'Experience' Tourism Brings New Travelers to Africa

  Travel industry leaders say African tourism is moving away from traditional safaris and group tours and closer to the idea of "experiences." Internet-based home-sharing service Airbnb is just one of several businesses competing for the African tourism market. Chris Lehane is head of global policy at Airbnb. He says the service has grown in the past year. It sold two million bookings in Africa this year. Lehane says the new area of growth is travel experiences. In Nairobi, Kenya, for example, people can pay $65 to make a short film with a local director.  South Africa's Western Cape area is popular with tourists. For about $100, someone going there can take a guided bicycle tour, go to a wine-tasting event, or attend a class in jewelry-making.  Lehane says this suggests what is to come. "Fifty-six percent of travelers are millennials. They're looking for real, authentic experiences."  World traveler Cherae Robinson had that same hunger for true-to-life travel experiences. In 2014, at age 30, she launched a travel website called Tastemakers Africa. Her website offers many experiences for tourists. There are $3,000 ‘all-in’ tour programs, with a number of experiences included. And, there are shorter experiences that last a few hours and cost an average of $77. "People don't want cookie cutter.... Nobody wants to be crammed into a tour bus. People are looking for authenticity in their lives in general." Lehane has high hopes for African tourism. For example, in the past two years, Mexico City has grown quickly as a popular stop for travelers after not being one for years. "And, by the way, after not being one for some of the same questions that people will raise about places in Africa. But it exploded because of the art scene, food scene, history…" He adds that visitors can easily walk around at least 10 African cities with a nice mix of artwork, good food and history. He says such attractions will likely make them huge travel destinations. Robinson says her favorite city is Accra, Ghana's lively capital. "We see Accra as the perfect marriage of, sort of, what we think of a sort of traditional West African culture with very modern vibes attached to it," she said. "And so, from art to entertainment to music to fashion, it all can be found in Accra." In many ways, Accra is the center of these things, she says. Lehane and Robinson say their goal is to provide travel that will not grow outdated and that supports local people. They want to avoid "poverty tourism" – travelers visiting poor neighborhoods --as this rarely helps communities.  Lehane says Airbnb is investing $1 million to build tourism projects in poorer neighborhoods, beginning in Cape Town, South Africa. The local communities will lead the projects. Tastemakers Africa tour hosts are already all local people. Heather Mason is a travel writer and photographer who lives in South Africa. She says while tourists cannot avoid the economic inequity in parts of Africa, they can treat these places with respect.  "I think every place, in every city, can be a tourist attraction and it should not matter whether the people living there are rich or poor." Mason says there is value in the decisions tour operates make. "I think you can definitely get that wrong really easily. If there's people are on tours through townships or what people might call a slum, and you do not have local guides, and you don't brief participants in the tour how to be respectful, then you can run into problems." Mason's heart, she says, is in Johannesburg – South Africa's large economic center. Some tourists avoid the city, however, because they think crime will be a problem. But Mason says go a little deeper and you will find wonderful choices for things to see, do, taste and hear. And these things are an example of the colorful experiences that are life and the new face of travel in Africa.    I'm Alice Bryant.   Anita Powell reported this story for VOA News. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   booking – n. an arrangement to have something, such as a reservation, held for your use at a later time millennial – n. a person who was born in the 1980s or 1990s cookie cutter – adj. lacking individuality cram – v. to push or force someone or something into a space that is tight or crowded vibe – n. a feeling that a person or place gives you slum – n. an area of a city where poor people live and the buildings are in bad condition  

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English in a Minute: Bend Over Backwards

Bending over backwards is physically difficult. But what does this idiom mean?

