A joint committee of ministers from OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers has agreed to review whether a global pact to limit supplies should be extended by six months, it said in a statement on Sunday.

An earlier draft of the statement said the committee “reports high level of conformity and recommends six-month extension.”

But the final statement said only that the committee had requested a technical group and the OPEC Secretariat “review the oil market conditions and revert … in April, 2017 regarding the extension of the voluntary production adjustments.”

It was not immediately clear why the wording had been changed, although a senior industry source said the committee lacked the legal mandate to recommend an extension.

OPEC and rival oil-producing countries were meeting in Kuwait to review progress with their global pact to cut supplies.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and 11 other leading oil producers including Russia agreed in December to cut their combined output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of the year.

“Any country has the freedom to say whether they do or they don’t support [an extension]. Unless we have conformity with everybody, we cannot go ahead with the extension of the deal,” Kuwaiti Oil Minister Essam al-Marzouq said, adding that he hoped a decision would come by the end of April.

The oil ministerial committee “expressed its satisfaction with the progress made towards full conformity with the voluntary production adjustments and encouraged all participating countries to press on towards 100 percent conformity,” the statement said.

The December accord, aimed at supporting the oil market, has lifted crude to more than $50 a barrel. But the price gain has encouraged U.S. shale oil producers, which are not part of the pact, to boost output.

The committee said it took note that certain factors, such as low seasonal demand, refinery maintenance and rising non-OPEC supply had led to an increase in crude oil stocks. It also observed the liquidation of positions by financial players.

“However, the end of the refinery maintenance season and noticeable slowdown in U.S. stock build as well as the reduction in floating storage will support the positive efforts undertaken to achieve stability in the market,” it said.

It asked the OPEC Secretariat to review oil market conditions and come back with recommendations in April regarding an extension of the agreement.

“This reaffirms the commitment of OPEC and participating non-OPEC countries to continue to cooperate,” the statement said.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said it was too early to say whether there would be an extension, although the agreement was working well and all countries were committed to 100 percent compliance.

‘Encouraging elements’

Before the meeting, Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi told reporters there were some encouraging elements that suggested the oil market was improving, and that if all OPEC members agreed measures to help price stability, Iraq would support such steps.

“Any decisions taken unanimously by members of OPEC … Iraq will be part of the decision and will not be deviating from this,” Luaibi said.

Iraq’s oil production is running at 4.312 million bpd this month, Luaibi said, adding that his country had cut its oil exports by 187,000 bpd so far and would reach 210,000 bpd in a few days.

Compliance with the supply-cut deal was 94 percent in February among OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers combined, Russia’s Novak said.

Russia is committed to cuts of 300,000 bpd by the end of April, Novak said.

Novak said he expects global oil stockpiles to decrease in the second quarter of this year.

“The dynamics are positive here, I believe,” Novak said, adding that inventories in the United States and other industrialized countries had risen by less than in the past.

Kuwait’s oil minister said the market may return to balance by the third quarter of this year if producers comply fully with their production targets.

“More has to be done. We need to see conformity across the board. We assured ourselves and the world that we would reach our adjustment to 100 percent conformity,” Marzouq said.
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Khmerload, a Cambodian entertainment news website modeled after the American media giant Buzzfeed, has become the country’s first local tech startup to attract the backing of Silicon Valley investors.

A $200,000 investment to be exact.

The money came from 500 Startups, a global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator founded by PayPal and Google alumni, Dave McClure and Christine Tsai, who took notice of the website, launched five years ago.

The grant pushed the company’s value to more than $1 million, according to In Vichet, Khmerload’s founder and CEO.

Several sites, and growing

Vichet, also the CEO and founder of Cambodia’s popular Little Fashion ecommerce site, said he convinced investors that Khmerload had growth potential, enough for a return on the investment.

“We showed them that we are in the top three websites in Cambodia,” said Vichet, who did his graduate work in economics at the University of Michigan. “We also have traction in Myanmar, where we recently expanded. So they see that we have done a lot while already generating revenue. They saw our potential.”

Khailee Ng, the Southeast Asia-based managing partner of 500 Startups, said Khmerload’s probable growth extends far beyond Cambodia’s borders.

“Getting to the top media position behind Facebook and Google’s properties with such a lean budget is something not many entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia have done,” Ng said.

“I’ve actually never seen anything quite like it. To be profitable, yet have increasing traffic growth rates? This investment decision is easy,” he added. 

