Papa John’s founder John Schnatter will step down as CEO next month, about two months after he publicly criticized the NFL leadership over national anthem protests by football players — comments for which the company later apologized.

Schnatter will be replaced as chief executive by Chief Operating Officer Steve Ritchie on Jan. 1, the company announced Thursday. Schnatter, who appears in the chain’s commercials and on its pizza boxes, and is the company’s biggest shareholder, remains chairman of the board.

Earlier this year, Schnatter blamed slowing sales growth at Papa John’s — an NFL sponsor and advertiser — on the outcry surrounding players kneeling during the national anthem. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick had kneeled during the national anthem to protest what he said was police mistreatment of black men, and other players started kneeling as well. 

“The controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country,” Schnatter said during a conference call about the company’s earnings on Nov. 1.

Papa John’s apologized two weeks later, after white supremacists praised Schnatter’s comments. The Louisville, Kentucky-based company distanced itself from the group, saying that it did not want them to buy their pizza.

Ritchie declined to say Thursday if the NFL comments played a role in Schnatter stepping down, only saying that it’s “the right time to make this change.”

Tougher competition

Shares of Papa John’s are down about 13 percent since the day before the NFL comments were made, reducing the value of Schnatter’s stake in the company by nearly $84 million. Schnatter owns about 9.5 million shares of Papa John’s International Inc., and his total stake was valued at more than $560 million on Thursday, according to FactSet. The company’s stock is down 30 percent since the beginning of the year.

Schnatter, 56, founded Papa John’s more than three decades ago, when he turned a broom closet at his father’s bar into a pizza spot. And it has since grown to more than 5,000 locations. Schnatter has also become the face of the company, showing up in TV ads with former football player Peyton Manning. Schnatter stepped away from the CEO role before, in 2005, but returned about three years later.

Ritchie said new ads would come out next year. The company said later Thursday that it had “no plans to remove John from our communications.”

The Papa John’s leadership change comes as the pizza chains that once dominated the fast-food delivery business face tougher competition from hamburger and fried-chicken chains that are expanding their delivery business. McDonald’s Corp., for example, expects to increase delivery from 5,000 of its nearly 14,000 U.S. locations by the end of the year.

New strategy

Ritchie said his focus as CEO will be making it easier for customers to order a Papa John’s pizza from anywhere. That’s a strategy that has worked for Domino’s, which takes orders from tweets, text messages and voice-activated devices, such as Amazon’s Echo. Papa John’s customers can order through Facebook and Apple TV, but Ritchie said he wants the chain to be everywhere customers are. 

“The world is evolving and changing,” he said.

Ritchie, 43, began working at a Papa John’s restaurant 21 years ago, making pizzas and answering phones, the company said. He became a franchise owner in 2006 and owns nine locations. He was named chief operating officer three years ago. Ritchie said plans for him to succeed Schnatter were made after that.
…

Burkina Faso said it will immediately stop importing goods from North Korea and that it only learned of possible violations of U.N. sanctions through American news reports.

The West African country was the top importer of North Korean goods in Africa in 2015, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, a website that collects and distributes international trade data.

Speaking to VOA’s French to Africa Service, Burkina Faso’s foreign minister, Alpha Barry, said the decision to end imports from North Korea takes effect immediately.

“I wrote to my colleagues in Commerce and Finance, and we found out that, from January to August 2017, we imported $7 million worth of goods,” he said, emphasizing that his government wasn’t initially aware of the goods imported from North Korea.

Barry said he learned about the deals through news reports in the United States, prompting him to open an inquiry into the matter. “We also found out that in 2015 these imports reached $38 million. These imports are mostly oil products,” he said.

In addition to its imports, Burkina Faso exported about $637,000 in oil seeds to North Korea in 2015, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Burkina Faso’s decision to sever economic ties comes amid heightened scrutiny of North Korea’s business dealings. Following the rogue nation’s nuclear test in September, the U.N. passed new sanctions to restrict Pyongyang’s imports and exports.

In October, the United Nations banned four ships found to be transporting North Korean goods from world ports. In one case, cargo included 30,000 North Korean-made rocket-propelled grenades.

This week, the U.S. requested that the U.N. add another 10 ships to the banned list.

Economic ties to North Korea don’t constitute sanctions violations in and of themselves, but the U.N.’s list of banned transactions has grown with  Pyongyang ‘s ongoing nuclear and missile tests.

The most recent U.N. Security Council resolution, adopted in September, added imports of natural gas liquids to North Korea and textiles exports from North Korea to the list of banned transactions.

Global condemnation

Despite increased international scrutiny of associations with North Korea, there are some 30 African countries that maintain economic ties with Pyongyang, despite global condemnation of its regime.

“Many African states and populations are unaware of the massive and gross human rights violations committed by Pyongyang,” said Grant Harris, a former senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council during Barack Obama’s presidency.

Some African countries that promised to end relationships with North Korea later backtracked.

“Namibia had made an announcement that it was going to be reducing its ties and it was later revealed by U.N. investigators that the country had concealed a weapons factory built by North Korean laborers,” Harris told VOA’s Korean Service. “Uganda had pledged to [end] security ties with North Korea back in May of 2016 but had ended up continuing those ties including with police trainers and through other activities.”

Harris said the United States and other international partners should help these African countries fill the gap left by cutting ties with North Korea, particularly with regard to national security, and the training and professionalization of security forces.

This way, he said African countries “that can be peeled away from North Korea will have alternative relationships and military cooperation to draw on.”

Bagassi Koura contributed to this report.
…

The far eastern Russian port of Nakhodka on the Sea of Japan is swathed in coal dust. It blankets the streets, clogs the air and is blamed by some for a rise in respiratory diseases among the city’s 150,000 residents.

Yet despite pledges this year by Russia President Vladimir Putin to tackle coal pollution in ports such as Nakhodka and Murmansk thousands of kilometers away near Finland, port workers and local officials don’t expect any change soon.

Once mainly an entry point for cars from Japan and an export route for Russian wood and fish, Nakhodka has switched in recent years to shipping almost nothing but coal from the vast mines in the Siberian region of Kemerovo, also known as Kuzbass.

Now, there are few other employment options for Nakhodka’s residents and in Kuzbass the region’s 3 million people have become ever more dependent on the far eastern ports and the export revenues coal generates.

“The coal is everywhere,” said Nakhodka resident who gave his name as Ivan. “I was a sailor in the port. In winter, there was a lot of coal, the water became black, the coal was on the snow, on the ice, the ships.”

Local officials say a rise in wood export duties first prompted wharves to switch to coal and the business has picked up since thanks to a rise both in coal prices and demand from Asia.

Shipments of coal to Asia accounted for more than half of Russia’s total coal exports last year and China’s imports of Russian coal rose 14 percent in October alone.

The thriving demand has driven major coal producers such as Kuzbassrazrezugol, Evraz and SUEK to mine more coal and export it from Nakhodka, the nearby Vostochny port and other small ports in the region.

Coal exports from the port spiked 20 percent last year from 2015. Attis Enterprise, for example, boosted its coal loadings in 2016 alone by 56 percent to 1.6 million ton, according to Nakhodka’s city hall data.

Easy money

Sitting in his office within sight of giant mounds of coal waiting to load, Nakhodka’s first deputy city mayor Boris Gladkykh says coal now brings in 1 billion rubles ($17 million) a year, or 40 percent of the city’s budget revenues.

Gladkykh, himself a former port worker, estimates that at least one out of every 20 residents works in the port and each has two or three dependents.

“Global coal prices started to increase and with [loading] rates at a lucrative $10-15 [per ton] you can earn big money,” he said, calculating that loading just one 100,000 ton deadweight ship would earn $1.2 million — for two days work. “There is only one man for moving the crane, so costs are low. Just move 10 tons in a bucket and you’ve earned $120 in two minutes,” Gladkykh said.

There are now seven coal wharfs in Nakhodka and five in the Vrangel Bay some 30 km away. A canning plant, a shipping maintenance depot and a wharf for fish exports have all have switched to the coal, he said.

