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Showtime to Air Stone Interviews With Vladimir Putin

Showtime cable network is presenting four hours of director Oliver Stone interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin on four consecutive nights in June.

The network announced Monday that “The Putin Interviews” will air first on June 12 at 9 p.m. Eastern, with three additional hour-long installments on the following nights. Showtime said Stone interviewed Putin more than a dozen times over the past two years, most recently in February.

 

Showtime is comparing the project to conversations held by British TV host David Frost and former U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1977.

 

Stone had also interviewed Putin for his documentary “Ukraine on Fire,” which was said to take a sympathetic view of Russia’s involvement in the conflict there.
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Fed Likely to Leave Rates Alone but Signals More Hikes Coming

With the U.S. economy on solid footing and unemployment at a near-decade low, the Federal Reserve remains in the midst of a campaign to gradually raise interest rates from ultra-lows. But this week, it’s all but sure to take a pause.

The Fed is widely expected to keep its key short-term rate unchanged after having raised it in March for the second time in three months. Most analysts foresee the Fed raising its key rate again at least twice more before year’s end, a testament to the durability of the U.S. economic recovery and a more stable global picture.

 

One reason for the Fed to stand pat this week is that even though the job market has shown steady strength, the economy itself is still growing in fits and starts. On Friday, the government estimated that the economy, as gauged by the gross domestic product, grew at a tepid 0.7 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter. It was the poorest quarterly performance in three years.

 

Though some temporary factors probably held back growth last quarter and may have overstated the weakness, the poor showing underscored that key pockets of the economy — consumer spending and manufacturing, for example — remain sluggish. On Monday, the government said U.S. consumer spending stalled in March for a second straight month. And the Institute for Supply Management reported a drop in factory activity.

 

“Given all the uncertainties they still face and especially with growth coming in so weak, the less the Fed says at this meeting, the better,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at DS Economics.

 

Most economists have expressed optimism that the economy is strengthening in the current April-June quarter, fueled by job growth, higher consumer confidence and stock-market records. Many think that annualized growth could accelerate to around 3 percent and that the Fed will feel more confident to resume raising rates at its June meeting.

 

“The Fed will probably say in their statement that they expect the economy to rebound in the second quarter,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University.

 

It isn’t just the Fed’s short-term rate — a benchmark for other borrowing costs throughout the economy — that will likely occupy attention at this week’s meeting. Officials will also likely discuss how and when to start paring their extraordinary large $4.5 trillion portfolio of Treasurys and mortgage bonds. The Fed amassed its portfolio — commonly called its balance sheet — in the years after the financial crisis erupted in 2008, when it bought long-term bonds to help keep mortgage and other borrowing rates low and support a frail economy. At the time, the Fed had already cut its short-term rate to a record low.

 

The balance sheet is now about five times its size before the financial crisis hit. The Fed stopped buying new bonds in 2014 but has kept its balance sheet high by reinvesting the proceeds of maturing bonds. The Fed’s thinking has been that reducing the balance sheet could send long-term rates up and work against its goals of fortifying the economy.

 

Now, as the Fed becomes more watchful about inflation pressures, the time is nearing when it will need to shrink its balance sheet, a process that could have the effect of raising some borrowing rates, at least modestly. The Fed jolted investors when it released the minutes of its March meeting, which showed that most officials thought that process “would likely be appropriate later this year.” This was sooner than many investors expected.

 

Could the Fed clarify its timetable for paring its balance sheet in the statement it will issue when its policy meeting ends Wednesday? It may decide against doing so, given that this meeting won’t be accompanied by a news conference with Chair Janet Yellen to explain any shifts in the Fed’s policy or thinking.

 

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the more likely signal the Fed could send is to reinforce the markets’ view that it intends to raise its short-term rate again next month.

 

“I expect two more rate hikes — one in June and then one in September,” Zandi said. “Then I expect the Fed to begin allowing its balance sheet to run off.”

 

Some Fed officials have suggested that they would prefer not to be raising the short-term rate at the same time that they are beginning to reduce their balance sheet. Giving investors too much to digest at once risks unsettling financial markets. In 2013, the Fed triggered a brief storm in bond markets when then-Chairman Ben Bernanke raised the possibility that the Fed would start tapering its bond purchases later that year, catching investors by surprise.

 

“They learned their lesson with the taper tantrum of 2013 that they need to give the markets plenty of warning of changes in their bond policies,” Sohn said.

 

Some analysts say they think the Fed will reveal nothing this week about its timetable for reducing its balance sheet, in part because the policy committee has yet to reach a consensus on when or how to do so.

 

“I have a feeling we are going to get much less information than we want,” Swonk said. “The Fed wants to move slowly, but they don’t have a consensus yet on how to proceed.”

 
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Thousands Take Part in World May Day Protests

Protesters in the United States and around the world have marked International Workers Day, May Day, with rallies and demonstrations that, from France to Turkey, turned violent Monday. VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports.
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5 Things to Know as Britain’s Princess Charlotte Turns 2

It’s nearly party time for Britain’s Princess Charlotte, who celebrates her 2nd birthday on Tuesday.

Her parents marked the occasion Monday by distributing a snapshot of Charlotte taken by her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. Here are five things to know about the family as the landmark nears:

Why haven’t we seen more of Princess Charlotte?

 

Prince William and his wife, Kate, want to protect their daughter’s privacy. It’s not surprising that Kate took the official photo to mark Charlotte’s second birthday on the protected grounds of the family’s country estate. The royal couple has tried to keep Charlotte mostly out of the limelight and away from the paparazzi that often follow senior royals at events in London. An important exception was an official trip to Canada in the fall. William and Kate brought Charlotte and her older brother, Prince George, on the trip and Charlotte even attended a children’s party.

 

What does the photo show? What impact will it have?

 

Don’t be surprised if there’s a run on fluffy yellow cardigans with cute sheep decorations in British stores catering to kids – that’s what Charlotte is wearing in the official photo. It’s possible the outfit was chosen by the clothes-conscious Kate, who snapped the photo. Earlier outfits worn by Prince George in public have become extremely popular with British consumers charmed by the young royals.

 

Charlotte looks very proper and very British, with her hair styled by a clip and her blue-grey eyes looking directly at the camera at the outdoors photo session in April.

 

What is the birthday girl’s full name?

 

She is officially named Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, in tribute to her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, and her great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. She is also known as Princess Charlotte of Cambridge.

