Volkswagen AG’s chief executive said Tuesday after a meeting at the White House that the German automaker was building an alliance with Ford and might use the U.S. automaker’s plants to build cars. 

VW CEO Herbert Diess said the company was also “considering building a second car plant” in the United States, adding, “We are in quite advanced negotiations and dialog with Ford Corporation to really build up a global automotive alliance, which also would strengthen the American automotive industry.” 

Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told reporters at an event near Detroit on Tuesday that talks with Volkswagen about an alliance were going “very well.” 

Asked about Diess’ comments that VW could use some of Ford’s unused capacity for car production, Bill Ford said the companies “haven’t gotten that granular in our talks yet.” 

He said he did not want to say much about a VW alliance until the automaker had “a lot of definitive things to talk about.” 

The proposed alliance between Volkswagen and Ford suggests the days of carmakers going it alone are over, as tariffs, new technology and tougher emissions rules fragment markets that were once global, Reuters reported last week. 

Firms that once sought vehicles with universal global appeal to create economies of scale are now seeking advantages in specific market segments like hybrid SUVs, North American pickup trucks or European city cars. 

RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak said in a research note on Tuesday that Diess’ comments raised the chances that VW would use some of Ford’s unused capacity as part of a broader partnership. Spak also said that a European or Asian automaker could seek to acquire some of General Motors’ unused capacity. GM announced last week it plans to idle five North American plants. 

“VW may have a little negotiating power as some of the GM facilities could be bought (although this could impact their broader intentions with Ford),” Spak wrote. 

VW has an assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. Of the need for a new plant, Diess said the company was in “quite advanced negotiations in Tennessee but there might be other options as well.” 

Diess said VW would not take an equity stake in Ford as part of its alliance. “We are building an alliance with Ford which will strengthen Ford’s position in Europe because we will share platforms,” he said. “We might use Ford capacity here in the U.S. to build cars for us.” 
…

The World Bank will give equal weight to curbing emissions and helping poor countries deal with the “disastrous effects” of a warming world as it steps up investments to tackle climate change in the first half of the 2020s, it said on Monday.

The bank and its two sister organizations plan to double their investments in climate action to about $200 billion from 2021-2025, with a boost in support for efforts to adapt to higher temperatures, wilder weather and rising seas.

The latest figures on international climate funding for developing nations show barely a quarter has been going to adaptation, with the bulk backing clean energy adoption and more efficient energy use, aimed at cutting planet-warming emissions.

“We live in a new normal in which disasters are more severe and more frequent,” World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at U.N. climate talks in Poland.

“We have to prioritize adaptation everywhere, but especially in the most vulnerable parts of the world,” she said, pointing to the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, coastal regions and small island states.

Of the $100 billion the World Bank plans to make available in the five years from mid-2020, half would go to adaptation measures, it said.

Those include building more robust homes, schools and infrastructure, preparing farmers for climate shifts, managing water wisely and protecting people’s incomes through social safety nets, Georgieva added.

The World Bank said the money would also improve weather forecasts, and provide early warning and climate information services for 250 million people in 30 developing countries.

“Climate change is an existential threat to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. These new targets demonstrate how seriously we are taking this issue,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said in a statement.

From 2014-2018, the World Bank spent nearly $21 billion on adaptation, which accounted for just over 40 percent of the climate benefits generated by the institution’s funding overall.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the bank’s pledge to use half its climate finance to find solutions to deal with changing weather patterns was “important.”

“Climate change is already having a disastrous impact on people right around the world and we are nearing the point of no return,” said Ban. “So we must take bold action to adapt to the reality of the threat facing us all.”

A recently launched Global Commission on Adaptation, which Ban chairs with Georgieva and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, aims to put political muscle behind efforts to keep people safer in a hotter world.

The remaining $100 billion in promised World Bank Group funding will come from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which works with the private sector, and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, as well as private capital the group raises.

“There are literally trillions of dollars of opportunities for the private sector to invest in projects that will help save the planet,” said IFC chief Philippe Le Houérou.

The IFC will identify opportunities, use tools to make investments less risky, and attract private-sector cash in areas including renewable energy, green buildings, clean transport in cities and urban waste management, he added.

Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine said her low-lying Pacific island state was struggling with fiercer storms and increasing seawater flooding that is contaminating fresh water with salt.

The new World Bank funds would “help to build resilience, make us safer, and improve lives,” she said.

“Global action needs to accelerate before it is too late,” she added.

The “Big Shift Global” coalition of aid agencies and climate justice campaigners said the World Bank Group’s new commitment signaled that developing countries should receive far more support to tackle climate change.

But it overlooked “the desperate need to radically scale up financing for off-grid renewable energy” to help the poorest gain access to electricity, they added.
…

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Monday the Trump administration wants to end subsidies for electric cars and other items, including renewable energy sources.

Asked about plans after General Motors announced U.S. plant closings and layoffs last week, Kudlow pointed to the $2,500-to-$7,500 tax credit for consumers who buy plug-in electric vehicles, including those made by GM, under federal law.

“As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies,” Kudlow said. “And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth.”

Asked about a timeline, he said: “It’s just all going to end in the near future. I don’t know whether it will end in 2020 or 2021.”

The tax credits are capped by Congress at 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer, after which the subsidy phases out. GM has said it expects to hit the threshold by the end of 2018, which means under the current law, its tax credit scheme would end in 2020. Tesla said in July it had hit the threshold.

Other automakers may not hit the cap for several years.

Experts say the White House cannot change the cap unilaterally. U.S. President Donald Trump last week threatened to eliminate subsidies for GM in retaliation for the company’s decision.

Kudlow made clear any changes in subsidies would not just affect GM.

“I think legally you just can’t,” he said.

Democrats will take control of the U.S. House in January and are unlikely to agree to end subsidies for electric cars and many have been pushing for additional incentives.

Tesla and GM have lobbied Congress for months to lift the cap on electric vehicles or make other changes, but face an uphill battle make changes before the current Congress expires.

In October, Senator Dean Heller proposed lifting the current cap on electric vehicles eligible for tax credits but phase out the credit for the entire industry in 2022. Two other senators in September proposed lifting the per manufacturer credit and extending the benefit for 10 years.

Also in October, Senator John Barrasso a Republican who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, proposed legislation to end the EV tax credit entirely.
…

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Monday that despite solid economic progress, the country still faces a number of challenges ranging from slow wage-growth for lower-income workers to sluggish productivity and an aging population.

Powell said in remarks at a Fed award ceremony that these challenges remain even though unemployment is near five-decade low and the financial system has been bolstered since the 2008 financial crisis.

While there have been recent gains in wage growth, Powell said that wages for lower-income workers have grown quite slowly over the past few decades.

He also noted that a decadeslong decline in economic mobility has made it more difficult for lower-income Americans to move up the economic ladder.

In his remarks, Powell praised the work of the Fed’s community development staff and former Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who put a special emphasis on efforts to help disadvantaged communities during her 16 years at the Fed, including the last four as Fed chair.

Powell did not discuss the Fed’s current interest-rate policies in his appearance.

The central bank has raised rates three times this year and is expected to boost rates for a fourth time at its Dec. 18-19. Powell sent the stock market surging last week when he signaled that the Fed may decide to slow the pace of rate hikes next year.

Investors had been hoping to learn more about Powell’s current thinking in testimony he was scheduled to deliver Wednesday before the congressional Joint Economic Committee. However, that appearance was canceled because of the government closure for the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush.

Both Powell and Fed board member Lael Brainard praised the work that Yellen did to help disadvantaged communities.

“Chair Yellen was attentive to low- and moderate-income communities, recognizing that Americans on the most precarious rungs of the ladder often feel the impacts of a downturn soonest and the longest,” Brainard said.

Both officials spoke at a ceremony honoring Yellen’s work with the presentation of a newly established Janet L. Yellen Award for Excellence in Community Development.

This year’s award, which goes to a Fed staffer who has excelled in work to help disadvantaged communities, was presented to Ariel Cisneros of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump boasted Monday of his “very strong and personal relationship” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, declaring a new U.S.-China trade deal would immediately allow American farmers to sell more of their products to Beijing.

Stock markets in Asia and Europe jumped sharply after Trump and Xi, as leaders of the world’s two biggest economies, agreed Saturday in Argentina to not impose any new tariffs on each other’s exports for the next 90 days while they negotiate a detailed trade agreement.

U.S. stock indexes also opened sharply higher in New York at the start of a new work week, with the widely watched Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 key stocks ahead more than 1.5 percent.

“My meeting in Argentina with President Xi of China was an extraordinary one,” Trump said on Twitter. “Relations with China have taken a BIG leap forward! Very good things will happen.”

The United States had a $335.4 billion trade deficit with China in 2017. Trump said, however, “We are dealing from great strength, but China likewise has much to gain if and when a deal is completed. Level the field!”

The U.S. leader said U.S. farmers “will be a very BIG and FAST beneficiary of our deal with China. They intend to start purchasing agricultural product immediately. We make the finest and cleanest product in the World, and that is what China wants. Farmers, I LOVE YOU!”

Late Sunday, Trump tweeted that “China has agreed to reduce and remove tariffs on cars coming into China from the U.S. Currently the tariff is 40 percent.”

On Monday, China’s ministry of foreign affairs said the Chinese and U.S. presidents had agreed to work towards removing all tariffs.

WATCH:  Trump-Xi Dinner in Argentina Leads to Trade War Truce

Trump said he and Xi “are the only two people that can bring about massive and very positive change, on trade and far beyond, between our two great Nations. A solution for North Korea is a great thing for China and ALL!”

Trump, at his political rallies and news conferences, often praises the increase in U.S. military spending during his nearly two years in the White House.

But he tweeted that at “at some time in the future,” Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin of Russia, and he “will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!”

The 90-day truce in the escalating trade war between the U.S. and China came during a dinner meeting between the two presidents following the G-20 summit of the world’s biggest economies in Buenos Aires. For months, the two countries have engaged in tit-for-tat increases in tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of exports flowing between the two countries.

Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One after the plane departed Argentina, said his agreement with Xi, will go down “as one of the largest deals ever made. … And it’ll have an incredibly positive impact on farming, meaning agriculture, industrial products, computers — every type of product.”

Trump agreed he will leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products at 10 percent, and not raise it to 25 percent as he has threatened to do January 1, according to a White House statement.

“China will agree to purchase a not yet agreed upon, but very substantial, amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other product from the United States to reduce the trade imbalance between our two countries,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders. “China has agreed to start purchasing agricultural product from our farmers immediately.”

