Saving the Nile River from Damnation!

Historically the Nile was considered to be the world’s longest river. It runs 4,258 miles from the mountains of Burundi to its famed and fertile delta fan, where Egypt meets the Mediterranean Sea. For millennia Egyptians were the unchallenged masters of the Nile, and it, the lifeblood of their ancient empires and modern republics.

Today a colossal new hydroelectric dam — scheduled to start filing this summer — is being built on the Nile, 2000 miles upriver in the lowlands of Ethiopia. The $4.5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be Africa’s largest, with a reservoir the size of London. To Ethiopians the dam symbolizes their ambitions, a mega-project with potential to light up millions of homes and earn
billions from electricity sales to neighboring countries.

Egyptians believe the dam threatens their water supply, already constricted by burgeoning population growth and a warming climate.

The UN is predicting water shortages by 2025. “Egypt wouldn’t exist without the Nile,” cried an Egyptian farmer as he surveyed his barren, dust-blown field. “Our livelihood is being destroyed, God help us.”

When Ethiopia’s modernizing, young prime minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, he swore the dam wouldn’t hurt Egypt’s water supply. But as its progress continued, squabbling increased between officials from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan (stuck between the two) concerned the disagreement could lead to war.

In November, as a last-ditch effort, talks moved to Washington for mediation, with President Trump pushing for an accord by the end of February and suggesting his deal-making abilities could earn him a Nobel Prize. Egyptian and Ethiopian officials warned it won’t be that easy.

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Saving the Nile
Dr. Essam Heggy for Al-Jazeera

For the 280 million people from 11 countries who live along the banks of the Nile, it symbolises life. For Ethiopia, a new dam holds the promise of much-needed electricity; for Egypt, the fear of a devastating water crisis.

Large hydroelectric dams are touted as a green source of electricity, but they can leave a trail of environmental damage and water insecurity.

In this interactive scientific report, Al Jazeera partnered with earth and space scientist Dr Essam Heggy to analyse the impact of large dams on the Nile as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) nears its completion date in 2023.

The mega-dam has triggered a major dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over access to the Nile’s vital water resources. How much will each country get and who controls the flow?

The Nile Delta - Egypt's food basket

This green triangle in the north of Egypt is the Nile Delta. The lush area was formed in ancient times by the accumulation of silt brought downstream along the River Nile.

North to south, the Delta measures 161km and covers the Egyptian coastline from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east. It is one of the largest deltas on Earth and is home to more than 40 million people. About half of Egypt's agricultural produce comes from this fertile area.

However, scientists have warned that Egypt's largest food basket is under threat. In 1971, more than 750km to the south, Egypt inaugurated the Aswan High Dam. It generated around half of Egypt's electrical power at the time, but this mega-dam also triggered the gradual decline of the Delta's ecosystem.

Dams, especially the ones with large reservoirs, interrupt the natural cycle of flooding that distributes organically rich silt on river banks, enriching the arable land available, and contributing to the rhythms of the native ecosystem. The sediment held back by the large reservoirs also helps build up the Delta and, without it, erosion has resulted in an accelerated intrusion of sea water from the Mediterranean into the Delta, effectively destroying once-fertile farmland.

Today, with the construction of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, scientists are warning that a further disruption to the Nile's ecosystem could cause irreversible damage to the region.

A visual analysis of Egypt's pending water crisis

Al Jazeera analysed five scenarios currently being negotiated between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

The scenarios, which are based on academic research, highlight what could happen to Egypt's annual water reserves and agricultural areas depending on how quickly Ethiopia fills the dam (21, 10, 7, 5 or 3 years). The time it takes to fill the dam has a direct impact on how much water will make it downstream into Egypt. The shorter the time, the lower the flow.

Artists’ renderings provide a glimpse of how much of Egypt's agricultural land could potentially be lost to drought and desertification.

A river that crosses the desert

The Nile flows from south to north over 6,695km from its first tributary - the Ruvyironza River in Burundi - before emptying into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile Basin, which is a network of connected ecosystems, spans 11 countries: Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.

The river consists of two main tributaries known as the White Nile and the Blue Nile. These rivers meet at the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. From there, the unified river is joined by the Atbarah River before reaching Egypt in the north.

The Nile is the only river that crosses through five distinct climate zones. The map shows how the river crosses from a tropical rainy climate to a semi-tropical one, then on to a semi-arid climate before the arid Sahara Desert and finally into the Mediterranean.

Slow and steady

Scientists believe the Nile to be between 20 and 30?million years old. In its current form, it is considered the oldest and longest river on the planet. It contains more than 100 islands, Egypt being home to 22 of them. The construction of dams on the Nile, including the Renaissance Dam, is expected to severely impact the biodiversity of these islands and the people who rely on them.

Although the river is long, compared to other major rivers it is considered very slow. It is estimated to take up to three months for water to flow from Lake Victoria in the south to the Mediterranean Sea in the north.

The infographic below compares the flow rates of the Nile with the Amazon and the Mississippi.

Colonial-era treaties

In 1929, Egypt and Britain signed the Nile Waters Agreement. Britain signed as a representative of Uganda, Kenya, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and Sudan. The document recognised Egypt’s right to the waters of the Nile as well as the right to veto any irrigation projects that would affect its share of the river's water.

In 1959, Egypt and Sudan signed another accord that supplemented the previous agreement. It gave Egypt the right to an annual share of 55.5 billion cubic metres (66%) and Sudan 18.5bn cubic metres (22%). Ethiopia was not consulted. The remaining 12 percent of the river's 84 billion cubic metre annual water supply is lost to evaporation. Britain benefitted from the agreement as it was, at the time, taking advantage of Egypt's water-intensive crops, including cotton.

In 1999, 10 Nile Basin countries formed the Nile Basin Initiative, namely Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. This intergovernmental partnership aimed to develop cooperation, share socioeconomic benefits, and promote regional peace and security.

Water resource for 280 million people

The Nile Basin is shared by 280 million people across 11 countries. The basin is one of the largest in the world, covering approximately 10% of the entire African continent.

Despite this, many countries in the region face a water deficit. Growing populations, economic development and climate change have placed additional strains on water resources.

The infographic below highlights the number of people who live in the Nile Basin as a ratio of each country's population.the Nile is the only river that flows through the Sahara Desert into Egypt.

Only 2% of Egypt's water comes from inside Egypt. Ethiopia, on the other hand, is home to several river sources, including the Blue Nile. It generates 100 percent of its own water.

From Ethiopia to Egypt: United by the Nile, separated by the dam

In the next section we take you along the Blue Nile, beginning at its origins in Ethiopia, passing through the site of the Renaissance Dam, to where it meets the White Nile in Sudan and finally into Egypt.

