Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
April 17, 2017
United passenger’s removal
sparks outrage in China
By Matthew Brown
The Associated Press
EIJING — Images of a bloodied
man being forcibly removed from a
United Airlines flight in Chicago
drew widespread condemnation in China,
where state media fuelled the public’s
anger with reports that noted the uniden-
tified victim was an “Asian passenger.”
Video of the violent incident posted on
China’s popular Twitter-like micro-
blogging service Weibo was viewed more
than 200 million times within days. Many
responded with outrage over perceived
bias against the passenger and some called
for a boycott of the U.S.-based airline.
“Rubbish!” writer Su Danqing posted on
Weibo. “When they were treating this
Asian man, they never thought of human
rights, otherwise they wouldn’t have done
it that way.”
“Damn it! This airline must be
boycotted!” said a posting from Liu Bing, a
telecommunications company worker.
United does considerable business with
Chinese passengers and a consumer
boycott could cause it serious pain. United
says it operates more nonstop U.S.-China
flights to more cities in China than any
other airline.
Rowdiness has long been associated
with air travel in China, including
passengers getting into fights with crew
members and a vicious assault last year in
which an enraged customer smashed an
airline check-in clerk in the head with a
brass plaque.
The United incident appeared to feed
into such customer frustrations — only
this time the tables were turned and the
passenger was cast as the victim.
United executives struggled to control
the public relations damage.
Airline CEO Oscar Munoz said the man
B
PACHYDERM PARTY. A mahout paints elephants for Songkran, or the ancient Thai New Year celebration,
in Ayutthaya province, in central Thailand. The three-day festival took place April 13 to 16. (AP Photo/Sakchai
Lalit)
Elephants soak passers-by
ahead of boisterous Thai holiday
AYUTTHAYA, Thailand (AP) —
Trained elephants sprayed motorists and
passers-by with water in Thailand’s old
capital city of Ayutthaya to welcome the
Buddhist New Year, known as Songkran.
The jumbos from an elephant camp in
the old capital of Ayutthaya were brought
out to rake passing traffic, soak
passengers in open vehicles, and spray
anyone foolish or brave enough to venture
within range.
The holiday, the longest in the Thai
calendar, officially ran for three days.
Cities emptied out as workers headed
home to see family and celebrated by
cleansing images of the Buddha, washing
the hands and feet of elders, and throwing
water on each other in what is sometimes
called the world’s biggest waterfight.
The festival — which is also celebrated
in neighboring Myanmar, Cambodia, and
Laos — falls at the hottest time of the year,
when temperatures often creep above 104
degrees Fahrenheit.
Bike-sharing rivalry crowds Beijing’s sidewalks
Continued from page 3
muters getting from subway stops to their
workplaces, homes, or other destinations.
On weekends, tourists use them to wander
along traditional alleyways in the city’s
historic center, near the Forbidden City.
But as more and more bikes hit the
streets, they add to the urban chaos, as
riders leave them basically anywhere.
Rush-hour users park them in public
bus lanes, leaving them for street
attendants to pick up and move aside.
Rows of bikes, some of them toppled, crowd
the sidewalks, leaving pedestrians little
space to walk.
Vandalism has also become common and
repairs can be costly.
UNFRIENDLY SKIES. This image made from a
video provided by Audra D. Bridges shows a passen-
ger being removed from a United Airlines flight in Chi-
cago. Video of police officers dragging the passenger
from an overbooked United Airlines flight sparked an
uproar on social media. (Audra D. Bridges via AP)
removed from the Chicago-to-Kentucky
flight — later identified as Dr. David Dao,
a Vietnamese American from Elizabeth-
town, Kentucky — had become “disruptive
and belligerent” after he was asked to
leave the plane to make room for several
employees of a partner airline who wanted
on the flight.
When the man refused, officers from the
Chicago Aviation Department came in and
first tried to reason with him before
pulling him from his seat by force and
dragging him away, according to a
passenger, Tyler Bridges, whose wife later
posted a video of the altercation on Face-
book.
Associated Press news assistant
Yu Bing contributed to this report.
Toyota shows robotic leg brace to help paralyzed people walk
A LEG UP. A model demonstrates the Welwalk
WW-1000, a wearable robotic leg brace designed to
help partially paralyzed people walk, at Toyota Motor
Corp.’s headquarters in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene
Hoshiko)
By Yuri Kageyama
AP Business Writer
OKYO — Toyota is introducing a
wearable
robotic
leg
brace
designed to help partially para-
lyzed people walk.
The Welwalk WW-1000 system is made
of a motorized mechanical frame that fits
on a person’s leg from the knee down. The
patients can practice walking wearing the
robotic device on a special treadmill that
can support their weight.
Toyota Motor Corp. recently demon-
strated the equipment for reporters at its
Tokyo headquarters.
One hundred such systems will be
rented to medical facilities in Japan later
this year, Toyota said. The service entails a
one-time initial charge of 1 million yen
($9,000) and a 350,000 yen ($3,200)
monthly fee.
The gadget is designed to be worn on one
leg at a time for patients severely para-
lyzed on one side of the body due to a stroke
or other ailments, Eiichi Saito, a medical
doctor and executive vice president at
Fujita Health University, explained.
The university joined with Toyota in
developing the device.
A person demonstrating it strapped the
brace to her thigh, knee, ankle, and foot
and then showed how it is used to practice
walking on the treadmill. Her body was
supported from above by a harness and the
motor helped to bend and straighten her
knee. Sensors in the device can monitor
the walking and adjust quickly to help out.
Medical staff control the system through a
touch panel screen.
Japanese automakers have been devel-
oping robotics both for manufacturing and
other uses. Honda Motor Co.’s Asimo
humanoid can run and dance, pour a
T
drink, and carry on simple conversations,
while Welwalk is more of a system that
uses robotics than a stand-alone robot.
Given how common paralysis due to
strokes is in fast-aging Japan, Toyota’s
device could be very helpful, Saito said. He
said patients using it can recover more
quickly as the sensitive robotic sensor in
Welwalk fine-tunes the level of support
better than a human therapist can.
“This helps just barely enough,” said
Saito, explaining that helping too much
can slow progress in rehabilitation.
The field of robotic aids for walking and
rehabilitation is growing quickly. A
battery-powered wearable exoskeleton
made by Israeli manufacturer ReWalk
Robotics enables people relying on a
wheelchair to stand upright and walk.
Such systems also can aid therapists in
monitoring a patient’s progress, Luke
Hares, chief technology officer at
Cambridge Medical Robotics in Britain,
said in a phone interview.
“They can be so much more precise,” he
said.
Previously, Toyota has shown robots
that play the violin and trumpet. It plans
to start sales in Japan of a tiny boy-like
Summer Run
robot for conversational companionship. It
is also investing in artificial intelligence
and developing self-driving vehicles.
Toshiyuki Isobe, Toyota’s chief officer
for research, said Welwalk reflects the
company’s desire to apply robotics in
medicine and other social-welfare areas,
not just entertainment. The company also
has an R2-D2-like machine, called the
Human Support Robot, whose mechanical
arm can help bed-ridden people pick
things up.
“Our vision is about trying to deliver
mobility for everybody,” said Isobe. “We
have been developing industrial robotics
for auto manufacturing, and we are trying
to figure out how we can use that
technology to fill social needs and help
people more.”
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