U.S. employers likely kept adding jobs at a healthy pace in January even in the face of threats ranging from weakening global growth to the Trump administration’s trade war with China to the partial shutdown of the government.

On Friday, the Labor Department will issue the monthly employment report, the first major economic report to cover most of the 35-day shutdown period that ended a week ago.

Economists have forecast that employers added 165,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate remained at a low 3.9 percent, according to data provider FactSet. The predicted job gain would be a solid one, though it would follow a blowout figure of 312,000 jobs that were added in December.

The partial government shutdown, the longest on record, isn’t expected to have had a significant effect on the January jobs report. That’s because of how the government will categorize the 800,000 federal workers who weren’t paid for five weeks. All will be counted as employed in the government’s count of jobs in January. That means the economy will almost certainly record the 100th straight month of job gains, a record.

Still, some of the roughly 380,000 federal workers who didn’t work and weren’t paid might be counted as unemployed in a separate survey the government uses to calculate the unemployment rate. If so, this could inflate the jobless rate by 0.2 percentage point, economists say, though the effect would be reversed in February as federal employees return to work.

Unlike some government agencies, the Labor Department received its annual funding before the shutdown and has operated normally throughout.

“The shutdown was very traumatic for federal workers, but it will probably not show up in most of the data for private sector workers,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist for the employment site Glassdoor.

One unknown factor is the impact of the shutdown on government contractors, who perform a wide range of jobs – from janitorial work to data management. Some of them who were furloughed may receive back pay. But some won’t, and they could contribute to a higher unemployment rate and lower job count.

Still, a solid jobs report would provide reassurance that the economy remains mostly healthy and likely to shake off any effects of the shutdown. One positive sign emerged Wednesday from the payroll processing company ADP. Its survey found that private businesses added more than 200,000 jobs in January. The ADP data doesn’t cover government workers and doesn’t always mirror the government’s official monthly jobs report. But it suggests that the shutdown had little effect on private-sector hiring last month.

In another encouraging sign, the number of people seeking first-time unemployment benefits reached a 49-year low two weeks ago, though the figure jumped higher last week.

“The fact that the labor market is hanging so tough is a reason for optimism,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, which helps compile the ADP data. “As long as we are producing jobs at this pace, the economy will do OK.”

The government shutdown will probably end up slowing the economy’s growth for the first three months of the year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the shutdown lowered annual growth for the January-March quarter by about 0.4 percentage point, to a rate of 2.1 percent. Thousands of government workers who missed two paychecks slowed their spending. The federal government itself also spent less.

In addition, many businesses across the country lost income. Tourists cut back on visits to national parks, for example, thereby hurting nearby restaurants and hotels.

Yet even employers whose revenue dropped might have held onto their workers during January, Zandi said. With unemployment so low and many companies struggling to fill jobs, layoffs might not have been widespread.

Chamberlain said that Glassdoor’s data shows the number of job postings rose nearly 9 percent in late January compared with a year earlier, suggesting that demand for labor remained strong.

The shutdown has delayed the release of a range of government data about the economy, including statistics on housing, factory orders, and fourth-quarter growth.

The reports that have been released have been mixed. The Federal Reserve’s industrial production report showed that manufacturing output rose in December by the most in nearly a year, boosted by auto production.

But consumer confidence fell in January for a third straight month as Americans’ optimism dimmed amid the shutdown and sharp drops in the stock market. Falling confidence can cause consumers to restrain their spending, though economists note that confidence typically returns quickly after shutdowns end.

The housing market has clearly slumped as mortgage rates have increased. Sales of existing homes plunged in December and fell 3.1 percent in 2018 from the previous year. Mortgage rates have fallen back after nearly touching 5 percent last year, but the number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes still declined in December.

China’s economy is decelerating sharply and Italy’s economy has entered recession, exacerbating fears that slower global growth will cut into U.S. exports.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday cited the weaker global economy as a key reason why the central bank will be “patient” before it raises its benchmark interest rate again. That was a sharp turnaround from January, when Fed policymakers forecast two additional hikes for this year.
…

Iranian crude oil imports by Asia’s top four buyers dropped to the lowest volume in three years in 2018 amid U.S. sanctions on Tehran, but China and India stepped up imports in December after getting waivers from Washington.

Asia’s top four buyers of Iranian crude — China, India, Japan and South Korea — imported a total 1.31 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018, down 21 percent from the previous year, data from the countries showed.

That was the lowest since about 1 million bpd in 2015, when a previous round of sanctions on Iran led to a sharp drop in Asian imports, Reuters data showed.

The United States reimposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports last November as it wants to negotiate a new nuclear deal with the country. U.S. officials have said they intend to reduce the Islamic Republic’s oil exports to zero.

On a monthly basis, Asia’s imports from Iran rebounded to a three-month high of 761,593 bpd in December as China and India stepped up purchases after Washington granted eight countries waivers from the Iranian sanctions for 180 days from the start of November.

“We expect Iranian exports to Asia to remain stable at around 800,000 barrels per day until May, when the waivers expire,” said Energy Aspects analyst Riccardo Fabiani.

In December, China’s imports climbed above 500,000 bpd for the first time in three months, while India’s imports rose above 302,000 bpd.

Japan and South Korea did not import any Iranian crude that month because they were still sorting out payment and shipping issues, but the countries have resumed oil lifting from Iran this month.

During the 180-day period, China can import up to 360,000 bpd of Iranian oil, while India’s imports are restricted to 300,000 bpd. South Korea can import up to 200,000 bpd of Iranian condensate.

“After May, it will all depend on the U.S. administration’s decisions, which at the moment remain completely obscure. On balance, they are likely to extend the current waivers, although rumors are that there could be a significant cut in waivered volumes,” Fabiani said.

As a precaution, Indian Oil Corp, the country’s top refiner, is looking for an annual deal to buy U.S. crude as it seeks to broaden its oil purchasing options, its chairman said Wednesday.
…

Ghirardelli and Russell Stover have agreed to pay $750,000 in fines after prosecutors in California said they offered a little chocolate in a lot of wrapping.

Prosecutors in Sacramento, San Joaquin, Shasta, Fresno, Santa Cruz and Yolo counties sued the candy makers, alleging they misled consumers by selling chocolate products in containers that were oversized or “predominantly empty.”

Prosecutors also alleged that Ghirardelli offered one chocolate product containing less cocoa than advertised.

The firms didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing but agreed to change their packaging under a settlement approved earlier this month. Some packages will shrink or will have a transparent window so consumers can look inside.

San Francisco-based Ghirardelli and Kansas City-based Russell Stover are owned by a Swiss company, Lindt & Sprungli.
…

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Thursday pushing those who receive federal funds to “buy American.” The aim is to boost U.S. manufacturing.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, told reporters during a telephone briefing the policies are helping workers who “are blue collar, Trump people.” Later he amended that, saying he “every American is a Trump person” because Trump’s economic policies affect everyone.

Navarro said the order would affect federal financial assistance, which includes everything from loans and grants to insurance and interest subsidies.

He says some 30 federal agencies award over $700 billion in such aid each year. Recipients working on projects like bridges and sewer systems will be encouraged to use American products.

 
…

Thousands of commuters flock to Manila’s railway tracks every day, but rather than boarding the trains, they climb on to wooden carts pushed along the tracks, to avoid the Philippine capital’s infamous traffic gridlock.

The trolleys, as the carts are known, most of them fitted with colorful umbrellas for shade from the sun, can seat up to 10 people each, who pay as little as 20 U.S. cents per ride, cheaper than most train rides.

“I do this because it gives us money that’s easy to earn,” said Reynaldo Diaz, 40, who is one of more than 100 operators, also known as “trolley boys,” who push the carts along the 28-km (17-mile) track, most wearing flimsy flip-flops on their feet.