Lake Tana

Lake Tana is the main reservoir of the Blue Nile, providing over 80 percent of the river’s water. It is located 1,788 metres above sea level in the northwestern Ethiopian Highlands. Lake Tana is Ethiopia's largest lake (the third-largest in the Nile Basin) and contains half the country’s fresh water resources.

Seven large permanent rivers, as well as about 40 smaller seasonal rivers, feed the lake.

The Renaissance Dam

Ethiopia began construction of the Renaissance Dam in April 2011. The twin-reservoir dam is in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, just 30km from the Sudanese border. Once complete, the primary dam will span an area of 1,780sq kilometres and will store approximately 15 billion cubic metres of water behind its 155 metre-high wall.

The second auxiliary dam is a rock and concrete reservoir, measuring 4,800 metres in length and 55 metres in height. It will store approximately 60 billion cubic metres of water and will help divert any excess water from the primary reservoir back along the course of the Nile. The dam has a combined capacity of almost 75 billion cubic metres.

Egypt's Aswan High Dam has more than twice the volumetric capacity of the Renaissance Dam. Once complete, the Renaissance Dam will be the second-largest dam in Africa by volume. However, in terms of electricity produced, the Renaissance Dam's 6,450MW rating will easily eclipse the Aswan High Dam's 2,100MW rating, making it the largest hydroelectric power plant on the African continent and among the top 10 in the world.

On November 13, 2019, Ethiopia announced that it had completed construction of the auxiliary dam. The main dam is expected to be completed in early 2023 but will begin filling in the summer of 2020.

Here is how Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam stacks up against Egypt's Aswan High Dam, as well as a breakdown of how much electricity it is expected to produce.

What Ethiopia wants

The East African country is counting on the Renaissance Dam to meet its growing energy and development needs. The Ethiopian government is planning to build a new commercial network in surrounding areas, which it says will lead to employment opportunities.

Once the dam is complete, Ethiopia will become Africa's largest energy exporter, and sell about 2,000MW of surplus electricity from the dam to neighbouring countries.

Addis Ababa refuses to acknowledge colonial-era Nile Water Agreements and wants the dam to be filled in three to five years. It believes the 40 billion cubic metres of dam water that Egypt says it needs annually will hinder its ability to fill the dam in time to produce much-needed electricity.

Ethiopia is one of the cleanest energy producers on the African continent. The following infographic illustrates how Ethiopia generates its electricity compared with the rest of the continent.

The triangle capital

The White Nile and the Blue Nile join one another forming a triangle around Sudan's capital city Khartoum. From there, the unified river will flow another 2,500 km before reaching the Mediterranean Sea.

What Sudan wants

Khartoum, like Cairo, is concerned about its share of the Nile's water. Experts believe that the construction of the dam could bring some benefits to the country, most notably regulating the flow of the Nile throughout the year, which could increase agricultural output and prevent devastating flooding.

The dam will also block large amounts of silt and tree trunks that obstruct the turbines of Sudan's own hydroelectric dams in the east of the country. However, experts have warned that this reduction of silt will impoverish Sudan's fertile land, making it more difficult for the country to achieve food security.

Egyptian Civilization

For more than 5,000 years, civilisations have thrived along the banks of the Nile. Ancient Egyptians revered the mighty river, calling it a “gift of the gods”. Historians attribute Egypt's social, cultural and political foundations to the river.

Today, the Nile still provides 98% of Egypt’s water needs, with about 95% of Egyptians living on its banks.

The High Dam, an expensive solution

Inaugurated in 1971, Egypt’s Aswan Dam is Africa's largest by volume. It produces 2,100MW of hydroelectric power, which accounts for less than 5% of Egypt's total energy production.

Scientists have warned that the dam has had a negative environmental and biological impact on the northern part of Egypt’s Delta, including erosion of the coast.

Prior to the construction of the dam, the Nile in Egypt contained more than 72 species of widely present fish. Today, less than 25 species remain.

What Egypt wants

Egypt wants to ensure that its 55.5 billion cubic-metre share of the Nile is not reduced.

Egypt wants Ethiopia to fill the dam over the course of 10 to 21 years and only during the rainy season. Cairo has also demanded that Addis Ababa double the number of water release points in the dam to ensure adequate water flow when water levels are low.

Can Egypt avoid a water crisis?

While there are a handful of solutions available to Egypt, most of them will mean substantial costs to Egypt’s energy, water and food production.

The infographic below outlines the most practical steps Egypt can follow to avoid an all-out water crisis.

More dams on the Nile

Over the past 50 years, six Nile Basin countries have built 25 hydroelectric dams. As of 2019, four dams were under construction with four more being studied.

The Nile is not just a source of water. It is an exceedingly sensitive ecosystem that plays a role in the environmental and ecological balance of east Africa.

The Nile is home to more than 800 species of fish. The diversity of fish stocks is linked to the diversity of birds, insects and microorganisms. The absence of any of these elements will undermine the entire ecosystem.

Any disruption to the quality and volume of the water flowing through the river has an impact on the people and wildlife who depend upon it and could trigger a wide-scale extinction.

References

    Ecological Implications of River Flow Modification: Impacts on Riparian Vegetation in the Upper part of Blue Nile Basin, North Western Ethiopia - Paperback – August 10, 2010. By M Amare, H Sulaiman H, M McCartney.

    The Nile Basin: Quaternary Geology, Geomorphology and Prehistoric Environments 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (February 14, 2019). By Martin Williams.

    Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Versus Aswan High Dam. By Negm, Abdelazim, Abdel-Fattah, Sommer.

    The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. By Abtew, Wossenu, Dessu, Shimelis Behailu.

    The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, its Impact on Egyptian Agriculture and the Potential for Alleviating Water Scarcity. Youssef M. Hamada.

    The Nile Origin, Environments, Limnology and Human Use. By Dumont, Henri J.

    Nile River Basin Ecohydrological Challenges, Climate Change and Hydropolitics. By Melesse, Assefa, Abtew, Wossenu, Setegn, Shimelis Gebriye.

    The Nile River. By Negm, M. Abdelazim.

    Forecasting water budget deficits and groundwater depletion in the main fossil aquifer systems in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Views of Malcolm X on Democratic Party

Muslim convert Malcolm X was outspoken about his unpalatable yet candid views on both the Democratic and Republican parties. He cautioned that neither party was dedicated to the true upliftment of Black Americans; both parties were pure racists.


What Did Malcolm X Really Think about the Democratic Party?
By Timothy Alexander Guzman
Silent Crow News 21 February 2017

“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years” – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according to Ronald Kessler’s “Inside the White House”

Malcolm X was a controversial figure during the civil rights era.  If Malcolm X were alive today he would have been disappointed with the African-Americans and others who overwhelmingly vote for the Democrat party. Why? Because Malcolm X often spoke out against the American establishment, in particular, the Democratic Party for their involvement in the destruction of the African-American community and how they are used as “tools” for political power over their Republican rivals. There is no doubt that he would have continued to expose the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and how they have failed the African-American community for decades.