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The Harvey Weinstein Effect

The downfall of movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been quick and decisive. The increasing spread of the so-called “Harvey Effect” has been quick, as well. It started in Hollywood, when the first accusations of sexual abuse against Weinstein appeared in media reports. It soon spread to other industries, with the help of the hashtag #metoo. Women, and some men, publicly reported stories of sexual abuse by powerful people. The accused have included famous moviemakers, actors, news media leaders, writers and American presidents. Most recently, it spread to the British government. Prime Minister Theresa May this week called for changes in the way Parliament deals with reports of sexual harassment or worse. Her statement was in answer to reports that some British lawmakers had sexually harassed their employees or other people. And on Wednesday, Michael Fallon resigned as Britain’s defense secretary, following reports of inappropriate sexual behavior. Weinstein Weinstein was among the most powerful moviemakers in Hollywood. His popular, and Academy Award-winning films over the last 30 years, include "Shakespeare in Love," "Pulp Fiction," and "Good Will Hunting.” He ran Miramax Films and later the Weinstein Company with his brother, Bob Weinstein. On October 5, the New York Times newspaper wrote about Weinstein’s reported history of harassing and assaulting women. Several women, including actress Ashley Judd, told the Times that Weinstein used his industry influence to try to gain sexual favors. The accusations dated back more than 30 years. The women said they believed refusing Weinstein and reporting the actions would have hurt their careers in Hollywood. Judd said in the Times report, “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.” Now, one month later, more than 50 women have accused Weinstein. Thirteen say he raped them. Weinstein has been dismissed from the company he created. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has expelled him. The Producers Guild of America, a labor union, did the same. And many actors have sharply criticized him, even those whose careers he helped launch. The New York Police Department, Los Angeles Police Department and London’s Metropolitan Police are all reportedly investigating him. Anita Hill Public accusations of sexual harassment or assault do not always lead to decisive action. In October of 1991, an American lawyer named Anita Hill testified that her former boss, Clarence Thomas, had sexually harassed her. Hill appeared at a Senate confirmation hearing for Thomas, who was a nominee to serve on the United States Supreme Court. ​ Hill told the senators the incidents had taken place 10 years earlier in her employment at two government agencies. Thomas denied the accusations. He and his supporters said the accusations were politically motivated to block him from the Supreme Court. The Senate debated the nomination and confirmed it. Clarence Thomas remains a Supreme Court Justice today. However, the event changed how the country defined and discussed sexual harassment. Hill told the Associated Press on October 14 that she is impressed by the attention being paid to sexual harassment following the Weinstein story. Yet, she said, progress on the issue had been slow. “This case may be bigger than some in the past, but I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think that everything is going to change overnight from one episode, even as big as this one,” Hill said. #MeToo As the number of Weinstein accusations grew, American actress Alyssa Milano asked her followers on social media for help. She wrote on Twitter on October 15, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘Me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” Her aim was to show that sexual abuse is common. As of October 24, Twitter had recorded more than 1.7 million #MeToo tweets from more than 80 countries. The hashtag brought strength in numbers, and helped embolden people to share their stories of assault publicly. The “Harvey Effect” More and more women, and some men, continue to accuse well-known and powerful people. The accusers include Isa Hackett, a producer for the Amazon show Man in the High Castle. She told The Hollywood Reporter trade magazine that Amazon Studios leader, Roy Price, repeatedly asked her for sex in July of 2015. The story was published October 12. A few days later, Price resigned from his job. This week, NBC News dismissed Mark Halperin, a top reporter on American politics after several women accused him of sexual wrongdoing. ​ In a CNN report last week, one woman said Halperin told her she would never work in media or politics after she refused to kiss him. And, earlier this week, American actor Anthony Rapp publicly accused Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey of sexual abuse. Rapp said when he was 14 years old Spacey attempted to have sex with him. The accusation was published on the news site BuzzFeed. Spacey posted a statement on Twitter a few hours later. He said he did not remember the incident and was horrified to hear of it. He said “if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology….”  Spacey currently stars in the popular Netflix series House of Cards. Netflix announced Tuesday that it has suspended production of the show’s final season. It also said it is “deeply troubled” by the reports. Others have since come forward with sexual harassment accusations against Spacey.  Also this week, two women accused actor Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment. The first, Anna Graham Hunter, described in The Hollywood Reporter several incidents she said took place in 1985, when she was a 17-year-old production assistant. Hoffman said in a statement he is sorry that, in his words, “anything I might have done [that] could have put her in an uncomfortable situation…It is not reflective of who I am.” Hours later, another woman, writer/producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis said Hoffman harassed her in 1991. She said she had been invited to meet with him and a producer to discuss making a play she had written. She said Hoffman made sexual comments and tried to get her to go to a hotel with him. She said when she refused the producer told her they had no interest in her play. American presidents Five women recently accused former U.S. President George H. W. Bush of sexual assault. American television actress Heather Lind was the first accuser. Using the hashtag #MeToo, Lind wrote on Instagram that Bush touched her inappropriately while she was taking a photo with him. After a second woman came forward with similar accusations, the former president’s office explained that because Bush is in a wheelchair, his arms fall near the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures.” It added that the 95-year old former president has often “patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Other American presidents, including Bill Clinton and current office holder Donald Trump, have also faced accusations of sexual wrongdoing. British Parliament What started in Hollywood may now be playing out in British politics, as well. A political website called Guido Fawkes reported Monday that assistants to Britain’s Conservative Party politicians had created a list of 36 lawmakers accused of inappropriate sexual behavior. Conservative Party leader Andrea Leadsom said that Parliament has “zero tolerance” for inappropriate behavior among lawmakers. She added that changes would be made to how people can report cases of sexual harassment at Parliament. And International Trade Minister Mark Garnier admitted to asking his assistant to buy sex objects for him in 2010. The story from the former employee was reported in the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday. British Prime Minister Teresa May has called for an investigation into whether Garnier broke the ministerial code of conduct. On Wednesday, following a series of accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon sent his letter of resignation to May. May wrote of the growing issue this week. “I do not believe that this situation can be tolerated any longer. It is simply not fair on staff, many of whom are young and in their first job,” she wrote. I’m Caty Weaver.   And I’m Ashley Thompson.   Ashley Thompson wrote this story based on several reports by the Associated Press and Reuters. Caty Weaver was the editor.  ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   harass - v. to annoy or bother (someone) in a constant or repeated way assault  - v. to violently attack (someone or something) conversation - n. an informal talk involving two people or a small group of people boss - n.  the person whose job is to tell other workers what to do kid oneself - v. to fail to admit the truth to yourself : to deceive yourself episode - n.  an event or a short period of time that is important or unusual embolden - v.   to make (someone) more confident suspend - v.  to stop (something) for a usually short period of time inappropriately - adv. done in a way that is not right or suited for some purpose or situation rear  - n.  the part of your body that you sit on intend - v.   to have (something) in your mind as a purpose or goal tolerance - n. the ability to accept, experience, or survive something harmful or unpleasant conduct -  - n. the way that a person behaves in a particular place or situation  

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Working to Save Lives When a Tsunami Strikes

