The World Cup in Russia is the most expensive ever – with the official price tag around $15 billion. The result: several huge new stadiums, railroads and upgraded airports, plus the chance to reboot Russia’s global image. So, will the tournament represent a good value for Russians? As Henry Ridgwell reports from Moscow, the government appears to have used the World Cup to bury some bad economic news.
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China says it will take appropriate countermeasures if the United States follows through with additional tariffs on Chinese goods. 

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Monday that he had asked the U.S. trade representative to identify a list of products to subject to 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods. The president said the move was in retaliation to Beijing’s decision to impose tariffs on $50 billion in U.S. goods, matching the first set of tariffs imposed by Trump.

In a statement issued Tuesday, China’s commerce ministry criticized Trump’s latest move as nothing more than “extreme pressure and blackmail” that “deviates from the consensus reached by both sides” during multiple talks. 

“China apparently has no intention of changing its unfair practices related to the acquisition of American intellectual property and technology,” Trump said in his statement Monday. “Rather than altering those practices, it is now threatening United States companies, workers and farmers who have done nothing wrong.”

He threatened even more tariffs if Beijing again hits back with tit-for-tat duties on American goods.

Trump’s comments came hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a Detroit business meeting that China was engaging in “predatory economics 101” and an “unprecedented level of larceny” of intellectual property.

He said China’s recent claims of “openness and globalization” are “a joke.” 

Pompeo said he raised the issue last week in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying, “I reminded him that’s not fair competition.”

Trump said he has an “excellent relationship” with Xi, “but the United States will no longer be taken advantage of on trade by China and other countries in the world.”
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President Donald Trump’s tariff battle with key buyers of U.S. apples, soybeans and corn threatens the support of some of his biggest backers – U.S. farmers now seeing their livelihoods in jeopardy.

Farmers overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2016 election, welcoming how he championed rural economies and vowed to repeal estate taxes that often hit family farms hard.

Now those same farmers are seeing crop prices fall and export markets shrink after Trump’s tariffs triggered a wave of retaliation from buyers of U.S. apples, cheese, potatoes, bourbon and soybeans.

“A lot of people in the ag community were willing to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt,” said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade. “The reason you are seeing people increase the pressure now is because thepressure is increasing on them. Now the impact is really starting to hit. It is not something you can just take lightly.”

His group, along with the U.S. Apple Association, will start running television ads on Tuesday attacking Trump’s tariffs in Pennsylvania and Michigan, apple-growing states that could play a role in which party controls Congress after the November elections.

Trump, a Republican, has said farmers will not become a casualty in any trade war, floating ideas like subsidizing those hurt by tariffs.

Even before trading partners imposed tariffs, U.S. farmers were facing a tough year. Net farm income was expected to fall 6.7 percent to $59.5 billion in 2018, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

Now an even more bearish tone hangs over agricultural markets due to trade spats with NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico, plus mounting tensions with China and Europe.

After Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Mexico imposed a 20 percent tariff on imports of U.S. apples, potatoes and cranberries.

Last week, Trump imposed $50 billion in tariffs on China.

Beijing retaliated with a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans and other goods starting July 6, sending soybean futures to a two-year low and throwing into doubt forecasts for U.S. soybean exports to rise 11 percent this marketing year.

China’s tariffs could contribute to a 30 percent drop in income for Ohio corn and soybean farmers this year, said Ben Brown, manager of an Ohio State University farm program.

If the tariffs stay in place, net farm income in Ohio could drop as much as 63 percent in 2019, he said.

Last week, the American Soybean Association said it was disappointed and for weeks had implored the Trump administration to “find non-tariff solutions to address Chinese intellectual property theft and not place American farmers in harm’s way.”

The group added that the White House has ignored its requests for meetings.

The timing also hurts farmers, as it is too late in the season for farmers to adjust planting plans.

“Crops are in the ground and will soon be ready for harvest,” said Casey Guernsey with Americans For Farmers and Families. “We need the certainty of knowing that there will be market availability in order to sell them.”
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A pop-up “Corruption Park” has opened in Ukraine to highlight the scale of the problem with interactive exhibits and displays of ill-gotten gains including a $46,000 crystal falcon.

One of the first things visitors see in the EU-funded show is a tent shaped like the gold loaf of bread found in the house of ex-president Viktor Yanukovych after he fled Ukraine in 2014.

Elsewhere, they can inspect a $300,000, limited-edition BMW seized from a corrupt official, and a copy of a 8-million-euro chandelier that, the display says, could have paid for a family’s electricity bill for 64,000 years.

In another tent, visitors lie back in a four-poster bed and watch a multimedia film of the imagined nightmares of a guilty government functionary.

The EU Anti-Corruption Initiative, which staged the show in Kiev’s botanical gardens, said it was meant to show the scale of corruption in Ukraine, and what it costs governments and citizens.

Ukraine’s Western-backed government has accused Yanukovych and his pro-Russian administration of widespread abuses and excesses.

But activists have also accused the current authorities of failing to crack down on graft, which is estimated to cost the country about 2 percent of its economic growth, according to the International Monetary Fund.

“For the kids, it’s a good example and revealing about the scale it all happens at,” Kyiv resident Lyuba said, as she queued with her children to don goggles and join a virtual reality anti-corruption investigation.

‘Corruption has taken so much’

The chandelier appears in a mock-up of an official’s room, decked out with the fruits of his corruption.

Other exhibits explain different schemes used for illegal enrichment.

“Corruption concerns everyone. This is one of the main ideas and goals of the project – to explain the direct relation between top level corruption and ordinary Ukrainians,” said Volodymyr Solohub, spokesman for the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative, which paid for the 140,000 euro ($162,000) park.

“A lot of people just come out disappointed that corruption has taken so much from the country,” he said.

One tent called ‘The Fight’ explains what the current authorities have done to combat graft, including the establishment of anti-corruption agencies.

Depicting the various government bodies as pieces in a puzzle, the exhibit illustrates that there is one missing piece: an independent court dedicated to prosecuting corruption cases, whose creation has been repeatedly pushed back.

Earlier in June, parliament voted to establish the court, but activists have said the law contains an amendment that would undermine the court’s effectiveness and Ukraine’s commitments to external backers such as the International Monetary Fund.

 
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For the first time, the World Health Organization is adding Gaming disorder to the section on Mental and Addictive Disorders in its new International Classification of Diseases. The ICD provides data on the causes of thousands of diseases, injuries and deaths across the globe and information on prevention and treatment.

The International Classification of Diseases was last revised 28 years ago.

Changes, which have occurred since then are reflected in this edition. Gaming disorder has been added to the section on mental and addictive disorders because demand for services to tackle this condition has been growing.

Gaming disorders usually are linked to a system of rewards or incentives, such as accumulating points in competition with others or winning money. These games are commonly played on electronic and video devices.

WHO officials say statistics, mainly from East and South Asian countries, show only a very small two to three percent of people are addicted to Gaming.

Director of WHO’s Department for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Shekhar Saxena, describes some of the warning signs of addictive Gaming behavior.

“Be careful if the person you are with, a child or another person is using Gaming in an excessive manner… If it is consuming too much time and if it is interfering with the expected functions of the person, whether it is studies, whether it is socialization, whether it is work, then you need to be cautious and perhaps seek help,” said Saxena.

In the previous WHO classification, gender identity disorders, such as transsexualism were listed under mental and behavioral conditions. Saxena says this now has been moved to the chapter on disorders of sexual behavior along with some other conditions.

“The people with gender identity disorder should be not categorized as a mental disorder because in many cases, in many countries it can be stigmatizing, and it can actually decrease their chances of seeking help because of legal provisions in many countries,” said Saxena.

A new chapter also has been added on traditional medicine. Although traditional medicine is used by millions of people worldwide, it never before has been classified by WHO in this system.

 
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Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has intensified his war on graft by announcing that all public servants will undergo a compulsory lifestyle audit to account for their sources of wealth.

This latest announcement follows financial scandals that have rocked the country with revelations that millions of dollars were lost in various government agencies through corrupt deals that involved government officials.