 

What’s next for Charlotte and her family ?

 

The family is expected to spend more time in London and less in the countryside as William takes up more royal duties and Prince George, 3, prepares to start school in the fall. Their London base is at Kensington Palace.

 

Will she ever be queen?

 

Charlotte is fourth in line for the throne, behind Prince Charles (her grandfather), Prince William and Prince George.
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May Day Marked by Celebrations and Demonstrations

Monday is May Day, known worldwide as the day when workers and activists march in the streets and gather in city centers to honor laborers across the globe. 

The holiday is also known as International Workers Day and as Labor Day. 

Workers and union members in the Philippines celebrated May Day by marching in the streets of Manila, the capital. Workers’ rights groups and unions have also scheduled rallies across Manila. 

Indonesian workers took to the streets of Jakarta Monday. Thousands more workers are expected to join the rally later in the day. 

France’s presidential rivals — centrist front-runner Emanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen — will hold their own dueling rallies Monday. There will also be demonstrations against both candidates. 

In the U.S., May Day’s rallying point has shifted from workers to immigrants.Tens ofthousands of people are expected to mark the day from New York to Los Angeles to protest against President Donald Trump’s focus on boosting deportations.Organizations have called for immigrant strikes in some cities to show Americans what a day without immigrants would look like.

Cuba is facing its first May Day celebration without longtime President Fidel Castro, who died in November.Monday’s observance will also be the last May Day overseen by President Raul Castro, who has promised to step down from office in February. 

Hundreds of thousands of people traditionally celebrate May Day in Havana’s Revolution Square with Cuban flags and portraits of Fidel Castro.
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Macron’s Startup-style Campaign Upends French Expectations

Whether or not Emmanuel Macron wins the French presidency in next Sunday’s runoff, he has already accomplished the unthinkable.

 

That’s thanks to an unorthodox, American-style grassroots campaign, which has harvested ideas from the left and the right, tossed them with a dose of startup culture and business school acumen and produced a political phenomenon. Without a party to back him up or any experience stumping for votes, the 39-year-old Macron came out on top of the first round of the French presidential vote, winning over 8 million voters and overturning decades of French political expectations.

An inside look by The Associated Press at Macron’s campaign found a mix of high-tech savvy, political naivete and a jarring disconnect between his multilingual, well-traveled campaign team and a mass of ordinary voters who have never left France and fear being crushed by immigration and job losses.

 

“It’s not a done deal,” campaign spokeswoman Laurence Haim told The AP during a campaign trip Saturday, careful to insist that, despite polls naming Macron the election favorite, risks remain. “We are extremely cautious.”

 

The centrist Macron is facing off against far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in the presidential runoff.

 

Detractors dub Macron a bubble that, if elected, would deflate and self-destruct at the first national crisis. Le Pen labels him a puppet of the borderless financial and political elite at a time when many workers feel like globalization roadkill.

 

Le Pen’s campaign is unusual in its own ways. She has broadened her support base far beyond the xenophobic old guard associated with her National Front party when her father Jean-Marie was in charge. Today the people stumping for Le Pen votes at farmers’ markets and university campuses include the children of immigrants, academics, gays and former communists. She is also campaigning in her own name _ not that of her party, a clear bid to distance herself from its past stigma.

 

Macron’s team wants to puncture the heterogeneous image of Le Pen’s campaign, and paints her as a closed-minded nationalist with a dangerous populist vision.

 

“It’s a fight between two different kinds of societies, for France and for Europe,” Haim said. “We are going to show the French people – and hopefully the world – that we are fighting for something bigger than us.”

 

Feeling the ‘Trump effect’

Haim worked 25 years as a journalist in Washington before deciding to join politics in December – out of fear of seeing a French Donald Trump rise to power on a populist wave.

 

“Of course we feel the Trump effect,” Haim said. “The Marine Le Pen people watched very carefully what Donald Trump was doing.”

 

Since Macron won the first-round vote, Haim and other members of his team have been shuttling non-stop around France, from a factory in Macron’s northern hometown of Amiens to the site of a Nazi massacre to a farm in Usseau in central France. His campaign headquarters in southern Paris includes a nap room, though it’s used more for storing spare shoes than rest.

 

Macron’s team starts their day about 7 a.m. and goes until 1 a.m., huddling around laptops in a low-profile office building. A crucial part of the operation is the “riposte desk,” assigned with tracking Macron’s public statements and the social media reaction. For each hostile tweet, Macron’s team tries to counter.

 

National Front activists and their supporters have a head start here – they’ve been using social networks for years to build their following outside France’s traditional media.

Macron’s team is increasingly cautious about language, avoiding English words in public statements or anything that smacks of elitism. That’s especially important because his campaign team is exceptionally international – more than half have lived abroad, unlike most French voters.

 

Le Pen is much better at speaking the language of the people, yet her headquarters is on one of Paris’ most elite streets – the same one as the presidential Elysee Palace. In contrast to Macron’s campaign, she never envisions losing, saying “When I am president,” not

“if.”

 

For both campaigns, security is increasingly important, especially since an Islamic State-claimed attack in Paris earlier this month. With sniffer dogs, patdowns and layers of bodyguards, it’s tougher to enter a campaign event for either candidate now than it was to follow Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2012 – and he was president at the time.

 

With concerns about Russian meddling a running theme in the French race, three key figures in Macron’s security team are Russian-speakers – his cybersecurity chief, his towering bodyguard and his security strategist.

 

The campaign team also includes a large number of political novices, coming from technical, financial or cultural backgrounds, and their campaign inexperience sometimes shows. Macron is trying to learn from recent electoral blows, such as when Le Pen upstaged him last week at a Whirlpool factory in Amiens that is threatened with closure.

 

Macron “is trying to understand what is happening to French society,” Haim said.

 

On Saturday, Macron snaked slowly through the open-air market of Poitiers, absorbing a string of complaints from farmers about European aid and competition. Macron remained somewhat stiff but patient, listening to lengthy laments then laying out his plans. He made no generous promises but defended his vision of a simplified yet stringent state and a unified Europe.

 

When a baker refused to shake Macron’s hand, he took it in stride, moving on to a flower seller happy to seek his autograph.

 

His staffers buzzed around taking names of his interlocutors, and minutes later in Macron’s convoy afterward, they shared lessons learned on the rough road of political life. They’ve come a long way since a year ago, when Macron launched a vague political movement.

