Amazon.com Inc abruptly scrapped plans to build a major outpost in New York that could have created 25,000 jobs, blaming opposition from local leaders upset by the nearly $3 billion in incentives promised by state and city politicians.

The company said Thursday it did not see consistently “positive, collaborative” relationships with state and local officials. Opponents of the project feared congestion and higher rents in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, and objected to handing billions in incentives to a company run by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man.

State Senator Michael Gianaris, who represents Queens and was a vocal critic of the deal, told a news conference Thursday that the Amazon subsidies were unnecessary.

“This was a shakedown, pure and simple,” he said.

Amazon’s sudden pullout from New York City prompted finger pointing by Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo, the politicians who crafted the deal. Cuomo angrily blamed the loss on local politicians while de Blasio blamed Amazon.

Cuomo said in a statement that a small group of politicians had “put their own narrow political interests” above those of New Yorkers.

The year-long search for its so-called HQ2 culminated in Amazon picking Northern Virginia and New York after hundreds of municipalities, from Newark, N.J., to Indianapolis competed for the coveted tax dollars and high-wage jobs the project promised.

Amazon said it would not conduct a new headquarters search and would focus on growing at other existing and planned offices. The company already has more than 5,000 employees in New York City and plans to continue to hire there, Amazon said Thursday.

A Siena College Poll conducted earlier this month found 56 percent of registered voters in New York supported the Amazon deal, while 36 percent opposed it.

City shakedown?

Some New Yorkers mounted protests after the deal was announced, angered by the $2.8 billion in incentives promised to Amazon and fearing further gentrification in a neighborhood once favored by artists looking for cheap studio space.

U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a critic of the project and a self-described democratic socialist whose district spans parts of Queens and the Bronx, cheered the reversal by the world’s third most valuable public company.

“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” she wrote on Twitter.

People briefed on the decision said Amazon had made the decision early Thursday amid rising concerns about the small vocal minority. The people said Amazon will not shift any of the planned jobs to Tennessee — where an operations hub is planned — or Virginia, but plans to grow its existing network of locations.

Amazon had not acquired land for the project, making it easy to scrap its plans, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday.

Lost opportunity?

In a statement, de Blasio blamed Amazon for failing to address local criticism.

“We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world,” he said. “Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”

Some long-time residents in Long Island City, which sits across the East River from midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers, feared being forced out by rising rents and untenable pressure on already overburdened subway and sewage systems. High-rise towers have sprouted across the neighborhood in recent years.

“This is a stunning development, with Amazon essentially giving in to vocal critics,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. The about-turn could spook other companies thinking about expanding in New York, he added.

Alphabet Inc’s Google has avoided competitions between cities for offices, and its growing presence in lower Manhattan has met with little serious blowback.

Google said in December it plans to invest more than $1 billion on a new campus in New York to double its current headcount of more than 7,000 people.

“I think the [Amazon] PR event turned out to be a mistake,” said Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at the Roosevelt Investment Group, who owns Amazon shares.

Shares of Amazon fell 1 percent.
…

Some taxpayers are getting a bitter surprise this year as their usual annual tax refunds have shrunk — or turned into tax bills — even though President Donald Trump loudly promised them largest tax cut “in American history.”

And with tax season under way, thousands of unhappy taxpayers have been venting their displeasure on Twitter, using hashtags like #GOPTaxscam, and some threatened not to vote for Trump again.

“Lowest refund I have ever had and I am 50 yrs old. No wall and now this tax reform sucks too!!” a woman going by “Speziale-Matheny” wrote from the crucial political swing state of Florida. “Starting to doubt Trump. I voted for him and trusted him too.”

During the year, American wage earners see a portion of each paycheck withheld as income tax, and many then receive a refund the following year if they have overpaid the federal government. That cash boost is eagerly awaited each year, and used to help pay off debt or make large purchases.

But the 2017 tax overhaul — which Republicans promoted as a boon to the middle class — meant many workers paid less in taxes during the year reducing the amount withheld, a change which may have gone unnoticed.

And the reform also cut some popular deductions, sometimes resulting in thinner refunds or even unexpected tax bills.

Early data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service show that refunds so far this year are 8.4 percent lower than 2018 payouts on average, falling to $1,865 from $2,035.

However, many millions more taxpayers will be filing tax returns by the annual April 15 deadline, meaning this figure could change.

Mark Mazur, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy under former President Barack Obama, told AFP the negative reaction was “understandable.”

“People focused on the amount of the refund but that’s not the same as their tax liability, the amount of tax they pay for the year,” he said.

Because of lower withholding during the year, some taxpayers have in effect already seen the benefit of the tax cut in their higher paychecks, said Mazur, who is vice president at the Urban Institute.

About five percent of taxpayers — 7.5 million people — will in fact see a tax increase, while about 80 percent should pay less, he said.

‘Angry, disappointed and betrayed’

The IRS on Wednesday said taxpayers who suddenly found they owe taxes could pay their bill in installments and apply for a waiver of penalties normally imposed for failing to pay by the deadline.

“The IRS understands there were many changes that affected people last year, and the new penalty waiver will help taxpayers who inadvertently had too little tax withheld,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a statement.

A key change of the 2017 tax reform is it limited federal deductions for certain state and local taxes like real estate taxes. As a result, many homeowners in states with higher property taxes will owe more to the federal government.

Neil Frankel, a New York accountant, told AFP people were feeling “angry, disappointed and betrayed.”

“I sympathize with them. The new tax law’s withholding tables were incorrect and misleading. A complete shenanigan,” he added.

“Since my clients are mostly professionals, I don’t really hear any screaming,” he said. “However, I do hear long diatribes on hatred for the U.S. government.”

Last year, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin invited taxpayers to use an online calculator to estimate their tax payments, to determine if they should modify their withholding amount.

‘Misleading’ reports

This week, the Treasury Department said media reports on the lower refunds were “misleading.”

“Refunds are consistent with 2017 levels and down slightly from 2018 based on a small, initial sample from only a few days of data,” the department said on Twitter.

But, Mazur said, perception is key: When the administration of former President George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001, it mailed out checks directly.

“Taxpayers remembered that they got that check,” he said.

Under Obama, however, a tax cut showed up as smaller withholdings and fatter checks during each pay cycle.

“Most Americans when they were surveyed didn’t think they got a tax cut from Obama,” he said.
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The Somali government says it will award exploration licenses to foreign oil companies later this year, despite calls from the opposition to wait until laws and regulations governing the oil sector are in place.

Seismic surveys conducted by two British companies, Soma Oil & Gas and Spectrum Geo, suggest that Somalia has promising oil reserves along the Indian Ocean coast, between the cities of Garad and Kismayo. Total offshore deposits could be as high as 100 billion barrels.

The government says it will accept bids for exploration licenses on November 7, and the winners will be informed immediately. It says production-sharing agreements will be signed on December 9, with the agreements going into effect on January 1, 2020.

“We have presented our wealth and resources to the companies,” Petroleum Minister Abdirashid Mohamed Ahmed told the VOA Somali program Investigative Dossier. “We held a roadshow in London [last week], and we will hold two more in two major cities so that we turn the eyes of the world to contest Somalia.”

But several lawmakers have expressed concern the government is moving too quickly. Last week, the head of the National Resource committee in the Upper House of Parliament accused President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s government of a “lack of due diligence” and violating the constitution.

Barnaby Pace, an investigator for the NGO Global Witness, which exposes corruption and environmental abuses, says Somalia, after decades of internal conflict, does not have the legal and regulatory framework to handle oil deals and the problems they can cause, such as environmental abuses, corruption, and political fights over revenue.

“There is not a clear consensus about how the oil sector could be managed in Somalia,” he said. “And once Somalia makes deals like the one it’s proposing, it may be locked in for many years and find it difficult to renegotiate or change them to best protect itself.”

Former oil officials speak out

Somalia’s parliament passed a Petroleum Law to govern oil sector in 2008 when the country operated under a transitional charter. But constitutional experts say that law was nullified after a constitution was ratified in 2012.

