehicles. 

EVs have become an increasingly competitive market segment because of concerns about global warming and the environment.

Japanese rival Nissan Motor Co., which is allied with Renault SA of France and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., is the global leader in electric vehicles.

Better batteries

In the past, Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models, was not overly bullish on electric vehicles, noting the limited cruise range of the technology. But recent breakthroughs in batteries allow for longer travel per charge.

In 2015, Toyota and Mazda agreed to find new areas where they can work together, but they had not announced specifics.

Toyota already provides hybrid technology to Mazda, which also makes compact cars for Toyota at its Mexico plant.

Mazda, based in Hiroshima, Japan, used to have a powerful partner in Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co., which bought 25 percent of Mazda in 1979, and raised it to 33.4 percent in 1996. But Ford began cutting ties in 2008, and has shed its stake in Mazda.
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From: MeNeedIt

Under a best-case scenario, a newly negotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would not be implemented before the end of next year or the start of 2019, Mexico’s economy minister said Thursday.

Among other issues, NAFTA talks would focus on how to provide more certainty in dispute resolutions, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said in a radio interview.

“According to the possible calendars of approval, the best of the scenarios that we could have … would be the start of implementation almost at the end of 2018 or the start of 2019,” Guajardo said.

Mexico has set out the goals of prioritizing free access for goods and services, greater labor market integration and a strengthening of energy security.

Last week, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said during a visit to Mexico that he hoped farm business with Mexico would not suffer due to President Donald Trump’s drive to get a better deal for manufacturers.

Speaking in Japan on Thursday, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said the best way to calm Trump’s worries about commerce with Mexico were through more trade, not less.

Videgaray said negotiators would need to be careful not to tweak trade rules on sourcing components too much or they could risk driving up the costs of goods like electronics.

“The important thing that we are not going to do is hurt the region’s competitivity, and much less the region’s consumers,” Videgaray said, according to a transcript.
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From: MeNeedIt

We’re in the mix with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending August 5, 2017.

Lo and behold, we get a new song this week to supercharge our lineup. It happens in fifth place, where French Montana and Swae Lee jump four slots with “Unforgettable.”

Number 5: French Montana & Swae Lee “Unforgettable”

French Montana is Karim Karbouch – born in Morocco, he was 13 when his family immigrated to New York City. French made his first mix tape in 2007, and three weeks ago dropped his sophomore studio album “Jungle Rules.” This marks French Montana’s first appearance in the Top Five. Swae Lee is one-half of the rap duo Rae Sremmurd. You probably know them best from last year’s huge chart-topper “Black Beatles.”

Number 4: Dj Khaled Featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance The Rapper & Lil Wayne “I’m The One”

Our next artist is a first-generation citizen of the United States. While DJ Khaled was born in New Orleans, his parents had immigrated from Palestine.

Khaled backtracks a slot to fourth place with his former champ “I’m The One” featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper, and Lil Wayne. On August 5, Chance will be in his hometown of Chicago for the annual Lollapalooza festival. In fact, all of the artists have concerts booked, except for Bieber.

Number 3: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like”

Bruno Mars and DJ Khaled keep trading places in the Top Five, and this week, Bruno re-takes third place with “That’s What I Like.”

Bruno is currently on the North American leg of his world tour. In November, he and DNCE visit South America for six dates, and then next year it’s on to New Zealand and Australia. May 3, 2018, will also see Bruno perform at the Mall of Asia in the Philippines. It will be his third visit to his ancestral homeland.

Number 2: DJ Khaled Featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller “Wild Thoughts”

DJ Khaled remains in the runner-up slot with “Wild Thoughts” featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller. On July 26, Rihanna met with President Emmanuel Macron of France. They met in Paris to discuss educational initiatives. Rihanna is the global ambassador for the Global Partnership for Education.

Number 1: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber hold the Hot 100 title for an impressive 11th week with “Despacito.”

Justin recently canceled the remaining dates of his world tour and days later hit a photographer with his truck. The man wasn’t seriously injured. Justin’s biological father, Jeremy, flew from Toronto to Los Angeles to spend some quality time with his boy.

That’s it for now — we hope you’ll join us for next week’s lineup.
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From: MeNeedIt

In an email to HBO staff Wednesday, CEO Richard Plepler said the company’s email system likely was not affected in Monday’s hacking of the cable network.

“We do not believe that our email system as a whole has been compromised,” Plepler wrote, warning his staff to be wary of media speculation about the breach.

A script outline for the next episode of Game of Thrones, along with episodes of Ballers, Barry and Room 104, were published online Monday.

A company called IP Echelon reportedly submitted a request to Google on behalf of HBO to take down the leaked material.

HBO has not publicly commented on specifically what material has been hacked, but the request claimed that “thousands of Home Box Office [HBO] internal company documents” had been leaked in addition to the video content.