Kenyatta offered himself to be the first leader to undergo the audit that seeks to identify corrupt public officials, saying the lifestyle audits would control the misuse of public funds. He said public servants would be required to explain their sources of wealth with an aim of weeding out those found to have plundered government funds.

“You have to tell us, this is the house you have, this is your salary, how were you able to afford it? This car that you bought, (don’t try to put it under your wife’s name or son’s name, we will still know it is yours), where did you get it? You must explain and I will be the first person to undergo the lifestyle audit,” he said.

Scandals uncovered

In the past month, various corruption scandals involving tenders and suppliers in government agencies have been unearthed. The corruption scandals as revealed have exposed the theft of hundreds of millions of shillings by state officials from several government bodies.

So far, more than 40 government officials, including businesspeople, have been arrested over the recent  scandals.

Kenyatta has continued to express his frustration about the graft, which seems to have spiraled out of control since he came into office in 2013.

“This issue of people stealing what belongs to Kenyans, I swear to God it has to come to an end in Kenya,” Kenyatta said.

Establishing accountability

The president said the lifestyle audit will be key among other measures also put in place by the government to curb the vice.

Earlier in the week, Kenyatta issued an executive order requiring all government entities and publicly owned institutions to publish full details of tenders and awards beginning July 1, 2018.

“For example, if this road is being built, we want to know: Who won the tender for the construction? How much was the tender? Who came in second and third? Why was the first person awarded instead of these two? All these reasons, we need to know. Kenyans need to know so that it is out there, that this company was awarded this tender, belongs to a certain person, these are the directors, these are the shareholders. There will be no more hiding,” he said.

On June 1, Kenyatta ordered that all heads of procurement and accounting units be vetted again. He said the vetting would include subjecting the officers to polygraph tests to determine integrity.

Kenya scored 28 points out of 100 on the 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International. The Corruption Index in Kenya averaged 22.62 points from 1996 until 2017.
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After two consecutive years of decline, remittances, the money migrant workers send home, increased in 2017 according to figures released by the World Bank. Remittances are a significant financial contribution to the well-being of families of migrant workers and to the sustainable development of their countries of origin. The U.N. recognizes their importance every year on June 16, designated International Day of Family Remittances. VOA’s Cristina Caicedo Smit reports on this vital lifeline.
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Seventy percent of Canadians say they will start looking for ways to avoid buying U.S.-made goods in a threat to ratchet up a trade dispute between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump, an Ipsos Poll showed Friday.

The poll also found a majority of Americans and Canadians are united in support of Trudeau and opposition to Trump in their countries’ standoff over the renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Amid the spat, Trump pulled out of a joint communique with six other countries last weekend during a Quebec summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies and called Trudeau “very dishonest and weak.”

Trump was reacting to Trudeau’s having called U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs insulting to Canada. Trudeau has said little about the matter since a Trump Twitter assault. 

Despite the tensions, 85 percent of Canadians and 72 percent of Americans said they support being in NAFTA, and 44 percent of respondents in both countries said renegotiation of the deal would be a good thing for their country.

While the poll showed support for a boycott of U.S. goods in Canada, pulling it off could be difficult in a country that reveres U.S. popular culture and consumer goods over all others.

Canada is the largest market for U.S. goods.

Trudeau over Trump

The poll showed 72 percent of Canadians and 57 percent of Americans approved of the way Trudeau had handled the situation, while 14 percent of Canadians and 37 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s behavior.

More than eight in 10 Canadians and seven in 10 Americans worry the situation has damaged bilateral relations.

Canada has vowed to retaliate against U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum with tariffs against a range of U.S. goods, a move supported by 79 percent of Canadians, according to the poll.

By contrast, Americans opposed escalating the situation.

Thirty-one percent of Americans said they favored even stronger tariffs, and 61 percent said other elected U.S. officials should denounce Trump’s statements.

Canadian respondents also signaled approval of the united front their politicians have shown, with 88 percent saying they welcomed the support of politicians from other parties for the Liberal government’s decision to push back on tariffs.

While Canadian consumers appeared ready to boycott U.S. goods, 57 percent of Canadians and 52 percent of Americans said Canada should not overreact to Trump’s comments because it was just political posturing.

The Ipsos Poll of 1,001 Canadians and 1,005 Americans — including 368 Democrats, 305 Republicans and 202 independents — was conducted June 13-14. It has a credibility interval of 3.4 percentage points.
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A set of retaliatory tariffs released by China on Friday includes a plan to tax American lobster exports, potentially jeopardizing one of the biggest markets for the premium seafood. 

Chinese officials announced the planned lobster tariff along with hundreds of other tariffs amid the country’s escalating trade fight with the United States. China said it wants to place new duties on items such as farm products, autos and seafood starting July 6.

The announcement could have major ramifications for the U.S. seafood industry and for the economy of the state of Maine, which is home to most of the country’s lobster fishery. China’s interest in U.S. lobster has grown exponentially in recent years, and selling to China has become a major focus of the lobster industry.

“Hopefully cooler heads can prevail and we can get a solution,” said Matt Jacobson, executive director of the Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative. “It’s a year-round customer in China. This isn’t good news at all.”

A Chinese government website on Friday posted a list of seafood products that will be subject to the tariffs, and it included live, fresh and frozen lobster. The website stated that the items would be taxed at 25 percent.

The announcement came in response to President Donald Trump’s own increase in tariffs on Chinese imports in America. The Republican president announced a 25 percent tariff on up to $50 billion worth of Chinese goods on Friday.

The news raised alarms around the Maine lobster industry, as China’s an emerging market for U.S. lobster, which has gained popularity with the growing middle class. Maine lobster was worth more than $430 million at the docks last year, and the industry is a critical piece of the state’s economy, history and heritage.

The U.S. isn’t the only country in the lobster trade. Canada also harvests the same species of lobster and is a major trading partner with China.

“Anything that affects the supply chain is obviously not a great thing,” said Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “The lobstermen obviously are concerned with trade and where they go.”

The value of China’s American lobster imports grew from $108.3 million in 2016 to $142.4 million last year. The country barely imported any American lobster a decade ago.

China and the U.S. are major seafood trading partners beyond just lobster, and the new tariffs would apply to dozens of products that China imports from the U.S., including salmon, tuna and crab. The U.S. imported more than $2.7 billion in Chinese seafood last year, and the U.S. exported more than $1.3 billion to China.
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President Donald Trump has approved a plan to impose punishing tariffs on tens of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods as early as Friday, a move that could put his trade policies on a collision course with his push to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons.

Trump has long vowed to fulfill his campaign pledge to clamp down on what he considers unfair Chinese trading practices. But his calls for billions in tariffs could complicate his efforts to maintain China’s support in his negotiations with North Korea.

Trump met Thursday with several Cabinet members and trade advisers and was expected to impose tariffs on at least $35 billion to $40 billion of Chinese imports, according to an industry official and an administration official familiar with the plans. The amount of goods could reach $55 billion, said the industry official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the matter ahead of a formal announcement.

Stage set for retaliation

If the president presses forward as expected, it could set the stage for a series of trade actions against China and lead to retaliation from Beijing. Trump has already slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada, Mexico and European allies, and his proposed tariffs against China risk starting a trade war involving the world’s two biggest economies.

The decision on the Chinese tariffs comes in the aftermath of Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The president has coordinated closely with China on efforts to get Pyongyang to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. But he signaled that whatever the implications, “I have to do what I have to do” to address the trade imbalance.

Trump, in his press conference in Singapore on Tuesday, said the U.S. has a “tremendous deficit in trade with China and we have to do something about it. We can’t continue to let that happen.” The U.S. trade deficit with China was $336 billion in 2017.

Administration officials have signaled support for imposing the tariffs in a dispute over allegations that Beijing steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology, according to officials briefed on the plans. China has targeted $50 billion in U.S. products for potential retaliation.

​Pompeo in China

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raised the trade issue directly with China Thursday, when he met in Beijing with President Xi Jinping and other officials, the State Department said. Officials would not say whether Pompeo explicitly informed the Chinese that the tariffs would be coming imminently.

