Delivery robots take the strain out of shopping in UK town

It is famous for its roundabouts and statues of concrete cows, but the English town of Milton Keynes now has another claim to fame — a trundling army of shopping delivery robots. The six-wheeled automated vehicles, launched three years ago, barely get a second glance as they ply the residential streets, about 80km north of London. The number of robots has grown to 200 in Milton Keynes and nearby Northampton, which introduced the service last year, with plans for as many as 500 to be in action in five more places across the country. According to the robots’ operators, the squat white machines came into their own when the UK locked down last year as COVID-19 hit the country. “Everyone was so in need of contactless delivery during the pandemic,” Starship Technologies head of UK operations Andrew Curtis said. The US company, which has quadrupled its deliveries in the UK, now makes 1,000 deliveries a day. “Demand hasn’t dropped off,” Curtis said, adding that as stay-at-home restrictions were lifted, users became more willing to try the technology. The company has signed a new agreement with longstanding partner the Co-op Group’s chain of supermarkets, to provide 300 new robots by the end of the year and triple deliveries. In front of one of the retailer’s shops in Milton Keynes, which was the first to use the delivery machines in 2018, a dozen robots are ready and waiting. With their antenna topped with an orange flag to aid visibility, they look almost like a queue of empty bumper cars. STARSHIP TROOPERS An employee emerges from the shop and places the newest order inside one of the robots — a small bag containing raspberries, yoghurt and a bouquet of flowers. With its lid locked, the droid immediately dashes out onto the pavement. It turns and moves forward to cross the road before stopping,

NGO grows medical cannabis despite strict Brazil rules

Surrounded by barbed wire and an electric fence, marijuana plants flourish under the bright sun on a farm in a mountainous area outside Rio de Janeiro. Yet this farm has nothing to do with drug trafficking. It belongs to a pioneering Brazilian nongovernmental organization (NGO) engaged in the production of medical cannabis to help people with seizures. Margarete Brito, a lawyer by training, first started growing cannabis several years ago to relieve the seizures of her daughter, Sofia, now 12, who has epilepsy. After seeing her condition improve, Brito decided to help other people, too. So she founded the Medical Cannabis Research and Patient Support Association (APEPI), which produces artisanal therapeutic oils made from cannabis to help people with conditions similar to her daughter’s. That work has required a lot of effort, as growing marijuana remains illegal in Brazil. “If we follow the letter of the law, nothing authorizes us to do that,” Brito said. However, she and her husband, Marcos Langenbach, were able to obtain an unprecedented judicial authorization to cultivate cannabis for medical purposes in 2016. Today, their farm — about two hours by car from the Brazilian capital — has 2,000 plants growing there to help people with severe autism, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. Despite initial suspicion and pushback from some, Brito said the endeavor enjoys support in Brazil. “We have real social legitimacy. That’s what protects us,” Brito said. On a recent visit to the farm, agricultural engineer Diogo Fonseca made his way among marijuana plants growing in large black pots and marked with the names of their different varieties: Purple Wreck, Schanti, Doctor, Harle Tsu, Solar and CBG. These plants are used to produce therapeutic oils that meet the needs of each patient, depending on whether they require a higher or lower dose of cannabidiol, a non-psychotropic substance with a relaxing effect. Using a pocket microscope,

Chinese ban hits overseas tutors, cultural links

Every morning, Sam Josti logged on from her home in the US to teach children halfway around the world, just one of thousands of foreign-language tutors giving Chinese students a rare window into Western culture. However, tutors like Massachusetts-based Josti have taken a sharp financial hit after Beijing’s harsh crackdown on extracurricular classes pulled the blinds down over the outside world for Chinese students. Foreign-language teaching firms had long tapped into a vast demand for English in China, where armies of parents are eager to get their children ahead in a cutthroat education system in which a single exam can determine a life’s trajectory. That came to a crashing halt last month when Beijing announced education reforms that banned tutoring firms from hiring overseas teachers. The rules — which also forced tutoring platforms to turn their businesses non-profit and barred some classes during weekends and holidays — are framed by Beijing as necessary to alleviate stress on overworked students and reduce education costs. Critics say they are also cutting off Chinese children from outside influences, as an increasingly nationalistic Beijing moves to reassert socialist ideology in the country’s classrooms. “I understand wanting to take pressure off parents ... but not why it’s been so sudden and harsh,” said 44-year-old Josti, a former elementary-school teacher who switched to full-time online tutoring in 2017. “We were bridging the gap between the two countries, and it seems to have stopped before we could finish it,” she said. “On a personal level, it’s heartbreaking.” Cindy Mi (米雯娟), founder of online learning platform VIPKid, told Chinese state TV in March that her company had 800,000 Chinese students, in what she called an online “global classroom.” However, just a few months later, VIPKid announced it would no longer sell English classes with tutors based overseas — the core of its business model — because of