According to Variety, the initial leak was much larger than first reported, and personal information about one senior HBO executive, as well as access information to dozens of online accounts, have been published since Monday.

The hackers, who claimed to have accessed 1.5 terabytes of information,

said more is coming.

If the claim is true, it would make this hack even larger than the crippling cyberattack on Sony in 2014, which the FBI has blamed on the North Korean government. North Korea denied the allegation.
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From: MeNeedIt

Three top Democratic senators, in a rare show of bipartisanship, on Wednesday urged U.S. President Donald Trump to stand up to China as he prepares to launch an inquiry into Beijing’s intellectual property and trade practices in coming days.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer pressed the Republican president to skip the investigation and go straight to trade action against China.

“We should certainly go after them,” said Schumer in a statement. Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio also urged Trump to rein in China.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have escalated in recent months as Trump has pressed China to cut steel production to ease global oversupply and rein in North Korea’s missile program.

Sources familiar with the current discussions said Trump was expected to issue a presidential memorandum in coming days, citing Chinese theft of intellectual property as a problem. The European Union, Japan, Germany and Canada have all expressed concern over China’s behavior on intellectual property theft.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would then initiate an investigation under the Trade Act of 1974’s Section 301, which allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect U.S. industries, the sources said.

It is unclear whether such a probe would result in trade sanctions against China, which Beijing would almost certainly challenge before the World Trade Organization.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement to Reuters that China “opposes unilateral actions and trade protectionism in any form.”

Leverage for talks

U.S. Section 301 investigations have not led to trade sanctions since the WTO was launched in 1995. In the 1980s, Section 301 tariffs were levied against Japanese motorcycles, steel and other products.

“This could merely be leverage for bilateral negotiations,” James Bacchus, a former WTO chief judge and USTR official, said of a China intellectual property probe.

Some trade lawyers said that WTO does not have jurisdiction over investment rules — such as China’s requirements that foreign companies transfer technology to their joint venture partners — allowing sanctions to proceed outside the WTO’s dispute settlement system.

But Bacchus argued the United States has an obligation to turn first to the Geneva-based institution to resolve trade disputes, adding: “There is an obligation in WTO to enforce intellectual property rights that is not fully explored.”

Lighthizer and Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, have complained the WTO is slow to resolve disputes and biased against the United States.

The threat comes at a time when Trump has become increasingly frustrated with the level of support from Beijing to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear and missile program.

Trump has said in the past that China would get better treatment on trade with the United States if it acted more forcefully against Pyongyang. Beijing has said its influence on North Korea is limited.

China also says trade between the two nations benefits both sides, and that Beijing is willing to improve trade ties.

A senior Chinese official said Monday that there was no link between North Korea’s nuclear program and China-U.S. trade.

Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to Lighthizer urging action to stop China from pressuring U.S. tech companies into giving up intellectual property rights.

Wyden’s state of Oregon is home to several companies that could make a case regarding intellectual property rights and China, including Nike and FLIR Systems.
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From: MeNeedIt

In 1517, Michelangelo climbed Mount Altissimo in Tuscany and found the marble of his dreams.

It was, the Renaissance master wrote, “of compact grain, homogeneous, crystalline, reminiscent of sugar.” He deemed it perhaps even more precious than that from nearby Carrara, where he had obtained marble for some of his most famous statues.

With the blessing of Pope Leo X, Michelangelo designed a path that could get blocks of the white marble down from the mountain to be transported to Florence to be used to decorate the facade of the church of San Lorenzo.

In exchange for getting a quarry operation going, Florentine authorities granted Michelangelo the right to take as much marble as he wanted from Altissimo – which in Italian means both “most high” and “God” – for his use for the rest of his life.

“There is enough here to extract until Judgment Day,” he wrote to a contemporary.

But it was never to be.

After several years of work to carve out a road, Pope Leo, who was of Florence’s Medici family, relieved Michelangelo of his commission and the project was abandoned. The church of San Lorenzo still has no facade.

Today, the quarries of 1,589-meter-high (5,213-feet) Altissimo, in Italy’s Apuan Alps, buzz with the kind of activity that even a genius like Michelangelo probably could not have foreseen.

Modern cutting and extraction techniques have produced a surreal landscape similar to some Cubism paintings, a dizzying array of upside down staircases and sugar-cube structures looking heavenward.

“The primitive technology consisted of human labor and beasts of burden,” said Franco Pierotti, director of extractions.

“The primordial instruments such as levers, chisels and hammers later evolved with the introduction of helical wires in the 19th century and now we have diamond-tipped wires and saws and heavy earth-moving equipment,” he said.

Before the extracting begins, experts known as “tecchiaroli” hang on ropes from the sides of the mountain and pick at its sides with pointy iron bars to remove loose rock that could fall and hurt workers in subsequent phases of the extraction.