Malcolm X was not a Republican and he certainly was not a Democrat as he once said “We won’t organize any black man to be a Democrat or a Republican because both of them have sold us out. Both of them have sold us out; both parties have sold us out. Both parties are racist, and the Democratic Party is more racist than the Republican Party.” Before and even after the Civil Rights Act was established in 1964 under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and the well-known racist President Lyndon B. Johnson, racism in America was still at an all-time high.

Malcolm X gave a controversial speech on December 1st, 1963 speech at the Manhattan Center in New York City called ‘God’s Judgment of White America (The Chickens Come Home to Roost)’ following the assassination of John F. Kennedy which earned him a 90 day suspension from the Nation of Islam:

    In this deceitful American game of power politics, the Negroes (i.e., the race problem, the integration and civil rights issues) are nothing but tools, used by one group of whites called Liberals against another group of whites called Conservatives, either to get into power or to remain in power. Among whites here in America, the political teams are no longer divided into Democrats and Republicans. The whites who are now struggling for control of the American political throne are divided into “liberal” and “conservative” camps. The white liberals from both parties cross party lines to work together toward the same goal, and white conservatives from both parties do likewise. 

    The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor; and by winning the friendship, allegiance, and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this political “football game” that is constantly raging between the white liberals and white conservatives.

    Politically the American Negro is nothing but a football and the white liberals control this mentally dead ball through tricks of tokenism: false promises of integration and civil rights. In this profitable game of deceiving and exploiting the political politician of the American Negro, those white liberals have the willing cooperation of the Negro civil rights leaders. These “leaders” sell out our people for just a few crumbs of token recognition and token gains. These “leaders” are satisfied with token victories and token progress because they themselves are nothing but token leaders.

Malcolm X was asked about the assassination of JFK and said that the U.S. government had assassinated various foreign leaders including Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba who was a target of the CIA. Lumumba’s government was destabilized in 1960 which led to his abduction and was tortured and murdered by January 1961. Malcolm X had suggested that JFK’s assassination was a “case of the chickens coming home to roost” and that those who commit crimes against others will come back to haunt the perpetrators of those same crimes. The Nation of Islam in Chicago made a decision that after the 90-day suspension, Malcolm X would be suspended indefinitely.

However, Malcolm X had announced his departure from the Nation of Islam and announced the establishment of the Muslim Mosque Inc, a religious group that would eventually get involved in the electoral political process and community organizing for black civil rights. However, many people especially in the U.S. and to an extent across the world do not know much about Malcolm X. For starters, he was not a supporter of the Democratic Party as he was convinced that they were the party of racists. Was he correct to point out that the Democratic Party had racists within their ranks? Consider the 33rd President of the United States Harry S. Truman, a Democrat who wrote a letter to his future wife Bess regarding his thoughts about African-Americans and Chinese nationals:

    I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a White man from dust, a n*gger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, Yellow men in Asia and White men in Europe and America

The late Democratic Senator from West Virginia, Robert Byrd wrote a letter to Senator Theodore Bilbo from Mississippi in 1944 and said:

    I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side … Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds

History books in American public schools do not teach or even mention what Malcolm X represented as an anti-establishment revolutionary who never voted for either political party because he saw the blatant hypocrisy. Larry Elder, a radio show host, writer, attorney and a registered Republican who grew up in the poverty stricken Pico-Union and South Central areas in Los Angeles wrote an article on what Malcolm X would say about African-Americans who overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic Party today:

    What would Malcolm X say about today’s 95 percent black vote? Did the Democratic Party keep its promises to promote family stability, push education and encourage job creation?  The black community, over the last 50 years, has suffered an unparalleled breakdown in family unity. Even during slavery when marriage was illegal, a black child was more likely than today to be raised under a roof with his or her biological mother and father. According to census data, from 1890 to 1940, said economist Walter Williams, a black child was slightly more likely to grow up with married parents than a white child. What happened?

    When President Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in 1965, 24 percent of black babies were born to unmarried mothers. Today that number is 72 percent. Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said in 2008: “Children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home, or become teenage parents themselves.”

    Not only has family breakdown coincided with increased government spending, but the money has not done much to reduce the rate of poverty. From 1965 until now, the government has spent $15-20 trillion to fight poverty. In 1949, the poverty rate stood at 34 percent. By 1965, it was cut in half, to 17 percent — all before the so-called War on Poverty. But after the war began in 1965, poverty began to flat line. It appears that the generous welfare system allowed women to, in essence, marry the government — and it allowed men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility, while surrendering the dignity that comes from being a good provider. Psychologists call dependency “learned helplessness”

“Humanitarian Intervention” and the Democratic Party

The Democratic Party (founded on January 8th, 1829) and the Republican Party (founded on March 20th, 1854) have had their fair share in foreign and domestic wars since their founding. Since World War II, the Democratic Party has participated in numerous foreign interventions as they have often proved that they can be as hawkish as their Republican counterparts as Reagan and the Bush family. It was the Democratic Party of Harry S. Truman who authorized the use of the atomic bomb on the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Truman administration also started “The Forgotten War” known as the Korean War where Truman called the U.S. intervention a “Police Action” under the authorization of the United Nations (which was dominated by the U.S.) due to North Korea invading South Korea. The U.S. and the United Nations backed South Korea while China and the Soviet Union backed North Korea during the war. The ‘Truman Doctrine’ also led to the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The ‘Truman Doctrine’ originally implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the war and helped establish NATO to counter the Soviets in 1949. The Truman Doctrine also provided economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey to help fight the “communist threat.”

The Democrats became even more militaristic with the Kennedy administration with their funding and training of Cuban exiles for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in an attempt to remove the Castro government. The Kennedy administration also deployed nuclear missiles in Turkey which presented a direct threat to the USSR that eventually led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lyndon B. Johnson’s Vietnam War, Bill Clinton’s war on Somalia and Serbia to Obama’s destruction of Libya and the support of the Islamic State terrorists to oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and elsewhere.

The Democratic Party of today is more in sync with tribalism than they are for any real democracy. Under the Obama administration, Libya was destroyed and the Democrats said nothing. If it was George W. Bush or Donald Trump today that authorized NATO’s invasion of Libya, the liberal Democrats would be protesting in the streets. But since it was a Democrat, it was for the greater good, a “humanitarian intervention.” Some people who vote for the Democrats actually think that the Democratic Party is some sort of revolutionary resistance against the Republican Party however; both parties are the core of the political establishment closely aligned with special interest groups such as the major corporations, the Military-Industrial Complex, international banking cartels and other powerful figures and institutions behind the scenes.