  November 5 is United Nations Tsunami Awareness Day. Tsunami is a Japanese word for a long, destructive ocean wave caused by an undersea earthquake. The goal of the observance is to learn from disasters of the past and to prepare for the future. Two tsunamis in the last 15 years have changed the way people around the world think about these destructive events. On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9 earthquake near the coast of Indonesia caused tsunami waves that struck the coasts of four countries. An estimated 230,000 people died and costs were in the billions of dollars. One school girl from a Pacific island nation described a tsunami this way: “like a monster, it destroys everything.” The event forced officials to develop a better tsunami warning system. Bulgaria’s U.N. Ambassador Georgi Velikov Panayotov was on vacation with his wife in Thailand in 2004 and survived the tsunami. He warned there is nothing you can do to stop a tsunami. But he said, “What we can do is build early warning systems and, of course, educating the population about the devastating power of the tsunami wave.” After the event in Indonesia, many countries believed they were prepared if a tsunami struck. Devastation in northeastern Japan Then, on March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in that country.   More than 18,000 people died. The tsunami also caused serious damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power center on the island of Honshu. At the time, the nuclear center was Japan’s biggest. The human cost of the disaster was huge. The tsunami of 2011 also is one of the most costly disasters in history. Several nuclear reactors were severely damaged and leaked radiation. Clean up efforts continue to this day. Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Koro Bessho said, before the 2011 earthquake, “People thought that we were prepared for it.” But he said officials had expected an event that “hits every 100 years and the earthquake was of the size of possibly every 500 years or one thousand years.” Efforts look to early warning, preparation   The two events caused people in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas to study and improve preparedness for disasters. This led to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in 2015 in Sendai, Japan. The agreement was a U.N. effort to raise awareness about disaster risks and to urge countries to assess how well they were prepared for them. Willem Rampangilei is head of the Disaster Management Agency in Indonesia. He said Indonesia passed a law on disaster management after the 2004 tsunami. It led in 2008 to the creation of his agency. “Our responsibilities include mitigation and preparedness, emergency response, as well as post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction,” he said. He adds that 150 million Indonesians are at risk from earthquakes, 60 million from floods and four million from tsunamis. After the 2004 waves, a Tsunami Warning System was put in place. It provides three regional watch centers in India, Indonesia, and Australia. There also are 26 national tsunami information centers throughout the area. As a result, Banda Aceh received warnings eight minutes after an earthquake in 2012. No deaths were reported. Preparedness has spread beyond Asia. There are now early warning systems in place for the Caribbean Sea, the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas. Educating young people early on This week, the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, held an early warning exercise involving 15 countries in the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean. The group is studying local plans to deal with a tsunami emergency. In countries where there is a risk of a tsunami, officials are aiming to teach children from an early age so they know how to react.   Children are taught to shelter in place until an earthquake passes. Then, they are to go with classmates to higher ground away from coastal areas and possibly deadly sea waves. Japan is sharing its knowledge by assisting with evacuation exercises in schools in 18 countries. Next week, Japan is holding an event for high school students from 25 nations. It is aimed at teaching about tsunami risks and life-saving measures in such an event. Japan’s Tohoku University joined with Japanese companies to publish a report on the risks of tsunamis around the world. By studying historical records, researchers found big differences between tsunamis. They also found that the height of a wave had little to do with its destructive force. Improved building codes can save lives Countries that have been hit by tsunamis have learned that better building requirements can save lives and limit damage.   Chile is a country that has learned this first hand. In February 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck the country also causing a powerful tsunami. About 525 people died. Four years later, another earthquake of 8.4 magnitude, struck. This time, 15 people were killed in the quake, but no one died in the following tsunami. Diplomat Jorge Iglesias Mori said measures to improve building standards had been carried out in the four years. “Building codes were strengthened,” he said. He added that the country put more resources into early warning systems, education, and exercises. He also said Chile worked with Japan in sharing knowledge and experience. I’m Mario Ritter. And I’m Alice Bryant.   Margaret Besheer reported this story for VOA News. Mario Ritter adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   magnitude –n. a measure of the force of an earthquake devastating –adj. causing great damage awareness –n. the state of knowing about something assess –v. to study and make a judgment mitigation –n. making an effort to reduce the bad effects of something, like a flood or earthquake rehabilitation –n. a process of recovery, bringing someone or something back to its former state or health evacuation –n. the act of moving people out of a place because of some emergency We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

