Month: May 2017

A sweeping trade agreement, ranging from banking to beef, has been reached between Washington and Beijing, the U.S. Commerce Department announced on Thursday. “It was pretty much a Herculean accomplishment to get this done,” said U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “This is more than has been done in the whole history of U.S.-China relations on trade.” The breakthrough results from an agreement U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping made during their meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on April 6. Trump “was briefed more or less every single day” as negotiations progressed since then, Ross said. Beef imports Following one more round of “technical consultations,” China has agreed to allow U.S. beef imports no later than July 16, consistent with international food and animal safety standards, Ross told reporters at the White House. The United States Cattlemen’s Association applauded the agreement, saying market access to China is crucial for its members. “Success in this arena will drive the U.S. cattle market and increase demand for U.S. beef” in China, association president Kenny Graner told VOA. In exchange, Washington and Beijing are to resolve outstanding issues that would allow imports to the U.S. of cooked poultry from China “as soon as possible,” according to the Commerce Department. Another significant breakthrough will see American liquefied natural gas (LNG) going to China. Under the agreement Chinese companies will be permitted “at any time to negotiate all types of contractual arrangement with U.S. LNG exporters, including long term …

Cash and Chemicals: For Laos, Chinese Banana Boom a Blessing and Curse

Kongkaew Vonusak smiles when he recalls the arrival of Chinese investors in his tranquil village in northern Laos in 2014. With them came easy money, he said. The Chinese offered villagers up to $720 per hectare to rent their land, much of it fallow for years, said Kongkaew, 59, the village chief. They wanted to grow bananas on it. In impoverished Laos, the offer was generous. “They told us the price and asked us if we were happy. We said okay.” Elsewhere, riverside land with good access roads fetched at least double that sum. Three years later, the Chinese-driven banana boom has left few locals untouched, but not everyone is smiling. Experts say the Chinese have brought jobs and higher wages to northern Laos, but have also drenched plantations with pesticides and other chemicals. Last year, the Lao government banned the opening of new banana plantations after a state-backed institute reported that the intensive use of chemicals had sickened workers and polluted water sources. China has extolled the benefits of its vision of a modern-day “Silk Road” linking it to the rest of the world – it holds a major summit in Beijing on May 14-15 to promote it. The banana boom pre-dated the concept, which was announced in 2013, although China now regards agricultural developments in Laos as among the initiative’s projects. Under the “Belt and Road” plan, China has sought to persuade neighbors to open their markets to Chinese investors. For villagers like Kongkaew, that meant a trade-off. …

Dutch Inventor Years Ahead in Plan to Clean Up Massive Plastic Patch in Pacific

05/12/2017 sellheal

A Dutch entrepreneur has come up with an invention he says will allow him to start cleaning up a massive floating garbage patch in the Pacific two years ahead of schedule. “To catch the plastic, act like plastic,” Boyan Slat said Thursday in Utrecht. Slat’s Ocean Cleanup foundation plans to scoop up most of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a gargantuan floating island of plastic between the U.S. states of Hawaii and California. When he discovered that his original plan of attaching large barriers to the sea floor to trap the plastic would not work, Stal devised a different plan. The barriers will instead be weighed down by floating anchors and travel in the same sea currents as the garbage, trapping it. Slat says the new plan will allow him to start collecting the trash within a year — two years ahead of schedule. The young entrepreneur’s system is making waves among America’s super-rich philanthropists. Last month, his foundation announced it had raised $21.7 million in donations since November, clearing the way for large-scale trials at sea. Among donors were Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Nancy Wallace, director of the Marine Debris Program at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said much of the garbage in the world’s oceans is found throughout the water column — at different depths. That would likely put some of it out of reach of Slat’s barriers. However she applauded The Ocean Cleanup for bringing the issue …

Americans Rush to Trademark Catchy Phrases

Ideas were flying at a brainstorming session to create a slogan for a group of North Carolina Democrats when Catherine Cloud blurted out a phrase that made a colleague’s eyes light up: “Because this is America.” The words were quickly scrawled on a notepad, and the New Hanover County Democratic Party in Wilmington began its scramble to own the phrase. It applied days later for a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. From President Donald Trump’s dash to own “Keep America Great” for his 2020 re-election campaign — even before he took office — to a rush by a foundation for the victims of the September 11 attacks to claim “Let’s Roll” just days after New York’s Twin Towers were reduced to rubble, Americans are rushing to trademark catchy phrases. There were 391,837 trademark applications filed last year, with the number growing an average of 5 percent annually, government reports show. The USPTO does not break out how many of those applications were for phrases. ‘That’s Hot’ The surge is the result of headline-grabbing cases like socialite Paris Hilton’s winning settlement of a lawsuit over her trademarked catchphrase “That’s Hot” from her former television reality show, said trademark attorney Howard Hogan of Washington. “It can’t help but inspire others,” Hogan said. “It feels good to get recognition of something you feel you have created.” Trademarks can mean cash from everything from bumper stickers to thongs printed with the protected phrase. More important for some, however, is claiming ownership …