Before his assassination, Malcolm X was already seen as a revolutionary figure who defied the American establishment at home and abroad. Democrats should read about the history of Malcolm X and learn the truth about the Democratic Party and possibly the next time they vote, it will be for a third or fourth party candidate that stands for a real democracy and justice that would dismantle the two-party system and the power of American Empire from within. But as long as the American public continues to be brainwashed by the mainstream-media, the education system and the political establishment from both parties, the American Empire will run amok until its inevitable collapse.

Here is a segment from Malcolm X on what he thought about the Democratic Party:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGzcrgkKXQs

Developing countries must set priority to harness technology

Like past periods of rapid, far-reaching technological change, today's digital revolution represents both a challenge and an opportunity for countries at all levels of development. But for the developing world in particular, now is the time to start preparing an economy- and society-wide strategy for managing the coming disruption.

Developing Countries Must Seize the Tech Frontier
Sri Mulyani Indrawati
Project Syndicate, Dec 26, 2019

JAKARTA – Rapid technological transformation will be a key feature of the economy well into the future. At the national, regional, and global level, frontier technologies are offering promising new opportunities, but are also introducing new policy challenges.

The march of technological innovation has long boosted economic performance, improved efficiency, accelerated the pace of globalization, and transformed human society in the process. But as the defining issue of our time, the digital revolution demands renewed policy cooperation at all levels of governance. After all, the latest wave of technological change is especially broad, and it is coming fast. It is fundamentally altering how goods, services, and ideas are exchanged. And as rapidly declining costs make digital technologies even more affordable and accessible, they will continue to transform people’s lives and livelihoods. And yet, there is a danger that these gains will not reach the world’s poorest people. An estimated three billion people could still lack Internet access by 2023, and many more will have little or no opportunity to reap the benefits of digital technologies. That means there can be no delay in addressing the problem of digital exclusion.

Fortunately, the Pathways for Prosperity Commission on Technology and Inclusive Development, which I co-chair with Melinda Gates, has shown that developing countries can still harness the new wave of frontier technologies for the benefit of all. Digital technologies have unlocked new routes to prosperity through agriculture, manufacturing, trade in services, the linking of informal and formal sectors, and domestic inter-connectivity. Low- and middle-income countries around the world now have an opportunity to build new industries, deliver better services, and improve peoples’ lives.

But digital technologies can also entrench existing forms of exclusion, disrupt livelihoods, and provide new tools for the powerful to abuse and exploit the weak. Developing countries, in particular, are starting from a difficult position, because they are already grappling with the challenges of low human capital, ineffective institutions, and a difficult business environment. Still, policymakers must not allow themselves to be paralyzed in the face of change. Rather than becoming passive observers of the tech revolution, they must take control of their countries’ economic futures. All developing countries and emerging economies should be able to capture at least some of the new opportunities on offer. As the Commission has shown, governments have several policy options for achieving more inclusive growth. But technology alone will not guarantee success. Policymakers must also account for local contexts and conditions, so that they can create social, political, and economic eco-systems in which technology creates jobs and drives inclusive growth.

To compete globally, all countries will need to prepare themselves for new and upcoming technologies by maximizing inclusiveness and guiding markets toward the right types of innovation. Governments should start by recognizing that the challenge is not just about “digital policy.” Rather, it calls for a “whole-of-economy” – indeed, a “most-of-society” – approach. And because inclusion is the key to success, support for marginalized groups will need to be built into the policy process from the outset. To that end, national governments should start planning for digital readiness in four areas: infrastructure, human capital, policy and regulation, and finance. These are the technical pillars of the future economy.

At the same time, regional-level policymakers – particularly in the Asia-Pacific region – need to start building momentum on policy cooperation, which will be necessary for harnessing frontier technologies for the greater good. Likewise, at the global level, cross-border issues associated with frontier technologies will need to be addressed multilaterally. That means multilateral organizations themselves should be developing an antenna for identifying new technological and development challenges.

It is already clear that more must be done to mitigate technological disruptions to employment, boost investment in human capital, and ensure fair taxation in the new digital economy. We should not underestimate the power of multi-lateralism. For decades, countries have been coming together in global fora to safeguard public goods and pursue collective prosperity. Nonetheless, the existing architecture for multi-lateralism will need to be adapted to reflect changing needs.

To capture the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we also will need to strengthen public-private partnerships and make our economies more efficient and flexible. With the world’s population projected to reach ten billion by mid-century, global governance will become even more complex than it is today.

For its part, Indonesia recognizes the need for policies to manage the new digital economy. In addition to addressing the impact of technological disruption and ensuring fair taxation, the key will be to put people at the center of the agenda. Beyond furnishing workers with the right skills, we must create a digital world where all people have a voice, and where those who are not benefiting from change have the support they need.

As is usually the case, the challenge we face is also an opportunity. Digital and frontier technologies have enormous potential to improve government administration and the delivery of public services.It is time for a new kind of conversation, one that involves governments, business leaders, innovators, civil-society organizations, and citizens alike. For developing countries, the task is clear: we must ride the wave of technological change, rather than wait for it to crash down on us.
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Sri Mulyani Indrawati is Finance Minister of Indonesia and former Chair of the World Bank Group’s Development Committee.

The Travel Writer Ibn Jubayr to Al-Andalus

Ibn Jubayr's travel accounts make a fascinating accounts to get to know the lives in Moorish Spain...


Travelers of Al-Andalus, Part 1: The Travel Writer Ibn Jubayr
Written by Daniel Grammatico and Louis Werner
Aramco, Feb-Mar issue, 2015

According to later chroniclers, if they can be believed, the adventure of Ibn Jubayr, one of the most illustrious rahhala, or travelers, from Al-Andalus to destinations throughout the Mediterranean and farther east, began in the year 1183 with a repugnant challenge.

To name him in full, Abu al-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Jubayr al-Kinani served as secretary in the palace of Granada’s governor, Abu Said Osman, son of the first Almohad caliph, Abd al-Mu’min. As the story goes, at one point while dictating a letter, the prince coerced him to drink seven cups of wine, forbidden to Muslims. In exchange, the prince granted him seven cups of gold dinars. To seek expiation of his sin—and perhaps to make a hasty exit from the court—this otherwise most pious Muslim scholar set out to fulfill one of the five pillars of Islam by making the long pilgrimage to Makkah.

No matter Ibn Jubayr’s true motive, his two-year journey made a considerable impact on literary history. His account of his travels and tribulations in the East—which makes no mention of the wine incident—served as the foundational work of a new genre of writing, the rihla, or the creative travelogue: a mix of personal narrative, description, opinion and anecdote. In following centuries, countless people emulated and even plagiarized him.