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'Luck,' by Mark Twain

  Our story today is called "Luck."  It was written by Mark Twain. Here is Shep O’Neal with the story.   I was at a dinner in London given in honor of one of the most celebrated English military men of his time. I do not want to tell you his real name and titles. I will just call him Lieutenant General Lord Arthur Scoresby. I cannot describe my excitement when I saw this great and famous man. There he sat, the man himself, in person, all covered with medals. I could not take my eyes off him. He seemed to show the true mark of greatness. His fame had no effect on him. The hundreds of eyes watching him, the worship of so many people, did not seem to make any difference to him. Next to me sat a clergyman, who was an old friend of mine. He was not always a clergyman. During the first half of his life he was a teacher in the military school at Woolwich. There was a strange look in his eye as he leaned toward me and whispered – “Privately – he is a complete fool.” He meant, of course, the hero of our dinner. This came as a shock to me. I looked hard at my friend. I could not have been more surprised if he had said the same thing about Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon. But I was sure of two things about the clergyman. He always spoke the truth. And, his judgment of men was good. Therefore, I wanted to find out more about our hero as soon as I could. Some days later I got a chance to talk with the clergyman, and he told me more.  These are his exact words: About forty years ago, I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich, when young Scoresby was given his first examination. I felt extremely sorry for him.  Everybody answered the questions well, intelligently, while he – why, dear me – he did not know anything, so to speak. He was a nice, pleasant young man. It was painful to see him stand there and give answers that were miracles of stupidity. I knew of course that when examined again he would fail and be thrown out. So, I said to myself, it would be a simple, harmless act to help him as much as I could. I took him aside and found he knew a little about Julius Caesar’s history. But, he did not know anything else. So, I went to work and tested him and worked him like a slave. I made him work, over and over again, on a few questions about Caesar, which I knew he would be asked. If you will believe me, he came through very well on the day of the examination.  He got high praise too, while others who knew a thousand times more than he were sharply criticized. By some strange, lucky accident, he was asked no questions but those I made him study. Such an accident does not happen more than once in a hundred years. Well, all through his studies, I stood by him, with the feeling a mother has for a disabled child. And he always saved himself by some miracle. I thought that what in the end would destroy him would be the mathematics examination.  I decided to make his end as painless as possible. So, I pushed facts into his stupid head for hours. Finally, I let him go to the examination to experience what I was sure would be his dismissal from school. Well, sir, try to imagine the result. I was shocked out of my mind. He took first prize! And he got the highest praise. I felt guilty day and night – what I was doing was not right. But I only wanted to make his dismissal a little less painful for him. I never dreamed it would lead to such strange, laughable results. I thought that sooner or later one thing was sure to happen: The first real test once he was through school would ruin him. Then, the Crimean War broke out. I felt that sad for him that there had to be a war.  Peace would have given this donkey a chance to escape from ever being found out as being so stupid. Nervously, I waited for the worst to happen. It did. He was appointed an officer.  A captain, of all things! Who could have dreamed that they would place such a responsibility on such weak shoulders as his. I said to myself that I was responsible to the country for this. I must go with him and protect the nation against him as far as I could. So, I joined up with him. And away we went to the field. And there – oh dear, it was terrible. Mistakes, fearful mistakes – why, he never did anything that was right – nothing but mistakes. But, you see, nobody knew the secret of how stupid he really was. Everybody misunderstood his actions. They saw his stupid mistakes as works of great intelligence. They did, honestly! His smallest mistakes made a man in his right mind cry, and shout and scream too – to himself, of course. And what kept me in a continual fear was the fact that every mistake he made increased his glory and fame. I kept saying to myself that when at last they find out about him, it will be like the sun falling out of the sky. He continued to climb up, over the dead bodies of his superiors. Then, in the hottest moment of one battle down went our colonel. My heart jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was the next in line to take his place. Now, we are in for it, I said… The battle grew hotter. The English and their allies were steadily retreating all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was extremely important. One mistake now would bring total disaster. And what did Scoresby do this time – he just mistook his left hand for his right hand…that was all. An order came for him to fall back and support our right. Instead, he moved forward and went over the hill to the left. We were over the hill before this insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find? A large and unsuspected Russian army waiting! And what happened – were we all killed? That is exactly what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred.  But no – those surprised Russians thought that no one regiment by itself would come around there at such a time.   It must be the whole British army, they thought. They turned tail, away they went over the hill and down into the field in wild disorder, and we after them. In no time, there was the greatest turn around you ever saw. The allies turned defeat into a sweeping and shining victory. The allied commander looked on, his head spinning with wonder, surprise and joy.  He sent right off for Scoresby, and put his arms around him and hugged him on the field in front of all the armies. Scoresby became famous that day as a great military leader – honored throughout the world. That honor will never disappear while history books last. He is just as nice and pleasant as ever, but he still does not know enough to come in out of the rain. He is the stupidest man in the universe. Until now, nobody knew it but Scoresby and myself. He has been followed, day by day, year by year, by a strange luck. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for years.  He has filled his whole military life with mistakes. Every one of them brought him another honorary title. Look at his chest, flooded with British and foreign medals. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of some great stupidity or other. They are proof that the best thing that can happen to a man is to be born lucky. I say again, as I did at the dinner, Scoresby’s a complete fool. Download activities to help you understand this story here. Now it's your turn to use the words in this story. Have you ever had a teacher help you in a special or unusual way? What was that experience like? Let us know in the comments section or on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________ QUIZ   ​ _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   ally– n. (pl. allies) a country that supports and helps another country in a war disabled – adj. having a physical or mental disability : unable to perform one or more natural activities (such as walking or seeing) because of illness, injury, etc. dismiss – v. to send away; to refuse to consider dismissal – n. the act of sending a person away (from a position at work or in a school) join up – (idiom) enlist in the military service superiors – n. a person of higher rank or status than another

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Social Media Companies Criticized over Russian Interference

  United States lawmakers questioned representatives of Facebook, Twitter and Google over Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. The U.S. congress is investigating how Russia used the companies’ internet services to spread disinformation during the election. Congress also asked how the companies planned to stop the misuse of their services in the future. Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina spoke to lawyers from the three companies at a hearing on Wednesday. He said media reports suggested that Russian-linked Facebook advertisements “directly influenced the election’s outcome.” The reports claim Russian government agents spent as much as $100,000 on Facebook advertisements. “You must do better to protect the American people and…all of your users from this kind of manipulation,” Burr said. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California argued that social media companies are responsible for the material placed on their websites. Fienstein expressed anger over the reports and suggested that lawmakers may take action. She said, “You’ve created these platforms, and now they are being misused. And you have to be the ones to do something about it – or we will.” Facebook, Instagram and Twitter identified some of the material that has been connected to Russian agents. Democratic Party members on the House Intelligence Committee showed examples of this material during the hearings. The advertisements, videos and tweets covered topics including race, immigration, Islam, and issues of sexual identity. Facebook, Twitter and Google have admitted that agents connected to Russia used false accounts on their sites throughout 2015 and 2016. They used the accounts and other methods to spread false advertisements and messages designed to make people angry. Facebook lawyer Colin Stretch told lawmakers last Wednesday that Russian-backed posts on his company’s site reached millions of Americans. Lawyers for all three companies stated that they take the problem seriously and are aggressively fighting it. Sean Edgett, a lawyer for Twitter, repeated a statement he made to the Senate Judiciary Committee one day earlier. He said the company has studied all the posts on its site from September 1 to November 15, 2016. Edgett said Twitter has suspended 2,752 accounts suspected of Russian links. Colin Stretch said that false advertisements “were a very small fraction of the overall content on Facebook. He said, however, that the company was taking measures to improve. “We’re hiring more ad reviewers, doubling or more our security engineering efforts, putting in place tighter content restrictions,” he said. Stretch added that buyers of political ads would have to provide documentation about themselves. The House Select Committee also met on the issue A few hours after meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, the companies’ lawyers met with the House Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the same issue. Republicans on that committee mainly discussed information from the websites showing when the Russian disinformation efforts began. The information showed that these efforts started before the Republican Party nominated Donald Trump as its presidential candidate. Senator James Risch of Idaho said, “This is a whole lot broader than simply the 2016 election. Google’s lawyer Kent Walker agreed. He said, “The large majority of the material we saw was socially divisive rather than electoral advocacy.” However, some Democrats disagreed. Representative Adam Schiff of California said Russian ads targeted stories about Hillary Clinton’s health and legal problems. Some Democrats also accused the technology businesses of being slow to recognize and combat the threat. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said the big social media companies have a lot of information about Americans. “And the idea that you had no idea that any of this was happening strains my credibility,” he said. Both the House and Senate intelligence committees are holding yearlong investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Reports from both are expected at a future date. Members of both parties in the Senate have introduced legislation to deal with the problem. The bills would require internet-based services to confirm and make public the identities of those buying political advertising. U.S. broadcasters are already required to do that. I’m ­Jonathan Evans.   Joshua Fatzick, Michael Bowman and Katherine Gypson reported this for VOA News. Pete Musto adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. How should governments hold internet-based services responsible for the material users post on their sites? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   disinformation – n. false information that is given to people in order to make them believe something or to hide the truth agent(s) – n. a person who tries to get secret information about another country, government manipulation – n. the act of controlling someone or something in a clever and usually unfair or selfish way social media – n. forms of electronic communication, such as Web sites, through which people create online communities to share information, ideas, and personal messages platform(s) – n. something that allows someone to tell a large number of people about an idea or product fraction – n. a part or amount of something content – n. the ideas, facts, or images that are in a book, article, speech, movie or website advocacy – n. the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal strain(s) – v. to cause problems or trouble for something credibility – n. the quality of being believed or accepted as true, real, or honest