A proposed new law is now before parliament for debate. The bill says negotiations for oil-related contracts will be the responsibility of the Somali Petroleum Agency, which would not be formed until the law is passed.

Ahmed said government’s timetable for awarding licenses is just “tentative,” though he believes the government can keep to its schedule.

But Somali lawmakers and opposition leaders are worried the government is in a needless rush.

Jamal Kassim Mursal was permanent secretary of the Somali Petroleum Ministry until last month when he resigned.

He says when the government came to power in 2017, the ministry was informed that bids for oil exploration licenses would not be considered until the Petroleum Law was passed and “we are ready with the knowledge and skills.”

Since then, he told VOA, “Nothing has changed — petroleum law is not passed, tax law is not ready, capacity has not changed, institutions have not been built.”

Abdirizak Omar Mohamed is the former petroleum minister who signed the 2013 seismic study agreement with Soma Oil & Gas.

Mohamed said the country needs political consensus and stability before oil drilling. He notes that a resource-sharing agreement between the federal government and Somali federal states has yet to be endorsed by the parliament.

“No company is going to start drilling without agreement with regions,” says Mohamed. “So why rush? It’s not good for the reputation of the country.”

Soma and Spectrum’s advantage

Mursal also objects to an agreement that gives first choice of oil exploration blocks to Soma Oil & Gas, one of the companies that conducted the seismic studies.

According to the agreement, Soma Oil & Gas will choose 12 blocks or 60,000 square kilometers to conduct oil exploration. Among these are two blocks believed to contain large oil reserves near the town of Barawe.

He says the government needs to renegotiate and offer just two blocks instead.

“This is the one that is causing the alarm,” he said. He predicts that if Soma Oil & Gas gets to choose 12 blocks, the company will “flip” some of the blocks to the highest bidder.

In 2015, Soma Oil & Gas was caught up in controversy after allegations of quid pro quo payments to the Somali Ministry of Petroleum. The payments were termed as “capacity building.” The following year, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office closed the case because it could not prove that corruption took place.

Somalia’s current prime minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, was working for Soma Oil & Gas at time. Somali officials say that since taking office, Khaire has “relinquished” his stake in the company, said to be more than 2 million shares.

The other company that conducted seismic surveys, Spectrum, also made payments to the Somali Ministry of Finance, according to Mursal.

Mursal told Investigative Dossier that between 2015 and 2017, Spectrum paid $450,000 every six months to the ministry.

A senior official who previously was involved in the Ministry of Petroleum told VOA that Spectrum paid $1.35 million in all. He said the payment was “consistent,” though, with the advice of the Financial Governance Committee, a body consisting on Somali and donors which gives financial advice to Somalia.

Spectrum has not yet responded to Investigative Dossier requests for an interview.

Current Petroleum Minister Ahmed said the government will do what is best for Somalia, but needs to have a law governing the oil sector in place.

“The parliament has the petroleum law,” he said. “Without it being passed, we can’t touch anything.”

 
…

A new report finds the world’s unemployment rate has dropped to five percent, the lowest level since the global economic crisis in 2008. The International Labor Organization reports the jobs being created, however, are poor quality jobs that keep most of the world’s workers mired in poverty.

Slightly more than 172 million people globally were unemployed in 2018. That is about 2 million less than the previous year. The International Labor Organization expects the global unemployment rate of five percent to remain essentially unchanged over the next few years.

The ILO report — World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends 2019 — finds a majority of the 3.3 billion people employed throughout the world, though, are working under poor conditions that do not guarantee them a decent living.  

ILO Deputy Director-General for Policy, Deborah Greenfield says many people have jobs that do not offer them economic security, lack material well-being and decent work opportunities.

“These jobs tend to be informal and characterized by low pay, insecurity and little or no access to social protection and rights at work. Worldwide, 2 billion workers, or 61 percent, were in informal employment,” she said.

Over the past 30 years, the report finds a great decline in working poverty in middle-income countries. But the situation remains serious in low- and middle-income countries. The report says one-quarter of those employed there do not earn enough to escape extreme or moderate poverty.  

Regionally, the ILO reports only 4.5 percent of Sub-Saharan Africa’s working age population is unemployed, with 60 percent employed. ILO Director of Research, Damian Grimshaw, says these good statistics are deceptive.

“In sub-Saharan Africa we find 18 of the top 20 countries with the highest rates of poverty. And they are also the countries with very, very high informal employment. So, higher than 80 percent in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, despite having some of the lowest unemployment rates in the world,” he said. 

Grimshaw says the unemployment rate is not a good measure of labor market performance or economic performance in countries with high rates of informality.

ILO experts also highlight the lack of progress in closing the gender gap in labor force participation. They note only 48 percent of women are working, compared to 75 percent of men.

Another worrying issue is high youth unemployment. The ILO says one in five young people under 25 are jobless and have no skills. It warns this compromises their future employment prospects.

 
…

Democrats pushed on Tuesday for a nationwide paid family leave system in the United States, the only developed nation that does not guarantee pay to workers taking time off to care for children or other relatives.

The proposal would establish a national insurance program to provide workers with up to 12 weeks paid leave per year for the birth of a child, adoption or to care for a seriously ill family member.

The lack of paid family leave takes a particular toll on women who tend to care for children and aging relatives, and the proposed Family Act would bring national policy in line with other countries, supporters say.

The United States is one of only five nations that have no guaranteed paid maternity leave, the other four being Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, according to the World Policy Analysis Center, a research group at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Family leave legislation has been introduced in the U.S. Congress in previous years but been unsuccessful.

Now, with Democrats controlling the lower House of Representatives and a record 127 women in the House and Senate, it could have a fighting chance, said Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, a sponsor of the bill.

“Now we have a majority. We have a real shot at getting this passed, and I am so optimistic we can get this done,” said Gillibrand in a statement.

Gillibrand recently announced her intention to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Guaranteed paid leave exists in a handful of states but not on the national level.

President Donald Trump has voiced support for six weeks of paid leave but his proposal does not cover care for sick family members.

Opponents say paid leave could be too costly for small businesses to shoulder. Supporters of the Family Act say it could be funded through paycheck deductions at an average weekly cost of $1.50 to workers.

“It’s shameful that America has lagged behind for so long on paid maternity leave,” Toni Van Pelt, head of the National Organization for Women, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. The Center for American Progress, a Washington-based policy institute, estimates more than $20 billion in U.S. wages are lost each year due to workers lacking access to paid family and medical leave.

One in every four U.S. mothers returns to work 10 days after giving birth, according to Paid Leave for the United States, a group promoting family leave.
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The national debt has passed a new milestone, topping $22 trillion for the first time.

The Treasury Department’s daily statement showed Tuesday that total outstanding public debt stands at $22.01 trillion. It stood at $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2017.

The debt figure has been rising at a faster pace following passage of Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut in December 2017 and action by Congress last year to increase spending on domestic and military programs.

Michael Peterson, head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, says “our growing national debt matters because it threatens the economic future of every American.”

Peterson said that interest on the national debt already costs more than $1 billion daily, and “as we borrow trillion after trillion, interest costs will weigh on our economy and make it harder to fund important investments for our future.”

The national debt is the total of the annual budget deficits. The Congressional Budget Office projects this year’s deficit will be $897 billion, which would be a 15.1 percent increase over last year’s imbalance of $779 billion. The CBO is projecting that the deficit will keep rising in coming years and will top $1 trillion annually beginning in 2022 and never drop below $1 trillion through 2029. Much of the increase will come from rising costs to fund Social Security and Medicare as baby boomers retire.

The Trump administration contends that its tax cuts will eventually pay for themselves by generating faster economic growth. However, that projection is disputed by many economists.
…

A social venture in Myanmar is boosting farm outputs with customized technologies and giving loans for seasonal migration to raise incomes in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Proximity Designs, which was set up in 2004 in the country’s commercial hub Yangon, focuses on farming, on which more than two-thirds of the population relies to make a living.

