The tiny southern African mountain nation of Lesotho made history in 2017 by becoming the first on the continent to issue licenses for the production of medical cannabis. It made history again, when it signed tens of millions of dollars worth of deals with foreign investors to develop the lucrative marijuana industry and to manufacture the complete products in Africa. VOA’s Anita Powell visited one of the country’s medical marijuana farms, in the hills of Marakabei, to learn more.
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Live Brain Donations to Help Scientists Treat Epilepsy
Epilepsy, a neurological disorder typically associated with seizures, affects millions in the United States alone. Now, patients are helping scientists find new treatments by donating living brain tissue for research. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi takes us into the operating room.
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Inequality Tour: The Real-life Sights of South Korea’s Oscar-winning ‘Parasite’
From the houses to the noodles, South Korea’s Oscar winning movie “Parasite” tells its story of a suffocating class struggle through the sights and smells of Seoul.”Parasite” made history as the first non-English language movie to win the Oscar for best picture on Sunday, prompting
South Korean social media to erupt in celebration.
It is a tale of two South Korean families – the wealthy Parks and the poor Kims – mirroring the deepening disparities in
Asia’s fourth-largest economy and striking a chord with global audiences.
The visual clues in the film resonated with many South Koreans who identify themselves as “dirt spoons”, those born to
low-income families who have all but given up on owning a decent house and social mobility, as opposed to “gold spoons”, who are from better-off families.
Much of the movie was shot on purpose-built sets, but both the Parks’ mansion and the Kims’ squalid “sub-basement”
apartment were inspired by, and set, amid real neighborhoods in the South Korean capital.
A tour of the film’s locations, props, and backdrops reveals the unique meanings they have for many South Koreans as they engage in their own debates about wealth – and the lack of it.Pig Rice Supermarket featured in South Korea’s Oscar-winning “Parasite” is seen in Ahyeon-dong, one of the last shanty towns near downtown Seoul.Shanty town
Ahyeon-dong is one of the last shanty towns near downtown Seoul and made an appearance in several scenes depicting the Kims’ humble neighborhood. Perched on a hillside near the main train station, Ahyeon-dong is a warren of steep, narrow streets, many of which end in long staircases that residents climb to reach their homes.
“Watching the film made me feel like they put my life right in there,” said Lee Jeong-sik, the 77-year-old co-owner of Pig
Rice Supermarket, which is featured in the film. Kim Kyung-soon, 73, who has operated the shop with her
husband Lee for 45 years, said she opens the supermarket at around 8:30 a.m., while he closes it down after midnight.
She used to open the store even earlier, at 5 a.m., for mothers who would stop by early to buy school lunch fixings for
their children. Now, however, the neighborhood is mostly older people, with few young couples or children, Kim said.
The film’s fictional Kim family live in a “sub-basement”, usually small, dark apartments built partially underground.
Residents said rent for the sub-basement apartments had increased to around 400,000 won ($340) per month, more than
doubling in the past decade.
Ahyeon-dong sits in the shadow of newly built apartment towers, and the city has faced protests from some residents who fear losing their homes to redevelopment.
“It’s definitely a neighborhood that isn’t faring well,” Lee said. When he heard that “Parasite” had won at the Academy
Awards he was so happy he could not sleep. As a throng of media gathered outside his shop, he wondered whether the film’s fame would change plans to eventually build new apartments there.Seoul’s Beverly Hills
In contrast, the scenes around the wealthy Parks’ home – which itself was a movie set built elsewhere – were filmed in
Seongbuk-dong, known as South Korea’s Beverly Hills and home to many business families and diplomatic residences.
Unlike Ahyeon-dong, the streets in Seongbuk-dong are clear of rubbish and almost silent, with most homes hidden behind high walls, spiked fences, and security cameras.
“The houses here are all very fancy residences,” said Chung Han-sool, CEO of Peace Estate Agents. “Most of the houses have basements and they use it for home bars or mini theaters.”
According to real estate brokers, homes there usually cost around 7 billion won ($6 million). Those rented to foreign
diplomats are offered for 10 milllion-15 million won ($8,500 to $12,725) per month.
“There are 48 ambassadors living in the neighborhood, so there is a whole separate squad of police officers in the area,”
Chung said.
Even within Seongbuk-dong the disparity is highlighted by the “gisasikdang” or “drivers’ diners”, similar to one featured
in “Parasite”. Gisasikdang sprung up to serve meals to drivers, including those ferrying the area’s wealthy residents.
“There are taxi, bus drivers and those who drive the CEOs who live around here,” said Bae Sun-young, a manager at a
gisasikdang in Seongbuk-dong. “The wealth is so polarized here. It’s extreme.”FILE -People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on South Korean director Bong Joon-ho who won four Oscars with his film “Parasite”, in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 10, 2020.Tasty symbolism
As news of the Oscar wins spread, South Korean social media burst with photos and recipes of “jjapaguri”, a combination of two different instant noodles translated in the movie as “ram-dong” (ramen plus udong).
The dish initially became popular as everyday food due to a television show but got a boost from the film, which added a
satirical twist as the Parks top it with expensive Korean beef. U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris even tweeted
with an image of jjapaguri cup noodles, saying the embassy was hosting a party to watch the awards ceremony.
Standing in the cramped aisles of Pig Rice Supermarket in Ahyeon-dong, Lee noted that the residents’ economic status was reflected in what they bought.
“People are not well off here,” he said. “What they buy most is ramen and alcohol.”
The other supermarket that makes an appearance in “Parasite” is ORGA Whole Foods in Bangi-dong, a trendy neighborhood in Seoul that is popular with upper-middle class families who want to send their children to top elementary and middle schools.
“The most popular items in our store aren’t cigarettes, alcohol or instant food like in regular supermarkets,” Ryu
Hee-woong, a manager at the branch, said. “Our customers usually purchase fresh food that is focused on safety,
sustainability, and eco-friendliness.”
