Month: August 2017

Detroit, Michigan, knows hardship and recovery. One of the hardest hit areas in the country during the Great Recession, the Midwestern Rust Belt city has since found an ingredient to its economic revitalization through empowerment of its immigrant communities. But not everyone is convinced that the solution is viable or helps anyone beyond the immigrants themselves. Ramon Taylor has more. …

Around the world, support is growing for electric cars. Automakers are delivering more electric models with longer range and lower prices, such as the Chevrolet Bolt and the Tesla Model 3. China has set aggressive targets for electric vehicle sales to curb pollution; some European countries aim to be all-electric by 2040 or sooner. Those lofty ambitions face numerous challenges, including one practical consideration for consumers: If they buy electric cars, where will they charge them? The distribution of public charging stations is wildly uneven around the globe. Places with lots of support from governments or utilities, like China, the Netherlands and California, have thousands of public charging outlets. Buyers of Tesla’s luxury models have access to a company-funded Supercharger network.  Charging stations scarce But in many places, public charging remains scarce. That’s a problem for people who need to drive further than the 200 miles or so that most electric cars can travel. It’s also a barrier for the millions of people who don’t have a garage to plug in their cars overnight. “Do we have what we need? The answer at the moment is, ‘No,’” said Graham Evans, an analyst with IHS Markit. Take Norway, which has publicly funded charging and generous incentives for electric car buyers. Architect Nils Henningstad drives past 20 to 30 charging stations each day on his 22-mile (35-kilometer) commute to Oslo. He works for the city and can charge his Nissan Leaf at work; his fiancee charges her Tesla SUV at home or …

U.S. President Donald Trump will call Monday for his chief trade adviser to investigate China’s intellectual property practices, the website Politico reported, citing an unnamed administration official. Trump had been expected to order a so-called Section 301 investigation under the 1974 Trade Act earlier this month, but action had been postponed as the White House pressed for China’s cooperation in reining in North Korea’s nuclear program. Politico said it was not clear how much detail Trump would provide in his announcement, but that administration officials expected U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to open a Section 301 probe. Officials at the White House and U.S. Trade Representative’s office were not immediately available for comment. Trump has suggested he would go easier on China if it were more forceful in getting North Korea to rein in its nuclear weapons program. While China joined in a unanimous U.N. Security Council decision to tighten economic sanctions on Pyongyang over its long-range missile tests, it is not clear whether Trump thinks Beijing is doing enough. “We lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year on trade with China. They know how I feel,” he told reporters Thursday. “If China helps us, I feel a lot different toward trade.” Trump will make a day trip to Washington Monday, briefly interrupting his 17-day August working vacation, a White House official said Friday. Politico said the investigation would not mean immediate sanctions, but could ultimately lead to steep tariffs on Chinese goods. In addition to the United States, …

U.S. stock market indexes posted gains in Friday’s trading, a change in direction after several down days amid tensions between President Donald Trump and North Korea. In New York, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and the Dow Jones industrial average each advanced about one-tenth of a percentage point, while the Nasdaq composite index rose almost eight-tenths of a percentage point. Earlier, stocks in Paris and London were off 1 percent, while Hong Kong stocks fell 2 percent and Korean shares slid nearly as much. Global stock prices had been falling for several days, losing nearly $1 trillion in value during angry exchanges between the U.S. and North Korea, which continued Friday. Investors have reason for concern, according to Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist of IHS Markit. He said the economic consequences of even a conventional conflict would most likely be “horrific” and “devastate” the South Korean economy, hurting that nation’s trading partners, particularly Japan.   In an email exchange with VOA, Biswas called the possibility that North Korea could actually use nuclear weapons a “nightmare but still low probability scenario” and noted there had been prior incidents of rising tensions on the peninsula.   A similar view came from Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network, who wrote, “All parties, including the North Koreans, have substantial incentives to once again cut a deal rather than fight. Based on past crises, there will be a great deal of theater, only to end in some kind of deal.” He …

Rising tensions between the United States and North Korea brought a wave of falling stock prices recently as worried investors moved money out of equities and into the perceived safety of gold, Swiss currency and similar products. At one point, this change of investment strategy cut $1 trillion from the value of global stock markets. For some perspective on these concerns, VOA’s Jim Randle spoke with IHS Markit’s Rajiv Biswas in Singapore. IHS Markit employs thousands of financial, data, and other experts who track economic issues worldwide. Biswas is the company’s chief economist for APEC. His comments here were edited for brevity and clarity. Randle: Why do rising nuclear tensions prompt falling stock prices? Biswas: In the nightmare, but still low-probability scenario in which North Korea were to succeed in using nuclear weapons against South Korea, the devastation of the Korean peninsula would be catastrophic. Global financial markets would also suffer a tremendous shock in the short term, with massive flight to safe haven assets such as gold, USD and CHF. The humanitarian crisis and economic reconstruction of the Korean peninsula after such a nuclear conflict would require large-scale international cooperation led by China, the U.S. and EU, and would likely take over a decade to rebuild the economy. Even a conventional war would result in considerable destruction to the South Korean economy… and likely result in tremendous casualties in both South and North Korea. The economic consequences … would likely be horrific, and … also result in a temporary …