 

“Everybody was telling him it’s going to be impossible, you’re crazy. It could not happen in France,” Haim said. “He looked at them and said, ‘Trust me, I’m going to do it.’”

 

And a year later, thanks in large part to a series of electoral surprises that hurt his rivals, Macron won the first round vote and is now a step away from the French presidency.
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Italy’s Renzi Easily Wins Democratic Party Primary

Former premier Matteo Renzi regained the Democratic Party leadership, handily winning a Sunday primary that he hopes will bolster the center-left’s ability to counter growing support for populist politicians in Italy ahead of national elections.

“Forward, together,” Renzi tweeted, invigorated by his comeback after a stinging defeat in a December reforms referendum aimed in part at streamlining the legislative process led him to resign as head of Italy’s government and as leader of his squabbling party.

 

“The alternative to populism isn’t the elite,” Renzi told supports late Sunday after unofficial results indicated he got more than 70 percent of votes cast nationwide. “It’s people who aren’t afraid of democracy.”

 

Some politicians predicted that the primary win would embolden Renzi to maneuver seeking to bring national elections ahead of their spring 2018 due date as part of his effort to rein in increasing popularity for the populist, anti-euro 5-Star Movement.

 

But a top Renzi ally sought to counter that idea.

 

“The government’s horizon is 2018. Starting tomorrow, we’ll work with Premier [Paolo] Gentiloni. Gentiloni’s government is our government,” said Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina.

 

Renzi’s party is still the main force in Italy’s center-left coalition government, but opinion polls indicate it is no longer the country’ most popular. Overtaking the Democrats in recent soundings was the 5-Star Movement, whose leader, comic Beppe Grillo, wants a crackdown on migrants, rails against European Union-mandated austerity and opposes Italy belonging to the euro single currency group.

 

Throughout the day, some 2 million voters lined up at makeshift gazebos in piazzas and street corners, at ice cream parlors, cafes or local party headquarters around the country to cast ballots for a new head of the splintering Democratic Party, whose rank-and-file range from former Communists to former Christian Democrats.

 

Primary voting was open to anyone 16 years of age of older – the oldest voter was reported to be 105. Holding Democratic Party membership wasn’t a requirement.

 

Trailing far behind in the votes were Justice Minister Andrea Orlando and Puglia region Governor Michele Emiliano.

 

In addition to countering the challenge of 5-Star’s popularity, to regain Italy’s premiership, Renzi will have to contend with malcontents and defectors in his own party. A group of mostly former Communists split from the Democrats and formed a small, new party in resentment over both Renzi’s centrist leanings and his authoritarian style.

 

Renzi’s reputation in politics is one of ruthlessness. In early 2014, he promised then-premier and fellow Democrat Enrico Letta that he wouldn’t undermine the government, only to shortly afterward engineer Letta’s downfall. Renzi then became premier.

 

Italian President Sergio Mattarella recently insisted that electoral laws must be overhauled before new elections. Currently, there is one set of electoral rules for the lower Chamber of Deputies and a completely different one for the Senate, a consequence of the failed reform referendum.
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French Forces Kill 20 Militants in Mali

French forces said Sunday they killed more than 20 militants in Mali near the border with Burkina Faso.

French military officials and witnesses say the attack came from the air and on the ground in a forest in the Sahel region.

More than 3,500 French soldiers are spread out across Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger combating Islamist extremists.

Mali has extended a state of emergency for another six months as it tries to stave off an al-Qaida-linked insurgency in the north, and extremists launching attacks from Burkina Faso in the south.
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Merkel’s Conservatives Widen Lead 5 Months Before German Vote

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats have opened a seven-point lead over the center-left Social Democrats five months ahead of the Sept. 24 election, according to a poll on Sunday in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

The Emnid institute survey found the Christian Democrats and their Christian Social Union allies winning 36 percent of the vote if the election were held on Sunday, unchanged from a similar Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag taken a week ago.

But the Social Democrats (SPD), led by their chancellor candidate Martin Schulz, continued to slide and lost two percentage points in the week to 29 percent. The CDU/CSU long held a comfortable lead in polls until Schulz was nominated in early 2017 and lifted the SPD to the same levels as the CDU/CSU.

The latest poll, taken just one week before an important state election in Schleswig-Holstein, also showed the CDU/CSU’s preferred coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), rising one point to 6 percent in the last week.

The center-right alliance would still be well short of winning a majority in parliament with 42 percent.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would win 9 percent, unchanged over the week. All parties have said they will not join forces with the AfD, making it more difficult to form the next government.

The SPD’s preferred partner, the Greens, rose 1 point to 7 percent in the last week. The far-left Linke party would win an unchanged 9 percent, according to the latest Emnid poll. The so-called “red-red-green” alliance of SPD, Linke and Greens would also fall short of a majority with 45 percent.

The CDU/CSU and SPD currently lead Germany in a grand coalition government. Both parties have said they do not want to continue that arrangement after the Sept. 24 election.
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FIFA Official Sheikh Ahmad Resigning Amid Bribery Claims

FIFA Council member Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahad al-Sabah of Kuwait is resigning from his soccer roles under pressure from allegations in an American federal court that he bribed Asian officials.

Sheikh Ahmad said Sunday in a statement he will withdraw from a May 8 election in Bahrain for the FIFA seat representing Asia, which he currently holds.

“I do not want these allegations to create divisions or distract attention from the upcoming AFC [Asian Football Confederation] and FIFA Congresses,” said the Kuwaiti royal, who denies any wrongdoing.

“Therefore, after careful consideration, I have decided it is in the best interests of FIFA and the AFC, for me to withdraw my candidacy for the FIFA Council and resign from my current football positions,” he said.

The long-time Olympic Council of Asia president contacted the ethics panels of FIFA and the IOC after the allegations were made in Brooklyn federal courthouse on Thursday.

FIFA audit committee member Richard Lai, an American citizen from Guam, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges related to taking around $1 million in bribes, including from Kuwaiti officials. The cash was to buy influence and help recruit other Asian soccer officials prepared to take bribes, Lai said in court.

Sheikh Ahmad resigned his candidacy ahead of a FIFA panel deciding whether to remove him on ethical grounds.

The FIFA Review Committee, which rules on the integrity of people seeking senior FIFA positions, has been studying the sheikh’s candidacy since the allegations emerged, The Associated Press reported on Saturday.