The ethical business gives farming advice, custom-designed irrigation products, and loans for crops, livestock and migration to about 200,000 clients in the Southeast Asian nation.

“It’s about improving access of smallholder farmers to knowledge, technology and capital,” said Ben Warren, head of strategy and finance at Proximity. “Myanmar was closed for so long, it was hard for farmers to access these. While access is better now, not many products are made for farmers or reach them.”

Myanmar began emerging from nearly half a decade of military rule in 2011. Helping its smallholder farmers requires a deep understanding of context, as well as empathy and creativity, Warren told Reuters.

Across Southeast Asia, businesses with a social purpose are improving the lives of vulnerable communities and helping narrow inequality.

In Myanmar, farmers rely heavily on the monsoon rain, and the country has one of the lowest percentages of irrigated farmland in Asia, according to Proximity.

The company designed a range of products including drip and sprinkler irrigation systems, and solar-powered pumps which can help increase yield by about a third, Warren said.

As a social venture, Proximity is better placed to help farmers than businesses with a purely profit motive, he said.

“Some areas are not viable or are hard to get to. Since we are supported by some funding, it allows us to subsidize our products and go the extra mile to reach farmers,” he said.

Proximity started giving micro loans to farmers in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, Myanmar’s worst natural disaster which killed nearly 140,000 people and affected some 2.4 million people.

About two years back, based on feedback from its clients, Proximity began “on-the-go” loans to help families during the dry season from November to April, when many men move to cities in search of factory or construction jobs.

A loan of about 200,000 kyat ($130) helps the family in the village until they receive remittances from the city, and also pays for the initial trip to the city, Warren said.

While on-the-go loans are a small part of Proximity’s portfolio now, they could grow because of demand, Warren said.

“Seasonal migration is an annual occurrence in nearly every rural family. With a loan from a reliable source, they can do it without worry,” he said.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he could let the March 1 deadline for a trade agreement with China “slide for a little while,” but that he would prefer not to and expects to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping to close the deal at some point.

Trump’s top trade negotiator and Treasury secretary arrived in the Chinese capital on Tuesday for high-level talks later in the week as the world’s two largest economies attempt to hammer out a deal to protect American trade secrets and avoid another escalation of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods after March 1.

If negotiators are coming close to a complete deal, Trump said he could see pushing off that deadline.

“We’re doing very well over in China,” Trump told reporters at a cabinet meeting, adding that the negotiating team is big.

“If we’re close to a deal where we think we can make a real deal and it’s going to get done, I could see myself letting that slide for a little while,” Trump said. “But generally speaking I’m not inclined to do that.”

U.S. advisers have previously called March 1 a “hard deadline” for the talks.

Trump’s comments on the China trade talks helped fuel a broad rally in the U.S. stock market, along with the president’s comments that he did not anticipate another government shutdown despite not being “happy” with a tentative congressional deal for border security funding.

The S&P 500 was up 1.35 percent in mid-afternoon trading, on track for its best day since Jan. 30.

If the United States and China cannot reach a deal by March 1, U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports are scheduled to increase to 25 percent from 10 percent.

China would likely respond by raising tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S goods that it announced last year in retaliation.

A recent resumption of Chinese soybean purchases also would likely end.

‘Several important days of talks’

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday and are scheduled to hold talks Thursday and Friday with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, top economic adviser to President Xi Jinping.

“We’re looking forward to several important days of talks,” Mnuchin told reporters after arriving at a Beijing hotel.

Lighthizer, who arrived at the hotel earlier in the day, did not answer reporters’ questions.

Washington is expected to keep pressing Beijing on long-standing demands that it make sweeping structural reforms to protect American companies’ intellectual property, end policies aimed at forcing the transfer of technology to Chinese companies, and curb industrial subsidies.

The latest round of talks in Beijing kicked off Monday with discussions among deputy-level officials to try to work out technical details, including a mechanism for enforcing any trade agreement. A round of talks at the end of January ended with some progress reported — but no deal and U.S. declarations that much more work was needed.
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A union declared total victory in a mass strike by about 25,000 workers at 48 assembly plants in a Mexican border city, but the movement spawned a storm of wildcat walkouts Monday at other businesses.

The Industrial Workers and Laborers’ Union won 20 percent wage increases at all 48 “maquiladora” factories in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. It also won a one-time bonus of about 32,000 pesos, about $1,685 at current exchange rates.

Now workers at about a dozen non-union businesses as well as factories organized by other unions have started wildcat walkouts to demand the same increases, known colloquially as “20/32.”

The Tridonex auto parts company said in posts on its Facebook page Monday that pickets had prevented employees from entering its Matamoros plant and it cancelled some shifts. Video showed workers outside the plant chanting “20/32!”

The local maquiladora association, known as Index, said that all the plants in the association had signed labor contracts as of last week and that none of the businesses affected by the wildcat strikes are members.

Javier Guerrero, a Matamoros public relations specialist who has been active in strike support work, said the example set by the first round of strikes has spread to local businesses, many of which are not maquiladoras, which assemble products for export to the United States.

Supermarkets, bottlers and a milk company in Matamoros were reportedly hit by walkouts.

“In the past week, the strike wave has spread beyond the factories to supermarkets and other employers, with all the workers demanding ’20/32,'” said the AFL-CIO, which has sent a delegation to support the striking workers.

The mass strike erupted after President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador decreed a doubling of the minimum wage in Mexico’s border zones, apparently unaware that some union contracts at the maquiladora plants are indexed to minimum wage increases.

While other Mexican cities don’t have the same contract clauses, for workers often making less than $1 an hour, the appeal of a pay raise and bonus has proved irresistible.

“Just as happened in Matamoros, it (the walkouts) spread to other companies and unions. It is very probable that it will spread to other cities, at least within the border area,” Guerrero said.

There has been a generalized upsurge in Mexico’s long-dormant labor movement since Lopez Obrador took office Dec. 1, something the president doesn’t appear to have planned on or encouraged. Lopez Obrador has simply promised to keep the government out of unions’ internal affairs and allow for free and fair union elections.

For a union movement kept in check for decades by pro-company union bosses allied with the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, the promise of union democracy has been enough to spark a revival.

But there has already been a backlash.

“In the past week, as many as 2,000 strike leaders have been fired and blacklisted, despite legal prohibitions and non-reprisal agreements signed by the employers,” said the U.S. union delegation, which included representatives from the AFL-CIO, United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers.

“The Mexican and U.S. governments must both demand that these U.S. companies honor their agreements and stop firing and blacklisting these courageous workers,” said Texas AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Montserrat Garibay.

Meanwhile, Lopez Obrador has been struggling with the most radical and intractable union in Mexico, the CNTE teachers’ union, which has blocked railroad lines in the western state of Michoacan on and off for the last month.

The teachers lifted most blockades last week but on Monday they briefly re-established a protest camp on a line operated by Kansas City Southern de Mexico.

KCSM reported that by late Monday, the camp had been removed and the line re-opened. But the company said that during 28 days of blockages, 414 trains were prevented from running and 3.5 million tons of freight was stalled.

The teachers initially started the blockages to demand back pay, but they kept blocking rail lines even after they were paid.
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Vale SA, the world’s largest iron ore miner, knew last year that the dam in Brazil that collapsed in January and killed at least 165 people had a heightened risk of rupturing, according to an internal document seen by Reuters on Monday.

The report, dated Oct. 3, 2018, shows that Vale classified Dam 1 at the Córrego do Feijão mine in Brumadinho as being two times more likely to fail than the maximum level of risk tolerated under the company’s own dam safety policy.

Vale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It has previously cited an independent audit last year declaring the dam safe and said that equipment showed the structure was stable just weeks before the collapse.

First evidence of concern

The previously unreported document is the first evidence that Vale itself was concerned about the safety of the dam. It raises questions as to why the audit around the same time guaranteed the dam’s stability and why the miner did not take precautions, such as moving a company canteen that was just downhill from the structure.

U.S.-listed shares of Vale extended losses following the Reuters story, dropping as much as 2.6 percent to $11.10.