Trump and Xi also agreed to immediately begin negotiations on structural changes with respect to forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, non-tariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services and agriculture, according to the White House statement. “Both parties agree that they will endeavor to have this transaction completed within the next 90 days. If at the end of this period of time, the parties are unable to reach an agreement, the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent,” the statement said.
…

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning the world is “in deep trouble with climate change.”

Speaking Monday at the opening of two weeks of climate talks in Poland, Guterres said it is “the most important gathering on climate change since the Paris Agreement was signed.” He called on the nearly 200 countries represented in Katowice, Poland, to take the issue seriously, and commit to the course of action agreed to in Paris in 2015.

Signatories to the landmark 2015 Paris Accord pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions and limit the rise in global temperatures to less than two degrees Celsius by 2030.

To reach this goal, emissions must be halved from 2010 levels by 2030, Guterres said.

“I remind all Parties that this is a deadline you set for yourselves and it is vital you meet it,” Guterres added.

Citing bleak recent reports, including one from the U.N. expert climate panel in October, Guterres noted devastation from hurricanes in Barbuda and Dominica which he called “heart-breaking,” but also “preventable.”

President Donald Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement because of what he says is the economic damage the treaty’s provisions would cause.

Trump is a promoter of fossil fuels and nuclear power and has proposed renegotiating the Paris Accord — an idea many dismiss as impractical.

Host country Poland is expected to propose what it calls a “just transition” for the oil, gas, and coal industries to ease the financial blow from the move away from such polluting sources of energy.

But nations more immediately threatened by climate change, including Fiji, whose prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, served as president of last year’s climate conference, urged developed nations to act now to save the planet.

“Or, God forbid, [we] ignore the irrefutable evidence and become the generation that betrayed humanity,” Bainimarama said.

 
…

Nigeria’s unemployment numbers jumped by nearly 30% this year to 16 million, according to a November report by the National Bureau of Statistics. Another two million are expected to be unemployed by the end of the year. The negative trend comes as Nigeria this year overtook India as having the world’s largest population of people living in extreme poverty and just ahead of February presidential elections. Timothy Obiezu reports for VOA from Abuja.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump has returned home from the Group of 20 meeting of the world’s top economies. After the curtain came down on the summit, the spotlight lingered on the leaders of the two top economies. As VOA’s White House bureau chief Steve Herman reports from Buenos Aires, in the end a truce was achieved in the escalating battle of tariffs between the United States and China.
…

The data stolen from the Marriott hotel empire in a massive breach is so rich and specific it could be used for espionage, identity theft, reputation attacks and even home burglaries, security experts say.

Hackers stole data on as many as 500 million guests of former Starwood chain properties over four years including credit card and passport numbers, birthdates, phone numbers and hotel arrival and departure dates.

It is one of the biggest data breaches on record. By comparison, last year’s Equifax hack affected more than 145 million people. A Target breach in 2013 affected more than 41 million payment card accounts and exposed contact information for more than 60 million customers.

Especially sensitive data

But the target here — hotels where high-stakes business deals, romantic trysts and espionage are daily currency — makes the data gathered especially sensitive.

Jesse Varsalone, a University of Maryland cybersecurity expert, said the affected reservation system could be extremely enticing to nation-state spies interested in the travels of military and senior government officials.

“There are just so many things you can extrapolate from people staying at hotels,” Varsalone said.

And because the data included reservations for future stays, along with home addresses, burglars could learn when someone wouldn’t be home, said Scott Grissom of LegalShield, a provider of legal services.

Starwood brand hotels

The affected hotel brands were operated by Starwood before it was acquired by Marriott in 2016. They include W Hotels, St. Regis, Sheraton, Westin, Element, Aloft, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien and Four Points. Starwood-branded timeshare properties were also affected. None of the Marriott-branded chains were threatened.

Email notifications for those who may have been affected begin rolling out Friday and the full scope of the breach was not immediately clear.

Marriott was trying to determine if the purloined records included duplicates, such as a single person staying multiple times.

Breach undetected for a while

Security analysts were especially alarmed to learn of the breach’s undetected longevity. Marriott said it first detected it Sept. 8 but was unable to determine until last week what data had possibly been exposed because the thieves used encryption to remove it in order to avoid detection.

Marriott said it did not yet know how many credit card numbers might have been stolen. A spokeswoman said Saturday that it was not yet able to respond to questions such as whether the intrusion and data theft was committed by a single or multiple groups.

Cybersecurity expert Andrei Barysevich of Recorded Future said Saturday he believed the breach was financially motivated.

The cybercrime gang expert in credit card theft such as the eastern European group known as Fin7 could be a suspect, he said, noting that a dark web credit card vendor recently announced that 2.6 million cards stolen from an unnamed hotel chain would soon be available to the online criminal underworld.

“We will have to wait until an official forensic report, although, Marriott may never share their findings openly,” he said.

Marriott said the stolen credit card information was encrypted but the hackers may have obtained the “two components needed to decrypt the payment card numbers.” It said it cannot “rule out the possibility that both were taken.”

Privacy laws

For as many as two-thirds of those affected, the exposed data could include mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and passport numbers. Also dates of birth, gender, reservation dates, arrival and departure times and Starwood Preferred Guest account information.

The breach of personal information could put Marriott in violation of new European privacy laws, as guests included European travelers.

Marriott set up a website and call center for customers who believe they are at risk.

The FBI said anyone contacted by Marriott should “take steps to monitor and safeguard their personally identifiable information and report any suspected instances of identity theft to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.”

Passport numbers have previously been part of a hack, though it’s not common. They were among records on 9.4 million passengers of Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific obtained in a breach announced in October.

Combined with names, addresses and other personal information, passport numbers are a greater concern than stolen credit card numbers because thieves could use them to open fraudulent accounts, said analyst Ted Rossman of CreditCards.com.

Hotels long a source of information

The data purloining highlights just how dangerous hotels can be for people worried about their privacy.

“Hotels have long been important government sources of local information for tracking foreigners: reservation systems and loyalty programs took the surveillance global and made it easier for us to give up our privacy,” said Colin Bastable, CEO of Lucy Security.

Intelligence agencies including the U.S. National Security are well plugged into the global travel industry “by fair means or foul,” he said, nongovernment cybercriminals now have the same hacking tools.

“Consumers have become collateral damage,” he said. “And we are all consumers.” He advises providing hotels with as little information as possible when making reservations and checking in.

Last year, the cybersecurity firm FireEye highlighted an effort in which Russian state agents allegedly tried to infiltrate the reservation systems of hotels in Europe and the Middle East.

21 million Starwood program members

When its acquisition by Marriott was first announced in 2015, Starwood had 21 million people in its loyalty program. The company manages more than 6,700 properties across the globe, most in North America.

Marriott, based in Bethesda, Maryland, said in a regulatory filing that it was too early to say what financial impact the breach might have on the company. It said it has cyber insurance and is working with its carriers to assess coverage.

Elected officials were quick to call for action.

The New York attorney general opened an investigation.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said the U.S. needs laws that limit the data companies can collect on customers and ensure that companies account for security costs rather than making consumers “shoulder the burden and harms resulting from these lapses.”
…

During Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s successful campaign for the Mexican presidency, his advisers met representatives of dozens of investment funds to allay fears about the leftist’s plans, saying he prized economic stability and wanted to attract foreign capital.

Initially, it worked.

When Lopez Obrador won office by a landslide on July 1, the peso and the stock market rose, buoyed by his conciliatory tone.

The rally continued when Mexico and the United States reached a deal to rework the NAFTA trade pact in late August.

But the mood has since changed.

Lopez Obrador, who takes office Saturday, began saying in September that Mexico was “bankrupt.” When he canceled a new $13 billion Mexico City airport on Oct. 29 on the basis of a widely-derided referendum, investors took flight.

“[Lopez Obrador] behaved quite well from the election in early July until the referendum on the airport. That was really an indication of his true colors,” said Penny Foley, portfolio manager for emerging markets and international equities groups at TCW Group Inc, which manages $198 billion in total.

Foley said the referendum prompted TCW to cut its exposure to bonds issued by state oil firm Pemex, on the grounds that under a Lopez Obrador administration the company would be driven more by politics than by profit.

“We are now slightly underweight Mexico in the dollar fund and neutral in the local currency fund,” she added.

Lopez Obrador wants to attract investment from home and abroad to fuel economic growth and drive an ambitious infrastructure agenda, including a major rail project linking Cancun to Mexico’s southeast, plus a new oil refinery.

Yet decisions such as the airport cancellation have fed investors’ concerns he could push Mexico toward a more authoritarian, arbitrary and partisan form of government.

Mexico’s S&P/BVM IPC stock index has tumbled 17 percent since the market’s post-election peak on Aug. 28, while the peso has fallen around 8 percent against the dollar.

Bond yields on Mexican 10-year sovereign debt have jumped 121 basis points, a sign investors see it as a riskier bet.

By contrast, yields on Brazil’s 10-year debt have fallen over 20 basis points since the Oct. 28 presidential election victory of Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right politician who has appointed a group of pro-market economists to his team. Mexican corporate debt markets have taken note.

Airport operator GAP, which controls terminals in a dozen cities including Tijuana and Guadalajara, canceled a planned 6 billion peso debt issuance this week.

“We decided to wait for better conditions,” GAP chief financial officer Saul Villarreal told Reuters.

Some European businesses are also in wait-and-see mode, said Alberico Peyron, a board member and former head of the Italian chamber of commerce in Mexico.

There was “no panic so far,” but a few executives had put plans on hold until the picture became clearer, he said, adding: “There are more who are worried than are optimistic.”

‘Errors’ made

After 30 years of kicking against the establishment, the veteran Lopez Obrador, a 65-year-old former mayor of Mexico City, claimed the presidency with a promise to clean up government, cut poverty and tame Mexico’s drug cartels.

Aiming to almost double economic growth to around 4 percent, Lopez Obrador wants to revive Pemex, increase pensions and spur development in the poorer south to contain illegal immigration that has strained ties with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Lopez Obrador says rooting out corruption will free up billions of dollars, while he intends to save more with pay cuts for civil servants. However, critics say the cuts could affect the quality of officials in his new administration.

Johannes Hauser, managing director of the German chamber of commerce in Mexico, told Reuters the association’s annual survey of firms, currently underway, was upbeat on Mexico.

Still, initial results suggested companies were not quite as eager to invest or create new jobs as they were a year ago. And the airport cancellation had been a shock, he said.

During their campaign outreach, some of Lopez Obrador’s advisers sought to play down the airport’s importance to markets, while others suggested it was likely to be completed.

Without providing evidence, Lopez Obrador said the project — which has been under construction since 2015 — was tainted by corruption. But more than once, Lopez Obrador had raised the possibility of turning its completion into a private concession.