($1 = 1,179.2300 won)
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Facebook Removes Accounts in Russia, Iran With Alleged Intelligence Links
Social media giant Facebook on Wednesday removed two unconnected networks of accounts, pages, and groups “engaging in foreign or government interference,” one originating in Russia and the other one in Iran, both of which have alleged ties to intelligence services.Calling the behavior “coordinated” and “inauthentic,” Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said both operations were acting on “behalf of a government or foreign actor.”The Russian network primarily targeted Ukraine and its neighboring countries, while the Iranian operation focused mainly on the United States.The people behind the groups and accounts “coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action,” the social-media company said.In total, 78 accounts, 11 pages, 29 groups, and four Instagram accounts originating in Russia were removed.Facebook’s investigation “found links to Russian and military intelligence services” within the Russian network.The people behind the network would pose as citizen journalists and tried to contact policymakers, journalists, and other public figures in the region.They would post content in Russian, English, and Ukrainian “about local and political news including public figures in Ukraine, Russian military engagement in Syria, alleged SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) leaks related to ethnic tensions in Crimea and the downing of the Malaysian airliner in Ukraine in 2014.”Similarly, six Facebook and five Instagram accounts were removed originating in Iran that engaged in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.”Some tried contacting public figures and they shared posts on such topics as the U.S. elections, Christianity, U.S.-Iran relations, U.S. immigration policy, and criticism of U.S. policies in the Middle East.About 60 people had followed one or more of the Iran-based Instagram accounts, the media company said.
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High Hopes for Lesotho’s Budding Cannabis Industry
The tiny southern African mountain nation of Lesotho made history in 2017 by becoming the first on the continent to issue licenses for the production of medical cannabis. It made history again, when it signed tens of millions of dollars worth of deals with foreign investors to develop the lucrative marijuana industry and to manufacture the complete products in Africa. VOA’s Anita Powell visited one of the country’s medical marijuana farms, in the hills of Marakabei, to learn more.
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High Hopes for Lesotho’s Budding Cannabis Industry
High in the mountains of Lesotho, a green revolution is growing. The tiny mountain kingdom, which is surrounded on all sides by South Africa, made history in 2017 by being the first African country to issue licenses for the production of medical cannabis.Marijuana is not new to Lesotho — it’s been used for centuries for medicine and recreation. The area’s high elevation, low humidity and abundant arable land make it an ideal place to grow. But by issuing production licenses, Lesotho’s government has thrown open the door for a new industry — and brought in millions of dollars from foreign investors. MG Health, one of the top five local producers, built a $23 million facility in the hills of Marakabei. It employs 380 people, many from the local area, where unemployment is sky-high.CEO Andre Bothma says this is more than just a pipe dream. He believes that the fledgling cannabis industry can bring great value to Lesotho — if it’s done right. FILE – A worker checks on structures at a facility that grows legal cannabis near Marakabei, Lesotho, Aug. 6, 2019.”This is a medicinal product that we are creating here, and our company has various brands,” he said. “Some of them are for sale in South Africa at the moment. We are moving into the U.K. and France … in the near future. We have exported to Australia already, and we are in the process of getting our extraction facility and our growing facility GMP certified, EU GMP certified,” Bothma added, referring to the Good Manufacturing Practice certification.Treatment with CBD Medical studies have only just begun to look at the effectiveness of cannabis’s popular non-psychoactive compound, cannabidiol. In a 2017 report, the World Health Organization described its potential for abuse and dependence as low, and said it found “preliminary evidence that CBD may be a useful treatment for a number of … medical conditions.”MG Health’s range of pharmaceutical-grade products, distilled from their CBD-rich strain of the plant, claim to treat chronic ailments such as epilepsy, pain, fibromyalgia, anxiety, arthritis and more. That, says Finance Minister Moeketsi Majoro, is what makes Lesotho’s cannabis industry stand out: It upends the traditional African narrative of exporting raw materials to the west.”We don’t want to export bottles of raw oil,” Majoro told VOA. “We want to export pharmaceutical products. And so we want to see as much as possible for every investment, the processing of this product up to the level of it being a pharmaceutical product. So when we make a product here, it goes straight into the shelves of pharmaceutical outlets.”‘An unbelievable opportunity’That, he says, will bring Lesotho the one thing it so badly craves.”On the job front, we are desperate,” said Majoro. “We have close to 200,000 youths that are looking for jobs in an economy that is not creating jobs that fast. So we need to be creative in terms of the opportunities that can be created. We have a natural resource here that we need to exploit. So this has just come through as an unbelievable opportunity.”MG Health employees heartily echo that. Thato Lematla, a 20-year-old from the Marakabei area, says she wasn’t sure what to do in a country where one out of four people are out of work. She started at MG Health right after high school graduation. “This is my first job,” she told VOA. “I got it here, after I completed my matric.”Others came to the company with their thumbs already green. Before Mampho Thulo began working there, she grew illegal marijuana at home. She says things are better now.The job, she said, “changed my life because I have money to pay for my children’s school fees, and buy other things for my house and change my house. My house now is very beautiful.”It’s too soon to say what the future holds for medical marijuana. Will medical research confirm claims about the safety and effectiveness of cannabis? Can this tiny country sustain such a challenging industry? Can small-scale marijuana growers find a place in this big-money enterprise, or will they be shut out?These, Bothma says, are questions that also hang over him as he tries to navigate this new, exciting terrain. But for now, he says, as cannabis’ popularity grows around the world, he’s enjoying the ride.
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German Filmmaker Vilsmaier, Known for ‘Stalingrad,’ Dies
Joseph Vilsmaier, a German filmmaker whose striking portrayal of the Battle of Stalingrad brought home the horrors of war to a new generation, has died. He was 81.His agent confirmed Wednesday that Vilsmaier “died peacefully at his home” in Bavaria on Tuesday.
Vilsmaier’s 1993 film “Stalingrad” painted a grim picture of the fate of a group of Wehrmacht soldiers sent to the eastern front in 1942 to fight what would become a losing battle against the Soviet Army. The months-long siege of the city, now known as Volgograd, cost the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians and marked a turning point for Nazi Germany in World War II.
Born 1939 in Munich, Vilsmaier studied music and worked as a technician before gaining a foothold in the film business in the early 1960s as a runner and later making a name for himself as a cameraman for German television.
Vilsmaier made his debut as a director in 1988 with “Herbstmilch,” or “Autumn Milk,” the story of a Bavarian peasant woman that became a box office hit in Germany. Many of his films focused on tumultuous periods in German history, often from the perspective of ordinary people, a notable exception being “Marlene” (2000) about the life of actress and singer Marlene Dietrich.
Vilsmaier is survived by three daughters, Janina, Theresa and Josephina. His second wife, Czech actress and director Dana Vavrova, died in 2009.