What could have moved so many people from Al-Andalus and the North African Maghreb to undertake dangerous journeys to faraway lands, particularly those people as well heeled and comfortably accommodated as Ibn Jubayr, who had received the traditional education of the sedentary elite of Al-Andalus, trained in both religious science and belles lettres?

Faith, to answer the question most simply. “For Muslims, pilgrimage rituals are something of the sublime,” Ibn Jubayr wrote, thus setting a religious context for all the places and monuments he saw during his nine-month stay in Makkah and along his roundabout travels there and back. As an additional incentive, such a journey granted the esteemed title of hajj to whoever completed the pilgrimage. In the case of his being from the Arab West, he gained additional status by obtaining an ijaza, or religious teaching license, at the feet of scholars from the Arab East.

Ibn Jubayr, however, had an even more personal incentive: finding his family origins. Born in Valencia but descended from the great Arab lineage of Kinana, from the region of Makkah, in some ways he was going home. Still another reason may have been of a literary nature: He was fascinated by the desert world and by the romance of travel by caravan, thanks largely to the potent imagery in the Arabic poetry he learned as a boy.

Ibn Jubayr was 38 years old when he left Granada on February 15, 1183. He moved first to Ceuta in North Africa to embark for Alexandria aboard a Genoan boat. His first act upon reaching Cairo was to stand before tombs of the Prophet Muhammad’s followers. Next, he went up the Nile by boat to the town of Qus (near modern Qena), from where he mounted a camel to ride to the Red Sea port of ‘Aydhab, near the modern Egypt-Sudan border, and from there sailed across the Red Sea to Jiddah. In August he arrived at Makkah.

For his return journey, he joined a pilgrim caravan that stopped in Madinah. In circular, even backward fashion, he crossed the deserts of Hijaz and Najd in the direction of Baghdad, heading east and north. There, in the Abbasid capital, he praised “the natural goodness of its air and waters,” but he complained about the vanity of its people.

“Strangers they despise,” he wrote, “and they show scorn and disdain to their inferiors, while the stories of the news of other men they belittle ... it is as if they are persuaded that God has no lands nor people save theirs.”

He returned through the fertile lands of Mesopotamia, through Mosul and west toward Syria, via Aleppo. The city of Damascus, where he remained two months, dazzled him: “Paradise of the Orient,” he called it. He then took the road to the Mediterranean port of Saint John d’Acre (‘Akka), still occupied by a Crusader army, intending next to travel into western lands.

But this leg turned dangerous. Unfavorable winds left him shipwrecked in the Strait of Messina in Sicily, fallen into Christian hands a century earlier. There he remained for nearly four months, living under the hospitality of the Arabic-speaking King William ii (known as “William the Good”), whom Ibn Jubayr came to admire for bringing non-Christians into his court. “He has much confidence in Muslims,” he wrote, “relying on them for his affairs ... in them shines the splendor of his realm.”

When the winds again turned, he set out for home, and he disembarked back in Al-Andalus, at the port of Cartagena. He arrived at his house in Granada in April 1185. There, he set about to write down his story.

Ibn Jubayr offered suggestive images of the lands he traversed, drawing the landscapes, cities, villages and markets with an astonishing attention to detail.

Once home, he surely enjoyed increased authority as a returned scholar and pilgrim, yet what he did next is not recorded. Four years later he returned to the Arab East, although his rihla of his first sojourn makes no reference to these later two years of travel. When he was 72 years old, he undertook his last trip, passing through Makkah, Jerusalem and Egypt, where he died in Alexandria on September 29, 1217. The rihla and two poems are all he left behind.

Ibn Jubayr’s epic story constitutes one of the most valuable testimonies about the eastern Mediterranean world in the late 12th century, which had recently been turned upside down by Crusaders in Syria and Palestine as well as by the Norman invasion of Sicily and the fall of the Fatimids in Egypt to the rising Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, or Saladin.

With a writing style concise if at times pompous, with alternating citations of Qur’anic verses, brief, fervent prayers and lines of poetry, Ibn Jubayr offered suggestive images of the lands he traversed, drawing the landscapes, cities, villages and markets with an astonishing attention to detail.

His exhaustive descriptions of mosques, tombs and other monuments are still of great help to archeologists and art historians today.

His journey also makes modern readers wonder about the climate of fear along the maritime and land routes of his day. He wrote, for instance, of a traveler’s defenselessness in the face of pirates and covetous customs officers, corrupt traders and confidence men from all corners of the world, as well as Kurdish, Arab and Beja tribesmen always at the ready to assault and rob pilgrim caravans.

Ibn Jubayr’s rihla helps modern readers understand the complexity of the direct encounter between the two worlds of East and West—Islam and Christianity—that until then had been seeing each other more slantwise from across the sea, glimpsed from the corner of the eye.

He explained how these two civilizations first quarreled, then learned to accept one another and finally lived warily together, all within a single lifetime. The second Crusade, after all, was launched in 1145, the year of Ibn Jubayr’s birth. Although he offered pro forma insults of other monotheisms, as was expected for his time, as well as denunciations of the various schisms within his own religion, he made his story accessible to all, for instance by providing both Islamic and Christian dates for the various legs of his trip.

Ibn Jubayr would be pleased to know that his manuscript was first edited and published by a westerner, and that the earliest known copy is in a library in the West, at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and it has since been translated into Russian, Persian, Urdu, Italian, French, English, Spanish and Catalan—the latter two languages of his Iberian homeland.

Christians and Muslims, he observed, were meeting both on the fields of battle and in processions for marriages. “One of the astonishing things that is talked of is that though the fires of discord burn between the two parties, Muslim and Christian, two armies of them may meet and dispose themselves in battle array, and yet Muslim and Christian travelers will come and go between them without interference.... The soldiers engage themselves in their war, while the people are at peace.” Likewise, at a Christian wedding in Tyre, he noted how “the Muslims and other Christian onlookers formed two ranks along the route, and gazed on bride and groom without reproof.”

He was appreciative similarly of the European ships that carried Muslim pilgrims to their own holy places without interference, fearing bad weather more than militant unbelievers. Throughout, he praised the thriving Christian communities in Islamic lands and the similar Muslim communities in Christian lands.

Observing the favorable situation of some Muslim peasants working for Christian farmers, he lamented that “the Muslim community bewails the injustice of a landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him. He who despairs of this state must turn to God.”