The company has lost a quarter of its market capitalization — or nearly $19 billion — since the Jan. 25 dam collapse, Brazil’s most deadly mining accident.

The disaster in the mineral-rich state of Minas Gerais was the second major collapse of a mining dam in the region in about three years.

‘Attention zone’

Entitled “Geotechnical Risk Management Results,” Vale’s internal October report placed the Brumadinho dam within an “attention zone,” saying that “all prevention and mitigation controls” should be applied.

A failure could cost the company $1.5 billion and had the potential to kill more than a hundred people, the report said.

The dam was marked for decommissioning.

Nine other dams in Brazil, out of 57 that were studied, were also placed in the “attention zone,” according to the report.

A separate Vale report dated Nov. 15, 2017, also seen by Reuters, states that any structure with an annual chance of failure above 1 in 10,000 should be brought to the attention of the chief executive and the board.

The dam’s annual chance of collapse was registered as 1 in 5,000, or twice the tolerable “maximum level of individual risk,” according to the report.

“That’s not good in my book, especially if you consider that these are meant to be long-term structures,” said David Chambers, a geophysicist at the Center for Science in Public Participation and a specialist in tailings dams.

Reuters was unable to confirm whether the board or CEO Fabio Schwartzman were made aware of the risk associated with the dam.

Vale has consistently said the collapsed dam was declared sound by an independent auditor in September.

The audit by Germany-based TÜV SÜD, which was seen by Reuters, said the dam adhered to the minimum legal requirements for stability but it raised a number of concerns, particularly about the dam’s drainage and monitoring systems.

The auditor made 17 recommendations to improve the dam’s safety.

Vale said the recommendations were routine and that the company attended to them all.

Its internal report identified static liquefaction and internal erosion as the most likely causes of a potential failure at the dam in Brumadinho.

‘Liquefaction’ to blame?

It is still not known what was behind the collapse, but a state environmental official told Reuters this month that all evidence pointed to liquefaction.

Liquefaction is a process whereby a solid material such as sand loses strength and stiffness and behaves more like a liquid. It was the cause of the 2015 dam collapse, at a nearby mine co-owned by Vale, which resulted in Brazil’s worst-ever environmental disaster.

“We used to say these kinds of mining incidents were acts of God, but now … we consider them failures in engineering,” said Dermot Ross-Brown, a mining industry engineer who teaches at the Colorado School of Mines.

Vale has said it will invest some $400 million from 2020 to reduce its reliance on tailings dams, which store muddy detritus from mining.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is warning Hungary the presence of Chinese telecommunication manufacturer Huawei in the European country is complicating Budapest’s partnership with Washington. 

The chief American diplomat Monday arrived in Budapest on Monday, the first leg of his European trip. Huawei has established Hungary as a European hub, where it can develop its fifth-generation mobile networks.

“If that equipment is co-located in places where we have important American systems, it makes it more difficult for us to partner alongside them. We want to make sure we identify [to] them the opportunities and the risks associated with using that equipment,” said Pompeo.

While noting sovereign nations such as Hungary will “make their own decisions,” Pompeo said it’s imperative the United States shares potential risks from Huawei with its NATO allies.

American officials are increasingly troubled by Huawei’s expansion in Europe, especially in NATO member states where Washington believes the Chinese telecom manufacturer poses significant information security threats.

At a joint press conference with Hungarian Foreign minister Peter Szijjarto, Pompeo said he has raised with Szijjarto “the dangers of allowing China to gain a bridgehead in Hungary.”

But the U.S. pressure campaign against Huawei faces challenges. Hungary has said it has no plans to reconsider the decision to award the 5G networks contract to Huawei. 

Many in China believe that the U.S. government concerns over Huawei’s security are at least in part aimed at helping American companies better compete against foreign rivals. But U.S. officials reject that notion.

“That sounds like a lot of mirror imaging to me,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Christopher Ford in an interview with VOA, noting “the Chinese government has actually been extraordinarily grand in its ambitions to do just that sort of thing with Chinese companies.”

Ford pointed to numerous public reports in recent years that have blamed Chinese government-backed hackers with cyber campaigns stealing corporate secrets and financial data. 

“Cyber-facilitated theft of intellectual property, for example, has become notorious around the world. But the Chinese government has been doing that very systematically in order to advantage its own national champion industries in particular sectors,” Ford added.

Social media threats?

Weary of data collection and Chinese technology transfer for military purposes, the U.S. government is considering tighter restrictions on the use of social media apps that have geolocation features within diplomatic and military facilities.

While the State Department does not expressly prohibit the use of commercial geolocation applications on smartphones and other personal electronic devices by employees serving internationally, measures are taken to address the potential security risks.

The State Department has issued guidance requiring each post to develop a policy regarding the restrictions placed on using personal electronic devices.

“We obviously need to continue to be mindful of that, and to update and improve our understanding of best practices,” said Assistant Secretary of State Ford.

Last year, the Pentagon started prohibiting personnel from using geolocation features on electronic devices while in locations designated as operational areas.

Those restrictions could impact popular social media applications like TikTok, a Chinese-made app for sharing short videos that is popular among young adults.

All social media companies gather data on their users, but experts warn that Chinese companies in particular pose unique challenges because the Beijing government has absolute authority to request private user data. 

“The user in Western countries might not be aware that in China, the government has a far broader reach compared to over here, so they can request data out from a private company on national security grounds,” Claudia Biancotti, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), told VOA in a recent interview.

Biancotti added in China, “they don’t really have independent courts to oversee the process.”

“If this information is sent to China, it can be easily accessed by the government and leveraged, say, to make Beijing’s surveillance software better at recognizing Western faces, or at extracting intelligence on Western military activities,” warned Biancotti in a recent report.

TikTok, launched as Douyin in China in 2016, is owned by Chinese internet technology company ByteDance who later acquired Musical.ly, a popular lip-sync app among American teenagers. ByteDance merged Musical.ly with TikTok in 2018 as a means of entering the U.S. market. 

Last October, TikTok surpassed Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat in monthly installations. 

TikTok recently updated its privacy policy for U.S. residents, removing all references about storing data in China. 

Last August, TikTok stated in the privacy policy: “We will also share your information with any member or affiliate of our group, in China,” but the latest update in January of 2019 deleted the word “China.”

The company wrote an email to VOA’s Mandarin service that they regularly update their privacy policies while noting that TikTok does not operate in China.

TikTok’s current privacy policy stated it automatically collects technically and behavioral information from users, including IP address, location-related data or other unique device identifiers. 

“We may also collect Global Positioning System (GPS) data and mobile device location information.” But users can switch off location information functionality on their mobile device if they do not wish to share such data.

“We will share your information with law enforcement agencies, public authorities or other organizations if legally required to do so,” TikTok stated. 

VOA’s Mandarin Service, Jeff Seldin and Mo Yu contributed to this report.
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International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde on Sunday met Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and assured him that IMF stands ready to support his country.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the World Government Summit in Dubai, hosted by the United Arab Emirates, both IMF and prime minister Imran Khan’s office said.

“I reiterated that the IMF stands ready to support Pakistan,” Lagarde said in a statement following meeting Khan.

A team from the International Monetary Fund visited Pakistan in November to discuss a possible bailout with officials, though the talks ended without agreement, but since then the government official said talks were still ongoing on a possible bailout.

Pakistan — which has gone to the IMF repeatedly since the late 1980s — is facing a balance of payments crisis.

“I also highlighted that decisive policies and a strong package of economic reforms would enable Pakistan to restore the resilience of its economy and lay the foundations for stronger and more inclusive growth,” said Lagarde, calling the meeting “good and constructive”.

Pakistan — a regular borrower from the IMF since the 1980s — last received an IMF bailout in 2013 to the tune of $6.6 billion.

Forecasts by the IMF and World Bank suggest the Pakistani economy is likely to grow between 4.0 and 4.5 percent for the fiscal year ending June 2019, compared to 5.8 percent growth in the last fiscal year.