Incoming Finance Minister Carlos Urzua, whose team sat down with financial heavyweights such as Bank of America, BlackRock, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley, told Reuters in April that foreign investors were “not very worried” about the airport.

Now, the scrapping of the hub has raised the prospect of a messy legal dispute with investors that could cost billions of dollars — as well as cloud interest in new projects.

Some members of Lopez Obrador’s incoming government privately express deep misgivings about the decision to cancel the airport, which was based on a referendum organized by his own party in which barely 1 percent of the electorate voted.

They felt the poll, which critics lambasted as opaque and open to abuse, undermined the credibility he had built up over the years he spent campaigning against corruption and vote-rigging.

Lopez Obrador’s taste for rule by referendum, and changes to laws governing everything from banking to mining and pension funds that have been proposed by his National Regeneration Movement and the party’s allies in Congress, have further curdled sentiment.

“I’ve moved from being cautiously optimistic after the election, to being quite pessimistic now,” said Andres Rozental, a former deputy foreign minister of Mexico. “He’s not building on what he got. He’s destroying little by little what he got.”

Facing questions about the airport controversy from a panel of prominent Mexican journalists this month, Lopez Obrador was unrepentant about the referendum, saying that “errors” made were blown out of proportion by adversaries trying to hurt him.

“What I regard as most important in my life is my honesty,” he said. “We are not creating a dictatorship,” he added, repeating what is a frequent aside in his public pronouncements.

Nevertheless, Arturo Herrera, an incoming deputy finance minister, conceded this week that the transition had tested the next government, which must present its first budget by mid-December.

“What we’re all learning is that we need to be extremely careful,” he told Mexican television.
…

It may be the world’s sixth largest, but most other things about India’s economy are up for debate.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is under fire for the release of new historical GDP figures that significantly downgraded growth during the years the opposition Congress party was in power, replacing old government estimates and those prepared by an independent committee.

The figures, released by the government’s Central Statistics Office (CSO), showed growth in the 10 years of Congress rule to 2014 averaged 6.7 percent, below an average of 7.4 percent under the current government. A previous government estimate had growth under Congress at 7.8 percent.

P. Chidambaram, a former Congress finance minister, called the release “a joke”. In response India’s current finance minister, the BJP’s Arun Jaitley, said the CSO was a credible organization.

The fallout comes at a critical time for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India’s economy grew a weaker-than-expected 7.1 percent in the July-September quarter, from a more than two-year high of 8.2 percent in the previous quarter, government data showed on Friday.

Modi faces a general election next year, when the performance of the economy under his pro-business administration compared with the Congress era is likely to dominate campaigning.

The spat has also alarmed India’s top statisticians, who have long faced the difficult task of estimating growth and unemployment in an economy with hundreds of millions of informal workers, and dominated its financial press and political cartoons in recent days.

“The entire episode threatens to bring disrepute to India’s statistical services,” said an editorial in Mint, one of the country’s leading business newspapers, on Friday.

A joke widely circulated on WhatsApp said the government would soon be reinterpreting the last cricket World Cup, in which India crashed out in the semi-finals, to say the country won based on a new methodology.

COMPETING INTERESTS

Unlike many major economies, India lacks an independent statistical body.

An organization called the National Statistics Commission (NSC) was formed in 2005 with that intention, though it is yet to be recognized as the official body for generating statistics.

Last year the NSC set up a committee, chaired by economist Sudipto Mundle, to come up with a new set of historical GDP figures.

Its report, published in July, showed growth averaged 8.1 percent in the decade before the BJP took power.

After the figures were cheered by the Congress, the government issued a clarification saying the report “had not yet been finalised and various alternative methods are being explored”. Shortly after, the report was pulled from the government’s website.

“The whole thing has unfortunately become very political,” said Mundle, on the battle between the two parties. “It is very troubling.”

Attempts to formalize the NSC’s role have been successively stonewalled by both Congress and the BJP, said N R Bhanumurthy, who sat on the committee chaired by Mundle.

“They have not shown much interest in making it independent from our government,” he said.

The debate over India’s true level of growth is the latest to frustrate economists looking to measure the performance of the country of 1.3 billion people.

India has not published its official employment survey since 2015, while a smaller quarterly survey on companies employing more than 10 workers has not been released since March while the government comes up with new methodology.

India’s large informal sector made calculating employment “almost impossible”, Bhanumurthy said, leading to a vacuum that was filled with competing political interests.
…

The leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada have signed a new North American trade deal, underpinning $1.2 trillion in annual commerce among the three countries.   

President Trump is calling the signing of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), following 15 months of frequently acrimonious negotiations, a “very historic day” for a “truly groundbreaking achievement.” 

The pact will lock in U.S. market access to Canada and Mexico, expand American exports and includes new measures to ensure fair competition, explained Trump as he stood alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

“The autoworkers are a tremendous beneficiary,” said Trump, adding that the USMCA will help stop automotive jobs from going overseas, and he predicted many such jobs will return to the United States. 

The agreement’s intellectual property protection will be “the envy of nations all around the world,” said Trump at the signing on the sidelines of the G-20 leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires on Friday morning.  

The USMCA replaces NAFTA, a pact Trump roundly criticized during his 2016 presidential campaign, terming it the worst trade deal in history and blaming it for the loss of American manufacturing jobs since it went into effect in 1994.

“We’ve taken a lot of barbs and a little abuse and we got there,” Trump said thanking Trudeau and Pena Nieto. “It’s great for all of our countries.”

It will be a while, however, before the agreement can take effect as lawmakers from all three countries must approve the USCMA. 

“It’s been so well-reviewed I don’t expect to have much of a problem” getting the pact through the U.S. Congress, Trump said at the signing ceremony. 

That could prove to be an overly optimistic assessment. 

“It’s going to be a very tough sell,” predicts Congressman Bill Pascrell of the state New Jersey, who is one of the top Democrats on the House subcommittee that oversees trade issues.

The opposition Democrats take control of the House in January. 

The National Association of Manufacturers is calling for swift approval by U.S. lawmakers.

“With 2 million American jobs dependent on exports to Canada and Mexico, Congress should move expeditiously to review the USMCA before the end of this year. We look forward to working with the administration and Congress to ensure the USMCA is implemented and enforced in a way that empowers manufacturers in America to continue investing in our people and our communities,” the powerful business group said in a statement released shortly after the signing ceremony.

Trump noted the signing in Argentina comes on the last day in office for the Mexican president, who is being succeeded by leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, elected five months ago.

“It is really an incredible way to end a presidency,” Trump said to Pena Nieto, promoting applause from the Mexican officials in the audience.  

The outgoing Mexican leader hailed the as providing “more and better opportunities to our people,” predicting that “North America will grow stronger and be more prosperous.”

Pena Nieto also said the new agreement provides improved protection of workers’ rights and the environment. 

The Canadian prime minister agreed that it will “protect jobs, strengthen the middle class and create new opportunities for businesses.”

Trudeau, speaking in French and English, did not refer to the agreement by the USMCA acronym, instead calling it “the new NAFTA.” He also said, “the task isn’t done, more hard work is ahead.” 

His government is officially calling the pact the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). 

Noting this week’s announcement by top North American automaker General Motors to close several factories in Canada and the United States, Trudeau lamented the factory shutdowns “are a heavy blow.” 

“Make no mistake, we will stand up for our workers and fight for their families and communities,” added Trudeau. 

The signing of the so-called free trade agreement comes at a time when tens of billions of dollars of tariffs remain in place on goods traded among the three countries.   

“Tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum are entirely inconsistent with the overall goals of the USMCA,” according to a letter signed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and groups representing auto, chemical, grocery, retail and agricultural interests.

Retaliatory tariffs by Mexico have harmed U.S. dairy and pork farmers. 

Mexican negotiators reportedly desire modifications to limit future metal shipments to the United States to 80 percent of current levels, while Canada is resisting quotas in the face of inexpensive steel from China entering the American market.
…

Police raided six Deutsche Bank offices in and around Frankfurt on Thursday over money laundering allegations linked to the “Panama Papers”, the public prosecutor’s office in Germany’s financial capital said.

Investigators are looking into the activities of two unnamed Deutsche Bank employees alleged to have helped clients set up offshore firms to launder money, the prosecutor’s office said.

Around 170 police officers, prosecutors and tax inspectors searched the offices where written and electronic business documents were seized.

“Of course, we will cooperate closely with the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, as it is in our interest as well to clarify the facts,” Deutsche Bank said, adding it believed it had already provided all the relevant information related to the “Panama Papers”.

The news comes as Deutsche Bank tries to repair its tattered reputation after three years of losses and a drumbeat of financial and regulatory scandals.

Christian Sewing was appointed as chief executive in April to help the bank to rebuild. He trimmed U.S. operations and reshuffled the management board but revenue has continued to slip.

Deutsche Bank shares were down more than 3 percent by 1220 GMT and have lost almost half their value this year.

Offshore links

The investigation was triggered after investigators reviewed so-called “Offshore-Leaks” and “Panama Papers”, the prosecutor said.

The “Panama Papers”, which consist of millions of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, were leaked to the media in April 2016.

Several banks, including Scandinavian lenders Nordea and Handelsbanken have already been fined by regulators for violating money laundering rules as a result of the papers.

The prosecutors said they are looking at whether Deutsche Bank may have assisted clients to set up offshore companies in tax havens so that funds transferred to accounts at Deutsche Bank could skirt anti-money laundering safeguards.

In 2016 alone, over 900 customers were served by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary registered on the British Virgin Islands, generating a volume of 311 million euros, the prosecutors said.

They also said Deutsche Bank employees are alleged to have breached their duties by neglecting to report money laundering suspicions about clients and offshore companies involved in tax evasion schemes.

The investigation is separate from another money laundering scandal surrounding Danish lender Danske Bank, where Deutsche Bank is involved.

Danske is under investigation for suspicious payments totaling 200 billion euros from 2007 onwards and a source with direct knowledge of the case has told Reuters Deutsche Bank helped to process the bulk of the payments.

A Deutsche Bank executive director has said the lender played only a secondary role as a so-called correspondent bank to Danske Bank, limiting what it needed to know about the people behind the transactions.

Under scrutiny

Weaknesses in Deutsche Bank’s controls that aim to prevent money laundering have caught the attention of regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. The bank has publicly said that it agreed it needed to improve its processes to properly identify clients.

In September, Germany’s financial watchdog – BaFin – ordered Deutsche Bank to do more to prevent money laundering and “terrorist financing,” and appointed KPMG as third party to assess progress.

In August, Reuters reported that Deutsche Bank had uncovered further shortcomings in its ability to fully identify clients and the source of their wealth.

