Wind, Fire, Ash Destroy Much of California Avocado Crop

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The wildfire that roared through the orchards of California’s Ventura County destroyed much of the region’s avocado crop not just with flames, but also with fierce Santa Ana winds and a thick blanket of ash. With the so-called Thomas Fire just 10 percent contained by Friday afternoon, after blackening more than 132,000 acres across Ventura County and destroying some 400 homes and other structures, it is too soon to know the extent of the damage to the upcoming avocado harvest. But experts say even the mostly family-owned orchards spared by the epic conflagration may have suffered devastating losses to their crops from the hot, dry Santa Ana winds that blow out of the California desert, knocking avocados from the trees with gusts up to 80 miles per hour. (129 kilometers…


‘Worker Bee’ Round of NAFTA Talks to Focus on Easier Chapters

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NAFTA trade negotiators convene in Washington next week for a limited round of talks unlikely to move the needle on major sticking points, but aimed at demonstrating some progress toward closing easier chapters. Last month's round of negotiations to update the North American Free Trade Agreement in Mexico City failed to resolve major differences, as Canada and Mexico pushed back on what they saw as unreasonable U.S. demands on automotive content rules, dispute settlement and a five-year sunset clause. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said that the United States wanted to see "meaningful progress" before year's end. The "intersessional" meetings in a Washington hotel come with lower expectations and without trade ministers from the three countries, who are due to attend a World Trade Organization meeting in Buenos Aires. Some lobbyists…


UN Calls on Social Media Giants to Control Platforms Used to Lure African Migrants

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The U.N. migration agency called on social media giants Friday to make it harder for people smugglers to use their platforms to lure West African migrants to Libya where they can face detention, torture, slavery or death. The smugglers often use Facebook to reach would-be migrants with false promises of jobs in Europe, International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokesman Leonard Doyle said. When migrants are tortured, video is also sometimes sent back to their families over WhatsApp, as a means of extortion, he said. "We really ... ask social media companies to step up and behave in a responsible way when people are being lured to deaths, to their torture," Doyle told a Geneva news briefing. There were no immediate replies from Facebook or WhatsApp to requests by Reuters for…


Net Neutrality Advocates Speak Up as FCC Set to Strike Down Rules

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Net neutrality is a simple concept but a dense and often technical issue that has been argued over for years in tech and telecom circles. Now everyday folks are talking about it. That's because the Federal Communications Commission has scheduled a vote next week to gut Obama-era rules meant to stop broadband companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon from exercising more control over what people watch and see on the internet. The protests aren't likely to stop the agency's vote on Thursday, but activists hope the outcry will push Congress to intervene and will show support for stricter regulation down the road. Net neutrality has been a hot button before, thanks to assists from Silicon Valley and TV host John Oliver speaking out about what they see as threats…


Bangladesh Asks NY Fed to Help it Recover Stolen Millions

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Bangladesh’s central bank has asked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to join a lawsuit it plans to file against a Philippines bank for its role in one of the world’s biggest cyber-heists, several sources said. The Fed has yet to respond formally, but there is no indication it would join the suit. Unidentified hackers stole $81 million from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the New York Fed in February last year, using fraudulent orders on the SWIFT payments system. The money was sent to accounts at Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp and then disappeared into the casino industry in the Philippines. Nearly two years later, there is no word on who was responsible, and Bangladesh Bank has been able to retrieve only about $15 million, mostly from a Manila…


Ford to Test New Self-driving Vehicle Technology in 2018

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Ford Motor Co will begin testing its latest self-driving vehicle technology next year in at least one city but has not changed its plan to begin commercial production until 2021, the company said. The automaker said on Thursday that it would test self-driving prototypes in various pilot programs with partners such as Lyft, the ride services company in which rival General Motors owns a minority stake, and Domino's Pizza. However, Ford has still not decided whether to operate its own on-demand transportation service. New business models In a blog post, Jim Farley, president of global markets, said Ford also would test new business models that involve its self-driving vehicles, including the movement of people and goods. GM unveiled plans last week to introduce its own on-demand ride-sharing service in several…


Report: Ethiopia Targeted Dissidents, Journalists With International Spyware Attacks 