The $1 million may not seem like much compared with the $1.7 billion value of Buzzfeed, until measured against Cambodia’s per capita income of $1,070, according to the latest World Bank estimate.

More Cambodians on internet

The 500 Startups grant comes as more and more Cambodians are using the internet and Facebook, according to an Asia Foundation study that found most go online exclusively through their smartphones. This mimics trends for sites like Buzzfeed.

Khmerload has gained more than 17 million page views per month in Cambodia, allowing it to expand into Myanmar last year, opening a sister site, Myanmarload, which already generates about 20 million page views per month.

It has also carried out a successful pilot in Indonesia, said Vichet, and was incorporated in Singapore as Mediaload.

However, Khmerload’s Buzzfeed-style approach of viral content and quick clicks has led to criticism.

Content diversifying

Vichet admits that the site originally relied heavily on tabloid and entertainment content or, as he put it, “nonpolitical content,” an important distinction in a nation where the constitution provides for a free press, but where the state closely monitors the media and — one way or another — controls its content.

But as the site has grown to reach millions, he says, it has diversified to include more informative content, including educational materials and technology news.

And 500 Startups is no doubt aware of Cambodians growing embrace of the online world. In 2000, an estimated 6,000 Cambodians used the internet. Today, the company estimates 5 million active users in Cambodia.

Tech startups are also on the rise. About 120 have sprung up in Cambodia, along with some 10 co-working spaces in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, according to Thul Rithy, founder of Phnom Penh-based co-working spaces SmallWorld and Emerald Hub.

Mediaload’s next moves include expansions into Vietnam and Laos, Vichet said. He’s also keen to help other Cambodians obtain Silicon Valley investment.

“Even with a good idea, it is really hard for Cambodians to get an investment from [Silicon Valley], as there is no precedent of success,” Vichet said. “I hope I can deliver good returns to them so that in the future they will invest in other Cambodian technology startups.”

This report was originally published by VOA’s Khmer Service.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday he believes financial markets could improve “significantly” once they fully reflect the potential for U.S. economic growth from President Donald Trump’s economic policies.

Mnuchin said at an event sponsored by news website Axios that optimism about U.S. growth from policies such as regulatory reform and tax reform is “definitely not all baked in” to market valuations.

U.S. stock prices and the dollar have strengthened significantly since Trump was elected in November, largely in anticipation of corporate profits rising as regulatory burdens ease and tax rates fall. Some of those gains were retraced this week as Republicans in Congress faced stiff opposition from

conservatives in passing a bill to replace the Obamacare health law.

“I think there is some good news that’s baked in, but yet, I think there is further room for significant growth in the economy that would be reflected in the markets,” Mnuchin said. “The consequence would be that the market could go up significantly,” Mnuchin added.

Treasury secretaries in the past have shied away from publicly discussing market valuations.

But Mnuchin said Trump’s policies could produce growth of 3 percent to 3.5 percent, which is significantly higher than the fourth quarter reading of 1.9 percent.

“We’re in an environment where the U.S. assets are the most attractive assets to invest in on a global basis.”

Mnuchin said he is still aiming to achieve passage of comprehensive tax reform by the time Congress takes its August recess. He also said he expects the Trump administration’s Obamacare replacement bill to pass later on Friday.
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The Trump administration will approve the Keystone XL pipeline Friday, senior U.S. officials say, ending years of delay for a project that has served as a flashpoint in the national debate about climate change.

The State Department will recommend the pipeline is in U.S. interests, clearing the way for the White House to grant a presidential permit to TransCanada to build the $8 billion pipeline, two officials said. It’s a sharp reversal from the Obama administration, which rejected the pipeline after deeming it contrary to national interests.

The officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity, said the State Department’s recommendation and the White House’s final approval would occur Friday.

The White House declined to comment, other than to say it would offer an update Friday. State Department spokesman Mark Toner wouldn’t reveal the decision, but said the agency had re-examined Keystone thoroughly after ruling against the proposed project barely two years ago.

“We’re looking at new factors,” Toner said. “I don’t want to speak to those until we’ve reached a decision or conclusion.”

Canada to Texas Gulf Coast

The 1,700-mile pipeline, as envisioned, would carry oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The pipeline would move roughly 800,000 barrels of oil per day, more than one-fifth of the oil Canada exports to the U.S.

Oil industry advocates say the pipeline will improve U.S. energy security and create jobs, although how many is widely disputed. Calgary-based TransCanada has promised as many as 13,000 construction jobs — 6,500 a year over two years — but the State Department previously estimated a far smaller number. The pipeline’s opponents contend the jobs will be minimal and short-lived, and say the pipeline won’t help the U.S. with energy needs because the oil is destined for export.