EDITORIAL: Old challenges for new KMT leader

Newly elected Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) should try to reconnect the party with Taiwanese society, or the KMT might never leave behind its role as an ineffective opposition. The party’s chairperson election had been neglected by most Taiwanese until one of the four candidates, Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), drew unprecedented attention with his vehement rhetoric during a televised debate on Sept. 9, appealing to far-right deep-blue supporters. A TVBS poll conducted in the days after the debate showed that Chang had taken the lead from the more centrist Chu, a former New Taipei City mayor who led the party from 2015 to 2016, while incumbent KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) had only 12.8 percent support. Chu’s return to the chairmanship raises the question of whether he can give the KMT a new direction after Chiang’s leadership proved ineffective. Ahead of the vote, Chiang said in a radio interview on Friday that the KMT chairman would have to work on a host of urgent tasks, including stabilizing the party, gearing up for four referendums in December, next year’s local elections and the 2024 presidential election. While former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) did not publicly lobby for any of the four candidates, his shadow fell over their campaigns. Chiang told the interviewer that he had spoken to Han by telephone, quoting him as saying that he did not favor any of the candidates. The statement was directed at Chu, who had often been seen with former Han aides on the campaign trail and had said that he was also in contact with Han. Although Han was defeated by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in last year’s presidential election and recalled by Kaohsiung voters a few months later, many KMT members still seem impressed by his ability to rally hundreds of thousands

China disfavors Hollywood’s China

Since its movie theater debut earlier this month, the new Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has grossed more than US$307 million worldwide, the biggest-earning opening during the COVID-19 pandemic after Marvel’s Black Widow. The film also topped box offices in Taiwan and Hong Kong, although it has so far failed to gain approval for distribution in China, and could even be banned for featuring an “insulting” character. Chinese social media users have said that the character of Xu Wenwu (徐文武), played by Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung (梁朝偉), is mainly based on the character the Mandarin (滿大人) in Marvel’s comic books, and that the Mandarin is based on Fu Manchu, a character in Sax Rohmer’s 1913 book The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. They say that Fu Manchu is an expression of the racial stereotype of a “yellow peril,” which is allegedly deeply rooted in Hollywood. Thay also attack Leung, whose role in the movie is that of a crafty Chinese gangster, saying that he is willing to sell his integrity to rid himself of the epithet “king of bad movies.” However, the reason for China’s extremely picky attitude toward the film arouses curiosity. China has become the world’s largest movie market after the US, and Hollywood cannot afford to ignore it. It is reinforcing references to Chinese culture in movies to connect with the country’s massive audience, as can be seen in Doctor Strange, Mulan and most recently Shang-Chi. The trend seems irreversible. Perhaps Chinese are so intimidated by the huge success of Hollywood films in their country that they are attempting to declare their cultural sovereignty based on “bloodline.” Some even mock the looks of lead actors and actresses of Asian descent in Hollywood, saying that their narrow eyes or their eyebrows with highly raised tips are

Can Xi end China’s ‘Gilded Age’?

Within the span of a generation, a new super-rich class emerges from a society in which millions of rural migrants toiled away in factories for a pittance. Bribery becomes the most common mode of influence in politics. Opportunists speculate recklessly in land and real estate. Financial risks simmer as local governments borrow to finance railways and other large infrastructure projects. All of this is happening in the world’s most promising emerging market and rising global power. No, this is not a description of contemporary China, but rather of the US during the Gilded Age, from about 1870 to 1900. This formative period of capitalism in the US is remembered as “Gilded” rather than “Golden” because beneath the veneer of rapid industrialization and economic growth, many problems festered. Public backlash against the Gilded Age triggered wide-ranging economic and social reforms that ushered in a progressive era from about the 1890s to the 1920s. This domestic revolution, along with imperial acquisitions abroad, paved the way for the US’ rise as the superpower of the last century. China is passing through a similar, though certainly not identical, phase. After coming to power in 2012 during the country’s own “Gilded Age,” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) now presides over a country that is far wealthier than the one ruled by his predecessors. However, Xi must confront a host of problems that come with a middle-income, crony-capitalist economy, not least corruption. As he warned in his maiden speech to the Chinese politburo in 2012, corruption “will inevitably doom the party and the state.” Over the past few decades, China’s economy has soared alongside a particular type of venality — elite exchanges of power and wealth, or what I term “access money.” Beginning in the 2000s, embezzlement and petty extortion fell as the government built up

