U.S. ride-hailing firm Uber is prepared to make concessions as it seeks to reverse a decision by London authorities not to renew its license in the city, which represents a potentially big blow for the fast-growing company, a newspaper reported.

The Sunday Times also quoted sources close to London’s transport body as saying the move was encouraging and suggested the possibility of talks.

“While we haven’t been asked to make any changes, we’d like to know what we can do,” Tom Elvidge, Uber’s general manager in London, told the newspaper. “But that requires a dialogue we sadly haven’t been able to have recently.”

A spokesman for Transport for London (TfL) declined to comment.

The Sunday Times said Uber’s concessions were likely to involve passenger safety and benefits for its drivers, possible limits on working hours to improve road safety and holiday pay.

TfL stunned the powerful U.S. start-up Friday when it deemed Uber unfit to run a taxi service for safety reasons and stripped it of its license from Sept. 30, although the company can continue to operate while it appeals.

The regulator cited failures to report serious criminal offenses, conduct sufficient background checks on drivers and other safety issues.

Uber responded by urging users in London to sign a petition that said the city authorities had “caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice.” The move echoed Uber’s strategy in disputes with other cities.

By 2200 GMT Saturday, more than 600,000 people had signed although it was not clear how many of them were in London.

A spokesman for Uber said around 20,000 Uber drivers had emailed the city’s mayor directly to object to the decision.
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According the U.S. Travel Association, there are fewer people visiting the United States, even though international tourism as a whole is on the rise. Some tourism agencies blame Trump administration policies on immigrants as the reason people are not making the USA a travel destination. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…

North Korea’s cash-strapped regime has long sought workarounds to the increasingly harsh international sanctions aimed at tightening the financial noose around its nuclear and missile programs.

Now, according to Recorded Future, an intelligence research firm backed by Google Venture, Pyongyang is making a foray into cyberspace, launching a bitcoin “mining” operation, which saw a dramatic spike in its activity in mid-May.

Although the bitcoin activity amounts to only a token amount of funds at this point, there is significant potential for it to become a major source of income for the regime, the company said.

Is North Korea’s pursuit of bitcoin, the best-known cryptocurrency used for purchasing goods and services online, something the United States as well as the international community should worry about?

WATCH: What is bitcoin?

VOA Korean spoke with Priscilla Moriuchi, a Recorded Future director. Formerly with the National Security Agency (NSA) as threat intelligence manager and senior expert on East Asia and Pacific regional and cyber issues, she discussed in detail her findings on North Korea’s cyberactivities. Her answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Could you describe how Recorded Future first detected the North Korean activity in bitcoin?

Priscilla Moriuchi: The bitcoin mining [from North Korea] started on May 17 and continued through the end of our data set, which was July 3. This was a critical moment in terms of bitcoin [mining activities] because before then, I haven’t seen any activity that we had insight into indicating that [the North Koreans] were interested in bitcoin.

Is there any substantive evidence for the North Korean bitcoin mining operation?

Moriuchi: [Mining] bitcoin is very computationally intensive. It requires a lot of energy and high capacity computers. It also requires a lot of internet bandwidth because it constantly communicates with other bitcoin nodes (a peer-to-peer network consisting of computers, which allows for transactions to be broadcast to other users worldwide) to validate the blockchain (the digital ledger technology that records all virtual money transactions) that they are putting together. So mining activity is pretty distinct in terms of volume, and the [internet] ports and protocols (IP address) that are used are also pretty distinct. It can give you a decent signature.

Who is running the North Korean bitcoin mining operations, and why do you think the country has finally begun mining bitcoin?

Moriuchi: The first [hypothesis] is that it could have been an activity conducted by the state, whether it be the military or the intelligence services, for the purposes of raising funds for the regime. The second hypothesis is that it was an individual user … but because of the bandwidth and energy that were required, it would have to be known or permitted by the state and the leadership.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen increasingly tough sanctions levied upon North Korea by the United States, other international partners and by the United Nations. Those sanctions have increasingly cut off North Korea’s access to the traditional financial system and [its] ability to generate funds for state operations. We believe that bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining or activity involving cryptocurrency is a way for North Korea to generate funds and get around some of the sanctions.

Do you think North Korea has come to a conclusion that using cryptocurrency to generate funds for the regime is safer than other illicit ways — for instance, smuggling drugs or counterfeiting money?

Moriuchi: [Mining bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency] is not illegal. There’s nothing about [using cryptocurrency] that puts North Korea in a worse spot in terms of sanctions or legal violations. So that’s one. Two, you can buy many things. You can exchange cryptocurrency for actual currency, but you can also buy physical goods with cryptocurrency. So it’s another way for them to purchase things they might need without using the financial system.

There were reports that North Korea might have launched cyberattacks against South Korean virtual currency exchanges. Do the North Koreans have such a capacity?

Moriuchi: Yes, definitely. When it comes to North Korean hacking activities, we broadly underestimate their capabilities because many people believe [it is] such an isolated country where most people don’t have access to the internet and ask how they can possibly have indigenous experts, how they can possibly train people well enough to be able to conduct some of these very sophisticated hacks.

But what we have come to know over time is that they are sophisticated actors. They do have in-depth understanding of internet networks and communications.

Do you believe North Korea meddled in the Sony hack in 2014?

Moriuchi: Yes, both the federal government like the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and NSA have both come out and said that North Korea was behind the Sony attack. I think most people who follow North Korea agree with the government assessments.

It seems that reasons differ for North Korea’s cyberattacks against South Korean virtual currency exchanges and for the Sony attack. Why is that so?

Moriuchi: North Korean cyberactivities really started about 2008 and 2009. [They were] mainly toward South Korean government, corporations and media, as well as some U.S. government entities, and they were intended to [cause] chaos and to disrupt South Korea and undermine systems there. After the Sony attack, [there seemed to be a] transition in most of the North Korean attacks that we in the private sector have been able to follow toward financial services, toward generating money and raising funds. I think we are in this new period in terms of North Korean cyberactivity.

How much profit does North Korea make from mining bitcoin?

Moriuchi: At current rates, let’s say [North Korea] earned about $100,000. So in terms of the amount of money that North Korea may need for their missile program, $100,000 is probably not very much. If you put that next to what experts estimate North Korea pulls in just through its other kinds of criminal operations, such as the drug trade, drug smuggling and counterfeiting of U.S. dollar bills, around $500 million to $1 billion a year, $100,000 is a drop in the bucket.

Given the token amount of money North Korea makes through the bitcoin mining activity, is it far-fetched to say the North is tapping this digital currency exchange in order to evade sanctions and earn income for the regime?

Moriuchi: Cryptocurrency, specifically bitcoin mining, is one other method for them to circumvent sanctions and to generate funds. It’s not the primary means of earning funds for the regime right now, but it’s certainly something that they could expand and that would be much more difficult for the international community to be able to track and limit.  

Why is it so hard to track the bitcoin activity?

Moriuchi: Bitcoin was designed to be anonymous, and it doesn’t keep track of identifiers, such as IPs and usernames, while mining, buying or spending bitcoin.

Additionally in the WannaCry attack, in early August three bitcoin wallets associated with WannaCry were emptied. What we saw were many steps taken by presumably the North Koreans to further obfuscate where the funding was going. So first off, they went through a bitcoin mixer, which is a service that essentially throws all the bitcoin into one pot and then out comes the amount you threw in but it’s not the same bitcoin that you put in. So it anonymizes your identity. After going through that, they then convert it to another cryptocurrency. So they went to great lengths to avoid even the slim chance that they could be attributed through their bitcoin transactions.

What do you think about the claim that the U.S. could take out North Korea’s missiles before launch through jamming or other cyber methods?

Moriuchi: There are two internets [in North Korea]. One, the global internet, and then the domestic intranet, the one that regular North Koreans, though a small number, actually have access. And then you have various other networks within the country — the government’s and the military’s. The connections between the global internet and anything inside North Korea are very few, based on the research that I did. So [even] if it was possible for the United States or whoever to attack a North Korean missile site or a launch using a cyberattack, it would be very difficult.

How did you become interested in analyzing North Korean internet activities?