US Official Urges American Small Businesses to Export Abroad

The head of the U.S. Small Business Administration urged American businessmen and entrepreneurs to enter the global market, telling the United Nations on Thursday that just 1 percent of small businesses are currently exporting overseas. Linda McMahon said the nearly 29 million small businesses in America “are the engine of our economy” and create two out of three new jobs — but she stressed that exporting is a key component of small business growth. “Businesses that export are less likely to go out of business and more likely to grow faster,” she told the Small Business Knowledge Summit. “That’s because 96 percent of all of the world’s consumers and over three-quarters of the world’s purchasing power are outside of the United States,” she said. “Yet right now, only 1 percent of all of America’s small businesses are exporters.” McMahon conceded that becoming an exporter, especially for small businesses, isn’t easy. “Small businesses are challenged by access to information, capital and barriers to market entry,” she told several hundred government and business officials and diplomats at the summit organized by the International Council for Small Business. McMahon said the Trump administration and her agency are committed to ensuring equal access for small businesses to international markets, expanding export opportunities, and reducing or eliminating “trade and investment barriers that disproportionately impact small businesses.” She said small businesses are hardest hit trying to finance trade deals and by compliance challenges. “Globally over half of all declined trade finance requests to banks were submitted …

Kushner Companies: No Investor Meetings in China This Weekend

The sister of White House adviser Jared Kushner won’t be attending an investor conference in China this weekend as reported after she was criticized for trying to raise money there last weekend, using the lure of a U.S. visa program. Nicole Kushner Meyer, who had been representing her family’s company in China, came under fire for what critics said was an attempt to attract investors using the family’s ties to the White House. Meyer mentioned her brother at a conference in Beijing on Saturday. Marketing materials for the event also promoted her as Jared’s sister and cited the Kushner family’s “celebrity” status. The family real estate company, Kushner Cos., later apologized. It said Meyer had not meant to attract investors by using her brother’s name. The Kushner Cos. said Thursday that no representative would be attending conferences in China this weekend. The Washington Post earlier reported that a Chinese website had listed Meyer as planning to attend an event in Shenzhen on Saturday. The family company is trying to raise money to help build a 79-story apartment building in Jersey City, New Jersey, called One Journal Square. The company is seeking 300 wealthy Chinese to invest a total of $150 million. Anchor tenant bows out The building is facing difficulty. Office-sharing company WeWork confirmed this week that it was canceling plans to lease space as an anchor tenant. And the Jersey City mayor recently came out against awarding a valuable tax break for the building. The EB-5 visa program offers …

Coffee Flour, Beer Pizza on Menu as Innovators Fight Food Waste

05/12/2017 sellheal

Beer cookies, coffee flour and bananas that don’t brown are just some of the innovations on offer to fight food waste. Plus smart scales that measure exactly what chefs chuck then list the deluge of edibles they’ve unknowingly binned. As the fight against climate change increasingly focuses on food waste as a source of planet-warming emissions, entrepreneurs are coming up with crafty ways to reduce the glut of produce that gets thrown. About a third of food produced each year is never eaten either because it is spoiled after harvest and during transportation, or thrown away by shops and consumers, according to U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Discarded food ends up in landfills where it rots, releasing harmful greenhouse gasses, while the water, energy and fuel needed to grow, store and transport it is wasted. Speaking at conference in Milan this week, former U.S. President Barack Obama said innovation was key to reduce emissions from agriculture and achieve “a sustainable food future” with enough for everyone to eat. “Part of this is also going to be wasting less food … especially when nearly 800 million men, women and children worldwide face the injustice of chronic hunger and malnutrition,” he said. Obama’s address was the climax of a four-day food industry conference in the Italian city. Here are some of the best food waste innovations showcased at the event: Demetra Produced by Italian biotechnology start-up Green Code, Demetra is a natural post-harvest treatment that extends fruit’s shelf life. It …