German election too close to call: polls

‘BUILDING UP TRUST’: This is the first time since 1949 that no incumbent chancellor is seeking re-election and no political party was expected to get 30 percent of support Germany’s closely fought election today is to set the direction of the EU’s most populous country after 16 years under German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose party is scrambling to avoid defeat by its center-left rivals after a roller-coaster campaign. The environmentalist Greens are also eyeing at least a share of power. About 60.4 million people in the nation of 83 million are eligible to elect the new parliament, which decides who will be the next head of government. Recent polls point to a neck-and-neck race between Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democrats, with the latter marginally ahead. The polls show the Greens, making their first bid for the chancellorship, in third place after a campaign in which all three have held the lead. The Social Democrats’ candidate, German Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has seen his personal ratings climb amid error-strewn campaigns by his rivals, the CDU’s Armin Laschet and the Greens’ Annalena Baerbock. Merkel, who remains personally popular after steering Germany through a string of crises, announced in 2018 that she would not go for a fifth term. That set up the first election since West Germany’s initial vote in 1949 in which there is no incumbent chancellor seeking re-election. Voters appear underwhelmed by the choices. Whoever finishes first is expected to get a historically low share of the vote, with polls showing no party expected to get 30 percent support. The lowest score so far for a winning party is the CDU’s 31 percent in 1949, which also is the bloc’s worst showing to date. Such an outcome would likely trigger lengthy haggling on a new governing coalition, with whichever party finishes first best-placed — but not guaranteed — to have its candidate succeed Merkel. A first-place finish for the Social Democrats, who provided three of Germany’s

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo accused of harassment

‘HAS NOT CHANGED’: Former ABC executive Shelly Ross said Chris Cuomo squeezed her buttock at a party, and asked whether he apologized only because he was caught A television executive who accused Chris Cuomo of groping her at a party 16 years ago said the CNN anchor needs a public education about sexual harassment and if he did that, “he’d be a hero instead of a cad.” Former ABC executive Shelley Ross said on Friday that she is concerned that Cuomo’s reaction to her story and his role advising his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, indicates that he has learned little about harassment and what it does to women. “I don’t want to see anybody lose their job,” Ross told The Associated Press. “I want to see people learn and to make the news business a better place and the workplace a better place.” Her story represented another embarrassment for the host of Cuomo Prime Time, generally the network’s top-rated show. He has been criticized for his role advising his brother, Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as New York governor last month over allegations of sexual harassment from multiple women. Chris Cuomo did not address the matter on his show on Friday night. Ross said in an opinion piece in The New York Times on Friday that Chris Cuomo had greeted her at a going-away party in 2005 with a bear hug “while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.” Ross said Chris Cuomo told her: “I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,” and she responded: “No you can’t,” pushing him off while stepping back to reveal her husband, who saw the whole thing. In an interview, Ross called it an attempt to diminish and belittle a female executive in front of her staff. Chris Cuomo sent an apologetic e-mail to Ross shortly afterward saying that he was “ashamed.” Asked for comment, Chris Cuomo told the Times: “As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual

Iceland heads to polls as coalition hangs by thread

Iceland yesterday voted in an election that could see its unprecedented left-right coalition lose its majority, despite bringing four years of stability after a decade of crises. With the political landscape more splintered than ever, the process of forming a new coalition could be more complicated than in the past. Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, whose Left-Green Movement had never led a government before, was seeking a second mandate, but the large number of parties could get in her way. Opinion polls suggested that a record nine parties out of 10 were expected to win seats in the Althing, Iceland’s almost 1,100-year-old parliament. That makes it particularly tricky to predict which parties could end up forming a coalition. “It is challenging for the politicians, but I think for democracy it is better to have everyone at the table,” Thorsteinn Thorvaldsson, a 54-year-old voter, told reporters on the eve of the election. “When I was younger it was simpler, there were four parties, now we have 10, but it is interesting,” he said. With 33 of 63 seats, the outgoing coalition is a mix of the conservative Independence Party, the center-right Progressive Party and the Left-Green Movement. Some opinion polls suggested the coalition would manage to secure a very narrow majority, but others said it would fail. “Because there are so many parties, I think there will be a lot of different opportunities to form a government,” Jakobsdottir told reporters in an interview this week. While she is broadly popular, her party was hovering at about 10-12 percent in the polls and risked losing several seats. During her four-year term, Jakobsdottir has introduced a progressive income tax system, increased the social housing budget and extended parental leave for both parents. She has also been hailed for her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, with just 33 deaths in the country of 370,000. However,

