ІНСАЙДЕР УКРАЇНА

The government of Brazil’s President Michel Temer is far from assembling the coalition needed to pass a landmark pension reform, but potential supporters of the measure are now more organized, a key legislator said on Monday.

“We’re still enormously far (from having the needed votes), but we have a party leader committed, a party president committed, one party that’s set to commit,” Brazil’s lower house speaker, Rodrigo Maia, told journalists after an event in Rio de Janeiro.

Pension reform is the cornerstone policy in President Temer’s efforts to bring Brazil’s deficit under control. But the measure is widely unpopular with Brazilians, who are accustomed to a relatively expansive welfare net.

In order to curry support from Congress, Temer and his allies watered down their original proposal in November, requiring fewer years of contributions by private sector workers to receive a pension.

According to several government sources, Temer’s allies have grown more optimistic in the last week about the reform’s chances.

However, speed is essential for the bill’s passage. A congressional recess begins on Dec. 22, and lawmaking thereafter will be hampered by politics, as lawmakers ramp up their campaigns for 2018 elections.
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The high-profile attendance of the leaders of Apple and Google at a Chinese conference promoting Beijing’s vision of a censored internet highlights the dilemma for Western tech companies trying to expand in an increasingly lucrative but restricted market.

The event in Wuzhen, a historic canal town outside Shanghai, marked the first time chiefs of two of the world’s biggest tech companies have attended the annual state-run World Internet Conference.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told the gathering as the conference opened Sunday that his company was proud to work with Chinese partners to build a “common future in cyberspace.”

His and Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s presence along with other business leaders, diplomats and other experts, some analysts say, helped bestow credibility on Beijing’s preferred version of an internet sharply at odds with Silicon Valley’s dedication to unfettered access.

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed, in remarks to the conference conveyed by an official, that “China’s door to the world will never close, but will only open wider.”

As in previous years, organizers allowed attendees unrestricted access to the internet, contrary to official policy under which internet users face extensive monitoring and censorship and are blocked from accessing many overseas sites by the so-called Great Firewall of China.

Since Xi came to power in 2013, he has tightened controls and further stifled free expression, activists say.

Beijing’s restraints also extend to Western companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook, which have largely been shut out from the market, leaving it to homegrown internet giants like Tencent.

Apple has a large production base in China, which is one of its biggest markets, though domestic smartphone makers are catching up.

It has been criticized by some app developers for complying with Chinese censorship demands. In July, companies that let people get around the government’s internet filters – known as virtual private network providers – said their programs had been removed from Apple’s app store in China. One such company, ExpressVPN, said Apple was “aiding China’s censorship effort.”

Apple said that China began requiring this year that developers of virtual-private networks have a government license. The California-based tech giant said it had removed apps “in China that do not meet the new regulations.” Two Apple spokeswomen couldn’t be reached by phone for comment.

“The problem is that these companies are between a rock and a hard place,” said Rogier Creemers, a China researcher at Leiden University who attended the conference. They covet China’s huge market but if they do make it in, as in Apple’s case, local law “requires things that Western observers generally are uncomfortable with,” he said.

Cook’s speech drew a big crowd. He said the company supports more than 5 million jobs in China, including 1.8 million software developers who have earned more than 112 billion yuan ($17 billion).

It’s Apple’s responsibility to ensure that “technology is infused with humanity,” he said, avoiding mention of any sensitive topics.

Google shut the Chinese version of its search engine in 2010 over censorship concerns. Pichai has talked about wanting to re-enter China, and he told a panel discussion in Wuzhen that small and mid-sized Chinese businesses use Google services to get their products to other countries, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. A Google spokesman declined to comment.

The tech giants may have chosen to appear at the conference because the current political climate in the United States encourages a pragmatic approach in pursuing business regardless of other concerns, said Jonathan Sullivan, director of the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute.

“There has never been a time when an American company is less likely to be called out by the White House for pursuing a business-first approach,” said Sullivan.
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A committee exploring the effects of recreational marijuana on Nevada’s gambling industry is wrestling with how the state’s casinos might deal with the pot business while not running afoul of federal law.

Lured by a potential economic impact in the tens of millions of dollars, Gov. Brian Sandoval’s Gaming Policy Committee is trying to figure out how casinos can host conventions and trade shows on marijuana.

The 12-member committee ended its meeting Wednesday without a formal decision on the matter, but Sandoval said he hopes to have committee recommendations for possible regulations by February.