Moriuchi: We have this very unique set of data … and we felt like we can give much more context to the whole debate about North Korea, especially about their cyberactivity. We did a big analysis over the past few months, and we came away with a number of conclusions based on North Korean leadership internet activity. The biggest one for us was that, based on the activity that we saw, the North Korean ruling elite and their leadership are much more active and engaged in the world, popular culture, international news, and with contemporary services, than most outsiders would have believed. They go to Facebook, they go to Instagram every day, they stream video and a lot of other things that many of us do. The 0.1 percent of [the North Korean population] who has access to the world internet does those same things.

Jenny Lee contributed to this report which originated on VOA Korean.
…

Cheap solar panels imported from China and other countries have led to a boom in the U.S. solar industry, where rooftop and other installations have surged 10-fold since 2011.

But two U.S. solar manufacturers say the flood of imports has led one to bankruptcy and forced the other to lay off three-quarters of its workforce.

The International Trade Commission is set to decide Friday whether the imports, primarily from Asia, are causing “serious injury” to the companies. If so, the commission will recommend this fall whether the Trump administration should impose tariffs that could double the price of solar panels from abroad.

President Donald Trump has not cozied up to the solar industry, as he has for coal and other fossil fuels, but he is considered sympathetic to imposing tariffs on solar imports as part of his “America first” philosophy. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday.

Both sides of the dispute were making their case ahead of Friday’s meeting.

“Simply put, the U.S. industry cannot survive under current market conditions,” a lawyer for Georgia-based Suniva Inc. wrote in a petition filed with the commission. Suniva brought the case with Oregon-based SolarWorld Americas.

Opposition to tariffs

Governors of four solar-friendly states — Nevada, Colorado, Massachusetts and North Carolina — oppose the tariff, warning it could jeopardize the industry. They cited a study showing that a global tariff could cause solar installations to drop by more than 50 percent in two years, a crushing blow as states push for renewable energy that does not contribute to climate change.

“The requested tariff could inflict a devastating blow on our states’ solar industries and lead to unprecedented job loss, at steep cost to our states’ economies,” the two Republicans and two Democrats wrote in a letter Thursday to the trade commission.

A group of former U.S. military officials also urged the Trump administration to reject solar tariffs, noting that the Defense Department is the nation’s largest energy consumer and follows a federal law calling for the Pentagon to procure 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025.

Suniva called the case a matter of fairness. Even with better manufacturing methods, lower costs and “dramatically improved efficiency,” the company has “suffered substantial losses due to global imports,” Suniva said in its petition. The company declared bankruptcy this spring after laying off 190 employees and closing production sites in Georgia and Michigan.

SolarWorld Americas, meanwhile, has trimmed its workforce from 1,300 to 300, with more cuts likely.

“After nearly 30 factories have shut down in the wake of surging imports, the legacy of this pioneering American industry hangs in the balance,” said Juergen Stein, CEO and president of SolarWorld Americas.

“We believe that the promise of solar — energy sustainability and independence — can be realized only with healthy American manufacturing to supply growing U.S. demand,” Stein said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Trade group speaks out

In a twist, the main trade group for the solar industry opposes tariffs and calls the trade case “an existential threat” to the industry.

“The stakes are exceedingly high. We are talking about 88,000 people in this country who could lose their jobs if these tariffs are put in place,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents an array of solar companies.

A global tariff could cause a sharp price hike that could force the U.S. to lose out on solar installations capable of powering more than 9 million homes over the next five years — more than has been installed to date, Hopper said. States could lose out on billions of dollars of infrastructure investment, she added.

Suniva and SolarWorld have themselves to blame for their struggles — not pressure from overseas, Hopper said.

“Here is the real story of this case: We have two foreign-owned, poorly managed companies using U.S. trade laws to put U.S. manufacturers out of business and causing U.S. employees to lose their jobs,” she said.

Indeed, while Suniva’s U.S. operations are based in Georgia, the company’s majority owner is in China. SolarWorld Americas is a subsidiary of German solar giant SolarWorld, which declared insolvency last month.

If an injury finding is made, the trade commission would have until mid-November to recommend a remedy to the president, with a final decision on tariffs expected in January.
…

German carmaker Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to invest $1 billion to start making electric vehicles at its manufacturing plant in the southern U.S. state of Alabama.

The luxury automaker said it will manufacture electric SUVs under Mercedes’ EQ subbrand at the plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in just more than three years. The expansion is expected to create 600 jobs.

Daimler-Benz, which has more than 30 plants worldwide, said the Tuscaloosa plant will become the first in the U.S. to produce electric vehicles, and only the sixth in the world to do so.

Construction is to begin next year on the 92,900-square-meter facility. Daimler also said it will build a new global logistics center and aftersales North American hub in Bibb County, Alabama, about 8 kilometers from the Tuscaloosa plant.
…

The United States will present new proposals and begin to weigh into thornier issues of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the third round of negotiations starting in Ottawa Saturday, U.S. chief negotiator John Melle said Thursday.

The stepped-up negotiations come with four more rounds of talks left after Ottawa and a self-imposed year-end deadline to finish the talks before Mexico launches campaigning for its July presidential election.

“With progress made in several issue areas in the first two NAFTA negotiation rounds, USTR (United States Trade Representative) looks to move forward with additional new text proposals in round three of the negotiations,” Melle said in comments emailed to Reuters.

“At this point in the negotiations, more challenging issues will start taking center stage,” he added, without elaborating.

Third round

The first two rounds of talks between the United States, Canada and Mexico focused on consolidating language on chapters covering small- and medium-sized enterprises, competitiveness, digital trade, services and the environment.

Now, negotiators will begin to weigh into more contentious issues such as rules of origin — how much of a product’s components must originate from within North America — labor standards aimed at increasing Mexican wages and mechanisms for resolving trade and investment disputes.

In its negotiating strategy for revising NAFTA ahead of the start of the talks in July, the United States said it would emphasize reducing the U.S. trade deficit as a priority.

It also said it wanted to eliminate an arbitration system for resolving trade disputes, known as Chapter 19, that has largely prohibited the United States from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against Canadian and Mexican firms.

Canada has suggested it will walk away from the talks if Chapter 19 is tossed aside.

Dispute resolution, sunset clause

Politico reported Thursday that the United States was considering dropping a binding mechanism in NAFTA for resolving government-to-government disputes in favor of an advisory system.

The proposal would be a major shift away from a decades-old push by the United States to build an international system of enforceable trade rules, Politico reported.

Canada and Mexico have dismissed a proposal by the Trump administration to add a five-year sunset provision to NAFTA.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said last week such a provision was needed because forecasts for U.S. export and job growth when NAFTA took effect in 1994 were “wildly optimistic” and failed to live up to expectations.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told Reuters Sept. 15 that the sunset clause was unnecessary because the pact’s members can trigger a renegotiation or leave it at any time.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked NAFTA and threatened to tear up the agreement, Mexico has pushed to secure more access to the European Union, Brazil, Israel, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

Polls show support for NAFTA

A Reuters poll of economists Thursday found that Mexico and Canada will survive current talks with the United States on trade relatively unscathed.

Meanwhile, a separate poll by IPSOS published Thursday showed broad-based support among Americans, Canadians and Mexicans for NAFTA.
…

When officials from Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon toured six European countries in June, they were hoping to drum up investment in transport, energy and education.

Instead, they were bombarded with questions about the country’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority, who have long complained of persecution by the Buddhist majority in the oil-rich, ethnically divided, western state of Rakhine.

“In each of every country, that issue was always brought up,” Hlaing Maw Oo, secretary of Yangon City Development Committee, told Reuters after the 16-day trip.

The situation in Rakhine has worsened dramatically since then, with more than 400,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh to escape a military counterinsurgency offensive the United Nations has described as “ethnic cleansing.”

Western trade and investment in Myanmar is small, but there were hopes that a series of reforms this year would pry open an economy stunted by international sanctions and decades of mismanagement under military rule.

With most sanctions now lifted, an expected flood of Western money was seen as a key dividend from the transition to civilian rule under Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Regional diplomats saw it balancing China’s growing influence over its neighbor.

But Aung San Suu Kyi has been beset by international criticism for saying little about human rights abuses against the Rohingya, and lawyers, consultants and lobbyists say the European and U.S. companies that had been circling are now wary of the reputational risks of investing in the country.

Louis Yeung, managing principal of Yangon-based investment firm Faircap Partners, said one of his business partners — a listed, U.S.-based food and beverage company — decided to hold off its plan to enter the Myanmar market for three to five years, citing factors including slower-than-expected reforms and the Rohingya crisis.

“Their conclusion is that it wasn’t the right time for them,” he said. “They want to see more traction from the government and Rakhine is not helpful.”