“I stressed how important it is for President Trump to rectify that situation so that trade becomes more balanced, more reciprocal and more fair, with the opportunity to have American workers be treated fairly,” Pompeo said Thursday during a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Wall Street has viewed the escalating trade tensions with wariness, fearful that they could strangle the economic growth achieved during Trump’s watch and undermine the benefits of the tax cuts he signed into law last year.

“If you end up with a tariff battle, you will end up with price inflation, and you could end up with consumer debt. Those are all historic ingredients for an economic slowdown,” Gary Cohn, Trump’s former top economic adviser, said at an event sponsored by The Washington Post.

Bannon: Trump economic message

But Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House and campaign adviser, said the crackdown on China’s trade practices was “the central part of Trump’s economic nationalist message. His fundamental commitment to the ‘deplorables’ on the campaign trail was that he was going to bring manufacturing jobs back, particularly from Asia.”

In the trade fight, Bannon said, Trump has converted three major tools that “the American elites considered off the table” — namely, the use of tariffs, the technology investigation of China and penalties on Chinese telecom giant ZTE.

“That’s what has gotten us to the situation today where the Chinese are actually at the table,” Bannon said. “It’s really not just tariffs, it’s tariffs on a scale never before considered.”

Chinese counterpunch

The Chinese have threatened to counterpunch if the president goes ahead with the plan. Chinese officials have said they would drop agreements reached last month to buy more U.S. soybeans, natural gas and other products.

“We made clear that if the U.S. rolls out trade sanctions, including the imposition of tariffs, all outcomes reached by the two sides in terms of trade and economy will not come into effect,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Thursday.

Beijing has also drawn up a list of $50 billion in U.S. products that would face retaliatory tariffs, including beef and soybeans, a shot at Trump’s supporters in rural America.

Scott Kennedy, a specialist on the Chinese economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Chinese threat was real and helped along by recent strains exhibited among the U.S. and allies.

“I don’t think they would cower or immediately run to the negotiating table to throw themselves at the mercy of Donald Trump,” Kennedy said. “They see the U.S. is isolated and the president as easily distracted.”

Ron Moore, who farms 1,800 acres of corn and soybeans in Roseville, Illinois, said soybean prices have started dropping ahead of what looks like a trade war between the two economic powerhouses. 

“We have to plan for the worst-case scenario and hope for the best,” said Moore, who is chairman of the American Soybean Association. “If you look back at President Trump’s history, he’s been wildly successful negotiating as a businessman. But it’s different when you’re dealing with other governments.”

The U.S. and China have been holding ongoing negotiations over the trade dispute. The United States has criticized China for the aggressive tactics it uses to develop advanced technologies, including robots and electric cars, under its “Made in China 2025” program. The U.S. tariffs are designed specifically to punish China for forcing American companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market.

The administration is also working on proposed Chinese investment restrictions by June 30. So far, Trump has yet to signal any interest in backing away. 
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AT&T Inc may close its $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc under an agreement reached on Thursday with the U.S. government, which might still appeal a case seen as a turning point for the media industry.

AT&T said it could close the deal by Friday. The government has not ruled out an appeal and has 60 days to file.

AT&T agreed to temporarily manage Time Warner’s Turner networks separately from DirecTV, including setting prices and managing personnel, as part of the deal approved by Judge Richard Leon late Thursday.

The conditions agreed to by AT&T would remain in effect until Feb. 28, 2019, the conclusion of the case or an appeal.

Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Tuesday that the deal to marry AT&T’s wireless and satellite businesses with Time Warner’s movies and television shows was legal under antitrust law. The Justice Department had argued the deal would harm consumers.

U.S. President Donald Trump, a frequent critic of Time Warner’s CNN coverage, denounced the deal when it was announced in October 2016.

The fact that Turner, which includes CNN, will be run separately from DirecTV makes a stay unnecessary, said Seth Bloom, a veteran of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division who is now in private practice.

In its lawsuit aimed at stopping the deal, filed in November 2017, the Justice Department said that AT&T’s ownership of both DirecTV and Time Warner, especially its Turner subsidiary, would give AT&T unfair leverage against rival pay TV providers that relied on content like CNN and HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

“This is clearly leaving open the door for the DOJ (Justice Department) to appeal,” Bloom said. “If Turner is run separately, they don’t really need a stay.”

The AT&T ruling is expected to trigger a wave of mergers in the media sector, which has been upended by companies like Netflix Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.

The first to come was Comcast Corp’s $65 billion bid on Wednesday for the entertainment assets of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.

AT&T had been worried about closing its deal ahead of a June 21 deadline if the government won a stay pending an appeal. Any stay could take the deal beyond a June 21 deadline for completing the merger, which could allow Time Warner to walk away or renegotiate the proposed transaction with AT&T.

The government may have a difficult time winning on appeal because of the way Judge Leon wrote his opinion, four antitrust experts said.

“I don’t think this would be overturned. It is so rooted in the facts that I would be surprised if an appellate court overturned such a fact-laden opinion,” said Michael Carrier, who teaches law at Rutgers.

In a scathing opinion after a six-week trial, Leon found little to support the government’s arguments that the deal would harm consumers, calling the evidence for one argument against the deal “gossamer thin” and another “poppycock.”

The merger, including debt, would be the fourth largest deal ever attempted in the global telecom, media and entertainment space, according to Thomson Reuters data. It would also be the 12th largest deal in any sector, the data showed.
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Nyet. Non. Nein. No. That’s the answer the Supreme Court gave Thursday to the question of whether federal courts in the United States must accept statements from foreign governments about their own laws as binding.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for a unanimous court that a “federal court should accord respectful consideration to a foreign government’s submission,” but is not required to treat it as conclusive.

Given “the world’s many and diverse legal systems and the range of circumstances in which a foreign government’s views may be presented,” there is no single formula on how to treat the information a foreign government provides, Ginsburg wrote.

Ginsburg said the appropriate weight given to a government’s statement in each case will depend on the circumstances. Among the factors that U.S. courts should weigh in looking at what a foreign government has said about its own law are: the statement’s clarity, thoroughness and support as well as the transparency of the foreign legal system and the role and authority of the statement’s author.

Trade case

The ruling came in a case that involves trade with China, a class action lawsuit filed by two U.S.-based purchasers of vitamin C: Nacogdoches, Texas-based Animal Science Products and Elizabeth, New Jersey-based The Ranis Company. The companies sued vitamin C exporters in China. They alleged the exporters had violated U.S. antitrust laws by fixing the prices and amounts of vitamin C exported to the United States.

The vitamin C exporters argued that Chinese law had required their actions and that the lawsuit should therefore be dismissed. China’s Ministry of Commerce filed a brief arguing the same.

US rulings

A federal trial court said the ministry was entitled to “substantial deference” in its interpretation of its own law but didn’t find its statements conclusive. The judge ruled that Chinese law did not require the companies to fix the price or quantity of vitamin C exports, and after a jury found against the exporters, the judge awarded the U.S. companies $147 million.

The New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit reversed the award and dismissed the lawsuit, saying when a foreign government participates in U.S. court proceeding and submits a statement about its laws and regulations the U.S. court is “bound to defer to those statements.” The Supreme Court disagreed.

The Trump administration had urged the court to side, as it did, with the Vitamin C purchasers.

The case is 16-1220, Animal Science Products v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co.
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Caterers in Washington tweeted a photo of maroon sashimi appetizers served to 700 guests attending the governor’s inaugural ball last year. They were told the tuna was from Montauk.

But it was an illusion. It was the dead of winter and no yellowfin had been landed in the New York town.

An Associated Press investigation traced the supply chain of national distributor Sea To Table to other parts of the world, where fishermen described working under slave-like conditions with little regard for marine life.

In a global seafood industry plagued by deceit, conscientious consumers will pay top dollar for what they believe is local, sustainably caught seafood. But even in this fast-growing niche market, companies can hide behind murky dealings, making it difficult to know the story behind any given fish.

Sea To Table said by working directly with 60 docks along U.S. coasts it could guarantee the fish was wild, domestic and traceable — sometimes to the fisherman.