The Nevada Gaming Commission has discouraged licensees in the past from becoming involved with the marijuana business, fearing legal backlash. Committee members have also voiced opposition to the idea of allowing marijuana use at resorts.

However, events like MJBizCon, a conference on various aspects of the marijuana growing industry, have drawn the attention of the gambling industry because of their strong turnout.

Cassandra Farrington, who started the conference, told the committee that the event brought about 18,000 people to the Las Vegas Convention Center last month and it’s only expected to grow. She noted that marijuana products are not allowed on the show floor, and people who violate that ruled are expelled.

Trade shows like Farrington’s conference can generate millions of dollars in tax revenue, said Deonne Contine, the director of the Nevada Department of Taxation. Contine told the committee that a show with about 15,000 people can produce a $28.2 million economic impact on the city.

Attorney Brian Barnes said any marijuana business in gambling facilities could be considered racketeering or money laundering under federal regulations.

“Marijuana business is illegal under virtually every aspect of federal law,” Barnes said.
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Liz Whitehurst dabbled in several careers before she ended up on a Maryland farm, crating fistfuls of fresh-cut arugula in the November chill.

The hours were better at her nonprofit jobs. So were the benefits. But two years ago, Whitehurst, 32 — who graduated from a liberal arts college and grew up in the Chicago suburbs — abandoned Washington for a three-acre plot in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

She joined a growing movement of highly educated, ex-urban, first-time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.

For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture. Sixty-nine percent of the surveyed young farmers had college degrees — significantly higher than the general population.

This new generation can’t hope to replace the numbers that farming is losing to age. But it is already contributing to the growth of the local-food movement and could help preserve the place of midsize farms in the rural landscape.

“We’re going to see a sea change in American agriculture as the next generation gets on the land,” said Kathleen Merrigan, the head of the Food Institute at George Washington University and a deputy secretary at the Department of Agriculture under President Barack Obama. “The only question is whether they’ll get on the land, given the challenges.”

The number of farmers aged 25 to 34 grew 2.2 percent between 2007 and 2012, according to the 2014 USDA census, a period when other groups of farmers — save the oldest — shrank by double digits. In some states, such as California, Nebraska and South Dakota, the number of beginning farmers has grown by 20 percent or more.

New to farming

A survey that the National Young Farmers Coalition, an advocacy group, conducted with Merrigan’s help shows that the majority of young farmers did not grow up in agricultural families.

They are also far more likely than the general farming population to grow organically, limit pesticide and fertilizer use, diversify their crops or animals, and be deeply involved in their local food systems via community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs and farmers markets.

Today’s young farmers also tend to operate small farms of less than 50 acres, though that number increases with each successive year of experience.

Whitehurst took over her farm, Owl’s Nest, from a retiring farmer in 2015.

The farm sits at the end of a gravel road, a series of vegetable fields unfurling from a steep hill capped by her tiny white house. Like the farmer who worked this land before her, she leases the house and the fields from a neighboring couple in their 70s.

She grows organically certified peppers, cabbages, tomatoes and salad greens from baby kale to arugula, rotating her fields to enrich the soil and planting cover crops in the off-season.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, she and two longtime friends from Washington wake up in semidarkness to harvest by hand, kneeling in the mud to cut handfuls of greens before the sun can wilt them. All three young women, who also live on the farm, make their living off the produce Whitehurst sells, whether to restaurants, through CSA shares or at a D.C. farmers market.

Finances can be tight. The women admit they’ve given up higher standards of living to farm.

“I wanted to have a positive impact, and that just felt very distant in my other jobs out of college,” Whitehurst said. “In farming, on the other hand, you make a difference. Your impact is immediate.”

Larger impact

That impact could grow as young farmers scale up and become a larger part of the commercial food system, Merrigan said.

Already, several national grocery chains, including Walmart and SuperValu, have built out local-food-buying programs, according to AT Kearney, a management consulting firm.

Young farmers are also creating their own “food hubs,” allowing them to store, process and market food collectively, and supply grocery and restaurant chains at a price competitive with national suppliers.

That’s strengthening the local and organic food movement, experts say.

“I get calls all the time from farmers — some of the largest farmers in the country — asking me when the local and organic fads will be over,” said Eve Turow Paul, a consultant who advises farms and food companies on millennial preferences. “It’s my pleasure to tell them: Look at this generation. Get on board or go out of business.”

