Flying Taxi Start-Up Hires Designer Behind Modern Mini, Fiat 500

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Lilium, a German start-up with Silicon Valley-scale ambitions to put electric "flying taxis" in the air next decade, has hired Frank Stephenson, the designer behind iconic car brands including the modern Mini, Fiat 500 and McLaren P1. Lilium is developing a lightweight aircraft powered by 36 electric jet engines mounted on its wings. It aims to travel at speeds of up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour, with a range of 300 km on a single charge, the firm has said. Founded in 2015 by four Munich Technical University students, the Bavarian firm has set out plans to demonstrate a fully functional vertical take-off electric jet by next year, with plans to begin online booking of commuter flights by 2025. It is one of a number of companies, from…


Facebook Rules at a Glance: What’s Banned, Exactly?

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Facebook has revealed for the first time just what, exactly, is banned on its service in a new Community Standards document released on Tuesday. It's an updated version of the internal rules the company has used to determine what's allowed and what isn't, down to granular details such as what, exactly, counts as a "credible threat" of violence. The previous public-facing version gave a broad-strokes outline of the rules, but the specifics were shrouded in secrecy for most of Facebook's 2.2 billion users. Not anymore. Here are just some examples of what the rules ban. Note: Facebook has not changed the actual rules - it has just made them public. Credible violence Is there a real-world threat? Facebook looks for "credible statements of intent to commit violence against any person,…


Cambridge Analytica Fights Back on Data Scandal

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Cambridge Analytica unleashed its counterattack against claims that it misused data from millions of Facebook accounts, saying Tuesday it is the victim of misunderstandings and inaccurate reporting that portrays the company as the evil villain in a James Bond movie. Clarence Mitchell, a high-profile publicist recently hired to represent the company, held Cambridge Analytica's first news conference since allegations surfaced that the Facebook data helped Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election. Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica's parent, also claims that the company has links to the successful campaign to take Britain out of the European Union. "The company has been portrayed in some quarters as almost some Bond villain," Mitchell said. "Cambridge Analytica is no Bond villain." Cambridge Analytica didn't use any of the Facebook data…


China Tech Firms Pledge to End Sexist Job Ads

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Chinese tech firms pledged on Monday to tackle gender bias in recruitment after a rights group said they routinely favored male candidates, luring applicants with the promise of working with "beautiful girls" in job advertisements. A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report found that major technology companies including Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent had widely used "gender discriminatory job advertisements," which said men were preferred or specifically barred women applicants. Some ads promised candidates they would work with "beautiful girls" and "goddesses," HRW said in a report based on an analysis of 36,000 job posts between 2013 and 2018. Tencent, which runs China's most popular messenger app WeChat, apologized for the ads after the HRW report was published on Monday. "We are sorry they occurred and we will take swift action to…


Facebook Says It is Taking Down More Material About ISIS, al-Qaida

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Facebook said on Monday that it removed or put a warning label on 1.9 million pieces of extremist content related to ISIS or al-Qaida in the first three months of the year, or about double the amount from the previous quarter. Facebook, the world's largest social media network, also published its internal definition of "terrorism" for the first time, as part of an effort to be more open about internal company operations. The European Union has been putting pressure on Facebook and its tech industry competitors to remove extremist content more rapidly or face legislation forcing them to do so, and the sector has increased efforts to demonstrate progress. Of the 1.9 million pieces of extremist content, the "vast majority" was removed and a small portion received a warning label…


Technology is Latest Trend Reshaping Fashion

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Imagine wearing a computer in the form of a jacket. Now, it is possible. "When somebody calls you, your jacket vibrates and gives you lights and [you] know somebody is calling you," said Ivan Poupyrev, who manages the Google's Project Jacquard, a digital platform for smart clothing. Project Jacquard formed a partnership with Levi's to create the first Jacquard enabled garment in the form of Levi's Commuter Trucker Jacket. What makes the jacket "smart" includes washable technology, created by Google, woven into the cuff of the jacket. "These are highly conductive fibers, which are very strong and can be used in standard denim-weaving process," said Poupyrev. A tap on the cuff can also provide navigation and play music when paired with a mobile phone, headphones and a small piece of…


One of Sudan’s Lost Boys Finds a Way to Help Other Refugees

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A cup of coffee is a good way for many to start the day. But it can also do far greater good. Manyang Kher, a former Sudanese child refugee - one of the so-called Lost Boys and now a US citizen - is passionate about helping refugees build a brighter future. And he does it with coffee. VOA’s June Soh talked with the founder of a social enterprise, 734 coffee. VOA's Carol Pearson narrates her report. ...