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Coronavirus Death Toll More than 1,100
Chinese health officials reported Wednesday the number of dead from a coronavirus outbreak has risen to more than 1,100.The National Health Commission figures included 97 new deaths and a total of 44,653 people confirmed infected since the outbreak began last month. Some experts have cast doubts about whether the total number of cases are being counted.If the figures are accurate, there would be some semblance of optimism with the 2,105 new cases confirmed Tuesday, a number that was lower than those reported the past few days.While most of the coronavirus cases are within mainland China, hundreds have been confirmed sick in dozens of other countries, usually after traveling from China.The biggest grouping of cases is on board a cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, where 174 of the 3,700 people on board have tested positive as the ship remains under quarantine orders.China has put several areas on lockdown in an attempt to stop the virus from spreading.On Tuesday, state media reported that the government in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, dismissed its top two health officials.Medical workers in protective suits attend to novel coronavirus patients at the intensive care unit (ICU) of a designated hospital in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Feb. 6, 2020.The World Health Organization officially named the virus COVID-19 at a meeting Tuesday, one day after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the spread of coronavirus between people who had no history of travel to China could be “the spark that becomes a bigger fire.””In recent days, we have seen some concerning instances of onward transmission from people with no travel history to China,” he said, citing new cases in Britain and France.The U.S. State Department said Tuesday it will permit non-essential employees and their families to voluntarily leave the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong “out of an abundance of caution related to uncertainties” about the coronavirus. The State Department made similar announcements last month for diplomatic staff in Chinese cities, including Beijing. U.S. consular employees were ordered last month to leave Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province.The death toll from the coronavirus is higher than the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002-03, which is believed to have killed 774 people and sickened nearly 8,100 in China and Hong Kong.
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Asia Catches up on AI but Digital Divide Remains Between Rich and Poor
The earliest fans of the internet wondered if it could be a democratizing technology, giving all people access to information, regardless of their income, social status, or level of freedom under their governments. Today another computer technology — artificial intelligence — raises similar questions, depending on whether it will bring benefits for all, or worsen the inequality already in place.A new report, jointly released by Google, INSEAD business school, and Adecco recruiters, tackles those questions by ranking nations and cities based on how well they attract people to their workforce by investing in technology like AI. Asian nations shot up the Global Talent Competitiveness Index in 2020 compared to 2019, particularly developing nations. That has led observers to a two-pronged conclusion marked by cautious optimism: on the one hand, poorer nations can use this technology to get ahead; on the other hand, if people become complacent, the technological advantage could stay in rich nations.“As talent becomes increasingly fluid and mobile, some early AI adopters could leverage this to become more talent competitive,” Bruno Lanvin, executive director of global indices at INSEAD, said, “however there are also signs that the ubiquity of AI is amplifying current imbalances and inequalities.”Most large nations in Asia improved their rankings this year, including China, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The index assigns nations a score for each of dozens of indicators, such as how much technical education and training they provide, the amount of technology transfer they enable, and the level of social mobility.The reason observers have drawn mixed conclusions from the index is that there is opportunity for developing nations to improve, but it is limited. For instance Malaysia got higher marks this year because it does a good job of matching workforce needs with talent. However the report authors say it “would benefit from higher tolerance and greater opportunities for minorities and immigrants.”Residents walk down a street in Kyoto, Japan, a nation whose investment in artificial intelligence helped it climb three spots in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index. (VOA News)What the authors call most “worrying,” though, is the risk of a widening gap between rich and poor in terms of which nations are best preparing to use artificial intelligence. Rich city-state Singapore is the only Asian nation to break the top 10 of the index released last month. In the part of the study focused on cities, high-income Tokyo and Hong Kong are the best performing in the region.Developing nations are able to make some progress because, at a lower level, technology is accessible and cheap. India and the Philippines, for instance, have become global call centers and IT outsourcing hubs, and it is relatively easy for their citizens to pick up basic coding skills regardless of their income.However when technology needs move beyond just coding skills, more investment and resources help. Artificial intelligence, in particular, relies on massive amounts of data to be input and computer power to crunch the data. Nations and companies that amass that data, and the highly-paid professionals who can understand it, have such an advantage that it might become too hard for others to catch up in the future.“AI also will affect people’s jobs and change the nature of work,”Kent Walker, senior vice president of Google, said. “We need to anticipate these changes and take steps to prepare for them.”Google has exactly such an AI advantage. It has been able to collect many photos to input into and improve its image recognition algorithms, for instance, at a level that would be hard for other companies to match.The authors released the global talent index in hopes of highlighting the digital divide, as well as providing recommendations on how to solve it. They say to prevent people from being left behind, developing nations can focus on vocational training and lifelong learning, and not just for lower-skilled tech jobs like coding. People can learn to do work that is complemented — not replaced — by robots; machines may be able to move a syringe into position, but patients will still want human nurses to oversee the injection, for instance.“The human role in the world of work is being augmented by technology rather than substituted by it,” Alain Dehaze, CEO of the Adecco Group, said.At a government level, nations should agree on the rules and principles that guide AI research and uses, such as the need for data protection, the report said. That would increase the odds that new technologies are advanced in the interest of humans.
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Samsung Unveils its New Foldable Phone, the Galaxy Z Flip
Samsung on Tuesday unveiled a new foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip, its second attempt to sell consumers on phones with bendable screens and clamshell designs.The company announced the phone at the start of a product event in San Francisco. The new phone can unfold from a small square upward into a traditional smartphone form, and will go on sale Feb. 14 starting at $1,380.Samsung’s first foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold, finally went on sale last September after delays and reports of screens breaking. The Fold, which carries a price tag of nearly $2,000, folds at a vertical crease rather than horizontally as a flip-phone design would. Motorola has also taken the flip-phone approach with its new $1,500 Razr phone.The foldable phones represent manufacturers’ attempt to energize a market where sales have slowed. Many consumers are holding onto old phones longer, in part because new phone features offer increasingly marginal benefits. But these foldable models come with higher price tags and are likely to appeal for now mostly to tech enthusiasts and others at the forefront of technology.For everyone else, Samsung offers its S series. As the 2020s kick off, the South Korean company showed off the Galaxy S20, S20 Plus and S20 Ultra at an event in San Francisco, skipping directly to the 20s from its S10 series.The S20 phones are designed to take high-quality pictures in dark settings, Samsung product manager Mark Holloway said. The phones can take both video and photos at the same time, using artificial intelligence to zero in on the best moments to capture the still images.Samsung’s renewed focus on the camera follows Apple, whose iPhone 11 phones last fall offered an additional lens for wider-angle shots and combined multiple shots with software to improve low-light images. Google’s Pixel phones also offer a similar low-light feature.Samsung’s S phones already offer the wider angle and some features for low-lighting – but Samsung says the new phones will focus on high-resolution photos and the ability to zoom in 30 to 100 times, depending on the model.The S20 phones are expected to come out in March. Samsung didn’t immediately announce prices. Last year’s main S10 model went for $900 in the U.S. at launch. For all models, Samsung plans to make versions compatible with next-generation cellular networks, known as 5G, though it’s still an early technology that consumers typically won’t need yet.As people packed into San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts for Samsung’s launch event, they passed a team taking remote temperatures in the security line, likely a precaution to check for the coronavirus. Samsung also offered hand sanitizer stations and face masks inside the event lobby.