Last year, Deutsche Bank was fined nearly $700 million for allowing money laundering through artificial trades between Moscow, London and New York. An investigation by the U.S.

Department of Justice is still ongoing.

Deutsche Bank has been under pressure after annual losses, and it agreed to pay a $7.2 billion settlement with U.S. authorities last year over its sale of toxic mortgage securities in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that new auto tariffs were “being studied now,” asserting they could prevent job cuts such as the U.S. layoffs and plant closures that General Motors Co. announced this week. 

Trump said on Twitter that the 25 percent tariff placed on imported pickup trucks and commercial vans from markets outside North America in the 1960s had long boosted U.S. vehicle production. 

“If we did that with cars coming in, many more cars would be built here,” Trump said, “and G.M. would not be closing their plants in Ohio, Michigan & Maryland.” 

The United States has a 2.5 percent tariff on imported cars and sport utility vehicles from markets outside North America and South Korea. The new North American trade deal exempts the first 2.6 million SUVs and passenger cars built in Mexico and Canada from new tariffs. 

Several automakers said privately on Wednesday that they feared GM’s action could prompt Trump to act faster than expected on new tariffs. 

GM did not directly comment on Trump’s tweets but reiterated that it was committed to investing in the United States. On Monday, the company said it would shutter five North American plants, stop building six low-selling passenger cars in North America and cut up to 15,000 jobs. The company has no plans to shift production of those vehicles to other markets. 

The administration has for months been considering imposing dramatic new tariffs on imported vehicles. 

The U.S. Commerce Department has circulated draft recommendations to the White House on its investigation into whether to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported cars and parts on national security grounds, Reuters reported earlier this month. 

“The President has great power on this issue – Because of the G.M. event, it is being studied now!” Trump said. 

Shock to industry

The prospect of tariffs of 25 percent on imported autos and parts has sent shock waves through the auto industry, with both U.S. and foreign-brand producers lobbying against it and warning that national security tariffs on EU and Japanese vehicles could dramatically raise the price of many vehicles. 

Trump has also harshly criticized GM for building cars in China. The United States slapped an additional 25 percent tariff on Chinese-made vehicles earlier this year, prompting China to retaliate. 

China currently imposes a 40 percent tariff on U.S. automobiles, while the United States has a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese vehicles. 

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement on Wednesday that he “will examine all available tools to equalize the tariffs applied to automobiles.” 

Additional tariffs on Chinese-made vehicles and parts would have a limited impact, said Kristin Dziczek, an economist at the Center for Automotive Research. She noted only a small number of vehicles were exported from China to the United States annually. 

The White House previously pledged not to move forward with imposing national security tariffs on the European Union or Japan while it was making constructive progress in trade talks. 

Trump wants the EU and Japan to buy more American-made vehicles. He wants the EU and Japan to make trade concessions, including lowering the EU’s 10 percent tariff on imported vehicles and cutting nontariff barriers. 

The White House in recent weeks has reached out to the chief executives of German automakers, including Daimler AG, MW AG and Volkswagen AG about meeting to discuss the status of auto trade.  
…

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell boosted U.S. stock markets on Wednesday when he said interest rates were “just below” estimates of a level that neither brakes nor boosts a healthy economy. Many took his comments as a signal that the Fed’s three-year tightening cycle is ending. 

The S&P 500 and Dow posted their biggest percentage gains in eight months, while the Nasdaq saw its largest advance in just over a month following Powell’s speech to the Economic Club of New York. 

Powell said that while “there was a great deal to like” about U.S. prospects, “our gradual pace of raising interest rates has been an exercise in balancing risks.” 

Earlier in the day, in its first-ever financial stability report, the Fed cautioned that trade tensions, Brexit and troubled emerging markets could rock a U.S. financial system where asset prices are “elevated.” 

‘Close to neutral’

“[Powell is] now acknowledging he’s close to neutral, which suggests maybe not quite as many rate hikes in the future as investors believed,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Wealth Advisors in Chicago. “It’s certainly a change of language and welcome news to investors.” 

The U.S. Commerce Department affirmed that U.S. GDP grew in the third quarter at a 3.5 percent annual rate, but the goods trade deficit widened, consumer spending was revised lower and sales of new homes tumbled, suggesting clouds are gathering over what is now the second-longest economic expansion on record. 

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 617.7 points, or 2.5 percent, to 25,366.43, the S&P 500 gained 61.61 points, or 2.30 percent, to 2,743.78 and the Nasdaq Composite added 208.89 points, or 2.95 percent, to 7,291.59. 

Of the 11 major sectors in the S&P 500, all but utilities were positive. Technology and consumer discretionary were the biggest percentage gainers, each up more than 3 percent. 

The S&P 500 Automobile & Components index was up 1.4 percent after President Donald Trump said he was studying new auto tariffs in the wake of General Motors Co.’s announcement that it would close plants and cut its workforce. 

Humana cuts forecast

Health insurer Humana Inc. cut its 2019 forecast for Medicare drug plan enrollment but upped its estimated enrollment in the company’s Medicare Advantage plan. Its stock ended the session up 6.2 percent. 

Salesforce.com Inc. beat analysts’ earnings estimates and forecast better-than-expected 2020 revenue, sending its shares up 10.3 percent. Other cloud software makers rose on the news, with the ISE Cloud Index gaining 3.5 percent. 

Microsoft Corp briefly surpassed Apple Inc. in market cap but Apple took back its lead by closing. Nevertheless, Microsoft closed 4.0 percent higher as it benefited from optimism regarding demand for cloud computing services. 

Among losers, Tiffany & Co. shares dropped 11.8 percent after the luxury retailer missed quarterly sales estimates on slowing Chinese demand. 

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.95-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 3.58-to-1 ratio favored advancers. 

The S&P 500 posted 17 new 52-week highs and six new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 37 new highs and 129 new lows. 

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 8.04 billion shares, compared with the 7.82 billion-share average over the last 20 trading days. 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump touted the use of U.S. tariffs on foreign small trucks Wednesday, saying their placement on other foreign vehicles would have prevented the closure of several General Motors plants and the loss of thousands of coveted manufacturing jobs.

Trump noted on Twitter that brisk U.S. small truck sales in the country are due to a 25-percent tariff on small truck imports.

The president reiterated on Twitter that “countries that send us cars have taken advantage of the U.S. for decades.” Trump added he has “great power on this issue,” which he said “is being studied now.”

Trump has threatened to eliminate all federal subsidies to GM in response to the company’s planned closure of five plants and the elimination of 14,000 jobs in North America. Questions remain, though, about whether Trump has the authority to act against the automaker without congressional approval.

Federal tax credits of up to $7,500 are available to those who buy GM electric vehicles. Killing the subsidies may have little financial impact on GM because it is on the cusp of reaching its subsidy limit.

Many of the jobs would be eliminated in Midwestern U.S. states, a region where Trump has long promised a manufacturing rebirth.

GM, which said it has invested more than $22 billion in U.S. operations since it came out of bankruptcy in 2009, has tried to appease the Trump administration while justifying its decisions.

“We appreciate the actions this administration has taken on behalf of industry to improve the overall competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing,” GM said in a statement Tuesday.

Before GM can shutter factories next year in Michigan, Ohio and Ontario, Canada, it must reach agreement with the United Auto Workers union. The union has vowed to fight the closures legally and in collective bargaining.

GM’s restructuring reflects changes in buying trends in North America, prompting vehicle manufacturers to shift away from cars and toward SUVs and trucks.

 
…

This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.

Norway has built the world’s biggest salmon-farming industry. But it wants to go bigger. With their lucrative oil fields now in decline, Norwegians have ambitious plans for aquaculture to power their economy far into the future.

Climate change could make those dreams harder to realize.

Salmon feed is based on fishmeal, produced by grinding up wild-caught fish. With warming waters and ocean acidification pushing underwater ecosystems to the breaking point, Big Aquaculture is seeking ways to feed fish that aren’t hostage to increasingly unpredictable seas.

“Feed has a couple of bottlenecks: We’re still using marine resources, for example fishmeal and fish oil, to then put into fish. This is not necessarily sustainable in the long term,” said Georg Baunach, co-founder of Hatch, an accelerator focused on supporting aquaculture startups. “And that’s why we need innovation in feed.”

Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and scientists are racing to identify alternatives, turning the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Stavanger into a Silicon Valley of the Sea. Spending on research and development in Norway’s aquaculture sector increased by 30 percent to 2.3 billion kroner, or $275 million, between 2013 and 2015, according to official data quoted by Hatch, as startups and research institutes raced to develop disruptive new technologies.

The innovators aren’t short of ideas. At Norway’s biggest oil refinery, a startup called CO2Bio is harnessing greenhouse gases to culture algae that can then be harvested as a sustainable source of fish feed.

At the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen, the Aquafly project is investigating whether black soldier flies fed on waste products from the food industry or the seaweed growing off Norway’s coast could be another viable feed ingredient.

“The insects are also part of this whole circular economy, where instead of throwing away things you would reuse and recycle and upcycle,” said Nina Liland, one of the Aquafly researchers. “Potentially you could use food waste from households to produce insects that could be used for fish feeds: That would be an optimal scenario.”

Various companies are working on projects to recycle more of the vast amounts of waste dumped into the sea by Norway’s aquaculture industry into products such as biogas or fertilizer.

Researchers are also looking for ways to combat the sea lice parasites that thrive in salmon cages, which are a major brake on the industry’s plans to expand.

Time may not be on the fish farmers’ side. With climate change projected to intensify in the coming decades, the challenge will be to turn promising new ideas into viable projects fast enough to shield their dreams of a prosperous future from the growing turmoil at sea.
…

President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping will meet to discuss trade issues on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires this week. The head of the U.S. National Economic Council says there’s a good possibility a deal can be achieved to cool down the ongoing U.S.– Sino trade war, but warns the Trump administration will consider additional tariffs if no deal is struck. Patsy Widakuswara reports from the White House.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday kept up his criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, saying rising interest rates and other Fed policies were damaging the U.S. economy, the Washington Post said.

“So far, I’m not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay,” the Post quoted Trump as saying in an interview, referring to the man he picked last year to lead the Fed.

“Not even a little bit. And I’m not blaming anybody, but I’m just telling you I think that the Fed is way off-base with what they’re doing.”

In recent months, the Republican president has repeatedly criticized Powell and the Fed’s interest rate increases that he said was making it more expensive for his administration to finance its escalating deficits. Trump has called the Fed “crazy” and “ridiculous.”

“I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed,” Trump told the Post on Tuesday. “They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”
…

British and Dutch regulators have fined ride-hailing company Uber $1.2 million for what it said were inadequate security measures that left personal data at risk for a cyber attack.