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Origami Space Technology Combines Art, Design, Science

  Since he was eight years old, Robert Salazar has been making artistic creations from folded paper. Now, he is taking his love of origami to a different place: outer space. Salazar works with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the United States space agency NASA. He says that ideas from origami can help design devices for research and exploration: "Origami offers the potential to take a very large structure, even a vast structure, and you can get it to fit within the rocket, go up, then deploy back out again. So it greatly magnifies what we are capable of building in space." Researchers are using ideas from origami on several space agency projects. Starshade Manan Arya is a technologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is working on a project called Starshade. The project's goal is to fit a large object into a rocket. Once the rocket reaches the correct point in space, the Starshade opens like a flower. This large flower shape is meant to block light to permit a space telescope to better see areas close to bright stars. Starshade, Arya says, can be used to look for planets that orbit other stars. "Seeing an exoplanet next to its parent star is like trying to image a firefly next to a search light, the searchlight being the star. Starshade seeks to block out that starlight so you can image a really faint exoplanet right next to it." Other uses: a Robot and an Antenna Researchers are also using ideas from origami to design a robot and a special antenna for satellites. The robot is called the Pop-up Flat Folding Explorer Robot, or PUFFER. It can fold itself flat to get into small spaces. Salazar says the robot can explore environments "otherwise inaccessible" to a robot. It could even be used to explore cave systems on our own planet, he adds. Antennas on satellites capture and send communications signals. Arya notes that the idea behind the special antenna's design is to pack it into very small satellites that are known as CubeSats. Arya says it is very useful to be able to fit large antennas into a small space: "The bigger the antenna you have, the more gain your antenna has, so it is useful to have a big antenna that gets packaged into this tiny space that unfolds out to be a large antenna. The biggest CubeSat antennas we have right now are about half a meter." NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory origami-based technologies have a graceful beauty.  In origami, Salazar said, art, science and engineering only have small differences. I'm John Russell.   Elizabeth Lee reported on this story for VOA News. John Russell adapted it for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   origami – n. the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes that look like birds, animals, etc. deploy –v. : to open up and spread out the parts of (something, such as a parachute) exoplanet – n. a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system. inaccessible – adj. difficult or impossible to reach, approach, or understand : not accessible technologist – n. someone who is an expert in technology

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November 3, 2017

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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What it Takes - Desmond Tutu