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Here’s Where the Internet Actually Lives
Have you ever stored something on the cloud and wondered where that data goes? You might be surprised to learn it’s in a quiet residential community located about 30 miles outside of Washington, D.C. The majority of the world’s internet traffic passes through the town of Ashburn in Loudoun County, Virginia — home to one of the world’s largest internet exchanges. VOA’s Dora Mekouar reports.
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Here’s Where the Internet Actually Lives
Have you ever stored something in the cloud and wondered where that data goes? You might be surprised to learn it’s in a quiet residential community about 30 miles outside the capital city of Washington, where people jog or walk their dogs around human-made lakes, children’s teams practice on soccer fields, and teens play pick-up basketball on community courts. The majority of the world’s internet traffic passes through the town of Ashburn in Loudoun County, Virginia, home to one of the world’s major internet exchanges. “It’s amazing when you think about the amount of fiber that’s in the ground,” says Buddy Rizer, executive director of economic development for Loudoun County. “Both sides of the road pretty much have fiber troughs in them. And now we’re putting some fiber in the middle of the roads as well. We want to continue to build on that fiber network.”Seventy percent of the world’s internet traffic passes through all of that fiber. That’s why Ashburn is known as Data Center Alley. The Silicon Valley of the east. The cloud capital of the world. Pretty much any email sent or received anywhere around the globe passes through this town. If you’ve got something stored in the cloud, it’s probably in one of the 100-plus data centers located in Loudoun County.”A lot of people, they think about the cloud and their eyes go up. Well, it’s not really up,” Rizer says. “The cloud is based somewhere and, by and large, the cloud has been based here in Loudoun County, Virginia, in the data centers, the 18-million-square-feet of data centers that we have on the ground here.”It all started when America Online moved to Ashburn back in the 1990s. AOL brought fiber and power infrastructure with it. MAE-East, one of the world’s first internet exchanges, moved to Loudoun in the late ’90s after first forming in 1992.”It was a couple guys who got together over some beers and decided that they were going to allow one another to pass traffic back and forth across the different networks that they’d been creating,” says John Day, vice president of sales and leasing for Sabey Data Centers. Other companies followed, each new addition contributing to the creation of the most dense fiber network anywhere in the world. Tech titans like Amazon and Google now have a presence in Loudoun. Northern Virginia’s appeal includes reasonably priced land, low-cost-but-dependable electricity, access to water to help cool the equipment, and a skilled, educated population.Data centersToday, the internet is basically housed in the data centers located in the Washington-area suburb, which is the biggest data center market in the world.”The internet itself is really comprised of these peering points that are housed inside data centers. So without data centers, you wouldn’t really have the internet,” Day says. “The infrastructure that powers the internet wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for the data centers that it lives in.”Companies want their information technology infrastructure close to those peering points. So they often turn to third parties like Sabey Data Centers to host them. Sabey’s client list is confidential, but it includes one of the five biggest cloud providers in the world.Data centers provide power, cooling and connectivity. Back-up generators ensure the power never runs out. The buildings themselves are hardened and have cooling capabilities that allow for the release of waste heat generated by the IT equipment.The data centers ensure the computer applications used by their clients are up and running around the clock, whether it’s a bank, insurance company, or e-commerce website.”They want to ensure that all of their customers, wherever they are, can get to it through the internet,” Day says.Return on investmentSecurity is tight. There’s a lot of privileged information to protect. With non-descript exteriors, data centers aren’t flashy. But they are quietly raking in the bucks for the Virginia county, which expects to take in $320 million in local tax revenue from data centers this year.”A single family home is not a moneymaker for a community like ours,” Rizer says. “For every dollar they take in services, we don’t get the corresponding amount of money back. Data centers, for every dollar we spend on them, we get about $15 dollars back, which is a great return on our investment.”Rizer expects the data center business to keep booming in his county and elsewhere. Across the United States, IT infrastructure isn’t expected to catch up with demand until sometime late in the 2020s.
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China Struggles to Cope with Surging Numbers of Infected Coronavirus Patients
China’s health care system is struggling to cope with the surging number of patients infected by the deadly coronavirus despite that Chinese President Xi Jingping has re-emerged in public to call for greater confidence in his government. FILE – A man bowing in front of flowers and a photo of the late ophthalmologist Li Wenliang outside the Houhu Branch of Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province, Feb. 7, 2020.The death toll Tuesday totaled 1,018 worldwide among the more than 43,000 confirmed infections; 974 deaths, or 96% of the total, occurred in Wuhan city, in China’s Hubei province — signs that hospitals in the epic center of the outbreak have been overwhelmed.The latest report on the American Medical Association’s website found that out of the city’s 138 virus-infected patients 30% were medical professionals — an alarming rate that suggests the city’s medical system treating over 30,000 patients may be collapsing, said Vincent Su, a thoracic surgeon in Taipei.Medical system collapsing
“It’s a vicious cycle that the more medical professionals infected, the less patients well-treated. With patients flooding in, the frontline [in Wuhan] appears to be broken. This is what we call a collapsing medical system,” Su said.FILE – Workers set up infrastructure at the Wuhan International Conference and Exhibition Center to convert it into a makeshift hospital to receive patients infected with the coronavirus, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Feb. 4, 2020.With an overwhelming workload in hospitals, the number of patients in Wuhan is likely under-reported, the surgeon estimated.Mr. Sun’s father is probably one such case.Sun, currently working in Henan province, told VOA that his father in Wuhan remains a suspected case although he has suffered from severe symptoms — infected lungs, lasting fever and chest pains. Insufficient medical careYet, the elder Sun is given little medical attention.“He goes to the hospital every day to receive shots. But not a hospital bed is available for him although the doctor said his condition has worsened,” Sun said.China has added thousands of beds in some 15 shelter-like hospitals in Wuhan. But many who checked in complained of a lack of medical care and isolation wards there to avoid cross infection.