On hold

The pressure has been growing in recent months, even on existing investors, with rights group AFD International calling on foreign firms to stop investing in Myanmar.

A small group of investors in U.S. oil major Chevron filed an unsuccessful motion at its annual general meeting urging it to pull out of its production-sharing contract with a state-run firm to explore for oil and gas, while Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor, which runs a mobile network in Myanmar, issued a statement calling for human rights protection.

Chevron declined to comment on its investment in Myanmar, while Telenor did not respond to several requests for comment.

Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, said last week his delegation postponed a visit to Myanmar indefinitely, saying the human rights situation “does not allow a fruitful discussion on a potential EU-Myanmar investment agreement.”

Khin Aung Tun, vice chairman of the Myanmar Tourism Federation, told Reuters that global firms planning to hold conferences in Myanmar were now considering other locations.

“People were just starting to see Myanmar as a ‘good news’ story,” said Dane Chamorro, head of South East Asia at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy.

“Now you can imagine a boardroom in which someone mentions Myanmar and someone else says ‘hold on, I’ve just seen something on Myanmar on TV: villages burned down, refugees, etc.'”

In an interview published in Nikkei Asia Review on Thursday, Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged it was “natural” for foreign investors to be concerned, but repeated her view that economic development was the key to solving poor Rakhine’s long-standing problems.

“So, investments would actually help make the situation better,” she said.

In China’s orbit

Myanmar’s $70 billion economy should be a strong investment proposition for Western firms. It boasts large oil and gas reserves and natural resources such as rubies, jade and timber.

Wages are low and its youthful population of more than 50 million is eager for retail and manufacturing jobs.

In April, Myanmar passed a long-awaited investment law, simplifying procedures and granting foreign investors equal treatment to the locals. A game-changing law allowing foreigners to buy stakes in local firms is expected later this year.

“The investment conditions were improving,” said Dustin Daugherty, ASEAN lead for business intelligence at Dezan Shira & Associates, a consultancy for foreign investors in Asia.

Myanmar’s economy may not suffer much, however, if Western firms shun the country — or even if their governments were to reimpose some sanctions, although that appears unlikely for now.

Aung San Suu Kyi has sought to deepen relations with China at a time when Beijing is keen to push projects that fit with its Belt and Road initiative, which aims to stimulate trade by investment in infrastructure throughout Asia and beyond.

Myanmar trades with China as much as it does with its next four biggest partners: Singapore, Thailand, Japan and India.

None of that top five participated in previous sanctions.

Trade with the United States is only about $400 million and U.S. investment is just 0.5 percent of the total. Europe accounts for around a 10th of investment, while China and Hong Kong make up more than a third, and Singapore and Thailand another third.

Than Aung Kyaw, Deputy Director General of Myanmar’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, told Reuters that European investors might have “second thoughts,” but he expected Asian investors to stay put.

China is already in talks to sell electricity to energy-hungry Myanmar and pushing for preferential access to a strategic port on the Bay of Bengal. In April, the two countries reached an agreement on an oil pipeline that pumps oil across Myanmar to southwest China.

“It is going to feed Aung San Suu Kyi straight into the hands of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping,” said John Blaxland, director at the ANU Southeast Asia Institute and head of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center.
…

An automated teller machine. The cash machine. In Britain, a cashpoint. ATMs, known for spitting out $20 bills (and imposing fees if you pick the wrong one), turn 50 years old this year. They’re ubiquitous – and possibly still a necessity, despite the big changes in how people pay for things.

It was a radical move when Barclays installed cash machines in a London suburb in 1967. The utilitarian machine gave fixed amounts of money, using special vouchers – the magnetic-striped ATM card hadn’t been invented yet. There was no way for a customer to transfer money between accounts, and bank employees tabulated the transactions manually at the end of each day.

As the ATMs became familiar, though, they changed not only the banking industry but made people comfortable interacting with kiosks in exchange for goods. Now that means getting movie tickets and boarding passes, self-checkout at grocery stores, and online shopping that brings products to your door with a few clicks. All are based on the idea that people can handle routine transactions by themselves without a teller or cashier.

“The ATM tapped into that innate force in people that gives gratification for doing a task on their own and it grew from there,” said Charles Kane, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

It was a radical concept at the time. The ATM wasn’t the first self-service device – vending machines and the automat had been popular before. But those dispensed items people could hold in their hand.

Bernardo Batiz-Lazo, a business professor and ATM historian (yes, they exist!) at Bangor University in Britain, said early users of automated tellers were often checking their balances twice: once to see how much was in their account, then again after withdrawing money to see if it registered.

“They were popular, but it took a long time to slowly convince customers to learn about ATMs and use them regularly,” Batiz-Lazo said.

For the banking industry, ATMs meant banks could be in thousands of places at once, not just in branches, and earn billions of dollars in fees from non-customers. Banks used to staff dozens of tellers at each branch to handle routine transactions, now many staffers work on other tasks, like sales or account maintenance.

Around the U.S. today are roughly 3 million cash machines, according to the ATM Industry Association. Most are actually not owned by banks, but by private companies that install them at convenience stores, restaurants and bars in hopes of grabbing customers who don’t want to find a bank branch.

The wide acceptance of the ATMs changed the types of cash Americans typically carry in the pocketbooks. Since ATMs became more widely available in the early 1980s, the twenty-dollar bill has regularly been the second-most printed bank note each year by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The first place spot is held by the $1 bill.

Even as people use cash less, and credit cards or mobile payments more often, the ATM isn’t going anywhere for a while. At least, that’s what historians and – unsurprisingly – the ATM industry says. Devon Watson, vice president at Diebold Nixdorf, the world’s largest manufacturer of ATMs, says 85 percent of all transactions worldwide are still in cash.

Newer ATMs have more functions than ever. They accept check deposits, can transfer money between accounts, show an account balance, pay a credit card or mortgage payment, or even sell you stamps. NCR, another major manufacturer of ATMs, say the latest models are also designed to act more like smart devices. Kevin King of NCR says that includes “swipe, gesture, multi-touch.”

And future ATMs will likely start selling products as well. Have a checking account? The ATM will ask you whether you want to open a brokerage account. Much like tellers did.
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The U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but signaled it still expects one more increase by the end of the year despite a recent bout of low inflation.

The Fed, as expected, also said it would begin in October to reduce its approximately $4.2 trillion in holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities acquired in the years after the 2008 financial crisis.

New economic projections released after the Fed’s two-day policy meeting showed 11 of 16 officials see the “appropriate” level for the federal funds rate, the central bank’s benchmark interest rate, to be in a range between 1.25 percent and 1.50 percent by the end of 2017, or 0.25 percentage points above the current level.

U.S. bond yields rose, pushing up the U.S. dollar after the Fed’s decision, but U.S. benchmark stock indexes were little changed.

U.S. benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields rose as far as 2.29 percent, the highest since August 8, a move which helped push bank stock prices higher also.

“The Fed took another step on its path of beautiful normalization, announcing that the gradual balance sheet reduction will start next month and limiting revisions to both projections and policy guidance,” said Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Adviser at Allianz, in California.

In its policy statement, the Fed cited low unemployment, growth in business investment, and an economic expansion that has been moderate but durable this year as justifying it’s decision. It added that the near-term risks to the economic outlook remained “roughly balanced” but said it was “closely” watching inflation.

Inflation mystery

Fed Chair Janet Yellen said in a press conference after the end of the meeting that the fall in inflation this year remained a mystery, adding that the central bank was ready to change the interest rate outlook if needed.

“What we need to figure out is whether the factors that have lowered inflation are likely to prove persistent,” she said. If they do, “it would require an alteration of monetary policy,” Yellen said.

While the interest rate outlook for next year remained largely unchanged in the Fed’s latest projections, with three rises envisioned in 2018, the U.S. central bank did slow the pace of anticipated monetary tightening expected thereafter. It forecasts only two increases in 2019 and one in 2020. It also lowered again its estimated long-term “neutral” interest rate from 3.0 percent to 2.75 percent, reflecting concerns about overall economic vitality.

“The US Federal Reserve has firmly signaled that a December rate rise is still on the table,” said Luke Bartholomew, of Aberdeen Standard Investments Investment Strategist in London.

“Clearly the Fed still believes that lower unemployment will eventually translate into a pick-up in inflation, but if inflation continues to undershoot it is hard to see the Fed following through on a hike,” he said.