There are also hopes that the influx of young farmers could provide some counter to the aging of American agriculture.

The age of the average American farmer has crept toward 60 over several decades, risking the security of midsize family farms where children aren’t interested in succeeding their parents.

Between 1992 and 2012, the country lost more than 250,000 midsize and small commercial farms, according to the USDA. During that same period, more than 35,000 very large farms started up, and the large farms already in existence consolidated their acreage.

Midsize farms are critical to rural economies, generating jobs, spending and tax revenue. And while they’re large enough to supply mainstream markets, they’re also small enough to respond to environmental changes and consumer demand.

If today’s young farmers can continue to grow their operations, said Shoshanah Inwood, a rural sociologist at Ohio State University, they could bolster these sorts of farms — and in the process prevent the land from falling into the hands of large-scale industrial operations or residential developers.

“Multigenerational family farms are shrinking. And big farms are getting bigger,” Inwood said. “For the resiliency of the food system and of rural communities, we need more agriculture of the middle.”

Numbers are still small

It’s too early to say whether young farmers will effect that sort of change.

The number of young farmers entering the field is not nearly large enough to replace the number exiting, according to the USDA: Between 2007 and 2012, agriculture gained 2,384 farmers between ages 25 and 34 — and lost nearly 100,000 between 45 and 54.

And young farmers face formidable challenges to starting and scaling their businesses. The costs of farmland and farm equipment are prohibitive. Young farmers are frequently dependent on government programs, including child-care subsidies and public health insurance, to cover basic needs.

And student loan debt — which 46 percent of young farmers consider a “challenge,” according to the National Young Farmers Coalition — can strain already tight finances and disqualify them from receiving other forms of credit.

But Lindsey Lusher Shute, the executive director of the coalition, said she has seen the first wave of back-to-the-landers grow up in the eight years since she co-founded the advocacy group. And she suggested that new policy initiatives, including student loan forgiveness and farm transition programs, could further help them.

“Young farmers tend to start small and sell to direct markets, because that’s a viable way for them to get into farming,” Lusher Shute said. “But many are shifting gears as they get into it — getting bigger or moving into wholesale.”

Just last year, Whitehurst was approached by an online grocery service that wanted to buy her vegetables. Because While Owl’s Nest produces too little to supply such a large buyer on its own, the service planned to buy produce from multiple small, local farmers.

Whitehurst ultimately turned the deal down, however. Among other things, she feared that she could not afford to sell her vegetables at the lower price point the service wanted.

“For now, I’m focused on getting better, not bigger,” she said. “But in a few years, who knows? Ask me again then.”
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The city of Zibo, China’s ceramics capital, is undergoing environmental shock therapy to clear its filthy skies and transform its economy — and not everyone is happy.

Much of Zibo’s sprawling industrial district has become a ghost town of shuttered factories, empty showrooms and abandoned restaurants after a cleanup campaign that began last year intensified this winter. Dozens of chimneys stand inactive.

“There used to be a lot of workers here, but now they are demolishing the entire place,” said a caretaker who gave his surname as Wei, pointing at the deserted warehouse of an abandoned factory he was guarding. “We have no idea what they will build here — that’s the boss’s decision.”

Zibo, home to 4.5 million people about 260 miles south of Beijing in Shandong province, is one of 28 northern Chinese cities targeted in an unprecedented six-month anti-pollution blitz as China scrambles to meet air quality targets.

The city is also at the heart of a wider, long-term government effort to upgrade China’s heavy industrial economy.

Once responsible for about a quarter of China’s ceramic output, mainly floor and wall tiles, Zibo has slashed capacity by 70 percent and shut more than 150 companies and 250 production lines as part of a ruthless war on pollution.

Surviving plants have rushed to comply with tough new standards, but business is still threatened by constant production suspensions ordered by the government, as well as natural gas shortages this winter as northern cities switch to the fuel from coal.

“It is a brave step that China is taking, but they have to take it,” said Alex Koszo, the founder of Vecor, a Hong Kong-based company that has built a joint-venture plant in Zibo to manufacture environmentally friendly tiles from fly ash.

“They have the will, the money, and access to technology, so I think we are looking at a very different Zibo, and a very different Shandong, in five to 10 years.”

The local environmental bureau declined to be interviewed, telling Reuters that cleanup efforts were “still at an early stage” — but changes are already conspicuous.