“Fangchang shelters are for those who haven’t been severely infected. But my father is a highly suspected case who needs to be hospitalized for immediate treatment. Frankly speaking, home quarantine is probably better than going to those shelters,” he added. The father of Ms. Lo, another Wuhan resident, is a confirmed patient and has no choice but to check into a Fangchang shelter soon.
“It’s arranged that he will first check into a Fangchang shelter. We were told earlier that he will be transferred to another hospital if his symptoms deteriorate. I’m not sure of the shelter’s condition since he hasn’t checked into,” Lo said. Decisive measures to comeChinese President Xi Jinping inspects the novel coronavirus prevention and control work at Anhuali Community in Beijing, China, Feb. 10, 2020. (Xinhua via Reuters)Appearing in a public inspection tour in Beijing, President Xi pledged on Monday that “more decisive measures” will be taken to combat the epidemic amid criticism and suspicion that China has taken action too late and too little to stop its spread and under-reported its death toll. Spiked levels of sulfur dioxide emissions in Wuhan were recently used to suggest that tens of thousands of bodies might have been cremated.
“If a super spreader emerges to speed up contagion by ten-fold, China may be overtaken by the virus and further pushed into the hell of fire,” said Chen Bingzhong, a former health official.Taiwan, on Sunday, confirmed its first asymptomatic patient with a high viral load, fueling worries that a super spreader may be on the horizon to worsen the outbreak.
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Deepfakes: Silicon Valley Prepares to Battle the Latest Election Threat
Images of a reborn Princess Leia, or a youthful Robert DeNiro are bewitching illusions for movie-goers. But concern that the same technology could be weaponized to incite chaos in an election is leading to “deepfake” bans on social media, and a race to develop detection tools. Matt Dibble reports.
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Ladysmith Black Mambazo Founder Joseph Shabalala Dies at 78
The founder of the South African multi-Grammy-Award-winning music group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Joseph Shabalala, has died at age 78, the state broadcaster reported Tuesday.
Shabalala died at a hospital in the capital, Pretoria, Tuesday morning, his family confirmed to local media.
He is world-known for his leadership of the choral group founded in 1964 that shot to world acclaim, collaborating with Paul Simon on the “Graceland” album and others. The haunting, often a cappella singing style known as isicathamiya helped to make the group one of South Africa’s most recognized performers on the world stage.
The South African government extended its condolences.”`Rest in peace, you have fulfilled your purpose” it tweeted.
The death was announced as the country prepared to mark 30 years since the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, which led to the end of the country’s brutal system of racial oppression known as apartheid.
“(Mandela) was a loyal follower of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who had the distinction of being part of the cultural program at the Nobel ceremony where our founding president was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” South Africa’s presidency said.
Shabalala retired from Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 2014 but made occasional appearances at its events. He had been hospitalized several times since 2017.
“The group (Ladysmith Black Mambazo) is on tour in the U.S., but they have been informed and are devastated because the group is family,” manager Xolani Majozi told local media outlet Timeslive.
Majozi said the group would cut its trip short and return to South Africa.
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Chinese Hospitals Struggle to Cope with Coronavirus Outbreak
China’s health care system is struggling to cope with the surging number of patients infected by the deadly coronavirus despite that Chinese President Xi Jingping has re-emerged in public to call for greater confidence in his government. FILE – A man bowing in front of flowers and a photo of the late ophthalmologist Li Wenliang outside the Houhu Branch of Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan in China’s central Hubei province, Feb. 7, 2020.The death toll Tuesday totaled 1,018 worldwide among the more than 43,000 confirmed infections; 974 deaths, or 96% of the total, occurred in Wuhan city, in China’s Hubei province — signs that hospitals in the epic center of the outbreak have been overwhelmed.The latest report on the American Medical Association’s website found that out of the city’s 138 virus-infected patients 30% were medical professionals — an alarming rate that suggests the city’s medical system treating over 30,000 patients may be collapsing, said Vincent Su, a thoracic surgeon in Taipei.Medical system collapsing
“It’s a vicious cycle that the more medical professionals infected, the less patients well-treated. With patients flooding in, the frontline [in Wuhan] appears to be broken. This is what we call a collapsing medical system,” Su said.FILE – Workers set up infrastructure at the Wuhan International Conference and Exhibition Center to convert it into a makeshift hospital to receive patients infected with the coronavirus, in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, Feb. 4, 2020.With an overwhelming workload in hospitals, the number of patients in Wuhan is likely under-reported, the surgeon estimated.Mr. Sun’s father is probably one such case.Sun, currently working in Henan province, told VOA that his father in Wuhan remains a suspected case although he has suffered from severe symptoms — infected lungs, lasting fever and chest pains. Insufficient medical careYet, the elder Sun is given little medical attention.“He goes to the hospital every day to receive shots. But not a hospital bed is available for him although the doctor said his condition has worsened,” Sun said.China has added thousands of beds in some 15 shelter-like hospitals in Wuhan. But many who checked in complained of a lack of medical care and isolation wards there to avoid cross infection.
“Fangchang shelters are for those who haven’t been severely infected. But my father is a highly suspected case who needs to be hospitalized for immediate treatment. Frankly speaking, home quarantine is probably better than going to those shelters,” he added. The father of Ms. Lo, another Wuhan resident, is a confirmed patient and has no choice but to check into a Fangchang shelter soon.
“It’s arranged that he will first check into a Fangchang shelter. We were told earlier that he will be transferred to another hospital if his symptoms deteriorate. I’m not sure of the shelter’s condition since he hasn’t checked into,” Lo said. Decisive measures to comeChinese President Xi Jinping inspects the novel coronavirus prevention and control work at Anhuali Community in Beijing, China, Feb. 10, 2020. (Xinhua via Reuters)Appearing in a public inspection tour in Beijing, President Xi pledged on Monday that “more decisive measures” will be taken to combat the epidemic amid criticism and suspicion that China has taken action too late and too little to stop its spread and under-reported its death toll. Spiked levels of sulfur dioxide emissions in Wuhan were recently used to suggest that tens of thousands of bodies might have been cremated.