“It’s better than stealing from others,” said Diaz, adding that he earned around $10 a day, just enough for his family to get by. A trolley boy since he was 17, he lives in a makeshift shelter beside the track with his two sons.

Diaz said the trolley boys were just “borrowing” the track from the Philippine National Railways, but the state-owned train company has moved to halt the trolley service after the media drew attention to its dangers recently.

The risk arises because those pushing and riding the trolleys have to watch out for the trains to avoid collisions.

“Of course we get scared of the trains,” said Jun Albeza, 32, who has been a trolley boy for four years after he was laid off from plumbing and construction jobs.

“That’s why, whenever we’re pushing these trolleys, we always look back, so we can see if there’s a train coming. Those in front of us will give us a heads-up too.”

When a train approaches, the trolley boys quickly grab the lightweight carts off the track and jump out of the way along with their riders.

Still, there have been no fatal accidents since the makeshift service started decades ago, some of the trolley boys told Reuters.

A Manila police officer confirmed that records showed no casualties related to the trolley boys.

“It is really dangerous and should not be allowed, But we understand that it’s their livelihood,” said the officer, Bryan Silvan. “They’re like mushrooms that just popped up along the tracks and they even have their own association.”

When the Philippine National Railways began operation in the 1960s, its network of more than 100 stations extended to provinces outside Manila.

But neglect and natural disasters have since caused it to cut back operations by two-thirds, even as the capital’s population has ballooned to about 13 million.

For office workers and students, the minutes shaved off daily commutes justify the risks of trolley rides.

“The distance to our workplaces is actually shorter through this route,” said one office worker, Charlette Magtrayo.
…

U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation to limit the president’s power to levy import tariffs for national security reasons. The bills face an uncertain future but underscore bipartisan concerns on Capitol Hill over the rising costs of the Trump administration’s trade policies.

The United States in 2018 slapped duties on aluminum and steel from other countries, drawing criticism from lawmakers who support free trade and complaints of rising supply chain costs across business sectors.

Two bipartisan groups of lawmakers Wednesday introduced legislation known as the Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The bills would require Trump to have congressional approval before taking trade actions like tariffs and quotas under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The law currently allows the president to impose such tariffs without approval from Capitol Hill.

“The imposition of these taxes, under the false pretense of national security (Section 232), is weakening our economy, threatening American jobs, and eroding our credibility with other nations,” said Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, co-sponsor of the Senate bill.

Toomey led a similar push last year that did not go to a vote.

It is unclear that Congress would consider taking up such legislation now. Still, the bills underscore mounting pressure from lawmakers to address concerns over tariffs, especially those on Canada and Mexico as lawmakers prepare to vote on a new North American trade deal agreed to late last year.

​Republican Chuck Grassley from Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, earlier pressed the Trump administration to lift tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico before Congress begins considering legislation to implement the new pact.

Numerous business and agricultural groups have come out in support of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, but have said its benefits will be limited so long as the U.S. tariffs and retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico remain in place.

Companies are able to request exemptions from the steel and aluminum tariffs, but the process has been plagued by delays and uncertainty.

“Virginia consumers and industries like craft beer and agriculture are hurting because of the president’s steel and aluminum tariffs,” said Democratic Senator Mark Warner, co-sponsor of the Senate legislation. “This bill would roll them back.”

Republicans Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Darin LaHood of Illinois and Democrats Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Jimmy Panetta of California introduced the House legislation.
…

The Trump Organization, responding to claims that some of its workers were in the U.S. illegally, said on Wednesday that it will use the E-Verify electronic system at all of its properties to check employees’ documentation.

A lawyer for a dozen immigrant workers at the Trump National Golf Club in New York’s Westchester County said recently that they were fired on Jan. 18. He said many had worked there for a dozen or more years. Workers at another Trump club in Bedminster, New Jersey, came forward last month to allege managers there had hired them knowing they were in the country illegally.

“We are actively engaged in uniforming this process across our properties and will institute E-verify at any property not currently utilizing this system,” Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “As a company we take this obligation very seriously and when faced with a situation in which an employee has presented false and fraudulent documentation, we will take appropriate action.”

“I must say, for me personally, this whole thing is truly heartbreaking,” he added. “Our employees are like family but when presented with fake documents, an employer has little choice.”

Launched in 1996, the E-Verify system allows employers to check documentation submitted by job applicants with records at the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to see whether they are authorized to work. 

During his presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump called for all employers to use the federal government online E-Verify system. He told MSNBC in 2016 that he uses it at his properties, and that there should be a “huge financial penalty” for companies that hire workers who are in the country illegally.

Several of those workers from Trump’s properties paid visits to Congressional offices this week in hopes of raising support for their fight against possible deportation. One Democrat, New Jersey Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, confirmed Wednesday that she had invited a maid who had cleaned President Trump’s rooms at Bedminster as her guest at his State of the Union speech.

The maid, Victorina Morales, was featured in a New York Times story last month titled “Making President Trump’s Bed: A Housekeeper Without Papers.” She has said that managers there knew she was living in the country illegally, helped her obtain false documentation and that she was physically abused by a supervisor.

Morales’ lawyer, Anibal Romero, said that Morales had accepted the invitation.

The Trump Organization has said it does not tolerate employing workers who are living in the U.S. without legal permission, and any problems with hiring is not unique to the company.

“It demonstrates that our immigration system is severely broken and needs to be fixed immediately,” Eric Trump said in his statement. “It is my greatest hope that our ‘lawmakers’ return to work and actually do their jobs.”

President Trump has repeatedly cast the millions of immigrants in the country illegally as a scourge on the health of the economy, taking jobs from American citizens. He has said they also bring drugs and crime over the border.

He turned over day-to-day management of his business to Eric and his other adult son, Donald Jr., when he took the oath of office two years ago. The Trump Organization owns or manages 17 golf clubs around the world.
…

The Philippines ranked among Asia’s 10 fastest growing economies in 2017. Consumer power, remittances from overseas workers and an influx of call centers had given it that status, raising hopes for easing rampant poverty. Then GDP expansion wobbled in 2018 because of rising prices and lack of new direct investment.

Now state spending on new infrastructure and local tourism are expected to decide whether the Philippines can get back on track this year.

The Philippine economy grew 6.2 percent last year, down from 6.7 percent in 2017 and 6.9 percent a year earlier. Inflation dented consumption in late 2018, while factory investors stayed away for lack of infrastructure compared to what’s available elsewhere in Asia. Storm damage to crops, another economic backbone, and the six-month shutdown of the tourist hotspot Boracay Island ate away further at growth.

“I think it’s a combination of factors,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “One would be inflation, because that would slow down consumption. Infrastructure is always a constraint. The economy is growing, but the bottlenecks are not yet fixed.”

Slumps in farming, consumption

A spike in consumer prices in the Philippines in late 2018 angered many, testing the popularity of President Rodrigo Duterte in his third year in office. August inflation set a nine-year record at 6.4 percent, then the highest in Southeast Asia.

World oil price hikes were felt at the pump, while reports of rice scarcity raised prices in some parts of the country. More than 70 percent of the $313 billion Philippine economy comes from consumption, and people – especially the poor – mind their spending when prices are up.

The GDP struggled to grow also after deadly typhoon Mangkhut caused $509 million in agricultural damage in September and three months later tropical storm Usman caused another $19 million in farm losses.

The Western Pacific archipelago gets typhoons every year but still lacks infrastructure to withstand them, said Song Seng Wun, regional economist with the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.

Tourism was robust overall last year, but the closure of Boracay Island hurt the country’s prime tourism spot. Duterte declared a state of calamity from April through October to clean up the island, which had brought in more than $1 billion in tourism receipts in 2017.