Former Sudanese Lost Boy Finds a Way to Help Others

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Manyang Kher was three years old when he arrived at a refugee camp in Ethiopia's Gambella region. During the 13 years, the South Sudanese native lived there, he observed lots of other children die. From hunger. From cholera. From attempting to flee the camp. “You fear every day because you may die, too,” Kher says. Kher is one of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan, some 20,000 Sudanese children who escaped when their villages were attacked during the 1980’s civil war and made the 1600 kilometer-walk to Ethiopia. Deeply affected by the camp, he has named his coffee company, 734 Coffee, after the geographical coordinates of the Gambella region: 7˚N 34˚E. Part of his larger humanitarian non profit project, Humanity Helping Sudan, 734 helps the 200,000 South Sudanese refugees still…


Bloomberg Donating $4.5 Million to Support Paris Climate Accord

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Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday he is giving $4.5 million to the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat to cover a U.S. government funding gap for the international Paris climate accord. Bloomberg's charitable foundation said the money will support work developing countries are doing to achieve their targets under the agreement as well as "promoting climate action" among cities and businesses. The 2015 treaty signed by more than 200 nations and entities vowed to curb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in order to try to limit global temperature rise. Former President Barack Obama's administration was among the signatories, but President Donald Trump said he would pull out of the agreement. Trump campaigned as a booster of fossil fuels and a skeptic of climate change science,…


World Bank Shareholders Back $13 billion Capital Increase

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The World Bank’s shareholders on Saturday endorsed a $13 billion paid-in capital increase that will boost China’s shareholding but bring lending reforms that will raise borrowing costs for higher-middle-income countries, including China. The multilateral lender said the plan would allow it to lift the group’s overall lending to nearly $80 billion in fiscal 2019 from about $59 billion last year and to an average of about $100 billion annually through 2030. “We have more than doubled the capacity of the World Bank Group,” the institution’s president, Jim Yong Kim, told reporters during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington. “It’s a huge vote of confidence, but the expectations are enormous.” The hard-fought capital hike, initially resisted by the Trump administration, will add $7.5 billion paid-in capital…


Russia Considers Banning Facebook After Blocking Telegram

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Russia says it may block Facebook if the social media company does not put its Russian user database on servers in Russian territory. The warning Wednesday by the head of the country’s state media regulator Roskomnadzor comes just days after a Russian move to block Telegram, the encrypted messaging app. VOA's Iuliia Alieva has more in this report narrated by Anna Rice ...


EU, Mexico Reach New Free Trade Deal

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The European Union and Mexico reached an agreement Saturday on a new free trade deal, a coup for both parties in the face of increased protectionism from the United States under President Donald Trump. Since its plans for a trade alliance with the United States were frozen after Trump’s election victory, the EU has focused instead on trying to champion open markets and seal accords with other like-minded countries. The agreement in principle with Mexico follows a deal struck last year with Japan and comes ahead of talks next week with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. “With this agreement, Mexico joins Canada, Japan and Singapore in the growing list of partners willing to work with the EU in defending open, fair and rules-based trade,” said European…


IMF Says Trade Tensions, Debt Load Threaten World Economy

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The International Monetary Fund's policymaking committee said Saturday that a strong world economy was threatened by increasing tension over trade and countries' heavy debt burden. Longer-term prospects are clouded, it said, by sluggish growth in productivity and aging populations in wealthy nations. In a statement at the end of three days of meetings, the lending agency urged countries to take advantage of the broadest-based economic expansion in a decade to cut government debt and to enact reforms that will make their economies more efficient. The IMF expects the world economy to grow 3.9 percent this year and next, which would be the strongest since 2011. But an intensifying dispute between the U.S. and China over Beijing's aggressive attempt to challenge U.S. technological dominance has raised the prospect of a trade…