“If a super spreader emerges to speed up contagion by ten-fold, China may be overtaken by the virus and further pushed into the hell of fire,” said Chen Bingzhong, a former health official.Taiwan, on Sunday, confirmed its first asymptomatic patient with a high viral load, fueling worries that a super spreader may be on the horizon to worsen the outbreak.
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‘Take Us Out of the Country’: African Students Plead for Evacuation as Coronavirus Spreads
As the death toll from the coronavirus continues to mount in China and elsewhere, thousands of African students in China count the hours hoping that their governments will evacuate them.Solomon Yohannes of Ethiopia, a third-year engineering student at Wuchang Technology University in the Wuhan region of China, the epicenter of the outbreak, sat in a room on a nearly deserted campus. He said virtually all of Wuchang’s 15,000 students have left, but about 200 foreigners, mostly Africans, remain. “We are counting on the next two to three days for some solution,” he told VOA’s Afaan Oromo service. Until then he and others will remain secluded. “If you leave, you have to wear all the protective gear,” he said.Another student at Wuchang called on the Ethiopian government to take action. “We want the government to take us out of the country as every other government is doing,” the student told VOA’s Amharic service. “America, India took their whole citizens out of the country. We also want to tell the government to at least take us out of the city where the crisis is right now.”There are an estimated 61,000 African students studying in China, and they now face food shortages, isolation and uncertainty. Last week a 21-year-old student from Cameroon studying in the city of Jingzhou tested positive, becoming the first reported African student to contract the virus.Hermes Koundou, a third-year engineering student from the Central African Republic studying at Nankin University, about 530 kilometers east of Wuhan, said students there are cautious.“We buy food online, you see, and we cook inside our rooms because it is not easy to get to the common kitchen over there, as many people are there cooking,” he told VOA’s French-to-Africa service. “And you never know, you could be in contact there, with a student already infected with the coronavirus. So, we stay in our rooms.”Antony Waigwa of Kenya, a Ph.D. student at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan, said he and fellow students have been offered masks and given free wi-fi and access to an emergency hotline. While they wait for information, they are keeping the thermostat high in the belief that it may decrease the ability of the disease to be transmitted. A doctor (L) talks with a patient during his rounds at the ward of a quarantine zone in Wuhan, the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak, in China’s central Hubei province, Feb. 3, 2020.“The situation is tense. We’re just afraid of contracting the disease,” Waigwa told VOA’s Swahili service. “You cannot say that you are fully safe because you can get it. The disease is transmitted via air. It’s an airborne disease as much as it is contagious. But it is manageable by keeping ourselves safe by not getting out of the school compound.”Ethiopian Ambassador to China Teshome Toga Chanaka said the Embassy is closely monitoring the situation and added there are approximately 100 Ethiopian students in Wuhan city and about 300 in Hubei province. He said they are in contact with student associations but said neither the government of China nor the World Health Organization is advising evacuation right now. “This is a very serious matter. We are very much concerned, of course, about the situation. But we also have confidence in the prevention and control measures the government of China is taking,” he told VOA’s Amharic service.He added that evacuation is a complicated process requiring clearance from various Chinese ministries and agencies and then preparation in Ethiopia to receive the students. He said many African embassies are in touch with one another and ready to act, if needed. “We are not alone in this. Literally all African countries have students in Wuhan city. So, I don’t think Ethiopia is alone in this,” he said. “We are also making consultation among the Beijing belt of African embassies so that, when the push comes to shove, certainly we will be taking action.”This story originated in the Africa division with reporting contributions from Horn of Africa Amharic service’s Eden Geremew and Afaan Oromo service’s Sora Halake, Swahili service’s Patrick Nnduwimana and Idd Ligongo, and French-to-Africa service’s Timothée Donangmaye.
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German Decision on Huawei 5G ‘Imminent,’ Says Ambassador
Germany’s closely watched impending decision on whether and to what extent to allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to enter its next generation telecommunications infrastructure may yield a result as early as Tuesday, sources tell VOA.The decision “is imminent,” says Emily Haber, German ambassador to the United States, in answer to a question raised by VOA Monday afternoon concerning the German government’s stance with regard to Huawei.“Any decision we take will factor in the relevance of the trustworthiness of the provider,” Haber added.VOA has since learned from diplomatic sources that “imminent” could mean as early as Tuesday February 11th when German lawmakers convene in Berlin.Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, thinks Germany could end up following Britain’s precedence and reach a compromise solution “between Merkel’s permissive ‘few limits suggestion and the more restrictive line called for by many backbench MPs, led by Norbert Roettgen,” Kirkegaard told VOA.Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is seen as wanting to work with Beijing in order to secure German business interests in China, while Roettgen, also a member of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and chairman of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, has made no secret of his mistrust of Huawei.Roettgen pinned his tweet from November 23rd following a CDU vote in which he declared the unanimous vote a huge victory and an unambiguous declaration of where CDU stands on this issue.Unser #Initiativantrag zu #5G wurde beim #cdupt19 einstimmig beschlossen – ein Riesenerfolg! Die Debatte kommt in den #Bundestag. Klare Position der @CDU gegen Einfluss ausländischer Staaten in deutsche kritische Infrastruktur & für eine europäische Lösung! pic.twitter.com/W3uvLAxWJU— Norbert Röttgen (@n_roettgen) November 23, 2019CDU position “against foreign influence in critical German infrastructure” as well as its determination to find a European solution are “clear,” he tweeted, “next comes the parliamentary debate” which could take place Tuesday in Berlin, sources tell VOA.In Kirkegaard’s opinion, Germany could also impose a ceiling on Huawei’s market share and attempt to prevent the company from supplying “core network” components, a measure Britain has recently announced, in spite of Washington’s strong objection.He nonetheless points out that given the 5G technology’s largely “cloud”-based feature, it remains “technically unclear” how core and peripheral distinction could be meaningfully established.Should the German parliament vote Huawei out of Germany’s 5G telecommunications infrastructure, it would be a huge surprise to many, including Kirkegaard. Should it happen, it would constitute a “huge defeat for Merkel,” he says, even as Merkel’s party is thrown into turmoil as her designated successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her decision to step down as chairman of the CDU on Monday.It remains to be seen whether the latest development within the CDU could affect the German parliament’s debate on Huawei.Speaking along with the German ambassador at an event hosted by the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies Monday afternoon, Piotr Wilczek, Poland’s ambassador to the United States, said “there’s been a big effort” on the part of all EU countries “to provide Brussels with our positions” on the issue of Huawei.