Quest for investors

But the lack of capital investment weighs particularly hard on economic policymakers this year. The country, known for cheap, skilled labor, is still missing the ports, railways and power generation capacity that business people expect before opening shop. Investment would create jobs, in turn easing poverty.

“In terms of the whole ease of doing business, the Philippines ranks very low, but one of those reasons is poor infrastructure,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit.

To attract more capital, the government is building $171 billion worth of infrastructure by 2022, one of Duterte’s priorities in office. By the same year, the government aims to cut poverty from 22 percent to 14 percent of the population.

Officials are sighting for this year new roads and a railway system on the impoverished island of Mindanao, flood control work around Manila and the first phase of a Metro Manila subway project, Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on his department’s website.

Progress on infrastructure would also show that the Philippines can overcome political fights that include open spats between Duterte and his detractors in Congress or the mass media, economists believe.

“Investors like clarity,” Song said. “So when you have leaders or opinion makers who can be very abrasive as well, would you want to be putting in millions of millions of investments given that environment?”

The budget department flagged manufacturing growth as an “area of concern.” In a statement on the 2018 economy, the department urged more transport infrastructure and asked Congress to amend the Foreign Investments Act, which deters foreign investors by limiting how much they can invest in certain local industries.

Bright spots

Some analysts already point to bright spots in the 2019 economy. Tourism on the heavily populated island Cebu stands to help real estate there, Biswas said, while tourism and investment are booming near the former U.S. airbase at Clark Field.

The Asian Development Bank expects 6.7 percent growth this year.

“If you look at it from a perspective that the Philippines is actually working on its infrastructure to attract investors, you have a government commitment to keep on spending, and you have a country whose growth is actually moving away from the key cities but into other areas, that will support above 6 percent growth,” said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.
…

Brazilian miner Vale SA identified concerns around its tailings dams in 2009 and studied but did not implement several steps that could have prevented or lessened the damage from last week’s deadly disaster, according to a corporate presentation seen by Reuters.

A tailings dam, used to store the muddy detritus of the mining process, collapsed on Friday, killing at least 65 in one of Brazil’s largest industrial accidents on record.            

The Brumadinho disaster, coming just over three years after a similar incident at another mine partially controlled by Vale, has fueled calls for a management overhaul and erased more than 70 billion reais ($18.61 billion) in Vale’s market value.      

But a decade ago, the world’s largest iron ore miner was considering ways to use fewer tailings dams, including alternative uses for the waste rock, according to the 73-page presentation.

The presentation pointed to the rising volume of tailings produced at the company’s mines, with some locations producing hundreds of thousands of tons of tailings daily.

The report suggested Vale make building materials from tailings, including bricks, a step that would give the company another revenue source and lessen the volume needing to be stored using dams.

The 2009 Vale report had recommended the company undertake a project to be called “Zero Dams” that would have involved drying out tailings, among other steps. It was not known whether the report reached the top levels of Vale management nor why it was not implemented.

Vale declined to comment. The report’s author, Paulo Ricardo Behrens da Franca, left Vale a year after submitting it and now works as an industry consultant. Reached by Reuters, he did not comment.

‘Inherently Dangerous Structures’

Vale’s Brumadinho facility was built using the cheapest and least-stable type of tailings dam design, a commonly used structure in mining known as “upstream construction.”

Chile, Peru and other earthquake-prone countries ban the design, in which tailings are used to progressively construct dam walls the more a mine is excavated. Brazil is not as earthquake-prone as its western neighbors, but even small seismic activity has been shown to affect tailings dams.

Because these types of tailings dams are waterlogged, they are easily susceptible to cracks and other damage that can cause bursts like the one that occurred last week near Brumadinho.

“A tailings dam may look safe, but it’s still retaining a lot of moisture behind it,” said Dermot Ross-Brown, a mining industry engineer who teaches at the Colorado School of Mines. “They’re inherently dangerous structures.”

Tailings dams tend to be shorter in height than conventional water dams, but often are far wider in span.

The disaster’s cause remains unknown. Vale said the dam had not received tailings for about two and a half years and was in the process of decommissioning, a step that should have lessened risk, engineers said.

“It’s really puzzling to me this happened as the (dam) was closing,” said Cameron Scott of SRK Consulting, a mining engineering firm. “This disaster will make future mine permitting harder.”

The dam had passed a September 2018 inspection by the German firm TUEV SUED AG and Vale Chief Executive Fabio Schvartsman said equipment had shown the dam was stable on Jan.

10.            

On Tuesday, Brazilian state prosecutors arrested three Vale employees and two TUEV SUED employees.                

Risk

Brazil has nearly 4,000 dams that are classified as having “high damage potential” or being at high risk, with 205 of those dams containing mineral waste, the country’s Regional Development Minister Gustavo Canuto said.             

Analysts and engineers said that the Brumadinho disaster will hopefully push the industry to stop storing wet tailings and instead move toward the more-expensive-but-safer process of storing dry tailings.

That process requires drying the tailings and storing them on-site, abrogating the risk of a dam burst. The approach is becoming more popular in Canada and other countries with stricter mining regulations.    

“The industry doesn’t yet fully realize the risk its taking on with those type of wet tailings dams,” said Matt Fuller of Tierra Group International Ltd, a tailings engineering consulting firm.

Officials in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, where the disaster occurred, say they are now going to push for legislation requiring dry mining and forcing miners to tear down tailings dams when they are located above communities.

A similar proposal failed last summer, with its defeat attributed by the bill’s sponsor to lobbying pressure from mining companies.

Brazil is still reeling from the 2015 collapse of a larger dam, owned by the Samarco Mineracao SA joint venture between Vale and BHP, that killed 19 people.

After Samarco, the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) issued updated guidelines for its members to try to safeguard tailings dams used to store waste left over from mining operations.

The ICCM said on Saturday that the mining industry still has “lessons to learn” from Samarco and similar events.            

Mining companies typically hire engineering firms that specialize in tailings dams to build the structures, not necessarily dam contractors themselves, a step that some industry observers hope changes soon.     

“The mining companies are not placing dam safety at the forefront of their preoccupations,” said Emmanuel Grenier, a spokesman for the International Coalition of Large Dams (ICOLD), a non-governmental organization focused on dam engineering.

The group “is recommending that dams, especially large dams, be built by dam professionals, but it is too rarely the case for tailing dams,” Grenier said.

($1 = 3.7614 reais)
…

Apple hoped to offset slowing demand for iPhones by raising the prices of its most important product, but that strategy seems to have backfired after sales sagged during the holiday shopping season.

Results released Tuesday revealed the magnitude of the iPhone slump – a 15 percent drop in revenue from the previous year. That decline in Apple’s most profitable product caused Apple’s total earnings for the October-December quarter to dip slightly to $20 billion.

Now, CEO Tim Cook is grappling with his toughest challenge since replacing co-founder Steve Jobs 7 years ago. Even as he tries to boost iPhone sales, Cook also must prove that Apple can still thrive even if demand doesn’t rebound. 

It figures to be an uphill battle, given Apple’s stock has lost one-third of its value in less than four months, erasing about $370 billion in shareholder wealth. 

Cook rattled Wall Street in early January by disclosing the company had missed its own revenue projections for the first time in 15 years. The last time that happened, the iPod was just beginning to transform Apple.

​”This is the defining moment for Cook,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives. “He has lost some credibility on Wall Street, so now he will have to do some hand-holding as the company enters this next chapter.” 

The results for the October-December period were slightly above the expectations analysts lowered after Cook’s Jan. 2 warning. Besides the profit decline, Apple’s revenue fell 5 percent from the prior year to $84 billion.

It marked the first time in more than two years that Apple’s quarterly revenue has dropped from the past year. The erosion was caused by the decline of the iPhone, whose sales plunged to $52 billion, down by more than $9 billion from the previous year. 

