Britain, where the Industrial Revolution began more than 200 years ago, has recorded its first full day without using coal power. The milestone was achieved Friday, following years of investment in renewable energy — a trend being replicated in some other European countries, and even in developing nations. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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The magnate behind LVMH is to incorporate Christian Dior into his luxury goods empire in a multibillion-dollar deal.
It’s the latest business coup for businessman Bernard Arnault, who has expanded his LVMH empire to include dozens of leading luxury brands — from high-end champagne and whiskies, to exclusive Vuitton handbags, Kenzo and Givenchy perfumes and Bulgari and TAG Heuer watches. Dior Couture, launched in 1946 and seen as the pinnacle of Paris style, would be a starring jewel in his empire.
Shares in Christian Dior and LVMH Moet Hennessy — Louis Vuitton rose after Tuesday’s long-awaited deal. The public offers values Dior at 260 euros per share. Shares in Dior spiked 12 percent to 253.95 euros by early afternoon trading Tuesday, while LVMH shares were up 4.3 percent at 223.95 euros.
According to the announcement, LVMH, which already owned Christian Dior cosmetics and perfumes, would buy Christian Dior Couture, its fashion business, for 6.5 billion euros ($7.1 billion). In addition, the Arnault Family Group is making a public offer for the Christian Dior shares it doesn’t currently hold.
The hope is that combining Dior’s entities under one roof and simplifying internal activities, savings will be generated.
The statement says the boards of both companies approved the transactions on Monday. The proposed deal will still need regulatory approval and consultations with workers. The companies also hope to issue the public offer in June, and finalize the purchase of Dior Couture in the second half of this year.
The companies laid out their hope that Dior’s fashion revenues and profit, which have risen in recent years, will be a “source of growth” for LVMH, particularly with development in the U.S., China and Japan.
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan on Monday called on both the American and Chinese governments to exercise “true reciprocity” in relations, including trade and diplomacy.
The Republican senator from Alaska, in a speech concerning Chinese outbound investment, and in an interview with VOA afterward, said China has been aggressively buying companies in key sectors such as robotics, biotech, advanced machineries, software, entertainment and media “throughout America and Western Europe. But if you’re an American firm, or a firm from Germany, and you want to go to China and buy Chinese companies in those same sectors, you would be told ‘no;’ you would be prohibited.”
Making “true reciprocity” US policy
Sullivan’s proposed “true reciprocity” is rather simple and straightforward: “If Chinese companies want to invest in America’s biotech sector, then American companies should be able to invest in China’s biotech sector. It’s simple, it’s fair, it’s what China has said it wants to do but it doesn’t do, and we need to be much more serious about implementing it.”
Should China continue to ignore Washington’s calls for equal treatment and a level playing field, Sullivan says he is prepared to introduce legislation aiming at closing what he identifies as China’s “credibility gap,” and making sure that “true reciprocity” becomes official U.S. policy.
The Alaska Republican, who serves on both the Senate’s Commerce and Armed Services Committees, called on the U.S. government to reject “Middle Kingdom diplomatic practices” that fail to grant U.S. diplomats the same level of access Chinese diplomats receive in Washington.
“Middle kingdom” diplomatic practices
Quoting from a study done by the New York-based Asia Society, Sullivan said “for a number of years, the U.S. ambassador in Beijing was only getting deputy minister level access while we, of course, give higher access to Chinese ambassadors here in Washington.”He called the solution to such unequal diplomatic treatments “a no brainer.”
“If our ambassador in Beijing only gets deputy minister level access, then that’s what we should provide China’s ambassador in Washington, period. Middle Kingdom diplomatic practices should be firmly and aggressively rejected by the U.S. government everywhere,” Sullivan said.
He agreed that his proposed “true reciprocity” ought to also include issues such as granting journalists visas and access in both countries.
Growing domestic consensus
Sullivan said “there’s growing domestic consensus” in the United States that America’s strategic interests, including strategic economic interests, outweigh the market price of individual transactions, while acknowledging that each individual American businessman or woman naturally want the highest return for their individual product.
“The broader strategic interest of having a strong U.S. economy, and signaling to the next biggest economy in the world, China, that you need to play by the rules we play by, is also very important; and in my view, that importance strategically overrides the interest of the ability of American firms to sell to Chinese investment funds.”
Senator Dan Sullivan: China needs to play by rules we play by
Geo-economics
Daniel Twining, counselor and director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and an associate of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, thinks the U.S. economic power so far has not been sufficiently utilized to advance the nation’s overall strategic, political and economic interests.
“The U.S. is used to this traditional foreign policy tool kit that involves the armed forces, the diplomatic corps and development (foreign aid), but there’s really a fourth link here, which is our economic statecraft,” he told VOA.
Twining said other major powers, including China, appear to be much more adept at what he called “geo-economics,” using trade and investment “quite actively” and “quite smartly” to advance overall national interests.“It may be smart for us to think more about our economic strategies in the world,” including acknowledging and adopting strategies accordingly based on the fact that “market forces are not working everywhere, including in an economy like China that is still somewhat closed or controlled in some respects.”
Daniel Twining: Market forces are not working everywhere
Forgoing short-term profit
A newly released report by Baker McKenzie put Chinese worldwide outbound investment at $200 billion in 2016, nearly half of which targeted assets in North America and Europe.
According to Robert Shapiro, chairman of Sonecon and former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, the primary goal of China’s overseas investments does not lie in short-term profit but rather in gaining strategic advantage, and that means not necessarily in gaining immediate economic return.
Robert Shapiro: China playing the long game
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Tens of thousands of Armenians rallied Monday for the annual remembrance of the massacre of more than 1 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
Marchers gathered at a memorial in Yerevan to lay flowers. Some burned a Turkish flag with torches.
April 24 is the day most Armenians regard as the start of the massacre in 1915, with the first arrests of Armenians by Turkish authorities in what was then Constantinople.
Between then and 1923, 1.5 million Armenians were killed through forced deportation, torture, starvation and outright murder.
Armenian culture restored
“The Armenians’ physical, cultural and political losses are immeasurable,” Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said Monday. “The biggest loss is the people who were members of an ancient, rich and authentic civilization.”
Sargsyan said those who survived the killings and their descendents successfully restored Armenian culture and science.
“Within this period of time, we gave the world a whole constellation of creative geniuses and the world learned what happened to us through the great Armenians.”
In Washington, President Donald Trump put out a statement calling the Armenian massacre one of the 20th century’s worst mass atrocities.
“We must remember atrocities to prevent them from occurring again. We welcome the efforts of Turks and Armenians to acknowledge and reckon with painful history, which is a critical step toward building a foundation for a more just and tolerant future.”
Turkey denies organized campaign
Armenians call the killings a genocide and urge everyone who talks about the massacre to use that word, including the United States which has yet to officially recognize the deaths as genocide.
But Turkey denies there was any organized campaign to obliterate the Armenian people.
It says the number of Armenians killed during and after World War I was far fewer than 1.5 million and said the victims died in the fighting between the Ottoman military and Russia.
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General Motors’ Venezuelan subsidiary has sent a message to almost 2,700 staff informing them that they are no longer employed by the company and had received severance pay in their bank accounts, according to two employees.
A Venezuelan court last week ordered the seizure of the company’s Valencia plant, ruling in favor of two dealers that had filed a case in 2000 against the subsidiary on grounds they had not complied with an agreed sale of 10,000 vehicles.
Workers say that before the seizure was announced, GM had been dismantling the plant, which has not produced a car since the beginning of 2016 because of shortages of parts and strict currency controls in the OPEC nation.
The seizure, which GM called “illegal,” comes amid a deepening economic and social crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.
“We all received a payment and a text message,” said a worker who had worked for the company for more than a decade, adding that his corporate email account had been deactivated over the weekend.
“Our former bosses told us the executives left and we were all fired. There is no longer anyone in the country,” added another employee who received the same message on his personal cell phone and a payment to his account. He had been at GM for five years.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the layoffs or the worker allegations it had already been dismantling the plant.
GM said last week that it was halting operations and laying off workers due to the “illegal judicial seizure of its assets.”
‘Show Your Face’
The leftist government of Nicolas Maduro says it is not seeking to expropriate the plant, which has been operating for 35 years, and has called on GM to come back.