Fed bond portfolio to shrink from October

The Fed, as expected, also said it would begin in October to reduce its approximately $4.2 trillion in holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities by initially cutting up to $10 billion each month from the amount of maturing securities it reinvests.

That action will start a gradual reversal of the three rounds of quantitative easing, or bond buying, the Fed pursued between 2008 and 2014 to stimulate economic growth after the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession.

The limit on reinvestment is scheduled to increase by $10 billion every three months to a maximum of $50 billion per month until the central bank’s overall balance sheet falls by perhaps $1 trillion or more in the coming years.

Yellen said it would take a “a material deterioration” in the economy’s performance for the Fed to reverse a schedule that she expects to proceed “gradually and predictably.”

Balancing act

The policy statement and accompanying projections showed the Fed still in the middle of a balancing act between an economic recovery that has kept U.S. unemployment low and is gaining steam globally and a recent worrying drop in U.S. inflation.

Three of the hawkish policymakers appeared to move their expected policy rate down to account for only one more hike by the end of 2017, leaving a core 11 clustered around a likely December increase. The Fed has raised rates twice this year.

The Fed noted that the recent hurricanes in the United States would affect economic activity but are “unlikely to materially alter the course of the national economy over the medium term.”

Forecasts for economic growth and unemployment into 2018 and beyond were largely unchanged. Gross domestic product is now expected to grow at a rate of 2.4 percent this year, 2.1 percent next year and 2.0 percent in 2019.

The unemployment rate is forecast to remain at 4.3 percent this year before falling to 4.1 percent next year and remaining there in 2019.

Inflation is expected to remain under the Fed’s 2 percent target through 2018 before hitting it in 2019. There were no dissents in the Fed’s policy decision.
…

The U.S. Treasury is advising banks to be on the lookout for suspicious financial activity involving corrupt Venezuelan officials as the Trump administration tightens its financial noose around President Nicolas Maduro’s embattled socialist government.

Wednesday’s advisory by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network asks banks to keep watch for Venezuelan government contracts, wire transfers from shell companies, and real estate purchases in south Florida and Houston by senior Venezuelan officials, their families or associates. It said the advisory arose out of concern expressed by financial institutions that transactions involving state-owned enterprises were being used to launder kickbacks and bribes.

U.S. officials fear that endemic corruption will take an additional toll on Venezuelans already struggling with triple-digit inflation and widespread shortages amid a tense political standoff aggravated by Maduro’s decision to rewrite the constitution in the face of months of deadly protests.

Last month, the Trump administration slapped sanctions on Venezuela for Maduro’s decision to go forward with his plans to consolidate power. The actions ban investors from buying the nation’s debt and prevents U.S.-based Citgo, a subsidiary of the state-owned oil company, from sending badly needed dollar dividends back to Venezuela.

“Not all transactions involving Venezuela involve corruption, but, particularly now, during a period of turmoil in that country, financial institutions need to continue their vigilance to help identify and stop the flow of corrupt proceeds and guard against money laundering and other illicit financial activity,” said acting FinCEN Director Jamal El-Hindi.

‘Blockade’

Maduro has accused the U.S. of trying to impose a financial “blockade” on Venezuela after the opposition-led protests failed to oust him from power. Even before the recent round of sanctions, many Wall Street banks like Citibank and Credit Suisse that used to collect large fees serving Venezuela’s financial needs stopped doing business with the government, fearing legal action or damage to their reputations.

Wednesday’s action lists several red flags to assist banks in identifying suspected schemes. They include any transactions involving government contracts payable directly to personal accounts, hard-to-identify trading companies or products charged at substantially higher prices than market rates.

It also warns about real estate purchases — primarily in south Florida and the Houston area — involving current or former Venezuelan government officials, family members or associates that are not commensurate with their official salaries.

The U.S. over the past year has sanctioned dozens of Venezuelan officials, including Maduro himself, for a variety of alleged offenses including drug trafficking and human rights abuses. Among the state-owned enterprises referenced in recent sanctions are the nation’s electricity and telephone companies as well as the foreign trade bank and foreign currency exchange commission that provides U.S. dollars to select businesses and individuals at a highly favorable exchange rate that most Venezuelans can’t access due to strict currency controls
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The European Union and Canada will begin cutting import duties from Thursday on thousands of products and services in a reminder to Britain of the work it will take to replace the trade alliances it will give up when it leaves the EU.

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) will provisionally enter force on Thursday, eight years after negotiations begun. It will be the EU’s first major trade deal since it began implementing its South Korea agreement in 2011.

The Canada agreement is the EU’s first trade pact with a G7 country, marking a success after its credibility took a beating from Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the block.

It has since struck a deal with Japan and hopes for further agreements with Mexico and the Mercosur countries of South America by the end of this year.

May, Trudeau agree

British Conservatives in the European Parliament said on Wednesday that the EU-Canada deal would bring 1.3 billion pounds ($1.76 billion) in benefits to Britain and said they hoped CETA’s benefits for Britain would continue after Brexit.

“I believe CETA will become the gold standard of agreements and one we can tailor to suit the priorities of the British and Canadian economies post-Brexit,” lawmaker Emma McClarkin said in a statement.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said in Ottawa on Monday that she and Canada’s Justin Trudeau had agreed that CETA should be “swiftly transitioned” into a new U.K.-Canada deal after Brexit.

How fast that transition occurs will depend on how much post-Brexit Britain wants to tailor the deal, perhaps by including closer convergence on financial services, rather than largely copying what is in place.

Duties, quotas to change

CETA will abolish some 98 percent of customs duties, open up public tenders to companies and allow the EU to export more cheese and wine and Canada more pork and beef in quotas that expand over the next six years.

The 1,598-page CETA text is full of negotiated details, including the right of European companies to ship up to 537,000 knitted jerseys to Canada and Canadian companies’ ability to send up to 196,000 square meters of carpet to Europe.

Britain and Canada will still have to create their own free trade agreement, which took five years to negotiate.

 
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The deficit in the broadest measure of U.S. trade rose to the highest level in more than eight years this spring, reflecting in part a drop in fines and penalties paid by foreign companies.

The deficit in the current account increased to $123.1 billion, up 8.5 percent from an imbalance of $113.5 billion in the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It was the biggest deficit since a gap of $150 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The current account is the most complete measure of trade because it includes not only goods and services but investment flows and other payments between the United States and the world.

President Donald Trump has promised to reduce America’s trade deficit, contending it costs U.S. factory jobs.

One of the biggest contributing factors to the larger deficit in the April-June quarter was a decline in receipts from foreigners after they had risen sharply in the first quarter. The government attributed the $5.2 billion decrease in receipts of secondary income from foreigners to a decline in fines and penalties paid by foreign companies. That category had risen sharply in the first quarter.

Exports of goods and services increased $2.2 billion in the second quarter. Exports are getting a lift from a pickup in global growth and a drop in the value of the U.S. dollar against other currencies. A weaker dollar makes American products more competitive on foreign markets.

Imports of goods and services were also up in the second quarter, rising $11.8 billion, reflecting rising domestic demand from stronger U.S. growth.

The rise in the current account deficit put the imbalance in the second quarter at a level equivalent to 2.6 percent of the total economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, up from 2.4 percent in the first quarter. By comparison, the largest current account deficit in relation to GDP was in the fourth quarter of 2005 when the deficit totaled 6.3 percent of GDP.

Trump says America’s trade deficits have been caused by bad trade deals and abusive practices by China and other U.S. trading partners. He has pledged changes that he says will reduce the deficit and bring back American factory jobs.

 
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Toys ‘R’ Us, an iconic United States toy store, has filed for bankruptcy after struggling to compete with online retailers and racking up about $5 billion worth of debt.

In a statement Monday, the company said it is voluntarily seeking relief through the U.S. bankruptcy process, but that its international holdings would not be affected.

“The company’s approximately 1,600 Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us stores around the world, the vast majority of which are profitable, are continuing to operate as usual,” the statement reads. “Customers can also continue to shop for the toy and baby products they are looking for online.”

The company said it has begun the process of working with creditors to restructure the debt that its stores will remain open as the bankruptcy plays itself out.

The bankruptcy filing, CEO Dave Brandon said in a statement, “will provide us with greater financial flexibility to invest in our business … and strengthen our competitive position in an increasingly challenging and rapidly changing retail marketplace worldwide.”

