By Yao-Hua LawApr. 1, 2019 , 4:25 PM KUANTAN, MALAYSIA—Companies and governments around the world are anxiously watching the fate of a sprawling industrial facility 30 kilometers north of this city on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. The 100-hectare Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) produces 10% of the world’s output of rare earth oxides (REOs), minerals needed in technologies including mobile phones, hard drives, fiber optic cables, surgical lasers, and cruise missiles. Lynas, an Australian company, imports concentrated ores from mines on Mount Weld in Australia and refines them here in Malaysia, where costs are lower; it sells REOs—which include cerium compounds, used in catalytic converters, and neodymium, critical to permanent magnets—to Japan, the United States, and other countries. The plant produced almost 18,000 tons of REOs in 2018. Now, the LAMP faces closure, barely 7 years after it opened. Environmental groups have long opposed the storage … [Read more...] about Radioactive waste standoff could slash high tech’s supply of rare earth elements
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How WhatsApp Fuels Fake News and Violence in India
By the time police arrived in the hamlet of Rainpada on July 1, 2018, the village council office was the scene of a massacre. The bright blue shutters on the windows were splintered and the door was kicked in. Inside, files were strewn across the floor and the light green walls were splashed with blood. Five men were dead, beaten to death with fists, feet, sticks, and office furniture wielded by a raging mob. The dead men—four in their late forties and one whose age remains unknown—had arrived in Rainpada earlier that day, at around 9 am, on a bus from Solapur, some 300 miles south, to attend a Sunday market. According to their families and police, all of them were members of a Nath Panthi Davari Gosavi tribe, a nomadic group that roams India’s western Maharashtra state, surviving mostly on alms. The men sat under a tree not far from where they had gotten off the bus and, as they ate, handed a biscuit to a young girl. Six weeks later, Hemant Patil, the assistant … [Read more...] about How WhatsApp Fuels Fake News and Violence in India
Starbucks opens first US sign language store
Rachel Siegel, The Washington Post Published 5:58 am PDT, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 Starbucks District Manager Margaret Houston presents an apron to partner Glen Cole on Saturday, October 20, 2018 at Starbucks first U.S. Signing Store in Washington D.C. Starbucks District Manager Margaret Houston presents an apron to partner Glen Cole on Saturday, October 20, 2018 at Starbucks first U.S. Signing Store in Washington D.C. Photo: Joshua Trujillo/Starbucks. Photo: Joshua Trujillo/Starbucks. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Image 1 of 1 Starbucks District Manager Margaret Houston presents an apron to partner Glen Cole on Saturday, October 20, 2018 at Starbucks first U.S. Signing Store in Washington D.C. Starbucks District Manager Margaret Houston presents an apron to partner Glen Cole on Saturday, October 20, 2018 at … [Read more...] about Starbucks opens first US sign language store
The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980
We're facing 25 years of prosperity, freedom, and a better environment for the whole world. You got a problem with that? A bad meme - a contagious idea - began spreading through the United States in the 1980s: America is in decline, the world is going to hell, and our children's lives will be worse than our own. The particulars are now familiar: Good jobs are disappearing, working people are falling into poverty, the underclass is swelling, crime is out of control. The post-Cold War world is fragmenting, and conflicts are erupting all over the planet. The environment is imploding - with global warming and ozone depletion, we'll all either die of cancer or live in Waterworld. As for our kids, the collapsing educational system is producing either gun-toting gangsters or burger-flipping dopes who can't read. By the late 1990s, another meme began to gain ground. Borne of the surging stock market and an economy that won't die down, this one is more positive: America is finally getting its … [Read more...] about The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980
TPP 11 passes Australian Parliament
The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP 11) passed Parliament on Wednesday, making Australia the fourth signatory nation to ratify the Pacific rim trade deal. The agreement is set to enter into force 60 days after six countries have ratified it, with Singapore, Japan, and Mexico also having passed the law. "This landmark agreement is one of the most comprehensive trade deals ever concluded, and strips 98 percent of tariffs for 11 countries with a combined GDP of more than $13.8 trillion and close to 500 million consumers," Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham said in a joint statement. "Independent modelling shows Australia is forecast to see AU$15.6 billion in net annual benefits to national income by 2030 from the TPP 11. "Our government will continue to pursue a trade agenda that opens new markets for Australian businesses and creates certainty for exporters. It is a key plank of our … [Read more...] about TPP 11 passes Australian Parliament