US Treasury Secretary Weighs China Trip for Trade Talk

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday that he was contemplating a visit to China for discussions on issues that have global leaders concerned about a potentially damaging trade war. "I am not going to make any comment on timing, nor do I have anything confirmed, but a trip is under consideration," Mnuchin said at a Washington news conference during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings. Mnuchin said he discussed the possible trip and potential trade opportunities with the new head of China's central bank. Tensions have escalated between the U.S. and China over Beijing's attempts to challenge America's technological prowess, raising the prospects of a trade war that could hinder global economic growth.  Mnuchin said he had spoken with a number of his counterparts who have been…


China: No Military Aim of Corridor Project With Pakistan

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China has strongly refuted suggestions its multibillion-dollar economic corridor now under construction with Pakistan has "hidden" military designs as well.   Beijing has pledged to invest about $63 billion in Pakistan by 2030 to develop ports, highways, motorways, railways, airports, power plants and other infrastructure in the neighboring country, traditionally a strong ally.   The Chinese have also expanded and operationalized the Pakistani deep water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, which is at the heart of the massive bilateral cooperation, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC. The strategically located port is currently being operated by a Chinese state-run company . China has positioned CPEC as the flagship project of its $1-trillion global Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, championed by President Xi Jinping. "I want to…


Plastic: If It’s Not Keeping Food Fresh, Why Use It?

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The food industry uses plastic to wrap its products in many places around the world. Plastic manufacturers say that keeps produce and meat fresh longer, so less goes bad and is thrown away. But, according to a new European study, while the annual use of plastic packaging has grown since the 1950s, so has food waste. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates. ...


France: EU Needs Full Exemption from US Tariffs

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The European Union needs to be exempted from steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the United States in order to work with Washington on trade with China, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Friday. “We are close allies between the EU and the United States. We cannot live with full confidence with the risk of being hit by those measures and by those new tariffs. We cannot live with a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over our heads,” Le Maire told a press conference during the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings.  “If we want to move forward ... if we want to address the issue of trade, an issue of the new relationship with China, because we both want to engage China in a new…


DOJ Investigates: Did AT&T, Verizon Make it Hard to Switch?

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The Justice Department has opened an antitrust investigation into whether AT&T, Verizon and a standards-setting group worked together to stop consumers from easily switching wireless carriers.   The companies confirmed the inquiry in separate statements late Friday in response to a report in The New York Times.    The U.S. government is looking into whether AT&T, Verizon and telecommunications standards organization GSMA worked together to suppress a technology that lets people remotely switch wireless companies without having to insert a new SIM card into their phones.    The Times, citing six anonymous people familiar with the inquiry, reported that the investigation was opened after at least one device maker and one other wireless company filed complaints. Verizon, AT&T respond  Verizon, which is based in New York, derided the accusations on…


Report: Sanctions-Hit Russian Firms Seek $1.6B in Liquidity

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Russian companies hit by U.S. sanctions, including aluminum giant Rusal, have asked for 100 billion rubles ($1.6 billion) in liquidity support from the government, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying Friday. The United States on April 6 imposed sanctions against several Russian entities and individuals, including Rusal and its major shareholder, Oleg Deripaska, to punish Moscow for its suspected meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and other alleged "malign activity." Rusal, the world's second-biggest aluminum producer, has been particularly hard hit as the sanctions have caused concern among some customers, suppliers and creditors that they could be blacklisted, too, through association with the company. "Temporary nationalization" is an option for some sanctions-hit companies, but not Rusal, Siluanov was quoted as saying. He did not name the companies he was referring to. A Kremlin spokesman…


Scientists Coax Plastic-Munching Enzyme to Eat Faster

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Recently, the world was stunned to learn that an island of mostly plastic trash, floating in the Pacific Ocean, grew to the size of France, Germany and Spain combined. Because plastics take centuries to decompose, could civilization someday choke in it? Scientists at Britain's University of Portsmouth say they may have found a way to speed up the decomposition of plastics. VOA's George Putic reports. ...