“We load the cargo that is in demand. Wood was needed for export … we started to load coal when demand rose,” said Alexander Tarasov, chief executive at Attis Enterprise.

Stevedores get an average monthly salary of some 50,000 rubles, according to residents, while the national average is 38,000 rubles. Coal has become so important for Nakhodka that a pedestrian area called Stevedores Alley was opened in September.

Health issues

But residents say scant regard is paid to the environment by some coal loading companies in Nakhodka and the dust that pervades the city is becoming too much.

Grigory, 63, who lives in the Astafyev Cape area of Nakhodka where most of the coal wharfs are, said he’s now stuck because no one wants to buy his flat.

“Dust is a big issue … if you open windows, dust appears on the sill and we breathe it in,” said Grigory, who did not want to give his last name. “This is going in our lungs, our children who are growing up, they will become ill.”

According to Nakhodka’s main hospital, which serves about three-quarters of the city’s population, the number of people suffering from asthma and pneumonia has been rising.

The number of asthma sufferers climbed to 60 in 2016 from 43 in 2014 and there were 838 pneumonia cases, up from 789 three years ago, the hospital said in email to Reuters, adding that coal dust may be one of the factors behind the increase.

Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense, said the coal dust, also known as mining dust, contained dangerous substances which could cause lung problems, cancer and may even be fatal.

President Putin said in August new technologies for cargo loading based on strict ecological norms should be implemented to limit coal dust at ports such as Murmansk and Nakhodka. But he acknowledged it wouldn’t stop overnight.

“Of course, its impossible to fully abandon open-air coal loadings – we understand economics,” he said.

‘Ghost town’

While Putin talks about Russia becoming a high-tech economy of self-driving cars and IT services, natural resources such as oil, gas and coal remain the largest contributors to federal budget taxes. In the first nine months of 2017, natural resources contributed 3.5 trillion roubles ($60 billion), a third of the total, according to the Russian tax service.

Initiatives to move coal out of Nakhodka, or to force operators to stop loading coal in the open air, have foundered largely because of opposition from stevedores, officials said.

Still, some companies in the area told Reuters they were investing more in measures to limit the dust, such as putting in special fences, using water to dampen the dust and other tools.

Vyacheslav Sarayev, former managing director of Nakhodka Trade Sea Port, the city’s biggest stevedore, said the firm had invested 600 million rubles on dust-busting measures over the past four years but some rivals hadn’t followed suit.

“Automatically everyone is bad, including us,” he said.

Earlier this year, Russian lawmakers proposed a ban on open-air coal loading. But stevedores argued that the law would halt most exports from far eastern ports and also hit people in the Kuzbass mining region. The legislation was dropped.

Nakhodka’s deputy mayor said the proposal would have turned the port into a ghost town.

“It would be a desert here if it had passed,” Gladkykh said. “If you close the ports, will anyone close the mines in Siberia? They should be closed too then.” “Eighty percent of railway cargoes to the far east are coal. Let’s close it too. Let’s close everything. We will breath fresh air but walk with no trousers and eat fir cones.”

($1 = 58.6470 roubles)

Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk, Gleb Stolyarov, Anastasia Lyrchikova, Alexei Yarkovoy and Darya Korsunskaya in Moscow, Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg, Josephine Mason and Lusha Zhang in Beijing; writing by Katya Golubkova; editing by David Clarke
…

Construction of a long-awaited Thai-Chinese railway line that will link Thailand, Laos and China officially began on Thursday with a ground-breaking ceremony in the northeastern Thai province of Nakhon Ratchasima.

The first phase of the project, a 250-km (155 mile) high-speed rail line linking Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima, is expected to be operational in 2021.

The full line is expected to stretch 873 km (542 miles), linking Thailand and Laos at the northeastern Thai city of Nong Khai.

It is part of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure drive, which aims to build a modern-day “Silk Road” connecting China to economies in Southeast and Central Asia by land and the Middle East and Europe by sea.

But the Thailand project, which began in 2014 with formal talks, has been beset by delays, including disagreements over the design and funding as well as technical assistance.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Thursday presided over a ceremony to begin construction of the first, 3.5-km section of the railway.

“Thailand is developing in every aspect to become the center of connectivity… and this route is to connect to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to China, India and further to other countries,” Prayuth said in a speech.

Completion of the first section is expected to take six months, according to the transport ministry.

In September, Thailand signed two contracts worth $157 million with Chinese state enterprises covering the engineering design of the project and the hiring of Chinese technical advisers.
…

This remote town in Peru’s southern Andes was supposed to serve as a model for how companies can help communities uprooted by mining.

Named Nueva Fuerabamba, it was built to house around 1,600 people who gave up their village and farmland to make room for a massive, open-pit copper mine.

The new hamlet boasts paved streets and tidy houses with electricity and indoor plumbing, once luxuries to the indigenous Quechua-speaking people who now call this place home.

The mine’s operator, MMG Ltd, the Melbourne-based unit of state-owned China Minmetals Corp, threw in jobs and enough cash so that some villagers no longer work.

But the high-profile deal has not brought the harmony sought by villagers or MMG, a testament to the difficulty in averting mining disputes in this mineral-rich nation.

Resource battles are common in Latin America, but tensions are particularly high in Peru, the world’s No. 2 producer of copper, zinc and silver. Peasant farmers have revolted against an industry that many see as damaging their land and livelihoods while denying them a fair share of the wealth.

Peru is home to 167 social conflicts, most related to mining, according to the national ombudsman’s office, whose mission includes defusing hostilities.

Nueva Fuerabamba was the centerpiece of one of the most generous mining settlements ever negotiated in Peru. But three years after moving in, many transplants are struggling amid their suburban-style conveniences, Reuters interviews with two dozen residents showed.

Many miss their old lives growing potatoes and raising livestock. Some have squandered their cash settlements. Idleness and isolation have dulled the spirits of a people whose ancestors were feared cattle rustlers.

“It is like we are trapped in a jail, in a cage where little animals are kept,” said Cipriano Lima, 43, a former farmer.

Meanwhile, the mine, known as Las Bambas, has remained a magnet for discontent. Clashes between demonstrators and authorities in 2015 and 2016 left four area men dead.

Nueva Fuerabamba residents have blocked copper transport roads to press for more financial help from MMG.

The company acknowledged the transition has been difficult for some villagers, but said most have benefited from improved housing, healthcare and education.

“Nueva Fuerabamba has experienced significant positive change,” Troy Hey, MMG’s executive general manager of stakeholder relations, said in an email to Reuters. MMG said it spent “hundreds of millions” on the relocation effort.

Mining is the driver of Peru’s economy, which has averaged 5.5 percent annual growth over the past decade. Still, pitched conflicts have derailed billions of dollars worth of investment in recent years, including projects by Newmont Mining and Southern Copper.

To defuse opposition, President Pablo Kuczynski has vowed to boost social services in rural highland areas, where nearly half of residents live in poverty.

But moving from conflict to cooperation is not easy after centuries of mistrust. Relocations are particularly fraught, according to Camilo Leon, a mining resettlement specialist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.

Subsistence farmers have struggled to adapt to the loss of their traditions and the “very urban, very organized” layout of planned towns, Leon said.

“It is generally a shock for rural communities,” Leon said.

At least six proposed mines have required relocations in Peru in the past decade, Leon said. Later this month, Peru will tender a $2-billion copper project, Michiquillay, which would require moving yet another village.

‘Everything is Money’

MMG inherited the Nueva Fuerabamba project when it bought Las Bambas from Switzerland’s Glencore Plc in 2014 for $7 billion.

Under terms of a deal struck in 2009 and reviewed by Reuters, villagers voted to trade their existing homes and farmland for houses in a new community. Heads of each household, about 500 in all, were promised mining jobs. University scholarships would be given to their children. Residents were to receive new land for farming and grazing, albeit in a parcel four hours away by car.

Cash was an added sweetener. Villagers say each household got 400,000 soles ($120,000), which amounts to a lifetime’s earnings for a minimum-wage worker in Peru.

