Month: October 2018

Ireland’s finance minister boosted budget day spending for the second year in a row as the government warned of economic “carnage” if neighboring Britain crashes out of the European Union without a divorce deal. Having already pre-committed 2.6 billion euros ($2.99 billion) on increased public sector and planned infrastructure spending for next year, Paschal Donohoe, in Tuesday’s annual budget speech, almost doubled the remaining pot to 1.5 billion euros to dish out on further tax cuts and spending increases. The state’s fiscal watchdog warned ahead of the budget that the booming economy did not need such additional stimulus. But with an election potentially looming and the fast-growing economy exacerbating deficits in areas such as housing, a scrapping of a reduced VAT rate for the hospitality sector mostly funded the extra 700 million euro of spending. That allowed the government to keep giving workers a small annual tax break it has promised to continue in future budgets, reverse welfare cuts imposed during a series of austerity budgets a decade ago, and boost infrastructure spending. “The shared progress we have made is real. However the risks and challenges that we now face are equally real,” Donohoe told parliament in a speech that went long past the allotted hour as he reeled off measure after measure but also struck a tone of caution with 25 different mentions of Brexit. Donohoe said the government’s “central case” was that Britain and the European Union would reached a Brexit deal in the coming weeks, but the …

In Boon for Farmers, Trump to Lift Restrictions on Ethanol

The Trump administration is moving to allow year-round sales of gasoline with higher blends of ethanol, a boon for Iowa and other farm states that have pushed for greater sales of the corn-based fuel. President Donald Trump was expected to announce he will lift a federal ban on summer sales of high-ethanol blends during a trip to Iowa on Tuesday. “It’s an amazing substance. You look at the Indy cars. They run 100 percent on ethanol,” Trump said at the White House before he left for Iowa. He said he wanted more industry and more energy and he wanted to help farmers and refiners. ‘I want low prices’ “I want more because I don’t like $74,” Trump said referring to the current price of a barrel of crude oil. “It’s up to $74. And if I have to do more — whether it’s through ethanol or another means — that’s what I want. I want low prices.” The long-expected announcement is something of a reward to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman led a contentious but successful fight to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The veteran Republican lawmaker is the Senate’s leading ethanol proponent and sharply criticized the Trump administration’s proposed rollback in ethanol volumes earlier this year. At that time Grassley threatened to call for the resignation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief, Scott Pruitt, if Pruitt did not work to fulfill the federal ethanol mandate. Pruitt later stepped down amid a host …

Trump Says He Hasn’t Read UN’s Dire Report on Global Warming

U.S. President Donald Trump says he hasn’t read an ominous report by a U.N. panel that warned of a dire future for the planet if global warming is not kept to a minimum. But he said he will. “It was given to me and I want to look who drew it, you know — which groups drew it, because I can give you reports that are fabulous and I can give you reports that aren’t so good,” he said Tuesday at the White House. “But I will be reading it, absolutely.” The comments were his first regarding the report released Monday by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report lists how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be better off if world leaders could figure out how to limit future human-caused warming to 0.5 degree Celsius (0.9 degree Fahrenheit) between 2030 and 2052, instead of the globally agreed upon goal of 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). In June 2017, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. His administration has also dismantled emissions reduction policies domestically. According to the U.N. report, some of the benefits of limiting global warming to the lower goal would include: * Half as many people would suffer from lack of water. * There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases. * The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting. * It could be enough …

US Official: US Foreign Military Sales Total $55.6B, Up 33 Percent

Sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments rose 33 percent to $55.6 billion in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, a U.S. administration official told Reuters on Tuesday. The increase in foreign military sales came in part because the Trump administration rolled out a new “Buy American” plan in April that loosened restrictions on sales while encouraging U.S. officials to take a bigger role in increasing business overseas for the U.S. weapons industry. There are two major ways foreign governments purchase arms from U.S. companies: Direct commercial sales, negotiated between a government and a company; and foreign military sales, where a foreign government typically contacts a Department of Defense official at the U.S. embassy in their capital. Both require approval by the U.S. government. About $70 billion worth of foreign military sales notifications went to Congress this year, slightly less than the year before, the administration official said. The $55.6 billion figure represents signed letters of agreement for foreign military sales between the United States and allies. The largest U.S. arms contractors include Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. …