The company said it is “well-stocked” for the upcoming holiday season, which has historically been a time when retailers can pad their bottom-line at the end of the year.

Toys ‘R’ Us has seen its popularity fall since the 1980s and ‘90s, when it began losing customers to big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Target, and more recently with the advent of online shopping giants like Amazon.
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As many as three dozen domestic and international flights at New Zealand’s Auckland Airport have been canceled Tuesday as it struggles to deal with a weeklong fuel shortage.

New Zealand’s main airport has lost 70 percent of its jet fuel supplies since a digger ruptured the main pipeline that carries fuel to the facility, forcing many air carriers to refuel at other airports in the Pacific region. The accident has also cut off supplies of high-grade gasoline at Auckland gas stations, although fuel supplier Z Energy says stocks of regular gasoline are still plentiful.

The pipeline’s owner says the repairs will not be completed until sometime next week.

Prime Minister Bill English says a naval tanker and military trucks have been assigned to transport fuel to ease the shortage, and has ordered all lawmakers and public employees to avoid any unnecessary air travel until the situation is resolved.

The fuel disruption has placed enormous pressure on English with Saturday’s national elections on the horizon. Jacinda Ardern, the leader of the main opposition Labour Party, accused English of ignoring warnings about the pipeline’s vulnerability.

“One pipeline, one digger, and New Zealand grinds to a halt,” Ardern told reporters Tuesday. The 37-year-old politician has led the Labour Party from a certain electoral defeat to a tight race with English’s ruling National Party.
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Two of Italy’s biggest coffee houses are reinforcing their brands with flagship cafes in Milan near the spot where U.S. rival Starbucks is set to begin operations next year.

Lavazza opens its first flagship cafe in the coffee-obsessed city on Tuesday, not far from the renovated 19th century palazzo where Starbucks will open its first Italian store, a ‘Reserve Roasteries’ outlet offering specialty blends and fine food.

Another top Italian brand, illycaffe, opened its own luxury cafe close to the Starbucks site in May, in a cozy courtyard in Milan’s most fashionable street.

Lavazza, which is opening near the city’s famous La Scala opera house, and illycaffe both deny their moves are a response to a global rival’s impending arrival, a first step in what may become a 200-store expansion.

Industry experts suspect it is no coincidence.

“Lavazza and illycaffe are the purists of coffee, they want to show they are there when Starbucks arrives,” says Jean-Paul Gaillard, who ran Nespresso for 10 years before founding the Ethical Coffee Company, a Swiss firm selling coffee pods.

Milan’s battle of the coffee palaces reflects global competition among major brands to capture a growing market for people who are prepared to pay a premium for quality espresso coffees in upmarket boutique cafes.

Nestle last week bought California-based Blue Bottle Coffee, one of the top boutique U.S. chains whose single-origin and cold-brewed coffees have proven popular with hipsters and have made inroads into the Starbucks franchise.

JAB Holdings, the investment vehicle of Germany’s Reimann family, has also been buying up independent start-ups selling premium brews around the world, from Europe to the Americas.

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz hopes his company’s arrival in Milan, which he calls the home of the “perfect espresso”, and the inspiration for his Starbucks vision, will show discerning Italian coffee-lovers that “we got it right.”

“We are happy to hear about Lavazza’s growth,” said a Starbucks spokesman when asked to comment on Lavazza’s opening.

The U.S. chain will open its 2,400-square-meter cafe in late 2018, seeking to attract tourists, young Italians and the business crowd. If the Milan experiment succeeds, Starbucks and its local partner, Antonio Percassi, could open more than 200 stores in Italy over six years, according to Percassi.

Some analysts are skeptical that Starbucks can crack a market where espresso typically sells for just one euro ($1.20), a fraction of the price of a Starbucks coffee.

But the local brands are also gambling Italians will spend much more than one euro for a restaurant-style experience: illycaffe charges around three times that for coffee brought to the table.

Nestle, JAB Holdings and Starbucks are the three largest players in the global coffee market, followed by several mid-tier players including Lavazza and illycaffe.

“As the biggest get bigger, mid-tier companies are in a position where they must either expand or risk being left behind or swallowed up by their massive rivals,” said Matthew Barry, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International.

Lavazza’s chief executive and some of its family owners will cut a ribbon to launch their cafe, where customers can sip a blend of coffee specifically crafted for the store, taste gourmet food and buy single-origin coffees.

“The opening of the new flagship store has nothing to do with Starbucks,” a Lavazza spokeswoman said, adding that it was solely aimed at giving people an exclusive Lavazza experience.

The group is primarily a roaster and supplier to independent cafes and restaurants rather than a retailer and its new store is a way of boosting brand visibility on the high street.

Lavazza went on an acquisition spree three years ago, buying up three coffee suppliers in Europe and Canada, boosting sales to nearly 2 billion euros last year. It has overtaken Starbucks in supermarket sales, Euromonitor International says.

Illycaffe sells its coffee both through independent cafes and 230 mono-brand stores, some of them directly owned, in 43 countries, and says it wants to develop the network further, though not via major acquisitions.

“The new store wants to be a landmark for the global nomad in search for the real Italian lifestyle experience,” illycaffe said, without commenting on the arrival of Starbucks.

Milanese coffee society is divided on whether Starbucks can make its name at the high-end of Italian market, the world’s fourth-largest coffee consumer.

“I am curious about Starbucks, I will give it a try when it arrives in Milan,” office worker Giuseppe Gaggiano, 55, said at a small, upmarket independent cafe close to the Starbucks site.

However, another customer there, Alberto Paparusso, 31, said he wouldn’t abandon his usual cafe: “I don’t like Starbucks coffee. It’s not worth going there.”

($1 = 0.8371 euros)
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Mexico’s economy minister said on Monday a successful retool of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would hinge on two or three complex areas that he called “elephants in the room,” just days before the next round of treaty talks in Canada.

Speaking at an event in Mexico City, Ildefonso Guajardo said four chapters in the agreement could be renegotiated in the third round of talks, due to take place Sept. 23-27 in Ottawa.

The areas cover smaller companies, transparency and food safety.

The “elephants,” such as the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and rules of origin, will determine the success of the trade treaty’s renegotiation, he said. Rules of origin specify the percentage of components in a product that must be from the three NAFTA nations for it to qualify as duty free.

“This challenge of resolving two or three un-traditional topics at the trade negotiation tables is what is going to determine if, at the end of the day, we’re going to have an agreement or not,” Guajardo said in a Forbes Mexico talk.

In addition, Guajardo added that as many as 13 other chapters would also be tough to negotiate.

Asked by journalists if Mexico would accept national content rules that would require a portion of products to be made in the United States, the minister said the topic had yet to reach the negotiating table.

“We would analyze it, but I believe as of today there is no trade agreement that contains this type of clause,” he said.

Guajardo reiterated that Mexico was ready to modernize the agreement, which U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scrap, and to find solutions with the United States and Canada.
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Florida’s economy has long thrived on one import above all: People.

Until Irma struck this month, the state was adding nearly 1,000 residents a day – 333,471 in the past year, akin to absorbing a city the size of St. Louis or Pittsburgh. Every jobseeker, retiree or new birth, along with billions spent by tourists, helped fuel Florida’s propulsive growth and economic gains.

Yet Hurricane Irma’s destructive floodwaters renewed fears about how to manage the state’s population boom as the risks of climate change intensify. Rising sea levels and spreading flood plains have magnified the vulnerabilities for the legions of people who continue to move to Florida and the state economy they have sustained.

Florida faces an urgent need to adapt to the environmental changes, said Jesse Keenan, a lecturer at Harvard University who researches the effects of rising sea levels on cities.

“A lot is going to change in the next 30 years – this is just the beginning,” Keenan said.

People might need to live further inland, Keenan said, and employers might have to relocate to higher ground, with the resulting competition between offices and housing driving up land prices. It would become harder to adequately insure houses built along canals. Traffic delays could worsen across parts of Florida as more roads flood. Developers might shift away from sprawling suburban tracts toward denser urban pockets that are better equipped to manage floods.

At the same time, the belief remains firm among some developers and economists that for all the threats from rising water levels, the state’s population influx will continue with scarcely any interruption. The allure of lower taxes and easier living, the thinking goes, should keep drawing a flow of residents and vacationers.

“Irma doesn’t change the fact that there is no state income tax,” said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. “In a few months, when the first Alberta Clipper starts blowing down cold weather across the United States and it’s 80 degrees and sunny down here, the memories of Irma will be blown away.”