He was certainly self-effacing—never once writing in the first person—and he left much room for self-doubt and contradiction, and more often than not he addressed his own idle curiosities over matters of state.
In Tyre, he recounted how a Muslim army from North Africa had attacked a Christian stronghold that had previously honored a truce with its Levantine Arab neighbors, and had thus unnecessarily upset their peaceful relations. Since then, Muslims from western lands—but not their eastern coreligionists—were obliged to pay a tax as redress for such heedless trouble-making. Even though Ibn Jubayr himself had to pay the tax, his cultural circumspection allowed him to see both sides of the matter. “In the payment of this tax,” he wrote, “the Maghrebis are pleasingly reminded of their vexing of the enemy, and thus the payment of it is lightened and its harshness made tolerable.”

He explained the religious quandary he felt about this encounter between competing monotheisms, relating the religious fervor of his time in a personal voice when writing of his own pilgrimage to the land of many religions’ prophets, saints, preachers and ascetics.

Remember that Ibn Jubayr was educated under the Almohad dynasty, whose mission was to reform and revive Islam. Educated in the Maliki school of law, one of the four orthodox juridical systems, he nonetheless did not ignore or outrightly condemn even the most heterodox manifestations of his faith.

Zaydis, Qarmatians and other rafidi—rejectors, as he called them—all attracted his curious gaze. In fact, given his Almohadite demands for correct religious behavior, he seemed to indulge even the most casual Muslims as long as they were hospitable toward pilgrims such as himself. Of the Saru Bedouin of Yemen, he wrote, “the religious laws do not direct them in their affairs, and you will find among them no devotional practices beyond that of good intention.” For him, that was sufficient—and the pleasant fact that they were eloquent in their Arabic.

One might wonder which readers Ibn Jubayr had in mind when writing his rihla. He was certainly self-effacing—never once writing in the first person—and he left much room for self-doubt and contradiction, and more often than not he addressed his own idle curiosities over matters of state.

Compare this with the opening lines of the Travels by Marco Polo, the foundational travelogue of western literature written barely 100 years later: “Emperors, kings, dukes, marquises, counts, knights, and all persons wishing to know ... the kingdoms, provinces, and all the regions of the East, read this book.” What Marco Polo wanted to teach others of high estate, Ibn Jubayr was ready to set to the margin.

At other times, Ibn Jubayr seems almost chagrined by his own people’s state of affairs. The Abbasid caliph Al-Nasir, ruling during Ibn Jubayr’s Baghdad visit, died 35 years before the area was laid waste by the Mongol invasion in 1258. Ibn Jubayr had little positive to say about the city or its sovereign other than it still had a faint glow from its golden age under Harun al-Rashid four centuries earlier: “Most of its traces have gone, leaving only a famous name.”

His focus instead was on a new and rising multicultural capital, Sicily’s Palermo, full of “wealth,” “splendor” and “elegance”—words he had rarely if ever used in the Arab East—and of “well-set piazzas” and “towering palaces” like “pearls encircling a woman’s full throat.”

It is telling that Ibn Jubayr, despite acute homesickness when abroad, was unable to remain in Al-Andalus after his return. Perhaps it was because the Arab West at this time was facing the loss of much of its Iberian territory to Christian armies, beginning with the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, known to the Arabs as the Battle of Uqab, in 1212, just five years before his death.

And perhaps just as likely, he saw in Saladin’s strong hand the promise that once again Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo could be something like Palermo, “having all that you could wish of beauty, real or apparent, and all the means of subsistence, mature and fresh,” where peace, not war, prevailed.

“Travelers of Al-Andalus” is a six-part series selected and adapted from the original 41-part series “El Viajero Histórico,” an idea and production by Ana Carreño Leyva in El Legado Andalusí: Una Nueva Sociedad Mediterránea, the magazine of the Andalusian public foundation El Legado Andalusí, based in Granada, Spain, from 1990 through 2010. The original of this article, by Daniel Grammatico, appeared in issue number 2, titled “Las peregrianciones de Ibn Yubair.”

Playing football can inflict damages to the human brain!

Six things to know about the NFL, concussions, and brain damage. Physically demanding sports like American / Australian Football, Rugby, Boxing, Wrestling, Ice Hockey, etc can also result in permanent physical and neurological damage to human brains.

What a lifetime of playing football can do to the human brain

By Brian Resnick 
Vox, Feb 1, 2020

Football isn’t just a contact sport — it’s a dangerous game of massive bodies colliding into one another. And while it may seem obvious that this sport can do extraordinary damage to brains and bodies, it’s taken far too long for the NFL, the medical community, and football fans to fully reckon with this.

Doctors have learned a tremendous amount about concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a degenerative brain condition believed to be caused by repeated hits to the head, since the first former NFL player was diagnosed with CTE in the early 2000s. Concern around the issue has only grown now that more than 100 former NFL players have received a postmortem diagnosis of CTE, and new research is finding that youth football may be a risk factor for CTE down the line.

Football is still an immensely popular sport in the United States, and this weekend, millions will watch and enjoy the Super Bowl. But all the evidence we now have about the very serious risk of brain injuries casts a dim light on the future of the sport. Here’s what you need to know.

1) Concussions are incredibly commonplace in professional football

The human brain — the most complicated and powerful organ on planet Earth — is squishy. And when a person hits their head hard, the brain can bounce around and twist in the skull. It’s this rapid motion of the brain inside the skull that creates the traumatic brain injury known as a concussion.

During impact, individual neurons can be stretched and damaged. Brain chemistry gets out of whack. Concussions make people “see stars,” become disoriented, lose consciousness, become sensitive to light and sound, get headaches, and have sluggish or confused thoughts for weeks and even months.

Heads and bodies get smashed and shuddered every week during the football season. And despite changing the rules to allow for more severe penalties and fines for flagrant helmet-to-helmet hits, the NFL has not succeeded so far in preventing concussions.

The number of concussions sustained during practice and gameplay in 2018 fell somewhat, from a total of 281 in 2017 to a total of 214 in 2018, according to the NFL’s injury data. And then increased again to a total of 224 in 2019.

This data doesn’t cover the countless additional blows to the head that don’t reach the level of concussion but still may pose a risk for the brain.

2) Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a degenerative brain disease caused by repetitive hits

CTE is not about single concussions. It’s the result of repeated concussions — and even head impacts that are not quite as severe — which can result in lasting structural changes in the brain. “The pain you feel [after a hit] is not necessarily an indicator of the damage that does to your head,” Philip Bayly, an engineering professor at Washington University in Saint Louis, who has been studying the mechanics of brain movement inside the head, said in a 2019 interview.

Specifically, brains with CTE accumulate a protein called tau (which is believed to be dislodged from brain fibers during an injury). Tau clumps together in the tissues of the brain, interrupting critical information flow.

The mechanisms of how this all happens still aren’t well understood. “The challenge is nobody sees what happens to the brain when someone gets a concussion,” Bayly said. One hypothesis is that the sulci — the grooves on the surface of the brain — experience high mechanical stress during an injury and burst open pockets of tau. (In autopsies, these clumps of tau are often found near the blood vessels at the bottom of sulci.)