The past quarter’s letdown intensified the focus on Apple’s forecast for the opening three months of the year as investors try to get a better grasp on iPhone sales until the next models are released in autumn.

Apple predicted its revenue for the January-March period will range from $55 billion to $59 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had been anticipating revenue of about $59 billion.

Investors liked what they read and heard, helping Apple’s stock recoup some of their recent losses. The stock gained nearly 6 percent to $163.50 in extended trading after the report came out.

“We wouldn’t change our position with anyone’s,” Cook reassured analysts during a conference call reviewing the past quarter and the upcoming months.

The company didn’t forecast how many iPhones it will sell, something Apple has done since the product first hit the market in 2007 and transformed society, as well as technology.

Apple is no longer disclosing how many iPhones it shipped after the quarter is completed, a change that Cook announced in November. That unexpected move raised suspicions that Apple was trying to conceal a forthcoming slump in iPhone sales – fears that were realized during the holiday season.

Cook traces most of Apple’s iPhone problems to a weakening economy in China, the company’s second biggest market behind the U.S. The company is also facing tougher competition in China, where homegrown companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi have been winning over consumers in that country with smartphones that have many of the same features as iPhones at lower prices.

Although a trade war started by President Donald Trump last year has hurt China and potentially caused some consumers there to boycott U.S. products, many analysts believe the iPhone’s malaise stems from other issues too.

Among them are higher prices – Apple’s most expensive iPhone now costs $1,350 – for models that aren’t that much better than the previous generation, giving consumers little incentive to stop using the device they already own until it wears out. Apple also gave old iPhones new life last by offering to replace aging batteries for $29, a 70 percent discount.

​”The upgrade cycle has extended, there is no doubt about that,” Cook conceded.

Apple is banking that investors will realize the company can still reap huge profits by selling various services on the 1.4 billion devices running on its software.

That’s one reason why Cook has been touting the robust growth of Apple’s division that collects commissions from paid apps, processes payments, and sells hardware warranty plans and music streaming subscriptions. Apple Music now has more than 50 million subscribers, second to Spotify’s 87 million streaming subscribers through September.

Apple is also preparing to launch a video streaming service to compete against Netflix, though Cook said he wasn’t ready to provide details Tuesday.

The company’s services revenue in the past quarter climbed 19 percent from the prior year to $10.9 billion – more than any other category besides the iPhone.
…

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PdVSA, in an increased effort to pressure Nicolás Maduro to relinquish power to Juan Guaidó, now recognized by the U.S. and a number of other nations as the country’s legitimate president. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from the State Department.
…

Brazil eyes management overhaul for Vale after dam disaster

Brazil’s government weighed pushing for a management overhaul at iron ore miner Vale SA on Monday as grief over the hundreds feared killed by a dam burst turned into anger, with prosecutors, politicians and victims’ families calling for punishment.

By Monday night, firefighters in the state of Minas Gerais had confirmed that 65 people were killed by Friday’s disaster, when a burst tailings dam sent a torrent of sludge into the miner’s offices and the town of Brumadinho.

There were still 279 people unaccounted for, and officials said it was unlikely that any would be found alive.

Brazil’s acting president, Hamilton Mourao, told reporters a government task force on the disaster response is looking at whether it could or should change Vale’s top management.

Public-sector pension funds hold several seats on the board of the mining company, and the government holds a “golden share” giving it power over strategic decisions.

“The question of Vale’s management is being studied by the crisis group,” said Mourao, who is serving as acting president for some 48 hours while President Jair Bolsonaro recovers from surgery. “I’m not sure if the group could make that recommendation.”

Shares of Vale, the world’s largest iron ore and nickel producer, plummeted 24.5 percent on Monday in Sao Paulo, erasing nearly $19 billion in market capitalization. A U.S. law firm filed a shareholder class action lawsuit against the company in New York, seeking to recover investment losses.

Igor Lima, a fund manager at Galt Capital in Rio, said the severe threats from the government and prosecutors drove the shares even lower than many analysts had estimated.

“This reaction has brought quite a lot of uncertainty about the size of the financial punishment Vale will have to handle,” he said.

Senator Renan Calheiros, who is in the thick of a Senate leadership race, on Twitter called for Vale’s top management to be removed urgently “out of respect for the victims … and to avoid any destruction of evidence.”

One of Vale’s lawyers, Sergio Bermudes, told newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that management should not leave the company and said that Calheiros was trying to profit politically from the tragedy.

Vale’s senior executives have apologized for the disaster but have not accepted responsibility, saying the installations met the highest industry standards.

Brazil’s top prosecutor, Raquel Dodge, said the company should be held strongly responsible and criminally prosecuted.

Executives could also be personally held responsible, she said.

Repeated Failures

The disaster at the Corrego do Feijao mine occurred less than four years after a dam collapsed at a nearby mine run by Samarco Mineracao SA, a joint venture by Vale and BHP Billiton, killing 19 and dumping toxic sludge in a major river.

While the 2015 Samarco disaster unleashed about five times more mining waste, Friday’s dam break was far deadlier as the wall of mud hit Vale’s local offices, including a crowded cafeteria, and tore through a populated area downhill.

“The cafeteria was in a risky area,” Renato Simao de Oliveiras, 32, said while searching for his twin brother, a Vale employee, at an emergency response station. “Just to save money, even if it meant losing the little guy. … These businessmen, they only think about themselves.”

As search efforts continued on Monday, firefighters laid down wood planks to cross a sea of sludge that is hundreds of meters wide in places, to reach a bus in search of bodies inside. Villagers discovered the bus as they tried to rescue a nearby cow stuck in the mud.

Longtime resident Ademir Rogerio cried as he surveyed the mud where Vale’s facilities once stood on the edge of town.

“The world is over for us,” he said. “Vale is the top mining company in the world. If this could happen here, imagine what would happen if it were a smaller miner.”

Nestor José de Mury said he lost his nephew and coworkers in the mud. “I’ve never seen anything like it, it killed everyone,” he said.

Vale Chief Financial Officer Luciano Siani told journalists on Monday evening that, despite interrupting operations in Brumadinho, the company would continue royalty payments to the municipality. He said Vale royalties made up about 60 percent of the town’s 140 million reais in revenue last year.

Siani said a donation of 100,000 reais will be made to each family that lost a relative in the disaster and said Vale would step up investments in dam safety.

Safety Debate

The board of Vale, which has raised its dividends over the last year, suspended all shareholder payouts and executive bonuses late on Sunday, as the disaster put its corporate strategy under scrutiny.

Since the disaster, courts have order a freeze on 11.8 billion reais of Vale’s assets to cover damages. State and federal authorities have slapped it with 349 million reais of administrative fines.

German insurer Allianz SE may have to cover some of the costs of the dam collapse, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

“I’m not a mining technician. I followed the technicians’ advice and you see what happened. It didn’t work,” Vale CEO Fabio Schvartsman said in a TV interview. “We are 100 percent within all the standards, and that didn’t do it.”

Many wondered if the state of Minas Gerais, named for the mining industry that has shaped its landscape for centuries, should have higher standards.

“There are safe ways of mining,” said Joao Vitor Xavier, head of the mining and energy commission in the state assembly. “It’s just that it diminishes profit margins, so they prefer to do things the cheaper way — and put lives at risk.”

Reaction to the disaster could threaten the plans of Brazil’s newly inaugurated president to relax restrictions on the mining industry, including proposals to open up indigenous reservations and large swaths of the Amazon jungle for mining.

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles said in a TV interview on Monday that Brazil should create new regulation for mining dams, replacing wet tailings dams with dry mining methods.

Mines and Energy Minister Bento Albuquerque proposed in a Sunday newspaper interview that the law be changed to assign responsibility in cases such as Brumadinho to the people responsible for certifying the safety of mining dams.