Certainly, the influx of people has been testament to that appeal. After slowing when the housing bubble burst in 2007, the population has marched steadily upward. The number of Floridians, now above 20 million, is projected to hit 24 million by 2030, with more than half the increase coming from retiring baby boomers. Many of them first experienced Florida as tourists. More than 112 million people visited the state last year – a 33 percent increase over the past decade.

All of which means that compared with Hurricane Andrew 25 years ago, Irma struck a far more densely packed state. It is also one marked by greater extremes of wealth and poverty. Luxury condo towers populated by the global elite now crowd the Miami skyline. But the metro area is also cursed by the worst rental housing affordability in the United States, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Flooding washed away mobile home parks in the Florida Keys where lower-income workers live. As a magnet for jobs at restaurants, hotels and other parts of the services sector, the state attracts workers with relatively low incomes who can’t pay higher rents if flooding eliminates a chunk of the housing stock.

Still, Citigroup estimated that damages were just $50 billion – well below initial estimates – in part because some homes were better equipped to weather the wind and rain than during Andrew.

Storms can cause population loss in the near term. A year after Andrew hit in 1992, Miami-Dade County lost 31,000 residents. Many appear to have moved to Broward and Palm Beach counties, where the risks of flooding were lower, a pattern that could be repeated after Irma.

Given the brisk pace of construction and population growth, Florida could endure a heavy economic blow in coming decades if it fails to reduce the risks from climate change. Homes that were too close to eroding beaches could become effectively worthless. Those along canals that flood could become too costly to rebuild. The state’s economic fuel – tourism and residential development – could dissipate.

Sean Becketti, chief economist at Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, warned in an analysis last year that rising sea levels and widening flood plains “appear likely to destroy billions of dollars in property and to displace millions of people.”

“The economic losses and social disruption,” Becketti added, “may happen gradually, but they are likely to be greater in total than those experienced in the housing crisis and Great Recession.”

Federal taxpayers might oppose bailing out these homeowners, Becketti said, mortgage lenders could absorb heavy losses and employers might choose to move to safer parts of the country – and take their jobs with them.

Still, for now at least, the heads of several major Florida real estate companies say they expect people to keep flocking to Florida despite the increasing risks.

Budge Huskey, president of Premier Sotheby’s International Realty, drove around Naples, Florida, and said he observed “very little damage” to homes constructed under new building codes after Hurricane Andrew. These houses had wind-resistant hurricane windows and stronger roofs.

“Let’s face it, people work their whole lives to retire to Florida – that’s where they want to be,” Huskey said.

Jay Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman’s Florida brokerage, monitored Irma from an Atlanta hotel. He was gratified that Florida escaped much of the expected destruction. And he said would-be buyers, sniffing out potential bargains, were approaching him at the hotel about cut-rate deals on condos in the storm’s wake.

“If anything,” Parker said, “this might create some short-term buying sprees.”
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Scandal-hit Brazilian construction company Odebrecht said on Sunday it has sold its 33 percent stake in a massive subway project in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires, but vowed to keep working in the country.

Odebrecht is involved in a sprawling corruption saga and has already paid $3.5 billion in settlements in the United States, Brazil and Switzerland, embroiling politicians across Latin America.

“Present for 30 continuous years, Odebrecht plans to continue contributing to the development of Argentina in an ethical, integral and transparent manner,” the construction company said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

In July the Argentine justice system banned Odebrecht from bidding on new projects in the country a period of one year.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s biggest dam on Sunday, ignoring warnings from environment groups that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their livelihoods.

The controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in the country’s western state of Gujarat that will provide power and water to three big states was dedicated to the people of India by Narendra Modi.

The project has been beset by controversies since the laying of the foundation stone by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961. The construction of the project began in 1987.

The dam is the second biggest dam in the world after the Grand Coulee Dam in the United States.

Ahead of the inauguration Modi said in a tweet, “This project will benefit lakhs of farmers and help fulfil people’s aspirations.” (1 lakh = 100,000)

The dam is expected to provide water to 9,000 villages and the power generated from the dam would be shared among three states — Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), led by social activist Medha Patkar, has been protesting against the project, raising several environmental concerns.

Construction on the dam had been suspended in 1996 following a stay by the Supreme Court which allowed work to resume, four years later, but with conditions.

Patkar and her supporters started the protest against the inauguration of the dam on Saturday and the opening of its gates which would raise the level of water and risk displacing several villages.

“Today is a very sad day for India, and for one of our biggest peoples’ movements and struggle — the Narmada Bacchao Andolan,” Ravi Chellam, executive director at Greenpeace India said in a statement.

“The Sardar Sarovar Project… signals ruin not development for tens of thousands of unsuspecting, hapless and poor farmers,” Chellam added.
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Just a stone’s throw across a narrow waterway from the world’s largest gambling hub Macau, a former oyster farming island is being transformed into China’s newest tourism haven.

Dubbed by some as China’s answer to Florida’s Orlando — a global tourist magnet with its cluster of major theme parks — Hengqin has seen property prices more than double over the past two years.

While still a dusty mass of construction sites, Hengqin now draws millions annually to its anchor attraction, the “Chimelong Ocean Kingdom” theme park, with a slew of hotel, malls and sprawling residential developments being built nearby.

Spanish soccer club, Real Madrid, announced last week they would open an interactive virtual reality complex in Hengqin, in partnership with Hong Kong-listed developer, Lai Sun Group .

The 12,000-square-meter venue, set to open in 2021, will include virtual reality entertainment and a museum showcasing the club’s history.

​Oysters to Orlando of China

The transformation of Hengqin, which is three times as large as Macau, is part of Beijing’s efforts to bolster links between Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in the Pearl River Delta region, or so-called “Greater Bay Area,” modeled after other dynamic global bay areas such as Tokyo and San Francisco.

“Hengqin will be the Orlando of China. Macau is Las Vegas (and) Hong Kong is New York,” said Larry Leung, an executive with Lai Sun that is helping build the Real Madrid complex at its “Novotown” project in Hengqin. “Within an hour you can have them all.”

Novotown’s entertainment mix will also feature China’s first Lionsgate movie world with theme rides from blockbuster films such as the Hunger Games and Twilight, as well as a National Geographic educational center. High-end hotel chains and luxury yacht makers are building more hotels and a marina on Hengqin.

​Expanding Macau

Chinese officials see Hengqin helping Macau diversify away from casinos to a more wholesome tourism industry. More than 80 percent of Macau’s public revenues come from the gambling sector.

Businesses in Macau have been encouraged to invest in Hengqin with the government providing cheaper rent and tax subsidies. Galaxy Entertainment, Shun Tak and Macau Legend have also earmarked developments for Hengqin.

Realtors expect property prices to keep rising once a sea bridge linking Hong Kong, and a high-speed rail station are completed.

Hoffman Ma, deputy chairman of Success Universe Group, which operates the Ponte 16 casino in Macau, said Hengqin could take some convention and exhibition business away from the former Portuguese colony.

“It doesn’t make sense for Macau to do that, due to a consistent labor shortage,” he said.

Big population, more theme parks

Wang Lian, from Wuhan in central China, brought his daughter to watch whale sharks and polar bears at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom recently.

Industry reports show 8.5 million people visited China’s top theme park last year, more than Hong Kong Disneyland’s 6.1 million, and almost a third of the 28 million people who visited Macau last year.

“China’s population is so big they need something like this nearby … its (Hengqin’s) economic ties will also help Macau develop,” Wang said.
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The United Nations reports world hunger is rising because conflicts and problems related to climate change are multiplying. The report finds about 815 million people globally did not have enough to eat in 2016 — 38 million more than the previous year.

The statistics in this report are particularly grim. They show that global hunger is on the rise again after more than a decade of steady decline. The report, a joint product by five leading U.N. agencies warns that malnutrition is threatening the health of and compromising the future of millions of people world-wide.

The report says 155 million children under age five suffer from stunting of their bodies and often their brains, thereby dimming prospects for the rest of their lives. It notes 52 million, or eight percent, of the world’s children suffer from wasting or low weight for their height.

Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund, Anthony Lake, says the lives and futures of countless children are blighted because of food insecurity. And those trapped by conflict are most at risk.