The New York-based company quickly rose in the sustainable seafood movement. While it told investors it had $13 million in sales last year, it expected growth to $70 million by 2020. The distributor earned endorsement from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and garnered media attention from Bon Appetit, Forbes and many more. Its clientele included celebrity chef Rick Bayless, Roy’s seafood restaurants, universities and home delivery meal kits such as HelloFresh.

As part of their investigation, reporters staked out America’s largest fish market, followed trucks and interviewed fishermen who worked on three continents. During a bone-chilling week, they set up a time-lapse camera at Montauk harbor that showed no tuna boats docking. The AP also had a chef order $500 worth of fish sent “directly from the landing dock to your kitchen,” but the boat listed on the receipt hadn’t been there in at least two years.

Preliminary DNA tests suggested the fish likely came from the Indian Ocean or the Western Central Pacific. There are limitations with the data because using genetic markers to determine the origins of species is still an emerging science, but experts say the promising new research will eventually be used to help fight illegal activity in the industry. 

Some of Sea To Table’s partner docks on both coasts, it turned out, were not docks at all. They were wholesalers or markets, flooded with imports. 

The distributor also offered species that were farmed, out of season or illegal to catch.

“It’s sad to me that this is what’s going on,” said chef Bayless, who hosts a PBS cooking series. He had worked with Sea To Table because he liked being tied directly to fishermen — and the “wonderful stories” about their catch. “This throws quite a wrench in all of that.”

Other customers who responded to AP said they were frustrated and confused.

Sea To Table response

Sea To Table owner Sean Dimin stressed that his suppliers are prohibited from sending imports to customers and added violators would be terminated.

“We take this extremely seriously,” he said.

Dimin also said he communicated clearly with chefs that some fish labeled as freshly landed at one port were actually caught and trucked in from other states. But customers denied this, and federal officials described it as mislabeling.

The AP focused on tuna because the distributor’s supplier in Montauk, the Bob Gosman Co., was offering chefs yellowfin tuna all year round, even when federal officials said there were no landings in the entire state.

Almost nightly, Gosman’s trucks drove three hours to reach the New Fulton Fish Market, where they picked up boxes of fish bearing shipping labels from all over the world.

Owner Bryan Gosman said some of the tuna that went to Sea To Table was caught off North Carolina and then driven 700 miles to Montauk. That practice ended in March, he said, because it wasn’t profitable. While 70 percent of his yellowfin tuna is imported, he said that fish is sold to local restaurants and sushi bars and kept separate from Sea To Table’s products.

“Can things get mixed up? It could get mixed up,” he said. “Is it an intentional thing? No, not at all.”

Some of Gosman’s foreign supply came from Land, Ice and Fish, in Trinidad and Tobago.

Indonesian fishermen

The AP interviewed and reviewed complaints from more than a dozen Indonesian fishermen who said they earned $1.50 a day, working 22 hours at a time, on boats that brought yellowfin to Land, Ice and Fish’s compound. They described finning sharks and occasionally cutting off whale and dolphin heads, extracting their teeth as good luck charms.

“We were treated like slaves,” said Sulistyo, an Indonesian who worked on one of those boats and gave only one name, fearing retaliation. “They treat us like robots without any conscience.”

Though it’s nearly impossible to tell where a specific fish ends up, or what percentage of a company’s seafood is fraudulent, even one bad piece taints the entire supply chain.

Dimin said the labor and environmental abuses are “abhorrent and everything we stand against.”

For caterers serving at the ball for Washington Governor Jay Inslee, who successfully pushed through a law to combat seafood mislabeling, knowing where his fish came from was crucial.

The Montauk tuna came with a Sea To Table leaflet describing the romantic, seaside town and the quality of the fish. A salesperson did send them an email saying the fish was caught off North Carolina. But the boxes came from New York and there was no indication it had landed in another state and was trucked to Montauk. A week later, the caterer ordered Montauk tuna again. This time the invoice listed a boat whose owner later told AP he didn’t catch anything for Sea To Table at that time.

“I’m kind of in shock right now,” said Brandon LaVielle of Lavish Roots Catering. “We felt like we were supporting smaller fishing villages.”
…

Leaders of the U.S. central bank raised interest rates slightly Wednesday and signaled that rates are likely to go higher as the economy continues to strengthen.

At the end of two days of deliberation in Washington, the Federal Reserve set the key interest rate a quarter of a percent higher, at a range between 1.75 and 2 percent. They say the labor market continues to improve, spending is rising, and inflation is rising closer to the modest 2 percent annual rate that experts say helps the economy grow predictably.

Fed officials work to maximize employment while maintaining stable prices. With that in mind, they slashed interest rates to nearly zero during the recession in 2008 to boost economic activity. Now, they judge that it is time to continue raising rates because holding rates too low for too long could spark inflation, and such rapidly rising prices could harm the economy.

“The economy is doing very well,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told journalists. “Most people who want to find jobs are finding them and unemployment and inflation are low.”

He said the Fed’s efforts to manage the economy work best when the public is told what is being done, what is being considered, and why certain decisions are made. Consequently, Powell said he will begin holding press conferences more often beginning next year. 
…

German authorities fined Volkswagen nearly $1.2 billion Wednesday for its role in a diesel emissions scandal that first surfaced in the United States in 2015.

Prosecutors found the German automaker failed to properly monitor its engine development department. The lack of oversight resulted in global sales of nearly 11 million diesel vehicles with illegal emissions-controlling software.

U.S. authorities previously imposed billions of dollars in penalties on the automaker, which said Wednesday it would accept the fine announced by prosecutors in the city of Braunschweig.

Volkswagen said paying the latest fine would hopefully have “positive effects on other official proceedings being conducted in Europe” against the company and its subsidiaries.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump says oil prices are too high and blames the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The 14 oil-producing nations in OPEC — Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Venezuela among them — produce about 40 percent of the world’s oil, but about 60 percent of the oil traded on international markets. OPEC’s actions, whether to cut or increase production, often heavily influence the price of oil, and by extension the prices consumers and businesses pay for fuel.

OPEC’s oil chiefs struck a deal in 2016 to cut production by 1.8 million barrels a day to reduce the global glut of oil and shore up prices. Since then, oil prices have risen from below $30 a barrel to more than $70.

But that rollback in production is set to expire at the end of the year. OPEC has yet to set new production levels beyond that, but the cartel’s oil ministers are meeting again next week in Vienna.

Saudi Energy Minister Khaled al-Faleh said in April that the global market can absorb higher oil prices, a remark that drew a swift rebuke from Trump.

“With record amounts of oil all over the place, including the fully loaded ships at sea, Oil prices are artificially Very High! No good and will not be accepted!” the U.S. leader tweeted on April 20, although he has no control over what OPEC decides to do.

Early in the year, with gas prices at service stations still relatively low, Trump suggested raising the country’s gasoline tax that customers pay at service stations by 25 cents a gallon to fund road and highway repairs.

But the president has not mentioned the tax increase idea in months as gas prices have steadily risen because of higher oil prices on the world market, eating into higher take-home pay that millions of American workers gained when Congress late last year passed tax-cut legislation supported by Trump.

The average gallon of gas in the United States now costs $2.92, far more than in such oil-producing countries as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and far less than in other countries around the world, including Europe.
…

For many years, Ivory Coast has been the world’s largest producer of cocoa. Most of it leaves the country in bulk and ends up in Europe, where it gets turned into fine and expensive chocolate, fetching up to 50 times the price of the raw cocoa.

Chocolate is the world’s favorite comfort food. Two-thirds of all that sweet stuff comes out of factories in the United States and Western Europe. It is where most people consume it, too. Almost completely left out of this feast for the palate are the countries that produce the raw material for chocolate: cocoa.

A few years ago, a Dutch-Ivorian television crew went to one of Ivory Coast’s many cocoa farms and recorded the surprise on the planters’ faces when tasting chocolate for the first time: so THIS is what they do with our cocoa beans?

Very little chocolate is consumed in Africa, but this Ivorian entrepreneur is planning to change that. 