00:00:02     OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.   00:00:08     ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.   00:00:14     LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.   00:00:19     DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.   00:00:27     CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.”   00:00:35     JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.   00:00:40     JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.   00:00:53     DESMOND TUTU: I have an easy name, Tutu, and any European can say, any American can say, “Tutu.”   00:01:00     ALICE WINKLER: That would be Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa trying to humbly argue here that his name had something to do with why he was chosen for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.   00:01:15     DESMOND TUTU: Whereas if I had been something like “Matashavalla,” that might have made it a little more difficult.   00:01:21     ALICE WINKLER: Well, anyone who knows anything about South Africa knows that “Tutu” was more than just an easy and fun-to-say name. The archbishop was one of the leading forces behind the dismantling of apartheid. The Nobel Prize he received that year energized the movement against apartheid worldwide, but it would be another ten years before that brutal system of segregation was finally buried in the dung heap of history.   00:01:53     DESMOND TUTU: I never should have doubted that, ultimately, we were going to be free because, ultimately, I knew there was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life. What, I have to say, really bowled me over was how quickly the change happened when it happened.   00:02:25     I mean how quickly it came, because one moment, Nelson Mandela is in jail, and the next moment, he's walking a free man. One moment, we are shackled as the oppressed of apartheid, the next, we are voting for the very first time. I was 63 when I voted for the first time in my life in the country of my birth. Nelson Mandela was 76 years of age, but it happened. It happened.   00:03:01     ALICE WINKLER: Welcome to another episode of What It Takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement. And I'm going to insert a little plug here. Please, follow us on Twitter. Our handle is @WhatItTakesNow. Thanks. When I dipped into the Academy's archive this week, I discovered several interviews with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and several speeches, all recorded between 2002 and 2007.   00:03:30     Listening to the hours of tape, I was kind of overwhelmed that this icon of freedom and justice, this fearless champion of what is right, is also a tremendously joyful and funny man. He often howls with laughter or squeals out an excited phrase, and he's always quick with a joke or a hilarious metaphor, even when he's talking about the most sacred stories in Christianity.   00:03:58     DESMOND TUTU: Knock, knock. Who's there?   00:04:02     Gabriel.              Gabriel who?   00:04:05     Gabriel the Archangel.   00:04:09     Hi, Mary.   00:04:12     Hi, Gabriel.   00:04:15     Mary?              Yes?   00:04:19     God would like you to be the mother of God's son. WHAT! 00:04:27     You know, in this village, you can't scratch yourself without everybody knowing about it, and you want —   00:04:34     And you want me to be what?   00:04:37     An unmarried mother! Sorry. I'm a decent girl. Try next door. I mean...!   00:04:46     We would have been in a real pickle.   00:04:48     ALICE WINKLER: The archbishop did not always know he was headed for a life in the Anglican Church, and he could never have predicted he'd help take down the apartheid system. Growing up, he said, oppression was just all around him, but it didn’t stop him from having a happy childhood.   00:05:06     DESMOND TUTU: It was fun. It was fun because I don't think, at the time, that you sat around and felt sorry for yourself. You had friends. You kicked a football around, you fought, and you had caring parents.   00:05:27     ALICE WINKLER: His father was a schoolmaster, and the schools for black South Africans were abysmal, so that was where Tutu began to recognize the inequities.   00:05:37     DESMOND TUTU: Yeah, we lived a segregated life. When you went to town where the whites lived, you saw their schools, much, much, much better in equipment, better grounds and, even more extraordinary — you see, I used to — my father bought me a bicycle, and I was about the only kid in the ghetto who had a bicycle, and he would send me into town.   00:06:13     And frequently I would see black kids scavenging in the dustbins of the schools, where they picked out perfectly okay apples and fruit. White kids were being provided with school feeding, government school feeding, but most of the time they didn't eat it. They preferred what their mommies gave them, and so they would dump the whole fruit into the dustbin.   00:06:53     And these kids, coming from a township, who needed free meals, didn't get them, and so they got — it was things that registered without your being aware that they were registering, and you're saying, there are these extraordinary inconsistencies in our lives.   00:07:16     ALICE WINKLER: Luckily for Tutu, his father taught him Aesop's Fables and the stories of Shakespeare, and let him devour comic books, which gave Tutu a lifelong love of reading. And the dedicated teachers at his school made all the difference, too, making him feel that the sky was the limit, even with all the obvious obstacles in view.   00:07:38     When Tutu was a freshman in high school, for instance, the school was so inadequate that four classes met at the same time in a church hall instead.   00:07:48     DESMOND TUTU: You had to have a teacher who was engrossing because you could hear what the teacher in the other class was saying, and if that was more interesting, your teacher really had his job cut out to keep your attention. And we didn't have desks. We sat on benches that were used on Sundays as the pews for the church, and you sat when the teacher was holding forth.   00:08:23     Then when you wrote, you knelt behind the bench, and where you had been sitting was now your desktop.   00:08:33     ALICE WINKLER: He could easily have become bitter, but quite early in life, Tutu says, he remembers getting his first inklings that all people have some essential humanity.   00:08:44     DESMOND TUTU: Human beings are odd. I would go to town, in part to go and buy newspapers for my father. And, before taking them home, I would spread them on the sidewalk, the pavement, and I would kneel to read. Now this is a racist town. I can't ever recall any day when a white person would walk across the face of the newspaper.   00:09:19     I mean I still am puzzled that they used to walk around this newspaper, with this black kid kneeling down there reading, when you would have expected that they would have made my life somewhat uncomfortable. I mean I cannot understand that particular inconsistency. It is, therefore, one of my memories that — now why, in the name of everything that is good, didn't those whites actually just be nasty? And they weren’t.   00:10:00     ALICE WINKLER: That was a powerful realization for young Desmond Tutu. Other revelations came soon after that would also shape who and what he would become.   00:10:10     DESMOND TUTU: I mean I recall, when I was about nine, picking up a tattered copy of Ebony magazine, and I think — I mean maybe journalists ought to know just how much power they actually have, because here I was, 10,000 miles away from America, with this copy of Ebony magazine, and it was describing the exploits of Jackie Robinson, and how he broke into major league baseball.   00:10:44     Now I didn't know baseball from ping pong, but what was so important for me, what made me grow inches, was to know that a black guy had triumphed over all of the obstacles that were placed in his way, and there he was now playing for something called Brooklyn Dodgers.   