President Donald Trump has championed the pipeline and backed the idea that it will prove a job creator. In one of his first acts as president, he invited pipeline company TransCanada to resubmit the application to construct and operate the pipeline. And he had given officials until next Monday to complete a review of the project.

No American steel

A Trump presidential directive also required new or expanded pipelines to be built with American steel “to the maximum extent possible.” However, TransCanada has said Keystone won’t be built with U.S. steel. The company has acquired the steel, much of it from Canada and Mexico, and the White House has acknowledged it’s too difficult to impose conditions on a pipeline under construction.

Portions of Keystone have been built. Completing it requires a permit involving the State Department because it crosses the U.S.-Canada border.

In an unusual twist, the agency’s recommendation won’t come from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The former CEO of oil company Exxon Mobil recused himself after protests from environmental groups who said it would be a conflict of interest for Tillerson to decide the pipeline’s fate.

Instead, Tom Shannon, a career diplomat serving as undersecretary of state for political affairs, will sign off, officials said.

Route under litigation

Even with a presidential permit, the pipeline will still face obstacles — most notably when it comes to the route, which is being heavily litigated in the states. Native American tribes and landowners have joined environmental groups in opposing the pipeline.

Environmental groups also say the pipeline will encourage the use of carbon-heavy tar sands oil which contributes more to global warming than cleaner sources of energy. President Barack Obama reached the same conclusion in 2015 after a negative recommendation from then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Trump administration has dropped fighting climate change as a priority and left open the possibility of pulling out of the Paris deal. 
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A cluster of Black Lives Matter groups and the organization leading the push for a $15-an-hour wage are joining forces to combine the struggle for racial justice with the fight for economic equality, just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to do in the last year of his life.

They are launching their first national joint action April 4, the 49th anniversary of King’s assassination, with “Fight Racism, Raise Pay” protests in two dozen cities, including Atlanta; Milwaukee; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago; Boston; Denver; and Las Vegas.

King was gunned down in 1968 while on a visit to Memphis to support striking black sanitation workers.

“When MLK was assassinated, he was talking to workers who were dealing with union-busting, unfair wages,” said Kendall Fells, organizing director for the Fight for $15. “The bottom line is that every day, workers of color across the country face deep-seated racism that would seem to be out of Dr. King’s era, but sadly it’s still happening today.”

New political reality

Fells said the new political reality requires the groups to band together. After President Donald Trump’s election, some civil rights and social justice organizations are taking an all-hands-on-deck approach against an administration they see as hostile to the working poor and minorities.

By working together, the two groups can reach more people and amplify their messages, activists say.

“What we both realize is we’re stronger when we operate together,” Fells said. 

United in Ferguson

Fight for $15 has helped raise the minimum wage in places like New York and Washington. The Black Lives Matter movement grew largely out of the protests over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. The organization has demanded police reforms and an end to killings of unarmed black people.

Fight for $15 and Black Lives first came together in Ferguson. The nearly all-black workforce at the neighborhood McDonald’s had been on strike before Brown was killed. After Brown’s death, those workers used their organizing skills to protest police department practices.

In a controversial 1967 speech titled “Beyond Vietnam,” King made a radical shift in his message, speaking out about the triple evils of war, racism and capitalism and linking economic and racial inequality. That same year, the civil rights leader launched his Poor People’s Campaign to address disparities in employment and housing.

“We’re not simply remembering his assassination,” said the Rev. William Barber II, who will lead the Memphis protest. “We’re remembering why he was there and reimagining that for the 21st century. Dr. King was connecting black and white poverty and saying black and white poor people need to be allies.”

Broadening the coalition

Asha Ransby-Sporn, national organizing chair with the Black Youth Project 100, one of dozens of Black Lives groups that are taking part in the protests, said police harassment and the routine treatment of blacks as criminals are among the biggest barriers to economic justice for black Americans.

Broadening the coalition, as King attempted, is important, she said.

“We can’t fight on any of these fronts without fighting on all of them,” Ransby-Sporn said.

Terrence Wise, a $9.50-an-hour McDonald’s employee and Fight for $15 organizer in Kansas City, Missouri, plans to take part in the April 4 protest there.

“It’s one thing to be able to make a living wage, but to go home from work and be harassed by the police or treated differently in our communities, or discriminated against in the workplace … I need to be treated as a human being,” Wise said. “They’re one and the same fight.”
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New data show U.S. home sales advanced in February while job layoffs rose slightly last week.