Axel Emmanuel Gbaou says he worked at a commercial bank until 2010 before he decided to go into the business of making chocolate. The taste for the sweet bars came from his mother, who had been living among Swiss missionaries, great chocolate lovers. His conviction came from doing some basic arithmetic.

Eighty percent of next year’s cocoa beans, he explains, have already been bought up by the big multinational companies that transport them raw to the chocolate factories in other parts of the world. One kilo of chocolate fetches up to 50 times more than one kilo of unprocessed cocoa beans. Axel wants some of that money to stay in Ivory Coast.

In this nondescript building close to the market in Abidjan’s Cocody district, you will find the production unit, the packaging center and sales office. Axel’s company sells its products to an ever expanding circle of customers, including the global airline Air France.

Back in the cocoa producing fields, the situation is dire. World market prices have been falling for two years. In response, the government of Ivory Coast has lowered the standard price per kilo. 

Agronomist N’dourou M’beo is quality control manager at Axel’s company. He says current cocoa prices stand at around $1.40 per kilo. That is the raw harvest that gets shipped out of the country. But after some basic treatment — roasting and winnowing — those beans fetch three times as much and they can be stored for months. This is one model the company has adopted. As a result, more work and money stay on the farm and the company has a reliable supply of quality beans.

The world is the market, but Axel’s biggest challenge lies right here in Africa. 

In the next two years, he says he wants to sell 100 million bars of chocolate on the African continent. 

That sounds like a lot, but in fact with well more than one billion inhabitants and a fast growing middle class that can afford buying a few bars at $3 each, he thinks it is perfectly doable.

 
…

Fueled by a surging stock market and huge gifts from billionaires, charitable giving in the United States in 2017 topped the $400 billion mark for the first time, according to the latest comprehensive report on Americans’ giving patterns.

The Giving USA report, released Tuesday, said giving from individuals, estates, foundations and corporations reached an estimated $410 billion in 2017 — more than the gross domestic product of countries such as Israel and Ireland. The total was up 5.2 percent in current dollars (3 percent adjusted for inflation) from the estimate of $389.64 billion for 2016.

“Americans’ record-breaking charitable giving in 2017 demonstrates that even in divisive times our commitment to philanthropy is solid,” said Aggie Sweeney, chair of Giving USA Foundation, which publishes the annual report. It is researched and written by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Giving increased to eight of the nine charitable sectors identified by Giving USA. The only decline was for areas related to international affairs.

The biggest increase was in giving to foundations — up 15.5 percent. That surge was driven by large gifts from major philanthropists to their own foundations — including $1 billion from Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, and $2 billion from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Other sectors with increases of more than 6 percent included education, health, arts and culture, environment and animal welfare, and public-society benefit organizations — groups which work on such issues as voter education, civil rights, civil liberties and consumer rights.

Despite the record-setting total, Americans’ level of generosity is no higher than it was decades ago. For 2017, giving by individuals represented 2 percent of total disposable income — down from 2.4 percent in 2000 and the same as the rate in 1978. Similarly, total charitable donations have hovered around 2 percent of the gross domestic product for many years; for 2017, that figure was 2.1 percent.

Una Osili, a dean and economics professor at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, says the school’s research shows that the percentage of U.S. households making charitable donations has declined steadily in recent years, from about 67 percent in 2000 to 56.6 percent in 2015 — the latest year for which data is available.

She said giving rates for lower- and middle-class families had dropped significantly since the 2008 recession, while the giving rate for the wealthiest 20 percent of households was relatively steady.

Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said many fundraisers in the U.S. — while pleased with the recent increase in gifts — are unsure what lies ahead.

If trade wars break out, she said, that could weaken the economy to the point at which it deters some donors. She said fundraisers also worry that some middle-class donors may cut back on giving if changes in the new tax law no longer give them a deduction for their charitable donations.

Alluding to the surge of mega-gifts by the wealthy, Palmer added, “Some people feel they don’t need to give any more.”
…

AT&T won approval from a U.S. court on Tuesday to buy Time Warner for $85 billion, without conditions, allowing AT&T to compete with internet companies that dominate digital advertising and providing new sources of revenue.

The planned deal is seen as a turning point for a media industry that has been upended by companies like Netflix and Google which produce content and sell it online directly to consumers, without requiring a pricey cable subscription. Distributors including cable, satellite and wireless carriers all see buying content companies as a way to add revenue.

The ruling could also prompt a cascade of pay TV companies buying television and movie makers, with Comcast’s bid for some Twenty-First Century Fox assets potentially the first out of the gate.

The merger, including debt, would be the fourth largest deal ever attempted in the global telecom, media and entertainment space, according to Thomson Reuters data. It would also be the 12th largest deal in any sector, the data showed.

“I conclude that the government has failed to meet its burden of proof,” District Court Judge Richard Leon told the court. He called one of the government’s arguments against the deal “gossamer thin.”

The judge in a scathing opinion urged the U.S. government not to seek a stay of his ruling, saying it would be “manifestly unjust” to do so and not likely to succeed.

Shares of AT&T were about flat in after-hours trade following the decision, while Time Warner rose more than 5 percent.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit to stop the deal in November 2017, saying that AT&T’s ownership of both DirecTV and Time Warner would give AT&T unfair leverage against rival cable providers that relied on Time Warner’s content, such as CNN and HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

AT&T in a six-week trial argued that the purchase of Time Warner would allow it to gain information about viewers needed to target digital advertising, much like Facebook and Alphabet’s Google already do.

AT&T and other wireless carriers need to find new sources of revenue as the mobile phone market stagnates and more customers abandon pricey cable and satellite packages for streaming services they can watch on their phones or televisions.

The government estimated costs to industry rivals, such as Charter Communications, would increase by $580 million a year if AT&T owned Time Warner.

To assuage the Trump administration’s criticisms, AT&T offered to submit pricing disagreements with other pay TV companies over Turner’s channels to third-party arbitration. The companies further offered not to black out programming during arbitration for seven years.

Announced in October 2016, the deal was quickly denounced by Donald Trump, who as a candidate and later as president has been critical of Time Warner’s CNN and its coverage.

Before the trial started, AT&T lawyers said the Time Warner deal may have been singled out for government enforcement but Judge Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected their bid to force the disclosure of White House communications that might have shed light on the matter.

The deal cost AT&T’s top lobbyist, Bob Quinn, his job in May after it became public that AT&T had paid Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen $600,000 for advice on winning approval.

The ruling could also have implications for CBS’s potential tie-up with Viacom, which is already uncertain because of a lawsuit between CBS’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, and its board.
…

The separatist campaign in Indian-administered Kashmir broke out into major violence in 1989. More than 60,000 people are estimated to have died and 10,000 to have disappeared in the disputed Himalayan region. That has pushed their families into poverty. For the region’s youth, earning a living has been a challenge, especially educated young women. However, one group of young entrepreneurs is taking matters into their own hands. Yusuf Jameel has more, in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
…

The new generation of global entrepreneurs is going into business motivated by purpose rather than just profit, according to research by the HSBC banking group released on Tuesday.

One in four entrepreneurs aged under 35 said they were more motivated by social impact than by moneymaking, compared to just over one in 10 of those aged over 55, according the results of the HSBC survey.

“Our research suggests this is a generational shift,” Stuart Parkinson, global chief investment officer of HSBC, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Younger entrepreneurs are focused on environmental and social concerns and that’s because they see these values as being their own.”

The bank surveyed 3,700 entrepreneurs in 11 countries. One in five said their priority as a business owner was to deliver solutions to environmental and social challenges.

Parkinson said social media had brought greater scrutiny of businesses, while awareness of the social and environmental impacts of business practices had also increased.

“Social enterprise has taken off as this new formula for success, which is this combination of capitalism and doing good, and younger entrepreneurs are clearly leading this,” he said.

Social enterprises are businesses with a mission to benefit society or the environment as well as turn a profit and Britain is seen as a global leader in the innovative sector.

Last year it had about 70,000 employing nearly 1 million people last year, according to membership organization Social Enterprise UK, up from 55,000 businesses in 2007.