“Current law does not prevent disasters like the one we saw on Brumadinho,” he said. “The model for verifying the state of mining dams will have to be reconsidered. The model isn’t good.”

($1 = 3.7559 reais)
…

Food shocks, or sudden losses of crops, livestock or fish, due to the combination extreme weather conditions and geopolitical events like war, increased from 1961 to 2013, said researchers at The University of Tasmania in a report released Monday.

Researchers saw a steady increase in shock frequency over each decade with no declines.

The report, published in Nature Sustainability, said that protective measures are needed to avoid future disasters.

The authors studied 226 shocks across 134 countries over the last 53 years and, unlike previous reports, examined the connection between shocks and land-based agriculture and sea-based aquaculture.

“There seems to be this increasing trend in volatility,” said lead author Richard Cottrell, a PhD candidate in quantitative marine science at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “We do need to stop and think about this.”

Extreme weather events are expected to worsen over time because of climate change, the report said, and when countries already struggling to feed their populations experience conflict, the risk of mass-hunger increases.

The researchers found that about one quarter of food resources are accessed through trade, and many countries could not feed their populations without imports, making them particularly vulnerable to food shocks of trading partners.

As the frequency of shocks continues to increase, it leaves what Cottrell called “narrowing windows” between shocks, making it nearly impossible to recover and prepare for the next one.

The report said trade-dependent countries must find ways to store food in preparation for inevitable shocks elsewhere.

Countries must invest in “climate-smart” practices like diversifying plant and animal breeds and varieties and enhance soil quality to speed recovery following floods and droughts, the report said.

“We need to start changing the way we produce food for resiliency,” Cottrell said, adding that he had yet to see much action being taken by wealthy food-producing countries. “Because we are going to see a problem.”

The report was released the same day the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported findings on conflict and hunger.

That report stated that around 56 million people across eight conflict zones are in need of immediate food and livelihood assistance.
…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Monday the United States expects significant progress this week in trade talks with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, but the two sides will be tackling “complicated issues”, including how to enforce any deal.

The talks, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in Washington, will include a meeting between Liu and U.S. President Donald Trump and take place amid worsening tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday unsealed indictments against China’s top telecommunications equipment maker, Huawei Technologies Co., accusing it of bank and wire fraud to evade Iran sanctions and conspiring to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile US Inc.

China, meanwhile, formally challenged U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods in the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system, calling the duties a “blatant breach” of Washington’s WTO obligations.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross insisted at a news conference that the Huawei indictments are “law enforcement actions and are wholly separate from our trade negotiations with China.”

The Huawei indictment came as a Chinese delegation including Liu and Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen was already in Washington preparing for the talks, a person familiar with the discussions said.

Mnuchin, speaking at a White House news conference, said the two sides were trying to tackle “complicated issues,” including a way to verify enforcement of China’s reform progress in any deal with Beijing.

The Treasury chief, who will be among the top U.S. officials at the negotiating table, said Chinese officials had acknowledged the need for such a verification mechanism.

“We want to make sure that when we get a deal, that deal will be enforced,” Mnuchin said. “The details of how we do that are very complicated. That needs to be negotiated. But IP (intellectual property) protection, no more forced joint ventures, and enforcement are three of the most important issues on the agenda.”

Reuters reported earlier this month that U.S. officials were demanding regular reviews of China’s progress on pledged trade reforms, which would maintain the threat of tariffs long term.

Mnuchin added that there had been “significant movement” in the talks so far, and there will be around 30 days for further negotiations after the meetings in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday to reach an agreement before a March 2 deadline for increasing U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

Mounting concerns for both countries, including China’s slowing economy and Trump’s need for a political win, could prod both sides towards a “partial, interim deal,” said Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University trade professor and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China department.

“There remains a vast distance separating the negotiating positions of the two sides, making a comprehensive and durable deal unlikely,” Prasad said.

China is unlikely to give much ground on industrial policy and state support for industries, but it could promise to improve intellectual property protections and enforcement.

However, persuading U.S. negotiators that these can be verified will be a “hard sell,” Prasad added.

The White House said that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would lead the talks for the American side, with participation from Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow and White House trade and manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro.

It said the meetings will take place in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex.
…

Federal prosecutors on Monday unsealed two separate indictments against China’s Huawei Technologies, it’s chief financial officer and several affiliates for financial fraud and theft of American intellectual property.

In a 13-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, prosecutors charged the Chinese tech giant, its top financial officer, Wanzhou Meng, and two affiliates with violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.

In the second indictment returned in Washington state, prosecutors charged Huawei and its U.S. affiliates with theft of trade secrets, wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

“This indictment shines a bright light on Huawei’s flagrant abuse of the law — especially its efforts to steal valuable intellectual property from T-Mobile to gain unfair advantage in the global marketplace,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes of the Western District of Washington.

The announcement comes amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing and stepped up U.S. scrutiny of Chinese economic espionage. In November, the U.S. Justice Department announced an initiative to combat Chinese economic espionage and theft of American intellectual property. 

The new China initiative will be led by John Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, and carried out by a senior FBI official, five U.S. attorneys and several top department officials. Former attorney general Jeff Sessions said at the time that the initiative “will identify priority Chinese trade theft cases, ensure that we have enough resources dedicated to them, and make sure that we bring them to an appropriate conclusion quickly and effectively.”

Tensions between the U.S. and China escalated in December after Canadian authorities arrested Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder, for extradition to the U.S. Meng remains under house arrest in Canada. The U.S. has until Jan. 30 to file an extradition request with Canadian authorities.
…

When Germany signed a deal last month to help Bolivia exploit its huge lithium reserves, it hailed the venture as a deepening of economic ties with the South American country. But it also gives Germany entry into the new “Great Game,” in which big powers like China are jostling across the globe for access to the prized electric battery metal.

The signing of the deal in Berlin on Dec. 12 capped two years of intense lobbying by Germany as it sought to persuade President Evo Morales’ government that a small German family-run company was a better bet than its Chinese rivals, according to Reuters interviews with German and Bolivian officials.

While the substance of the deal has been reported, how China, Bolivia’s biggest non-institutional lender and close ideological ally, lost out to Germany has not.

China has been quietly cornering the global lithium market, making deals in Asia, Chile and Argentina as it seeks to lock in access to a strategic resource that could power the next energy revolution.

China has invested $4.2 billion in South America in the past two years, surpassing the value of similar deals by Japanese and South Korean companies in the same period. Chinese entities now control nearly half of global lithium production and 60 percent of electric battery production capacity.

German officials told Reuters they championed the bid by ACI Systems GmbH because they saw an opportunity to lower Germany’s reliance on Asian battery makers and help its carmakers catch up with Chinese and U.S. rivals in the race to make electric cars.

The German push included a series of visits by German government officials who talked up the benefits of picking a German company. Bolivian officials also toured German battery factories, Bolivia’s deputy minister of High Energy Technologies, Luis Alberto Echazu, told Reuters.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier wrote a letter to Morales, an environmental champion, emphasizing Germany’s commitment to environment protection.

The lobbying effort was capped by a call last April between Altmaier and Morales, Bolivian, German and ACI officials said, without offering details of what was discussed.

German diplomats in La Paz also stressed high-level German government backing for the project, potential loan guarantees and the tantalizing prospect of supply agreements with German automakers, ACI and Bolivian officials told Reuters.

ACI’s win means Germany now has a foothold in the final frontier of South America’s so-called Lithium Triangle: the Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia, one of the world’s largest untapped deposits. The triangle comprises lithium deposits in an area that includes parts of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

“This partnership secures lithium supplies for us and breaks the Chinese monopoly,” Wolfgang Tiefensee, economy minister of the German state of Thuringia, an automotive manufacturing hub, told Reuters during a visit to the Bolivian capital La Paz in October.