The FIFA ethics committee is making a separate assessment of whether to provisionally suspend the sheikh, a long-time leader of Kuwait’s soccer federation who was elected to FIFA’s ruling committee in 2015.

Resigning from his soccer positions does not necessarily put Sheikh Ahmad out of reach of FIFA ethics prosecutors and judges if any action was taken.

In 2012, former FIFA presidential candidate Mohamed bin Hammam of Qatar was banned for life by the ethics committee days after he resigned.

Bin Hammam was also clearly identified in Lai’s court hearing for having paid Lai a total of $100,000 in bribes to support the Qatari’s failed challenge to FIFA’s then-president Sepp Blatter in 2011. Bin Hammam was removed from that election contest in a Caribbean bribery case.

Sheikh Ahmad has also contacted the IOC’s ethics commission about the allegations against him, the IOC said on Saturday.

As president since 2012 of the global group of national Olympic bodies, known as ANOC, Sheikh Ahmad’s support has often been cited as key to winning Olympic election and hosting awards. The sheikh was widely credited for helping Thomas Bach win the IOC presidency in 2013.

Although Sheikh Ahmad was not named in Department of Justice and court documents last week, he has become one of the most significant casualties of the sprawling U.S. federal investigation of bribery and corruption in international soccer revealed two years ago.

The sheikh could be identified in a transcript of Lai’s court hearing which said “co-conspirator [hash]2 was also the president of Olympic Council of Asia.” Sheikh Ahmad has been OCA president since 1991.

Co-conspirator #3 was described as having a “high-ranking” role at OCA, and also linked to the Kuwait soccer federation.

According to the published transcript, Lai claimed he “received at least $770,000 in wire transfers from accounts associated with Co-Conspirator [hash]3 and the OCA between November of 2009 and about the fall of 2014.”

“I understood that the source of this money was ultimately Co-Conspirator #2 and on some occasion Co-Conspirator #3 told me to send him an email saying that I need funds so he could show the email to Co-Conspirator #2,” Lai said in court.

Lai admitted that he agreed to help recruit other Asian officials that voted in FIFA elections who would help Kuwait’s interests.

The Guam soccer federation leader since 2001, Lai pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges and failing to disclose foreign bank accounts. He agreed to pay more than $1.1 million in forfeiture and penalties, and will be sentenced at a later date.

The American federal investigation of corruption linked to FIFA has indicted or taken guilty pleas from more than 40 people and marketing agencies linked to soccer in the Americas since 2015.

Lai’s case marked the first major step into Asia, and suggests other soccer officials potentially recruited by the Kuwait faction could be targeted.

The Asian election for FIFA seats on May 8 in Manama, Bahrain, is the same day as a FIFA Council meeting which the sheik will not attend. The FIFA congress is held in the city three days later.
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Pope Calls for End to Violence, Respect for Human Rights, in Venezuela

Pope Francis called on Sunday for the respect of human rights and an end to violence in Venezuela, where nearly 30 people were killed in unrest this month.

Francis, speaking to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly address, decried a “grave humanitarian, social , political and economic crisis that is exhausting the population”.

Venezuela’s opposition is demanding elections, autonomy for the legislature where they have a majority, a humanitarian aid channel from abroad to alleviate an economic crisis, and freedom for more than 100 activists jailed by President Nicolas Maduro’s government.

“I make a heartfelt appeal to the government and all components of Venezuelan society to avoid any more forms of violence, respect human rights and seek a negotiated solution …,” he said.

Supporters say Leopoldo Lopez, the jailed head of the hardline opposition Popular Will party, and others are political prisoners whose arrests symbolize Maduro’s lurch into dictatorship.

Maduro says all are behind bars for legitimate crimes, and calls Lopez, 45, a violent hothead intent on promoting a coup.

Vatican-led talks between the government and the opposition have broken down.

Francis told reporters on the plane returning from Cairo on Saturday that “very clear conditions” were necessary for the talks to resume.
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Refugees Turn Skills From Home into New Business

Once they acclimate to their new environment, overcoming language, social and cultural barriers, refugees in the U.S. often thrive. Some translate their experiences into assets that are valuable to their new community, as did Parvin and Yadollah Jamalreza. VOA’s June Soh visited their popular tailoring shop in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Growth Slows in April in China’s Manufacturing Sector

Growth in China’s manufacturing sector slowed in April, official data showed Sunday, pointing to an unsteady recovery in the world’s second-largest economy. 

 

The monthly purchasing managers’ index by the Chinese Federation of Logistics and Purchasing fell to 51.2 in April, lower than the 51.8 recorded in March. 

 

The index is based on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 indicate expansion.

 

National Bureau of Statistics statistician Zhao Qinghe said in the release that April’s figure was affected by sluggish growth in market demand and supply, and slower expansion in imports and exports.

 

April’s index still represented a ninth consecutive month of expansion. 

 

China saw its slowest growth in nearly three decades in 2016. China’s huge manufacturing sector is seen as an important indicator for the wider Chinese economy. It has cooled gradually over the past six years as Beijing tries to pivot it away from heavy reliance on export-based manufacturing and investment toward consumer spending.

 

The official full-year economic growth target for 2017 is 6.5 percent. 
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Turkey Fires Nearly 4,000 from Civil Service, Military, Gendarmerie

Turkey has dismissed nearly 4,000 people from its civil service, military, and gendarmerie, in what appears to be a purge related to last year’s attempted coup.

Turkey announced the move on Saturday, saying in the government’s Official Gazette that those let go include 1,127 employees of the justice ministry, made up of prison guards, academics and religious affairs ministry employees.

It appears to be one of the largest such purges since the coup attempt last July.

Since that time some 120,000 people have been suspended from their jobs in civil service and the private sector, and more than 40,000 people were arrested.

Also Saturday, Turkey announced it has banned television dating programs, and access to the Wikipedia online research tool. Ankara says Wikipedia has suggested Turkey is cooperating with terror groups.
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Russians Protest Potential Putin Presidential Bid

The Russian opposition movement founded by exiled Kremlin critic and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky protested President Vladimir Putin in 32 cities Saturday, despite the fact that authorities have banned the movement and declared it illegal, and police have raided its Moscow offices.

The main rally in Moscow had a few hundred protesters gathering in a park before moving to an administrative building nearby, where they submitted a letter urging Putin not to run for a fourth term in 2018.