In the three centuries following Michelangelo’s time, the Altissimo quarries went through cycles of abandonment and re-discovery.

In 1821, Marco Borrini, a local landowner, teamed up with Frenchman Jean Baptiste Alexandre Henraux to start a new company and it has been active in the area ever since.

The venture brought new life to the economically depressed area, employing hundreds of quarrymen, squarers, sled men, stone cutters and cart drivers, who guided oxen trains.

In the 19th century, the tsars of Russia chose Altissimo marble for the construction of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg  and more recently, it was used in the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, which opened in 2007.

Today, the Henraux company owns the entire mountain, employs about 140 people and extracts marble from five active quarries.

Over the years artists such as Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Joan Miro and Isamu Noguchi have used Altissimo marble for their sculptures.

Michelangelo would be proud.
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From: MeNeedIt

Climate change could make much of South Asia, home to a fifth of the world’s population, too hot for human survival by the end of this century, scientists warned Wednesday.

If climate change continues at its current pace, deadly heat waves beginning in the next few decades will strike parts of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to a study based on computer simulations by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Key agricultural areas in the Indus and Ganges river basins will be hit particularly hard, reducing crop yields and increasing hunger in some of the world’s most densely populated regions, researchers said.

“Climate change is not an abstract concept. It is impacting huge numbers of vulnerable people,” MIT professor Elfatih Eltahir told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Business as usual runs the risk of having extremely lethal heat waves.”

The areas likely to be worst affected in northern India, southern Pakistan and Bangladesh are home to 1.5 billion people, said Eltahir, the study’s co-author.

Currently, about 2 percent of India’s population is sometimes exposed to extreme combinations of heat and humidity; by 2100 that will increase to about 70 percent if nothing is done to mitigate climate change, the study said.

Heat waves across South Asia in the summer of 2015 killed an estimated 3,500 people, and similar events will become more frequent and intense, researchers said.

Persian Gulf

Projections show the Persian Gulf region will be the world’s hottest region by 2100 as a result of climate change.

But with small, wealthy populations and minimal domestic food production requirements, oil-rich states in the Gulf will be better able to respond to rising heat than countries in South Asia, Eltahir said.

The study does not directly address migration, but researchers said it is likely that millions of people in South Asia will be forced to move because of blistering temperatures and crop failures unless steps are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Disaster experts from South Asian countries met in Pakistan last month to launch a toolkit to help city governments develop ways to manage the impact of heat waves in urban areas.

Ahmedabad, in western India, has already introduced a heat action plan — South Asia’s first early-warning system against extreme heat waves.

Authorities in the city of 5.5 million have mapped areas with vulnerable populations and set up “cooling spaces” in temples, public buildings and malls during the summer.
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From: MeNeedIt

Life-size 3D models, used by Hollywood for creating amazing visual effects, can also serve as props for surgeons practicing complicated operations. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland, say even seasoned brain surgeons can benefit from the realistic training.
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From: MeNeedIt

Digital technology is changing how people live and work. There are now so-called “digital nomads” who move from city to city as they explore new places and cultures while earning a paycheck.
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From: MeNeedIt

Egypt’s foreign reserves reached over $36 billion in July, a record high, which the prime minister described as “good news” as it shows that the economy is recovering, the central bank said Tuesday.

The bank announced the increase in a brief statement saying that the figure is 4.7 billion dollars higher compared to the previous month. In December 2010, foreign reserves reached $36 billion.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Sherif Ismail hailed the increase of the foreign reserves saying, “this is an assuring message about the Egyptian economy and that we are capable of covering the needs of the Egyptian people.”

 “This means that the Egyptian economy has recovered,” he said.  

$12 billion loan from IMF

The rise comes after the government secured a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund. In order to qualify for that loan, the government imposed a set of tough economic measures, including subsidy cuts and the flotation of its local currency.

The economic measures were hailed by the IMF but have left many Egyptians struggling with both reduced buying power and spiraling inflation while the government struggles to generate jobs in country with an official population of 92 million.

This summer, Egypt raised electricity prices by more than 40 percent and increased gasoline prices by up to 55 percent while doubling the price of the household staple butane canisters, used for cooking.

Measures benefit middle, lower classes

Ahead of the latest hikes, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi approved a package of measures benefiting middle and lower class Egyptians, including income tax relief, bonuses for state employees, increases in pensions and ration card subsidies.

The government embarked on the economic reform program soon after el-Sissi took office three years ago. Egypt’s economy has been battered since the 2011 uprising and continues to face major challenges, including a rising Islamic militancy. Tourism, a major pillar of national revenue, was dealt a blow in 2015 when militants belonging to an affiliate of the Islamic State group downed a Russian airliner killing all 224 people aboard.

 
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From: MeNeedIt