Zakia Moulaoui runs the social enterprise Invisible Cities, which employs homeless people as city guides in Edinburgh, and plans to expand the business to Manchester and Glasgow by the end of the year.

The 31-year-old said there was a greater awareness amongst her generation that being able to address social issues and earn an income was possible.

“People who thought they couldn’t do that because they needed to make a living for themselves might have just worked in a regular business and volunteered at the weekend, but now people know they can reconcile the two,” Moulaoui said.

Britain’s Confederation of British Industry (CBI), an employers’ group, has found that two thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds think companies should put society’s interest first.

“This is a view shared by employees, customers and communities. CEOs of firms of all sizes are clearer than ever before — purpose and profit go hand in hand,” said Josh Hardie, deputy director-general of the CBI.
…

Financial disclosure forms released late Monday show that White House special adviser — and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — Jared Kushner’s wealth and debt both appear to have risen over the year, an indication of the complex state of his finances and the potential conflicts that confront some of his investments.

Disclosures issued by the White House for Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, showed that Kushner held assets totaling at least $181 million. His previous 2017 disclosure had showed assets in at least the $140 million range. Kushner and Ivanka Trump, jointly held at least $240 million in assets last year.

The financial disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics routinely show both assets and debts compiled in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of the financial portfolios of federal government officials.

The White House released the disclosures for Kushner and Ivanka Trump on a heavy news day, while the world’s media lavished attention on President Trump’s preparations to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for talks over nuclear weapons. The White House had released the president’s own financial report last month.

A spokesman for the couple said Monday that the couple’s disclosure portrayed both assets and debts that have not changed much over the past year — and stressed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump have both complied with all federal ethics rules.

“Since joining the administration, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have complied with the rules and restrictions as set out by the Office of Government Ethics,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for the couple’s ethics lawyer, Abbe Lowell. “As to the current filing which OGE also reviews, their net worth remains largely the same, with changes reflecting more the way the form requires disclosure than any substantial difference in assets or liabilities.”

One of Kushner’s biggest holdings, a real estate tech startup called Cadre that he co-founded with his brother, Joshua, rose sharply in value. The latest disclosure shows it was worth at least $25 million at the end of last year, up from a minimum value of $5 million in his previous disclosure.

The bulk of Ivanka Trump’s assets — more than $50 million worth — was contained in a trust that holds her business and corporations. That trust generated over $5 million in revenue last year.

She reported a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., worth between $5 million and $25 million. The hotel has been a focus of lawsuits against the president and ethics watchdogs who say Trump is violating the Constitution by profiting from his office as diplomats spend big money there.

The disclosure also showed that Kushner has assumed growing debt over the past year, both expanding his use of revolving lines of credit and taking on additional debt of between $5 million and $25 million as part of his family company’s purchase last year of a New Jersey apartment complex.

A series of interim financial reports last year showed that Kushner had increased lines of credit with Bank of America, New York Community Bank and Signature Bank, each from at least $1 million to $5 million. Such moves do not mean that Kushner has yet accumulated that debt, but has the ability to do so.

The new disclosure shows that Kushner did take on a new debt last year with Bank of America worth between $5 million and $25 million — but jointly with other investors in Quail Ridge LLC, a company used for his family firm’s purchase of Quail Ridge, a 1,032-unit apartment community in Plainsboro, N.J., near Princeton. The disclosures also showed that Ivanka Trump owns an interest in that purchase through a family trust.

The disclosure showed that Kushner reported making at least $5 million in income from the development since Kushner Companies bought the complex in September. The family business has made a splash with high-profile deals for buildings in New York City in the past decade, but lately has been returning to its roots by buying garden apartments in the suburbs.

Under an ethics agreement he signed when he joined the administration in early 2017, Kushner withdrew from his position as CEO of Kushner Companies. But even as a passive investor, he retains many lucrative investments — which ethics critics have warned could raise conflicts of interest.
…

Italy’s new coalition government has no intention of leaving the euro and plans to focus on cutting debt levels, Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said on Sunday, looking to reassure nervous financial markets.

Italian government bonds have come under concerted selling pressure on fears the government will embark on a spending splurge that Italy can ill-afford and markets are wary that euro-skeptics within the coalition might try to push Italy out of the eurozone.

In his first interview since taking office a week ago, Tria told Corriere della Sera newspaper that the coalition wanted to boost growth through investment and structural reforms.

“Our goal is [to lift] growth and employment. But we do not plan on reviving growth through deficit spending,” Tria said, adding that he would present new economic forecasts and government goals in September.

“These will be fully coherent with the objective of continuing on the path of lowering the debt/GDP ratio,” he said.

The government, comprising the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and far-right League, initially named as economy minister a man who had called the euro an “historic error”.

He was eventually handed a less important portfolio after the head of state refused to accept his nomination.

Tria, a little-known economics professor who is not affiliated to any party, said the coalition was committed to remaining within the single currency.

“The position of the government is clear and unanimous. There is no question of leaving the euro,” he said.

“The government is determined to prevent in any way the market conditions that would lead to an exit materializing. It’s not just that we do not want to leave, we will act in such a way that the conditions do not get anywhere near to a position where they might challenge our presence in the euro.”

Tria said he had spoken to his German counterpart and was looking for “fruitful dialogue” with the Europe Union, adding that Italian interests chimed with those of Europe.

“Basic choices”

The new government has promised to roll back pension reform, cut taxes and boost welfare spending, measures that are expected to cost tens of billions of euros. It also needs to find an estimated 12.5 billion euros ($14.8 billion) to stave off the threat of an automatic increase in sales taxes because of previously missed deficit targets.

Tria declined to say whether the coalition would hike the deficit target, but said he aimed to meet existing 2018 and 2019 debt reduction goals.

The previous center-left government had forecast a fall in debt to 130.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year and 128 percent next year against 131.8 percent in 2017.

Tria urged investors to look not just at the hard figures, but also study the content of the forthcoming 2019 budget.

“As part of the debt reduction and deficit reduction goals, the budget will reflect the basic choices on how and when to implement the [government] program,” he said.

“We have a program that focuses on structural reforms and we want it to also act on the supply side, creating more favorable conditions for investment and employment.”

The government has also promised to review a recent shake-up of mutual and co-operative banks, saying the changes risked penalizing domestic lenders. However Tria said the issue “is not the first problem we have to tackle”.

He also distanced himself from calls within the coalition for the government to issue securities to pay off individuals and companies owed money by the state.

“Stop-gap solutions solve nothing,” he said.
…

The International Labor Organization reports 152 million children are victims of child labor, with nearly half forced to work in hazardous, unhealthy conditions that can result in death and injury.

Twenty years ago, hundreds of people, including children, participated in the Global March against Child Labor. They came to the International Labor Conference in Geneva demanding a Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor.

Basu Rai from Nepal was the youngest of the marchers. Now, a grown man he recalls clambering on table tops chanting slogans.

“Go, Go Global March. Stop, Stop Child Labor. We want education. No more tools in tiny hands. We want books and we want toys,” he said.

Rai was orphaned at age four. Homeless and without anyone to look after him, he became a street gangster, a rag picker, a delivery boy. He did anything to survive. Now, as an adult, he has become a Child Rights Activist.

“But, still I am afraid because I am a father to a two-month old daughter and then because the world is not safe for the children. So, this is our collective responsibility to work together for the sake of the childhood…But, still there are 152 million children who are languishing in a kind of slavery,” said Rai.

Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist and Nobel peace prize laureate, led the 1998 Global March of enslaved and trafficked children. He said progress has been made since then, but much remains to be done.

“If the children are still trapped into the supply chain, if the children are still enslaved, if the children are still sold and bought like animals and sometimes for less than the price of animals to work in fields and farms, and shops and factories, or for household work as domestic help, this is a blot on humanity,” said Satyarthi.

The ILO reports nearly half of the child laborers are found in Africa and in the Asia and Pacific regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion with one in five children working.

It notes children typically enter the work force at the age of six or seven, getting involved in hazardous work as they get older. About 70 percent of hazardous work is concentrated in agriculture. Other forms include mining, construction, and domestic service.

ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, said the world is facing an epidemic of occupational accidents and disease.

“Honestly, the annual toll is appalling — 2.78 million work-related deaths, 374 million injuries and illnesses. If these were the victims of a war, we would be talking a lot about it. Children and young workers are at greater risk and suffer disproportionately and with longer lasting consequences,” he said.

Ryder says legislation, labor inspection, and workplace labor relations and practices must be strengthened to stop this carnage.

Most child laborers are in the developing world. But, this shameful practice also occurs in some of the world’s richest countries. Zulema Lopez, a Child Rights Activist and Labor Relations student in the United States recalls her life as a child.

“At the age of seven, it was normal for me to wake up at five o’clock in the morning, put on my shoes, put on a T-shirt and go work in the hot sun, burning — my back was aching, 20-30 pounds of buckets of cucumbers next to me, trying to make ends meet,” said Lopez.

Lopez said people do not realize what is happening in their own backyard. She calls the exploitative work that robs children of their childhood unacceptable and said it must stop. She said children are the future and if people fail to protect the world’s children, then there is little hope for the future.
…

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)is holding its first summit since India and Pakistan joined the bloc which is widely seem by observers as a means for blocking American influence in Central Asia. 

The founding members of the alliance are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. 

The summit is being held in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao. 

Chinese President Xi Jingping told the group in opening remarks Sunday, “We should reject selfish, short-sighted, narrow and closed-off policies.We must maintain the rules of the World Trade Organization, support the multilateral trade system and build an open global economy.”

Political analysts see the Chinese leader’s remarks as a thinly veiled reference to the chaos at the recent G-7 summit in Canada where the U.S. and its allies were divided by escalating trade tensions. 

After leaving the G-7 meeting, U.S. President Donald Trump described Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “meek and mild” and “dishonest & weak.”

Trump also withdrew his endorsement of the G-7 summit’s communique.
…

Prime Minister Theresa May will gather together squabbling British ministers at her country residence after this month’s European Union summit

to settle on details of a much-anticipated Brexit policy paper.

May has yet to agree on some of the fundamental details of what type of trading relationship she wants to have with the European Union after Britain leaves next March. As a result, talks with the EU have all but ground to a halt, raising fears among businesses and in Brussels that Britain could end up crashing out of the bloc without an agreed-upon deal.

“There’s going to be a lot happening over the next few weeks. You know, people want us to get on with it, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” May told reporters on her way to a G-7 summit in Canada.

May will look to the June 28-29 EU summit as a chance to pin down some of the most troublesome details of Britain’s exit agreement and pave the way for more intensive talks on the all-important future economic partnership between the world’s fifth-largest economy and the world’s biggest trading bloc.

But senior ministers are still at odds about what type of post-Brexit customs arrangement will be best for Britain, meaning talks on the future are unlikely to move far in June.

Before leaving for Canada, May was forced into crisis talks with her Brexit minister who had challenged her so-called backstop plan to ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland.

Then her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, was recorded saying there could be a Brexit meltdown.

‘Away day’

With that in mind, May said she was planning to summon ministers to Chequers, her country residence, for an “away day” aimed at ending months of squabbling and agreeing upon the contents of a so-called “white paper” policy document.

The white paper is expected to set out in more detail what Britain wants from its long-term relationship with the EU. May did not give a firm date for when it would be published.

Ministers had said it would be published before the June EU summit, suggesting rows had helped delay the paper.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labor Party, criticized the delay. “The government promised a ‘detailed, ambitious and precise’ Brexit white paper this month setting out their negotiating priorities. Once again it’s been postponed. The Tories are botching Brexit and risking jobs and our economy in the process,” he said in an emailed statement.

May said her government and the EU were still working toward an October deadline in talks to secure an agreement on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal and an outline of the future partnership.

“We’re all, both we and the European Union, working to that timetable of October,” May said. “From my point of view, what we’re doing is working to develop that future relationship, because there’s a big prize for the U.K. here at the end of this.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he had instructed his representatives not to sign a communique by all seven leaders attending the G-7 summit in Canada, citing statements by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made after he left.

“Very dishonest and & weak,” Trump tweeted in response to Trudeau’s remark that the new U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel were “insulting.”

“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers, and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!” Trump added.

Retaliatory measures

Trudeau closed the summit Saturday by refusing to budge on positions that place him at odds with Trump, particularly new tariffs on steel and aluminum that have irritated Canada and the European Union.

He said in closing remarks that Canada would proceed with retaliatory measures on U.S. goods as early as July 1.

“I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs,” Trudeau said in the news conference following the two-day summit. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May echoed Trudeau, pledging to retaliate for tariffs on EU goods. “The loss of trade through tariffs undermines competition, reduces productivity, removes the incentive to innovate and ultimately makes everyone poorer,” she said. “And in response, the EU will impose countermeasures.”

Trudeau and May also bucked Trump on another high-profile issue: Russia. Trump wants to have Russia — which was pushed out in 2014 over its aggression in eastern Ukraine — rejoin the group. Trudeau said he was “not remotely interested” in having Russia return to the group, made up of the world’s seven most advanced economies.

May added that she also welcomed the G-7’s recognition of the need to continue sanctions on Russia, given “Russia’s failure to fully implement the Minsk agreements” of 2014 that were meant to end the war in Ukraine. “We have agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary,” she said.

​’Fair and reciprocal’ trade

Before leaving the summit Saturday, Trump said there must be “fair and reciprocal” trade between the U.S. and other countries.

“The United States has been taken advantage of for decades and decades and we can’t do that anymore,” he told reporters shortly before leaving the summit for Singapore, where he will meet next week with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

WATCH: President Trump on Trade

Trump said many “unfair foreign trading practices” are getting “straightened out slowly but surely.”

He blamed past U.S. leaders for the current global trade landscape and congratulated other world leaders for “so crazily being able to make these trade deals that were so good for countries and so bad for the United States.”

Trump declared “those days are over” and said that talks this weekend with G-7 leaders convinced him they are “committed to a much more fair-trade situation for the United States.”

At a bilateral meeting Friday with Trudeau, the U.S. president joked that the Canadian prime minister had agreed to “cut all tariffs.”

Despite the two leaders exchanging criticism of each other’s trade policies the previous day, Trump described the cross-border relationship as very good, stating “we’re actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries. And we’ve made a lot of progress today. We’ll see how it all works out.”

In a subsequent sit-down meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Trump said the French president had been “very helpful” in efforts to address trade deficits with the European Union.

Macron responded that he had a “very direct and open discussion” with Trump, and “there is a critical path that is a way to progress all together.”

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, confirmed she met Friday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to discuss the tariffs and the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She said Canada, however, would not change its mind about the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, which she termed “illegal.”

Trump imposed the tariffs on the ground that weak domestic industries could affect U.S. national security. ​Canada, Mexico and the European Union are introducing retaliatory tariffs.

“I think the only way this moves toward a deal is if the concern grows among the G-7 countries about the economic impact of this, that Trump begins to feel some pressure from farmers and small manufacturers and others that are harmed, that other countries are feeling the pressure from the decline in their steel and aluminum exports to the United States and it causes some reconsideration of the current positions,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

On the eve of the summit, Trump had lashed out on Twitter at Macron and Trudeau, who had criticized Trump’s trade stance at a joint news conference Thursday in Ottawa. The White House then announced Trump would skip some of the G-7 sessions and depart for Singapore on Saturday morning, several hours earlier than planned.

Trudeau, alongside Trump, was asked if he was disappointed the U.S. president was leaving early. He did not reply, but Trump grinned broadly and said “he’s happy” before appearing to stick out his tongue.

Some attending the summit were openly expressing strong concern about Trump’s positions.

“What worries me most is that the rules-based international order is being challenged,” Donald Tusk, the chairman of European Union leaders, said at a news conference just prior to the start of the G-7 talks. “Quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor — the United States. Naturally, we cannot force the U.S. to change its mind.”

Should Trump disassociate with the group, reducing it to a G-6, it would leave the collective virtually inconsequential, according to some analysts.