“To the current General Motors president of Venezuela, Jose Cavaileri: You come here, show your face and share with us the options to restore normality,” said Labor Minister Francisco Torrealba said Monday.
GM is not the first company to fire Venezuela employees by text message. Clorox did the same two years ago when announcing its exit from the crisis-struck country, after which workers took over the plant.
GM’s plant closure comes after Venezuela’s automobile production fell in 2016 to a record low of eight cars per day, according to a local automotive group.
Two union spokespeople said they had no official company information on the layoffs, but said that most workers received the messages along with a bank deposit.
Neither employee would reveal the amount they received but union leaders said it was too low.
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Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk took many risks with the technology in his company’s cars on the way to surpassing Ford Motor Co.’s market value.
Now Musk is pushing boundaries in the factory that makes them.
Most automakers test a new model’s production line by building vehicles with relatively cheap, prototype tools designed to be scrapped once they deliver doors that fit, body panels with the right shape and dashboards that don’t have gaps or seams.
Tesla, however, is skipping that preliminary step and ordering permanent, more expensive equipment as it races to launch its Model 3 sedan by a self-imposed volume production deadline of September, Musk told investors last month.
Musk’s decision underscores his high-risk tolerance and willingness to forego long-held industry norms that has helped Tesla upend the traditional auto industry.
While Tesla is not the first automaker to try to accelerate production on the factory floor, no other rival is putting this much faith in the production strategy succeeding.
Musk expects the Model 3 rollout to help Telsa deliver five times its current annual sales volume, a key target in the automaker’s efforts to stop burning cash.
“He’s pushing the envelope to see how much time and cost he can take out of the process,” said Ron Harbour, a manufacturing consultant at Oliver Wyman.
Investors are already counting on Tesla’s factory floor success, with shares soaring 39 percent since January as it makes the leap from niche producer to mass producer in far less time than rivals.
There are caution signs, however. The production equipment designed to produce millions of cars is expensive to fix or replace if it doesn’t work, industry experts say. Tesla has encountered quality problems on its existing low-volume cars, and the Model 3 is designed to sell in numbers as high as 500,000 vehicles a year, raising the potential cost of recalls or warranty repairs.
“It’s an experiment, certainly,” said Consumer Reports’ Jake Fisher, who has done extensive testing of Tesla’s previous Models S and X. Tesla could possibly fix errors quicker, speeding up the process, “or it could be they have unsuspected problems they’ll have a hard time dealing with.”
Musk discussed the decision to skip what he referred to as “beta” production testing during a call last month with an invited group of investors. Details were published on Reddit by an investor on the call.
He also said that “advanced analytical techniques” — code word for computer simulations – would help Tesla in advancing straight to production tooling.
Tesla declined to confirm details of the call or comment on its production strategy.
The auto industry’s incumbents have not been standing still.
Volkswagen AG’s Audi division launched production of a new plant in Mexico using computer simulations of production tools — and indeed the entire assembly line and factory – that Audi said it
believed to be an industry first. That process allowed the plant to launch production 30 percent faster than usual, Audi said.
An Audi executive involved in the Mexican plant launch, Peter Hochholdinger, is now Tesla’s vice president of production.
Making Tools Faster
Typically, automakers test their design with limited production using lower grade equipment that can be modified slightly to address problems. When most of the kinks are worked out, they order the final equipment.
Tesla’s decision to move directly to the final tools is in part because lower grade, disposable equipment known as “soft tooling” ended up complicating the debut of the problem-plagued Model X SUV in 2015, according to a person familiar with the decision and Tesla’s assembly line planning.
Working on a tight deadline, Tesla had no time to incorporate lessons learned from soft tooling before having to order the permanent production tooling, making the former’s value negligible, the source said.
“Soft tooling did very little for the program and arguably hurt things,” said the person.
In addition, Tesla has learned to better modify final production tools, and its 2015 purchase of a Michigan tooling company means it can make major equipment 30 percent faster than before, and more cheaply as well, the source said.
Financial pressure is partly driving Tesla’s haste. The quicker Tesla can deliver the Model 3 with its estimated $35,000 base price to the 373,000 customers who have put down a $1,000 deposit, the closer it can log $13 billion.
Tesla has labored under financial pressure since it was founded in 2003. The company has yet to turn an annual profit, and earlier this year Musk said the company was “close to the edge” as it look toward capital spending of $2-2.5 billion in the first half of 2017.
Tesla has since gotten more breathing room by raising $1.2 billion in fresh capital in March and selling a five percent stake to Chinese internet company Tencent Holdings
Ltd.
Musk has spoken to investors about his vision of an “alien dreadnought” factory that uses artificial intelligence and robots to build cars at speeds faster than human assembly workers could manage.
But there are limits to what technology can do in the heavily regulated car business. For example, Tesla will still have to use real cars in crash tests required by the U.S. government, because federal rules do not allow simulated crash results to substitute for data from a real car.
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The governments of Spain and Brazil on Monday reinforced their commitment to completing a trade pact between the European Union and South American trade bloc Mercosur despite protectionist sentiments.
On a two-day visit to Brazil, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he agreed with Brazilian President Michel Temer about the need to wrap up a trade deal that has taken more than 15 years to negotiate.
Rajoy also called for elections as the only way to reach a negotiated solution to the political crisis in Venezuela, expressing “deep concern” over the volatile situation in the neighboring country.
“We agree that given the degree of confrontation and the volatility of the situation, a negotiated solution is needed, and it must inevitably involve giving back to the Venezuelan people their voice,” he said.
Rajoy is heading a large delegation of Spanish businessmen who are looking for investment opportunities in Brazilian banking, energy, water and infrastructure sectors.
Spain backs deal
Brazil is the third-most important market for Spanish investors, who account for the second largest stock of foreign investment in the South American nation after the United States.
Spain is one of the strongest backers of an accord to lower trade barriers between the European Union and Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. Negotiations have been delayed for years by the reluctance of European farmers and Mercosur manufacturers to face competition.
“Spain has always been and will continue to be a firm supporter of the agreement,” Rajoy said after meeting Temer. “In these moments in which some feel protectionist temptations, we both agree on the importance of free trade.”
US retreat favors EU
Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra, who is hoping to clinch the EU-Mercosur deal by the end of the year, said external reasons would help advance it.
Malcorra said the retreat of the United States from trade talks had opened a window for the European Union to become a strong player in multilateral, region-to-region accords.
“Our view is that [the EU-Mercosur accord] is not only an economic agreement,” she said in Geneva on Monday. “It’s more than that, a political agreement.”
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The Italian and Greek governments are counting on France’s likely next president Emmanuel Macron to help them see off populist parties that blame European Union-enforced austerity and open immigration policies for economic and social ills.
Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and Italian premier Paolo Gentiloni both called Macron on Monday to congratulate him after the independent centrist won Sunday’s first round of voting in the French election.
The former economy minister, who is seen in southern Europe as an opponent of rigid austerity, is favored to defeat far-right, anti-EU candidate Marine Le Pen in the May 7 run-off.
Five Star Movement a concern
The ruling parties in heavily indebted Italy and Greece hope his enthusiasm for the EU will help them see off challengers such as Italy’s Five Star Movement, which wants a referendum on ditching the shared euro currency.
A Greek official said Tsipras and Macron had an amicable discussion in which Macron noted his previous support for Athens in tough bailout talks with EU powers.
“I supported the need for a change of stance towards Greece,” the official quoted Macron as telling Tsipras. “It is certain that if I’m elected we will work closely together to ensure that Europe meets the needs of our generation.”
Gentiloni also spoke to Macron, an Italian official said, adding that the two would work together to ensure Europe can face its economic challenges.
Former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, who is plotting a path back to power at elections due next year, also welcomed Macron’s first-round victory, saying he represented a Europe that looked to the future, not “to the decimal points.”
Italian European Affairs Minister Sandro Gozi told Reuters a Macron presidency would bolster the ruling Democratic Party (DP) against populist forces like Five Star, which opinion polls show rivaling the DP with as much as a third of the vote. A path to government remains difficult, however, given its refusal to consider alliances and Italy’s electoral system.
