THE CHINA DAILY/ANN – Dorabot has seen a growing demand for its robotic solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At a logistics service centre in Seoul, an industrial robotics arm is leveraging artificial intelligence to quickly sort documents and small parcels into separate delivery bins. It is capable of sorting over 1,000 small parcels per hour, increasing efficiency by 41 per cent.
The robotic arm flyer sorter was developed by Dorabot Inc, an international AI-powered robotic solutions provider for logistics, express delivery, smart manufacturing, retailing and other industries. Deployed at the Gangbuk Service Centre of international service provider DHL Express, the robot now processes the largest number of small parcels within the company’s network in South Korea after officially starting operations on July 20.
While minimising human interaction, which is crucial these days for employee safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, the robotic flyer sorter is also expected to sort packages into corresponding destinations with over 99 per cent accuracy, Dorabot said.
DHL Express Korea said it is handling record high shipment volume due to the current e-commerce boom, and robotics will ease its staff’s work burden as well as improve productivity.
DHL deployed its first AI-powered robotics arm for sortation at one of its service centres based in Miami, Florida, in June 2020, where courier pickup and delivery stops increased by about 30 per cent from the figure before COVID-19 due to pandemic-related express delivery growth.
After the Dorabot machine was put in as part of a pilot project, the Miami facility was able to sort 35 per cent more packages per hour.
An employee at Dorabot adjusting a custom end effector developed by the company in Atlanta. PHOTO: THE CHINA DAILY/ANN
HARARE, (XINHUA) – At a wedding ceremony in Ruwa, about 30km east of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, the groom-to-be’s team attentively sat on a rug following the proceedings, which had just started.
On the opposite side of the room, a representative from the bride’s family held a list with the required payments before the groom could be formally introduced to the in-laws.
For each figure, negotiations between the two sides followed until an agreement on the amount was reached.
After some negotiations, with compromises on both sides, several United States (US) dollar notes were placed in a wooden bowl which was then forwarded to an elder from the bride’s side to count.
Women’s ululations and men’s handclaps flooded the room as greenbacks were handed over to the bride’s family.
Several procedures followed until the groom was finally allowed into the compound amid song and dance.
Groceries submitted as part of bride-price. PHOTOS: XINHUAThe bride Natasha Tizola and the groom Luciano Mafukidze cut a cake at their traditional wedding ceremony in Ruwa
Despite economic hardships amid COVID-19 pandemic, the groom, 31-year-old Luciano Mafukidze, toiled throughout the year to raise bride-price, which included cash, groceries and eight cows, to marry Natasha Tizola.
Bride-price, or roora/lobola in the local Shona language, is the customary token paid by the groom-to-be to his future in-laws. It is seen as a token of appreciation to the bride’s parents for raising a daughter.
There is no stipulated amount set for the bride-price, and the figure mainly depends on how deep the pockets of the groom or his family are.
After the ceremony, which was held at the in-laws’ house, Mafukidze was in high spirits for having formally married the love of
his life.
“Getting Natasha was not a walkover, it was through hard work. It was my wish that I marry her,” Mafukidze told Xinhua.
The bride was equally happy to have brought joy and pride to her family.
“I am happy that I made my mother proud, I followed the proper procedures,” she said.
In marriage, the family of the bride and groom are very influential among Shona people, who constitute a large portion of Zimbabwe’s population.
Following proper marriage customs brings honour and respect to the family.
Benny Chimene, the mother of the bride, could not conceal her joy.
“I am very happy, I can’t even express it because kids nowadays just meet by the roadside, they express love and the next thing is that they are staying together. So I am happy with what my child has done,” said Chimene.
Edmund Mandishona Chitehwe, father of the groom, was happy to welcome an additional member to the family.
“I am very happy, welcoming a daughter-in-law during the beginning of the year after following the proper marriage procedure of paying bride-price,” he said. According to Shona tradition, men expand the family, while women unite families, and bride-price formalises and legalises the union.