Addressing the World Government Summit, prime minister Khan said his government has started a reform program and was trying to improve its economic policies.

“Reforms are painful but it is essential if we have to get out of our current problems,” Khan told the summit and said his government was making efforts to cut down the fiscal and current account deficit.

Khan hoped that the time has come that “Pakistan will take off”.

Khan has launched a highly publicized austerity drive since being sworn in, including auctioning off government-owned luxury vehicles and buffaloes, in addition to seeking loans from “friendly countries” and making overtures to the IMF.

The United Arab Emirates, Pakistan’s largest trading partner in the Middle East and a major investment sources, recently offered $3 billion to support Pakistan’s battered economy.

Islamabad also secured $6 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia and struck a 12-month deal for a cash lifeline during Khan’s visit to the kingdom in October.

It has also received billions of dollars in Chinese loans to finance ambitious infrastructure projects.

Despite the pledges, the ministry of finance said Pakistan would still seek broader IMF support for the government’s long-term economic planning.

In January, Pakistan launched a new investment certificate for overseas citizens, aimed at easing the country’s balance of payments crisis.

 
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A joint study by the International Labor Organization and U.N. Children’s Fund finds the vast majority of the world’s children lack effective social protection coverage. It says this dooms them to a life of extreme poverty, with negative implications for society.

The study finds only one third of children between zero and 14 years of age have any social protection. That means two-thirds, or 1.3 billion children live without a social safety net.

International Labor Organization Social Protection Department Director Isabel Ortiz says just slightly more than one percent of GDP is allocated to social protection for children. She says this huge under-investment gap needs to be covered.

“And, of course, the numbers worsen as we go by region. In Africa, for instance, children represent 40 percent of the African population overall. However, only 0.6 percent is actually invested in social protection for children,” she said.

The report finds children fare best in Europe and Central Asia where 87 percent have social protection coverage, followed by children in the Americas with 66 percent. Asia and Africa have the worst records. The report says no data is available on the Arab States.

The report highlights the impact extreme poverty has upon the lives of children and the societies in which they live. Chief of the U.N. Children’s Fund Child Poverty and Social Protection Unit, David Stewart, says 385 million children are living on under $1.90 a day.

“I think one of the most striking statistics, which emerges is that children are two times as likely to be living in poverty as adults,” he said. “Now, for children it is particularly concerning because poverty can have a lifetime implication for children. You do not have a second chance at nutrition, at health care, and education.”

Stewart says this has negative implications for children, and for societies and economies as well.

The ILO and UNICEF recommend the rapid expansion of social protection for children including the consideration of universal cash grants to children. Authors of the report say evidence clearly shows cash transfers play a vital role in breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and vulnerability.

 
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A portion of TransCanada Corp’s Keystone oil pipeline remained shut on Thursday for investigation of a possible leak on its right-of-way near St. Louis, Missouri, a company spokesman said.

TransCanada shut the pipeline on Wednesday between Steele City, Nebraska and Patoka, Illinois and sent crews to assess the situation, spokesman Terry Cunha said in an email.

The 590,000 barrels-per-day Keystone pipeline is a critical artery taking Canadian crude from northern Alberta to U.S. refineries.

Two pipelines operating near the release site will be excavated on Friday to determine the source of the leak, said Darius Kirkwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The agency is monitoring the response to the reported leak, he said.

Canadian pipelines are already congested because of expanding production in recent years, forcing the Alberta provincial government to order production cuts starting last month. Canadian heavy oil has attracted greater demand following U.S. sanctions against Venezuela’s state oil company.

The discount on Canadian heavy crude compared to U.S. light oil widened to $10.15 per barrel on Thursday morning from $9.40 earlier, according to Net Energy Exchange.

TransCanada shares eased 0.2 percent to C$55.98 in Toronto.

An official with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said on Wednesday that the release of oil had stopped and it planned to find the leak on Thursday.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

 
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Twitter said Thursday profits rose sharply in the fourth quarter, lifted by gains in advertising despite a drop in its global user base.

The short-messaging platform said it posted a $255 million profit in the final three months of 2018, compared with $91 million a year earlier, as revenues rose 24 percent to $909 million.

But Twitter’s base of monthly active users declined to 321 million — a drop of nine million from a year earlier and five million from the prior quarter.

Twitter said it would stop using the monthly user base metric and instead report “monetizable” daily active users in the US and worldwide.

Using that measure, Twitter showed a base of 126 million worldwide, up nine percent over the year.

“2018 is proof that our long-term strategy is working,” said chief executive Jack Dorsey.

“Our efforts to improve health have delivered important results, and new product features like a single switch to move between latest and most relevant tweets have been embraced by the people who use Twitter. We enter this year confident that we will continue to deliver strong performance by focusing on making Twitter a healthier and more conversational service.”

Twitter shares sputtered and then fell sharply after the report, dropping as much as eight percent in pre-market trade.

Jasmine Enberg of the research firm eMarketer said the earnings were nonetheless positive.

“Twitter’s Q4 earnings prove that the company is still able to grow its revenues without increasing its user base,” she said.

“The falloff in monthly active users is likely a continuation of Twitter’s efforts to remove questionable accounts.”

Twitter, which has struggled to keep up with fast-growing rivals like Facebook and Instagram, said it changed the measure for its user base to reflect “our goal of delivering value to people on Twitter every day and monetizing that usage.”

 
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Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Robert Bosch have agreed to pay lawyers representing owners of U.S. diesel vehicles $66 million in fees and costs, according to court filing on Wednesday and people briefed on the matter.

In a court filing late on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, lawyer Elizabeth Cabraser said after negotiations overseen by court-appointed settlement master Ken Feinberg, the companies agreed not to oppose an award of $59 million in attorney’s fees and $7 million in costs.

The lawyers had originally sought up to $106.5 million in fees and costs.

Under a settlement announced last month, Fiat Chrysler and Bosch, which provided emissions control software for the Fiat Chrysler vehicles, will give 104,000 diesel owners up to $307.5 million or about $2,800 per vehicle for diesel software updates.

The legal fees are on top of those costs. Fiat Chrysler and Bosch did not immediately comment late Wednesday.

Fiat Chrysler is paying up to $280 million, or 90 percent of the settlement costs, and Bosch is paying $27.5 million, or 10 percent. The companies are expected to divide the attorney costs under the same formula, meaning Fiat Chrysler will pay $60 million and Bosch $6 million, the people briefed on the settlement said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen must still approve the legal fees. He has set a May 3 hearing on a motion to grant final approval.

The Italian-American automaker on Jan. 10 announced it settled with the U.S. Justice Department, California and diesel owners over civil claims that it used illegal software that produced false results on diesel-emissions tests.

Fiat Chrysler previously estimated the value of the settlements at about $800 million.

Fiat Chrysler is also paying $311 million in total civil penalties and issuing extended warranties worth $105 million, among other costs.

The settlement covers 104,000 Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee diesels from the model years 2014 to 2016. In addition, Fiat Chrysler will pay $72.5 million for state civil penalties and $33.5 million to California to offset excess emissions and consumer claims.

The hefty penalty was the latest fallout from the U.S. government’s stepped-up enforcement of vehicle emissions rules after Volkswagen AG admitted in September 2015 to intentionally evading emissions rules.

The Justice Department has a pending criminal investigation against Fiat Chrysler.
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President Donald Trump says Treasury Department official David Malpass is his choice to lead the World Bank.

Trump introduced Malpass on Wednesday as the “right person to take on this incredibly important job.” Malpass is a sharp critic of the 189-nation lending institution.

Malpass says he’s honored by the nomination. He says a key goal will be to implement changes to the bank that he and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin helped negotiate, and to ensure that women achieve full participation in developing economies.

Malpass would succeed Jim Yong Kim, who departed in January three years before his term was to end.

Other candidates will likely be nominated for the post by the bank’s member countries. A final decision on a new president will be up to the bank’s board.
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that President Donald Trump had a “quite productive” dinner with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He says they discussed a wide range of subjects, from the state of the economy to the Super Bowl and Tiger Woods’ golf game.