00:11:12     ALICE WINKLER: Whatever the Dodgers were, no matter, Tutu says. Reading that issue of Ebony helped him to exorcise the most awful consequence of racial injustice, what Tutu calls “the demon of self-hate.” Lena Horne helped him on that front too. When Archbishop Tutu met her later in life, he confessed he'd loved her since he was nine years old and had seen Stormy Weather, with its all-black cast.   00:11:51     ALICE WINKLER: Desmond Tutu had a pretty good sense — by the time he was nine, in other words — that he would not be limited by the story the apartheid system told about what his life was worth. He set his sights on becoming a doctor, and he might have become one, too, if his family had had the funds to pay for medical school. Instead, he went to a teacher-training college where he was able to get a scholarship. He ended up teaching back at his high school alma mater and was shaken by the conditions there.   00:12:21     The educational system for blacks was totally separate, of course, and was, to quote the archbishop, “the pits.” He often had four classes of 80 kids each.   00:12:34     DESMOND TUTU: I — yeah, I tried to be as what my teachers had been to me, to these kids, seeking to instill in them a pride; pride that said, “They may define you as so-and-so. You aren't that.”   00:13:02     “Make sure you prove them wrong by becoming what the potential in you says you can become.” And so I taught for four years. And it was fun; it was fun. But then I decided, no, I would not participate any longer as a collaborator, when the government decided that they were going to have something called Bantu education, an education specifically designed for blacks, and they made no bones about the fact that it was designed as education for perpetual serfdom.    00:13:51     Dr. Verwoerd said, "Why do you have to teach blacks mathematics?  What are they going to do with mathematics?  You must teach them enough English and Afrikaans" — the other white language, as it were — "for them to be able to understand instructions given to them by their white employers." He said that. I mean unabashedly.   00:14:20     That was the purpose, for him, of education.  So I said, "No, I'm sorry. I can't collaborate with such a travesty." But I didn't have too many alternatives, too many options to choose from, and then thought, "Maybe, well, it might just be that God is calling me to become a priest."   00:14:44     ALICE WINKLER: He was a gentle soul, interested in the pastoral duties of tending to his flock, and not really all that political, which is to say he didn’t feel a constant sense of outrage — yet. But then the year he was to be ordained, 1960, police opened fire on a protest against the pass laws that governed where blacks could and could not go. Sixty-nine people were killed. It became known as the Sharpeville Massacre, and it was a turning point.   00:15:15     The African National Congress and black South Africans, in general, were out of patience. They had tried a nonviolent approach for years.   00:15:25     DESMOND TUTU: You kept thinking that our white compatriots would hear — you know, would hear the pleas that were being made, moderate, really, in the kind of demands that they were making, but it was — it kept falling on deaf ears, and increasingly people felt that it was going to be more and more difficult to bring about these changes peacefully.   00:16:01     I mean even people like Nelson Mandela — I mean they were striving to work for those changes nonviolently, and it was 1960 that changed them.   00:16:15     ALICE WINKLER: The African National Congress was banned. The Pan Africanist Congress was banned. Nelson Mandela went to prison, and Desmond Tutu, well, he had gone to London to get a master's in theology, and then eventually he served as an assistant director at the World Council of Churches in London. It was while he was abroad, he says, that his views on religion and on activism began to shift and to align.   00:16:42     DESMOND TUTU: There was an evolution. I — one of my colleagues came from Latin America and espoused liberation theology, and so, one, was beginning to realize that The Scriptures were not as innocuous as people might have thought they were, that they are not meant to turn people into cattle and fodder.   00:17:16     They are not meant to be an opiate for the people.  They are actually dynamite.   00:17:23     ALICE WINKLER: When it was time to return home in 1975, Tutu was, as he says, sufficiently political. Although the church had appointed him dean of St. Mary's Cathedral in Johannesburg, he and his wife would have had to ask permission to live in town at the dean's residence. They wouldn't do it.   00:17:42     DESMOND TUTU: We said, "Well, we'll live in Soweto,” so that — we begin always by making a political statement, even without articulating it in words. And when I arrived, I realized that I had been given a platform that was not readily available to many blacks, and most of our leaders were either now in jail or in exile, and I said, "Well, I'm going to use this to seek to try to articulate our aspirations and our — and the anguishes of our people."    00:18:25     ALICE WINKLER: Tutu could see and feel around him that his people had had enough. He took a very risky, very public step that got tremendous press coverage.   00:18:36     DESMOND TUTU: I don't know. I mean I don't know what happened, but it just seemed like God was saying to me, "You've got to write a letter to the prime minister," and the letter wrote itself. I mean normally when you're in retreat, you're not expected to — you should not be doing, well, work. You are meant to be concentrating on God, but I think — I mean yes...   00:19:04     I think somehow God said — and so I sat down, and I wrote the letter, and I wrote the letter to the prime minister, and told him that I was scared. I was scared because the mood in the townships was frightening. If they didn't do something to make our people believe that they cared about our concerns, I feared that we were going to have an eruption.   00:19:44     I sent off the letter. He, the prime minister, dismissed my letter contemptuously. I wrote to him in May of 1976. I said I had a nightmarish fear that there was going to be an explosion. Well, they didn't do anything, and a month later Soweto happened.   00:20:10     And in a way you could say, as they sometimes say, “And the rest is history.” But my new understandings of The Scriptures and, as it were, the ways of God made it clear to me that there was no question at all that we were on the winning side.   00:20:33     ALICE WINKLER: When Tutu says “Soweto,” it's shorthand for the famous uprising there by high school students. Their dignity had already been trampled by Bantu education, but then the government instituted a policy requiring that classes be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the white minority, the language of the oppressors. The imposition of Afrikaans, Tutu explained, was meant to turn the young black population into docile creatures.   00:21:01     They rebelled. It was another turning point for black South Africans and another turning point for Desmond Tutu. He remembers asking students if they knew they might be whipped, detained, tortured, or worse. They knew and kept right on. He was taken aback by their courage, and it emboldened him, even at the risk of his own wellbeing.   00:21:25     DESMOND TUTU: We received death threats, yes, but you said — you see, when you are in a struggle, there are going to have to be casualties, and why should you be exempt? But I often said, "Look here, God. If I'm doing your work, then you jolly well are going to have to look after me." And, well, God did God stuff.    00:21:57     ALICE WINKLER: He knew there were people who would see him as a politician masquerading as an archbishop, but in his theology, he explained, all of life belongs to God. You don't have compartments for your economic life and your political life and your religious life. But wasn't he sometimes plagued by doubt?   00:22:16     DESMOND TUTU: No, I never doubted. Scared, yeah. Angry, many times.  I really would get mad with God. I would say, I mean, “How in the name of everything that is good can you allow this or that to happen?" But I didn't doubt that ultimately good, right, justice would prevail. That I said — there were times, of course, when you had to almost sort of whistle in the dark, when you wished you could say to God, "God, we know you are running the show, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious that you are doing so?"   00:23:10     ALICE WINKLER: The anti-apartheid movement started picking up speed internationally, and perhaps that was enough of a sign for the archbishop.   