“The United States accounts for more than half of the GDP of the total G-7. So, without the United States, the G-7 really isn’t anything,” according to Sebastian Mallaby, a CFR senior fellow for international economics.

Russia invitation?

Before departing the White House for Canada, the president told reporters that Russia should be invited back to the summits of leading advanced countries.

When asked about Russia on Saturday in Quebec, Trump said, “I think it would be good for the world. We’re looking for peace in the world. We’re not looking to play games.”

WATCH: President Trump on Russia

One other G-7 leader, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, said Friday in a tweet that he supported Trump’s suggestion.

But other G-7 leaders said it was not going to happen at this time.

European Union leaders are in agreement “that a return of Russia to the G-7 format summits can’t happen until substantial progress has been made in connection with the problems with Ukraine,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters.

A spokesman at the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, brushed it all off.

“Russia is focused on other formats apart from the G-7,” Peskov said, according to the Sputnik news agency.
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Drones guided by artificial intelligence to catch boats netting fish where they shouldn’t were among the winners of a marine protection award on Friday and could soon be deployed to fight illegal fishing, organizers said.

The award-winning project aims to help authorities hunt down illegal fishing boats using drones fitted with cameras that can monitor large swaths of water autonomously.

Illegal fishing and overfishing deplete fish stocks worldwide, causing billions of dollars in losses a year and threatening the livelihoods of rural coastal communities, according to the United Nations.

The National Geographic Society awarded the project, co-developed by Morocco-based company ATLAN Space, and two other innovations $150,000 each to implement their plans as it marked World Oceans Day on Friday.

The aircraft can cover a range of up to 700 km (435 miles) and use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to drive them in search of fishing vessels, said ATLAN Space’s founder, Badr Idrissi.

“Once (the drone) detects something, it goes there and identifies what it’s seeing,” Idrissi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Idrissi said the technology, which is to be piloted in the Seychelles later this year, was more effective than traditional sea patrols and allowed coast guards to save money and time.

From satellites tracking trawlers on the high seas to computer algorithms identifying illegal behaviors, new technologies are increasingly coming to the aid of coast guards worldwide.

AI allows the drones to check a boat’s identification number, establish whether it is fishing inside a protected area or without permit, verify whether it is known to authorities and count people on board, Idrissi said.

If something appears to be wrong, it can alert authorities.

Other winners were Marine Conservation Cambodia, which uses underwater concrete blocks to impede the use of bottom-dragged nets, and U.S.-based Pelagic Data Systems, which plans to combat illegal fishing in Thailand with tracking technologies.

“The innovations from the three winning teams have the potential to greatly increase sustainable fishing in coastal systems,” National Geographic Society’s chief scientist Jonathan Baillie said in a statement.

Much of the world’s fish stocks are overfished or fully exploited, according the U.N. food agency, and fish consumption rose above 20 kilograms per person in 2016 for the first time.

Global marine catches have declined by 1.2 million tons a year since 1996, according to The Sea Around Us, a research initiative involving the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Australia.
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A ‘smart’ bottle opener, weak and alcohol-free ales and lagers and cannabis brews – all visions of the future of beer offered at a brewing convention in Brussels this week.

More than 700 brewers and beer experts, from small microbrewers to megabrew executives, converged in Belgium, for many the home of beer, to debate hot topics in the $600 billion sector – including how to win drinkers back from wine and spirits.

Sessions on beer and food pairings sought to show how ales or lagers could challenge the dominance of wine during meals.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, has set increasing beer’s share of the overall drinks market as a top priority this year. Carlos Brito, its chief executive, told fellow brewers the sector should target mealtimes and women as areas of future growth.

Consumers should expect an even wider variety of products, particular of higher priced “premium” beers.

“Premiumization has arrived in, for example, confectionery. Look at chocolate. We have a long path ahead of us,” he said.

Cees’t Hart, the head of Carlsberg, called wine and tea “the enemy” and said brewers had identified a gap between beer and soft drinks – with low and no-alcohol brands that promised to be healthier than soda alternatives.

“That’s what we can own. This could be the future for the brewing industry,” he said.

Brewers AB InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg and China’s CR Snow sell about half of all beer drunk across the globe, but a growing number of smaller craft brewers, traditionally known for stronger ales, were also brewing low and no alcohol varieties.

Spiros Malandrakis, head of alcohol drinks research at Euromonitor International, said craft beers themselves appeared to have hit a plateau in the United States, with an estimated 6,000 breweries, but could expect to emerge in countries such as China and Vietnam.

Malandrakis also pointed to cannabis as a future growth segment, noting Constellation Brands’ $191 million investment in Canada’s Canopy Growth Corp, the first major drinks producer to invest in legal cannabis.

“The problem is that consumed in beer it would takes two to three hours to have an effect,” he said, adding a lot of effort was being put into studies to reduce this delay.

Downstairs at the convention, exhibitors displayed everything from tanks to taps and marketing to bottling technology that any budding microbrewer could want.

Among them was a device billed as the world’s first smart bottle opener, which connects to the Internet.

Although bottles must still be opened by hand, the device recognizes the bottle top and transmits that information by WiFi.

This allows brewers, large and small, to see how fast their beers are actually being consumed in bars, rather than just stocked, and also to offer promotions in real-time to push a particular brand.
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Argentina could revise the fiscal targets set as part of a $50 billion financing arrangement with the International Monetary Fund to increase spending on social programs, an IMF director said on Friday.

Argentina requested IMF assistance on May 8 after a run on its peso currency in an investor exodus from emerging markets.

The country’s stocks rallied on the deal to provide a safety net and avoid the frequent crises of the country’s past.

Many Argentines blame the austerity measures the IMF imposed under a previous bailout during its 2001-2002 economic crisis for plunging millions into poverty, but the organization said spending on programs to protect the poor could actually increase under the financing arrangement.

“The fiscal targets can be revised in case there is a need to increase social spending,” said IMF Western Hemisphere Director Alejandro Werner, adding that Argentina’s economy today is “very different than 2001.”

“That way, society does not have to choose between building a bridge or protecting the poorest.”

As part of the deal announced Thursday night, the government agreed to speed up reductions in the primary fiscal deficit to balance the budget by 2020. The government also pledged to propose legislation for a more independent central bank to fight double-digit inflation, which Werner praised on Friday.

Opposition politicians aligned with former populist President Cristina Fernandez have said market-friendly President Mauricio Macri was repeating earlier mistakes.

“Argentines do not want to go back to the past. It cost us a lot to get away from the Fund, and we do not want to go back there,” said Carlos Castagneto, a lawmaker aligned with Fernandez.

The benchmark Merval stock index rose 3.8 percent on the deal. Bonds rose modestly, with Argentina’s country risk — a J.P. Morgan measure of the difference between the country’s bond yields and less risky alternatives — down five points at 476 as of 3:56 p.m. local time (1746 GMT).

Argentina’s 100-year bond maturing in 2117 was up 0.2 percent at 87 cents on the dollar.

“The deal between Argentina and the IMF reduces immediate external financing risks and will help speed up fiscal consolidation,” said Gabriel Torres, a vice president at credit rating agency Moody’s.

Peso weakens

The deal still needs approval from the IMF board, which is expected to discuss it at a June 20 meeting. Treasury Minister Nicolas Dujovne said on Thursday he expected Argentina to receive a disbursement of 30 percent of the total, or roughly $15 billion, in the days following approval.

Finance Minister Luis Caputo said the government would not necessarily use the rest of the money and may return to bond markets to finance the estimated $22 billion in financing Argentina needs in 2019 to cover its fiscal deficit.

“If you need it you can use it, but if we regain access to the market at good rates, it is better to save it,” Caputo told investors on a conference call, according to a Finance Ministry statement.

The peso touched a record-low 25.66 per U.S. dollar after the central bank stopped a weeks-long defense of the currency. It later rebounded to close down 1.5 percent at 25.37 per dollar.

For the past few weeks, the central bank has offered to sell $5 billion in reserves at 25 pesos per dollar every day, effectively preventing the currency from falling below that level. That offer did not appear on Friday, traders said.

 
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