In St. Petersburg, though, police arrested a few dozen protesters after about 200 of them gathered for an unsanctioned demonstration.

The demonstrations Saturday come on the heels of a large protest in March – the largest unauthorized rally in recent years – that saw more than 1,000 people arrested, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russian authorities have not simply warned opposition group Open Russia not to conduct any activities, but have blacklisted the group.  

The Russian prosecutor general’s office Wednesday declared Open Russia and two other groups founded by Khodorkovsky to be “undesirable” organizations.  The three organizations are the U.K.-registered Open Russia, the U.S.-based Institute of Modern Russia, and a social movement that also uses the Open Russia name.  

The “undesirable” designation bans them from operating inside Russia, with any violation punishable by fines and jail time.  

Police raided the group’s offices in Moscow Friday, prior to Saturday’s protest.

Maria Galitskaya, a spokeswoman for Open Russia told VOA she thinks the raid was politically motivated.

“One [of the police officers] started breaking open the doors of the rooms and desk drawers, though there was nothing illegitimate in the office,” she said.  “It is difficult to talk about the real reasons of the search but we connect that with tomorrow’s action and think that this is an effort at intimidation.”

 
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Pope Francis Delivers Message of Peace During Egypt Visit

Pope Francis concluded a 27 hour visit to Egypt Saturday, after delivering mass to a crowd of 25,000 Catholics and visiting a seminary. Preaching a message of “peace,” the pontiff tried to reach out to both Christians and Muslims, denouncing those who preach violence in the name of God.

Pope Francis said mass in Latin to a vast throng of worshipers gathered at Egypt’s Air Force Stadium Saturday, amid strict security. Egyptian media reported that 25,000 Catholic Christians from six branches of the church attended the mass, amid a festive atmosphere.

A choir of Armenian Catholics took its turn to sing during the Saturday mass, as Pope Francis made an effort to embrace Catholics from the different branches of his own church. Other choirs sang in Arabic and Latin.

Patriarch Ibrahim Ishaq, head of the Catholic branch of the Coptic Church, summed up the papal visit, saying that it was taking place under the banner of “the Pope of peace in the land of peace. Egypt,” he stressed, “is the cradle of religions and will remain a land of peace.”

Pope Francis spent the first day of his visit, Friday, meeting with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar University, at an interfaith dialogue conference, before visiting the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Tawadros, to express his condolences over the Palm Sunday suicide attacks at Coptic churches in Alexandria and the Nile Delta town of Tanta.

The pontiff told Muslim and Christian leaders at Friday’s dialogue meeting that “we must learn from the past that violence breeds more violence and evil only begets evil.” Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed Tayeb, who presided over the conference with Pope Francis, decried what he called the “unprecedented barbarity of the 21st Century, despite all the talk of human rights.” Both leaders embraced each other warmly after addressing the crowd.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sissi, who also attended the gathering, insisted that “Egypt is at the forefront of those countries fighting terrorism,” and urged the international community to “sanction countries which finance terrorism and help to recruit terrorists.”

Tourism Minister Yehia Rashed told Egyptian media that he thinks that Pope Francis’ visit demonstrates to the world that Egypt is a “safe and hospitable place” to visit.

He says that Egypt is not only the “cradle of civilizations,” but also has a major role in delivering a message of peace to the world.

Pope Francis’ final stop before heading to the airport was a visit to a seminary in the Cairo suburb of Ma’adi, where he appealed to clergy from different Christian sects to “accept the differences among us,” in the same way that we “admire the different virtues of Saint Peter and of Saint Paul.”
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IT Workers, Companies Cautious on H1B Visa Program Review

During a recent visit to Wisconsin, President Donald Trump announced he was signing an Executive Order reviewing the visa program that brings many technical workers to the United States, known as the H1B visa. About 85,000 workers come to the United States annually using an H1B visa. More from VOA’s Kane Farabaugh
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Бізнес, Новини, Фінанси

On 100th Day in Office, Trump to Focus on Trade

President Donald Trump will spend his 100th day in office talking tough on trade in one of the states that delivered his unlikely win.

 

The president is expected to sign an executive order Saturday that will direct his Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative to perform a comprehensive study of the nation’s trade agreements to determine whether America is being treated fairly by its trading partners and the 164-nation World Trade Organization.

It’s one of two executive orders the president will sign at a shovel factory in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland County, the kind of place that propelled his surprise victory.

Rally in Pennsylvania 

The last week has been a frenzy of activity at the White House as Trump and his team have tried to rack up accomplishments and make good on campaign promises before reaching the symbolic 100-day mark. In addition to the visit to the Ames tool factory, which has been manufacturing shovels since 1774, the president will hold one of his signature campaign rallies in Harrisburg to cap the occasion.

 

It’s a return to fundamentals for a president who has, in recent days, sounded wistful reflecting on his term so far.

 

Earlier this week, Trump announced his intention to work to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also said he would begin renegotiating a free trade deal with South Korea, with which the U.S. has a significant trade deficit.

Trade discussed every day

 

“There isn’t a day that goes by that the president doesn’t discuss some aspect of trade,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at the White House Friday.

 

The executive orders signed Saturday will mark Trump’s 31st and 32nd since taking office, the most of any president in his first 100 days since World War II. It’s a jarring disconnect from Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign, when he railed against his predecessor’s use of the tool, which has the benefit of not needing congressional sign-off.

The more significant of the two orders will give the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative 180 days to identify violations and abuses under the country’s trade agreements and recommend solutions.

World Trade Organization outdated 

Ross said the WTO, the Geneva-based arbiter of world trade rules, is bureaucratic and outdated and needs an overhaul. Ross downplayed the possibility that the United States would consider leaving the organization but didn’t rule it out. 

“As any multilateral organization, there’s always the potential for modifying the rules,” he said.

 

The administration argues that unfair competition with China and other trade partners has wiped out millions of U.S. factory jobs. Ross said dissatisfaction with trade policy is one reason voters turned to Trump.

 

“They’re fed up with having their jobs go offshore. They’re fed up with some of the destructive practices,” he said. “So in effect, the country said in this last election: It’s about time to fix these things. And the president heard that message.”