Le Pen’s plans
Five Star and the right-wing Northern League question to varying degrees the adoption of EU open-immigration policies, the cornerstone of which is the Schengen open-borders area.
“Macron’s first round win and his likely victory in the second round will help give us a push,” Gozi said.
“Le Pen wants to get out of the eurozone, to get out of NATO, to dismantle Schengen and basically do many things that either the Northern League or Five Star want to do here. So if Macron wins, it is excellent news for us.”
The French connection
For Greece, a Le Pen victory would knock its major EU ally out of the union and weaken its defenses against a push from Germany, the bloc’s biggest creditor, for continued austerity.
Greece has debts equal to 178 percent of its economy and is struggling to conclude a progress review on reforms prescribed by its international lenders in exchange for vital loans.
Outgoing French President Francois Hollande helped fellow leftist Tsipras seal a 86 billion euro ($93 billion) bailout from the EU in July 2015, its third since 2010, which kept the crisis-hit country in the eurozone.
It expires next year, however, and Athens now needs France to lobby the rest of the EU, especially Germany, to agree to debt relief. Tsipras is counting on this support as the next election approaches in 2019.
Markets react to results
“Relations between Greece and France are strategic, they are based on mutual interests and common views on European affairs and I believe that Macron would stick to Hollande’s policy, which was supportive on Greece,” deputy foreign minister George Katrougalos told Reuters.
A senior Greek government official close to the bailout talks, which resume this week in Athens, agreed that a Macron presidency would be “sympathetic and supportive” of Greece.
Markets in Greece and Italy also welcomed the prospect of a Macron victory next month. Greek 10-year government bond yields hit a two-and-a-half-year low and Italian yields sank despite a credit rating downgrade on Friday.
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In the run-up to the first round of the French presidential elections comparisons were drawn invariably between ideological bedfellows Donald Trump and National Front leader Marine Le Pen. But the rise of the centrist Emmanuel Macron also shares some similarities with Trump’s capture of the White House — at least when it comes to having the skill to fire up an army of enthusiastic volunteers, many of whom had not previously been active in politics.
Macron’s rise — he topped the poll in yesterday’s first round featuring eleven candidates — is an object lesson for Europe’s centrist politicians in how to combat the populism of the right. The continent’s centrists of both left and right were quick to congratulate Macron, with even the German government throwing caution to the winds and wishing him luck in the second round of voting.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s official spokesman Sunday wished Macron “all the best” and the German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, also hailed the results putting Macron ahead of Le Pen. “I’m sure he will sweep away the far-right, right-wing populism and the anti-Europeans in the second round,” Gabriel said in a Tweet.
Like Trump, Macron has never been elected to anything. The 39-year-old former investment banker and briefly socialist economy minister — he was appointed to the post by outgoing French President Francois Hollande — has gone from being a rank outsider to the favorite to win the French presidency in the run-off next month against Le Pen.
Naysayers dismissed Macron’s bid when it launched as a “champagne bubble” that would quickly burst. It hasn’t. In less than a year the progressive maverick, who bills himself as “neither left nor right,” has rapidly built up his party En Marche! (Onwards!). It now boasts 250,000 members — twice the size of France’s establishment Socialist Party.
Since 1958, when the Fifth Republic was established by French wartime leader Gen. Charles de Gaulle, no independent candidate without electoral experience, has come near to securing the Élysée Palace.
Macron may be chalk to Trump’s cheese when it comes to ideology: he’s pro-globalization, pro-free trade deals, pro-EU and welcoming of immigrants. But like Trump and Europe’s populist right-wingers, Macron has benefited from rising public anger toward the establishment party machines. Macron on the campaign trail promised a “democratic revolution” to upset a hidebound French political system and has been every bit as dismissive of the old party dogmas as Le Pen.
When challenged on his government inexperience in the wake of the terrorist shooting on the Champs-Elysées last week, Macron parried that he’d prefer not to have any, judging by the ineffectiveness of experienced politicians in France in recent decades.
Much of his campaign has been built on the excitement of his followers as well as his own character. They have flocked to stadium rallies and organized thousands of small-scale gatherings at cafés and bistros around the country to debate policies and to engage doubters.
Regardless of whether the reforms they push are for more free trade and deregulation or protectionism and nationalism, those who position themselves as outsiders benefit from public disdain of the elites, as both Macron and Le Pen did on Sunday, humbling the country’s established parties of left and right. But whereas Le Pen’s challenge comes from the nationalist fringe, Macron has mounted a populist insurgency from the center of French politics.
In France, the establishment parties went to their radical wings to pick their presidential contenders, leaving Macron an opening in the middle. His supporters may be different from Trump’s — they are more white collar, metropolitan and educated — but like Trump’s followers they, too, have grown tired of the old party dogmas that have failed to provide stability and security.
“In France, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria and the U.S. the same people — blue- and white-collar workers, intermediate occupations and farmers — are joining the populist revolt,” according to Christophe Guilluy, author of The Twilight of Elite France (Le crépuscule de la France d’en haut). “The rift between the global market’s winners and losers has replaced the old right-left split,” he argues.
Macron’s electoral trick has been to persuade enough of the losers — mainly white-collar but to a greater extent than predicted blue-collar voters as well — that he has some pragmatic policies that will provide answers to the challenges facing France, from streamlining the pension system, freeing many households from housing tax and reducing government charges and fees and cutting back on regulations and bureaucratic red tape.
Now in the second round two very different stark views will be presented for voters to pick from: Macron’s more inclusive and cheerful view of a France that has the confidence to remain open to Europe and trade and welcomes new immigrants and those already in the country, and a more traditional view of France presented by Le Pen that points to rampant globalization as a danger to the country’s culture, jobs and security.
Victory will largely be determined by how France’s traditional working-class casts its vote.
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An Italian journalist has returned to Italy after being detained for two weeks in Turkey, apparently because he entered an area near the Syrian border without proper permission.
Gabriele Del Grande, a blogger and documentary maker who has written about refugees, was detained after entering the area of Hatay in southern Turkey. He arrived Monday at Bologna airport on a flight from Turkey. He said he had been treated well but wanted to know why he was deprived of his freedom for 14 days “for doing his job.”
Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, flanking Del Grande at the airport, credited quiet diplomacy for the release.
Del Grande said he went on a hunger strike for seven days, so the first thing he wanted to do was “go eat.”
European shares opened sharply higher and the euro briefly vaulted to five-month peaks on Monday after the market’s favored candidate won the first round of the French election, reducing the risk of another Brexit-like shock.
The victory for pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron, who is now expected to beat right-wing rival Marine Le Pen in a deciding vote next month, sent the pan-European STOXX 50 index up 3 percent, France’s CAC40 almost 4 percent and bank stocks more than 6 percent.
Traders top-sliced some of the euro’s overnight gains, but it was still up more than 1 percent on the dollar, more than 2 percent against the yen and 1.3 percent on the pound as the early flurry of deals subsided.
“It (the first round result) has come out in line with the market’s expectations so you have something of a risk rally as there was a bit of a risk-premium built into all markets,” said James Binny, head of currency at State Street Global Advisors.
There was also an unwinding of safe-haven trades.
Shorter-term German bonds saw their biggest sell-off since the end of 2015 as investors piled back into French as well as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek debt.
The Japanese yen’s fall was widespread, the market’s so-called fear-guage, the VIX volatility index, plunged the most since November and gold saw its biggest tumble in more than a month.
E-mini futures for Wall Street’s S&P 500 climbed 0.9 percent in early trade, while yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose almost 8 basis points to 2.31 percent.
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A member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, died and others were injured Sunday when their car was blown up by a mine in eastern Ukraine.
Austria’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the incident near the small village of Pryshyb. Austria currently holds the OSCE’s rotating presidency.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz demanded a thorough investigation, adding that those responsible would be held accountable
OSCE officials said because they were still in the process of notifying victims’ relatives, they could not disclose their nationalities or identity.
According to reports, the vehicle drove over a mine in territory controlled by the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic.
A rebel statement said the OSCE team was traveling along an unsafe road. “We know that the mentioned crew deviated from the main route and moved along side roads, which is prohibited by the mandate of the OSCE SMM,” local media reported.