Talking to reporters at the White House, Mnuchin said that Trump was very engaged during the casual dinner Monday night. It took place in the White House residence and marked the first time Powell and Trump have met since Powell took office as Fed chairman a year ago.

Mnuchin said that Powell’s comments were consistent with what he has been saying publicly about the economy. The Fed said in a statement that Powell did not discuss the future course of interest rates.

 
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No matter who wins Algeria’s presidential election, 29-year-old cardiologist Moumen Mohamed plans to seek his fortune elsewhere.

He is one of a growing number of young, educated Algerians who are looking for work in Europe or the Gulf to escape the low salaries imposed by a state-dominated economy at home.

The exodus of doctors, engineers and other highly skilled workers is a headache for a government hoping to engage with its largely youthful electorate ahead of the vote on April 18.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 81, has not said if he will seek a fifth term, although the ruling FLN party, labor unions and business leaders are urging him on.

For young professionals, the question is scarcely relevant.

Many feel disconnected from an elite populated by the veterans of Algeria’s 1954-1962 war of independence from France, an era they only know about from their grandparents.

They want to pursue their careers but feel discouraged by a system that offers low-paid jobs and little opportunity to better themselves.

“I have already done my paperwork to migrate,” said Moumen, the cardiologist, who works at a state hospital. “I am waiting for a response.”

Nearly 15,000 Algerian doctors work in France now and 4,000 submitted applications to leave their home country last year, according to official figures.

The government does not accept all the blame.

“The press has exaggerated the phenomenon… it is a problem for all Algerians, not just the government,” Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said in response to a reporter’s question about young doctors leaving.

But in Europe doctors can earn ten times what they get in Algeria, a socialist economy where medical professionals are paid little more than less skilled public employees.

“Salaries, working conditions are bad, and above all there is no appreciation of doctors,” said Mohamed Yousfi, head of the specialist doctors’ union.

“Our doctors are filling the medical desert in Western countries like France, Canada and Germany. They are also present in the Gulf,” said Yousfi, sitting in his office in the public hospital at Boufarik, a town near Algiers.

The hospital, which opened in 1872, was being refurbished by building workers, and Yousfi said medical equipment was readily available.

“The authorities focus on walls and equipment but forget human resources,” he said.

Public sector

Algeria has poured billions of dollars in the health sector in the past decades, with around 50,000 doctors and 150,000 beds available in 2018, official data shows.

The North African oil and gas producing nation guarantees citizens cradle-to-grave welfare, but lack of competition from the private sector means some services are poor.

The country only ranks 85 out of 189 in the Human Development Index of living standards compiled by the United Nations Development Program. This is behind Western and Eastern Europe, the Gulf and even sanctions-hit Iran.

Many public hospitals do not offer the same level of quality as private clinics, which have been slowly opening. Those who can afford it go abroad for treatment.

“We are not respected as we should be as long as our dignitaries, ministers and generals continue to seek treatment overseas,” said a doctor who asked not to be named.

Doctors are not the only ones who want to migrate. Pilots, computer engineers, oil drillers and even journalists are also heading for the airport, privately owned Algerian media report.

Around 10,000 engineers and drillers from the state energy firm Sonatrach have left the company in the past ten years, according to senior company officials. “If nothing is done to improve working conditions and salaries, more and more will leave,” a Sonatrach source said.

Most professionals head for the Gulf, where they earn good salaries.

“I left Algeria in 2015. I am a computer engineer and I am now in Oman working for a big telecoms firm,” Messaoud Benali, 39, said by phone.

“I know plenty of educated Algerians who work in Gulf countries,” he said.

Bouteflika must say whether he will run or not by March 3, according to the constitution.

If he does, he is expected to win despite his poor health, because the opposition remains weak and fragmented, analysts say. But how the ruling elite can connect with young people is another question altogether.

Algeria has one of the world’s slowest internet speeds, but its young people are still very tech-savvy.

This became clear when 21-year-old singer Farouk Boujemline invited fans via Snapchat to celebrate his birthday in the center of Algiers.

About 10,000 showed up, jamming the traffic for hours, and police had to set up barriers around the city’s independence monument to make sure the party didn’t get out of control.

By contrast, Bouteflika, Prime Minister Ouyahia and several other ministers do not have Twitter accounts to communicate with the public.

Algeria is one of the few countries where government ministries still use fax machines to communicate with the outside world.

“How to reconnect with the young elite, this is the top priority for Algeria’s next president,” said political analyst Ferrahi Farid.

In the past, authorities could ensure public support by increasing salaries or extending the welfare state.

When riots erupted in Algiers in 2011, the government sought to prevent any spread of the Arab Spring uprisings by offering billions to pay for salary increases, interest-free loans, and thousands of jobs in the public sector.

But 95 percent of government income depends on oil and gas revenues, which halved in the years from 2014 to 2017, forcing officials to impose a public hiring freeze.

“When the oil price is $100 you can do a lot, but when it is $50 there is not much you can do,” Farid said.

 
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Rwanda said on Tuesday it had signed a $400 million deal to produce bottled gas from Lake Kivu, which emits such dense clouds of methane it is known as one of Africa’s “Killer Lakes.”

The project by Gasmeth Energy, owned by U.S. and Nigerian businessmen and Rwandans, would suck gas from the lake’s deep floor and bottle it for use as fuel. This should, in turn, help prevent toxic gas bubbling to the surface.

The seven-year deal, signed on Friday, was announced on Tuesday.

Rwanda already has two companies that extract gas from Lake Kivu to power electricity plants.

Clare Akamanzi, chief executive of the Rwanda Development Board, told Reuters bottled methane would help cut local reliance on wood and charcoal, the fuels most households and tea factories use in the East African nation of 12 million people.

“We expect to have affordable gas which is environmentally friendly,” she said. “We expect that people can use gas instead of charcoal, the same with industries like tea factories instead of using firewood, they use gas. It’s part of our green agenda.”

The deep waters of Lake Kivu, which lies in the volcanic region on Rwanda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, emit such dense clouds of methane that scientists fear they might erupt, killing those living along its shore.

Eruptions from much smaller methane-emitting lakes in Cameroon, one causing a toxic cloud and another sparking an explosion, killed a total of nearly 1,800 people. The shores of Lake Kivu are much more densely populated.

Gasmeth Energy said it would finance, build and maintain a gas extraction, processing and compression plant to sell methane domestically and abroad.

The bottled gas should be on sale within two years, Akamanzi said, adding that prices had yet to be determined.
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When he was younger, the only thing that Enrique Morales knew about marijuana was that you smoked it to get high.

Today, the former driver is a horticulturist on a cannabis plantation about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo and he says drops of marijuana oil have been key to treating his mother’s osteoarthritis.

“My perception has now changed. It is a plant that has a lot of properties!” he said.

The company that owns the plantation, Fotmer SA, is now part of a flourishing and growing medical cannabis industry in Uruguay.

The country got a head start on competitors in December 2013 when it became the first in the world to regulate the cannabis market from growing to purchase, a move that has brought a wave of investment.

For Uruguayan citizens or legal residents over 18 years old, the law allows the recreational use, personal cultivation and sale in pharmacies of marijuana through a government-run permit system, and officials later legalized the use and export of medical marijuana to countries where it is legal.

No company has yet begun large-scale export operations, but many say selling medical cannabis oil beyond the local market of 3.3 million inhabitants is key to staying ahead of the tide and transforming Uruguay into a medical cannabis leader along with the Netherlands, Canada and Israel.

“The Latin American market is poorly supplied and is growing,” said Chuck Smith, chief operating officer of Denver, Colorado-based Dixie Brands, which recently formed a partnership with Khiron Life Sciences, a Toronto company that has agreed to acquire Dormul SA, which has a Uruguayan license to produce medical cannabis.

“Uruguay is taking a leadership position in growing high CBD, high value hemp products. So we see that as a great opportunity from a supply chain perspective,” he said, referring to the non-psychoactive cannabidiols that are used in medical products.