“Millions of children across northeast Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere; innocent victims of a deadly combination of protracted, irresponsible conflicts; of drought, poverty and climate change… If unreached, a generation of children, more likely someday as adults, will replicate the hatred and conflicts of today,” Lake said.

The report also explores the problems of anemia among women and growing obesity among adults and children as well. This study does not present a favorable outlook for the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

Authors of the report say governments must set goals and invest in measures to bring down malnutrition and to promote healthy eating for healthy living.
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Farmer Russ Higgins’ ancestors settled a wide expanse of land south of Morris, Illinois, in 1858. Through the U.S. Civil War and every major event since then, there has been someone from the Higgins family planting and harvesting on the land.

Since the first plow churned up the fertile soil here nearly 160 years ago, one crop that always had a place among the fields was wheat.

“The next crop is going to go in as soon as we take this year’s soybean crop out, hopefully within the next two and half to three weeks,” Higgins told VOA, before hopping on his all-terrain vehicle to head out into his fields.

As he makes his way beyond large rolls of hay and towering corn stalks that are just about ready to harvest, the one thing that is noticeably absent is the wheat. Higgins says the reason for this is because he already has harvested the crop from his fields. It’s now out of season for the harvest and just ahead of the time to plant the new crop for the winter.

But the reason you don’t see it beyond a narrow patch on Higgins property has nothing to do with the time of year.

“When you think about what a farmer actually grows, it’s driven by demand, and that demand also is by the prices that they can receive,” said Higgins, who says that demand is not for wheat.

“I’ve watched Illinois over the last 20 years really concentrate on corn and soybean,” he noted.

What is true for Illinois is also true for Higgins, who now dedicates only a small part of his farm for wheat, which this year provided a modest return on his investment.

“We averaged about 83 bushels this year,” he said. “Truth be told, it’s probably going to be better than corn or soybeans.”

Better or not, Higgins says the climate in northern Illinois is not ideal for large scale growth of wheat, and since there’s less farmers producing it, it’s a cost prohibitive cash crop.

“There’s not a readily available market year round. We have a chance to market wheat within a three-week window once we harvest the crop. If we decide to hang on to the crop beyond that, when it comes time to deliver, we’re going to have the deliver to those terminals that are still accepting wheat, and in cases, the trucking and the mileage to those locations make it not a viable option.”

American farmers are on track to plant the fewest acres of wheat since the U.S. Agriculture Department began keeping records in 1919. Executive Director of the Illinois Wheat Association, Jim Fraley, says a major factor for wheat’s demise in the U.S. is global competition.

“It’s grown in countries that are really underdeveloped but still growing good wheat crops to help feed themselves,” Fraley told VOA from the 2017 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois.  “So the U.S. has entered into the field of play with many different countries. Countries like France, Russia, Germany… countries that can’t grow corn very well, but they have the climate to be able to grow wheat. Even Canada is a great country to produce oat, wheat.”

Fraley also points to another factor — the eating habits and dieting fads of consumers.

“There’s a big gluten-free craze, and that’s probably hurt wheat consumption a little bit,” he explained. “The thing is, we have to pretty much use our wheat domestically. We want to use it locally, and anything else we are trying to sell to other countries. That’s where were running into this world market that’s very competitive and that’s why prices are feeling some pressure right now.”

Here in the U.S., Fraley says past experience with growing wheat also is influencing a farmer’s future decisions about what to plant.

“A lot of them still remember the wheat of 10 and 20 years ago, where test weight was poor, quality was poor, and it just never paid,” Fraley explained. “But the varieties today, and the management techniques we can use in regard to fungicide application and disease management have really improved in the last few years, and it’s making wheat viable and profitable to grow here in Illinois again.”  

Profitable or not, farmer Russ Higgins says it isn’t as simple as changing the seeds a farmer plants in the ground.

“For those who have not grown wheat for a number of years, there’s a little bit of a risk with wheat,” said Higgins. “Corn and soybean yields tend to be more consistent, so I think there’s an upside to that.”

If low prices for corn and soybean continue to sink a farmer’s overall profits, however, Higgins says the upside could be a return to wheat. “If the time comes for the prices increase, you might see a return of some of the wheat acres, or if you see more livestock come back in the area.”

But that’s a big “if,” and if there’s one thing a farmer likes less than low prices for the crops he’s growing, it’s uncertainty about the weather and environment, and how they will affect the yield a farmer can depend on when it comes time to harvest.

 
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When Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Coast, the Islamic Circle of North America arranged shelter. After it passed, they provided relief. Its volunteers — made up of immigrant and nonimmigrant, Muslim and non-Muslims — has opened minds and hearts wherever they go, to their shared desire to give back to the country.
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When Hurricane Irma hit the Florida Coast, the Islamic Circle of North America arranged shelter. After it passed, they provided relief. Its volunteers — made up of immigrant and nonimmigrant, Muslim and non-Muslims — has opened minds and hearts wherever they go, to their shared desire to give back to the country.
…

When Hurricane Irma battered the Florida Coast, volunteers of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) arranged shelter.

After it passed, they provided relief — from flood-damaged homes in Naples to uprooted tree trunk clearings in Cooper City, Florida.

Abdulrauf Khan, a Pakistani immigrant and Assistant Executive Director at ICNA Relief USA — a network of disaster relief and social services — has been through all of it. Anytime a natural calamity strikes, he’s present.

Khan describes his motives as two-fold: a desire to assist his neighbors, while empowering his three children.

“I have a son who is 18 years old,” he begins to recount a vivid memory. “He asked me five years ago, ‘dad, what have you done for this country?’”

It’s a simple question that would provide clarity to Khan’s mission.

“We have to work and we have to make sure our children feel that ownership of the country,” he said. “We have to give back.”

‘A basic part of the religion’

From Hurricanes Harvey to Irma, there are many Texans who embrace the work of Muslim relief volunteers, and select others who are hesitant to grant their trust, based solely on religion. But regardless of their reception, ICNA answers the call to assist, and changes some minds in the process.

“Charity is a big part of Islam, and giving back to the community is a big part of Islam,” says Aqsa Cheema, administrative coordinator for ICNA Relief South Florida.

Cheema, a 22-year old first-generation Pakistani-American who assisted with Irma relief, says she has been in the habit of giving back since she was a kid, attending mosque.

“You go along with it, and you get the chance to distribute food and do things that can benefit the community,” she says. “That’s just a basic part of the religion.”

Open hearts, open arms

Earlier in the week, as Irma’s ruthless winds pounded the state indiscriminately, ICNA facilitated shelter for Floridians — any and all Floridians —  in a Boca Raton-based Islamic Center.

Some of their guests said they had never met a Muslim.

“It was their first experience coming to an Islamic Center,” Khan said. “They felt like, ‘this is what we feel like when we go to church, when we go to synagogue’” — welcome, and at home.

Cheema, who is studying to be a social worker, describes her work as enriching, but never complete.

“That lack of true fulfillment is what keeps me going,” she says.

“I accept the fact that I can’t help everyone, but maybe if I help one person, and someone sees me helping that person, they will be like, ‘hey, you know what? It felt nice to bring a smile on a person’s face. I can help them too.’”

 
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During natural disasters, why do some companies open their doors to the community while other take advantage of its members? Tina Trinh explores the reasons why businesses react the way they do and the cost to their public image.
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Thursday that the United States was seeking to add a five-year sunset provision to the North American Free Trade Agreement to provide a regular, “systematic re-examination” of the trade pact.

Ross told a forum hosted by Politico that both he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had agreed on the need for such a sunset provision for quite a while and would “put it forward” in the NAFTA modernization talks, but it was unclear whether Canada and Mexico would back it.

U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators are set to reconvene for a third round of talks in Ottawa on Sept. 23-27.

Ross said that a sunset provision was needed because forecasts for U.S. export and job growth when NAFTA took effect in 1994 were “wildly optimistic” and failed to live up to expectations.

He said the termination clause currently in NAFTA that allows a country to exit after a six-month notice period has never been triggered, and “it’s the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t be.”

But Ross and U.S. President Donald Trump have both talked about quitting NAFTA if it can’t be renegotiated to reduce U.S. trade deficits with Mexico and Canada.

“The five-year thing is a real thing, would force a systematic re-examination,” Ross said. “If there were a systematic re-examination after a little experience period, you’d have a forum for trying to fix things that didn’t work out the way you thought they would.”

Politico first reported that USTR had circulated the sunset proposal with other federal agencies.
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Informal mining in Brazil is seen by many as a scourge polluting the Amazon rainforest, poisoning indigenous tribes and robbing the nation of its wealth.