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Since 2016, the Ethiopian government has targeted dissidents and journalists in nearly two dozen countries with spyware provided by an Israeli software company, according to a new report from Citizen Lab, a research and development group at the University of Toronto. Once their computers are infected, victims of the attack can be monitored covertly whenever they browse the web, the report says. Based on an in-depth analysis of the methods used to trick victims into installing the software, Citizen Lab concluded that “agencies of the Ethiopian government” deployed the spyware to target individuals critical of their policies.  More than 40 devices in 20 countries were infected, according to Citizen Lab’s research. It’s unknown how many individuals might have been targeted. ​Full access Citizen Lab’s report found that attackers used email…


Bitcoin Worth Millions Stolen Days Before US Exchange Opens

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A bitcoin mining company in Slovenia has been hacked for the possible theft of tens of millions of dollars, just days before the virtual currency, which hit a record above $15,000 on Thursday, is due to start trading on major U.S. exchanges. NiceHash, a company that mines bitcoins on behalf of customers, said it is investigating a security breach and will stop operating for 24 hours while it verifies how many bitcoins were taken. Research company Coindesk said that a wallet address referred to by NiceHash users indicates that about 4,700 bitcoins had been stolen. At Thursday's record price of about $15,000, that puts the value at over $70 million. There was no immediate response from NiceHash to an emailed request for more details. “The incident has been reported to…


7 Years in Prison for Former Top Volkswagen Manager  

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A federal judge in Michigan has sentenced a former high-level Volkswagen manager to seven years in prison for his part in the scheme to cheat emissions tests and defraud consumers. Oliver Schmidt has also been fined $400,000. He pleaded guilty in August to charges that included defrauding the United States and violating the Clean Air Act. “This sentence reflects how seriously we take environmental crime,” Acting U.S. Attorney Daniel Lemisch said Wednesday. “Protecting national resources is a priority of this office. Corporations and individuals acting on behalf of corporations will be brought to justice for harming our environment.” Schmidt was the general manager of Volkswagen’s U.S. Environment and Engineering office. He admitted knowing about and agreeing with engineers to carry out a scheme to install a device on certain VW…


China’s Ofo Joins Crowded Paris Bike-share Market

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China's Ofo launched its dockless bicycles in Paris on Wednesday, becoming the fourth bike-sharing plan operator in a city set to banish all combustion-engine cars by 2030. Ofo France general manager Laurent Kennel told Reuters the firm, one of two bike-sharing giants in China, had put just over 100 of its bright yellow bicycles on Paris roads on Wednesday and plans to ramp that up to 1,000 bikes by year-end. Ofo comes hot on the wheels of Hong Kong-owned Gobee.bike, which launched in October and whose bright green bikes, estimated at a few thousand, can be seen on every Paris street. A third Asian player, Singapore-owned oBike, has a few hundred bikes on Paris streets, and will also compete with the city's long-established Velib plan. Unlike the dockless Asian bikes,…


Climate ‘Refugees,’ Sidelined From Global Deal, Ask: ‘Where Is the Justice?’

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Vulnerable communities uprooted by climate change are being left out of a voluntary pact to deal with migration, campaigners said, after the United States pulled out of the global deal. Although people within low-lying states are being forced to relocate because of worsening storms and rising seas, they will not be recognized in U.N. migration pact talks next year, putting lives at risk, campaigners said. "Many of the situations we find ourselves in, here in the Pacific, are not caused by us. We continue to ask, 'Where is the justice?' Those of us who are least responsible, continue to bear the brunt," said Emele Duituturaga, head of the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (PIANGO). Hoping for acceptance "We hope that there will be an openness and an acceptance that climate-induced…


Driverless Buses Take to Some Roads in California

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Imagine the day you board a bus and it starts moving. It obeys all traffic signs and stops at signal lights. All without a driver. That’s the future, happening right now at a business park in Northern California. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us on what’s probably your first ride on a driverless shuttle bus. ...