MMG declined to confirm the payments, saying its agreements are confidential.

Built into a hillside 15 miles from the Las Bambas mine, Nueva Fuerabamba was the product of extensive community input, MMG said. Amenities include a hospital, soccer fields and a cement bull ring for festivals.

But some residents say the deal has not been the windfall they hoped. Their new two-and-three story houses, made of drywall, are drafty and appear flimsy compared to their old thatched-roof adobe cottages heated by wood-fired stoves, some said.

Many no longer plant crops or tend livestock because their replacement plots are too far away. Jobs provided by MMG mostly involve maintaining the town because most residents lack the skills to work in a modern mine.

Many villagers spent their settlements unwisely, said community president Alfonso Vargas. “Some invested in businesses but others did not. They went drinking,” he said.

Now basics like water, food and fuel – once wrested from the land – must be paid for.

“Everything is money,” Margot Portilla, 20, said as she cooked rice on a gas stove in her sister-in-law’s bright-yellow home. “Before we could make a fire for cooking with cow dung. Now we have to buy gas.”

Ghost Town

Some residents said they have benefited from the move.

The new town is cleaner than the old village, said Betsabe Mendoza, 25. She invested her settlement in a metalworking business in a bigger town.

Portilla, the young mom, says her younger sisters are getting a better education than she did.

Still, the streets of Nueva Fuerabamba were virtually deserted on a recent weekday. Vargas, the community leader, said many residents have returned to the countryside or sought work elsewhere.

Alcoholism, fueled by idle time and settlement money, is on the rise, he said.

Some villagers have committed suicide. Over the 12 months through July, four residents killed themselves by taking farming chemicals, according to the provincial district attorney’s office. It could not provide data on suicides in the old village of Fuerabamba.

MMG, citing an “independent” study done prior to the relocation, said the community previously suffered from high rates of domestic violence, alcoholism, illiteracy and poverty.

While the company considers the new town a success, it acknowledged the transition has not been easy for all.

“Connection to land, livelihood restoration and simple adaptation to new living conditions remain a challenge,” MMG said.

Nueva Fuerabamba residents continue pressuring the company for additional assistance. Demands include more jobs and deeds to their houses, which have yet to be delivered because of bureaucratic delays, said Godofredo Huamani, the community’s lawyer.

MMG said it stays apace of community needs through town hall meetings and has representatives on hand to field complaints.

While villagers fret about the future, many cling to the past. Flora Huamani, 39, a mother of four girls, recalled how women used to get together to weave wool from their own sheep into the embroidered black dresses they wear.

“Those were our traditions,” said Huamani from a bench in her walled front yard. “Now our tradition is meeting after meeting after meeting” to discuss the community’s problems.
…

The United States needs to encourage domestic production of a handful of minerals critical for the technology and defense industries, and stem reliance on China, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Tuesday.

Zinke made the remarks at the Interior Department as he unveiled a report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which detailed the extent to which the United States is dependent upon foreign competitors for its supply of certain minerals.

The report identified 23 out of 88 minerals that are priorities for U.S. national defense and the economy because they are components in products ranging from batteries to military equipment.

The report found that the United States was 100 percent net import reliant on 20 mineral commodities in 2016, including manganese, niobium, tantalum and others. In 1954, the U.S. was 100 percent import reliant for the supply of just eight nonfuel mineral commodities.

“We have the minerals here and likely we have enough to provide our needs and be a world trader in them, but we have to go forward and identify where they are at,” Zinke told reporters at an Interior Department briefing.

He also blamed previous administrations for allowing foreign competitors like China to dominate mineral production for minerals, such as rare earth elements, used in smartphones, computers and military equipment.

Zinke said the report is likely to shape Interior Department policy-making in 2018, as the agency looks to carry out its “Energy Dominance” strategy, expanding mining and resource extraction on federal lands.

The survey is the first update of a 1973 USGS report that catalogued the production of minerals worldwide. The update was started under the Obama administration in 2013.

Many of the commodities that are covered in the new volume were of minor importance when the original survey was done, since it pre-dated the global electronics boom.

The USGS and Interior Department said the report is meant to be used by national security experts, economists, private companies, the World Bank and resource managers.

It does not offer policy recommendations, but Zinke will rely on the findings as he prioritizes research into certain mineral deposit areas on federal land and plans policies to promote mining.

“We do expect that to lead to policy changes. The USGS is not involved in policy, but I suspect you will see some policy changes,” said Larry Meinert, lead author of the report.
…

Greece’s parliament on Tuesday approved the 2018 state budget, which includes further austerity measures beyond the official end of the country’s third international bailout next summer. 

All 153 lawmakers from the left-led governing coalition backed the budget measures in a late vote, while the 144 opposition lawmakers present rejected them. Three were absent from the vote.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised that the country would smoothly exit the eight-year crisis that has seen its economy shrink by a quarter and unemployment hit highs previously unseen during peacetime.

Tsipras argued that international money markets — on whose credit Greece will have to depend once its rescue loan program ends — are showing strong confidence in the country’s prospects, with the yield on Greek government bonds dropping to a pre-crisis low of less than 4 percent.

“The way to exit [the crisis] is for our borrowing costs to return to acceptable levels so the country can finance itself without the restrictive bailout framework,” Tsipras said.

The budget promises Greece’s international lenders continued belt-tightening measures and high primary budget surpluses — the budget balance before debt and interest payments are taken into account.

It sets the primary surplus at 2.44 percent for 2017 and 3.82 percent for 2018, higher than previously estimated. The economy is forecast to grow by 1.6 percent in 2017 and 2.5 percent next year, helped by a return to growth across Europe.

Debt to hold steady

With the Greek economy worth around 185 billion euros ($271 billion) in 2018, the national debt will remain at just under 180 percent of annual GDP, roughly unchanged from the previous year.

Greeks will see new tax hikes and pension cuts over the next two years. Bailout lenders had demanded additional guarantees the Greek economy will be stabilized before considering measures to improve the country’s debt repayment terms.

Opposition parties have criticized the budget, saying it will prolong the pain for Greeks. The main opposition conservative New Democracy party said the budget was “bleeding dry” the Greek people with 1.9 billion euros’ worth of new austerity measures.

Greece’s latest international bailout officially ends in August, more than eight years after the country began receiving emergency loans from the other European Union countries that use the euro currency, as well as from the International Monetary Fund.

In return for the funds, successive governments have had to impose repeated rounds of tax hikes and spending cuts, as well as structural changes aimed at reforming the country’s moribund economy and making it more competitive.

Tsipras first was elected in 2015 on promises to quickly end the painful austerity. But negotiations with bailout creditors soon went awry and, threatened with a disastrous euro exit, he signed on to more income cuts, increased taxation and further spending cuts.

His governing Syriza party is trailing New Democracy in the polls. But Tsipras insisted Tuesday that the government would see out its mandate, which ends in 2019.
…

Parceling out holiday shopping in small amounts and completing it in a realistic schedule helps people maintain the self-control needed to avoid being swept away in impulse purchases that can wreck budgets, a study to be published in January said.

The study from Texas A&M University researchers looked at how well people complied with maintaining self-control for tasks such as making purchases and found that people should pace themselves if they want to accomplish larger goals.

“Try to conserve your energy. Don’t try to make it too hard on yourself because it is going to backfire,” said Marco Palma, director of the Human Behavior Laboratory at Texas A&M and co-author of the study called “Self-control: Knowledge or perishable resource?” It will be published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.

Palma recommended making a list and dividing it into sub-goals of small purchases. Shopping online and shopping early in the day can help conserve energy, which can also help people exercise self-control.

“Committing to a shopping list will help you stay on budget,” he said in an interview this week.

The worst shopping scenario in terms of self-control is waiting until the last minute to make the bulk of holiday purchases, he said.

The study used biometric data including eye tracking and brain scanning to measure how well people complied with easy and difficult tasks that required self-control.

It found that an initial moderate self-control act enhances subsequent self-control ability by increasing confidence and motivation, but exerting too much self-control drains subsequent self-control ability.