Thursday’s Commerce Department report showed home sales rose 6.1 percent to hit a seven-month high in February. If newly-constructed homes sold at last month’s pace for a full year, 592,000 would change hands. That is nearly 13 percent better than the same time last year.

Analysts at Wells Fargo Securities said unusually mild weather in February sped up the buying process, so the next few months may see slower sales.

The number of Americans signing up for unemployment assistance rose by 15,000 last week, according to the Labor Department. While the number of layoffs was higher, at 258,000 it is still low enough to show a healthy job market.
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The head of the U.S. central bank says new research strengthens the case for investing in early childhood education.

In a Washington speech Thursday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said evidence shows “growing up poor makes it harder to succeed as an adult.”

A survey by Fed experts shows childhood poverty makes it less likely that people will be employed as adults, and hurts their chances of having stable jobs and adequate incomes.

Yellen says research also underscores the value of investing in workforce habits and skills like mathematics, literacy, teamwork, communication, and the ability to cope with conflict.  

She says giving kids a strong foundation will help build a stronger U.S. economy. She urged politicians to carefully consider the impact of proposed policies on the future of children and the nation.  

 
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Neda Saiyyada was among a handful of women in India whose company gave her six months of maternity leave last year instead of the mandatory three months. The extended leave helped the young mother enormously.

“When I was pregnant, my biggest worry was that I will not be able to leave my child,” she said. “In three months the child is nothing, can’t even hold the neck straight, and my child was eating and sitting up straight when I joined back, so it was a blessing in disguise.”

About 1.8 million women working in India’s formal sector will soon be legally entitled to get the extended maternity leave that Saiyyada was so grateful for after parliament passed a landmark bill earlier this month doubling maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks.

WATCH: India maternity leave

India is joining a handful of countries, such as Canada and Norway, that give women generous paid leave of six months or more.

Besides boosting maternal and child health, experts hope the longer maternity leave will encourage more women to return to work and help close a growing gender gap in a country where women account for about one-quarter of the workforce.

Women in workforce

Shachi Irde, executive director of the nonprofit Catalyst India Women’s Research Center, worried that the number of women in the workforce is not only small, it has been declining. 

“In 2004 to 2005 there were about 37 percent women in the workforce, now it has dropped to 29 percent,” she said.

Pointing out that India is the only country facing this downward trend, she said “there are many reasons, but one of them is child care.”

According to a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, 25 percent of new mothers in India quit their jobs after having their first child. And research by Catalyst shows that family responsibilities make it tougher for women to climb the career ladder: About half of working women do not go beyond junior or midlevel positions.

India has few quality child care facilities and most women fall back on the family to take care of children.

The new law tries to address that problem by making it compulsory for workplaces employing more than 50 people to set up day care facilities.

The extended leave itself also will be a huge help, said Neda Saiyyada, who added, “It will encourage women to stay connected with the workplace.”

Will hiring drop?

However some human resource professionals fear the new bill could discourage employers from hiring women, particularly small companies that would see the extended maternity leave as an additional burden.

“For businesses, it is just not easy to not have an employee for six months,” said Sairee Chahal, founder of SHEROES, a portal for women job seekers. “Instead of saying we will hire you as an employee, they will hire you for noncore roles or for more modular roles so this does not fall on them.”

She pointed out that maternity leave has been doubled at a time when the organized sector is facing multiple challenges and shorter business cycles. 

“It (companies) is also under churn of a different kind, under churn of automation, under churn of globalization. So all those trends are overpowering it at this stage,” she said.

Others say the government should also have looked at involving both parents in the extended leave period instead of only making the provision for the mother.

Caveats

But in a country that is coping with a huge population of 1.3 billion people, the 26 weeks of leave will only be given for the first two children, and women would only be entitled to 12 weeks for a third child.

The bill also brings no benefits to women working in the informal sector, which employs as much as 90 percent of the female workforce. That includes housemaids, laborers or workers in small workshops, who do not get entitlements such as paid leave.

But for the time being, those who stand to get six months off are celebrating.

Traptika Chauhan who is expecting a baby in August was “extremely, extremely relieved” when she heard about the passage of the bill. She pointed out that with more and more people staying in nuclear families, child care is a challenge for working couples.

“I don’t have my parents who stay here or my in-laws who stay here. Then it is really difficult to leave such a small baby all by himself or herself and leave for work,” she said. “Plus your own body is trying to cope up so extremely, extremely great news and perfect for me.”
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