With old factories marked for demolition, new apartment blocks, shopping complexes and roads are being built. The city registered growth of 7.8 percent in the first three-quarters of this year, driven by the service sector, according to the local government. Displaced workers have shifted to construction sites and other industries like textiles, residents said.

Zibo has also established a “greentech” incubator in the old district and opened a new high-tech industrial park in order to attract companies and encourage innovation in ceramics.

But some local businessmen accuse Beijing of running roughshod over local industry and paying too little heed to circumstances on the ground, with one boss accusing inspectors of behaving like “imperial envoys.”

“There is a ring of 28 cities, and pollution only needs to appear in Beijing — even just medium-level pollution — and all our factories have to shut,” said the owner of a large local factory who declined to be named, fearing repercussions. “It doesn’t matter whether you meet the standards or not, you have to shut.”

Upgrades

Over the past decade, Zibo’s ceramics makers took advantage of closures elsewhere to drive up output and seize market share in China. Zibo’s tiles were used throughout China and exported around the world. In recent years, however, the industry was weighed down by poor quality and chronic overcapacity that eroded prices and exposed the sector to European Union anti-dumping measures.

Beijing’s war on pollution served as an opportunity to tackle those problems. Now, the mainstay of the local economy is a shadow of its former self.

With annual production capacity slashed to 246 million square meters, compared with 827 million square meters before the campaign began, the government hopes surviving manufacturers can upgrade and compete with higher-end producers.

“I think the steps the government is taking now will push the costs up, and therefore the price of the goods will be up and the quality will meet international standards,” said Koszo.

But the local factory owner said the campaign has inflicted long-term damage, eroding cost advantages and driving customers away.

“If Zibo was the only place producing tiles in the whole country, then it wouldn’t be a problem. But this is an unfair policy. They are closing us but not others,” he said.

Stop-start production

Environmental officials deny the pollution crackdown or the heightened vigilance of inspectors will cause deep harm to China’s economy, saying any losses would be compensated by the long-term benefits of clean investment.

But in Zibo, even environmentally compliant manufacturers are losing customers. The factory owner said he has lost 80 percent of domestic clients and half his overseas ones, with many frustrated by the stop-start nature of production.

Zibo’s ceramics companies are not only hit by emergency closures aimed at curbing smog. A year ago, they were ordered to switch from coal to gas, but suppliers are giving priority to residential winter heating.

“People are losing patience and manufacturing is shifting to the south,” said Bryan Vadas, director at the Tile Agencies Group in Australia, which used to source products for export from Zibo but has now started buying elsewhere.

Environment Minister Li Ganjie said this year that China would not adopt an “indiscriminate one-size-fits-all approach,” adding that companies have plenty of leeway to clean up and survive.

“Only enterprises that have no clear survival value, pollute heavily and have no hope of being rectified will be shut down,” Li said.

But local enterprises have struggled to cope with repeated policy changes, with industry entry requirements adjusted four times in less than two years, the local factory owner said.

“I have worked hard to build up this business,” he said.

“Personally, I just think the government should tell us directly that they don’t want us to stay in operation. There’s no need for them to torture me.”
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Airlines canceled more flights leaving the Indonesian island of Bali on Saturday, citing forecasts of deteriorating flying conditions because of a risk of volcanic ash from the erupting Mount Agung volcano.

A Bali airport spokesman said the airport was operating normally, but airlines such as Jetstar and Virgin Australia had opted to cancel some flights.

“Bali flying conditions expected to be clear throughout the day, but forecast for tonight has deteriorated so several flights have been canceled,” Australian budget airline Jetstar said on its Twitter account Saturday.

Thousands stranded

The erupting volcano had closed the airport for much of this week, stranding thousands of visitors from Australia, China and other countries, before the winds changed and flights resumed. 

Twenty flights were canceled Friday evening because of concerns over ash. Some airlines, including Malaysia’s AirAsia, have said they would only operate out of Bali during the day, because the ash could impair visibility at night and wind conditions in the area were unpredictable.

Airlines avoid flying through volcanic ash because it can damage aircraft engines, clogging fuel and cooling systems, hampering pilot visibility and even causing engine failure.

There are also concerns over changing weather conditions with a tropical cyclone south of Java island affecting weather and wind in the area, including for Bali, the Indonesian Meteorological, Climatological and Geophysics agency said.

Consulates offer aid

Several foreign consulates have set up booths in the international departures area to assist stranded passengers.

Subrata Sarkar, India’s vice consul in Bali, told Reuters at the airport’s international departure area that they had helped around 500 passengers so far this week.