Taiwan in Time: A woman’s quest to build 100 churches

Sept 27 to Oct 3 When an apparition appeared in a vision telling Easter Lee (李幫助) to build a seminary, she said she would only do so if three conditions were met — conditions that were nearly impossible to meet for a woman born in 1909 to a modest family with 22 children. Still bitter about nearly having to give up her schooling for her younger brother, the ambitious 18-year-old wanted to cancel her arranged marriage, attend seminary school abroad and become Taiwan’s first female pastor. Lee accomplished all three before she turned 40, reaching the final milestone in March 1949 at Kaohsiung’s Qianjin Presbyterian Church (前金長老教會), which she had helped establish three years earlier. In 1953, she fulfilled her promise by founding today’s Tao-sheng Theological Seminary (道生神學院). Through the school’s institutions, she sought to advance women’s education and rights, while she also tackled social problems such as the often-abusive foster daughter system. After moving the seminary to Taipei, she started her quest to build 100 churches with the launch of the Yuanping Dawson Presbyterian Church (延平教會) in 1957. She founded seven more Tao-sheng affiliated churches during the 1970s. Lee’s mission was cut short in 1989 by a stroke that left her bedridden for the last eight years of her life. She died in 1997, but her family donated her savings to help her fulfill one more goal by opening the Dao Sheng Assisted Living Facility in 2011 on the seminary grounds. RELIGIOUS TRAINING Lee was born to a Buddhist fishing family in today’s Shezidao (社子島) area. Her mother contracted tetanus when she was pregnant with Lee, and sought treatment at the nearby Mackay Clinic in Tamsui where she was introduced to Christianity. After recovering, she attended Canadian missionary William Gauld’s sermons and eventually the entire family converted to the religion before Lee’s birth. Per

‘We want people to freak out’: inside Hollywood’s Museum of Motion Pictures

In 1939, the Academy of Motion Pictures published its first “players directory,” which grouped actors into categories such as “leading women” and “comediennes,” but set aside separate sections for “colored” and “oriental” performers. The Academy removed the segregated categories a few years later, but many of the actors of color weren’t integrated into other sections. They were eliminated. These racist directories are on display at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, which celebrates some of the most important film-makers in history while also attempting to confront head-on the dark legacy of exclusion and discrimination in the industry. The hope is to tell a much more complicated, and accurate, story of Hollywood through the years. “As the Academy, we want to recognize our own complicity,” said Dara Jaffe, an assistant curator, on a recent tour before the official opening on Wednesday next week. She pointed to a display on Anna May Wong, the lone Chinese-American movie star in the 1920s, who was denied leading roles. Nearby, the gallery features original casting notes on Al Pacino and youthful Polaroids of Christian Bale and Joaquin Phoenix from early auditions. The messy and costly journey leading to the opening of the Academy Museum has run parallel to the rapid changes in Hollywood sparked by #OscarsSoWhite, #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and other movements pushing for inclusion in entertainment. The result, after many delayed launches and leadership shakeups and much pandemic upheaval is a museum that is refreshingly critical of Hollywood’s failings — even if there are limits to the extent an institution affiliated with the Academy can address the reality of ongoing exclusion and the role the Oscars play in perpetuating problems. “We’re celebrating moviemaking, but we’re also having hard conversations about components of our history that are less proud,” says Bill Kramer, the museum’s