Fear, Prestige Pushing Kenyan Girls Into FGM — and Out of School

It was during her first year of high school in rural western Kenya that Mary Kuket says she was “sacrificed to tradition” and her dreams of becoming a doctor shattered forever. With no explanation, the 15-year-old was given away to another family, who forced her to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), then married her off to their middle-aged son. “I kept asking my parents why I was being taken and begged them not to send me away, but my father pushed me away, saying that soon I would understand,” Kuket, now 46, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Baringo county. “They never told me I was going to be cut. They never told me I was going to be married to a 45-year-old man. They never told me that I would not go back to school.” From the fear of being ostracized or killed to the prestige associated with entering womanhood, girls in Kenya are under a barrage of societal pressures to undergo FGM, often with a devastating impact on their education, say campaigners. A study by the charity ActionAid Kenya published Monday said despite the fact that FGM is illegal in the east African nation, deep-rooted myths supporting the ancient ritual persist. Violence ‘normalized’ The survey, based on interviews with almost 400 girls and women in eight Kenyan counties, found that FGM affected not only their health but also their schooling. “Despite efforts to curb FGM, this type of violence against women and girls is so normalized in some communities. Girls …

Facebook Seeing Growth in Business Network Workplace

Facebook on Tuesday hosted its first global summit spotlighting a growing Workplace platform launched two years ago as a private social network for businesses. While Facebook would not disclose exact figures, it said Workplace – a rival to collaboration services like Slack, Salesforce, and Microsoft – has been a hit and that ranks of users have doubled in the past eight to 10 months. The list of companies using Workplace included Walmart, Starbucks, Spotify, Delta, and Virgin Atlantic. “It is growing very fast,” Workplace by Facebook vice president Julien Codorniou told AFP. “We started with big companies, because that is where we found traction. It is a very good niche.” Workplace is a separate operation from Facebook’s main social network and is intended as a platform to connect everyone in a company, from counter or warehouse workers to chief executives, according to Codorniou. Workplace claimed that a differentiator from its competitors is that it connects all employees in businesses no matter their roles, even if their only computing device is a smartphone. “That really resonates with a new generation,” Codorniou said of Workplace’s “democratic” nature. “Millennials want to know who they work for and understand the culture of the company.” He cited cases of top company executives using Workplace to get feedback from workers at all levels, bringing a small company feel to big operations. Workplace is rolled out to everyone in companies, which then pay $3 monthly for each active user. No ‘Candy Crush’ The software-as-a-service business began as …

NASA Chief: Space Station Hole Cause Will Be Determined

The head of the U.S. space agency said Tuesday he’s sure that investigators will determine the cause of a mysterious hole that appeared on the International Space Station, which his Russian counterpart has said was deliberately drilled. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine also said collaboration with Russia’s Roscosmos remains important, despite recent comments by agency head Dmitry Rogozin that Russia wouldn’t accept a “second-tier role” in a NASA-led plan to build an outpost near the moon. The hole that appeared in a Russian Soyuz capsule docked to the ISS caused a brief loss of air pressure in August before being patched. The incident sparked wide speculation and consternation. “I strongly believe we’re going to get the right answer to what caused the hole on the International Space Station and that together we’ll be able to continue our strong collaboration,” Bridenstine said. “What we’ve got to do is we’ve got to very dispassionately allow the investigation to go forward without speculation, without rumor, without innuendo, without conspiracy.” Although the U.S. is working toward commercial launches to the ISS, Russia shouldn’t regard itself as sidelined, he said. “There is coming a day when we’re going to have our own access to the International Space Station through a commercial crew. I want to be really clear — that is not a replacement for the Russian Soyuz capabilities. We see it as redundancy and we want to make sure that even when a commercial crew is up and running we are still going to be …