“We have advised citizens the volcano may erupt. We never say ‘please don’t come.’ But we have issued travel advisories. If it’s urgent business, then OK, but if it’s only tourism, then plans should be reconsidered,” Sarkar said.
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President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday that it won’t require mining companies to prove they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution, despite an industry legacy of abandoned mines that have fouled waterways across the U.S.

The move came after mining groups and Western-state Republicans pushed back against a proposal under former President Barack Obama to make companies set aside money for future cleanup costs.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said modern mining practices and state and federal rules already in place adequately address the risks from mines that are still operating.

Requiring more from mining companies was unnecessary, Pruitt said, and “would impose an undue burden on this important sector of the American economy and rural America, where most of these jobs are based.”

The U.S. mining industry has a long history of abandoning contaminated sites and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for cleanups. Thousands of shuttered mines leak contaminated water into rivers, streams and other waterways, including hundreds of cases in which the EPA has intervened, sometimes at huge expense.

The EPA spent $1.1 billion on cleanup work at abandoned hard-rock mining and processing sites across the U.S. from 2010 to 2014.

Since 1980, at least 52 mines and mine processing sites using modern techniques had spills or other releases of pollution, according to documents released by the EPA last year.

In 2015, an EPA cleanup team accidentally triggered a 3-million gallon spill of contaminated water from Colorado’s inactive Gold King mine, tainting rivers in three states with heavy metals including arsenic and lead.

The Obama-era rule was issued last December under court order after environmental groups sued the government to enforce a long-ignored provision in the 1980 federal Superfund law.

“It’s galling to see the Trump administration side with industry polluters over the America taxpayer,” said Bonnie Gestring with Earthworks, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

“We’ll see them back in court,” she added.

The proposal applied to hard-rock mining, which includes precious metals, copper, iron, lead and other ores. Coal mines already were required to provide assurances that they’ll pay for cleanups under a 1977 federal law

Hard-rock mining companies would have faced a combined $7.1 billion financial obligation under the dropped rule, costing them up to $171 million annually to set aside sufficient funds to pay for future cleanups, according to an EPA analysis.

The mining industry and members of Congress from Western states welcomed Friday’s announcement.

National Mining Association President Hal Quinn said the Obama proposal resulted from environmentalists using litigation to force the government into what he said was an unnecessary rule.

“Today’s action shows that reason can prevail,” Quinn said.

Hard-rock mines in the U.S. produced about $26.6 billion worth of metals in 2015, according to the association. Of those mines, the EPA had said 221 would be subject to the dropped rule.
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Republicans pushed a nearly $1.5 trillion tax bill through the Senate early Saturday after burst of eleventh-hour horse trading, as a party starved all year for a major legislative triumph took a giant step toward giving President Donald Trump one of his top priorities by Christmas.

“Big bills are rarely popular. You remember how unpopular Obamacare was when it passed?” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in an interview, shrugging off polls showing scant public enthusiasm for the measure. He said the legislation would prove to be “just what the country needs to get growing again.”

Trump hailed the bill’s passage on Twitter, thanking McConnell and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. “Look forward to signing a final bill before Christmas!” the president wrote.

Senate approval came on a 51-49 roll call with Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the only lawmaker to cross party lines. The measure focuses its tax reductions on businesses and higher-earning individuals, gives more modest breaks to others and offers the boldest rewrite of the nation’s tax system since 1986.

​Corker balks at debt increase

Republicans touted the package as one that would benefit people of all incomes and ignite the economy. Even an official projection of a $1 trillion, 10-year flood of deeper budget deficits couldn’t dissuade GOP senators from rallying behind the bill.

“Obviously I’m kind of a dinosaur on the fiscal issues,” said Corker, who battled to keep the bill from worsening the government’s accumulated $20 trillion in IOUs.

The Republican-led House approved a similar bill last month in what has been a stunningly swift trip through Congress for complex legislation that impacts the breadth of American society. The two chambers will now try crafting a compromise to send Trump.

After spending the year’s first nine months futilely trying to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law, GOP leaders were determined to move the measure rapidly before opposition Democrats and lobbying groups could blow it up. The party views passage as crucial to retaining its House and Senate majorities in next year’s elections.

​Democrats deride gift to wealthy

Democrats derided the bill as a GOP gift to its wealthy and business backers at the expense of lower-earning people. They contrasted the bill’s permanent reduction in corporate income tax rates from 35 percent to 20 percent to smaller individual tax breaks that would end in 2026.

Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has said the bill’s reductions for many families would be modest and said by 2027, families earning under $75,000 would on average face higher, not lower, taxes.

The bill is “removed from the reality of what the American people need,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. He criticized Republicans for releasing a revised, 479-page bill that no one can absorb shortly before the final vote, saying, “The Senate is descending to a new low of chicanery.”

“You really don’t read this kind of legislation,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told home-state reporters, asked why the Senate was approving a bill some senators hadn’t read. He said lawmakers needed to study it and get feedback from affected groups.

Democrats took to the Senate floor and social media to mock one page that included changes scrawled in barely legible handwriting. Later, they won enough GOP support to kill a provision by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would have bestowed a tax break on conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan.

​Tax panel: $1 trillion added to debt

The bill hit rough waters after the Joint Taxation panel concluded it would worsen federal shortfalls by $1 trillion over a decade, even when factoring in economic growth that lower taxes would stimulate. Trump administration officials and many Republicans have insisted the bill would pay for itself by stimulating the economy. But the sour projections stiffened resistance from some deficit-averse Republicans.

But after bargaining that stretched into Friday, GOP leaders nailed down the support they needed in a chamber they control 52-48. Facing unyielding Democratic opposition, Republicans could lose no more than two GOP senators and prevail with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence, but ended up not needing it.

Leaders’ changes included helping millions of companies whose owners pay individual, not corporate, taxes on their profits by allowing deductions of 23 percent, up from 17.4 percent. That helped win over Wisconsin’s Johnson and Steve Daines of Montana.

People would be allowed to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes, a demand of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. That matched a House provision that chamber’s leaders included to keep some GOP votes from high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

The changes added nearly $300 billion to the tax bill’s costs. To pay for that, leaders reduced the number of high-earners who must pay the alternative minimum tax, rather than completely erasing it. They also increased a one-time tax on profits U.S.-based corporations are holding overseas and would require firms to keep paying the business version of the alternative minimum tax.

Deal on DACA?

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who like Corker had been a holdout and has sharply attacked Trump’s capabilities as president, voted for the bill. He said he’d received commitments from party leaders and the administration “to work with me” to restore protections, dismantled by Trump, for young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children. That seemed short of a pledge to actually revive the safeguards.

The Senate bill would drop the highest personal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 38.5 percent. The estate tax levied on a few thousand of the nation’s largest inheritances would be narrowed to affect even fewer.

Deductions for state and local income taxes, moving expenses and other items would vanish, the standard deduction, used by most Americans, would nearly double to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples, and the per-child tax credit would grow.

The bill would abolish the “Obamacare” requirement that most people buy health coverage or face tax penalties. Industry experts say that would weaken the law by easing pressure on healthier people to buy coverage, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the move would push premiums higher and leave 13 million additional people uninsured.

Drilling would be allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Another provision, knocked out because it violated Senate budget rules, would have explicitly let parents buy tax-advantaged 529 college savings accounts for fetuses, a step they can already take but which anti-abortion forces wanted to inscribe into law. There were also breaks for the wine, beer and spirits industries, Alaska Natives and aircraft management firms.
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Despite criticism from Washington over Cambodia’s crackdown on the opposition and accusations that the U.S. helped plot Prime Minister Hun Sen’s downfall, U.S. Ambassador William Heidt has said that America’s support for Cambodia’s economy will not be negatively impacted.

Heidt told VOA’s Khmer service on Wednesday that the embassy’s mission to strengthen the bilateral relationship with Cambodia remained of paramount importance.

“For me, the key next step is helping to connect Cambodia’s technology sector with the big American technology companies, which are investing throughout Southeast Asia, mostly in Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City,” he said.

“I think Cambodia is developing fast in technology, but it has not yet broken out of Cambodia, gotten a hook in with the regional technology network. And, that’s what I am going to do next and I hope to do that in the first half of next year,” he added.

Economic growth

The United States is focused on promoting Cambodian economic growth to connect U.S. investors with Cambodian technology companies, Heidt said.

The U.S. Embassy and Cambodian government have been at odds over accusations that Washington conspired with the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) to overthrow Hun Sen in a so-called “color revolution” — a reference to attempts by pro-democracy movements to overthrow autocratic regimes in parts of the former Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East.

The U.S. Embassy has denied allegations of interference.

Heidt said the allegations were categorically false.