Reports: $1B Fine for Wells Fargo for Illegal Sales

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U.S. news reports say Wells Fargo will be fined as much as $1 billion for illegally selling customers car insurance policies they did not want or need, and for charging unnecessary fees in connection with mortgages. This would be the largest fine ever imposed by federal bank regulators and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The fine is part of a settlement regulators negotiated with the bank. Wells Fargo and federal officials have not commented on the reports. The San Francisco-based lender admitted selling the unwanted insurance policies to hundreds of thousands of car loan customers. In many cases, the borrowers could not afford both the insurance and car payments and their cars were repossessed. Many U.S. banks have enjoyed looser federal regulations under President Donald Trump's pro-business administration. But Trump denied…


US-China Trade Row Threatens Global Confidence: IMF’s Lagarde

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The biggest danger from the U.S.-China trade dispute is the threat to global confidence and investment, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Thursday. The IMF chief said the tariffs threatened by the world’s two largest economies would have a modest direct impact on the global economy but could produce uncertainty that choked off investment, one of the key drivers of rising global growth. “The actual impact on growth is not very substantial, when you measure in terms of GDP,” Lagarde said of the tariffs, adding that the “erosion of confidence” would be worse. “When investors do not know under what terms they will be trading, when they don’t know how to organize their supply chain, they are reluctant to invest,” she told a news conference in Washington…


Unsold Aluminum Piling Up at Russian Sanctions-Hit Rusal Factory

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Russian aluminum giant Rusal is stockpiling large quantities of aluminum at one of its plants in Siberia because U.S. sanctions imposed this month have prevented it from selling the metal to customers, five sources close to the company said. With the firm's own storage space filling up with unsold aluminum, Rusal executives in Sayanogorsk, in southern Siberia, have had to rent out additional space to accommodate the surplus stock, one of the sources told Reuters. "Aluminum sales have broken down. And now the surplus aluminum is being warehoused in production areas of the factory itself," said someone who works on the grounds of one of Rusal's two plants in Sayanogorsk. Several people connected to Rusal said that Oleg Deripaska, the company's main shareholder who along with the company was included…


Russia Demands Compensation for US Tariffs on Aluminum, Steel

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Russia demanded compensation from the U.S. for its worldwide tariffs on foreign aluminum and steel Thursday, becoming the third influential member of the World Trade Organization to do so. China, the European Union and India have also objected, arguing the tariffs are a "safeguard" measure to protect U.S. domestic products from imports, which require compensation for major exporting countries. The Trump administration has rejected that argument and says the tariffs are for national security reasons and are therefore allowed under international law. The U.S. has agreed to negotiate with China and has informed the EU and India it is willing to discuss any other issue, while maintaining their compensation claims are unwarranted. It is unclear what Moscow's demand means in practice because it did not challenge the tariffs through a…


SunPower Buys US Rival SolarWorld to Head Off Trump Tariffs

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SunPower Corp. on Wednesday said it would buy U.S. solar panel maker SolarWorld Americas, expanding its domestic manufacturing as it seeks to stem the impact of Trump administration tariffs on panel imports. The White House cheered the deal, saying it was proof that Trump's trade policies were stimulating U.S. investment. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The news sent SunPower's shares up 12 percent on the Nasdaq to their highest level since before President Donald Trump imposed 30 percent tariffs on imported solar panels in January. "The time is right for SunPower to invest in U.S. manufacturing," chief executive Tom Werner said in a statement. SunPower is based in San Jose, California, but most of its manufacturing is in the Philippines and Mexico. The company had lobbied heavily against the solar trade case brought last year by U.S.…


US Manufacturers Seek Relief From Steel, Aluminum Tariffs

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President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported aluminum and steel are disrupting business for hundreds of American companies that buy those metals, and many are pressing for relief. Nearly 2,200 companies are asking the Commerce Department to exempt them from the 25 percent steel tariff, and more than 200 other companies are asking to be spared the 10 percent aluminum tariff. Other companies are weighing their options. Jody Fledderman, chief executive of Batesville Tool & Die in Indiana, said American steelmakers have already raised their prices since Trump's tariffs were announced last month. Fledderman said he might have to shift production to a plant in Mexico, where he can buy cheaper steel. A group of small- and medium-size manufacturers are gathering in Washington to announce a coalition to fight the steel tariff.…


Zuckerberg Under Pressure to Face EU Lawmakers Over Data Scandal

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Facebook Inc’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg came under pressure from EU lawmakers on Wednesday to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica that affected nearly three million Europeans. The world’s largest social network is under fire worldwide after information about nearly 87 million users wrongly ended up in the hands of the British political consultancy, a firm hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign. European Parliament President Antonio Tajani last week repeated his request to Zuckerberg to appear before the assembly, saying that sending a junior executive would not suffice. EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, who recently spoke to Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, said Zuckerberg should heed the lawmakers’ call. “This case is too important to treat as…