Brazil Says Its Zika Emergency Over

Brazil declared an end to its public health emergency for the Zika virus on Thursday, 18 months after a surge in cases drew headlines around the world. The mosquito-borne virus wasn’t considered a major health threat until the 2015 outbreak revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects. One of those defects, microcephaly, causes babies to be born with skulls much smaller than expected. Photos of babies with the defect spread panic around the Western Hemisphere and around the globe, as the virus was reported in dozens of countries. Many would-be travelers canceled their trips to Zika-infected places. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others recommended that women who were pregnant shouldn’t travel to affected areas. The concern spread even more widely when health officials said it could also be transmitted through sexual contact with an infected person. The health scare came just as Brazil, the epicenter of the outbreak, was preparing to host the 2016 Olympics, fueling concerns the Games could help spread the virus. One athlete, a Spanish wind surfer, said she got Zika while training in Brazil ahead of the Games. In response to the outbreak, Brazil launched a mosquito-eradication campaign. The Health Ministry said those efforts have helped to dramatically reduce cases of Zika. From January through mid-April, the Health Ministry recorded 95 percent fewer cases than during the same period last year. The incidence of microcephaly has fallen as well. The World Health Organization lifted its own …

Heroin Epidemic Pushing Up Hepatitis C Infections in US

The heroin epidemic is driving up hepatitis C infections, with the biggest increase in people in their 20s, U.S. health officials said Thursday. The number of new infections nearly tripled in five years, to about 2,400 in 2015. The virus is spread by sharing needles to inject drugs, and the increase coincided with a surge in heroin use. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention think the reported infections are far fewer than the actual number. Most people don’t get sick for many years, so they aren’t tested and don’t know they are infected. The CDC estimates that the number of infections in 2015 was 34,000, or twice as many as the estimate for 2010. The biggest jump in new infections is in people ages 20 to 29, the CDC said. The hepatitis C virus spreads through the blood but does most of its damage by infecting the liver. It can lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer. In recent years, new hepatitis C drugs hit the market that can cure the infection in only a few months. But they are expensive: A course of treatment can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The CDC also released national hepatitis C death figures: nearly 20,000 in 2015. The number hasn’t changed much recently, but that figure reflects a different group of infected people: baby boomers. The apparent leveling off may be due to a push to test all baby boomers for the virus and the treatment improvements, said the …

Iraq, Algeria Support Extension of Oil Production Cuts

Iraq and Algeria support the extension of oil production cuts by OPEC and non-OPEC producers through the end of the year to try to boost prices, they said in a joint statement Thursday. The oil ministers of the two countries held a press conference in Baghdad where Iraqi Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi said “there might be new ideas to be presented” at an OPEC meeting on May 25, without providing further details. In late November, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to cut production by 1.2 million barrels a day, the first such reduction agreement since 2008. The following month, 11 non-OPEC oil-producing countries pledged to cut an additional 558,000 barrels a day, reaching an overall reduction of 1.8 million. In March, OPEC announced the possibility that such cuts would be extended. Iraq – OPEC’s second-largest producer and a country that relies on oil revenues for nearly 95 percent of its budget – committed to reduce daily production by 210,000 barrels to 4.351 million. News of a possible extension of the OPEC cuts and reports that U.S. crude stockpiles have dropped by 5.2 million barrels last week slightly boosted worldwide oil prices. Crude oil sold for over $100 a barrel in the summer of 2014, before bottoming out below $30 a barrel in January 2016. Brent Crude, used to price international oils, now trades at around $50 a barrel in London. …

Alaska Natives Look to Arctic Council to Preserve Pristine Region, Way of Life

The foreign ministers of the eight Arctic Council nations will meet to discuss climate change this week, amid news last month that temperatures in the pristine region are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world. A high-level meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his counterparts from Russia, Greenland, Canada, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Iceland begins Thursday in Fairbanks. As Tillerson joins the talks, the Trump administration has not yet decided whether to remain a party to the 2015 U.N. Paris Agreement on responding to climate change. Watch: Alaskan Natives Look to Arctic Council to Preserve Waters, Way of Life Any changes to U.S. climate policy would directly affect the lives of Alaska Natives, who depend on the Arctic Sea to survive. In recent reports, scientists said the temperatures in the Arctic were warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, sea ice was at record lows and permafrost was thawing. If current warming rates hold, the world could see an ice-free Arctic by 2040, researchers said. Worrisome The studies have alarmed Alaska Natives. Gabe Tegoseak spoke to VOA about growing up in an Inuit household. “To put that in perspective, I grew up with no running water most of my life,” Tegoseak said. “A very old-school tradition, my parents they favored it that way and it humbles me. “I had to walk to a freshwater lake, break some ice on my sled — and this is a wooden sled I …