“I don’t spend a ton of time on this issue because there’s really no more for us to say. And, I mean, nobody, nobody believes this in America. Nobody in our government, nobody in our society,” he said. “We, on the American side, feel very strongly that we have been a great partner for Cambodia. We really helped Cambodia to develop in many ways and we want to keep doing that.”

Hun Sen, one of China’s closest regional allies, is a former Khmer Rouge officer who has ruled the southeast Asian country for more than three decades. He has intensified his rhetoric against the United States amid a crackdown on opponents and the media before next year’s general election.

Earlier this month, Cambodia banned the opposition party after arresting its leader, Kem Sokha, and charging him with treason in September.

Heidt said he felt a deep regret at the government’s decision to move to dissolve the CNRP, which has led the White House to reconsider its foreign relations with Cambodia. He said the Trump administration was reassessing Cambodia’s eligibility for preferential trade agreements.

“Since I came here, let’s be honest, the Cambodian government has taken a lot of steps against the government of the United States,” he said. “They cut our military exercises, they threw [a] detachment out of the country, they made all of those accusations against us related to the political situation.

“I feel like there has never been an honest desire by the Khmer government to have a good relationship with the United States,” Heidt added.

Some changes needed

Phay Siphan, government spokesman, said Phnom Penh did not desire to sour the relationship with the United States, but added that there were “some little activities” that needed to end in order for relations to improve, including suggesting Cambodia was “pro-China.”

Hun Sen is in China — Cambodia’s biggest donor and lender — this week for a Communist Party conference in Beijing, where he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Actions seen as anti-U.S. have included Hun Sen’s request that the U.S. forgive a $505 million debt for food and agricultural goods. Cambodia’s Lon Nol government borrowed the money in the 1970s, during its civil war with the Khmer Rouge. China wrote off debts incurred in the 1970s by the Khmer Rouge regime about 15 years ago.

In January, Phnom Penh suspended joint military exercises with the U.S., citing the local June elections as the cause, while rejecting suggestions that its decision was related to military and financial ties with China.

Most recently, after the U.S. announced on November 17 that it was ending funding for the upcoming election, the pro-government Fresh News website reported that Hun Sen said in a speech to garment workers that he welcomed the cut in U.S. aid, and urged Washington to cut all assistance.
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Egyptian billionaire businessman Naguib Sawiris condemned on Friday a crackdown on graft in Saudi Arabia, saying the purge had undermined the rule of law in the Kingdom and would deter investment.

In unusually outspoken comments, Sawiris, a well-known business figure in North Africa and the Middle East, also accused Qatar of destabilizing the region, and said there were only a handful of Arab nations that were safe to invest in.

Saudi security forces rounded up dozens of members of the country’s political and business elite last month on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in what was billed as a war on rampant corruption.

Sawiris, whose family’s Orascom businesses have interests ranging from construction to telecommunications, said influential figures should stand up to the Crown Prince, whom he referred to as “this young man”.

“We need to tell him ‘no’. There is the rule of law and order. You have a transparent process. Where is the court? What is the evidence? Who is the judge?” he told a conference in Rome, questioning the Crown Prince’s motives.

“Are you not part of this? Where did you get your money? Didn’t you do this? What is the system?” he said.

Prince Mohammed has said Saudi Arabia needs to modernize and has warned that without reform, the economy will sink into a crisis that could fan unrest. Critics say his purge is aimed at shoring up his own power base, which the Saudi government denies.

Sawiris said “everyone with a conscience” should speak out, but added that many were too frightened to do so.

“Everyone is scared because they have interests there, they have the oil, they have the money. But you need to have a conscience. When I say this, I know I am done-for in Saudi Arabia. No more business (there). Ok, I don’t care.”

A monthly Reuters poll published on Thursday showed Middle East fund managers had become more positive towards Saudi Arabian equities after an initial market sell-off following the launch of the anti-graft drive.

But Sawiris, who is not known to have major investments in Saudi Arabia, predicted business leaders would steer clear of the country in future.

“I think after what happened in Saudi Arabia, no one will invest there,” he said.

Sawiris also took aim at Iran, accusing the country of interfering in the affairs of its neighbors. He likewise denounced Qatar, saying it was funding terror groups.

“Why don’t they take care of the prosperity of their own people instead of financing crazy clergymen who push young men to go and kill?” he said.

A group of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt cut ties with Qatar in June, accusing it of fomenting instability. Qatar, a tiny Gulf state, has denied supporting militants.