Khiron has said it should be able to export medical marijuana from Uruguay to southern Brazil under regulations of the Mercosur trade bloc, marking a milestone for Uruguayan marijuana companies focused on exports.

Fotmer, based in the small town of Nueva Helvecia, also currently employs 80 people and is investing $7 million in laboratories and 10 tons of crops that it hopes to ship to countries including Germany and Canada, which is struggling to overcome supply shortages in its cannabis market.

Fotmer s 35,000 marijuana plants are sheltered in 18 large greenhouses measuring 12.5 meters by 100 meters (41 feet by 328 feet), where workers such as Morales change into special clothing, wash their hands with alcohol and wear gloves and surgical masks to avoid any contamination.

Helena Gonzalez, head of quality control, research and development for Fotmer, said the precautions are important in producing a quality product that can be used in medical research into the effects of cannabis products.

“Aiding that research is another of our objectives,” she said.

The first crop of prized flowers will be harvested for their cannabis oil in March.

The oil containing THC and CBD will be extracted in its labs to eventually manufacture pills, creams, ointments, patches and other treatments for cases of epilepsy and chronic pain, among other ills.

Competition is arriving as well. In December, Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez inaugurated a $12 million laboratory owned by Canada s International Cannabis Corp., which aims to produce and export medicine from hemp, a variety of cannabis that contains CBDs but has no psychoactive effects.

Despite the momentum, experts say there is one key problem: Countries including Ecuador, Cuba, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala continue to prohibit both the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana and exports of cannabis products are subject to a complex web of international regulations that is still being developed.

Marcos Baudean, a member of Monitor Cannabis at the University of the Republic of Uruguay, says another difficulty is that the South American country is competing for market share. He said cannabis exports give the country a chance to expand beyond its traditional exports of raw materials into more sophisticated products involving science and biology.

Diego Olivera, head of Uruguay s National Drug Secretariat, said Uruguay s comprehensive cannabis law, along with its strong rule of law and transparent institutions, gives it a head start.

“Uruguay today has a dynamism in the cannabis industry that is very difficult to find in other sectors,” he said.
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Taxi-drivers in the Spanish capital seeking tighter regulation of Uber and other ride-hailing services called off their indefinite strike on Tuesday after 16 days during which they obtained no concessions from the Madrid regional government.

Madrid’s refusal to accept drivers’ demands came after ride-hailing companies Uber and Cabify said last week they were suspending their services in Barcelona in response to the regional government’s imposition of limits on how they operate in the city.

Union representatives in Madrid said the strike had demonstrated the unity and power of the drivers, which would help them continue the fight for their demands.

“It is a long war, in which you can lose battles, but in the end I’m sure we can win,” Julio Sanz, head of the Taxi Federation union, told reporters.

The city’s taxi drivers started the protests on Jan. 20 against the private services, which offer rides that often undercut taxi prices and can be hailed via the internet rather than in the street.

Last week, riot police backed by a fleet of tow trucks had to clear hundreds of vehicles blocking the capital’s Paseo de la Castellana thoroughfare.

In September, Spain’s government gave ride-hailing companies four years to comply with regulation granting them just one new licence for every 30 taxi licences. The cab drivers are demanding stricter regulations now.

Following protests by Barcelona taxi-drivers, the Catalan government had ruled that ride-hailing services could only pick up passengers after a 15-minute delay from the time they were booked.
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Negotiating new World Trade Organization rules to try to rein in China’s “mercantilist” trade practices would be largely a futile exercise, the Trump administration’s trade office said on Monday, vowing to pursue its unilateral approach to protect U.S. workers, farmers and businesses.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office used its annual report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance in part to justify its actions in a six-month trade war with Beijing aimed at forcing changes in China’s economic model.

The report also reflects the United States’ continued frustration with the WTO’s inability to curb what it sees as China’s trade-distorting non-market economic policies, and offered little hope that situation could change soon.

“It is unrealistic to expect success in any negotiation of new WTO rules that would restrict China’s current approach to the economy and trade in a meaningful way,” the USTR said in the report.

Some U.S. allies, including Canada, the European Union and Japan, which are also frustrated with pressures created by China’s economic policies, have begun talks on the first potential changes and modernization of WTO rules since it was founded in 1995.

But any WTO rule changes must be agreed by all 164 member nations, and past efforts have stalled. It was “highly unlikely” China would agree to new disciplines targeting changes to its trade practices and economic system, the USTR said.

Tariff deadline

The report shed little light on progress in talks between the United States and China to ease a bruising tariff fight, despite a swiftly approaching March 2 deadline to hike U.S. tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods imports.

The WTO report follows two days of intense talks between high-level U.S. and Chinese officials last week centered on U.S. demands for structural policy changes. These include enforcing intellectual property protections, ending cyber theft of trade secrets, halting the forced transfers of American technology to Chinese firms and reining in industrial subsidies.

While U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to hammer out a trade deal, the USTR report makes clear a massive amount of work will be needed to bridge the gulf between the two countries.

It cited the key structural issues in the talks, which also include China’s new cybersecurity law and discriminatory regulatory practices, as examples of how China aids domestic firms at the expense of foreign competitors in ways that escape WTO rules, adding that China has become “a unique and pressing problem for the WTO and the multilateral trading system.”

The criticism also comes as the United States weakens the WTO’s role as global commerce watchdog by blocking the appointments of judges to its appellate body, which may no longer be able to function by December, when two judges step down.

‘Holding China accountable’

USTR said the United States intends to “hold China accountable” for adhering to existing WTO rules and “any unfair and market-distorting trade practices that hurt U.S. workers, businesses, farmers or ranchers.”

“Until China transforms its approach to the economy and trade, the United States will take all appropriate actions to ensure that the costs of China’s non-market economic system are borne by China, not by the United States,” USTR said.

The agency reiterated a broad array of concerns over China’s key structural issues, such as its 2025 plan for investment in particular sectors and its failure to follow market-oriented principles expected of WTO members, the report said.

“China retains its non-market economic structure and its state-led, mercantilist approach to trade, to the detriment of its trading partners,” it said.
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Brazil’s government has opened discussions with congressional leaders, state governors and mayors on a pension reform bill that would set the minimum retirement age for men and women at 65, a government official said on Monday.

The proposal is one of several under consideration, as President Jair Bolsonaro looks to get the legislative ball rolling on his ambitious plans to overhaul Brazil’s creaking social security system.

Currently, if workers have contributed into the system for at least 15 years, the earliest men can retire is 65 and for women it is 60. But men can retire at any age if they have paid into the system for at least 35 years, and women if they have contributed for 30 years.

Speaking to reporters outside the Economy Ministry in Brasilia, Rogerio Marinho, secretary of social security and labor at the ministry, confirmed talks were underway on the proposal to change that.

Part of the proposal, which was originally reported by O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, stipulates that workers must pay into the system for a minimum of 20 years.

“Until a draft has been finalized, Bolsonaro cannot confirm anything on social security,” Bolsonaro’s spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said on Monday.

Bolsonaro has put overhauling social security at the top of his agenda. Depending on the final proposals, it could save up to 1.3 trillion reais ($354 billion) over the next decade, economy ministry sources reckon.

Investors have pinned much of their optimistic outlook for Brazil this year on Bolsonaro delivering on pension reform. The elections of Bolsonaro allies as house and senate presidents last week were seen as a step in that direction.

The Bovespa stock market hit a record high on Monday above 98,500 points, and the real has risen around 7 percent against the dollar in the last six weeks.

($1 = 3.6707 reais)
…

British lawmakers are debating new proposals on the European Union Withdrawal Agreement this week, amid a series of stark warnings over the consequences of Britain crashing out with no deal on 29 March.

Prime Minister Theresa May hopes to negotiate changes to the Withdrawal Agreement in meetings with Brussels in the coming days, after a majority of British MPs backed calls to change the deal last week. The European Union has flatly rejected reopening the talks.