The disease isn’t exactly new. A form of it was originally discovered among boxers in the 1920 (who, like football players, sustain regular hits to the head). Then, it was called dementia pugilistica, or punch-drunk syndrome. Currently the only way to definitively diagnose CTE is through an autopsy. In 2005, researchers published the first confirmed case of CTE in an NFL player. The results of that report contained ominous statistics to suggest CTE might be frighteningly prevalent among players:

There are approximately 0.41 concussions per NFL game of American football: 67.7% of concussions involve impact by another player’s helmet, 20.9% involve impact by other body regions (e.g., a knee), and 11.4% involve impact on the ground (29, 31, 32, 40). It has been reported that 9.3% of the concussions involved loss of consciousness and 2.4% of the concussions resulted in hospitalization. Most (92%) of the players who sustain a concussion return to practice in less than 7 days; fewer (69%) of the players who experience loss of consciousness return to practice in less than 7 days.

And since then, evidence has only mounted that the repeated head blows in the NFL contribute to the disease.

In 2017, Aaron Hernandez, a former player for the New England Patriots, hanged himself in prison while serving time for a violent murder. Upon an autopsy, doctors diagnosed him with CTE. It was the most severe case ever seen in a person his age (27 years old).

3) There’s a range of CTE symptoms, from forgetfulness to violent behavior

The symptoms of CTE creep slowly, taking 8 to 10 years to manifest after initial repeated brain traumas, and can grow worse over decades. Here’s a diagram of what’s happening inside the brain as CTE grows more and more severe.

These images are from a 2013 study in the journal Brain, which assessed 85 brains donated from former athletes, veterans, and people with a history of brain injury. The brown stains represent the dangerous tau proteins. What starts off as areas of the brain pockmarked with tau spreads to surround whole brain structures.

In stage I, symptoms are subtle: headaches, short-term memory loss, and loss of attention. By stage IV, “most subjects also showed profound loss of attention and concentration, executive dysfunction, language difficulties, explosively, aggressive tendencies, paranoia, depression, gait and visuospatial difficulties,” the paper explains.

4) It’s unclear how many former NFL players have CTE

CTE can only be conclusively diagnosed in autopsy (though progress is being made in diagnosing via MRI). So it’s hard to say how many current and former football players have the condition. What we do know is that there are dozens of cases of confirmed CTE — enough to be alarming.

In 2017, JAMA published a major and disturbing finding. Researchers had collected the autopsied brains of 202 former football players who had donated their brains to science, or had them donated via their next of kin. The players included those who had played in the NFL, but also those who only played through college, and a few who had only played in high school.

Of the 202 brains, 177, or nearly 90 percent, were diagnosed with CTE. And there was a pattern: Those who had played football longer were more likely to have worse brain damage. Among the former NFL players in the sample, 99 percent had CTE. This suggests the effects of brain trauma on CTE are cumulative. The more trauma over a longer period, the worse the symptoms.

This is not to say that 99 percent of NFL players will develop CTE (the brains were donated and are not a representative sample). But it does show that football players are, indeed, at risk.

As Ann McKee, the Boston University neuropathologist who is the leading expert in CTE, told PBS Frontline in 2013, “People think that we’re blowing this out of proportion, that this is a very rare disease and that we’re sensationalizing it. My response is that where I sit, this is a very real disease. We have had no problem identifying it in hundreds of players.”

And to note: Football is not the only sport that poses the risk of head injury. There’s growing concern about CTE in hockey players, as well as abroad; players of Australian rules football have also complained about cognitive problems after retirement.

5) Even high school and college-level play poses a risk

One of the biggest consequences of the concussion research is that fewer young people are participating in the sport. In a 2018 documentary, retired star quarterback Brett Favre said he’d prefer that his grandsons play golf over football. Celebrities like former President Barack Obama have said they wouldn’t let their sons play football.

National trends reflect the unease. The number of high school students playing football dropped by 30,829 between the 2017-2018 and the 2018-2019 school years, continuing a downward trend. In 2008, 1.11 million high school students played football. Now, it’s 1.006 million — the lowest number since the 1999-2000 school year, the National Federation of High Schools reports. That said, football is still the most popular sport for high school males.

(There’s some data to suggest that drop in participation is led by white students. “Black kids in lower-income communities without a lot of other sports available are still flocking to football,” the Atlantic’s Alana Semuels reports.)

Parents have reason to be concerned about young kids playing the sport.

A 2015 study found that former NFL players who began football before age 12 fared worse on cognitive assessments than those who started later in their teens. And this held true even controlling for number of years played.

It suggests (though not conclusively) that playing football at ages younger than 12 is more dangerous for long-term cognitive decline than starting at an older age. “The results of this study suggest that sustaining repeated head injuries during critical periods of brain maturation could alter neurodevelopmental trajectories, leading to later-life cognitive impairment,” the study concluded.

More recently, a study on the brains of deceased football players also found a link between early play and CTE. Athletes who began playing tackle football before age 12 developed the cognitive and behavior symptoms of CTE 13 years earlier on average than those who started playing later in their teenage years.

“Every one year younger that participants began to play football resulted in earlier reported onset of cognitive and behavioral [and] mood symptoms by approximately 2.5 years,” the study concluded. However, the study did not find an increased amount of physical abnormalities in the brains of athletes who began playing earlier than age 12. Scientists are still working to figure out the exact relationship between physical brain damage and the start of symptoms — and are recognizing that behavior symptoms can occur without detectable physical changes.

Regardless, brain changes are a concern for younger football players. Yet another study found evidence to suggest that college football experience can lead to a decrease in the volume of the hippocampus — a critical region for memory — compared to people who never played college football.

There are many uncertainties left in the research. Another study recently found that participation in tackle football before 12 years of age did not result in any cognitive deficits while in college. So it’s not the case that playing football early will necessarily lead to impairments in early adulthood. And a study of 3,000-plus Wisconsin men who had played high school football in the 1950s found no elevated rates of cognitive impairment. This shows not everyone who plays football as a teen suffers consequences, and researchers still need to better understand how much exposure to football tackles is too much.

6) The NFL has made the game somewhat safer. But it’s still dangerous.

The NFL didn’t acknowledge the concussion problem until 2009; for years, the NFL had downplayed and denied the links between concussions and cognitive decline. (Frontline has a fantastic documentary about how the league turned a blind eye to the problem for years.) And these days, the league is donating millions to concussion-related research.

But there has been significant friction with the scientific community over the issue. In July 2018, the NFL and the National Institutes of Health ended a $30 million partnership with half the money left unspent. According to ESPN, “the NFL backed out of a major study that had been awarded to a researcher who had been critical of the league,” which precipitated the ending of the partnership.