00:23:18     DESMOND TUTU: You know, there's a wonderful image in the Book of the Prophet Zachariah, where he speaks about Jerusalem not having conventional walls, and God says to this overpopulated Jerusalem, "I will be like a wall of fire ‘round you." Frequently in the struggle, we experienced a like wall of fire, people all over the world surrounding us with love.   00:23:56     And you know, that image of the Prophet Elijah, he’s surrounded by enemies, and his servant is scared, and Elijah says to God, "Open his eyes so that he should see," and God opens the eyes of the servant, and the servant looks, and he sees hosts and hosts and hosts of angels, and the prophet says to him, "You see? Those who are for us are many times more than those against us."   00:24:38     ALICE WINKLER: We know the end of the story. Ultimately, apartheid crumbled. Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years and spent his first night of freedom at Archbishop Tutu's home. Four years later, Mandela was elected president. He needed someone with complete moral authority, and the respect of the nation, to preside over the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a process begun in the hopes of healing a traumatized and wounded people.   00:25:10     Archbishop Tutu was the obvious choice. He says it was more exhilarating than anything he'd ever experienced. It confirmed what he'd suspected as a boy, when those white people would step around his newspaper rather than trampling it, that human beings are fundamentally good. The archbishop talked about the experience in a speech he gave to the Academy of Achievement in 2006.   00:25:40     DESMOND TUTU: After our first democratic elections in 1994, many people expected that blacks would, as soon as a black-led government was installed, go on an orgy of revenge and retribution, which didn't, in fact, happen.   00:26:10     It was an extraordinary phenomenon because instead of what many feared — they kept saying, "Give them three months, and you're going to see what's going to happen. Give them..." — when three months went past — "Give them some more time."   00:26:35     Instead, we had this extraordinary process of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, when perpetrators of often the most gruesome, quite awful, awful crimes would confess those to obtain, if they fulfilled all the conditions that the law laid down, being granted amnesty; and on the other hand, you had victims tell their stories.   00:27:28     Now, I wanted to say to you, you know, I had expected that I and all of us would be totally devastated, and indeed we were — devastated by the kinds of stories people were telling, devastated by the revelations of the extent to which we human beings can sink low.   00:28:12     As, for instance, someone would come along and say, "We gave him drugged coffee. We shot him in the head, and then we burned his body, and, because it takes eight, nine hours for a human body to burn, whilst that body was burning there, we were having a barbeque and drinking beer on the side, sort of two kinds of flesh burning."   00:28:46     And you say, "What could possibly have happened to the humanity of anyone that they could sink to such levels of depravity?" But, of course, you see each one of us, in fact, has an extraordinary capacity for evil, because those who perpetrated ghastly deeds such as the one that I have described didn’t walk around with horns protruding from their foreheads and trying very hard to hide the tails that they were dragging behind them.   00:29:41     The perpetrators of those atrocities were people like you and me, people who used to go to church, people who were regarded as respectable. So you and I would have to say, "Ah, indeed. There but for the grace of God go I."   00:30:18     So, I thought, at the end of the TRC process I would have — and many of us would have been going away thoroughly devastated, overwhelmed by the extent of the evil that had been revealed to us. No. I was totally bowled over by the fact that that was not, in fact, what one took away from that process.   00:30:56     What one took away was, “Hey, human beings are incredible,” for you were exhilarated by the incredible magnanimity of people. Someone came, a white woman came to tell us the story of how she had had — she'd been with friends at a Christmas party at a golf club when one of the liberation movements attacked the gathering, and they threw grenades into the room.   00:31:43     Many of her friends were killed. She herself was so badly injured she couldn't feed herself. She couldn’t bathe herself. She couldn't clothe herself. She had to be helped by her children, and you know what she said? She said — of the experience that left her in that condition, she said, "It has enriched my life." What?   00:32:14     "It has enriched my life." And whilst we were trying to make sense of this, and then she says, "I'd like to meet the perpetrator. I'd like to meet him in a spirit of forgiveness. I'd like to forgive him," which is incredible. But you could have blown me over with a feather when she went on to say, "And I hope he forgives me."   00:32:47     And then you said, "Yeah!" We have this incredible capacity for evil, but we have, even more wonderfully, this remarkable capacity for good, and this is what I want to leave you with, that you and I are quite rightly appalled at all of the evil that we often hear about or see on our screens.   00:33:23     And that sometimes we say, "Oh, isn't it awful, awful, awful! Aren't human beings just ghastly creatures?" Mm-hmm.   00:33:39     But, ah, that is not the whole truth. That is not even, in fact, the most important truth about human beings. The most important truth about each one of us is that we are, in fact, created for goodness. That evil is an aberration.   00:34:07     That is precisely why you and I cannot make easy accommodation with it, because if evil was the norm, all you and I would have been able to say is, "It's awful, but tough luck, that's how the cookie crumbles."   00:34:31     You know, we are appalled precisely because you and I, somewhere in us, you see, we are programmed in the kind of way that says, "Uh-uh, that's not how we should be."     00:34:53     ALICE WINKLER: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the man often called the Conscience of South Africa, speaking to students at the Academy of Achievement Summit in 2006. He ended his speech with a parable about a chicken and an eagle, and he implored the young people in the room to be eagles.   00:35:14     DESMOND TUTU: God says to you, to me, "Hey, you're no chicken."   00:35:22     "You are an eagle." And God expects you to shake yourself.   00:35:29     To spread out your pinions and to lift off and soar, so that you fly towards, ah-ha, the rising sun. You fly towards transcendence, fly towards goodness, compassion, gentleness, caring. Fly, eagle, fly! Thank you.   00:36:19     ALICE WINKLER: Archbishop Tutu mostly retired from public life several years ago, saying that at nearly 80 years old, it was time to spend a little less time in airports and a little more time serving his beloved wife, Leah, hot chocolate in bed. I'm Alice Winkler, and this is What It Takes. If you want to learn more about Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his personal journey, you can visit the Academy of Achievement's website, achievement.org.   00:36:47     The Academy also features Archbishop Tutu in its multimedia e-textbook Social Justice. It's free on Apple's iTunes University. Special thanks to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation, as always, for its support of What It Takes.  

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English @ the Movies: 'A Little Off'

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November 2, 2017

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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