“Now we’re in the process of discussing this in more detail,” Wilczek said, in answer to VOA’s question on his country’s position with regard to Huawei. “Poland and I believe Romania are the only countries that have signed a declaration with the United States, stating just that we’ll be very careful in choosing providers and providers should be very reliable,” he added, without naming any company by name.“This is a very complicated issue … a difficult decision,” he says, “because it’s about the quality of services, of various providers; we know some of them are very much advanced, and some of them are not so much advanced but perhaps more reliable.”Earlier, Norbert Roettgen, the German lawmaker who has openly expressed his concerns about Huawei, stated that when it comes to which providers to be let in, “You don’t just need technical certainty, you need the suppliers to be politically trustworthy, too.” A bill that Roettgen helped draft requires that any company designated as “untrustworthy” be excluded “from both the core and peripheral networks.”Roettgen tweeted on February 8 that the United States and the EU “could team up to counter China’s 5G dominance.” “We share the same security concerns and should cooperate to expand alternatives.” He added that “but to do so, we must know that tariffs against Brussels are off the table. Partners don’t threaten one another,” in a reference to tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would impose on a number of European imports, including on German automobiles.The #USA & EU could team up to counter #China’s #5G dominance. We share the same security concerns & should cooperate to expand ?? alternatives. But to do so we must know that tariffs against Brussels are off the table. Partners don’t threaten one another. https://t.co/ZPvZFKWNYq— Norbert Röttgen (@n_roettgen) February 8, 2020Huawei has repeatedly denied that it is beholden to the Chinese government and its political demands. China’s top envoy to Berlin has made it clear that Beijing “will not stand idly by” should Germany’s decision on Huawei turns out to be unfavorable to Beijing. “If Germany were to make a decision that led to Huawei’s exclusion from the German market, there will be consequences,” Wu Ken is quoted as saying. Whichever way Germany decides, its decision likely will have significant impact on the other European Union countries. Political influence aside, the fact that Germany takes up about 30% of the EU’s 5G market is “enough for pan-EU operators to follow its lead,” according to the Peterson Institute’s Kirkegaard.
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New Coronavirus Transmissions Raise More Concerns as Deaths Surpass Those From SARS
The head of the World Health Organization’s says there are “concerning instances” of coronavirus transmission from people who have not traveled to China, a development that could mean there is a bigger problem. This comes as a WHO team of medical experts arrived in China on Monday and the death toll surpassed that of the SARS’ epidemic in 2002/2003. According to WHO’s latest data, there are now over 40,000 confirmed cases in China and more than 1,000 deaths. Outside of China, there are 319 confirmed cases and there has been one death in Philippines. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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Songs to Heal: Yazidi Refugees Revive 7,000-Year-Old Musical Culture
When the Islamic State terror group swept across northern Iraq in 2014, they tried to wipe out the Yazidi people, a minority ethnic group that had lived in the mountains for millennia. Thousands of men were killed, and women and girls were forcibly enslaved. The ancient Yazidi culture was at risk of being eradicated.But a FILE – Iraqi Yazidis play traditional music at the Temple of Lalish, in a valley near the Kurdish city of Dohuk, about 430km northwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, Oct. 9, 2019.Now, these unique sounds are resonating far beyond the homeland of the Yazidi in northern Iraq. Leading the AMAR project is violinist Michael Bochmann, who this month invited the musicians to perform at London’s Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.“The music of the Yazidi people is absolutely essential to their culture,” Bochmann told VOA. “Only one section of the people, the Qawals caste, are allowed to sing the music. There are only 16 of them left, and so we thought it would be essential in case another genocide took place, or anything else horrific, that we lodge this and record it.”AMAR has made over 100 recordings in northern Iraq, including at Lalish, the 4,000-year-old spiritual home of the Yazidi. Sound engineers and musicians are also visiting refugee camps, where tens of thousands of Yazidi people still live after the IS siege.Hundreds of young Yazidis are being taught the techniques and instruments of their culture, including a sacred stringed instrument known as a tabor, and the daf, a type of frame drum.FILE -Young Yazidi and Muslim women, part of the musical group “40 Plaits,” rehearse a traditional Kurdish song accompanied by the Daf, a large Kurdish frame drum, in a community center in Dahuk, Iraq, June 25, 2019.An estimated 10,000 Yazidis were killed or kidnapped by Islamic State in 2014. Women and girls were forced into slavery, and suffered horrific sexual and physical abuse. Several members of the choir that traveled to London were held captive.Music to healAmong them was Renas, who was 14 when IS fighters captured her village Aug. 3, 2014. Over the course of the next three years, she was held captive and sold to three different militants, who abused and raped her on a daily basis. She gave birth to a daughter but lost two other babies through miscarriages. She was released after her family paid a ransom in 2017, but her captors refused to let her take her daughter.Renas said the music project helps her forget the brutality of her recent past.“I want this support to continue. Thanks to this project, our people did not lose hope. And if they will continue to help us, we will not give up,” she told VOA.Prince Charles hosts a recital and reception for the Yazidi Choir and musicians at his Clarence House residence in central London, Feb. 5, 2020. (Robert Cole/AMAR Foundation)IS targeted musicians and destroyed instruments in an effort to wipe out the Yazidi culture. Now, it’s hoped the recordings will give permanence to the ancient music. The material is being archived at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the Mosul and Dohuk libraries in Iraq.During their trip to London, the choir also performed for Prince Charles, next in line to the British throne. Ancient Yazidi music, once on the verge of extinction, is now sung in a celebration of survival.
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Amazon Wants Trump Deposition Over Loss of Military Contract
Amazon wants to depose President Donald Trump over the tech company’s losing bid for a $10 billion military contract.
The Pentagon awarded the cloud computing project to Microsoft in October. Amazon later sued, arguing that Trump’s interference and bias against the company harmed Amazon’s chances of winning the contract.The company said in a federal court filing in Washington on Monday that Trump has a “well-documented personal animus towards” Amazon, its CEO Jeff Bezos and The Washington Post, which Bezos owns. Amazon says that Trump is the only who can testify about the “totality of his conversations and the overall message he conveyed” about the bidding process.Amazon is also asking to depose Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other government officials in its filing Monday with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The Pentagon didn’t immediately return an emailed request for comment Monday.