For others it is a way of life.

Brazilian garimpos, or wildcat mines, are operated by small crews of men, often caked in red-brown mud and working with rudimentary pans, shovels and sluice boxes that have been used for centuries.

More sophisticated operations use water cannons and boats sucking mud from the bottoms of rivers. Regardless of the method, searching for gold and other minerals like cassiterite and niobium is dirty, dangerous and often illegal.

“Looking for gold is like playing in a casino,” said a 48-year-old miner.

Miners asked not to be named, saying they feared the police as much of their work is illegal.

Started as a teen

He started in the wildcat mines as a teenager in the area around Crepurizao,  a ramshackle frontier town of 5,000 with a dirt landing strip that is a gateway for informal mining in the region.

Garimpos are in the spotlight as Brazil debates opening an area known as Renca in the northern Amazon forest to mining, which has met with stiff resistance from environmentalists.

Mines and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho argues that licensed mining will be an improvement over the estimated 1,000 people currently mining in the reserve illegally.

Crepurizao lies hundreds of miles south of Renca, but gives a window into life in the garimpos caught up in the debate.

On brink of poverty

Living in makeshift homes of wood and plastic, miners in the area ship some 60 kilograms (132 lbs) of gold per month, according to traders.

That much pure gold is worth millions of dollars on the global market, but high costs and layers of traders in the local market leave most miners living on the brink of poverty.

Basic staples can cost four or five times the price in the nearest city, an eight-hour bus ride away.

Fuel stations, a general store, a bar, an evangelical church and prostitutes vie for the income and attention of the miners, known as garimpeiros, when they aren’t working or lazing in hammocks.

Most unlicensed

There are 2,113 licensed garimpo sites in Brazil, according to ministry data, but environmental experts and two government officials, who asked not to be named, said far more small-scale mines skip the licensing and ignore regulations altogether.

In Crepurizao, where mines often cluster close together, it was unclear which operations were licensed.

The total area worked by garimpeiros in Brazil is thought to be small. But chemicals like mercury, which miners in Crepurizao dump to separate gold from grit, can leave a large footprint of contamination.

In March last year, a government-backed study of indigenous villages in the northern state of Roraima revealed alarming levels of mercury.

One group of villagers had more than double the level of mercury considered to be a serious health risk — such as damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, heart and reproductive process — detected in their hair.

New oversight

The Mining and Energy Ministry said a new oversight agency created in a decree by President Michel Temer, now pending congressional approval, would allow more effective government coordination and inspections to restrict illegal mining.

Congressman Leonardo Quintao, who sits on the committee considering the new agency, said it will be able to raise more funding for oversight. He said the regulations target licensed miners, while illegal mining remains a matter for the police.

Still, one enforcement officer, who was not authorized to speak to the media, said the government had left miners like those in Crepurizao in a precarious limbo.

“You can’t just pull them out of the garimpos and the cities that are living off gold. And the government does not offer them structure and decent conditions,” said the officer. “So they’re stranded there without the minimum conditions for survival.”

 
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Larry and Elida Dimas didn’t have much to begin with, and Hurricane Irma left them with even less.

The storm peeled open the roof of the old mobile home where they live with their 18-year-old twins, and it destroyed another one they rented to migrant workers in Immokalee, one of Florida’s poorest communities. Someone from the government already has promised aid, but Dimas’ chin quivers at the thought of accepting it.

“I don’t want the help,” said Dimas, 55. “But I need it.”

Dimas is one of millions of Floridians who live in poverty, and an untold number of them have seen their lives up-ended by Irma. Their options, already limited, were narrowed even further when the hurricane destroyed possessions, increased expenses and knocked them out of work.

Not far from Dimas in impoverished Immokalee, located on the edge of the Everglades, Haitian immigrant Woodchy Darius, a junior at Immokalee High School, must decide whether to return to class when school reopens or head to the fields to pick berries once the land is dry enough to work again.

“The rent is $375, and if I don’t have the money they’ll kick us out,” said Darius, 17. He lives in a grubby apartment building with bare concrete floors, burglar-proof doors and cinder-block walls that make it resemble a jail more than home.

The Census Bureau estimates about 3.3 million people live in poverty in Florida – nearly 16 percent of the state’s 20.6 million population. For them, the amusement parks of Orlando or President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach might as well be on Mars.

Many work by the hour in restaurants, gas stations, hotels, stores and other businesses forced to close for days after Irma, depriving them of paychecks. Others are day laborers or migrants who earn money by the pound picking produce that’s sold in stores nationwide. Still others are retirees on fixed incomes or disability checks whose budgets already were tight before Irma.

Fleeing Irma wasn’t an option for those who lacked transportation to get to a shelter, couldn’t afford gas to drive north and couldn’t rent a hotel room. The likely costs associated with cleaning up or finding a new place to live pushed them closer to the edge than ever.

After Irma, Gwen Bush scrambled to find a place just to sleep after flood waters rose around her home.

A security worker for Amway Center in Orlando, Bush hadn’t worked in the days leading up to Irma because concerts and other events had been canceled as the storm approached. It’s not certain when the arena will be open for business, and she was down to her final $10 before the storm.

“I’ve been through some hurricanes and some storms living here but I can say on my life this is the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Bush, 50, a lifelong resident of Orlando. “How do you recover from this, losing all of your stuff?”

David and Andrea Jewell survive on disability checks and live on a sailboat they bought for $1,000 on eBay years ago. David Jewell, 51, can’t imagine now living on land; both consider the ocean – like the dolphins they watch – their only real neighbors.

After the storm, the Jewells stayed on cots in the gym at a community center in Jacksonville. They tried to figure out if they could get a new boat if theirs was destroyed. Maybe, they decided, they could just cut back on food and find another cheap one with their next disability checks.

“There aren’t any answers,” he said, “so I guess I’ll have to roll with it.”

But in one bit of good news, they later learned from a friend that their boat is still floating.

For some poor people, there’s at least a little upside to the devastation.

Guatemalan immigrant Aura Gaspar totaled up storm-related expenses of about $600 while using a twig-fired grill to stew chicken on her front stoop in Immokalee; she has three school-age children to feed and a 2-week-old baby.

But Gaspar said husband Juan Francisco got a job cleaning up storm debris in the Fort Myers and Naples area. He needed to get busy, she said through a translator: Their storm preparations cost nearly twice as much as his weekly pay of $320.

“We had to prepare the house so it would protect us,” said Gaspar, 28.

Beside his ruined Immokalee mobile home, Dimas is trying to get back on his feet, but it’s tough.

Dimas earns a meager living cooking hamburgers and chicken in a food truck parked by his home, and some customers already have returned – he said he sold all 40 of the hamburgers that were still safe to cook Tuesday.

Dimas needs to replace the income from his rental trailer, already condemned after being split open by the wind. Dimas had used that money to help feed his two teenagers and pay for the rescue inhalers he needs for his asthma. Losing it will only make it harder for Dimas to do what he says is one of his favorite things – providing free or cut-rate food to those who have even less.

Coping with Irma’s aftermath is only making life tougher for people with little who live in places including unincorporated Immokalee, said Dimas.

“A lot of people work. They work hard here. They don’t ask for nothing. They just go to work, come home and something like this happens, it’s ….,” Dimas said. “I don’t know what to say.”

He stopped talking and turned away to keep from crying.
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President Donald Trump has blocked the acquisition of a U.S. computer chip manufacturer by a Chinese company, calling it a threat to national security.

The Chinese-owned Canyon Bridge Fund has sought to take over Oregon-based Lattice Semiconductor Corp.

The U.S. Treasury Department, acting under Trump’s orders, said Wednesday it is prohibiting the deal. It says the president determined that it would put national security at risk and that negotiations would not reduce that risk.

“The national security risk posed by the transaction relates to, among other things, the potential transfer of intellectual property to the foreign acquirer…the importance of semiconductor supply chain integrity to the U.S. government, and the use of Lattice products by the U.S. government.”

Trump acted after both Lattice and Canyon Bridge lobbied the administration hard to allow the deal to go thorough.

China has not yet reacted to the Treasury’s announcement. Trump has vowed to crack down on what he says are unfair Chinese trade practices, including alleged intellectual property theft.

The administration’s perception that China is failing to put enough pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear program has also put a strain in ties between Washington and Beijing.
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