The system has evolved from submission of a hoe to monetary payments, livestock
and groceries.
The payment of bride-price is also common in the other southern African countries such as Malawi, Zambia, South Africa and Botswana.
In some cases, the traditional marriage ceremony is followed by a Western-style wedding.
Although the family is still important in issues regarding marriage, there has been a gradual erosion of traditional customs.
This has seen more girls rushing into early marriages without following proper procedures. Economic hardships and social ills have also seen young men failing to raise funds to pay for bride-price.
WARSAW (AFP) – The number of irregular migrants who crossed into the European Union (EU) last year was “just short of 200,000” – the highest number since 2017, the EU’s border agency Frontex said yesterday.
The number of detected crossings was 57 per cent higher than 2020 when COVID restrictions drastically reduced migration but also 36 per cent higher than 2019, Frontex said in a statement.
The statement said arrivals were now “above pre-pandemic levels”.
“This suggests that factors other than the lifting of restrictions on global mobility are the cause of increased migratory pressure,” the Warsaw-based agency said.
It said one new factor in 2021 was the influx of migrants – most from the Middle East – through Belarus in what the EU said was a deliberate operation by the Belarusian regime.
There were also sharp increases in migrant arrivals through the Central Mediterranean, the Western Balkans and Cyprus.
The main route was the Central Mediterranean – accounting for 65,362 arrivals, or around a third of the total.
The year-on-year increase was 83 per cent, Frontex said.
The Western Balkans saw a 124-per cent increase from 2020 to 60,540 people. In Cyprus, there were 10,400 recorded arrivals – 123-per cent higher than the previous year.
Overall in 2021, Syrians were the most numerous among irregular migrants, followed by Tunisians, Moroccans, Algerians and Afghans.
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS (AP) – Tired of Baby Boomers’ stories of the “good ol’ days”, of Millennials’ tiny attention spans or the fatuous complaints of Zoomers?
You must be part of the “forgotten” Generation X, and the Illinois State Museum wants to hear from you.
The museum’s Springfield facility will open an exhibition entitled Growing Up X in October, dedicated to those born generally from 1965 to 1980, described by the museum as “the last generation to have had an analog childhood”.
“We think it’s time Gen X got some love,” said Illinois State Museum Curator of History Erika Holst.
Holst is inviting Xers to complete an online survey about their experiences growing up and to loan the exhibition items from that era, from portable cassette players to inline skates.
“We want to dig into the experience of being a child in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s,” Holst said.
“How did growing up adapting to new technology, often unsupervised, in the shadow of the Cold War, Reaganomics, Just Say No and the AIDS crisis shape this generation of people who are now coming into their own in middle age?”
FRANKFURT (AFP) – Asian tourism giant Genting’s shipbuilding subsidiaries in Germany filed for bankruptcy on Monday, which one union leader described as a “dark day” for the country’s dockyards. With travel still severely restricted during the coronavirus pandemic, particularly in Asia, the company has seen demand for huge cruise ships or luxury mega-yachts dwindle.
MV Werften on the Baltic Sea coast and Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven on the North Sea coast declared themselves insolvent, local courts told AFP.
The larger subsidiary MV Werften took the step after failing to secure funding for the completion of the “Global One” mega-liner, already 80 per cent of the way through construction, according to the company.
Designed to carry close to 10,000 passengers, the huge ship had been due to leave the shipyard in 2021 – but the pandemic has knocked the company’s timetable off course and crimped its budget.
Around EUR600 million is necessary to finance the completion of the vessel, for which the shipbuilder has been seeking support from the government.
The decision to declare bankruptcy came after lengthy discussions with officials in which the two sides “clearly have not found common ground”, a spokesman for MV Werften said shortly before the filing was made.
The former cruise ship ‘Superstar Libra’ moored at the outfitting quay of MV Werft shipyard in Wismar, Germany. PHOTO: AP
The state asked MV Werften’s owners Genting to put forward 10 per cent of the capital, government coordinator for the maritime economy Claudia Mueller said in a press conference.