Why Indonesia’s Children Are Not Growing

Despite its middle income status, Indonesia is dealing with what experts say are unexpectedly high rates of childhood stunting. Now, its government – starting with the the president – is declaring war on the issue and committing to boost its response to the challenge following a World Bank publication that says 37 percent of Indonesia’s children were stunted in 2013, a rate on par with some far more impoverished nations of Sub-Saharan Africa. Stunting is the medical condition that the World Health Organization defines as “impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation.” While Indonesia’s health ministry and other agencies have been battling to address the problem for years, the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has now elevated the issue to be a national priority, making it a point to include it in last year’s Independence Day address. “Before he mentioned it in the speech, I doubt it has ever been mentioned by a president in Indonesia,” said Claudia Rokx, a lead health specialist at the World Bank and one of the authors of the landmark book released last month. First 1,000 days Health experts emphasize that the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are vital for preventing stunting, requiring adequate breastfeeding and nutrition, stimulation and activity, clean water and sanitation, and timely treatment of conditions like diarrhea and malaria. With more than one in three Indonesian children being stunted, this means around 9 million children in Southeast Asia’s …

Israel Aims for Zero New Gasoline, Diesel-Powered Vehicles by 2030

Israelis will no longer be able to buy new gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles after 2030, the Energy Ministry said Tuesday, unveiling a plan to replace them with electric cars and trucks that run on natural gas. The challenge will be creating an initial “critical mass” of cars that will move the local industry away from gasoline and diesel engines, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said. “We are already encouraging by funding charging stations, more than 2,000 new charging stations around the country,” Steinitz told Reuters. The government, he said, will also “reduce taxation on electric cars to almost zero, so they are going to be much cheaper.” The electric vehicle campaign is part of a broader plan to completely wean Israel off gasoline, diesel and coal. Israel in recent years discovered huge deposits of natural gas, a cleaner-burning fossil fuel, and it is converting its power stations accordingly. The plan was released a day after a U.N. report on climate change called for major changes in the way humankind uses energy. The tipping point is expected around 2025, when, according to the ministry’s target, there will be about 177,000 electric cars on the road in Israel. Today there are just a few dozen. After that, it will become easier and cheaper to own electric cars, so the ministry expects the number should jump to nearly 1.5 million by 2030. “From 2030, we won’t allow anymore the import of diesel or gasoline cars to Israel,” Steinitz said. All new cars will be …

Japanese Tycoon Going on SpaceX Rocket Says He Trusts Musk

The Japanese online retail tycoon who plans to travel to the moon on the SpaceX rocket says he respects and trusts Elon Musk as a fellow entrepreneur, despite his recent troubles. “Twitter can get you into trouble,” Yusaku Maezawa, chief executive of Zozo Inc., said Tuesday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Tokyo. “And that can be said of Elon Musk, too.” Musk’s tweet in August that declared he had secured financing for a Tesla buyout got him in trouble with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Under a settlement, Tesla and Musk each must pay a $20 million penalty. Musk also stepped down as Tesla’s chairman. Maezawa, 42, who is also quite active on social media, intends to be a passenger on Musk’s Space X, the first-ever private commercial space trip, scheduled for blastoff in 2023, to orbit the moon, in what Maezawa has dubbed his “#dearMoon Project.” Maezawa said he got a good feel for Musk’s character by visiting Tesla, and seeing the relationship Musk had developed with his employees. “They believe in Elon Musk,” he said. “That kind of company is marvelous. I felt that as another entrepreneur.” Although Maezawa said nothing was decided yet on who was going with him on the space travel, he said he wanted to take visual artists, fashion designers and musicians from a variety of backgrounds, including the actress he was dating, Ayame Goriki, “if she proves to be a good match for the mission.” Maezawa said his company has a …

Greenpeace: Coke, Pepsi, Nestle Top Makers of Plastic Waste

Drink companies Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle were found to be the world’s biggest producers of plastic trash, a report by environmental group Greenpeace said on Tuesday. Working with the Break Free From Plastic movement, Greenpeace said it orchestrated 239 plastic clean-ups in 42 countries around the world, which resulted in the audit of 187,000 pieces of plastic trash. The aim was to get a picture of how large corporations contribute to the problem of pollution. Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soft drink maker, was the top waste producer, Greenpeace said, with Coke-branded plastic trash found in 40 of the 42 countries. “These brand audits offer undeniable proof of the role that corporations play in perpetuating the global plastic pollution crisis,” said Von Hernandez, global coordinator for Break Free From Plastic. Overall, the most common type of plastic found was polystyrene, which goes into packaging and foam coffee cups, followed closely by PET, used in bottles and containers. “We share Greenpeace’s goal of eliminating waste from the ocean and are prepared to do our part to help address this important challenge,” a Coke spokesman said in a statement. The company has pledged to collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one it sells by 2030. All three companies have made pledges about their packaging for 2025. Coke says all its packaging will be recyclable, Nestle says it will be recyclable or reusable and PepsiCo says it will be recyclable, compostable or biodegradable. They are all also working to use recycled …