But humans are humans and even when they are nice, they can be a little bit naughty. A person who completes a holiday shopping list as planned may splurge with a little reward for themselves, Palma said.
…

Another security based on the price of bitcoin, the digital currency that has soared in value and volatility this year, began trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Sunday.

The CME Group, which owns the exchange, opened up bitcoin futures for trading at 6 p.m. EST on Sunday. The futures contract that expires in January opened higher at $20,650, then declined steadily. The futures were trading at $18,775 at 9:00 p.m. EST, down $725.

The CME futures, like the ones that CME competitor the Cboe started trading last week, do not involve actual bitcoin. The CME’s futures will track an index of bitcoin prices pulled from several private exchanges. The Cboe’s futures track the price of bitcoin prices on the particular private exchange known as Gemini.

Each contract sold on the CME will be for five bitcoin.

As bitcoin’s price has skyrocketed on private exchanges this year, largely under its own momentum, interest on Wall Street has grown. The virtual currency was trading below $1,000 at the beginning of the year, and rose to more than $19,000 on some exchanges in the days leading up to its debut on the Cboe and CME. Bitcoin was trading at $18,417 Sunday evening on Coinbase.

But the growing interest in bitcoin has raised questions on whether its value has gotten too frothy. The Securities and Exchange Commission put out a statement last week warning investors to be careful with any investment in bitcoin or other digital currencies. Further, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission has proposed regulating bitcoin like a commodity, not unlike gold, silver, platinum or oil.

Futures are a type of contract where a buyer and seller agree on a price on a particular item to be delivered on a certain date in the future, hence the name. Futures are available for nearly every type of security out there, but are most familiarly used in commodities, like oil wheat, soy and gold.

Bitcoin is the world’s most popular virtual currency. Such currencies are not tied to a bank or government and allow users to spend money anonymously. They are basically lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they are traded.

A debate is raging on the merits of such currencies. Some say they serve merely to facilitate money laundering and illicit, anonymous payments. Others say they can be helpful methods of payment, such as in crisis situations where national currencies have collapsed.
…

Vietnam is set to auction up to a $5 billion stake in top brewer Sabeco on Monday, with Thai Beverage the only potential bidder to have expressed interest in a majority stake.

The keenly anticipated sale of the state-owned maker of Bia Saigon gained momentum in recent months after being hampered for years by political resistance, fickle policy-making and complications over valuations.

The government has set a minimum sale price of 320,000 dong or $14.10 a share for Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp (Sabeco), whose shares have nearly trebled to 309,200 dong since its listing a year ago.

Thai Beverage, through a partly owned Vietnam unit, is the only company that has expressed interest in owning more than 25 percent of the company, which has roughly 40 percent of the beer-loving Vietnamese market.

So far no formal bid had been made.

Vietnam’s young population and booming economy should make Sabeco an attractive asset for global brewers hoping to expand in Southeast Asia, but a high minimum bid price and foreign ownership limits appear to have turned off potential buyers.

Sabeco’s foreign ownership is capped at 49 percent. With 10 percent already in foreign hands, that leaves only 39 percent on the table for overseas buyers at Monday’s auction. Local bidders can bid for a majority stake of up to 54 percent. Heinken holds a 5 percent stake.

“There’s a disconnect between what the government wants to achieve and how international brewers view this auction,” said one person familiar with the matter. “In a normal auction, bidders are fully aware of what stake they’ll end up owning and bid for it accordingly,” said the person, who was not authorized to speak to the media.

Unlike similar sales in developed markets, where investors are whittled down over several rounds and offers can be adjusted, Sabeco bidders need to submit a single offer for a specific number of shares in a sealed envelope in one round.

Thai Bev, controlled by tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, was keen to acquire Sabeco as part of a strategy to expand outside its home market, sources told Reuters. The company had lined up bank guarantees to support the bid by its Vietnam unit, sources said.

There was no immediate response from Thai Bev to a query from Reuters.

Reuters previously reported that the auction was drawing the interest of brewing groups such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, Kirin Holdings, Asahi Group Holdings and San Miguel, but there is no clear sign of whether they have participated in the auction so far.

The government’s minimum price for the 54 percent stake on offer valued Sabeco at about 36 times core earnings, more than double the trading multiples of around 15 for some global peers, according to Reuters data.

Vietnam’s trade ministry is expected to announce the bidding result Monday afternoon.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump continued to tout the Republican tax bill Saturday, saying “everybody’s going to benefit” if it is signed into law.

“But I think the greatest benefit is going to be for jobs and for the middle class, middle income,” Trump said to reporters on the White House South Lawn before departing for the presidential Camp David retreat in Maryland.

Republican Senate and House negotiators finalized a final version Friday of their compromise $1.5 trillion tax bill, after appeasing Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who demanded an expansion of the child tax credit that provides benefits for low-income families.

Republican lawmakers hammered out differences Wednesday between the House and Senate versions, and both chambers of Congress plan to vote on the final bill early next week, with the intent of submitting it to President Donald Trump for his signature before Christmas.  

Rubio said late Friday he would vote for the bill after saying one day earlier he would not support it unless it includes a more generous child tax credit, which has been  beneficial to lower-income families by partially offsetting the expenses of raising children.

The bill doubles the current child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and allows parents to get a refund of up to $1,400 if the credit is greater than their federal income tax liability.

No Democratic support

No Democrats have publicly expressed their support for the legislation, which they have attacked as a giveaway to corporations and the wealthiest of taxpayers, including Trump, a billionaire.

The measure would cut taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, heavily weighted toward lower corporate taxation, and perhaps add $1 trillion or more to the country’s long-term $20 trillion debt obligations to investors and foreign governments such as China – the largest owner of U.S. debt.

When asked about the debt, Trump responded by saying a new tax law will encourage inflows of overseas money. “This is going to bring money in. As an example, we think four trillion dollars will come flowing back into the country. That’s money that’s overseas, that’s stuck there for years and years.”

Trump administration officials say millions of individual taxpayers, but not everyone, would see their annual tax obligation to the government cut, in many cases by a few hundred dollars, or in the case of wealthy taxpayers, by thousands of dollars.

In  the final compromise bill, the individual tax rate for the highest income earners would be cut from 39.6 percent to 37 percent.

The country’s corporate tax rate, now at 35 percent and among the highest in the industrialized world, would be cut substantially to 21 percent.

With Democrat Doug Jones winning a special Senate election Tuesday in Alabama, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer has asked that the final tax vote be delayed until January after Jones is sworn in. But Republicans appear intent on voting before then while they have one more Republican vote in the Senate.

An original version of the Senate bill was approved 51-49 with Rubio’s support. So if Rubio votes against the bill, it could still pass, though with a narrower margin.

If approved and signed into law, the tax legislation would be the first major legislative achievement of Trump’s nearly 11-month presidency after he and Republicans failed earlier this year dismantle national health care policies championed by former president Barack Obama.
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British Finance Minister Philip Hammond said Saturday it is likely Britain will want to negotiate a bespoke arrangement for a future trade deal with the European Union, rather than copying existing arrangements like the Canada-EU deal.

The European Union agreed Friday to move Brexit talks onto trade and a transition pact, but some leaders cautioned that the final year of divorce negotiations before Britain’s exit could be fraught with peril.

Summit chairman Donald Tusk said the world’s biggest trading bloc would begin “exploratory contacts” with Britain on what London wants in a future trade relationship, as well as starting discussion on the immediate post-Brexit transition.

No off-the-shelf deal

Speaking in Beijing, Hammond it was probably not helpful to think in terms of off-the-shelf models like the Canada-EU deal.

“We have a level of trade and commercial integration with the EU 27 which is unlike the situation of any trade partner that the EU has ever done a trade deal with before,” he told reporters.

“And therefore it is likely that we will want to negotiate specific arrangements, bespoke arrangements,” Hammond added.

“So I expect that we will develop something that is neither the Canada model nor an EEA model, but something which draws on the strength of our existing relationship.”