The fines are linked to a 2016 hack of Uber data that allowed attackers to download information about 32 million users, including 2.7 million accounts in Britain.

The files included full names, mobile phone numbers, email addresses and some user passwords. Information about 3.7 million drivers, 82,000 of them in Britain, was also downloaded.

Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office said the hack was the result of “a series of avoidable data security flaws.”

“This was not only a serious failure of data security on Uber’s part, but a complete disregard for the customers and drivers whose personal information was stolen,” ICO Director of Investigations Steve Eckersley said. “At the time, no steps were taken to inform anyone affected by the breach, or to offer help and support. That left them vulnerable.”

Uber said in a statement it is “pleased to close this chapter on the data incident from 2016.”

“As we shared with European authorities during their investigations, we’ve made a number of technical improvements to the security of our systems both in the immediate wake of the incident as well as in the years since,” the company said.
…

Fishing communities along Africa’s coastline are at a greater risk of extinction as countries eye oceans for tourism, industrial fishing and exploration revenue to jumpstart their “blue economies,” U.N. experts and activists said on Monday.

The continent’s 38 coastal and island states have in recent years moved to tap ocean resources through commercial fishing, marine tourism and sea-bed mining, according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).

“There is a great risk and a great danger that those communities will be marginalized,” said Joseph Zelasney, a fishery officer at U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“The resources that they depend on will be decimated,” he added at a side event at the Blue Economy Conference organized by Kenya, Canada and Japan in Nairobi.

The world’s poorest continent hosts a blue economy estimated at $1 trillion but loses $42 billion a year to illegal fishing and logging of mangroves along the coast, according to UNECA estimates.

Seismic waves generated by prospectors to search for minerals, oil and gases along the ocean floor have scared away fish stocks, said Dawda Saine of the Confederation of African Artisanal Fishing in Gambia.

“Noise and vibration drives fishes away, which means they (fishermen) have to go further to fish,” Saine said.

Pollution from a vibrant tourism sector and foreign trawlers have reduced stocks along the Indian Ocean, Salim Mohamed, a fisherman from Malindi in Kenya, said.

“We suffer as artisanal fishers but all local regulation just look at us as the polluter and doesn’t go beyond that,” he said.

The continent’s fish stocks are also being depleted by industrial trawlers which comb the oceans to feed European and Asian markets, experts say, posing a threat to livelihoods and food security for communities living along the coast.

Growth of blue economies in Africa could also take away common rights to land and water along the coastline and transfer them to corporations and a few individuals, said Andre Standing, advisor with the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements.

Most of the land and beaches along Africa’s thousands of miles of coastline is untitled, making it a good target for illegal acquisition, activists said.

“There is a great worry that we could see privatization of areas that were previously open to these communities,” Standing told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We need to have a radical vision that values communities and livelihoods or they will become extinct.”
…

Marine fisheries are one of the few economic activities present everywhere along the Kenyan coast – mostly using artisanal fishing methods in which non-motorized boats stay close to shore. In the coastal town of Malindi, thousands of households that depend on the fisheries resources face uncertainty over the sustainability of the industry. Rael Ombuor reports from Malindi.
…

Both U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are expressing disappointment with General Motors’ announcement it is slashing 15 percent of its salaried workforce and halting production at five facilities across North America,

“We don’t like it,” Trump said. “I believe they will be opening up something else (in the state of Ohio).”

The president told reporters at the White House that he had spoken with the chairman and chief executive officer of America’s top carmaker, Mary Barra, and that he “was very tough” with her. “I spoke with her when I heard they were closing and I said, ‘You know, this country has done a lot for General Motors. You better get back in there.’”

Trump, speaking Monday afternoon prior to boarding Marine One to head to political rallies in the state of Mississippi, added: “They say the Chevy Cruze is not selling well. I said, well, get a car that is selling well and put it back in. I think you’ll see something else happen there.”

He also pressed Barra to close down GM’s production in China, the president told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Trudeau, on Twitter, said his government “we’ll do everything we can to help the families of those affected by this news get back on their feet.”

The Canadian prime minister added that he had spoken with Barra on Sunday “to express my deep disappointment in the closure” of the factory in Oshawa in the province of Ontario.

Barra, in a statement, said her company’s decision is motivated by market pressure and she will transform GM “to be highly agile, resilient and profitable, while giving us the flexibility to invest in the future.”

“This industry is changing very rapidly,” Barra later said during a briefing for reporters. “These are things we are doing to strengthen our core business.”

Besides Ottawa and Ohio — a critical swing state for the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign — GM will shut down the Detroit-Hamtramck factory in the U.S. state of Michigan. Plants in Baltimore, Maryland, and another in the suburban Detroit community of Warren, which make powertrain components, have no products assigned to them after 2019 and risk being closed, according to the automaker. It also revealed it will shutter two unidentified factories outside North America.

GM says said it is shifting its focus to electric and autonomous vehicles, but the transition will mean the loss of 6,300 hourly and salaried workers.

Declining demand for sedans and the anti-globalist policies of the Trump administration have taken their toll on the automotive manufacturer. The company has said that steel tariffs imposed earlier this year have cost it $1 billion.

Shares of GM, which reported surprisingly strong third quarter earnings, closed Monday up nearly 5 percent, after rising 7.9 percent during the trading session on the New York Stock Exchange.
…

This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them.

Greyhound Bay was once a place where old ships came to die. A wild stretch of coast on the western edge of the Sahara, its shallows made a convenient, if desolate, spot to scuttle an obsolete trawler, freighter or tug. So many vessels went to their graves here, the nearby port of Nouadhibou seemed captive to a ghostly armada keeping vigil over the dunes.

Today, navigators plotting a course for this gateway to the West African nation of Mauritania have no intention of abandoning ship. Turkish fishing boats bob at anchor, laundry strung out to dry above deck. In the open sea, the convex hulls of Chinese vessels carve V-shaped wakes through the swells.

Nearer shore, nomads-turned-octopus-catchers scan the surface through the eye-slits of headgear that once shielded them from sandstorms.

But the most lucrative activity of all takes place behind high walls. It would be easy to miss entirely — were it not for the stomach-turning stench.

On a recent Saturday, factory manager Hamoud El-Mami watched through a warehouse gate at Africa Protéine SA as two of his workers trudged knee-deep through a silvery, undulating heap of sardinella, a sardine-like fish that thrives by the billion in the Canary Current off northwest Africa.

Seemingly oblivious to the smell, the rubber-booted laborers shoveled the fish into a proboscis-like chute. Armed with a giant rotating screw, the device liquidized each sardinella on contact, then sucked the resulting gray goo through a hole in the wall and into the bulky contraptions of the factory proper.

The hungry machines of Africa Protéine are producing fishmeal — a nutrient-laden powder that fuels the $160 billion aquaculture industry. One of the world’s fastest-growing food sectors, aquaculture is rapidly overtaking wild-capture fisheries as the biggest source of fish for human consumption.

From the shrimp ponds of China’s river deltas to the salmon cages of Norway’s fjords, the industry thrives by feeding fish to other fish. Its needs are so voracious, roughly 20 percent of the world’s wild-caught fish don’t even go near anyone’s plate but are instead ground up to make fishmeal.

With relentless demand from China pushing fishmeal prices to record highs, companies have set their sights on West Africa as a new source of supply. From state-owned conglomerates to adventurous entrepreneurs, Chinese investors are racing to build new factories on the shores of Mauritania and its two neighbors to the south, Senegal and Gambia.

But in the rush for sardinella, global business interests are snatching a staple of West Africa’s diet from the people who need it the most. And the blades of the grinding machines are posing a new threat to the species at a time when climate change already has sardinella swimming for its life.

“In four or five years, there won’t be any fish stocks left; the factories will close, and the foreigners will leave,” said Abdou Karim Sall, president of an association of small-scale fishermen in Senegal known by its French acronym, Papas. “We’ll be left here without any fish.”

Satellite data indicate that the waters off northern Senegal and Mauritania are warming faster than any other part of the equator-girdling belt called the tropical convergence zone, once known to sailors simply as the “doldrums.” This hidden-from-view climate change has had an ominous impact: A new study by researchers at the Marseille-based institute IRD-France found that the rising temperatures have pushed sardinella an average of 200 miles north since 1995.

The findings, the results of which were shared with Reuters, provide the first clear evidence that West Africa’s sardinella are joining a worldwide diaspora of sea creatures fleeing poleward or deeper as waters warm. The sheer scale of this mass migration dwarfs anything taking place on land: Fish are moving 10 times farther on average than terrestrial animals affected by rising temperatures, according to Professor Camille Parmesan, an authority on climate impacts on marine life at the University of Plymouth.

Climate change is not only displacing sardinella from their traditional habitat, it’s putting pressure on the fish in another, indirect way, by increasing the incentives for West African fishmeal production even further.

Peru is by far the world’s biggest exporter of fishmeal, manufactured from its vast shoals of anchovies. As such, the country exerts an influence on fishmeal prices comparable to Saudi Arabia’s role as a swing producer of crude oil. Since the early 1970s, the El Niño weather phenomenon has periodically caused catastrophic losses to Peru’s gigantic anchovy catch by disrupting the upwelling mechanism that provides that fish with nutrients. In the past decade, climate change appears to have increased the frequency of El  Niño’s effects, which can in turn cause fishmeal prices to track significantly higher.

This growing volatility might bode well for West Africa’s fishmeal producers, who stand to make more money each time prices spike. But overproduction could have dire consequences for millions of the region’s people, by endangering the fish they depend on for their primary source of employment, income and protein.

Demand for fishmeal has already caused Mauritania’s annual catch of sardinella to surge from 440,000 tons to 770,000 tons within the space of a few years, according to a European Union-funded report published in 2015. Senegalese boats working under contract to the plants increased their landings tenfold between 2008 and 2012 alone, the report found. The Canary Current’s fish stocks, marine scientists say, won’t be able to withstand this kind of pressure for much longer.

Coastal communities in West Africa are already among the populations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Rising seas have begun to swallow coastal villages whole, while rougher weather is making fishing ever more perilous. Droughts and irregular rainfall have forced farmers to abandon their land and head for the shore, swelling the fast-growing ranks of men whose best hope of feeding their families lies beyond the breakers.

But on the spit of land in Nouadhibou where laborers await the arrival of the next truckload of fish, factory bosses shrug their shoulders at talk of the swirling shoals of sardinella ever running out.

“Fish are still abundant,” El-Mami said, gesturing toward a nearby beach with a grin. “If you take your fishing rod over there now, you’ll catch a beautiful fish.”