“On this issue there was no agreement between Genting and the federal government,” Mueller said.
The “Global One” sits in Wismar, one of MV Werften’s three shipyards along the Baltic coast of former eastern state Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where it employs around 2,000 people.
The collapse of one of the biggest employers in the region poses an early challenge for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s newly formed government.
“It is very important to us to keep the know-how where it is,” Mueller said, adding that the government saw “big potential” for the development of offshore energy.
In June, the state agreed to take a stake worth EUR60 million in the business and extended a loan worth EUR47 million to the company.
In all, the government had offered financial support of around EUR300 million to MV Werften since the beginning of the pandemic, before negotiations over a new deal began.
The decision by the shipyards to file for bankruptcy was a “dark day for shipbuilding in Germany”, local IG Metall union leader Daniel Friedrich said.
The completion of the “Global One” and the delayed payment of wages for December were priorities for the union, which criticised the “exhaustion of trust” between negotiators.
The cruise ship industry has been shaken by a spate of recent coronavirus outbreaks on liners despite increased health measures, giving new headaches to the pandemic-hit sector.
Part of the Muara-Tutong Highway at KM94.4 to KM94.3, heading towards Tutong, will be temporarily closed from tomorrow until January 15 from 8am to 6pm, the Public Works Department (JKR) announced.
Partial road closures are to allow for the cutting of threes along the road.
SYDNEY (AP) – Five-time Australian Open finalist Andy Murray (AP pic below) advanced to the second round of the Sydney Tennis Classic by beating Viktor Durasovic 6-3, 6-1 yesterday.
Murray entered the tournament with a wild card and has also been handed one for next week’s Australian Open. Since he last reached the Australian Open final in 2016, when he lost to Novak Djokovic, the 34-year-old Murray has only made it past the first round once at Melbourne Park.
Recurring hip injuries meant he played only one of the past four Australian Opens. The former number one-ranked player is now 135th.
The three-time Grand Slam champion forced Durasovic into numerous errors.
“I was hoping to get the matches in Melbourne,” Murray said, referring to a first-round loss last week. “That didn’t happen but thankfully Tennis Australia gave me the wild card to play here. I’m very grateful for that and hopefully I can be here for a few more days.”
Murray will next face 23rd-ranked Nikoloz Basilashvili today for a place in the quarterfinals.
Also in Sydney, United States (US) Open champion Emma Raducanu lost to ninth-seeded Elena Rybakina 6-0, 6-1. The 19-year-old Raducanu had delayed the start of her season, withdrawing from the Melbourne Summer Set last week following her bout with COVID-19.
Olympic champion Belinda Bencic made a successful but “wobbly” start to the 2022 season in her first match since being struck down by COVID-19. Bencic beat Brazilian qualifier Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the second round in Sydney.
“I was struggling a little bit, getting to practice after COVID because the pulse was getting up and the fatigue was still there,” Bencic said. “I think I still have room to feel better and my fitness has to get better. I still feel a little bit wobbly.”
At the Adelaide International, second-ranked Aryna Sabalenka lost another first-round match at an Australian Open tune-up tournament to a much lower-ranked opponent.
Sabalenka lost Rebecca Peterson of Sweden 5-7, 6-1, 7-5.
Peterson came into the match ranked number 395.
Last week in the opening round of the first Adelaide International tournament, Sabalenka lost to 100th-ranked Kaja Juvan 7-6 (6), 6-1.
In other first-round matches in Adelaide, Madison Brengle beat Anastasia Potapova 7-5, 4-6, 6-1 and fourth-seeded Tamara Zidansek defeated Heather Watson 2-6, 6-2, 7-6 (4).
ATHENS, Greece (AP) – It’s only the size of a shoebox, carved with the broken-off foot of an ancient Greek female deity.