 

Trump, who campaigned on a vow to crack down on China and other trading partners, has announced several other moves on trade in recent weeks. He ordered the Commerce Department to study the causes of the United States’ massive trade deficit in goods, $734 billion last year, $347 billion with China alone. The administration is also imposing duties on Canadian softwood timber and is investigating whether steel and aluminum imports pose a threat to national security.

 

Ross said Friday that the WTO is too narrowly focused on limiting traditional tariffs — taxes on imports — and does little to counter less conventional barriers to trade or to police violations of intellectual property rights.

 

Trump has pushed a model of “reciprocal trade” agreements in which the U.S. would raise or lower tariffs on a country’s imports depending on how that country treats the U.S.
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ЄС, Новини, Світ

Macedonian Politicians Turn Parliament Violence in War of Words

Macedonia’s rival parties are trading blame for violence in parliament, while world powers are giving opposing reactions to the events.

The European Union and the United States condemned Thursday’s attack, in which protesters stormed the Macedonian parliament in Skopje, attacking opposition lawmakers after they elected an ethnic Albanian speaker.

Russia blamed the events on the West, saying it had meddled in the Balkan nation’s internal affairs.

Pointing fingers

In Macedonia, the previous night’s violence turned into a war of words between rival politicians on Friday.

Zoran Zaev, the head of the opposition Social Democrats, who were targeted in the attack, accused the attackers of attempted murder.

Former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, whose supporters were among the mob that stormed the parliament, said he deplored the violence, but he accused the opposition of instigating it with an attempted power grab.

Interior Minister Agim Nuhiu announced his resignation Friday over the night’s events. He told reporters that 10 lawmakers and an unspecified number of journalists were among those hurt.

The interior ministry said 102 people were treated at city hospitals.

Speaker election

The violence began Thursday after lawmakers from the Social Democrats and ethnic Albanian parties elected former Defense Minister Talat Xhaferi speaker, even though the country has no functioning government.

Demonstrators stormed the parliament and began throwing chairs and attacking opposition lawmakers.

Demonstrators blocked the door of the chamber, refusing to let lawmakers leave as demonstrators waved flags in lawmakers’ faces and shouted “traitors.” Police outside the building fired stun grenades to break up the crowd.

 

 

Zaev’s Social Democrats and the ethnic Albanians would have enough seats to form a coalition government, but President Gjorge Ivanov has refused to give him a mandate.

The conservatives won December’s parliamentary election, but without enough seats to form a government. Coalition talks with other parties collapsed over ethnic Albanian demands to make Albanian an official language.

International reaction

The United States condemned Thursday’s violence “in the strongest terms.” In a statement posted on its State Department website, the U.S. Embassy in Skopje said the violence “is not consistent with democracy and is not an acceptable way to resolve differences.”

The U.S. called on all parties to “refrain from violent actions which exacerbate the situation.”

The European Union also condemned Thursday’s violence. 

“I condemn the attacks on MPs in Skopje in the strongest terms. Violence has no place in parliament,” enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn said. “Democracy must run its course.”

However, Russia blamed the events on the West, saying the Macedonian opposition had “foreign patrons.”

A Foreign Ministry statement said Xhaferi’s election was an “unceremonious manipulation of the will of citizens” and said EU and U.S. representatives were quick to recognize the speaker, indicating the vote was planned in advance.

The United Nations said in a statement by the U.N. secretary-general’s spokesman that it is “following developments unfolding in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia with great concern and call for restraint and calm. Violence directed at democratic institutions and elected representatives of the people is unacceptable.”

Macedonia has a Slavic majority, but about a third of the population is ethnic Albanian. The Balkan country aspires to join the European Union and NATO.
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ЄС, Новини, Світ

French National Front Has Third Leader in One Week

France’s far-right National Front, the party of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, has replaced its leader for the second time in three days.

Jean-Francois Jalkh, who was named interim president of the party on Tuesday after Le Pen stepped down, was forced to vacate the office in response to allegations he praised a Holocaust denier. He also expressed doubts about the reality of Nazi gas chambers, which killed millions of Jews during World War II.

Jalkh is being replaced by Steeve Briois. Each has served as one of the party’s five vice presidents.

Another party vice president, Louis Aliot — Marine Le Pen’s partner — told reporters that Briois would take over the interim leadership and “there’ll be no more talk about it.”

It is a blow to the campaign of Le Pen, who had a better-than-expected showing in French elections on Sunday and faces a runoff with centrist rival Emmanuel Macron on May 7.

Le Pen raised controversy earlier in the campaign by saying France was not responsible for the roundup and demise of thousands of Parisian Jews during World War II.

Ironically, she expelled her father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, from the party in 2015 because he referred to the Holocaust as a “detail of history.”

Macron is expected to win the May 7 runoff, but experts say an unexpected voter turnout could rock the results to one side or the other.
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ЄС, Новини, Світ

Medvedev’s Popularity Sinks Amid May Day Politics in Russia

The independent Russian television channel Dozhd (Rain) reported Friday that the central executive committee of the country’s ruling party, United Russia, had distributed to its regional branches a list of 36 slogans that party activists should use during party activities next week marking the annual May Day holiday.

While, according to Dozhd, the slogans include some praising the country’s president (“Putin is for the People, He is Leading Russia to Success!”) and others condemning corruption (“Praise Honesty, Jail Bribe-takers!”), none of them refers to the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, who happens to be United Russia’s formal head.

 

The likely reason for that omission is not hard to figure out: Medvedev has seen his popularity drop sharply since early March, when anti-corruption blogger and opposition leader Alexei Navalny published a video investigation into the prime minister’s alleged wealth. It offered viewers shots of yachts, villas, and even a winery in a picturesque Italian village, all allegedly belonging to Medvedev.

A survey released Thursday by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent national polling agency, found that Medvedev’s “trust” rating had fallen to a record low since Navalny’s video was posted and viewed more than 20 million times.

Bloomberg News, citing two Medvedev “allies,” reported this week that he “is more worried than ever about his political future.”

The news agency quoted President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, as brushing aside the drop in Medvedev’s approval, saying “ratings go up and down, that’s a normal process.”

Still, Peskov declined to say whether the prime minister still “enjoys Putin’s full trust,” Bloomberg reported.

The prime minister has become a lightning rod for Russian anger over official malfeasance. On March 26, an estimated 60,000 people answered Navalny’s call and took to the streets in more than 80 Russian cities to protest corruption. Many protesters mocked Medvedev’s taste for expensive athletic shoes by hanging sneakers on street lamps.