The league has also made some steps to make the game a bit safer. (Read SB Nation for a full explainer on the NFL’s concussion protocols.) Players are immediately removed from the field when there’s a potential concussion. If diagnosed, they can only return to play after completing a five-step protocol, which includes an unspecified period of rest, followed up by supervised exercise, and then examinations not just with the team doctor but also with an independent neurological consultant. Critics, however, have charged that these protocols have been enforced unevenly across teams and players.

Furthermore, the NFL has banned helmet-to-helmet hits, made kickoff plays slightly safer, and limited the amount of contact allowed in practices. It’s also looking into artificial playing surfaces to soften the blow of impacts.

There’s still a lot of research to be done. Scientists are trying to better model what happens inside the brain when the skull is hit. Just “providing good data” is a research priority, Bayly says. “So people can build better simulations, and if people can build better simulations, they can design better helmets.”

But even with better helmets, football might not ever be a perfectly safe sport for brain health. As long as football is a sport where human-to-human collisions are fundamental to play, it’s going to be a dangerous game.

American Super Bowl turns into Super Sex Show!

There’s been a backlash in America to the booty-shaking, hip-thrusting sexiness of J-Lo and Shakira in the Super Bowl halftime show.

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira were too sexy at halftime show: parents
Jane Ridley
NY Post, February 4, 2020

Parents are getting their panties in a bunch over the Super Bowl 2020 halftime show featuring Latina divas Jennifer Lopez and Shakira.

Many took to social media to give their own reviews of the performance, which featured Shakira twerking and belly dancing before J.Lo writhed her way around a pole — all on the same stage as Lopez’s daughter, Emme Maribel Muñiz.

They were just as worried about the sexy choreography as the duo’s skimpy costumes.

“Not appropriate for kids at a Super Bowl halftime show. Just J Lo’s outfits in general,” one outraged Twitter user, TurtlePower98, posted.

Another pearl-clutcher went further: “Absolutely the worst, most vulgar halftime show ever.”

@Jagsfan11 went on: “I was embarrassed for my kids and ashamed of Fox for televising it.”

Meanwhile, Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, saw the show as indicative of America’s race to the bottom. “I don’t expect the world to act like the church, but our country has had a sense of moral decency on prime time TV in order to protect our children,” he posted. “We see that disappearing before our eyes. It was demonstrated in tonight’s @Pepsi #SuperBowl Halftime Show – w/millions of kids watching.”

The energetic set from 50-year-old Lopez and co-headliner Shakira, 43, was certainly eye-popping.

It began with the younger star, who hails from Colombia, singing a medley of her hits as she gyrated onstage in a barely-there red outfit that showed off her toned figure.

Next, J.Lo gave the middle finger to awards-show voters who snubbed her scene-stealing turn in the 2019 strippers movie “Hustlers” by twirling away on a giant pole. She executed the kind of gymnastics that could earn her an Olympics gold medal, albeit an R-rated one.

But for all the haters on Twitter and Facebook, there was a vocal bunch of J.Lo and Shakira supporters who praised the performance — besides Lopez’s fiancé, Alex Rodriguez, of course.

Twitter user @WiscoJay suggested horrified parents were overdue for a reality check: “To all the people [complaining] about the halftime show be sure you never take your kids to a Pop concert or to Miami. Nothing that happened at halftime was out of the ordinary for either. Learn to appreciate culture and be a better parent and not judge others.”

There were also cries of double standards being applied by fans this year. At the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine, now 40, memorably appeared shirtless, flaunting his heavily tattooed torso.

In an ironic tweet, Twitter user Justin Manford posted a photograph of the half-naked Levine juxtaposed with a snap of mother of two J.Lo being hoisted into the air wearing her scanty sparkling leotard.

He captioned it “Moms in 2019” followed by a smiling emoji with hearts for eyes. “Moms in 2020,” however: “Really wish the halftime show was family friendly. There are kids watching.”

US airports using facial recognition scanners...

Airports around the Western world had long been photographing incoming and outgoing passengers without their knowledge or approval. So, they didn't give a hoot about privacy when it came to using Facial Recognition scanning products.

Facial recognition scanners at US airports under more scrutiny

Facial recognition systems are being rolled out across American airports. But passengers aren’t completely sure about the new technology.

Katie Byrne
Fox News, February 4, 2020

A growing number of airports across the US are using facial recognition scanners – and photos of non-US citizens are being kept for up to 75 years.

Philadelphia International Airport is the latest to roll out the technology, Fox News reports.

“So, this is an electronic way, basically, to verify identity,” said Jeni Best, a branch manager with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

At Philadelphia airport, the machines are set up at three international gates. Passengers will step up to the machines and have their faces scanned before boarding their flight. CBP officials say it takes less than two seconds and has a 99 per cent matching rate.

“It reduces your impostor threat and it provides a secure and efficient way to verify identity,” Ms Best said.

Australian passengers have been part of similar trials of facial recognition technology at Sydney airport.

According to Ms Best, the ultimate goal is for the machines to eliminate the need to show passports. But some people fear the technology threatens their privacy.

“It’s really a very big deal,” said Paul Hudson, president of the non-profit Flyers Rights. Mr Hudson has been working for the airline passenger advocacy group for more than 20 years. His concern is where the photos from the machines end up.

“The databases are, first of all, are not immune to hacking,” he said.

CBP officials say all photos of US citizens are deleted within 12 hours. Photos of non-US citizens can be stored on CBP systems for up to 75 years.

“But that is a practice that CBP already has in place for all visitors,” Ms Best added.

Passengers aren’t completely sure about the technology.

“I’d have to think about it for a little bit,” passenger Ellyn Phair said.

“There are so many things going on with hacks on the computer systems and that is increasing these days, so I feel like that could be a problem.”

Mr Hudson thinks more research needs to be done.

“Before you do something like this, there needs to be a buy-in by a large majority of the population,” he said.

At least 27 airports in 16 states and Washington DC are using facial recognition technology. In Philadelphia, the machines are part of a pilot program, so passengers have the ability to opt out of using them. “They just let either the gate agent know or the CBP officer,” Ms Best said.

Some argue opting out isn’t as easy as it seems. “Based on research I’ve seen, only 2 per cent actually opt out, so that would indicate that people either don’t understand it or … it’s too bothersome to deal with,” Mr Hudson said.

“Right now, it’s an experiment,” said Angelo Reid, who has been working at Philadelphia airport for more than 40 years.

Mr Reid thinks face scanners are just another way to keep people safe.

“Just like anything else, people will grow into it. They’ll get used to it. And they’ll realise it’s for their own safety,” he added.

At Philadelphia airport, the face scanners are running as a pilot program for 45 days. Once the program ends in early March, the airport will likely decide whether to implement them long-term.