But Greece hopes the 2,500-year-old marble fragment, which arrived on Monday on loan from an Italian museum, may help resolve one of the world’s thorniest cultural heritage disputes and lead to the reunification in Athens of all surviving Parthenon Sculptures – many of which are in the British Museum.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the Sicilian museum’s gesture “opens the way, I believe, for other museums to be able to move in a similar direction”.
“Most importantly, of course, the British Museum, which must now realise that it’s time for the Parthenon marbles… to finally return here, to their natural home,” he added, voicing gratitude to Italy for the loan.
The fragment was part of a 160-metre-long frieze that ran around the outer walls of the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis, dedicated to Athena, female deity of wisdom. Much was lost in a 17th-Century bombardment, and about half the remaining works were removed in the early 19th Century by a British diplomat Lord Elgin. They ended up in the British Museum, which has repeatedly rebuffed Greek demands for their return.
Conservators remove a glass case from a Parthenon fragment at the Acropolis Museum in Athens. PHOTO: AP
Officially, Sicily’s A Salinas Archaeological Museum is only lending the foot of Artemis, female deity of the hunt, to Greece for a maximum of eight years. But the ultimate aim, Italian and Greek officials say, is its “indefinite return” to Athens. In exchange, Greece will loan significant antiquities to Italy.
“The solution we found proves that, where there is will among museums and the cultural authorities of two countries, there can be a mutually acceptable solution,” Mitsotakis said during a ceremony at the Acropolis Museum, where Greece’s surviving sections of the frieze are inset among casts of those in London.
Artemis’ foot will snuggle in like a missing jigsaw piece between two original fragments and a copy of a larger section now in London.
Successive Greek governments lobbied for the return of the British Museum’s share of the works, which include statues from the Parthenon’s pediments – the all-marble building’s gables. They argued that Elgin illegally sawed off the sculptures, exceeding the terms of a permit granted by Turkish authorities while Greece was an unwilling part of the Ottoman Empire.
The British Museum rejects that stance and – despite indications that public opinion in the United Kingdom (UK) favours the Greek demand – has shown no intention of permanently returning the works.
Mitsotakis raised the matter again in a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London in November. He said on Monday he was “encouraged” by Johnson saying the British government wouldn’t oppose a potential deal on the sculptures’ return – should the British Museum and Greece reach one.
The Italian fragment, which measures 31 by 35 centimetres, was acquired under unknown circumstances by 19th-Century British consul in Sicily Robert Fagan, and his widow sold it to the Sicilian museum’s precursor.
Acropolis Museum director Dimitris Pantermalis said the marble foot may have been dislodged from its place in 1687, when a mortar fired by besieging Venetian forces hit the Parthenon, which the Acropolis’ Turkish garrison was using as a gunpowder store. But, he said, it was in better condition than other surviving frieze fragments.
“In other cases, the surface is slightly scratched,” he said. “Here it has the freshness of the original, and that makes us proud.”
The Parthenon was built between 447-432 BCE and is considered the crowning work of classical architecture. Despite being successively used as places of worship, it survived virtually intact until the Venetian siege.
The frieze depicted a procession in honour of Athena. Some small bits of it – and other Parthenon sculptures – are in other European museums.
TOKYO (AFP) – Japan will extend measures barring almost all new foreign arrivals until the end of February and reopen mass-vaccination centres as it battles an Omicron-fuelled coronavirus surge, the government said yesterday.
“We will keep the current border control policy until the end of February while taking necessary measures from a humanitarian viewpoint and considering the national interest,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.
Local media said there would be some new exemptions for members of Japanese families as well as students studying in Japan but there were no immediate details from officials.
The government will also re-open large-scale vaccination centres run by the Self-Defence Forces, and ask local governments to re-open their own mass-inoculation sites to accelerate booster shots, Kishida said.
Japan has imposed strict border-control measures, such as quarantine and frequent testing, on those entering the country from abroad.
But despite those efforts, the Omicron variant has been circulating locally and Japan is seeing a sharp rise in virus cases.
MONROVIA (AFP) – Towering above Liberia’s ramshackle capital Monrovia stands a hotel that once symbolised an African dream yet today lies in ruins, a legacy of brutal conflict.