Israel has been known as the land of milk and honey since Biblical times – but the land of single malt whiskey? One appropriately named distillery is trying to turn Israel into a whiskey powerhouse. Smooth, honey-brown whiskey is not the first thing that comes to mind when most people think of Israel. However, at the Milk and Honey Distillery, rows of casks proudly stamped “Tel Aviv” hold liters of the stuff. The country’s first whiskey distillery is preparing to release Israel’s first single malt whiskey.   “It’s a young whiskey,” said Eitan Attir, the distillery’s CEO.   Attir says the brew is aged for three years and two months in virgin oak and old bourbon barrels at the company’s renovated former bakery in a rugged industrial area of south Tel Aviv.   “It’s complex for its age,” he said. “The taste feels like more than three years, more like seven or eight and again the story is much more important in this case. This is the first ever single malt whiskey that any distillery has released from Israel.”   Although wine has been produced in the Holy Land for millennia, and modern Israeli wines have gained international renown in recent years, whiskey production is new to the country.   Milk and Honey was founded in 2013 and began distilling small experimental batches of whiskey a year later. One hundred bottles from their first cask of Single Malt are set to be sold at an online auction starting August 11. …

Four U.S. Senate Republicans from oil-refining states Thursday urged the Trump administration not to block oil shipments from Venezuela as part of U.S. sanctions against the country, saying it could raise costs for U.S. fuel consumers. The United States sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro and other Venezuelan officials after Maduro established a constituent assembly run by his Socialist Party loyalists and cracked down on widespread opposition. It has not placed sanctions on the OPEC member’s oil industry. Four senators Senators John Cornyn of Texas, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi said in the letter, which was seen by Reuters, that unilaterally blocking oil exports could harm the U.S. economy and the Venezuelan people. The United States imports about 740,000 barrels per day of oil from Venezuela. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the letter, which was addressed to President Donald Trump. “We believe it is critical to consider the role the U.S. energy industry and refining sector play in our economic and national security interest,” the senators wrote. “Blockading imports could inflict great harm on this industry and burden U.S. taxpayers with the cost.” Effects on Venezuela The senators said sanctions on shipments of Venezuelan oil to the United States could also increase the likelihood of a disorderly default by Venezuela, given the oil business is its main source of revenue. Creditors could then seize Venezuelan oil assets and cut off the government’s remaining sources of financing. They also …

Arctic fjords that hid Soviet nuclear-powered submarines during the Cold War are now being used as a weapon in the sanctions war with Europe – to rear fish that Russia can no longer import. Three years ago, Russia banned food imports from the West in response to a series of Western sanctions that aimed to punish Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis, including its annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Trout and salmon, grown specially for Russia’s vast market at farms in Norway next door, were among the first victims of the sanctions war. Moscow’s ban on the largest exporter of red fish to Russia led to a sharp hike in prices, while also offering lucrative prospects for Russian fish farmers. In the Murmansk region in Russia’s northwest, where the rocky coastline of the Ura Bay still features deserted Soviet-era bases and top secret berths for today’s submarine fleet, huge fish farming cages are now becoming part of the landscape. Thousands of adult trout and salmon swarm inside the open-sea cages as workers toss in generous portions of high-calorie feed. The cages belong to Russian Aquaculture which farms salmon and trout in the Barents Sea off Murmansk and in Russia’s northern Karelia region. When they mature, the fish are loaded onto special ships and, still alive, are brought to a Murmansk factory for processing. Here the fish are either deep frozen or turned into filets and steaks. Russian Aquaculture reared fish before the Ukraine crisis but under a different …

Venezuelan homemaker Carmen Rondon lives in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, but has spent weeks cooking with firewood due to a chronic shortage of home cooking gas – leaving her hoarse from breathing smoke. Finding domestic gas cylinders has become increasingly difficult, a problem that oil industry analysts attribute to slumping oil output in the OPEC nation – which is struggling under an unraveling socialist economy. State oil company PDVSA says the problem is due to difficulties in distributing tanks amid four months of anti-government protests in which its trucks have been attacked. “I’ve spent three weeks cooking with wood and sometimes the food does not even soften properly, I can’t stand it anymore,” said Rondon, as she lined up to buy a cylinder under the scorching sun in the city of San Felix in southern Venezuela. More than 100 people were ahead of her in line. Nine out of 10 Venezuelan homes rely on cylinders for home gas usage, with only 10 percent receiving it via pipelines, according to official figures. The government launched a plan 12 years ago to bring some 5 million  households onto the natural gas network but was unable to follow through. Venezuela’s socialist economy has been in free-fall since the oil price collapse in 2014, creating shortages of everything from diapers to cancer medication and spurring inflation to triple-digit levels. President Nicolas Maduro says he is the victim of an “economic war” by the opposition, and says violent street protests are …

Talks between African and U.S. officials to review the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) free-trade deal ended Thursday with no decision and a feeling on all sides that it has achieved little since it was set up. President Donald Trump’s top trade negotiator, Robert E. Lighthizer, and other U.S. officials have been in the tiny West African nation of Togo over the past two days to discuss the Clinton-era trade pact with sub-Saharan Africa. Trump’s “America First” campaign has seen him withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, threaten to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and seek to renegotiate the U.S.-South Korea free-trade deal. But his administration has said little about Africa, and had not previously mentioned the 2000 AGOA trade agreement. It is not clear whether the U.S. wants to change the deal before it expires in 2025 or extend it. No decision was made on either count. AGOA allows tariff-free access for thousands of goods from 38 African nations to U.S. markets. “The number of countries benefiting from AGOA is very limited, as is the number of sectors,” Peter Barlerin, deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, said at the forum Wednesday. “We will see if the situation improves in the coming years, but it is also up to the beneficiary countries to enhance their business climate.” ‘Constraints’ on some Bernadette Legzim-Balouki, Togo’s trade minister, who presided over the meeting, was equally lukewarm on AGOA. “Not all the countries eligible have …