Some risks

The venture in Bolivia is not without risk for ACI.

While Uyuni boasts at least 21 million tons of lithium, Morales has made nationalizing natural resources a key policy plank. Bolivian officials assured ACI that foreign investments in the Uyuni would be guaranteed should anything go awry, CEO Wolfgang Schmutz said in an interview.

In addition, unlike Chile’s sun-drenched Atacama salt flats, snow and rain slow the evaporation process needed to extract lithium from brine in Uyuni, and the landlocked nation will have to use a port in neighboring Chile or Peru to ship the metal out.

ACI, a family-run clean tech and machinery supplier, has no experience producing lithium. The company dismisses concerns from some lithium analysts about its ability to deliver, saying its small size gives it more flexibility to bring partners from different fields into the project.

Schmutz said the company has preliminary lithium supply deals with major German carmakers, but declined to provide details, citing non-disclosure agreements.

None of Germany’s top three carmakers — BMW, VW or Daimler — confirmed any agreement with ACI when contacted by Reuters.

BMW said it was in preliminary talks with ACI but had made no decision. VW said ensuring supplies and stable prices for raw materials was important, but noted lithium production in Bolivia was particularly demanding. Daimler board member Ola Kaellenius said: “If it’s happening, we’re not part of it.”

ACI said the carmakers that it was in talks with would not be able to confirm anything publicly until final deals were made.

The “Great Game” — lithium version

The global battle for control of lithium has been likened to the “Great Game,” the term coined to describe the struggle between Russia and Britain for influence and territory in Central Asia in the 19th century.

The Bolivian project includes plans to build a lithium hydroxide plant and a factory for producing electric car batteries in Bolivia. Once completed, the factory will help to fulfill Morales’ ambition to break with Bolivia’s historic role as a mere exporter of raw materials.

ACI has said it expects the lithium hydroxide plant to have an annual production capacity of 35,000-40,000 tons by the end of 2022, similar in output to plants operated by the world’s top lithium producers. Eighty percent of that would be exported to Germany.

ACI’s willingness to build a battery plant in Bolivia helped to seal the deal, said Echazu, the deputy minister.

The Chinese did not want to build a battery plant in Bolivia because they felt it made no economic sense to ship in materials to make the batteries only to re-import the final product to China, he said.

China’s embassy in La Paz declined to comment on the Uyuni project, but said the potential for future cooperation with Bolivia on lithium was “huge.”

Bolivia’s state-owned lithium producer YLB will own 51 percent of the new joint venture. Control of the project was another key demand of the Bolivians, who have bitter memories of foreign powers meddling in the former Spanish colony to seize its natural resources.

Juan Carlos Montenegro, the head of YLB, said geopolitics was a factor for Bolivia in deciding which companies to work with.

“We don’t want a single country to set the rules, we want balance and other world powers must help create that balance,” he said. “So for Bolivia, it’s important to have not just economic partners for markets, but geopolitical strategic partners.”

He stressed, however, that Bolivia had not been predisposed against China in deciding who had made the best offer.

“China-Bolivia relations are still good. China is present in every country in the world and impossible to avoid,” he said.
…

The world of work is going through a major transformation. Technological advances are creating new jobs and at the same time leaving many people behind as their skills are no longer needed. A new study by the International Labor Organization’s Global Commission on the Future of Work addresses the many uncertainties arising from this new reality.

The International Labor Organization agrees artificial intelligence, automation and robotics will lead to job losses, as people’s skills become obsolete. But it says these same technological advances, along with the greening of economies also will create millions of new jobs.

Change is coming

The co-chair of the ILO Global Commission on the Future of Work, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, says these advances offer many opportunities. But he warns people must harness the new technologies for the world of work and not be allowed to control the future shape of work.

“In the 20th century, we established that labor is not a commodity. In the 21st century, we must also ensure that labor is not a robot. We propose a human in command type of approach ensuring that technology frees workers and improves work rather than reducing their control,” he said.

Ramaphosa says change is inevitable and will happen whether people like it or not.

“We believe that we would rather be ahead of the curve rather than behind it and get the developments that are unfolding to shape us and to lead us. We need to be ahead so that we can shape the type of world of work that we want to see,” he said.

Human-centered conversation

In its study, the 27-member commission has adopted a human-centered approach. At this time of unprecedented change, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder says having people at the heart of this debate is critical for achieving a decent future of work.

“I think people, families, countries around the world are indeed grappling with the challenges and the opportunities of transformative change at work and the ambition of our commission … is, in a very concise and a very clear, and I think above all an action oriented way to try to set out a road map of how we can indeed seize the opportunities and deal satisfactorily with those challenges,” Ryder said.

Ten recommendations

After 15 months of work, the commission has come up with 10 recommendations for attaining decent and sustainable work. They include a call for a universal labor guarantee to protect workers’ rights, an adequate living wage and a safe workplace.

The commission proposes social protection measures from birth to old age. It says technological change must be managed to boost decent work. It says the gender gap should be closed and equality achieved in the workplace.

Ryder says the report puts a heavy emphasis on life-long learning and the renewal of skills throughout one’s working life.

“With the rapidity of change being what it is at work today,” he said, “it is simply not realistic to believe that the skills that we acquire at the beginning of our lives in our education, what we tend to think of as a period of our education will serve us throughout a working life. I mean, the shelf life of skills acquired at the beginning is a lot shorter than working life is going to be.”

Ryder notes the future number of jobs or the future of employment will not be determined alone by the autonomous forward march of technology. He says that will depend on the choices of policymakers.

The commission study indicates it is reasonable to assume that humans and robots will be able to live in harmony with one another — if humans are put in control of the forward application of technology.
…

Impatient with the lack of World Trade Organization rules to cover the explosive growth of e-commerce, 76 countries and regions agreed on Friday to start negotiating this year on a set of open and predictable regulations.

The WTO’s 164 members were unable to consolidate some 25 separate e-commerce proposals at the body’s biennial conference at Buenos Aires in December, including a call to set up a central e-commerce negotiating forum.

In a gathering on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, ministers from a smaller group of countries including the United States, the European Union and Japan, agreed to work out an agenda for negotiations they hope to kick off this year on setting new e-commerce rules.

“The current WTO rules don’t match the needs of the 21st century. You can tell that from the fact there are no solid rules on e-commerce,” Japan’s trade minister Hiroshige Seko told reporters in Davos.

Asked whether China could join the negotiations, Seko said: “What’s very important is to first set high-standard rules. If China could join, we would welcome that.”

The WTO failed to reach any new agreements at a ministerial conference in December, which ended in discord in the face of stinging U.S. criticism of the group. The stalemate dashed hopes for new deals on regulating the widening presence of e-commerce.

The emergence of the coalition willing to press ahead with new e-commerce rules, despite others’ reservations, reinforces a trend toward the fragmentation of WTO negotiations and away from global “rounds” of talks that have run out of steam.

“We will seek to achieve a high-standard outcome that builds on existing WTO agreements and frameworks with the participation of as many WTO members as possible,” members of the coalition said in a joint statement issued on Friday.

“We continue to encourage all WTO members to participate in order to further enhance the benefits of electronic commerce for businesses, consumers and the global economy.”

E-commerce, which developed largely after the WTO’s creation in 1995, was not part of the Doha round of talks that began in 2001 and eventually collapsed more than a decade later.

Many countries insist that Doha-round development issues must be dealt with before new issues can be tackled. But other countries say the WTO needs to move with the times, and note that 70 regional trade agreements already include provisions or chapters on e-commerce, according to a recent study.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration says the WTO is dysfunctional because it has failed to hold China to account for not opening up its economy as envisaged when Beijing joined in 2001.