The incident marks the first loss of life for the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.
The OSCE has 600 members in eastern Ukraine, the only independent monitoring mission in the destroyed industrial war zone. It provides daily reports on the war and has angered insurgents for accusing them of being responsible for most truce agreement violations.
For the past three years tensions between Ukraine and separatists in the Russian-held eastern part of the country continue to increase, despite a 2015 cease-fire agreement that is repeatedly violated.
At least 9,750 people have been killed in the war in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. More than 40 died during the first two months of this year, when hostilities in the conflict suddenly surged.
Polls have closed and vote-counting is under way at more than 500 voting stations in France, following a closely watched presidential election that could decide whether France’s leadership goes to the far right or left.
Early estimates placed centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron in the lead, followed by nationalist, anti-immigration candidate Marine Le Pen. It would be the first time in the history of the modern French Republic the two candidates moving to the second and final round are from non-traditional parties.
Eleven candidates were on the ballot as voters turned out in large numbers that, according to French Interior Ministry officials, at midday appeared to match the 80 percent turnout of the 2012 presidential election.
The vote occurred amid tight security following a terrorist attack in Paris just days before the poll.
State of emergency, tight security
Sunday, 50,000 police officers backed by 7,000 soldiers, including special forces, were deployed to the streets amid tensions following the attack claimed by the Islamic State terrorist group. The shooting along the iconic Champs-Elysees in the heart of Paris left one police officer dead and several other people injured.
This was the first election to be held under a state of emergency called after the 2015 Paris attacks and observers say last week’s shooting may have brought out many voters who had otherwise planned to abstain.
In a tweet a day after the Champs Elysees shooting, U.S. President Donald Trump said, “The people of France will not take much more of this. Will have a big effect on presidential election!”
Despite predictions of low voter turnout, witnesses said lines formed at voting stations at voting stations before opening hours and turnout was reported to be heavy at various polling stations across the country.
Pre-election polls show tight race
Macron, a center-left former economy minister who is pro-Europe, pro-business and has close ties to unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande led pre-election polls. His appeal lies mainly in France’s prosperous urban areas where globalism has benefited many.
Le Pen wants to end most immigration to France, especially from Muslim countries. She also wants France to leave the European Union. Her strongholds are largely in formerly industrial areas of France where unemployment is high and so is disillusionment with the modern economic and social order.
Another top contender is former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, a center-right social conservative who favors cuts in public spending and pushing for deep reforms in the European Union.
Last-minute decisions
Analysts and voters interviewed see this as the most unpredictable election since World War Two. One third of voters were undecided just days before the balloting.
In the last few weeks before the vote, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon surged in the polls and so did discussion of the previously obscure candidate in social media.
Among the ways his campaign lured young voters was through the release of a video game in which a player pretending to be Melenchon walks the streets and takes money from men in suits. The player is shown in a battle against the rich and powerful.
Anger at the establishment is the sentiment driving voters in an election in which security, France’s lagging economy, its 10-percent unemployment rate, and Islamist extremism are issues on the minds of those on the left and on the right.
That, say analysts, is what is influencing large numbers of people, including some of the middle and upper class residents of Paris, to vote for candidates of the extreme, like Le Pen and Melenchon.
“Some of them for the thrill of it. It’s the principle, you know. Like playing Russian roulette, but politically. Some others it would be because they despise the elite of this country,” said Thomas Guénolé, a political analyst in Paris, told VOA.
In France, the prevailing candidate in a presidential race needs an absolute majority. If no one wins a majority, the top vote getters in Sunday’s poll will face off in a final round on May 7th.
Socialist President Francois Hollande announced he would not to run for reelection after his approval ratings sank to 4 percent, something analysts widely attribute to a string of terrorist attacks in France and a stagnation of economic growth during his tenure. Hollande is the first incumbent president not to seek reelection in the history of modern France.
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Britain’s Theresa May appeared on course to win a crushing election victory in June after opinion polls put support for her ruling Conservative party around 50 percent, twice that of the opposition Labor party.
May’s decision to call a June 8 election stunned her political rivals this week and a string of polls released late Saturday suggested the gamble had paid off, with one from ComRes showing the party of Margaret Thatcher enjoying levels of support not seen since 1991.
May, appointed prime minister in the turmoil that followed Britain’s vote to leave the European Union last June, said she needed the election to secure her own mandate and strengthen her hand for the Brexit negotiations ahead.
She is also looking to capitalize on the disarray swirling around the Labor party, which has been riven with internal division over its leader Jeremy Corbyn. Voters also appear to be switching from the anti-EU UKIP party, which helped campaign for Brexit, to May’s Conservatives, which will likely deliver it.
Gaining in Scotland
In two other polls, May’s Conservatives also gained ground in Scotland at the expense of the Scottish National Party, potentially weakening the nationalists’ demand for another independence referendum.
May has warned her party not to take victory for granted, a message that was echoed by pollsters Saturday.
“While no political party could ever object to breaching the 50 percent barrier for the first time this century, this spectacular headline result masks a real danger for the Tories,” said ComRes Chairman Andrew Hawkins.
“The fact that 6 in 10 voters believe Labor cannot win under Corbyn’s leadership bring with it the threat of complacency among Tory (Conservative) voters who may be tempted to sit at home on June 8th and let others deliver the result they expect.”
According to polls by Opinium, ComRes and YouGov, May’s Conservatives held a lead of 19 to 25 percentage points, with the party’s support ranging from 45 percent to 50 percent.
Labor-like policies
Having repeatedly denied that she would call an election, May is now also poised to announce a raft of policy proposals more commonly associated with the left-leaning Labor party, according to the Sunday Times.
The newspaper said the Conservatives would pledge to protect workers’ rights and cap more household energy prices in a bid to help those hit by rising inflation and muted wage growth.
If the polls are correct, the Conservatives could secure a once-in-a-generation victory that will realign the British political landscape. According to the polls, Labor has lost its reputation as the party that would best protect the National Health Service — once its strongest claim.
The improved Conservative fortunes across the country have also spread to Scotland, where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party, or SNP, has stepped up calls for a second independence referendum.
According to an analysis for the Times, the Conservatives are on course to win 12 seats in Scotland while Labor will be wiped from its former political stronghold. Currently, the Conservatives hold one of Scotland’s 59 seats in the British parliament. The SNP holds 54.
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A fungus that causes “vomitoxin” has been found in some U.S. corn harvested last year, forcing poultry and pork farmers to test their grain, and giving headaches to grain growers wrestling with massive supplies and low prices.
The plant toxin sickens livestock and can also make humans and pets ill.
The appearance of vomitoxin and other toxins produced by fungi is affecting ethanol markets and prompting grain processors to seek alternative sources of feed supplies.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture first isolated the toxin in 1973 after an unusually wet winter in the Midwest. The compound was given what researchers described as the trivial name vomitoxin because pigs refused to eat the infected corn or vomited after consuming it. The U.S. Corn Belt had earlier outbreaks of infection from the toxin in 1966 and 1928.
The spread of vomitoxin is concentrated in Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Iowa and Michigan, and its full impact is not yet known, according to state officials and data gathered by food testing firm Neogen Corp.
In Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana, a considerable share of corn crops tested since last fall’s harvest have had vomitoxin levels high enough to be considered too toxic for humans, pets, hogs, chickens and dairy cattle, according to public and private data compiled by Neogen. The company did not state what percent of each state’s corn crop was tested.
Toxin levels
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration allows vomitoxin levels of up to 1 part per million (ppm) in human and pet foods and recommends levels under 5 ppm in grain for hogs, 10 ppm for chickens and dairy cattle. Beef cattle can withstand toxin levels up to 30 ppm.
Alltech Inc, a Kentucky-based feed supplement company, said 73 percent of feed samples it has tested this year have vomitoxin. The company analyzed samples sent by farmers whose animals have fallen ill.
“We know there is lots of bad corn out there, because corn byproducts keep getting worse,” said Max Hawkins, a nutritionist with Alltech.
Neogen, which sells grain testing supplies, reported a 29 percent jump in global sales for toxin tests, with strong demand for vomitoxin tests, in their fiscal third quarter, ending Feb. 28.