Medvedev finally responded to Navalny’s video in early April. He claimed, among other things, that the allegations of corruption cited in the video were based on “nonsense” about “acquaintances and people that I have never even heard of.” He also obliquely referred to Navalny as “a political opportunist” who is trying to seize power.

Meanwhile, another Levada poll published this week found that 45 percent of respondents would like to see Medvedev dismissed as prime minister, up sharply from the 33 percent who felt that way last November.

Medvedev’s press secretary, Natalya Timakova, a former Kremlin pool reporter, called the Levada poll a “political hit job.”
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Бізнес, Новини, Фінанси

Trump Signs Order Opening Arctic for Oil Drilling

President Donald Trump is re-opening for oil exploration areas that President Barack Obama had closed, a move that environmental groups have promised to fight.

In an executive order Friday, the president reversed the Obama administration’s decision to prohibit oil and gas drilling in the Arctic waters off Alaska.

The order also instructs the Interior Department to review current restrictions on energy development in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. In addition, it bars the creation or expansion of marine sanctuaries and orders a review of all areas protected within the last 10 years.

Trump cites advantages

The White House says 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are buried off the U.S. coastline, but 94 percent of the area is off limits.

“Renewed offshore energy production will reduce the cost of energy, create countless new jobs and make America more secure and far more energy independent,” Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House.

The action is the latest from the Trump administration aimed at boosting domestic energy production and loosening environmental regulations.

In his first 100 days, Trump has relaxed coal mine pollution rules and ordered a review of vehicle efficiency standards and power plant greenhouse gas rules. His administration has stopped defending Obama-era pollution regulations challenged in court.

The energy industry has cheered the moves. Environmental groups have promised strong opposition.

Fragile ecosystems

Conservationists have long opposed oil drilling in the Arctic. A spill would devastate the region’s fragile ecosystems, they say, while extreme conditions raise the risks of a spill and make cleanup harder.

Fishing and tourism on the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico would suffer from an accident, too, environmentalists note.

“By his actions today, President Trump has sent a clear message that he prioritizes the oil and gas industry over the needs of working Americans in our coastal communities who depend on healthy fishing and tourism economies for their livelihoods,” Environmental Defense Fund Vice President Elizabeth Thompson said in a statement.

Reviewing and rewriting the current offshore drilling plans are expected to take several years. Environmental groups plan legal challenges to the changes.

 
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Бізнес, Новини, Фінанси

US Economy Grows at Disappointing 0.7% in First Quarter

The latest economic data indicate the U.S. economy is growing at the slowest rate in three years. The GDP or gross domestic product, the broadest measure of all goods and services produced in the country, increased at a disappointing 0.7 percent annual rate, according to new government estimates released Friday.  That’s the weakest performance since 2014, as consumer spending stayed flat and business inventories remained small.  

Analysts say that’s bound to be a disappointment to U.S. President Donald Trump who predicted strong economic growth on day one, once he took over the White House. 

“Remember candidate Trump talked about GDP of about 5 percent and paraphrasing, perhaps something much, much stronger,” said Bankrate.com senior analyst Mark Hamrick. 

“Most economists believe the track for the U.S. economy for the intermediate future is going to be very familiar to what has been seen over the last number of years, and that’s somewhere between one and probably 2.5 percent on an annual basis.”

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter of 2016.  But economists say first quarter estimates tend to be notoriously low for a number of reasons.  

“In some years it’s been because of bad weather that kept people in their homes, keeping them from purchasing things but it’s also believed to be somewhat flawed statistically — meaning that what’s actually happening in the economy isn’t being perfectly captured by government statistics,” Hamrick tells VOA.  “It ends up being an estimate and most of them are not perfect”.

Most economists say the first quarter estimate should not be seen as a true measure of U.S. economic health. 

Other indicators suggest a more positive outlook. The U.S. unemployment rate is near a 10-year low at 4.5 percent, consumer and business sentiment are rising and major U.S. stock indexes are near record highs.
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Бізнес, Новини, Фінанси

Apple Cuts Off Payments, Qualcomm Slashes Expectations

Qualcomm slashed its profit expectations Friday by as much as a third after saying that Apple is refusing to pay royalties on technology used in the iPhone.

Its shares hit a low for 2017.

Apple Inc. sued Qualcomm earlier this year, saying that the San Diego chipmaker has abused its control over essential technology and charged excessive licensing fees. Qualcomm said Friday that Apple now says it won’t pay any fees until the dispute is resolved. Apple confirmed Friday that it has suspended payments until the court can determine what is owed.

“We’ve been trying to reach a licensing agreement with Qualcomm for more than five years but they have refused to negotiate fair terms,” Apple said. “As we’ve said before, Qualcomm’s demands are unreasonable and they have been charging higher rates based on our innovation, not their own.”

Qualcomm said it will continue to vigorously defend itself in order to “receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”

But the effect on Qualcomm, whose shares have already slid 15 percent since the lawsuit was filed by Apple in January, was immediate.

Qualcomm now expects earnings per share between 75 and 85 cents for the April to June quarter. Its previous forecast was for earnings per share between 90 cents and $1.15.

Revenue is now expected to be between $4.8 billion and $5.6 billion, down from its previous forecast between $5.3 billion and $6.1 billion.

Shares of Qualcomm Inc. tumbled almost 4 percent at the opening bell to $51.22.
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Russia-West, Syria Tensions Exposed at Moscow Security Conference

Tensions between Russia and the West over security in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have surfaced at an annual defense conference in Moscow. Major flashpoints include the situation in Syria and NATO expansion. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Moscow.
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EU Launches Legal Action Against Hungary, Warns Freedom Under Threat

The European Union says it is taking legal action against Hungary over a new law that could force the closure of a foreign-owned university. Budapest’s Central European University was founded by billionaire George Soros after the fall of Communism. Henry Ridgwell reports Hungary’s government wants to impose tough new conditions on its continued operation, prompting street protests in the capital.
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Бізнес, Новини, Фінанси

Federal Court: Women Can Be Paid Less Based on Past Salary

Employers can legally pay women less than men for the same work based on differences in the workers’ previous salaries, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower-court ruling that said pay differences based exclusively on prior salaries were discriminatory under the federal Equal Pay Act.

That’s because women’s earlier salaries are likely to be lower than men’s because of gender bias, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Seng said in a 2015 decision.