China Promises Not to Weaken Yuan, Criticizes US Concern

China promised Tuesday not to weaken its currency to boost exports during a tariff fight with Washington and rejected U.S. concern about the yuan’s sagging exchange rate as groundless and irresponsible. Beijing has no intention of using “competitive devaluation,” said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lu Kang. A U.S. official told reporters in Washington the Trump administration is concerned about the weakening yuan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s trip to Indonesia for meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The tightly controlled yuan has lost almost 10 percent of its value against the dollar this year. That prompted suggestions Beijing might weaken the currency to help exporters that face punitive U.S. tariffs of up to 25 percent. However, the decline also threatens to damage the Chinese economy by encouraging capital to flow out of the world’s second-largest economy, increasing borrowing costs at a time when communist leaders are trying to shore up cooling growth. The central bank intervened in August and tightened controls to discourage speculative trading. Weaker Chinese economic growth “is likely to further weigh on” the exchange rate, Luc Luyet of Pictet Wealth Management said in a report. On Monday, the yuan sank to a 22-month low of 6.93 to the dollar, making one yuan worth about 14.4 cents. It edged up to 6.92 to the dollar on Tuesday. The U.S. official’s comments were “groundless speculation and irresponsible,” said Lu at a regular …

Popularity of Scooters Creates Jobs for ‘Juicers’

U.S. cities are being overtaken by the scooter craze young and old riding rented electric-powered scooters everywhere. That has given rise to a new line of work people who go out at night to charge those scooters to earn some money. Michelle Quinn met some “juicers.” …

Business Booming in Vietnam

Foreign companies have been flocking to Vietnam. Earlier this year, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms Warburg Pincus added banking and logistics to its Vietnam portfolio, pushing its total investment into the country over the $1 billion mark. Auto players like JAC Motors of China, as well as Kamaz, the largest truck maker in Russia, have recently turned to Vietnam. The Southeast Asian country is seeing money pour in from all over the globe, whether it’s Indonesia’s Gojek in ride-hailing, or Qatar’s Ooredoo in telecommunications. With a trade war rippling across the Pacific and fears of interest rate contagion in emerging markets, much of Asia looks bleak. So why is the economy in communist Vietnam such a bright spot? Stability is key Gross domestic product is forecast to expand 7 percent this year. The currency and inflation are stable. Growth is expected in exports, manufacturing, foreign direct investment, and other indicators that show Vietnam outpacing rivals in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “Vietnam is likely to remain the fastest-growing ASEAN economy in 2018 and 2019, as in 2017,” said Chidu Narayanan, Asia economist at Standard Chartered Bank. “We remain positive on Vietnam’s growth medium term on strong manufacturing activity, as FDI inflows to electronics manufacturing remain strong.” The bank predicts a current account surplus of 3.7 percent of GDP for 2018, meaning Vietnam takes in more money through trade and investment than it sends abroad. That includes an increase in income from services, such as IT …

SpaceX Satellite Launch Lights Up Night Sky, Social Media

When SpaceX launched a rocket carrying an Argentine Earth-observation satellite from California’s Central Coast, both the night sky and social media lit up. People as far away as San Francisco, Sacramento, Phoenix and Reno, Nevada, posted photos of the Falcon 9 rocket’s launch and return on Sunday night. It was the first time SpaceX landed a first-stage booster back at its launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. The Air Force warned residents on the Central Coast that they might see multiple engine burns by the first stage and hear one or more sonic booms as it returned. But many far beyond the region were taken by surprise when the launch illuminated the sky, wondering what the otherworldly looking sight was. Some speculated it was a comet or an alien aircraft. “Something exploded in the sky west of Phoenix,” Laura Gadbery wrote on Twitter. “Anyone catch it or know what it was?” Lloyd Lawrence, another user in Phoenix — about 490 miles (790 kilometers) away from the launch site — said he was driving on Interstate 10 when he saw the launch and “couldn’t believe my eyes.” “I wondered who was holding the gigantic flashlight in the sky,” he wrote. Others in Reno, Nevada — about 340 miles away (550 kilometers) — also saw the galactic wonder. Jill Bergantz Carley wrote : “OK Twitter, what the heck is this #UFO #brightlight #plume-a-licious thing …