When it opened its doors in 1960, the Ducor was one of the only five-star hotels in Africa, boasting air-conditioned rooms, according to travel guides.
At its height, it hosted VIPs such as former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Guests would lounge by the swimming pool, sipping drinks and watching the sun set over the Atlantic.
But the Ducor shut in 1989 at the outbreak of back-to-back civil wars which ran from 1989-1997 and from 1999-2003, and swiftly fell into disrepair.
Today, little of Monrovia bears the visible marks of war, but the Ducor’s decaying hulk stands as a reminder of the conflict that killed over 250,000 people.
The hotel lies in limbo, and even who owns it seems unclear.
The ruin, atop one of the city’s highest hills, looms over Monrovia’s downtown and the densely populated West Point slum.
The old pool is pictured inside the dilapidated Ducor hotel which overlooks Monrovia. PHOTO: AFP
The former hotel’s rooms have been stripped bare, mildewy walls are pockmarked with bullet and shell holes, and the grounds have become a haunt for drug users.
“It makes everybody sad,” said retired Tourism Ministry official Ambrose Yebea who previously offered tours of the hotel.
Liberia’s government once planned to restore the hotel to its former glory with the help of former Libyan leader Moamer Gadhafi.
But there has been no progress since his downfall in 2011, and time continues to chip away at the Ducor.
There were few hotels in Monrovia in the 1950s, according to Yebea, prompting the construction of the Ducor in 1960 to cater to travelling executives and government officials.
Designed by Israeli architect Moshe Mayer, in modernist style, it became one of Africa’s most luxurious hotels.
Then Israeli-foreign minister Golda Meir, who later became prime minister, attended its opening ceremony. As did Guinea’s independence leader Sekou Toure. Photos of the hotel from the era show a gleaming building and guests taking life easy.
One of the persistent anecdotes related to the Ducor, which AFP was unable to verify, holds that former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin swam in the pool with his gun.
Another guest, Ivory Coast’s first president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, was so taken with the hotel that he arranged for Moshe Mayer to build a similar luxury establishment in Abidjan, which is still in operation.
Many of Africa’s leaders stayed at the Ducor during the 1960s and 70s, including Selassie, Yebea said, with several booking rooms during the 1979 conference of the Organisation of African Unity in Monrovia.
But by that point, the hotel was likely already in decline.
A 1975 World Bank report on Liberia describes the eight-storey hotel as “quite run-down” – and mentions government plans to renovate it.
Liberian ex-warlord Charles Taylor positioned gunmen in the Ducor during the 2003 siege of Monrovia, at the close of the war.
Later, squatters occupied the site. But President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who won office in Liberia’s first post-war election, evicted them in 2007.
She then launched renovation plans. In 2011, her government handed the Ducor to the Libyan African Investment Company (LAICO), a subsidiary of Libya’s sovereign wealth fund.
According to a 2011 government statement, the renovated hotel was due to have 151 rooms, restaurants, a shopping centre, and a tennis court – as well as provide jobs in the impoverished country.
However, the project – which with another scheme to develop a rubber-processing plant was priced at USD65 million – then fell foul of another war.
Liberia cut ties with Kadhafi’s Libya in 2011 as the country descended into civil war.
Renovation works stopped. “It came to us as a big shock,” said labourer Frank Williams who said he’d been one of 150 people employed by LAICO. “Today we are jobless”.
The project has been at a standstill since, and its future is unclear.
Neither Liberia’s presidency nor its Tourism Ministry, nor LAICO, responded to several requests for information.
The Libyan entity is under European Union sanctions over its alleged close links to the former Kadhafi regime.
In 2020, the UN Security Council also said that LAICO is struggling financially, incurring debts for the hotels under its management.
Some still hope to see the Ducor reborn.
Ambrose Yebea, the retired tourism official, said it could lure tourists and generate jobs.
“Every Liberian sees it the same way,” he said. “They want it to be refurbished”.