Changing fortunes 

Painted eyes stare from the prows of the pirogues wallowing in the surf at Joal-Fadiouth, the frenetic hub of Senegal’s fishing industry. Emblazoned with the names of revered spiritual leaders whose influence permeates all tiers of Senegalese society, some also reflect more worldly aspirations: the neatly rendered crest of Manchester City football club or the words “Barack Obama.”

A gold-rush mentality has doubled the size of the country’s small-scale fishing fleet in the past decade. Eager to win votes, the government has subsidized outboard motors to allow fishermen to rove even farther. Now directly or indirectly employing 600,000 people, or 17 percent of the workforce, the fast-growing fleet is threatening to throttle the very resource that sustains it.

On a recent Tuesday, captain Doudou Kotè clambered out of his boat and onto a cart pulled by a horse evidently at home in the waves. Borne regally through the surf in this amphibious taxi, Kotè echoed what many of his fellow fishermen are saying: Sardinella, a talismanic species in Senegal, is in the midst of a vanishing act.

“Nowadays, there are more pirogues: People who didn’t own any pirogues now own one, and people who used to own one now have two,” said Kotè, a stout mariner who wore green waders and a conical lambskin hat. “Often we come home without catching anything — not enough to buy fuel, or even to eat.”

A naturally jovial man with two wives and six children, Kotè’s expression darkened as he predicted that pressure on sardinella would soon cause stocks of the fish to collapse. “If I had any other job to do, I’d stop fishing,” he said.

It’s not just Senegalese who are losing out because their staple is being turned into fishmeal. In Mauritania, the industry has been grinding at least 330,000 tons of fish a year that were previously sold in West African markets such as Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast, researchers estimate. That’s nearly equivalent to the entire annual fish consumption of Senegal’s population of 15 million.

Although Senegal produces only a fraction of the volume of fishmeal exported by the roughly 30 Mauritanian factories, its dozen plants could pose a disproportionate risk by disrupting a delicate market mechanism that once limited how much fishermen would take.

In the past, in seasons when sardinella migrated closer to shore, Kotè and his comrades could easily land more than the local market could absorb. Crews would dump the fish they couldn’t sell to rot on the sand, then stay home until the glut passed. With the factories now willing to buy every last fish, there’s nothing to stop the fishing fleet from pushing stocks to the point of collapse.

“We could face a catastrophic situation,” said Patrice Brehmer, a marine scientist at IRD-France, who co-authored the study revealing that warming waters are pushing sardinella northward.

The growing imbalance between people and nature in the Canary Current has fishermen wondering if they will soon be forced to return to the poverty of their ancestral villages.

Ibrahima Samba once scratched a living by growing peanuts and millet on his family plot outside the Senegalese town of Mbour. When the rains began to arrive either too early or too late, he joined other farmers swapping their hoes for nets.

“We could see the climate changing: Things never worked out like we hoped, and there were always surprises,” Samba said.

“With the sea, you go out today, you fish today, and you sell straight away — and you don’t need to be a real professional to do it. We saw the fisherman had beautiful cars and were building houses, so we joined them.”

After 22 years as a fisherman, Samba says climate change is once again threatening his livelihood, this time by chasing away sardinella. “Climate change doesn’t just affect the agricultural sector, but fishing as well,” he said. “People who sold their land may well have problems, because there’s a good chance we’ll have to go back to farming.”

The impact of the fishmeal factories is already apparent in the faces of local women. Not far from the beach at Joal-Fadiouth, lazy pillars of smoke spiraled from a complex of outdoor ovens where tightly packed rows of sardinella dried slowly over glowing cinders. Many were destined to be marinated and served on a bed of spicy rice in Senegal’s national dish, known as thiéboudiène.

When times were good, the thousands of workers at this outdoor fish-drying facility — almost all of them women — could make more money than the fishermen many had married, saving enough to buy them new engines, or even boats.

Among them was Rokeya Diop, a matriarchal figure of good standing among the community that dries, smokes and salts fish for sale in local markets. These days, the acrid pall hanging over the near-deserted complex matched her mood.

As Diop watched, fire-keepers still dutifully fed straw kindling into the empty ovens and used long poles to give the smoldering ashes an occasional stir. But the fishmeal factories are willing to pay twice as much as Diop and her friends can for fresh sardinella, leaving them with nothing but time on their hands.

“Each day I stay until 10 o’clock at night but I go home empty-handed,” Diop said, slapping her palms together.

Although demand from factories is just one of many factors affecting the availability of fish from season to season in Senegal, whispering is growing louder along the coast of more monumental changes taking place at sea.

“We can’t just blame everything on the factories,” Maimouna Diokh, the treasurer for a local council that manages fishing activity in Joal-Fadiouth, said as men loaded crates of iced fish into trucks parked in a beachside loading bay. “Climate change is warming the waters, so there are fewer fish.”

Warming seas

Years of sun and saltwater have conspired to give the Amrigue, a catamaran moored in Nouadhibou harbor, a distinctly weather-beaten aspect. But the twin-engined vessel is still seaworthy enough to ferry teams of scientists out into Greyhound Bay to gather data on the warming seas.

One Saturday, the Amrigue weighed anchor near a sandbar called Gazelle Bank, about two nautical miles from the harbor.

Abdoul Dia, a laboratory chief at the Mauritanian Institute of Oceanographic Research and Fisheries, or Imrop, heaved a device used to gather sediment from the seabed off the vessel with a splash.

Hoisting a sample onto the deck, he dumped the gravel into a plastic tub and began rummaging through it with a sieve and hose. He was looking for micro-organisms that could help his colleagues build a more detailed picture of how conditions are changing.

The big picture is already clear: Thirty years of measurements show that the balmy waters off Mauritania are getting hotter. “If you look, you’ll see an increase in average temperature that confirms the warming trend,” Dia said, an orange life jacket slung over his white lab coat.

At Imrop’s headquarters, on a bluff overlooking the bay, Dia explained why this warming was so significant. Nouadhibou sits near a convergence zone where cooler waters to the north collide with tropical waters to the south. The precise latitude of this thermal front oscillates a little every year. But as waters have warmed, it has begun fluctuating much farther north, even roving as far as the Moroccan city of Casablanca, 870 miles away. The center of gravity of the sardinella stock has moved northward in tandem as the species has sought to maintain an optimal temperature.

The shift is good news for Mauritania’s fishmeal factories, because the sardinella are now concentrated closer by. But it’s bad news for fishermen to the south in Senegal and Gambia, whose lifeline fish stocks are migrating farther away.

Some researchers believe that, over time, the warming trend might actually increase the abundance of fish in the Canary Current as new species find a foothold in the changing conditions. But others see a more dystopian future.

Vicky Lam, a fisheries economist at the Institute for Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia in Canada, and three researchers published a study in 2012 of the possible impact of climate change on fisheries in 14 West African nations, including Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia. Their projections for 2050 were bleak: a 21 percent drop in the annual landed value of catches, a 50 percent decline in fisheries-related jobs and an annual loss of $311 million to the regional economy.

The fishmeal industry is only adding to the pressure. Ad Corten, who chairs the sardinella committee in a stock assessment group that advises the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said fishing vessels were taking too much from the Canary Current even before the factories came.

“This is going to burst within one or two years,” Corten told Reuters. “We’re already noticing a scarcity of sardinella in Mauritanian waters. We hear the same stories from Senegal.”

Fishermen sense that the sea’s character is changing. Last year, the coldest snap off Nouadhibou in 20 years hurt catches of sardinella and octopus. Swallows migrating through the nearby dunes turned up six weeks late. The fierce wind that normally roils the ocean from March to June refused to blow. In Morocco, snow fell in the desert city of Zagora — the first in half a century.

“Last year the ocean was completely crazy,” Abdel Aziz Boughourbal, manager of Omaurci SA, one of the biggest Mauritanian fish-processing and fishmeal companies, said over a dish of fried octopus at a waterfront restaurant where visiting sailors crack open cans of imported beer. He said a Chilean crewman on one of his vessels was astonished recently when his boat ran into a huge shoal of anchovies — the kind normally found off Peru.

Rush of Chinese investors

Some Chinese investors don’t seem to share the fishermen’s fears. Over the past few years, major fishing companies have signed deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars to establish fish-processing and fishmeal plants around Nouadhibou, their giant new complexes towering above the sand. Even the port’s smaller Chinese players want to expand.

“If we have the opportunity, we’ll do other projects — from more fishmeal to processing and freezing,” said Fan Yongzhen, a harried manager at Continental Seafood, one of the fishmeal factories in Nouadhibou.

In the capital, Nouakchott, the China Road and Bridge Corp., which has built giant infrastructure projects across Africa, has submitted proposals to develop a 40-square-mile marine industrial park south of the city. According to the company’s feasibility study, seen by Reuters, the plant will feature facilities to process, freeze and export fish — and, of course, fishmeal.

With everyone from Chinese industrialists to Senegalese subsistence farmers looking to the Canary Current to make their fortune, tensions have started to flare.

In January, fishermen rioted in the Senegalese port of Saint-Louis after one of their colleagues was shot dead by Mauritanian coast guards. A senior coast guard official told Reuters the man was accidentally killed when an officer opened fire to try to disable the engine of a Senegalese pirogue intent on ramming the Mauritanian patrol craft.

Sardinella migrate across a 1,000-mile zone shared by Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia. Officials from each country insist that they want to manage their fish sustainably and develop the kind of processing, freezing and export industries that could create thousands of jobs. But with no effective regional management system yet in place, this goal may not be compatible with installing ever-more grinding machines for the benefit of fish farms producing food for Asia, Europe and North America.

Bamba Banja, permanent secretary to Gambia’s fishing ministry, said his government’s priority was to make sure local people had enough fish to eat. “If it comes to the crunch, we would rather close the fishmeal factories and allow ordinary Gambians — women and the vulnerable — to have access to these resources,” he said.

Despite the government’s assurances, the Gambian town of Gunjur has emerged as a symbol of the conflict that fishmeal can unleash.

In 2016, a Chinese industrialist opened a beachside plant called Golden Lead. Although many in Gunjur are grateful to work as porters for the factory, one of three to spring up along the tiny country’s 50-mile coast, others fear that the company’s demand for fishmeal is putting the community’s long-term survival at risk.

In March, dozens of people assembled on the beach and dug up a pipe pouring factory effluent into the sea. Local activists accuse Golden Lead of fouling a nearby lagoon, a spawning ground and feeding area for migratory ospreys where crocodiles emerge to lounge on sandbanks in the mid-morning heat. They later showed Reuters photos of floating dead fish and an ugly red stain clouding the water.