“We’re polling our customers and continually talking to them about the levels they’re seeing. Those levels are not going down,” said Pat Frasco, director of sales for Neogen’s milling, grain and pet food business.
The problem, stemming from heavy rain before and during the 2016 harvest, prompted farmers to store wet grain, said farmers, ethanol makers and grain inspectors.
The issue was compounded by farmers and grain elevators storing corn on the ground and other improvised spaces, sometimes covering the grain piles with plastic tarps. Grain buyers say they will have a clearer picture of the problem later this spring, as more farm-stored grain is moved to market.
Iowa State University grain quality expert Charles Hurburgh said the sheer size of the harvest in 2016 — the largest in U.S. history — complicates the job of managing toxins in grain, especially in the core Midwest.
“Mycotoxins are very hard to handle in high volume,” he said. “You can’t test every truckload, or if you do, you are only going to unload 20 trucks in a day.” By comparison, corn processors in Iowa unload 400 or more trucks a day.
Biofuel impact
Ethanol makers are feeling the impact. Turning corn into ethanol creates a byproduct called distillers dried grains (DDGs), which is sold as animal feed. With fuel prices low, the DDGs can boost profitability.
But the refining process triples the concentration of mycotoxins, making the feed byproduct less attractive. DDG prices in Indiana fell to $92.50 per ton in February, the lowest since 2009, and now are selling for $97.50 per ton, according to USDA.
Many ethanol plants are testing nearly every load of corn they receive for the presence of vomitoxin, said Indiana grain inspector Doug Titus, whose company has labs at The Andersons Inc., a grain handler, and energy company Valero Energy sites.
The Andersons in a February call with analysts said vomitoxin has hurt results at three of its refineries in the eastern U.S.
“That will be with us for some time,” Andersons’ chief executive Pat Bowe said.
Mixing with clean grain
Missouri grain farmer Doug Roth, who put grain into storage after last year’s wet harvest, has seen a few loads of corn rejected by clients who make pet food after the grain tested positive for low levels of fumonisin, a type of mycotoxin.
Roth said he paid to reroute the grain to livestock producers in Arkansas, who planned to blend it with unaffected grain in order to mitigate the effect of the toxins.
U.S. farmers with clean corn are reaping a price bump. A Cardinal Ethanol plant in Union City, Indiana, is offering grain sellers a 10-cent per bushel premium for corn with less than one-part-per-million or less of vomitoxin in it, according to the company’s website.
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French expatriates in South America, Canada and the United States kicked off the voting Saturday in France’s presidential election, on the heels of several terror attacks that could affect the outcome.
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and a former economy minister, independent centrist Emmanuel Macron, are the top contenders, followed by conservative former Prime Minister Francois Fillon and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.
The candidates are vying to replace incumbent Francois Hollande, who announced earlier this year that he would not run for another term.
Campaigning ended earlier than expected Thursday when a French policeman was killed by a gunman on the Champs-Elysee, one of Paris’ most popular streets for shopping and tourism. Analysts have long said a last-minute event could swing the election outcome.
In November 2015, Paris terror attacks, in which 130 people were killed, happened just weeks before France held regional elections. The attacks are thought to have given a boost to Le Pen’s National Front party, which lost in the second round of voting and failed to win control of any region.
Some French critics of LePen told reporters they feared this week’s attack and others like it could push her campaign to a win, perhaps endangering France’s future in the European Union.
But national security is not the only issue that matters in this year’s election. France’s unemployment rate is about 10 percent, more than twice as high as that of its neighbor Germany, and the state of the economy is a constant worry.
The bulk of the first-round voting in France itself will come Sunday. Early results are expected around 9 p.m. Paris time.
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European scientists are taking part in the March for Science demonstration taking place in hundreds of cities around the world to commemorate Earth Day. Science and research skeptics are becoming more mainstream in an era of populist and Eurosceptic movements. And on both sides of the Atlantic, there is less funding to support independent research.
Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a professor at the University of Leuven, says shifting priorities in Europe has had an impact on the work of scientists.
“Now funds for fundamental research are much more difficult to get. Even if the budget remains the same or sometimes has increased, there was a shift in priorities towards research that is supposed to deliver more immediate results in terms of job creation or that kind of thing. Or research that helps the European industry to bring a product to the market. And climate scientists are not building any products that the European industries can sell.”
The European Union set a target for its member states that they should spend three percent of their budget on science, but many countries are only at around two percent.
Scientists hope that by joining forces globally, they will raise awareness about a global trend that seems to take science less serious. With U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House and populist and Eurosceptic movements gaining popularity in Europe, scientists say their budgets are being reduced and their work is being taken less serious.
Bas Eickhout, a scientist and member of the European Parliament for the Greens Party, says climate change policy should not be seen as a “left wing hobby.” He calls on scientist to be more involved in the decision making process.
“Not in policy making itself but providing information to politicians is crucial. And quite often once we start with decision making, that information is just lost. Scientist are really a bit too scared for the word lobby, and I don’t think its lobbying that your doing, but its also trying to feed decision making also during the negotiations, and not only at the beginning.”
The March for Science is a volunteer based movement and organizers say there is an “alarming trend toward discrediting scientific consensus and restricting scientific discovery.” The organizers aim to celebrate science and hold political and science leaders accountable, but do not affiliate with any political party.
Sofie Vanthournout, director of Sense about Science EU, a charity advocating the importance of science, says the march aims to change the perspective of citizens and politicians who doubt the importance of science:
“The message that we want to bring it is important for every aspect of our lives, for every aspect of society. Whether it’s in technology that we use in our daily lives or whether it is for important decisions that politicians make about our lives. We don’t want scientists to tell politicians what to do but we need the politicians to have access to all of the facts and all of the knowledge that is available.”
One week after the March of Science, the Peoples Climate March will follow. In 2015, the world came together to sign the Paris Accord, an agreement signed by almost all nations in the world to curb global warming.
U.S. President Trump promised during his election campaign to pull the United States out of the international accord, but later softened his stance, saying he thinks there is “some connectivity” between human activity and global warming.
Michele Scarponi, the 2011 Giro d’Italia champion, has been killed in a road accident while training close to his home in Filottrano, his Astana team said Saturday.
Scarponi, 37, left home early on Saturday morning for a training ride and was hit by a van at a crossroads.
“This is a tragedy too big to be written,” Astana said in a statement.
“We left a great champion and a special guy, always smiling in every situation, he was … a landmark for everyone in the Astana Pro Team.”
Scarponi, who completed the Tour of the Alps on Friday, after winning a stage and finishing fourth overall, is survived by his wife and two children.
Scarponi, who started his professional career in 2002, got his best results in Italian races, winning three stages on the Giro before being handed the 2011 title after Alberto Contador was stripped of his victory in a retroactive doping ban.
He also had good results in the one-day races, finishing fourth on the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic in 2003.
Scarponi was suspended for 18 months after being implicated in the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal in 2006.
After he returned from suspension, he won the Tirreno-Adriatico in 2009 and the Tour of Catalonia in 2011.
“We will miss this guy in the peleton, always with a smile,” Olympic champion Greg van Avermaet wrote on Twitter.
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Lawmakers from coal-mining states are pushing to extend health benefits for more than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage is set to expire at the end of April.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and other coal-state Democrats threatened to shut down the government over the issue in December, but they retreated after winning a four-month extension that preserves benefits through April 30.
As lawmakers return to the Capitol following a two-week recess, Manchin says the time for extensions is over.
“We will use every vehicle we can, every pathway we can, to make sure we do not leave here … until we have our miners protected,” he said in a speech on the Senate floor before the break.
“We’ve been very patient,” Manchin said. “I am not going to have another notice sent out to our retired miners, to their widows, saying we’ve given you 90 days or 120 days extension. That’s not going to happen this time.”
Deadline is Friday
But as a Friday deadline looms to keep the government open, lawmakers have not reached agreement on extending the benefits. A plan pushed by GOP leaders in the House would extend health benefits for 20 months, through the end of 2018.
Manchin said Senate Democrats are against that idea because it’s only a partial fix. At least a dozen Senate Republicans are willing to join Democrats in support of a more complete plan that addresses health benefits and a related issue over failing pension plans for nearly 100,000 unionized miners, Manchin said.