Uber Chases GrabTaxi in Myanmar, Expanding in Southeast Asia

Uber is launching its private ride-hailing service in the Myanmar commercial capital of Yangon on Thursday, aiming to tap into one of the world’s youngest and fastest-growing online markets. The launch follows Singapore-based GrabTaxi’s debut by about two months. Uber is one of the world’s largest on-demand transportation platforms. It is seeking an alliance with the government to smooth acceptance of the use of private vehicles for commercial transport. A taxi ride in Myanmar usually involves negotiating prices, no use of meters and a lack of air conditioning or seat belts. Using a ride-hailing app is still a relatively new concept, though the practice has been gaining in popularity. Local travel services start-up Oway and Hello Cabs, a rival service run by a construction and auto dealership tycoon, also provide ride-hailing services. “I definitely want to try Uber,” said Nyan Zay Htet, 26, a company worker who was haggling with a driver over a fare on a downtown street in Yangon. “I welcome having international companies come in because it can be more convenient for us if we don’t have to bargain over prices and can just hop in and go.” More than two-thirds of Southeast Asians are younger than 40 and the number going online to buy goods and services is soaring. A recent research report by Google and the Singaporean investment arm Temasek put the potential ride-sharing market in six larger regional markets at $13 billion by 2025, up from $2.5 billion in 2015. With more than 50 …

Study: US Foreclosure Activity Drops to Lowest Level Since 2005

Housing foreclosure activity in the United States dropped to the lowest level since 2005 last month, according to a business research group. ATTOM Data Solutions tracks default notices, auctions and bank repossessions across the nation and says the number of actions dropped 23 percent from a year ago. That means more than 77,000 homeowners missed payments, and banks took some kind of action to encourage the repayment of their loans. Severe problems in the U.S. housing market, and sales of securities backed by sometimes-faulty mortgages, played a key role in the financial crisis, which is one reason that investors and economists watch the housing market closely. Seattle, a city in the Pacific Northwest state of Washington, did the best in this study, with the number of foreclosure notices dropping 38 percent from the same time a year ago. Atlantic City, New Jersey, had the worst foreclosure problem in this study, with one out of every 237 housing units getting a notice of some kind. …

Fighting Algae Blooms From the Top of the Food Chain

Algae blooms happen when simple algae plants start growing out of control. The tiny plants are not usually toxic on their own, but the overabundance creates so-called dead zones because they suck all the oxygen out of the water. In Sweden, researchers have enlisted the aid of native fish that can slow down the out of control growth of algae. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

Dogs Help Autistic Children at the Dentist’s Office

Autistic children are naturally sensitive to changes in their routines, including visits to the doctor or dentist. They may become agitated and uncooperative. When a dog trainer in Chile tried bringing dogs to the office to help the children relax, the experiment proved so successful that it evolved into a full-scale business. VOA’s George Putic reports. …

China Simulates Extended Moon Stays Amid Space Drive

China is testing the ability for future astronauts to stay on the moon for extended periods, as Beijing accelerates its space program and looks to put people on the surface of the moon within the next two decades. The official Xinhua news agency said volunteers would live in a “simulated space cabin” for between 60-200 days over the next year helping scientists understand what will be needed for humans to “remain on the moon in the medium and long terms”. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for China to become a global power in space exploration, with plans to send a probe to the dark side of the moon by 2018, the first ever such trip, and to put astronauts on the moon by 2036. “While it remains unclear exactly how long China’s first lunar explorers will spend on the surface, the country is already planning for longer stays,” Xinhua said. Two groups of four volunteers will live in the simulated cabin “Yuegong-1” to test how a life-support system works in a moon-like environment. A similar 105-day trial was carried out successfully in 2014. The system, called the Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS), allows water and food to be recycled and is key to any Chinese probes to the moon or beyond. “The latest test is vital to the future of China’s moon and Mars missions and must be relied upon to guarantee the safety and health of our astronauts,” Liu Zhiheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told the …

China: Silk Road Plan Not Tied to Xi Presidency

China’s President Xi Jinping initiated the ambitious Belt and Road development plan but it has become a world plan not tied to his presidency, the Commerce Ministry said Wednesday, days before Xi hosts a global forum on the initiative. The forum in Beijing next week will draw heads of state to discuss Xi’s plan to expand trade links between Asia, Africa and Europe through billions of dollars in infrastructure investment. Representatives from more than 100 countries will attend China’s biggest diplomatic event of the year, though only one leader from the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, is set to join. China says that between 2014 and 2016, its businesses signed projects worth $304.9 billion along inland and maritime corridors of the plan, also known as the New Silk Road. But some of the projects could be in development for years. Judging by recent precedent in China’s political system, Xi is slated to step down from the presidency in early 2023 at the end of his second five-year term. Asked what guarantee the world had that the initiative would go on after Xi’s second term, Vice Minister of Commerce Qian Keming told a news briefing that its vitality lay in countries’ hopes for development and not in the idea of “who proposed it or what term in office there is later.” “The Belt and Road initiative was proposed by President Xi in 2013, but this initiative is not an individual proposal, or merely left at …

Tesla Selling Solar Tiles, Says They Look Like Traditional Roof