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Safety Advocates in Malaysia Push for Greater Use of Child Safety Seats
While waiting for his 5-year-old twins to get out of school one afternoon, Raj Rajoo got their child safety seats ready.
“My kids, their lives are very important for me so I invested in the car seats,” he said.Malaysia has been requiring the use of child safety seats — also known as child restraint systems — since January 1 but Rajoo and his wife, Jay Menon, have been using them since shortly after their children were born.
“Anything can happen in a split second and we don’t want to regret anything further on down the road,” Menon said.A study conducted last year in Malaysia found that less than half of the cars on the roads with children ages 12 and under had child safety seats. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)Researchers in Malaysia found last year that fewer than half of the cars on the roads with children ages 12 and under had child safety seats.“For many years, people have not been having car seats here, quite a number of people have not,” Menon said, “so it’s a change of mindset and it will take time.”Data shows that children secured properly in a child safety seat are up to 71-percent less likely to die in a car accident. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research says more than 1,500 children under the age of 10 died in road accidents in Malaysia from 2007 to 2017. Statistics show that children secured properly in a child safety seat are up to 71% less likely to die in a car accident.“A seat belt only, it is actually designed for an adult,” the institute’s director-general, Siti Zaharah Ishak, said.A child restraint system, she said, “is actually appropriate for a child to use in a car because it’s designed for a child to protect them to restrain them whenever there is a motor crash or an accident.“Omar Mohamad recently looked for a child safety seat for his 2-year-old son at a store in Kuala Lumpur. He said his family already has one in his wife’s car and he’s buying another one for his.Child safety seats became a requirement in Malaysia on Jan. 1. The government says after a six-month phase in period violators will be fined.(Dave Grunebaum/VOA)“Every time we want to move into my car, I have to prepare half an hour before, take out the car seat, put it in my car, fix it properly then we can go,” he said.
“So now I’m buying a new one, one more to put in my car so that one in each car and we are ready to go at any time.”After a six-month phase-in period, the government says violators will be fined, although the amount has not been announced yet.Large families are exempted from the requirement if they cannot fit safety seats for all of their children in their car. This decision came after complaints that many large families would otherwise need to buy new, bigger cars, but as child restraint systems do so much to protect children, safety advocates hope parents will make them a priority.
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Drugs Fail to Slow Decline in Inherited Alzheimer’s Disease
Two experimental drugs failed to prevent or slow mental decline in a study of people who are virtually destined to develop Alzheimer’s disease at a relatively young age because they inherited rare gene flaws.The results announced Monday are another disappointment for the approach that scientists have focused on for years — trying to remove a harmful protein that builds up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s, the leading cause of dementia.”We actually don’t even know yet what the drugs did” in term of removing that protein because those results are still being analyzed, said study leader Dr. Randall Bateman at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.But after five years on average, the main goal of the study was not met: people on either of the drugs scored about the same on thinking and memory tests as others given placebo treatments.
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Carnivals, Festivals Help Dispel Winter Doldrums
At this time of the year people in many countries chase away winter doldrums with cheerful festivals, costumed parades, masked balls and other traditional events. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the carnival season has begun and will culminate on February 25th on so-called Fat Tuesday, a day before the start of the somber season of Lent.
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‘Parasite’ Reflects Deepening Social Divide in South Korea
The black comedy “Parasite” is a tale of two South Korean families – the wealthy Parks and the poor Kims – mirroring the deepening inequality in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.The film made history as the first non-English language movie to win the Oscar for best picture on Sunday, prompting South Korean social media to erupt in celebration.The film’s message resonated with many South Koreans who identify themselves as “dirt spoons,” those born to low-income families who have all but given up on owning a decent house or climbing the social ladder, as opposed to “gold spoons,” who are from better-off families.While inequality in South Korea is not necessarily worse than many other countries, the concept has exploded onto the political scene in recent years amid runaway home prices and a stagnating economy, undermining support for President Moon Jae-in.Moon, in his congratulatory message, said “Parasite” had “moved the hearts of people around the world with a most uniquely Korean story.”But the film’s message is a sharp critique of South Korea’s modern society, and director Bong Joon-ho turned to many familiar scenes around Seoul to highlight the divide between the city’s haves and have-nots.Across South Korea the divide is visible as some of the old neighborhoods of crumbling brick slums contrast with the gleaming high-life of Seoul’s more swanky spots.The film uses many of those visual cues to illustrate the competition going on in society, and the sometimes “parasitic” relationships between the rich and poor.”The uncomfortable exchanges in the movie sparked mixed feelings by hitting a sore spot in society and pitting the rich against the poor,” said Kim Chang-hwan, a 35-year-old Seoul resident.Fake Diploma South Korea’s economic inequality is higher than many members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), on par with Britain and Latvia, and has worsened in recent years.Still, its Gini coefficient, a commonly used measure of how evenly income is distributed across the population, is better than places such as the United States, according to the OECD.But after years of economic growth that powered the country’s recovery from the 1950-53 Korean War, South Korean’s economic future is more uncertain, causing growing concerns for many.A 2019 survey by the government affiliated Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs found more than 85% of South Korean respondents felt there were “very big” income gaps in society and people needed to be from a wealthy family in order to be successful.Young people have become especially pessimistic amid a highly competitive education system and job market.That has sent support for Moon plummeting to as low as 45% in early February, as his younger supporters express dissatisfaction with their economic prospects. While Moon is constitutionally barred from running again, a key parliamentary election is due to be held in April, posing a test for his ruling party.In “Parasite,” one character fakes a diploma for her brother to get a job as a tutor for a rich family.The scene reminded some South Koreans of an ongoing scandal that led to the resignation of Justice Minister Cho Kuk.Cho resigned in December and is being prosecuted for falsifying documents regarding family investments and efforts to gain university admissions for his children. He has denied wrongdoing.”Parasite’s win is a really great thing, but it was bitter to see the father impressed with his children’s forgery skills and their plans to get the jobs,” one Twitter user wrote, referring to one of the main characters.The scandal struck a chord in South Korea where young people, who compete furiously through school and university, are increasingly finding themselves scrambling for a dwindling number of positions in a slack job market, in a system they see as plagued by systemic unfairness and biased in favor of the elite.The issue was a particular disappointment to the young people who supported Moon and his party when he became president on a platform of cleaning out corruption in the government and business.
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