Asked where was safe to invest in the Arab world, Sawiris mentioned Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Sudan, but jokingly dismissed Lebanon.

“The problem with Lebanon is they are all sharks and they leave nothing to anyone. Only a crazy person would invest in Lebanon,” he said.

 
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The United States has formally told the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it opposes granting China market economy status, a position that if upheld would allow Washington to maintain high anti-dumping duties on Chinese goods.

The statement of opposition, made public on Thursday, was submitted as a third-party brief in support of the European Union in a dispute with China that could have major repercussions for the trade body’s future.

China is fighting the EU for recognition as a market economy, a designation that would lead to dramatically lower anti-dumping duties on Chinese goods by prohibiting the use of third-country price comparisons.

The U.S. and EU argue that the state’s pervasive role in the Chinese economy, including rampant granting of subsidies, mean that domestic prices are deeply distorted and not market-determined.

A victory for China before the WTO would weaken many countries’ trade defenses against a flood of cheap Chinese goods, putting the viability of more western industries at risk.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told Congress in June that the case was “the most serious litigation we have at the WTO right now” and a decision in China’s favor “would be cataclysmic for the WTO.”

Lighthizer has repeatedly expressed frustration with the WTO’s dispute settlement body and has called for major changes at the organization.

The USTR brief, which follows a Commerce Department finding in October that China fails the tests for a market economy, argues that China should not automatically be granted market economy by virtue of the expiration of its 2001 accession protocol last year.

“The evidence is overwhelming that WTO members have not surrendered their longstanding rights … to reject prices or costs that are not determined under market economy conditions in determining price comparability for purposes of anti-dumping comparisons,” the brief concludes.

The move comes as trade tensions between Washington and Beijing are increasing as the Trump administration prepares several possible major trade actions, including broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum and an investigation into Chinese intellectual property misappropriation.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing on Friday that some countries were trying to “skirt their responsibility” under WTO rules.

“We again urge relevant countries to strictly honor their commitment to international principles and laws, and fulfill their agreed upon international pacts,” Geng said.

The Commerce Department on Tuesday launched the first government-initiated anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations in decades on Chinese aluminum sheet imports.

U.S. officials say that 16 years of WTO membership has failed to end China’s market-distorting state practices.

“We are concerned that China’s economic liberalization seems to have slowed or reversed, with the role of the state increasing” David Malpass, U.S. Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, told an event in New York on Thursday.

“State-owned enterprises have not faced hard budget constraints and China’s industrial policy has become more and more problematic for foreign firms. Huge exports credits are flowing in non-economic ways that distort markets,” Malpass said.

The brief submitted to the WTO also argues that China should be treated the same way as communist eastern European countries, including Poland, Romania and Hungary were when they joined the WTO’s predecessor organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

A senior U.S. official said those countries eventually earned market economy status as evidence of state subsidies and state distortions waned. He added that going forward, WTO members wishing to use third-country price comparisons against Chinese imports would need to keep presenting evidence of economic distortions.

 
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The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has finally ended

In all, 17 named storms swept across the Atlantic this year and 10 rose to hurricane status. But the season will be remembered for the deadly trio — Harvey, Irma and Maria — that brought death and destruction to Caribbean nations and the southern U.S.

This was the first year on record in which the continental United States was hit by two Category 4 hurricanes, Harvey and Irma.

Harvey made landfall in South Texas on August 25, leading to days of downpours that dumped an unprecedented 152 centimeters (60 inches) of rain. It was the greatest rainfall amount recorded from a single storm in U.S. history.

Harvey also damaged or destroyed about 200,000 homes as the storm system flooded much of Houston and smaller coastal communities.

Then, on September 11 came Irma — the strongest storm on record in the Atlantic, outside the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. With maximum winds of nearly 300 kilometers an hour, Irma destroyed the Caribbean island of Barbuda, shredded vast sections of the Virgin Islands and knocked out power in much of Florida.

September also saw the arrival of Hurricanes Jose, Katia and Lee, before Category 4 Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico on September 20.

It was the U.S. territory’s strongest hurricane landfall since 1928. With sustained winds of 250 kilometers per hour, Maria knocked out power across the island, causing the biggest blackout in U.S. history. The island is still struggling to restore power as millions remain without electricity two months later.

Bloomberg News reports the 2017 hurricane season was the most expensive on record, with an estimated $202.6 billion in damage. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to release the official damage tally early next year.
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