“This shouldn’t be a Republican or Democrat issue,” he said in an interview. “This is an issue of fairness.”
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said McConnell supports legislation to protect and permanently extend the health benefits, but had no word on the progress of talks related to the spending bill.
A spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan also offered no update.
Pieces and parts
President Donald Trump, who has vowed to revive the struggling coal industry, has given “verbal support” for the miners’ benefits, Manchin said, but needs to do more.
“I need him now to either tweet or call Senator McConnell and tell him it’s time to act,” Manchin said. “Mr. President, if you are listening, please tweet out: ‘Mitch, help us. We need you.’”
Trump and Republicans have decried what they describe as a “war on coal” waged by the Obama administration, and have taken a series of actions since Trump took office to boost coal production and reduce regulations, including a rule to protect streams from coal-mining debris.
Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that the White House is “happy to talk … about pieces and parts of the miners’ programs” as part of negotiations on a bill to keep the government open.
“I don’t think we’re very interested in the pension component of that but more interested in talking about the health care component of that,” Mulvaney said.
Pension problem is bigger
Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America, said he is hopeful a compromise can be reached on health benefits, but he complained that Republicans appear unwilling to address the far more costly pension issue. Congress scrapped a $3 billion, 10-year measure to stabilize failing pension funds last year.
“The pension part is not going to go away. It only gets worse by the day,” he said.
Account balances have dwindled amid the coal’s industry steep decline, including continued layoffs and a rash of bankruptcy filings that have spread to the industry’s largest companies. Without congressional intervention, some pension funds could run out of cash by next year, the union says.
For the moment, Congress appears focused on health benefits.
In West Virginia, about 8,500 retired miners and their families face loss of benefits if Congress does not act. Some mining families have been unable to make doctor’s appointments after May 1 because of uncertainty over whether medical bills will be paid, Smith said.
Other states affected include Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Alabama.
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Motorists in Pyongyang are scrambling to fill their tanks as gas stations begin limiting services or closing amid concerns of a spreading shortage.
A sign outside one station in the North Korean capital said Friday that sales were being restricted to diplomats or vehicles used by international organizations, while others were closed or turning away local residents. Lines at other stations were much longer than usual and prices appeared to be rising significantly.
The cause of the restrictions or how long they might last were not immediately known.
Fuel from China
North Korea relies heavily on China for its fuel supply, and Beijing has reportedly been tightening its enforcement of international sanctions aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
The issue was raised at a regular Chinese Foreign Ministry news conference in Beijing Friday after a Chinese media outlet, Global Times, reported gas stations were restricting service and charging higher prices.
But spokesman Lu Kang gave an ambiguous response when asked if China was restricting fuel deliveries.
“As for what kind of policy China is taking, I think you should listen to the authoritative remarks or statements of the Chinese government,” he said, without elaborating on what those remarks or statements are. “For the remarks made by certain people or circulated online, it is up to you if you want to take them as references.”
New sanctions an option
One of China’s top North Korea scholars, Kim Dong-jil, director of the Center for Korean Peninsula Studies of Peking University, said he had not heard of new restrictions on fuel to pressure Pyongyang, but said they are considered to be an option.
China’s Ministry of Commerce had no immediate comment
Gasoline was selling at $1.25 per kilogram at one station, up from the previous 70-80 cents. According to a sign outside a station where ordinary North Korean vehicles were being turned away, the restrictions took effect Wednesday.
Gasoline is sold in North Korea by the kilogram, roughly equivalent to a liter (0.26 gallon).
When buying gas in North Korea, customers usually first purchase coupons at a cashier’s booth for the amount of fuel they want. After filling up the tank, leftover coupons can be used on later visits until their expiration date. A common amount for the coupons is 15 kilograms (19.65 liters or 5.2 U.S. gallons).
Supply is controlled by the state, but prices can vary from one station to another.
More cars to fuel
The military, state ministries and priority projects have the best access. Several chains of gas stations are operated under different state-run enterprises, for example, Air Koryo, the national flagship airline, operates gas stations as well.
Traffic in Pyongyang has gotten heavier than in past years, when visitors had often been struck by the lack of cars on the capital’s broad avenues.
The greater number of cars, including swelling fleets of taxis, has been an indication of greater economic activity, as many are used for business purposes, such as transporting people or goods.
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The co-founder of Microsoft, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, has given a passionate defense of foreign aid and voiced fears that the political climate in the US and Britain could see aid budgets cut. In a speech in London this week, he warned that withdrawing aid would create a ‘leadership vacuum that others will fill.’ Henry Ridgwell reports.
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The son of a Russian lawmaker was sentenced Friday by a U.S. federal court to 27 years in prison after being convicted of a cyber assault on thousands of U.S. businesses, marking the longest hacking-related sentence in the United States.
Roman Seleznev, 32, was found guilty last year by a jury in Seattle of perpetrating a scheme that prosecutors said involved hacking into point-of-sale computers to steal credit card numbers and caused $169 million in losses to U.S. firms.
The Russian government has maintained that his arrest in 2014 in the Maldives was illegal. It issued a statement Friday criticizing the sentence and said it believed Seleznev’s lawyer planned to appeal.
“We continue to believe that the arrest of the Russian citizen Roman Seleznev, who de facto was kidnapped on the territory of a third country, is unlawful,” the Russian Embassy in Washington said in a post on its Facebook page.
Seleznev is the son of Valery Seleznev, a member of the Russian parliament.
The sentence, imposed by Judge Richard A. Jones of the Western District of Washington, followed a decade-long investigation by the U.S. Secret Service.
In a handwritten statement provided by his lawyer, Seleznev said he believed the harsh sentence was a way for the United States government to send a message to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
“This message the United States sent today is not the right way to show Vladimir Putin, Russia or any other government in this world how justice works in a democracy,” Seleznev wrote in the statement.
Prosecutors said that from October 2009 to October 2013, Seleznev stole credit card numbers from more than 500 U.S. businesses, transferred the data to servers in Virginia, Russia and the Ukraine and eventually sold the information on criminal “carding” websites.
Seleznev faces separate charges pending in federal courts in Nevada and Georgia.
A federal grand jury in Connecticut returned an eight-count indictment charging a Russian national who was arrested earlier this month with operating the Kelihos botnet, a global network of tens of thousands of infected computers, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.
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Even after disembarking from North Korea’s Air Koryo plane at Pyongyang airport, it’s difficult to miss the airline’s brand. The Air Koryo conglomerate makes cigarettes and fizzy drinks, besides owning a taxi fleet and petrol stations – and all have the same flying crane logo as the carrier.
The military-controlled airline expanded into consumer products in earnest in recent months, visitors to the isolated country say. It was not clear if the diversification into the domestic market was related to the loss of many international routes when the United Nations slapped economic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Washington is now considering tougher measures, including a global ban on Air Koryo itself, to punish North Korea for continuing weapons tests, U.S. officials have said.
But any U.S. action on Air Koryo would not be binding on other nations and would have little effect unless joined by China and Russia – both of which have sought to introduce exceptions to United Nations sanctions on North Korea in the past.
“China may indeed agree to this kind of ban on Air Koryo since it seems like China and the U.S. have reached an agreement that North Korea needs to be dealt with in some way. But the question is whether Russia will agree to sanctions against Air Koryo,” said Sun Xingjie, an associate professor at China’s Jilin University.
North Korean officials are rarely accessible to reporters, and it was not possible to get comment from Air Koryo or from the Pyongyang government.
Air Koryo now flies only to Beijing and three other cities in China, and to Vladivostok in Russia. Flights to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Kuwait were dropped last year but just last month, Air Koryo added a route from Pyongyang to the Chinese city of Dandong, the main transit point for trade between the two countries.
Air Koryo has 15 active planes on its fleet, either Russian or Ukrainian-made, and uses refuelling, maintenance and repair facilities in China and Russia, according to aviation databases and U.N. documents.
The airline has a number of domestic flights connecting the capital Pyongyang to Orang, Sondok and Samjiyon towns, according to a schedule available last year.
Businesses in secretive North Korea do not publicly share information about revenues or costs, so it was not possible to determine what effect any existing sanctions have had or may have in future.