1982 law cited

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit cited a 1982 ruling by the court that said employers could use previous salary information as long as they applied it reasonably and had a business policy that justified it.

“This decision is a step in the wrong direction if we’re trying to really ensure that women have work opportunities of equal pay,” said Deborah Rhode, who teaches gender equity law at Stanford Law School. “You can’t allow prior discriminatory salary setting to justify future ones or you perpetuate the discrimination.”

Activists held rallies around the country earlier this month on Equal Pay Day to highlight the wage gap between men and women. Women made about 80 cents for every dollar men earned in 2015, according to U.S. government data.

The 9th Circuit ruling came in a lawsuit by a California school employee, Aileen Rizo, who learned in 2012 while having lunch with her colleagues that her male counterparts were making more than she was.

Attorney: Logic hard to accept

Her lawyer, Dan Siegel, said he had not yet decided the next step, but he could see the case going to the U.S. Supreme Court because other appeals courts have decided differently.

“The logic of the decision is hard to accept,” he said. “You’re OK’ing a system that perpetuates the inequity in compensation for women.”

Fresno County public schools hired Rizo as a math consultant in 2009 for $63,000 a year. The county had a standard policy that added 5 percent to her previous pay as a middle school math teacher in Arizona. But that was not enough to meet the minimum salary for her position, so the county bumped her up.

Equal Pay Act of 1963

The Equal Pay Act, signed into law by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, forbids employers from paying women less than men based on sex for equal work performed under similar working conditions. But it creates exemptions when pay is based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of work or “any other factor other than sex.”

The county argued that basing starting salaries primarily on previous pay prevents subjective determinations of a new employee’s value. The 5 percent bump encourages candidates to leave their positions to work for the county, it said.

The 9th Circuit sent the case back to Seng to consider that and other justifications the county provided for using previous salaries.
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Trump to Sign Order Aimed at Expanding Offshore Drilling

Working to dismantle his predecessor’s environmental legacy, President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Friday that could lead to the expansion of drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.

With one day before he reaches his 100th day in office, Trump will order his interior secretary to review an Obama-era plan that dictates which locations are open to offshore drilling, with the goal of the new administration to expand operations.

It’s part of Trump’s promise to unleash the nation’s energy reserves in an effort to reduce reliance on foreign oil and to spur jobs, regardless of fierce opposition from environmental activists, who say offshore drilling harms whales, walruses and other wildlife and exacerbates global warming.

Zinke: Safeguards remain

“This order will cement our nation’s position as a global energy leader and foster energy security for the benefit of American people, without removing any of the stringent environmental safeguards that are currently in place,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told reporters at a White House briefing Thursday evening.

Zinke said the order, combined with other steps Trump has taken during his first months in office, “puts us on track for American energy independence.”

The executive order will reverse part of a December effort by President Barack Obama to deem the bulk of U.S.-owned waters in the Arctic Ocean and certain areas in the Atlantic as indefinitely off limits to oil and gas leasing.

It will also direct Zinke to conduct a review of the locations available for offshore drilling under a five-year plan signed by Obama in November. The plan blocked new oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It also blocked the planned sale of new oil and gas drilling rights in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska, but allowed drilling to go forward in Alaska’s Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage.

The order could open to oil and gas exploration areas off Virginia and North and South Carolina, where drilling has been blocked for decades.

Zinke said that leases scheduled under the existing plan will remain in effect during the review, which he estimated will take several years.

Monuments, sanctuaries under review

The order will also direct Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to conduct a review of marine monuments and sanctuaries designated over the last 10 years.

Citing his department’s data, Zinke said the Interior Department oversees some 1.7 billion acres on the outer continental shelf, which contains an estimated 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas. Under current restrictions, about 94 percent of that outer continental shelf is off-limits to drilling.

Zinke, who will also be tasked with reviewing other drilling restrictions, acknowledged environmental concerns as valid, but he argued that the benefits of drilling outweigh concerns.

Environmentalists protest

Environmental activists, meanwhile, railed against the expected signing, which comes seven years after the devastating 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Diana Best of Greenpeace said that opening new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling would lock the U.S. “into decades of harmful pollution, devastating spills like the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and a fossil fuel economy with no future.

“Scientific consensus is that the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves — including the oil and gas off U.S. coasts — must remain undeveloped if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” she said.

Jacqueline Savitz of the ocean advocacy group Oceana warned the order would lead to “corner-cutting and set us up for another havoc-wreaking environmental disaster” in places like the Outer Banks or in remote Barrow, Alaska, “where there’s no proven way to remove oil from sea ice.”

“We need smart, tough standards to ensure that energy companies are not operating out of control,” she said, adding: “In their absence, America’s future promises more oil spills and industrialized coastlines.”
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United Airlines Settles with Doctor Dragged Off Plane

United Airlines reached an out-of-court settlement Thursday with a doctor who was dragged off one of its flights after he refused to give up his seat.

The airline and Dr. David Dao’s lawyers agreed not to disclose the amount of money he will receive.

United put out a brief statement saying it reached an “amicable resolution of the unfortunate incident.”

United changes policy

The airline said earlier Thursday that from now on, no passenger would be forced to give up his seat except in cases of safety and security.

Those who volunteer to surrender their seats when a flight is overbooked would get up to $10,000 in compensation.

“Every customer deserves to be treated with the highest levels of service and the deepest sense of dignity and respect,” United chief Oscar Munoz said. “Two weeks ago, we failed to meet that standard and we profoundly apologize.”

Chicago aviation police dragged Dao up the aisle of the packed plane when United needed to make room for airline employees.

Three other passengers volunteered to give up their seats, but Dao was picked out at random and refused to leave, saying he had to get home to treat patients.

Congress gets involved

His nose was broken, some teeth were knocked out, and he suffered a concussion. Cellphone video captured the scene. Dao, with blood streaming down his face, could be heard screaming with other shocked passengers.

The incident prompted calls in Congress  to bring back government airline regulation.

Some lawmakers demanded outlawing the practice of overbooking flights, in which airlines sell more seats than are available to ensure a full plane.
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ЄС, Новини, Світ

Protesters Attack Macedonia Lawmakers

Scores of protesters in Macedonia have broken through a police cordon and entered parliament, attacking some lawmakers, to protest the election of a new speaker despite a months-long deadlock in talks to form a new government.
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