Highways & Byways: Shihgang: a place of repairs, rescues and restorations

It’s not often I glimpse something from a bus that, in a second or less, convinces me to press the stop-request button earlier than planned. But just after crossing into Taichung’s Shihgang District (石岡) from Fongyuan District (豐原), we passed a building that was so distinctive I didn’t care if I’d end up with a long walk under the hot sun. I’d never seen a fire station quite like it. The greater part was gray and somewhat bland, but to those familiar with Taiwan’s various architectural styles, the endearing cream-yellow entrance way screamed, “colonial-era public building.” My hunch turned out to be right. What’s officially called Shihgang Branch of the Second Emergency and Rescue Corps, Taichung City Government Fire Bureau (台中市政府消防局第二大隊石岡分隊), dates from 1941, just four years before Japan’s 50-year domination of Taiwan ended. The station, at 1171 Fongshih Road (豐勢路), has been recognized as a historic building by the city government. Seriously damaged 22 years ago by the 921 Earthquake, it was repaired and refurbished at a cost of NT$8 million. ISHIOKA BARN After snapping some photos of the fire station, I returned to the route I’d sketched out the previous day. Leaving the main road, I quickly found a better-known relic from the colonial period — Ishioka Barn (石岡穀倉) at 160 Jhongsiao Street (忠孝街). Ishioka is the Japanese pronunciation of Shihgang. The barn’s interior isn’t currently open to the public; this could change if pandemic countermeasures are relaxed. The exterior, however, deserves a proper look. Built in 1942 as a rice mill and warehouse, it’s as tall as a modern three-story town house, with a considerably larger footprint. That a building made almost entirely of wood (Chinese fir, to be specific) and bamboo has survived everything Taiwan throws at man-made structures — typhoons, earthquakes and termites — for nearly eight decades is impressive. From the

Young couple trapped on mountain road after blindly following GPS navigation system 沒有回頭路... 開車誤信導航 情侶受困南投屯原山區

In yet another case of reliance on satellite navigation leading to trouble, a 28-year-old man surnamed Lai from Miaoli County drove his girlfriend to the Lushan hot spring resort area in Nantou County’s Renai Township during the Mid-Autumn Festival long weekend. On Tuesday the couple decided to drive to Hehuanshan’s Wuling area to watch the sunrise. According to the police, the couple started out by taking the normal route of Provincial Highway 14 in the direction of Chunyang and Wushe, then turning onto Provincial Highway 14A and passing Cingjing Farm toward Hehuanshan. However, Lai was hooked up to a GPS navigation system and it directed him on a different route: toward a remote mountainous area populated by local village communities. The couple ended up driving onto the Tunyuan industrial road on the border between Jingying and Duda villages. The long winding road was covered with weeds and was only wide enough to take a single sedan car, making it impossible for Lai to turn around. As Lai continued driving on, the road became increasingly narrow and eventually the car sank into boggy ground. Unable to move the car, the couple became alarmed and called the police for assistance. Pingjing Police Station Chief Chang Chien-feng and police officer Liang Ti-wei responded to the call for help and were able to ascertain the precise location of the stranded car. A tow truck arrived but was unable to operate due to the narrowness of the track. The police finally called for assistance from Jingying community members, who used a four-wheel drive vehicle to extract the stricken car, bringing the couple’s nightmarish ordeal to a close. Renai Township Police Precinct reminds members of the public that satellite navigation is for reference only, and advises them to quickly turn around, ask a local for directions or call the

Photo News 從照片看新聞 : Major volcanos erupt around the world in recent months 全球多座火山 近日相繼爆發

SPEAK UP ! 雙語會話

A: All these rollers and spatulas, the printing ink and all types of plate engraving tools give a real feeling of traditional techniques. B: I know what you mean. When it comes to drawing, designing and composition, we now do all of this on the computer. Who still does things the traditional way? A: So why do you insist on doing things by hand? B: I guess I’m a bit old school, ha ha. And I like the feeling I get from handmade things. Things mass-produced by machine just don’t have the same feel. A: Now, that I understand. That’s why handmade dumplings always taste so much nicer than factory-made ones! A: 看到這些滾筒、刮刀、油墨，和各式各樣的版畫雕刻工具，覺得好「復古」喔！ B: 我知道你的意思。說到繪圖、設計、版面構成，我們現在都用電腦做，有誰還在土法煉鋼啊？ A: 那你為什麼堅持手工呢？ B: 可能我是比較老派的人吧，哈哈。而且我喜歡手做的溫度，那是機械複製沒辦法比擬的。 A: 這個我了解。這就是為什麼手工水餃比用機器做的水餃要好吃得多！ (Translated by Paul Cooper, Taipei Times／台北時報林俐凱) Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.