But visitors to North Korea say the Air Koryo conglomerate, owned by the country’s air force, is clearly expanding.
Cabs, Gas Stations
In 2015, the conglomerate launched its own brand of sky-blue taxis which now parade the streets of Pyongyang alongside cabs from at least eight other state-owned companies.
Air Koryo colas and cigarettes are available in shops across Pyongyang.
Air Koryo started branching into soft drinks late last year, said Simon Cockerell of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which organizes travel to North Korea.
It got into retail sales of petrol in January. “They have at least one petrol station in Pyongyang, perhaps two,” Cockerell said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Air Koryo products make it to market before too long.”
A United Nations panel which investigates North Korean sanctions infringements said in a report in February there was an “absence of boundaries” between Air Koryo and the air force.
“The airline’s assets are actively utilised for military purposes,” the report said.
“Outwardly, this seems like a commercial airline, but in effect, this is run by the government,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in South Korea.
The United Nations has not sanctioned Air Koryo, although it has accused it of being involved in the smuggling of banned goods. Civilian aircraft are exempt from the U.N. ban on jet fuel exports to North Korea when refuelling overseas. Member states are required to inspect any cargo originating from North Korea, including on Air Koryo flights.
In December, the United States designated Air Koryo, 16 of its aircraft and 10 of its offices as “sanctioned entities,” meaning that U.S. citizens are generally prevented from engaging in transactions with them. It was not clear if the ban extended to Americans flying on the airline for tourism.
Officials at Pyongyang’s airport said they were unconcerned about any attempts by the global community to strengthen sanctions that could target Air Koryo directly.
“We are not afraid, we have our own counter actions prepared,” said a customs official, without elaborating, standing at the Air Koryo check-in counter.
Kim, the South Korean professor, said any sanctions on Air Koryo would have mostly a symbolic effect.
“It will not cause huge damage to the North Korean economy,” he said in the Korean language. “Air Koryo is not a ‘dollar box'[which makes a lot of foreign money].”
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U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a full review of the powers given to government regulators to oversee the banking and finance industries following the financial meltdown of 2008.
Trump went to the Treasury Department on Friday to sign three executive orders that start the process of fulfilling his campaign pledges to undo regulations that he says unduly strain the U.S. economy.
“My entire administration [is] working around the clock to help struggling Americans achieve their financial dreams … and have real confidence in the future,” Trump said as he signed the orders. “Together we will restore prosperity to this nation.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin explained that two of the orders could eventually lead to a significant revision of controversial provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law.
“Our goal is to make this a smarter, more effective process that reduces the kind of systemic risk that harmed so many Americans during the financial crisis of 2008,” Mnuchin said.
Dodd-Frank reform
One order temporarily freezes a portion of Dodd-Frank known as the Orderly Liquidation Authority, which gives the federal government broad discretion in making loans to failing financial institutions. The Trump administration argues that the OLA encourages excessive risk-taking by banks because taxpayers are potentially liable for bad loans.
Trump on Friday called the Dodd-Frank regulations “unfair” and “damaging,” saying they had “failed to hold Wall Street firms accountable.”
Critics say the review is aimed at revoking Obama-era reforms that have brought stability and transparency to the sometimes murky world of high finance, and helped to prevent another crisis.
Edwin Truman, who served as a senior Treasury official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, says Dodd-Frank encourages banks to raise more capital and be more open about their activities.
“That doesn’t mean that a complicated piece of legislation like Dodd-Frank couldn’t be improved and tweaked,” Truman told VOA. “It’s like Obamacare. It could be improved while maintaining its basic principles. So there’s scope for reform but not really repeal or replacement.”
Boston University law professor Tamar Frankel, an expert in financial system regulation, said Dodd-Frank has not achieved the purpose for which it was designed, which is to create consumer confidence in the banking industry. But she worries that a rollback of Obama-era regulations could bring about a return to dangerous lending practices.
“Loans of the kind banks made before 2008 are the poison of any financial system,” Frankel said.
Tax laws
Trump’s latest orders also authorize a review of tax laws, which the president argues impose an undue burden on taxpayers.
“This is such a privilege for me to sign,” he said during the ceremony. “This is really the beginning of a whole new way of life that this country hasn’t seen in really many, many years.”
Secretary Mnuchin told reporters Friday he was looking forward to taking a hard look at the tax code.
“We are going to go through and look at every significant financial regulation that’s been done in the past year and a half,” Mnuchin explained. “We’re going to determine if they’re needed in the tax code, or if they’re unnecessary.”
In making his case, Mnuchin pointed to statistics showing individuals and businesses cumulatively spend a total of 6.1 billion hours complying with the tax code each year, at a cost to the U.S. economy of $234.4 billion. He said the basic Form 1040 used to file taxes had grown from 34 lines and two pages of instructions to 79 lines and 211 pages of instructions.
Mnuchin has 180 days to report back to the president with recommended reforms.
Trump also hinted Friday that he’s almost ready to make another big announcement on taxes, saying he was ready to unveil a “massive tax cut” next week, shortly before he reaches the symbolic 100-day mark of his presidency.
“The process has begun long ago, ” he said, “but it really formally begins on Wednesday.”
In a separate interview with The Associated Press, Trump said the plan would provide tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. He would not provide details of the plan, saying only that the tax cuts will be “bigger I believe than any tax cut ever.”
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Greece far exceeded its international lenders’ budget demands last year, official data showed on Friday, posting its first overall budget surplus in 21 years even when debt repayments are included.
The primary surplus — the leftover before debt repayments that is the focus of International Monetary Fund-European Union creditors — was more than eight times what they had targeted.
Data released by Greek statistics service ELSTAT — to be confirmed on Monday by the EU — showed the primary budget surplus at 3.9 percent of gross domestic product last year versus a downwardly revised 2.3 percent deficit in 2015.
This was calculated under European System of Accounts guidelines, which differ from the methodology used by Greece’s in bailout deliberations.
Under EU-IMF standards, the surplus was even larger.
Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the primary budget surplus under bailout terms reached 4.19 percent of gross domestic product last year versus the 0.5 percent of GDP target.
“It is more than eight times above target,” Tzanakopoulos said in a statement. “Therefore, the targets set under the bailout program for 2017 and 2018 will certainly be attained.”
Debt-strapped Greece and its creditors have been at odds for months over the country’s fiscal performance, delaying the conclusion of a key bailout review which could unlock needed bailout funds.
The IMF, which has reservations on whether Greece can meet high primary surplus targets, has yet to decide if it will fund Greece’s current bailout, which expires in 2018.
The 2016 outperformance could lead the fund to revise some of its projections. The IMF’s participation is seen as a condition for Germany to unlock new funds to Greece.
Athens hopes to discuss the fund’s participation and its projections at the sidelines of the IMF’s spring meetings in Washington. EU and IMF mission chiefs are expected to return to Athens on Tuesday to discuss the bailout review.
After meeting Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Washington, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said: “We had constructive discussions in preparation for the return of the mission to discuss the two legs of the Greece program: policies and debt relief.”
ELSTAT said the overall surplus including debt repayments reached 0.7 percent of GDP compared with a 5.9 percent deficit in 2015.
Analysts attributed the outperformance to the implementation of bailout measures and increased efforts to improve the state’s revenue collection capacity.
“It’s an impressive outperformance versus the bailout program target for the primary surplus,” said Athens-based Eurobank’s chief economist Platon Monokroussos.
“The data suggests that the 2017 fiscal target under the bailout program is fully attainable under the current baseline macroeconomic scenario,” he said.
Athens faces a primary surplus target of 1.75 percent of GDP this year.
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Senior French officials say Thursday’s shooting in Paris and a planned attack foiled by police in Marseilles earlier this week are part of an effort by radical Islamists to influence the result of France’s upcoming election.
They fear more terrorism is being planned — including possibly an attack on polling day.
“They want to influence French political life by directly impacting the course or even the organization of the polls,” Thibault de Montbrial, former head of the French foreign ministry’s internal think tank, the Center for Analysis and Prevision, told French newspaper Le Figaro.