The Brexit negotiations have been a vexed issue for the global economy as markets feared prolonged uncertainty would hit global trade and growth.

A transition period is now seen as crucial for investors and businesses who worry that a “cliff-edge” Brexit would disrupt trade flows and sow chaos through financial markets.

China visit

Hammond’s China visit is the latest installment in long-running economic talks between the two states, but it has now taken on new importance for Britain as it looks to re-invent itself as a global trading nation after leaving the EU in 2019.

China is one of the countries Britain hopes to sign a free trade agreement with once it leaves the EU, and London and Beijing have been keen to show that Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc will not affect ties.

Hammond sought to offer reassurance to Chinese firms post-March 2019 when Britain formally leaves the EU.

“We won’t technically or legally be in the customs union or in the single market, but we’re committed as a result of the agreement we’ve made this week to creating an environment which will effectively replicate the current status quo,” he said.

Addressing the press after Hammond had spoken, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Shi Yaobin said China hopes Britain and the EU can reach a win-win agreement.
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After weeks of quarrels and qualms and then 11th-hour horse-trading, Republicans revealed their huge national tax rewrite late Friday, along with announcements of support that all but guarantee approval next week.

The legislation would slash tax rates for big business and lower levies on the richest Americans in a massive $1.5 trillion bill that the GOP plans to pass through Congress before the year-end break. Benefits for most other taxpayers would be smaller.

“This is happening. Tax reform under Republican control of Washington is happening,” House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin told rank-and-file members in a conference call. “Most critics out there didn’t think it could happen. … And now we’re on the doorstep of something truly historic.”

According to the 1,097-page bill, today’s 35 percent rate on corporations would fall to 21 percent, the crown jewel of the measure for many Republicans. Trump and GOP leaders had set 20 percent as their goal, but added a point to free money for other tax cuts that won over wavering lawmakers in final talks.

Party’s first achievement of 2017

The legislation represents the first major legislative achievement for the GOP after nearly a full year in control of Congress and the White House. It’s the widest-ranging reshaping of the tax code in three decades and is expected to add to the nation’s $20 trillion debt. The debt is expected to soar by at least $1 trillion more than it would without the tax measure, according to projections.

Support is now expected from all Senate Republicans, ensuring narrow approval. Democrats are expected to oppose the legislation unanimously.

“Under this bill, the working class, middle class and upper middle class get skewered while the rich and wealthy corporations make out like bandits,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “It is just the opposite of what America needs, and Republicans will rue the day they pass this.”

The bill would drop today’s 39.6 percent top rate on individuals to 37 percent. The standard deduction, used by about two-thirds of households, would be nearly doubled.

Those who itemize their taxes face mixed results. The $1,000-per-child tax deduction would grow to $2,000. The bill makes a smaller amount — $1,400 — available to families even if they owe no income tax. The money would come in the form of a tax refund, which is why it’s called a “refundable” tax credit. In an earlier verison of the bill, the amount was $1,000.

But the deduction that millions use in connection with state and local income, property and sales taxes would be capped at $10,000. Deductions for medical expenses that lawmakers once considered eliminating would be retained.

Only on Friday did Republicans cement support for the major overhaul, securing endorsements from wavering senators.

Rubio, Corker relent

Marco Rubio of Florida relented in his high-profile opposition after negotiators expanded the child tax credit, and he said he would vote for the measure next week.

Rubio had been holding out for a bigger child tax credit for low-income families. After he got it, he tweeted that the change was “a solid step toward broader reforms which are both Pro-Growth and Pro-Worker.”

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the only Republican to vote against the Senate version earlier this month, made the surprise announcement that he would back the legislation. Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly warned that the nation’s growing debt is the most serious threat to national security.

Although he deemed the bill far from perfect, he said it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

“I realize this is a bet on our country’s enterprising spirit, and that is a bet I am willing to make,” Corker said.

Members of a House-Senate conference committee signed the final version of the legislation Friday, sending it to the two chambers for final passage next week. They have been working to blend the different versions passed by the two houses.

Republicans hold a 52-48 majority in the Senate, including two ailing senators who have missed votes this past week.

John McCain of Arizona, 81, is at a Washington-area military hospital being treated for the side effects of brain cancer treatment, and Thad Cochran, 80, of Mississippi had a non-melanoma lesion removed from his nose earlier this week. GOP leaders are hopeful they will be available next week.
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Two titans of U.S. business have come together to demand that Congress find an immediate solution for DACA recipients, whose legal immigration status will come to an end in March without intervention.

Charles Koch, chairman and chief executive of Koch Industries, and Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, wrote in an opinion piece published Thursday in The Washington Post that “we strongly agree that Congress must act before the end of the year to bring certainty and security to the lives of dreamers. Delay is not an option. Too many people’s futures hang in the balance.”

Dreamers is another term for participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has protected undocumented young people who were brought to the U.S. as children and provided them with work permits.

President Donald Trump ended the DACA program in September although it will not begin to phase out until March, 2018.

His action put the ball in Congress’ court to find a long term solution for dreamers.

In their op-ed piece, the two CEOs note that both of their companies employ DACA recipients. “We know from experience that the success of our businesses depends on having employees with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. It fuels creativity, broadens knowledge and helps drive innovation.”

Koch Industries encompass a variety of companies including manufacturing and refining of oil and chemicals. Forbes Magazine lists Koch as the second largest privately held company in the U.S. Apple is the world’s largest information technology company, producing such familiar products as the iPhone and the Mac computers.

‘Firmly aligned’ on DACA issue

Koch and Cook are as different politically as their companies. Deeply conservative, Charles Koch has made significant financial contributions to rightwing causes and mostly Republican candidates. Tim Cook has been more bipartisan in his donations but did host a fundraiser for Democrat Hillary Clinton when she was running for president.

“We are business leaders who sometimes differ on the issues of the day,” the two concede in their piece. “Yet, on a question as straightforward as this one, we are firmly aligned.”

Congress seems unlikely to provide a DACA solution by the end of the year.

While some Democrats have remained firm in linking the spending legislation to a measure that would allow nearly 800,000 DACA immigrants to continue to work and study in the United States, the effort seems to have lost momentum.

Speaking Wednesday to a group of DACA recipients, Democratic Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois said he wished he could “tell you that we’re totally confident we can get it done. I can’t say that. I don’t want to mislead you.” Durbin is a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act which would protect DACA recipients.

Republican lawmakers have maintained that there is no reason to act on DACA in 2017.

“There is no emergency. The president has given us until March to address it,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Sunday on ABC’s This Week program. “I don’t think Democrats would be very smart to say they want to shut down the government over a nonemergency that we can address anytime between now and March.”

But that was said before a major Republican donor urged immediate action.

“We have no illusions about how difficult it can be to get things done in Washington, and we know that people of good faith disagree about aspects of immigration policy,“ Koch and Cook write.

“By acting now to ensure that dreamers can realize their potential by continuing to contribute to our country, Congress can reaffirm this essential American ideal.

“This is a political, economic and moral imperative.”

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump has touted progress on slashing federal regulations, which he says cost America trillions with no benefit. Speaking Thursday from the White House, the president said his administration had exceeded its goal of removing two federal regulations for every new one, by removing 22 for every new one. Opponents have criticized some of the deregulation, especially dismantling of the net neutrality rules that guarantee equal access to the internet. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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An 800-foot-tall (244-meter) centerpiece is coming to Detroit’s resurgent downtown as the city continues to build momentum about three years after exiting the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

The 58-story building dominating the local skyline will rise on the site of the iconic J.L. Hudson department store, whose 1983 closing epitomized Detroit’s economic downfall.

“When we lost Hudson’s, it symbolized how far Detroit had fallen,” Bedrock Detroit real estate founder Dan Gilbert said Thursday during a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new building. “When it was imploded in 1998 it was a very sad day for a lot of people.”

One of four projects

But the bad times for downtown appear to be largely over. Bedrock Detroit’s $900 million, two-building project will include a 58-story residential tower and 12-floor building for retail and conference space. Up to 450 residential units can be built in the tower.