There are growing signs that uncertainty over Brexit is starting to hit investment, as Japanese car giant Nissan has announced Sunday it is moving production of the X-trail — one of its most popular SUV models — out of the UK. The decision reverses a pledge made by Nissan in the wake of the 2016 referendum.

It’s emerged that Britain offered Nissan over $100 million in 2016 to persuade it to keep its operations in the UK. The reversal was met with dismay by British lawmakers.

‘”It concerns me that they have noted the uncertainty around Brexit and I think that is a serious signal to all of us in Parliament, that now is the time to resolve that uncertainty,” Business Minister Greg Clark told reporters Sunday.

As Britain’s ties stumble, Japan and the European Union are celebrating the entry into force of a trade deal, covering a third of global GDP. Visiting Tokyo Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a Brexit deal was still possible.

“But we need to know from Britain — and this is the critical point — what it envisages,” Merkel said in a press conference.

The threat of a no deal Brexit is growing starker by the day. Government contingency plans leaked to British media purportedly entail evacuating the Royal Family from Buckingham Palace. Worst-case scenarios envisage rioting on the streets amid food and medicine shortages, as waste export restrictions create mountains of garbage.

Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU Law at HEC Paris, says neither Britain nor Europe can accurately predict the consequences of a no-deal exit.

“Obviously it’s a very complicated scenario, which entails incredible implications for citizens, for businesses on both sides of the Channel. But the other option is to rethink the Withdrawal Agreement. But not entirely — it’s just about arranging the process that might lead the Withdrawal Agreement to finally find a majority in the Houses [of Parliament].”

That might not be enough. Britain is demanding changes to the so-called “Irish backstop” clause, which seeks to keep Britain tied to EU rules until a trade deal is in place — aimed at preventing a hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, which will become the EU’s external border.

But the EU is unlikely to budge, says analyst Anand Menon of the UK in a Changing Europe program at Kings College London.

“They won’t give us a time-limited backstop, because as the Irish keep staying, if it’s time-limited it’s not a backstop,” said Menon.

Reopening the Withdrawal Agreement could see other EU member states request their own changes, notably Spain’s demands for talks on the sovereignty of Gibraltar.

“Some member states could have some possible claims, certainly Spain might be one of them. But also the political context in Europe is also moving, and very fast, ahead of the next European elections,” notes Professor Alemmano.

It is a reminder that the current deadlock is just the beginning of Britain’s recasting its relationship with a fast-changing Europe — a process that could take years, if not decades.
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With Brexit just seven weeks away, Britain’s ruling Conservative Party was locked in tense negotiations with itself Monday to rework the U.K.’s divorce deal with the European Union — as the EU stood firm in ruling out any renegotiation.

Meanwhile, pro-EU and pro-Brexit U.K. politicians traded allegations about whether Nissan’s decision not to build a new SUV in northern England was the latest Brexit-induced damage to Britain’s economy.

Prime Minister Theresa May was gathering pro-Brexit and pro-EU Conservative lawmakers into an “alternative arrangements working group” seeking to break Britain’s Brexit deadlock.

The group is holding three days of meetings with ministers and civil servants to investigate possible changes to the EU divorce deal, which was rejected by Parliament last month.

The changes center on replacing a measure known as the backstop, designed to keep an open border between the United Kingdom’s Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland.

The border area was a flashpoint during decades of conflict in Northern Ireland that cost 3,700 lives. The free flow of people and goods across the near-invisible frontier now underpins both the local economy and Northern Ireland’s peace process.

The EU insists the Brexit withdrawal agreement can’t be renegotiated, and has already rejected some of the arrangements under discussion in London, including a time limit on the backstop and unspecified technological solutions to customs checks.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday the already-agreed Brexit withdrawal agreement could not be renegotiated, although questions surrounding border arrangements could be addressed in a declaration on the future relationship between the EU and Britain.

Speaking during a trip to Japan, she said a Brexit agreement was still possible, but first  “we must hear from Great Britain how they envision that.”

May has not spoken to EU leaders since Wednesday, a day after British lawmakers instructed her to seek changes to the Brexit withdrawal agreement she had spent a year and a half negotiating with Brussels.

But May’s spokesman, James Slack, denied that the Brexit process was deadlocked. He said the government was working with “urgency” on border solutions.

“What we are doing right now is working at home on the proposal we will take to Brussels,” he said.

Britain is due to leave the bloc on March 29, and the government doesn’t have an approved agreement on the rules and conditions that will replace the 45 years of frictionless trade that came with being an EU member.

Many businesses fear a cliff-edge “no-deal” departure from the EU will cause economic chaos. The uncertainty has already led many firms to shift some operations abroad, stockpile goods or defer investment decisions.

Over the weekend, Japan’s Nissan said it had decided not to build the X-Trail model at its existing U.K. plant in Sunderland, England, canceling plans announced two years ago after May’s government made undisclosed concessions designed to ensure the carmaker’s ability to compete after Brexit.

The company said it instead plans to consolidate production of the next generation X-Trail at its plant in Kyushu, Japan, where the model is currently produced. It will continue producing three other models at the Sunderland plant, which employs 7,000 people.

The company said it had made the decision “for business reasons,” but added that “the continued uncertainty around the U.K.’s future relationship with the EU is not helping companies like ours to plan for the future.”

Pro-Brexit British politicians insisted the decision was motivated largely by falling sales of diesel vehicles in Europe, rather than by Brexit.

But U.K. Business Secretary Greg Clark told the Financial Times that Nissan’s decision was “a warning sign.”

He said senior Nissan managers had told him that a no-deal Brexit would “cast a shadow over their future in Britain.”
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The growing use of mobile phones, computers, and televisions in Africa has left the continent with huge amounts of electronic waste. According to the United Nations Environment Program, 40 percent of the world’s electronic dumpsites are found in Africa. To reduce the growing problem, a group in Kenya is helping manage E-waste through local and exported recycling. Mohammed Yusuf reports from Nairobi.
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Finding a comfortable working environment can sometimes be difficult, especially for women working in male-dominated fields like science and technology. But some new startups are all about creating spaces that cater to and are dominated by women. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The most recent round of trade talks between the United States and China concluded in Washington this week with no firm deal other than a commitment to keep talking. Nike Ching reports on the status of the talks between the world’s leading economies, as they try to find common ground before more America tariffs come online in early March.
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Although they can afford to purchase a home, more well-to-do Americans are choosing to rent instead.

The number of U.S. households earning at least $150,000 annually that chose to rent rather than buy skyrocketed 175 percent between 2007 and 2017, according to an analysis by apartment search website RentCafe, which used data from the Census Bureau to reach its conclusions.

This new breed of renters challenges long-held assumptions that Americans rent a place to live primarily because they can’t afford to buy a home.

“Lifestyle plays an important part in their decision to rent,” study author Alexandra Ciuntu told VOA via email. “Renting in multiple cities at once has its perks, and so does changing one trendy location after another.”

Business and technology hubs like San Francisco and Seattle have the highest numbers of wealthy renters.

“Given the escalating house prices, it seems like a verifiable better decision to go with renting for longer,” Ciuntu said. “Given that in San Francisco, for example, $200,000 buys you just 260 square feet, it’s understandable why top-earners give renting a serious try before deciding whether to invest in a property or not.”

In fact, in both San Francisco and New York, wealthy renters outnumber well-to-do buyers. There are more high-earning renters — 250,000 — in New York City that anywhere else in the country.

“Ten years ago we would have associated real estate equity with life stability, whereas the two are not necessarily interrelated nowadays,” Ciuntu said. “Renting proves to be a more flexible option for those enjoying a dynamic and rich lifestyle. From a more millennial standpoint, this is no longer a brief solution before settling down, but rather an attractive world of possibilities.”

However, this rental enthusiasm doesn’t mean folks in the wealthiest brackets are rejecting homeownership, according to Ciuntu. Between 2007 and 2017, Chicago added 9,800 more wealthy owners than high-income renters, Seattle gained 13,400, and Denver added almost 18,000 more well-to do earners than wealthy renters.
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