To force reform at the WTO, Trump’s team has refused to allow new appointments to the Appellate Body, the world’s top trade court, a process which requires consensus among member states. As a result, the court is running out of judges, and will be unable to issue binding rulings in disputes.

 
…

A Republican U.S. representative on Thursday introduced White House-drafted legislation that would give President Donald Trump more power to levy tariffs on imported goods in an effort to pressure other countries to lower their duties and other trade barriers.

The measure offered by Representative Sean Duffy, which has been touted by Trump administration officials, has already been declared unacceptable by some Republican senators, including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

Democrats, who control the House of Representatives and its legislative agenda, are unlikely to grant Trump more executive authority, especially as a standoff over the partial government shutdown drags on. A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Reciprocal Trade Act, which Trump was expected to highlight in his now-delayed State of the Union address, would give him authority to levy tariffs equal to those of a foreign country on a particular product if that country’s tariffs are determined to be significantly lower than those charged by the United States.

It would also allow Trump to take into account non-tariff barriers when determining such tariffs.

Trump has invoked trade laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum on national security grounds and has applied tariffs on imports from China based on U.S. findings that Beijing is misappropriating U.S. intellectual property through forced technology transfers and other means.

The United States has lower tariffs than many other countries, such as its 2.5 percent levy on imported passenger vehicles compared with the European Union’s 10 percent tariff.

But increasing them and applying them in a country-specific manner would effectively be a violation of the World Trade Organization’s most fundamental rule, that tariffs must be applied globally and cannot be raised unilaterally except in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases.

“The goal of the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act is not to raise America’s tariffs but rather to encourage the rest of the world to lower theirs,” Duffy said in a statement, adding that the authority would be a negotiating tool to pressure other countries to lower their tariffs.
…

European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said on Thursday that Europe should be more ambitious on issues such as climate change as a way to unite the bloc around a single vision.

“We need a great debate on the future of Europe,” she said in a wide-ranging debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos on the state of the continent and the rise of populism. Europeans vote for a new European parliament in May, at a time when citizens in many countries are backing populist parties.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said the European Union had become like an archipelago of separate islands. “There is no real European vision at the moment, such as the vision which moved the founders. We need to find things that mobilize people, that make the heart beat faster, not just the wallet.”

 
…

The European Union on Wednesday warned countries running lucrative schemes granting passports and visas to rich foreigners to toughen checks on applicants amid concern they could be flouting security, money laundering and tax laws.

EU countries have welcomed in more than 6,000 new citizens and close to 100,000 new residents through golden passport and visa schemes over the past decade, attracting around 25 billion euros ($28 billion) in foreign direct investment, according to anti-corruption watchdogs Transparency International and Global Witness.

In a first-ever report on the schemes, the EU Commission said that such documents issued in one country can open a back door to citizenship or residency in all 28 states.

Justice Commissioner Vera Jurova said golden visas are the equivalent of “opening the golden gate to Europe for some privileged people.”

“We want more guarantees related to security and anti-money laundering. We expect more transparency,” she told reporters in Brussels.

Bulgaria, Cyprus and Malta offer passports to investors without any real connections to the countries or even the obligation to live there by paying between 800,000 and 2 million euros ($909,000 to $2.3 million).

Twenty EU states offer visas in exchange for investment: Britain, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

 Investment can range from 13,500 euros to over 5 million euros ($15,350 to $5.7 million) in the form of capital and property investments, buying government bonds, one-time payments to the national budget or certain donations to charity.

Cyprus toughened up vetting procedures last year after it was accused of running a “passports-for-cash” scheme. It said passport numbers would be capped at 700 a year.

The Mediterranean island introduced the scheme in the wake of a 2013 financial crisis that brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy and forced it to accept a multibillion-euro rescue program from creditors. One Cyprus lawmaker has estimated that the scheme generated around 4.8 billion euros ($5.4 billion) between 2013 and 2016.

In compiling the report, Commission researchers struggled to obtain clear information about how the schemes are run, the number of applicants and where they come from, as well as how many are granted or refused visas. They noted that EU countries exchange little or no information about the applicants.

But the report did find that the security checks run on applicants are insufficient, and it recommends that EU computer databases like the one controlling Europe’s passport-free travel area be used routinely. Tougher “due diligence” controls are also needed to ensure that money laundering rules are not circumvented, while more monitoring and reporting could help tackle tax evasion.

Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the Commission “will monitor full compliance with EU law.”

“The work we have done together over the past years in terms of increasing security, strengthening our borders and closing information gaps should not be jeopardized,” he warned.

The Commission proposed setting up a working group with EU member countries to study the schemes by year’s end.

The report angered Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades, who underlined that, over the past five years, the number of citizenships granted by Cyprus under its scheme amounts to 0.3 percent of the EU’s total.

He said that Cyprus has the toughest citizenship criteria among all 20 countries, “and despite this, Cyprus is being targeted.”

“These double standards must finally come to an end and I want to be strict about this,” Anastasiades said.

Malta welcomed the Commission report, but said it has “reservations on a few issues,” notably that people it accepts under the schemes undergo far more rigorous checks than others granted residency or citizenship. It also underlined that physical presence in Malta is mandatory.

 
…

The hottest job of the future might be app developer. All you have to do is look at what you’re holding in the palm of your hand to figure out why.

“All of us use our cellphones probably more than we should be every day, and that is what is driving the demand for app developers,” said Stacy Rapacon, online editor at personal finance website Kiplinger.com, which has identified the best jobs for the future. “More apps mean more people to develop them.”

The median salary for app developers is $100,000, and the industry is expected to grow by 30 percent over the next decade, according to Kiplinger.

Nurse practitioner is the next best job on Kiplinger’s list. The median income for nurse practitioners is $103,000, and the field is expected to grow 35 percent between now and 2027.

“The field, in general, is booming because of the aging population,” Rapacon said. “Physical therapists, for example, have plenty of patients to work with, especially as people are growing older and health care treatments are improving. Older people who suffer from heart attacks or strokes or other ailments are able to survive those issues and then may need physical therapy or occupational therapy to continue being able to live independently.”

Half of the jobs in the Top 10 — including physician, physician assistant, health services manager and physical therapist — are in the health care field.

That’s likely because, for the first time in history, older people are going to outnumber children in the United States. By 2035, 78 million Americans will be over the age of 65, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Other occupations on the Top 10 Best Jobs of the Future list include financial manager; marketing research analyst (beneficiaries of the big-data boom); computer systems manager (most businesses use computers); and information security analyst (company computers need to be protected from hackers and others).

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the professions that are dying. These include watch repairer (fewer people are wearing time pieces); builder of prefab homes (a shrinking segment of the U.S. housing market); and textile machine operator — but there is an alternative for those currently working in manufacturing.

“What’s disappearing are the low-skill jobs,” Rapacon said. “So, if there’s a way you can apply more of a human touch to your work, if there’s a way in manufacturing to learn to manage some of the technology that is being put in place in these production processes, then you can still work in those industries and find opportunities.”

Other worst jobs for the future include fabric mender (replaced by technology); shoe machine operator (replaced by technology); and movie projectionist (fewer theaters and less demand for people to work in them).

Kiplinger used available data to develop its lists of the best and worst jobs of the future. However, the job market is changing rapidly and the available data on new and emerging industries is limited.

It’s always possible that the hottest jobs of the next decade haven’t even been invented.
…

The annual World Economic Forum opened today in Switzerland against a backdrop of anxieties over trade disputes, Brexit and a growth slowdown that some fear could tip the world economy. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
…

Nigeria is to send a bill recommending a national minimum monthly wage rise of 50 percent to 27,000 naira ($88) to lawmakers in the national assembly, the labor minister said on Tuesday.