It is one of four projects representing a $2.1 billion investment in downtown by the Detroit-based commercial real estate firm. Altogether, the projects are expected to create up to 24,000 jobs in a city that desperately needs them and generate $673 million in new tax revenue.

Mayor Mike Duggan’s office has spearheaded redevelopment programs targeting a number of city neighborhoods, but Detroit’s growth is most evident in greater downtown, where office space now is limited and available apartments are tough to come by.

A ribbon-cutting was held in August for an $860 million sports complex just north of downtown. The 20,000-seat Little Caesars Arena is the new home of the Detroit Red Wings and Pistons. It will anchor a 50-block neighborhood of offices, apartments, restaurants and shops.

A 6.6-mile-long light rail system launched earlier this year along Woodward Avenue, downtown’s main business thoroughfare.

Microsoft move

Software maker Microsoft announced in February that it plans to move its Michigan Microsoft Technology Center next year from the suburbs to downtown. In 2016, Ally Financial opened new offices downtown that the financial services company said eventually would be occupied by more than 1,500 employees and contractors.

“Bedrock building on the Hudson’s site will be an important addition to the community and the vitality and prosperity of downtown,” said John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor whose work has included policy on economic development issues.

“It will act as an important centerpiece for continuing the overall downtown development … but much more has to be done for the entire city to feel a resurgence.”

Many residents poor

However, much work remains for a city where many residents are still poor.

Detroit’s unemployment rate was about 8 percent in April, yet far below the more than 18 percent unemployment rate during the city’s 2013 bankruptcy filing.

The city’s 2016 poverty rate was just more than 35 percent, the highest among the nation’s 20 largest cities and more than double the national poverty of 14 percent. A family of four is considered living in poverty if its annual earnings are less than $24,563.

Downtown construction projects such as the work at the Hudson’s site can help change that, some say.

“What a shame that anybody should be unemployed in Detroit when we have a need for skilled trades,” Gilbert said. “We like to say Detroit is located at the intersection of muscle and brains. We need brains to sort this all out … somebody still has to build stuff. We still need muscle.”

While Bedrock’s new building would be Detroit’s tallest, rising above the 727-foot (222-meter) Renaissance Center along the city’s riverfront, it still would be far shorter than some other U.S. towers.

One World Trade Center in New York measures 1,776 feet (541 meters). Chicago’s Willis Tower hits 1,451 feet (442 meters), while the Empire State Building in New York climbs to 1,250 feet (381 meters).

​Iconic Hudson’s

Although the 25-story Hudson’s building was once the nation’s tallest department store, it measured only about 400 feet (122 meters). It was far more famous for what was inside.

When Detroit was humming along and leading the nation in car production, the store was where auto executives and assembly line workers shopped. From household goods to clothing and furs and many things in between, it was a primary downtown destination.

There were 50 display windows, 12,000 employees and 100,000 customers per day. But as shopping tastes shifted to expansive suburban malls and Detroit’s population tumbled by more than 600,000 people between the 1950s and 1980, Hudson’s lost its luster.

“Building something of significant magnitude on the old site will provide a good deal of good feelings by older generations,” Mogk said.
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Severe natural gas shortages are hitting businesses and residents across China’s industrial heartland as an unprecedented government effort to clean up an environment devastated by decades of unbridled growth backfires.

Factories are closing or operating at reduced capacity, business profits are shrinking as supply chains are disrupted, and people are shivering through subzero temperatures without adequate heating at home, according to interviews conducted across the region last week.

The gas shortages, which have sent prices soaring nationwide, have undermined a sweeping campaign to switch millions of households and thousands of businesses from coal to natural gas in north China this winter, part of long-running efforts to clean the region’s toxic air.

Much of the gasification of the region, involving more than 4 million homes, was rapidly launched by local authorities acting on their own initiatives in response to calls by the central government to control air pollution.

But the plan appears to have been overly ambitious.

Despite the installation of gas lines and boilers for factories and homes across the northeast, supply has been hampered by insufficient infrastructure to bring the fuel to the industrial region and store it, according to Liang Jin, an independent analyst previously with the oil and gas consultancy JLC.

And in some areas, many homes have yet to get the gas boilers needed for heating.

The gas plan was also implemented as China tries this winter to reduce production from polluting industries like steel and cut back on the use of diesel trucks. That has raised concerns about whether the anti-pollution campaigns may hit economic growth.

​Hebei not ready

Interviews with business owners, families, utilities and gas producers in Hebei province highlighted the problem and suggested that many cities were unprepared to cope. Hebei is adjacent to Beijing, and its factories are often blamed for much of the pollution that often cloaks the capital in the winter.

Xue Huabing, who owns a small floor-tile factory in rural Hebei, said compliance with the new environmental standards means he has only been able to operate for four months this year.

After moving from coal to natural gas and reopening in September, the factory halted production again in October as gas prices soared.

“The price of gas is 6-7 yuan per cubic meter, up from 2 yuan last year,” Xue told Reuters by phone. “If we open, we are going to run at a loss.” He added that it was also difficult for him to secure gas supplies.

Gas prices up

Domestic liquefied natural gas prices have jumped more than 70 percent since mid-November, hitting record highs above 8,000 yuan per ton this month, according to market.yeslng.com, an online exchange for domestic gas supplies.

High prices are raising production costs in industrial cities like Baoding and Shijiazhuang in Hebei province, with knock-on effects for retailers and wholesalers downstream, business owners said.

The gas shortages are also now being felt in southern China, where local governments are sounding the alarm, and some companies are closing down or slowing production.

Growth is hurting

“I think there already has been an impact from the campaign on growth,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, an economist at Capital Economics in Singapore, referring to the anti-pollution drive. “We saw quite a sharp slowdown in October data.”

At Zheng Wenmin’s shop selling kitchen fixtures in Shijiazhuang, a city of 10 million and Hebei’s capital, business is down more than 20 percent this year. Disruptions to housing construction, which has slowed amid the crackdown on pollution, mean fewer people are decorating new homes, she said.

“The prices we pay our suppliers are much higher, and the supply is unstable because factories are shut down or have to cut production,” Zheng said.

China could lose nearly half a percentage point of gross domestic product growth this winter if it sticks to its pollution-reduction targets, Capital Economics has estimated.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they start getting worried” about slowing growth soon, said Evans-Pritchard.

Signs of a slowdown are being seen. Shijiazhuang’s economy expanded 7.1 percent in the first nine months of the year, slowing from 7.8 percent over the same period last year, city government data showed.

Heavy industrial output contracted 2.4 percent year-on-year in the first ten months of the year, which compared with 4.5 percent growth in 2016.

The Shijiazhuang city government, Hebei provincial government, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection did not respond to requests for comment. The Hebei Development and Reform Commission declined to comment.

​Pipelines, storage needed

Most of China’s gas is produced offshore and in the far west of the country. Getting enough gas to the industrial northeast to meet surging demand is a major challenge because of a shortage of pipelines, as well as facilities that would allow the storage of fuel in the summer for use in winter.

To address the shortages the government is speeding up the construction of a pipeline bringing gas from Russia, according to state media reports.

“I don’t think the government can fix the problem within the next three to five years,” said Liang, the gas analyst. “For this year, the Hebei government is facing a supply shortage of 2 billion cubic meters.”

​A cold winter

Residents in Hebei are also bracing for a colder winter, with temperatures forecast to plunge deeper below zero.

In a dusty village on the outskirts of Baoding, Zhang Xu, 31, said her two young sons were getting sick more often this winter from sleeping in their cold bedroom.

“My older son is always asking me why it is so cold in the house, and all I can do is put them in sweaters,” Zhang said.

New bright yellow gas pipelines installed by the local government snake conspicuously through Zhang’s village. But in most homes, like Zhang’s, the government has not yet installed gas boilers, and some residents said they had been secretly burning coal left from last winter to keep themselves warm.

Facing the reality that many people in the northeast did not have gas heating, the Ministry of Environmental Protection recently reversed course and said residents could temporarily burn coal.