Apple CEO Hopeful Banned Apps Will Return to China Store

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Apple's chief executive said Wednesday he's optimistic some apps that fell afoul of China's tight internet laws will eventually be restored after being removed earlier this year. Speaking at a business forum in southern China, CEO Tim Cook also dismissed criticism of his appearance days earlier at an internet conference promoting Beijing's vison of a censored internet. Cook's high-profile appearance Sunday at the government-organized World Internet Conference drew comments from activists and U.S. politicians who say Apple should do more to push back against Chinese internet restrictions. He said he believed strongly in freedoms but also thought that foreign companies need to play by local rules where they operate. When asked about Chinese government policies requiring removal of apps, including ones from operators of virtual private networks that can get…


Flourishing Esports Eye Olympic Games Link for Extra Boost

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Booming esports do not need the Olympics to maintain their explosive growth, but a link with the world's biggest multisports event would validate gaming worldwide and give the Games a much-needed younger audience, industry leaders say. Esports, the competitive side of electronic gaming, have an estimated 250 million players, more than several of the traditional Olympic sports federations combined. The market is also worth about $1 billion dollars a year and growing, with lucrative tournaments springing up across the world and professional teams competing for huge prize money in front of millions of mainly young viewers online. "This will be the biggest sport in the world within 20 years," said Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell, whose company has been making computer and gaming equipment for decades and is now riding the…


France’s War on Waste Makes It Most Food Sustainable Country

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A war on food waste in France, where supermarkets are banned from throwing away unsold food and restaurants must provide doggy bags when asked, has helped it secure the top spot in a ranking of countries by their food sustainability. Japan, Germany, Spain and Sweden rounded out the top five in an index published the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which graded 34 nations based on food waste, environment-friendly agriculture and quality nutrition. It is "unethical and immoral" to waste resources when hundreds of millions go hungry across the world, Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, said at the launch of the Food Sustainability Index 2017 on Tuesday. "We are all responsible, every person and every country," he said in the Italian city of Milan, according to a…


Analysts: Maduro’s Cryptocurrency to Fare No Better Than Venezuela Itself

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Venezuela's plan to create an oil-backed cryptocurrency faces the same credibility problems that dog the ruling Socialist Party in financial markets and is unlikely to fare any better than the struggling OPEC member itself, investors and technical experts say. President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday floated a plan to create the "petro" that would be backed by the world's largest crude reserves, amid a crippling economic crisis worsened by U.S. sanctions that limit Venezuela's capacity to borrow money. Cryptocurrencies rely on confidence in clear rules and equal treatment of all involved, three experts said, adding that Venezuela is widely seen as flouting basic property rights and mismanaging its existing bolivar currency. Without such confidence, the "petro" would neither help Venezuela raise funds nor help it avoid sanctions levied by the government…


White House Denies Reports Trump Financial Records Subpoenaed

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The White House on Tuesday strongly denied that the special prosecutor looking into alleged Russian interference in last year’s election has asked a German bank for records relating to accounts held by Donald Trump and his family members. “We’ve confirmed this with the bank and other sources” that it is not true, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters during the daily briefing. “I think this is another example of the media going too far, too fast and we don’t see it going in that direction.” A member of the president’s legal team, Jay Sekulow, issued a statement that “no subpoena has been issued or received.” Deutsche Bank However, Deutsche Bank appears to be acknowledging there has been a related request, saying it “takes its legal obligations seriously…


‘Smart Bags’ May Not Fly If Battery Cannot Be Removed

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"Smart suitcases" may be able to charge mobile phones or be easily found if misplaced, but unless their battery can be removed they risk being sent packing by the world's airlines. Global airlines body IATA said it could issue industry-wide standards on the new luggage soon, after some U.S. airlines issued their own restrictions on smart bags, whose manufacturers include companies such as BlueSmart, Raden or Away. These contain GPS tracking and can charge devices, weigh themselves or be locked remotely using mobile phones, but they are powered by lithium ion batteries, which the aviation industry regards as a fire risk, especially in the cargo hold. "We expect guidance to be issued potentially this week," Nick Careen, IATA senior vice president of airport, passenger, cargo and security, told a media…


YouTube Says Over 10,000 Workers Will Help Curb Shady Videos

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YouTube says it's hiring more people to help curb videos that violate its policies. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki says "some bad actors are exploiting" the Google-owned service to "mislead, manipulate, harass or even harm." She says Google will have more than 10,000 workers address the problem by next year, though her blog post Monday doesn't say how many the company already has. Wojcicki says YouTube will also use technology to flag "problematic" videos or comments that show hate speech or harm to children. It's already used to remove violent extremist videos. YouTube is also taking steps to try to reassure advertisers that their ads won't run next to gross videos. There have been reports of creepy videos aimed at children and pedophiles posting comments on children's videos in recent weeks.…