Cost of living is a major campaign issue ahead of a presidential election on 16 February and unions want the minimum wage to be raised from 18,000 naira.

Inflation stood at a seven-month high of 11.44 percent in December.

Disagreements over the minimum wage saw labor unions striking across Nigeria in September. President Muhammadu Buhari said in January that he would increase the minimum wage, but did not specify by how much.

“The 27,000 naira minimum wage is the benchmark,” Labor Minister Chris Ngige told reporters in Abuja on Tuesday. Ngige said some government workers could receive a higher salary of 30,000 naira a month.

The minister did not say when the bill would be sent to lawmakers. Any change would need to be signed into law by Buhari. ($1 = 306.3000 naira)
…

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will headline the first full day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with a speech to political and business leaders.

The nationalist leader is attending an event that has long represented business’s interest in increasing ties across borders. But globalism is in retreat as populist leaders around the world put a focus back on nation states, even if that means limiting trade and migration.

After Bolsonaro’s speech on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will address the gathering on Wednesday.

But several key leaders are not attending to handle big issues at home: U.S. President Donald Trump amid the government shutdown, British Prime Minister Theresa May to grapple with Brexit talks, and France’s Emmanuel Macron to face popular protests.

 
…

Economists warn that political uncertainties and trade tensions could undermine global economic growth. Rights groups warn of the dangers of growing economic inequality. About 3,000 political and economic leaders have gathered in the Swiss resort town of Davos to discuss global business and economic trends at an annual economic forum. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

The United Nations is forecasting that the global economy will grow by around 3 percent in 2019 and 2020, but says waning support for multilateralism, escalating trade disputes, increasing debt and rising climate risks are clouding prospects

The United Nations is forecasting that the global economy will grow by around 3 percent in 2019 and 2020, but says waning support for multilateralism, escalating trade disputes, increasing debt and rising climate risks are clouding prospects.

The U.N.’s report on the World Economic Situation and Prospects 2019 also stresses that economic growth is uneven and often doesn’t reach countries that need it most.

Per capital income is expected to stagnate or see only marginal growth this year in parts of Africa, western Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says in the forward of the report launched Monday that while economic indicators remain “largely favorable,” the report “raises concerns over the sustainability of global economic growth in the face of rising financial, social and environmental challenges.”   
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled her Brexit Plan B on Monday — and it looks a lot like Plan A.

May launched a mission to resuscitate her rejected European Union divorce deal, setting out plans to get it approved by Parliament after securing changes from the EU to a contentious Irish border measure.

May’s opponents expressed incredulity: British lawmakers last week dealt the deal a resounding defeat, and EU leaders insist they won’t renegotiate it.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party accused May of being in “deep denial” about her doomed deal.

“This really does feel a bit like Groundhog Day,” he said, referring to the 1993 film starring Bill Murray, in which a weatherman is fated to live out the same day over and over again.

Outlining what she plans to do after her EU divorce deal was rejected by Parliament last week, May said that she had heeded lawmakers’ concerns over an insurance policy known as the “backstop” that is intended to guarantee there are no customs checks along the border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.’s Northern Ireland after Brexit.

May told the House of Commons that she would be “talking further this week to colleagues … to consider how we might meet our obligations to the people of Northern Ireland and Ireland in a way that can command the greatest possible support in the House.

“And I will then take the conclusions of those discussions back to the EU.”

The bloc insists that it won’t renegotiate the withdrawal agreement.

“She is wasting time calling for a revision or clarification over the backstop,” said German politician Udo Bullmann, head of the socialist group in the European Parliament.

Amendments

While May stuck doggedly to her deal, she also acknowledged that control over Brexit wasn’t entirely in her hands. She noted that lawmakers will be able to amend her plan when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons on Jan. 29, exactly two months before Britain is due to leave the EU.

Groups of “soft Brexit”-backing lawmakers — who want to keep close economic ties to the bloc — are planning to use amendments to try to rule out a “no-deal” Brexit and make May ease her insistence that leaving the EU means quitting its single market and customs union.

Britain and the EU sealed a divorce deal in November after months of tense negotiations. But the agreement has been rejected by both sides of Britain’s divide over Europe. Brexit-backing lawmakers say it will leave the U.K. tethered to the bloc’s rules and unable to forge an independent trade policy. Pro-Europeans argue it is inferior to the frictionless economic relationship Britain currently enjoys as an EU member.

After her deal was thrown out last week by a crushing 432-202 vote in Parliament, May said she would consult with lawmakers from all parties to find a new way forward.

But Corbyn called the cross-party meetings a “stunt,” and other opposition leaders said the prime minister didn’t seem to be listening.

On Monday, May rejected calls from pro-EU lawmakers to delay Britain’s departure from the bloc or to hold a second referendum on whether to leave.

In a nod to opposition parties’ concerns, she promised to consult lawmakers, trade unionists, business groups and civil society organizations “to try to find the broadest possible consensus” on future ties between Britain and the EU, and said the government wouldn’t water down protections for the environment and workers’ rights after Brexit.

May also said the government had decided to waive a 65 pound ($84) fee for EU citizens in Britain who want to stay permanently after Brexit.

Guy Verhofstadt, the head of the EU Parliament Brexit steering group, welcomed news that the fee was being dropped for 3 million EU nationals, saying it had been a “key demand” for the EU legislature.

Irish border

May’s immediate goal is to win over pro-Brexit Conservatives and her party’s Northern Irish ally, the Democratic Unionist Party. Both groups say they won’t back the deal unless the border backstop is removed.

The backstop proposes to keep the U.K. in a customs union with the EU in order to avoid checks on the Irish border. It is meant as a temporary measure that would last until a permanent solution is found. But pro-Brexit U.K. lawmakers fear Britain could become trapped in it, indefinitely bound by EU trade rules.

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz broke ranks with EU colleagues Monday by suggesting the problem could be solved by setting a five-year time limit on the backstop.

The idea got a cool reception. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said that “putting a time-limit on an insurance mechanism, which is what the backstop is, effectively means that it’s not a backstop at all.”

Britain’s political impasse over Brexit is fueling concerns that the country may crash out of the EU on March 29 with no agreement in place to cushion the shock. That could see tariffs imposed on goods moving between Britain and the EU, sparking logjams at ports and shortages of essential supplies.

Threat of ‘no deal’

Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said Monday was “another bleak day for business.”

“Parliament remains in deadlock while the slope to a cliff edge steepens,” she said.

Several groups of lawmakers are trying to use parliamentary rules and amendments to May’s plan to block the possibility of Britain leaving the EU without a deal.

One of those legislators, Labour’s Yvette Cooper, said May was shirking her responsibility to the country by refusing to take “no deal” off the table.

“I think she knows that she should rule out ‘no deal’ in the national interest because it would be so damaging,” Cooper told the BBC. “She’s refusing to do so, and I think she’s hoping that Parliament will do this for her. That is not leadership.” 
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China’s 2018 economic growth decelerated to 6.6 percent after activity in the final quarter of the year declined amid a tariff battle with Washington.

Data announced Monday showed economic growth cooled to a post-global crisis quarterly low of 6.4 percent in the three months ending in December from the previous quarter’s 6.5 percent.

Chinese economic growth has been slowing since regulators tightened controls on bank lending in late 2017 to rein in a debt boom.

Growth held up through much of 2018 despite President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes on Chinese goods in a fight over Beijing’s technology ambitions. But exports contracted in December as the penalties began to dampen demand.

Growth in investment, retail sales and other indicators also slowed.
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The sale of Nile Perch fish maw in Uganda has become a lucrative business, especially for distributors. The fish maw – or dried swim bladder – is used as an aphrodisiac in China. But Ugandan fishermen bringing in the perch say they are being exploited while others are reaping the profits. Halima Athumani reports from Kampala.
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