Despite the upheaval, most residents and businesses interviewed said they believed something had to be done about pollution, but took issue with how measures were being implemented.

“The skies are blue, but it’s the common people that have to pay the price,” said Zheng, the shopowner.
…

Brazilian builder Odebrecht transferred $4.8 million to companies linked to Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski between 2004 and 2012, some of which was paid to a company Kuczynski controlled when he held senior government roles, according to a document the company sent to Congress.

In a brief recorded message broadcast on local radio program RPP after lawmakers made the contents of the document public on Wednesday, Kuczynski denied wrongdoing but did not deny the transfers took place.

Kuczynski’s office declined further comment.

Odebrecht declined to comment. A source in the company who spoke on condition of anonymity said the document seen by Reuters was authentic.

​Documents contradict denials

The transfers shown in the document contradicted Kuczynski’s previous denials about his ties to Odebrecht and prompted some lawmakers in the opposition-controlled Congress to call for his resignation.

Odebrecht is at the center of Latin America’s biggest graft scandal and has admitted to paying about $30 million in bribes to officials in Peru over a decade, including during the 2001-2006 term of ex-President Alejandro Toledo, when Kuczynski was finance minister and prime minister.

After Odebrecht’s public acknowledgement a year ago, Kuczynski repeatedly denied ever taking money from Odebrecht or having any professional connections to the company.

But on Saturday Kuczynski announced on a local radio program that he once worked as a financial adviser for an Odebrecht project when he did not hold public office; he did not mention the company that paid him.

‘I have nothing to hide’

According to the document sent to Congress, Odebrecht made seven transfers totaling about $780,000 to Kuczynski’s company Westfield Capital Ltd between 2004 and 2007, including about $60,000 when Kuczynski worked in Toledo’s Cabinet and the government awarded several contracts to Odebrecht. Later, between 2008 and 2012, Odebrecht paid about $4 million to First Capital Inversiones Y Asesorias.

Kuczynski has previously said that First Capital belongs to his friend and Chilean business partner, Gerardo Sepulveda.

Kuczynski was the sole director of Westfield Capital, according to his sworn declaration on the presidency’s website.

Kuczynski has not appeared in public since his radio interview on Saturday. He said on RPP on Wednesday that he had decided to heed Congress’ repeated calls to explain any connections he had with Odebrecht to an investigative committee.

“I’ve never favored any company. I’m willing to clarify everything that needs to be clarified before Congress and prosecutors because I have nothing to hide,” Kuczynski said on RPP, without taking any questions from journalists.

Opposition calls for resignation

A spokesman for Popular Force, the opposition party that holds a majority of seats in Peru’s single-chamber Congress, slammed Kuczynski.

“The country, Mr. Kuczynski, is tired of your lies and doesn’t want any more explanations. The country hasn’t just lost its trust in you, but in your government as well,” Daniel Salaverry, the spokesman, told a news conference.

In a televised plenary session late on Wednesday, hard-line Popular Force lawmaker Hector Becerril called for Kuczynski to resign, calling the transferred funds “camouflaged bribes.” An independent lawmaker also called for Kuczynski to step down.

A source in the attorney general’s office said prosecutors investigating Odebrecht in Peru were probing Kuczynski’s relationship with the company but could not name him as a suspect until his term and presidential immunity end.

Toledo, the former president under whom Kuczynski worked, has been accused of taking a $20 million bribe from Odebrecht in exchange for help in securing lucrative highway contracts.

Toledo has denied the charges. Authorities in Peru are seeking his extradition from the United States.
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Nebraska’s main anti-pipeline group is trying to rally opposition to the TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL project’s recently approved route through the state, tracking down landowners it says were not given a voice in the regulatory process.

If it succeeds, Bold Nebraska could throw up new roadblocks to the controversial project to move Canadian oil to U.S. refineries, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, by pressing regulators to revisit TransCanada’s application, or by suing if they refuse.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission issued an approval for Keystone XL to pass through the state in late November, removing the last big regulatory obstacle for the long-delayed project. But the commission’s approval was not for the route TransCanada had singled out in its application, but for an alternative that shifts it closer to an existing pipeline right-of-way that affects scores of new landowners.

Bold Nebraska 

Jane Kleeb, the head of Bold Nebraska, which has been fighting the pipeline for years, held the first of a series of meetings with these new landowners Wednesday.

“We hope to begin the education process with landowners so they understand this is a lifetime easement for a one-time payment,” she told Reuters. “We aim to engage at least 20 percent of the new landowners in the legal landowner group.” 

About 75 landowners and other citizens crammed the meeting in the community center in the small college town of Seward to meet with Kleeb and other pipeline opponents.

Lee Gloystein said he was not happy upon learning that the approved route would go thought his family’s farm. “It’s been in our family since the 1800s,” he said. “And we don’t want it to be disturbed or the water to be disturbed.”

Bold Nebraska already has about 100 landowners who live along the pipeline’s original proposed route signed up against Keystone XL. They include a number of ranchers and farmers worried that spills could pollute their land and the massive Ogallala Aquifer, a source of drinking water and irrigation for a large swath of the central United States.

Jim Carlson, a landowner whose Holt County farm is on the original Keystone XL route, told those at Wednesday’s meeting that he initially was happy the route would cross his land because he could profit from selling TransCanada an easement. But he said he changed his mind after studying the potential environmental harm from a spill. “Be careful what you wish for,” he said.

​Controversial pipeline

The project has been a lightning rod of controversy since it was proposed a decade ago, with environmentalists making it a symbol of their broader fight against fossil fuels and global warming.

TransCanada says the pipeline would be good for the economy and could be run safely. The company said it had about 90 percent support among landowners for the proposed route, but had not yet negotiated support along the approved route.

TransCanada would need to use eminent domain law to gain access to land for which it could not reach an agreement.

Demonstrating opposition along the approved route could add heft to anti-pipeline efforts. Lawyers for opponents of the line argued at a hearing Tuesday that Nebraska regulators had no authority to approve the “alternative” path, and was only allowed to rule on the proposed route.

TransCanada seeks to head off challenges

TransCanada, meanwhile, requested that the public service commission allow it to amend its application retroactively to head off legal challenges. The commission is considering TransCanada’s request.

Trump handed TransCanada a federal permit for the 1,180-mile (1,899-km) pipeline in March, reversing a decision by former President Barack Obama in 2015 to block it on environmental grounds.
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The United States, European Union and Japan vowed Tuesday to work together to fight market-distorting trade practices and policies that have fueled excess production capacity, naming several key features of China’s economic system.

In a joint statement that did not single out China or any other country, the three economic powers said they would work within the World Trade Organization and other multilateral groups to eliminate unfair competitive conditions caused by subsidies, state-owned enterprises, “forced” technology transfer and local content requirements.

The move was a rare show of solidarity with the United States at a World Trade Organization meeting dominated by differences over U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” trade agenda and U.S. efforts to stall the appointment of WTO judges.

It reflected growing frustration among industrial countries over China’s trade practices, along with concerns that other developing countries will follow Beijing’s lead.

The statement said protectionist practices “are serious concerns for the proper functioning of international trade, the creation of innovative technologies and the sustainable growth of the global economy.”

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said China’s industry subsidies, including for aluminum and steel, were flooding global markets and hurting European workers in a “very, very dramatic” way.

“There’s no secret that we think that China is a big sinner here, but there are other countries that are as well,” Malmstrom told reporters on the sidelines of a business forum.

In the opening session of the WTO ministerial conference in Buenos Aires on Monday, the United States and Japan criticized a lack of transparency in some WTO members’ trade practices, a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing.

China, meanwhile, appealed for members to “join hands” and uphold WTO rules to protect globalization in the face of rising protectionism.

The joint statement came after Japan approached the European Union and the United States about overcapacity, according to an EU source, with both Tokyo and Brussels concerned about the possibility the Trump administration could act unilaterally.

“There is a thought that if we bring them into the fold, and can work jointly with them, then it reduces the risk of them going alone,” the source said.