French authorities say the gunman, named swiftly by the Islamic State terror group via its Amaq news agency as Belgian Abu Yousif al-Bajiki, opened fire on a police car parked on the Champs-Élysées, hitting three police officers and a tourist during the attack outside a Marks and Spencer clothing store.
The man was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and was shot dead as he tried to flee. One of the police officers died on the scene. Initial eyewitness reports said the dead gendarme had been shot while in his car, which was stationary at traffic lights. The gunman dashed out of another vehicle and without hesitation opened fire.
A French interior ministry spokesman said more than one attacker may have been involved and confirmed the police had been “deliberately targeted.” A second suspect turned himself in to authorities Friday in Antwerp, Belgium.
French President François Hollande held an emergency meeting with his top advisers and security chiefs Friday to discuss how to safeguard Sunday’s election. “A national tribute will be paid to this policeman who was killed in such a cowardly way,” the French leader later told reporters.
Pre-planned attack
British counterterrorism expert Olivier Guitta told VOA the unusual speed with which IS claimed responsibility for the attack would seem to indicate the shooting was not just ‘inspired’ by the terror group but was also planned by it.
“The likelihood of more terror attacks in the French presidential elections is very high,” he said. “Jihadists will try to influence the vote,” added Guitta, who runs GlobalStrat, a London-based risk consultancy.
Thursday’s shooting took place as the 11 official candidates in the election were debating live on French national television. Some political commentators speculated the attack may give a boost to Marine Le Pen, the far right populist who says immigration threatens France’s security and culture.
Le Pen’s opponents say the jihadists want her to win, charging that the hardline anti-immigrant policies she wants to introduce would help militant groups like Islamic State to recruit. Her supporters deny the claim.
During the debate Le Pen, who was being tipped by pollsters to top the list in the first round of the election Sunday but who has been losing ground in recent days, emphasized her long-standing call for France to leave the Schengen free movement zone and introduce much tighter border controls.
“The influx of migrants is in front of us. Control our borders, otherwise we won’t stop this wave!” she said.
As news of the attack emerged, the candidates appeared to try to outdo each other in the toughness of their proposals for protecting France from terrorism. “Enough of laxity, enough of naivety,” Le Pen declared. Conservative candidate François Fillon proposed arresting hundreds of militant suspects on the terror watch list, like Thursday’s gunman.
Tight presidential race
Pollsters have been saying for weeks that the presidential race is very tight between the top four candidates, Le Pen, Fillon, the centrist and pro-EU Emmanuel Macron and left-winger candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Analysts have said a major last-minute event could easily swing the election.
Macron, a former economy minister who has little security experience, adopted a more measured tone than Le Pen and Fillon in Thursday’s debate, cautioning France would have to live with terrorism for many years to come. In a poll midweek, Macron appeared to have edged ahead of Le Pen.
On Tuesday, police in Marseilles arrested two men on suspicion of planning an “imminent” attack in France. Police said they found explosives and guns at an apartment linked to the suspects. The presidential candidates were warned by security chiefs to ramp up their own personal security.
France’s intelligence chief said they suspected the pair, both French-born and in their twenties, of plotting an attack to coincide with the election.
Midweek Macron and Le Pen jousted over security measures in separate radio interviews. “Today fundamentalist Islam is waging war and the measures are not being taken to limit the risks,” Le Pen said on RFI radio.
Macron shot back on RTL Radio: “There’s no such thing as zero risk… I hear Madame Le Pen… anyone who says that they can make it otherwise is both irresponsible and a liar.”
Two years ago, Le Pen’s National Front topped the first round of regional elections weeks after the 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 dead. But the apparent boost given the National Front did not prevail in the second round and the party failed to win political control of any region.
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German police arrested a man Friday who is suspected of planting explosives targeting the bus of soccer team Borussia Dortmund last week, the office of the German federal chief prosecutor said.
The 28-year old man, a dual German and Russian national identified as Sergei V., had bought options on Borussia Dortmund’s stock before the attack, hoping to make a profit, it said in a statement.
The players’ bus was heading to their stadium for a Champions League match against AS Monaco April 11 when three explosions occurred, wounding Spanish defender Marc Bartra and delaying the match by a day.
The suspect is accused of attempted murder, inflicting serious bodily harm and causing an explosion, the prosecutor’s office said.
It said he had bought 15,000 put options, or contracts giving him the right to sell Borussia Dortmund’s shares at a pre-determined price, on the day of the attack, using a consumer loan he had signed the previous week.
“If the shares of Borussia Dortmund had fallen massively, the profit would have been several times the initial investment,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The serious injury or death of any of the soccer players could have resulted in such a slump, it said.
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Holocaust denial just got a little harder.
The Wiener Library for the Study of Holocaust & Genocide is making the United Nations’ files on World War II war crimes more accessible by allowing the general public to search an online catalog of the documents for the first time beginning Friday. People will still have to visit the library in London or the U.S. Holocaust Museum to read the actual files.
The move is expected to increase interest in the archives of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, including the names of about 37,000 people identified as war criminals and security suspects. The commission operated in 1943-1949, but access to its records was restricted for political reasons in the early days of the Cold War.
Blow to Holocaust denial
“This is a whole hardware store of nails to hammer into the coffin of Holocaust denial,” said Dan Plesch, director of the Center for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS University of London. “It’s the first time it is practically accessible to the general public as the commission initially intended.”
Plesch and other researchers campaigned for the U.N. to open access to the files, which he used to write the book “Human Rights After Hitler.” In 2014, the U.S. Holocaust Museum made the archive freely available at its reading room in Washington. Before that, the records had been largely locked away at the United Nations, which granted only limited access.
“Nobody has paid any attention to it,” said Ben Barkow, director of the Wiener Library. “It has been hidden in plain sight.”
War criminal prosecution
The documents detail Allied efforts to prosecute thousands of alleged Nazi and Japanese war criminals, from heads of state like Adolf Hitler to guards at the Auschwitz and Treblinka concentration camps.
The archive includes evidence gathered by local people who documented crimes long before the war ended and smuggled the information to Allied leaders in London.
“These people were meeting under aerial bombardment, dealing with affidavits smuggled out” of occupied countries, Plesch said. “Resistance movements were paying attention to the legal prosecution of oppressors.”
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As economic and political leaders gather in Washington for the annual spring meetings of the World bank and International Monetary Fund — new warnings Thursday about the impact of rapid change on the global economy. At issue, the pace of technological advance and its Impact on jobs, particularly in developing economies. Mil Arcega has more.
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U.S. officials are reviewing Venezuela’s seizure of General Motors’ assets in the country, U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday.
“We are reviewing the details of the case,” Toner said in a statement, saying the United States hoped to resolve the matter “rapidly and transparently.”
GM said Wednesday that Venezuelan authorities had taken over its plant in the industrial hub of Valencia, adding that it was halting operations and laying off 2,700 workers due to the “illegal judicial seizure of its assets.”
The largest U.S. automaker vowed to “take all legal actions” to defend its rights. The seizure comes amid a deepening economic crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.
The seizure is the result of a civil dispute with a Venezuelan concessionaire dating back to 2000 and does not represent a nationalization as such, according to local media reports.
GM, the market leader in Venezuela for 35 years, said in a statement that in addition to the plant seizure “other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities.”
Total auto production in Venezuela fell to a historic low of 2,849 cars in 2016, nearly 75 percent less than the year before, according to Venezuela’s automotive industry group.
In the first two months of 2017, GM has not produced any vehicles, while total Venezuelan auto production was just 240 vehicles, down 50 percent over the same period last year. The New York Times reported the GM plant had been closed for the last six weeks as a result of a takeover by members of one of its unions.
Nearly all vehicles built in Venezuela in the first two months this year were assembled by Toyota Motor Corp, which said Thursday that its plant was operating normally.
But a spokesman added the automaker was “only producing based on orders that come in.”
Venezuela’s car industry has been hit by a lack of raw materials stemming from complex currency controls.
In early 2015, Ford Motor Co wrote off its investment in Venezuela when it took an $800 million pre-tax writedown. The company said Thursday it was not producing vehicles in Venezuela.
The South American nation’s economic crisis has hurt many other U.S. companies, including food makers and pharmaceutical firms. A growing number are removing their Venezuelan operations from their consolidated accounts.
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