Trump’s Scottish Golf Resorts Lose Millions

U.S. President Donald Trump’s golf courses in Scotland lost more than $6 million in 2017. A report released Monday said the Trump International Golf Links near Aberdeen lost $1.7 million, slightly lower than the $1.8 million lost in 2016. His flagship Trump Turnberry resort along the Irish Sea posted a loss of nearly $4.5 million last year, substantially less than the $23.3 million loss posted in 2016. The resort has lost more than $43 million since Trump bought it in 2014. Trump’s son Eric said in a letter that the 2017 losses at Aberdeen could be attributed to a “crash in the oil price and economic downturn experienced in the northeast of Scotland.” He pointed to Turnberry as a success story following a major redevelopment there after the 2016 losses. He praised the 2017 number as “one of the most robust financial results in years.” Trump visited the Turnberry resort in July, costing the U.S. government some $68,800, The Scotsman newspaper reported at the time. It said the State Department paid the resort for the rooms used by Trump and his staff, who stayed there from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. The Trump organization at the time did not dispute the charges but clarified that the U.S. government was charged at cost and that the resort did not profit from the visit. …

Pakistan’s New Government to Open Talks with IMF for Financial Assistance

Pakistan’s new government will open talks with the International Monetary Fund for emergency financial assistance to ease a mounting balance of payments crisis, the finance ministry said Monday. New Prime Minister Imran Khan spent nearly two months since taking office looking for alternatives to a second IMF bailout in five years, which would likely impose tough conditions on government policy that would limit his vision of an Islamic welfare state. But on Monday, he decided his finance minister should meet with officials at this week’s annual conference of the IMF and the World Bank in Bali, Indonesia, to discuss a potential package, the finance ministry said in a statement. “Today, it was decided that we should start talks with IMF,” Finance Minister Asad Umar told GEO TV in an interview Monday night. The finance ministry did not specify how much in emergency financing the government would seek, but Umar earlier said the government would need at least $8 billion to cover its external debt payments through the end of the year. Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves dropped in late September to $8.4 billion, barely enough for those debt payments. The new government blames the previous administration for the country’s economic woes. ‘About time’ Khan’s decision came after the Pakistani stock markets tumbled by 3.4 percent Monday after Khan said the day before that he was still exploring options outside the IMF. Khan’s government had been seeking economic lifelines from its allies, including new bridge loans from China and a deferred payments …

China Welcomes Saudi Plans to Invest in CPEC Project With Pakistan

China has praised investments Saudi Arabia intends to contribute to Chinese-funded massive infrastructure projects under construction in Pakistan, dispelling skepticism Islamabad was risking Beijing’s outrage by inviting a third party to a strictly bilateral deal. The ongoing massive project, known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is the flagship enterprise of President Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). “Not at all,” said Lijian Zhao, the deputy chief of the Chinese embassy in Islamabad, when asked by VOA whether his country was upset with possible Saudi financing in CPEC projects. In a detailed interview, the senior Chinese diplomat asserted that Beijing itself has been encouraging Islamabad to engage in investments in CPEC from other countries. CPEC is estimated to bring $62 billion in Chinese investments to Pakistan over the next 15 years for building transportation networks, special economic zones and power plants to help Islamabad improve its manufacturing capacity and overcome energy shortages. China has already invested more than $19 billion in 22 “early harvest” projects in Pakistan since the two countries launched the massive infrastructure development project four years ago. The Chinese investment has helped Pakistan upgrade and construct new highways and power plants that have effectively addressed electricity shortages in Pakistan. It has also created more than 70,000 jobs for locals. “If any other party would like to contribute positive factors to promote the interconnectivity and prosperity of the region on the basis of consultation, I think this is a positive factor,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu …

Ankara Eyes Syria Reconstruction to Boost Crisis-Hit Economy