​’Playing by the rules’

Washington, Brussels and Tokyo have previously raised complaints about China’s excess production capacity in a number of industrial sectors that has pushed down world prices and caused layoffs elsewhere.

The United States recently sided with the EU in arguing that such distortions mean the WTO should not grant China market economy status, a move that would severely weaken their trade defenses.

“We have been … reaching out to China to tell them they really must start playing by the rules,” Malmstrom told reporters.

The EU’s and Japan’s willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration comes despite disagreements over the role of the WTO and the future of multilateral trade deals. 

Trump has expressed his preference for bilateral negotiations, and his trade rhetoric has cast a cloud over the WTO meeting.

Efforts on Tuesday to make progress on a ministerial statement from all 164 WTO members were unsuccessful, since one country could not agree on the language, WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told reporters, declining to name that country.

U.S. officials last month blocked WTO efforts to draft a statement of unity over the “centrality” of the global trading system and the need to aid development.

A spokeswoman for the office of the U.S. trade representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Trump administration is considering several unilateral tariff actions on steel, aluminum and China’s intellectual property practices that are likely to draw disputes from WTO members.
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The African Export and Import Bank has pledged up to $1.5 billion in new loans and financial guarantees to Zimbabwe in a major boost for new President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government, the bank’s president and chairman said Tuesday.

Mnangagwa, who took over last month after veteran autocrat Robert Mugabe quit following a de facto military coup, has vowed to focus on reviving the struggling economy and provide jobs in a nation with an unemployment rate exceeding 80 percent.

Afreximbank was the only international lender that stood by Zimbabwe throughout Mugabe’s repressive 37-year rule, but its quick announcement of a fresh package of loans and guarantees appeared to be a vote of confidence in the new government.

Cairo-based Afreximbank was a major funder of Zimbabwe while the country was cut off from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for having defaulted on its debt in 1999.

Bank president and chairman Okey Oramah told reporters after a meeting with Mnangagwa and senior government officials that Afreximbank would provide $150 million to local banks to help them pay for outstanding critical imports.

“We also discussed a number of other areas that involve additional investment from us for something that will be in the order of $1 billion to $1.5 billion that will include certain kinds of guarantees to encourage investors to come to Zimbabwe.

“We … want to make sure that we support the stabilization of the economy, that means providing liquidity to make sure that the situation where people are rushing every time to look for cash is dealt with,” Oramah said.

In August, before Mugabe’s ouster, Afreximbank provided $600 million to help Zimbabwe pay for imports and $300 million to allow it to print more “bond notes,” a quasi-currency that officially trades on par with the U.S. dollar.

Zimbabwe has a foreign debt of more than $7 billion and in September said it would not be able to pay $1.8 billion in arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank until economic fundamentals improved.

The southern African nation, which dumped its hyperinflation-hit currency in 2009, is struggling with a severe dollar crunch that has seen banks fail to avail cash to customers while importers struggle to pay for imports.

Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa promised in a budget speech last week to re-engage with international lenders, curb spending and attract investors to revive the economy.

On Tuesday, Chinamasa described Afreximbank as a “pillar of strength” and said the economy was “in for some very good times.”
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A project in the Philippines that used debris to rebuild typhoon-ravaged houses and Californian homes providing year-round housing for migrant workers won one of the world’s most prestigious housing awards on Tuesday.

The development charity CARE used innovative techniques, such as teaching building skills to residents and using wreckage from destroyed homes, to rehouse more than 15,000 Filipino families devastated in 2013 by Typhoon Haiyan.

“This is the first time self-recovery has been used on such a large scale,” said David Ireland, director of British charity World Habitat, which co-hosts the World Habitat Awards together with the United Nations (U.N.) settlement program, UN-Habitat.

“It has helped more people, more quickly, than traditional disaster recovery programs. The potential of this approach to be used elsewhere is absolutely huge.”

The winners of the competition, which was established in 1985, received 10,000 pounds and opportunities to share their ideas around the world.

The second winner was Mutual Housing, a not-for-profit affordable housing developer in Yolo County in northern California, which built the first permanent year-round homes for seasonal fruit and vegetable pickers.

Tens of thousands of workers are brought in from Central America at harvest time to do low-wage jobs, often living in sub-standard houses in government-funded migrant centers.

“It has been a complete 180 degree turn since we’ve been living here,” said Saul Menses, who moved into one of Mutual Housing’s 62 apartments and houses in Spring Lake, some 60 miles (97 km) northeast of San Francisco, in 2015.

“For five years, we lived in an apartment there that was very cold and in poor condition. My wife had to board the windows up with tape and unclog the sink daily.”

The Spring Lake houses are the United States’ first certified zero-energy rental homes, meaning they consume less energy than they produce, using solar power, efficient lights and drought-resistant landscaping.

Seasonal work also disrupts family life for the estimated 6,000 migrants who come to Yolo County for the harvest, making it difficult for children to stay in one school. The new houses are less than 1 km from a secondary school and other services.

“Seasonal agricultural laborers are one of the most marginalized groups in the USA,” said World Habitat’s Ireland. “Mutual Housing California have managed to help a group not normally reached and proven that you don’t have to be a homeowner or on a high income to embrace green lifestyles.”
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The newest way to bet on bitcoin, the cyptocurrency that has taken Wall Street by storm with its stratospheric price rise and wild daily gyrations, will arrive Sunday when bitcoin futures start trading.

The launch has given an extra kick to the cyptocurrency’s scorching run this year. It has nearly doubled in price since the start of December, but recent days saw sharp moves in both directions, with bitcoin losing almost a fifth of its value Friday after surging more than 40 percent in the previous 48 hours.

But while some market participants are excited about a regulated way to bet on or hedge against moves in bitcoin, others caution that risks remain for investors and possibly even the clearing organizations underpinning the trades.

The futures are cash-settled contracts based on the auction price of bitcoin in U.S. dollars on the Gemini Exchange, owned and operated by virtual currency entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

A regulated bitcoin product

“The pretty sharp rise we have seen in bitcoin in just the last couple of weeks has probably been driven by optimism ahead of the futures launch,” said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab in Austin.

Bitcoin fans appear excited about the prospect of an exchange-listed and regulated product and the ability to bet on its price swings without having to sign up for a digital wallet.

The futures are an alternative to a largely unregulated spot market underpinned by cryptocurrency exchanges that have been plagued by cybersecurity and fraud issues.

“You are going to open up the market to a whole lot of people who aren’t currently in bitcoin,” Frederick said.

Mixed reception in US

The futures launch has so far received a mixed reception from big U.S. banks and brokerages.

Interactive Brokers plans to offer its customers access to the first bitcoin futures when trading goes live, but bars clients from assuming short positions and has margin requirements of at least 50 percent.

Several online brokerages including Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade will not allow the trading of the newly launched futures.

Some of the big U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, will not immediately clear bitcoin trades for clients, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
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Argentina blocked two European activists from entering the country on the eve of the World Trade Organization’s ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, the two told a local radio program Saturday.

Sally Burch, a British activist and journalist for the Latin American Information Agency, said Argentina had already revoked credentials given to her by the WTO to attend the meeting but thought she would be able to enter the country as a tourist.

“They found my name on a list and started asking questions … supposedly I was a false tourist,” Burch said on Radio 10.

“It’s not very democratic of Argentina’s government.”

Petter Titland, spokesman for the Norweigan NGO Attac Norge, said authorities denied him entry without explaining why.

Late last month, Argentina rescinded the credentials of 60 activists who had been accredited by the WTO to attend the meeting because it determined they would be “more disruptive than constructive.”

WTO meetings often attract protests by anti-globalization groups, but they have remained largely peaceful since riots broke out at the 1999 meeting in Seattle.

WTO’s spokesman, Keith Rockwell, reiterated on Saturday that it disagreed with Argentina’s decision to revoke activists’ credentials. “We didn’t have the same perspective but we’re now moving on,” Rockwell told journalists.

Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri has promoted business-friendly policies since taking office in December 2015, and Argentina will host global events as chair of the G-20 group of major economies next year.
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