Golden Lead has since been ordered by Gambia’s environment agency to extend its waste pipe 350 yards into the sea, according to an official document seen by Reuters. A few weeks after the youths dug it up, workmen arrived to make the required extension. Factory managers marked the occasion by hoisting a Chinese flag on the beach.

Golden Lead says it respects Gambian regulations and has benefited the town in multiple ways, including by providing work for dozens of laborers, making improvements to a school and donating sheep to elders at Ramadan.

“We are a business,” said a member of staff, who declined to be named. “If we didn’t do it, somebody else will come.”

Lamin Jassey, an English teacher, played a leading role in the protests against Golden Lead. He is among a small group of activists who have since been charged with criminal damage, trespass and “intimidating and annoying” the company. He had to post an $8,400 bail — almost 20 times the annual average income in Gambia.

“Today Gunjur is booming — we have a lot of fishermen. We have thousands of others coming from Senegal,” he said, watching as porters waded waist-deep into the water to unload fish to carry to the factory door. “But if the fish stock is under pressure, and at the end it’s very scarce, what do you think about the future?”

 
…

U.S. stocks closed lower after a shortened session Friday, bumping the benchmark S&P 500 index into a correction, or drop of 10 percent below its most recent all-time high in September. 

Energy companies led the market slide as the price of U.S. crude oil tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year, reflecting worries among traders that a slowing global economy could hurt demand for oil. 

“Oil is really falling sharply, continuing its downward descent, and that appears to be giving investors a lot of concern that there’s slowing global growth,” said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment director at U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management. “You have that, and then you have the recent sell-off in tech and in retail, and then throw on there trade tensions and rising rates.” 

Losses in technology and internet companies and banks outweighed gains in health care and household goods stocks. Several big retailers declined as investors monitored Black Friday for signs of a strong holiday shopping season. 

Trading volume was lighter than usual, with the markets open for only a half day after the Thanksgiving holiday. 

The S&P 500 index fell 17.37 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,632.56. The index is now down 10.2 percent from its last all-time high set Sept. 20. The last time the index entered a correction was in February. 

The latest correction came as investors worry that corporate profits, a key driver of stock market gains, could weaken next year. 

“The market is repricing and trying to assess where we’re going to be in the early part of 2019,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial. 

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 178.74 points, or 0.7 percent, to 24,285.95. The Nasdaq composite dropped 33.27 points, or 0.5 percent, to 6,938.98. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 0.40 point, or 0.03 percent, to 1,488.68. 

Crude oil prices fell for the seventh straight week on worries that a slowing global economy could hurt demand, even as oil production has been increasing.  

The benchmark U.S. crude contract slid 7.7 percent to settle at $50.42 per barrel in New York. That is the lowest since October 2017. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 6.1 percent to close at $58.80 per barrel in London. 

Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members have recently signaled a willingness to consider production cuts at the oil cartel’s meeting next month. Such cuts would prop up oil prices. The U.S. has been increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia and OPEC to not cut production. 

The slide in oil prices weighed on energy stocks. Concho Resources, a developer and explorer of oil and natural gas properties, slumped 6.3 percent to $126.96. 

Tesla fell 3.7 percent to $325.83 after the electric auto maker said it intends to cut prices for its Model X and Model S cars in China to make them more affordable. 

Traders had their eye on retailers as Black Friday, the traditional start to the crucial holiday shopping season, began. Shares in L Brands, operator of Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, added 2 percent to $29.97. Other retailers put investors in a selling mood. Kohl’s fell 3.7 percent to $63.83, while Target lost 2.8 percent to $67.35. Macy’s dropped 1.8 percent to $32.01. 

Rockwell Collins climbed 9.2 percent to $141.63 after Chinese regulators conditionally approved the sale of the maker of communications and aviation electronics systems to United Technologies Corp. 

Investors will be watching next week when Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump meet at the Group of 20 summit in Argentina for signs that the two leaders can find common ground to begin unwinding the spiraling trade dispute. 

The dispute between the U.S. and China has weighed on the market, stoking traders’ worries that billions in escalating tariffs imposed by both countries on each other’s goods will hurt corporate earnings at a time when the global economy appears to be slowing.  

“If you can get President Trump and President Xi to even just come closer with their rhetoric and make a bit of progress on the trade front, that could be the catalyst for markets to move higher,” Kravetz said. 

It may take more than a meeting to work out deep-seated issues between Washington and Beijing, which resumed talks over their trade dispute earlier this month. According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has asked its allies to stop using telecommunications equipment from Huawei, which is Chinese-owned. The report cited people familiar with the matter. 

Bond prices fell Friday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.05 percent from 3.04 percent late Wednesday. 

The dollar fell to 112.88 yen from 112.97 yen late Thursday. The euro weakened to $1.1330 from $1.1406. The pound eased to $1.2810 from $1.2876. 

Gold declined 0.4 percent to $1,223.20 an ounce. Silver dropped 1.8 percent to $14.24 an ounce. Copper slid 1 percent to $2.77 a pound. 

In other commodities trading, wholesale gasoline plunged 7.9 percent to $1.39 a gallon. Heating oil lost 4.8 percent to $1.88 a gallon. Natural gas fell 3.2 percent to $4.31 per 1,000 cubic feet. 

Major indexes in Europe finished mostly higher after shaking off an early slide. 

Traders were weighing the latest developments in the negotiations for Britain’s exit from the European Union. Both sides were finalizing the terms of the divorce Friday and expected to sign off on the deal Sunday, though it’s unclear whether the British Parliament will pass the deal. 

The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares slipped 0.1 percent. Germany’s DAX index rose 0.5 percent, while France’s CAC 40 gained 0.2 percent. 

Earlier in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.6 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 0.4 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 bucked the trend, gaining 0.4 percent. Shares fell in Taiwan and rose in Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. 
…

It would have been easy to turn on their computers at home over plates of leftover turkey and take advantage of the Black Friday deals most retailers now offer online.  

But across the country, thousands of shoppers flocked to stores on Thanksgiving or woke up before dawn the next day to take part in this most famous ritual of American consumerism. 

Shoppers spent their holiday lined up outside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., by 4 p.m., and the crowd had swelled to 3,000 people by the time doors opened an hour later. In Ohio, a group of very determined women booked a hotel room Thursday night to be closer to the stores. In New York City, one woman went straight from a dance club to a department store in the middle of the night.  

Many shoppers said Black Friday is as much about the spectacle as it is about doorbuster deals.  

Kati Anderson said she stopped at Cumberland Mall in Atlanta on Friday morning for discounted clothes as well as “the people watching.” Her friend, Katie Nasworthy, said she went to the mall instead of shopping online because she likes to see the Christmas decorations. 

“It doesn’t really feel like Christmas until now,” said Kim Bryant, shopping in suburban Denver with her daughter and her daughter’s friend, who had lined up at 5:40 a.m., then sprinted inside when the doors opened at 6 a.m.  

Brick-and-mortar stores have worked hard to prove they can counter the competition from online behemoth Amazon. From Macy’s to Target and Walmart, retailers are blending their online and store shopping experience with new tools like digital maps on smartphones and more options for shoppers to buy online and pick up at stores. And customers, frustrated with long checkout lines, can check out at Walmart and other stores with a salesperson in store aisles.  

Consumers nearly doubled their online orders that they picked up at stores from Wednesday to Thanksgiving, according to Adobe Analytics, which tracks online spending. 

Priscilla Page, 28, punched her order number into a kiosk near the entrance of a Walmart in Louisville, Ky. She found a good deal online for a gift for her boyfriend, then arrived at the store to retrieve it.  

“I’ve never Black Friday-shopped before,” she said, as employees delivered her bag minutes later. “I’m not the most patient person ever. Crowds, lines, waiting, it’s not really my thing. This was a lot easier.” 

The holiday shopping season presents a big test for a U.S. economy, whose overall growth so far this year has relied on a burst of consumer spending. Americans upped their spending during the first half of 2018 at the strongest pace in four years, yet retail sales gains have tapered off recently. The sales totals over the next month will be a good indicator of whether consumers simply paused to catch their breath or feel less optimistic about the economy in 2019. 

The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail trade group, is expecting holiday retail sales to increase as much as 4.8 percent over 2017 for a total of $720.89 billion. The sales growth would be a slowdown from last year’s 5.3 percent but yet remain healthy.   

The retail economy is also tilting steeply toward online shopping. Over the past 12 months, purchases at non-store retailers such as Amazon have jumped 12.1 percent as sales at traditional department stores have slumped 0.3 percent. Adobe Analytics reported Thursday that Thanksgiving reached a record $3.7 billion in online retail sales, up 28 percent from the same period a year ago. For Black Friday, online spending was on track to hit more than $6.4 billion, according to Adobe.  

Target reported that shoppers bought big-ticket items like TVs, iPads and Apple Watches. Among the most popular toy deals were from Lego, L.O.L. Surprise from MGA Entertainment, and Mattel’s Barbie. It said gamers picked up video game consoles like Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One. 

Others reported stumbling onto more obscure savings. At a Cincinnati mall, Bethany Carrington scored a $29 all-in-one trimmer for her husband’s nose hair needs and, for $17, “the biggest Mr. Potato Head I’ve ever seen.”  

Black Friday itself has morphed from a single day when people got up early to score doorbusters into a whole month of deals. Plenty of major stores including Macy’s, Walmart and Target started their deals on Thanksgiving evening. But some families are sticking by their Black Friday traditions. 

“We boycotted Thursday shopping; that’s the day for family. But the experience on Friday is just for fun,” said Michelle Wise, shopping at Park Meadows Mall in Denver with her daughters Ashleigh, 16, and Avery, 14.  

By midday Friday, there had not been widespread reports of the deal-inspired chaos that has become central to Black Friday lore — fistfights over discounted televisions or stampedes toward coveted sale items.  

Two men at an Alabama mall got into a fight, and one of the men opened fire, shooting the other man and a 12-year-old bystander, both of whom were taken to the hospital with injuries. Police shot and killed the gunman. Authorities have not said whether the incident was related to Black Friday shopping or stemmed from an unrelated dispute.  

Candice Clark arrived at the Walmart in Louisville with her daughter Desiree Douthitt, 19, looked around and remarked at how calm it all seemed. They have long been devotees of Black Friday deals and for years braved the crowds and chaos. Clark’s son, about 10 years ago, got hit in the head with a griddle as shoppers wrestled over it. They saw one woman flash a Taser and threaten to use it on anyone who came between her and her desired fondue pot.  

They’ve watched over the years as the traditional madness of the day has dissipated as shopping transitioned to online and stores stretched their sales from a one-day sprint to a days-long marathon. 

“It seems pretty normal in here,” said Roy Heller, as he arrived at the Louisville Walmart, a little leery of Black Friday shopping, but pleasantly surprised to find that he didn’t even have to stand in line.  

He had tried to buy his son a toy robot on Amazon, but it was sold out. Friday morning, he frantically searched the internet and found one single robot left, at a Walmart 25 miles from his home. He bought it online and arrived an hour later to pick it up.  

Employees delivered his bag, he held it up and declared: “I got the last one in Louisville!” 
…

China will go along with changes meant to update global trade rules so long as they protect Beijing’s status as a developing country, a Cabinet official said Friday.

The deputy commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, said any changes also must address protectionism and abuse of export controls and security reviews — a reference to Beijing’s trade clash with U.S. President Donald Trump.

China agreed in June to work with the European Union to propose changes to the World Trade Organization to address technology policy, subsidies and state industry — all areas in which Beijing faces complaints. U.S. officials complain the global trade referee is too bureaucratic and slow to adapt to changing business conditions.

Wang said each country’s “development model” must be respected — a reference to China’s state-dominated economy, which has provoked repeated complaints Beijing is violating its market-opening obligations.

Beijing has accused Trump of wrecking the global trading system by going outside the WTO to hike tariffs on Chinese imports. Trump says that was necessary because the global body is unable to respond to complaints about Chinese technology theft, subsidies and state-led industry development.

China is “willing to assume obligations” that are “compatible with our own level of development,” Wang said at a news conference.

“We will not allow other members to deprive China of the special and differential treatment that developing members deserve,” he said.

Wang gave no details of changes Beijing might support. But he said they also must address agricultural subsidies — a frequent complaint by developing countries against industrialized economies — and “discrimination against state enterprises,” a reference to restrictions on Chinese government companies abroad.

Beijing’s insistence that it is a developing country and entitled to special protections despite having grown into the second-largest global economy and a major manufacturer rankles its trading partners. That might dampen chances of reaching agreement on WTO reforms that would satisfy the United States, Europe and other governments.

Other governments dislike Trump’s tactics but echo U.S. complaints about Chinese market barriers and technology policy.

Washington and Beijing have imposed penalty tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s goods in their dispute over U.S. complaints that China steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

The United States, Europe and other governments also object to Chinese plans including “Made in China 2025” for state-led creation of competitors in robotics and other technology. American officials worry those might erode U.S. industrial leadership.

The EU filed a WTO challenge in June to Chinese rules on technology licensing that it said improperly discriminate against foreign companies.

Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, are due to meet this month in Buenos Aires during a gathering of the Group of 20 major economies. Private sector analysts say there is little chance that meeting by itself will produce a settlement.

Wang, the commerce official, gave no details of Xi’s possible negotiating stance. But he said China hopes G-20 members can have an “effective discussion” about WTO reform.

“China hopes the G-20 meeting can support the multilateral trading system (and) oppose unilateralism and trade protectionism,” he said.

Wang warned that an issue that “endangers the WTO’s existence” is the status of judges to mediate disputes. The Trump administration has blocked the appointment of judges to the WTO’s appeal body, leaving only three members on the seven-seat panel.

That is a dispute “between the United States and all other WTO members,” said Wang. “We believe this should be resolved as soon as possible.”

 
…

Zimbabwe’s finance minister has unveiled the country’s 2019 budget. Mthuli Ncube says the plan should help restore the economy of the southern African nation after years of recession.

“Madam Speaker, ma’am, in conclusion, this budget should mark a turning point towards realizing the country’s vision 2030, as austerity will lead us to prosperity,” Ncube said. “To quote the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, “We are rich not by what we possess, but by what we can do without.” I now commend the 2019 national budget to this august house. I thank you.”

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the budget marked a step toward Zimbabwe attaining its vision of an “upper middle income country by 2030.”

He said Zimbabwe was working toward retiring its ever ballooning debt, which now stands at about $10 billion.

Independent economic analyst Trust Chikohora commended Ncube for removing the tax on sanitary items, removing the duty on goods used by physically disabled people, and raising the tax threshold for workers; but, he said prices can’t be stabilized until Zimbabwe stops using bond notes.

“So in spite of all the positive things he might have done, the elephant in the room, which is going to destabilize the economy, is the mismatch between the bonneted and the foreign currency, which will continue to result in increased prices,” Ncube said.

Zimbabwe has been printing bond notes for the past two years, since abandoning its dollar in 2009, after years of hyperinflation. The country has been without an official currency and relied on U.S. dollars, the British pound and South African rand to conduct transactions.

In the past three years, however, all three currencies have been hard to find, paralyzing the economy and forcing the country to rely on the bond notes that were supposed to trade at par with the U.S. dollar.

On the black market, a dollar is now worth more than three bond notes.

Before becoming finance minister in September, Ncube had indicated he would prefer dropping the notes and adopting the South African rand, but he did not mention replacing them in his presentation.  
…

Once-admired auto executive Carlos Ghosn’s fall from grace deepened Thursday when directors of Nissan Motor Co. voted unanimously to fire the recently jailed businessman from his post as board chairman.

Dismissed along with Ghosn was another director, Greg Kelly, whom the board accused of working with Ghosn to understate their incomes on formal declarations and use company assets for personal purposes.

An internal investigation presented to the board found that Kelly had “been determined to be the mastermind of this matter, together with” Ghosn, the company said in a statement.  The board also said that Nissan’s longstanding partnership with the French automaker Renault “remains unchanged.”

While he has been fired as chairman, the company said, it will require a vote of shareholders to remove Ghosn from the board altogether.

The financial world was stunned on Monday when it was announced that Ghosn had been detained by Japanese authorities on suspicion of having failed to report millions of dollars in income.  He could face up to 10 years in prison.

Ghosn also served as board chairman of Renault and another Japanese automaker, Mitsubishi.  The news of his arrest drove down share prices in all three.

Nissan said this week that its internal probe of Ghosn and Kelly was prompted by a report from a whistleblower. It said the investigation showed Ghosn had underreported his income to the Tokyo Stock Exchange by more than $40 million over five years.

The Brazilian-born Ghosn, who is of Lebanese descent and a French citizen, was the rare foreign top executive in Japan.

Ghosn was sent to Nissan in the late 1990s by Renault SA of France, after it bought a controlling stake of Nissan. He is credited with rescuing Nissan from the brink of bankruptcy.

In 2016, Ghosn also took control of Mitsubishi, after Nissan bought a one-third stake in the company, following Mitsubishi’s mileage-cheating scandal.

Together, the three automakers comprise the biggest global car-making alliance, manufacturing one of every nine cars sold around the world.  The three companies employ more than 470,000 people in nearly 200 countries.

Before Ghosn’s arrest, Satoru Takada, an analyst at TIW, a Tokyo-based research and consulting firm, said his detention would “rock the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance as he is the keystone of the alliance.”

(VOA’s Ken Bredemeier and Fern Robinson contributed to this story.)
…

Lebanon is marking 75 years of independence with a military parade Thursday in Beirut, but many anxious Lebanese feel they have little to celebrate: the country’s corruption-plagued economy is dangerously close to collapse and political bickering over shares in a new Cabinet is threatening to scuttle pledges worth $11 billion by international donors.

The World Bank issued a stark warning last week, with one official saying that unless a government is formed soon to carry out badly needed reforms, “the Lebanon we know will fizzle away.”

It’s been more than six months since Lebanon held its first national elections in nine years but the prime minister-designate, Saad Hariri, still hasn’t formed a government to undertake the reforms necessary to unlock the donors’ funds.

The vote, in which the Shi’ite militant Hezbollah group and its allies made significant gains, did little to pull Lebanon out of a political impasse. Anger against politicians’ apparent indifference, worsening public services and distress over down-spiraling finances and gloomy predictions are building up.

Last Friday, heavy rains caused Beirut’s sewage system to burst, turning the city’s famous Mediterranean coastal avenue into a river of filthy, foul-smelling black water that engulfed motorists along the otherwise scenic route. On the same day, the military had closed a main artery for drills ahead of the Independence Day parade, paralyzing traffic for hours. Flights from Beirut’s international airport were missed and a woman reportedly went into labor on the road. The army later apologized.

Despite a population of over 4.5 million that is among the most educated in the region, Lebanon still has a primitive infrastructure, widespread electricity and water cuts and a longstanding waste crisis that over the past few years saw trash piling in the streets for weeks at a time.

“There is no independence [to celebrate] because corruption is eating us up,” said Mohammed al-Rayyes, a shop owner in Beirut’s Hamra district. “The coming days are going to be very difficult.”

The tiny Arab country has coped with multiple political and security crises over the past decades and also suffered from the seven-year civil war in neighboring Syria, a conflict that has occasionally spilled over the border and brought more than 1 million refugees into Lebanon, putting even more pressure on its dysfunctional infrastructure.

A soaring debt of $84 billion and unemployment believed to be around 36 percent are compounding concerns that the country will finally cave in.

“It is a shame because so much time is being wasted,” Ferid Belhaj, the World Bank’s vice president for the Middle East and North Africa, said during a meeting with a group of journalists last week.

For years, he said, Lebanese officials have been promising to work on solving the electricity crisis, which costs the country about $2 billion a year and has been the main factor in accumulating Lebanon’s debt.       

Of immediate concern is the future of $11 billion in loans and grants pledged by international donors at a meeting in Paris in April, which Lebanon risks losing if no Cabinet is in place soon to unlock the funds and approve reforms that were set as conditions by the donors and which have been delayed for years. In April, Hariri pledged to reduce the budget deficit by 5 percent over the next five years.

The crisis has prompted some Lebanese to change their deposits from the local currency, which has been pegged to the U.S. dollars since 1997, to U.S. dollars for fear the Lebanese pound might collapse. Riad Salameh, the Central Bank governor, has been repeatedly reassuring the markets, saying the local currency is stable.

Mohamad Shukeir, head of the Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, told the local MTV station that 2,200 businesses closed doors so far this year.

Aftershocks of rising tension between the United States and Iran are also felt in Beirut, with Tehran ally Hezbollah being blamed by opponents for preventing Western-backed Hariri from forming a national unity government.

Hezbollah has demanded that six Sunni lawmakers allied with the Shiite group and opposed to Hariri be included in his Cabinet — something that Hariri, the country’s top Sunni Muslim leader, categorically rejects.

Despite the dangers, political bickering is not likely to end soon and the debt is mounting.

 “The level of debt that we have in Lebanon requires us to act very quickly,” said economist Kamel Wazne.  “Any delay will expose us to financial collapse.”

Belhaj of the World Bank said that reforms would act as a buffer to the crisis. But in their absence, “the crisis can be very nasty.”

“If we don’t go about these reforms fast, the Lebanon that we know will fizzle away,” he said.

  
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