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A New Silicon Valley Where You’d Least Expect It

Silicon Valley — the U.S. hub of technology– is getting so expensive that tech workers are struggling to get by, and start up companies are questioning whether to locate there. One city thousands of kilometers away is ready to welcome tech companies with an experienced workforce in hopes of becoming the next Silicon Valley. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us to the city and shows us a new tech university that could be replicated anywhere in the world.

US Calls for Efforts to Combat Crime, Corruption, Dictatorship in South America

U.S. officials have called for a concerted effort to fight crime and corruption in South America and stop the erosion of democracy on the continent. At an annual conference on the Americas in Washington on Tuesday, the crisis in Venezuela was high on the agenda as leaders from across the region discussed issues affecting the Western Hemisphere. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports that U.S. officials named corruption and authoritarianism as the biggest threats to the region.

US Calls for Efforts to Combat Crime, Corruption, Dictatorship in South America

U.S. officials have called for a concerted effort to fight crime and corruption in South America and stop the erosion of democracy on the continent. At an annual conference on the Americas in Washington on Tuesday, the crisis in Venezuela was high on the agenda as leaders from across the region discussed issues affecting the Western Hemisphere. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports that U.S. officials named corruption and authoritarianism as the biggest threats to the region.

GOP Outsiders In, and Out, as Primary Season Begins

Republican voters rejected ex-convict Don Blankenship Tuesday in a West Virginia Senate primary in which he sold himself as “Trumpier than Trump” but was vigorously opposed by the president. GOP voters in Indiana, meanwhile, chose wealthy businessman Mike Braun over two sitting congressmen to lead the party’s charge against a vulnerable Democratic senator in the fall.

President Donald Trump and his allies cheered the West Virginia result, which helped avert a potential political disaster for a GOP bracing for major losses in the November midterm elections.

In a possible sign of party unrest, however, Rep. Robert Pittenger lost in North Carolina to the Rev. Mark Harris, a Baptist pastor he narrowly beat two years ago. Pittenger is the first incumbent to lose his seat this primary season.

The day’s slate of early season elections tested the limits of the anti-establishment fervor that has defined the Trump era.

Hopelessly behind in West Virginia, Blankenship conceded defeat in the contest to determine Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s general election challenger. The Republican president fought in the campaign’s final days to defeat Blankenship, a retired coal executive, who remained popular among some West Virginia Republicans despite having served a year in prison for his role in a deadly mine disaster and attacked the Asian heritage of the top Senate Republican’s wife.

State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey claimed the nomination instead, promoting his record of challenging policies of the administration of former President Barack Obama and deflecting criticism of his roots in New Jersey, where he lost a 2000 congressional race.

“Mr. President, if you’re watching right now, let me tell you, your tweet was huge,” Morrisey said in his nomination address, referring to Trump’s election eve call for voters to shun Blankenship’s candidacy. “You’ve been to the state now four times. I’d like you to come back as many times as you can between now and November.”

Key contests

The key Senate contests headlined primary elections across four states on Tuesday that will help shape the political landscape in this fall’s midterm elections. Control of Congress is at stake in addition to state governments across the nation.

In most cases, the Republican candidates on the ballot had competed to be seen as the most conservative, the most anti-Washington and the most loyal to the Republican president.

Indiana

In Indiana, Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly will face off in November against Braun, a multimillionaire owner of a national auto parts distribution business who loaned more than $5.4 million of his own money to his campaign. Braun credited his victory to voter disenchantment with “business as usual” and said he hoped to join other Republican senators who came from outside politics.

Another Indiana contest was less contentious: Greg Pence won the primary for the congressional seat his younger brother, Vice President Mike Pence, once held. Greg Pence is a Marine veteran and owner of two antique malls who once ran the now-bankrupt chain of Tobacco Road convenience stores. He’ll be the favorite to win the seat in November.

Ohio

In Ohio’s high-profile governor’s race, Democrats nominated Obama-era consumer watchdog Richard Cordray while Republicans selected state Attorney General Mike DeWine.

An Ohio state senator won the Republican primary to succeed retiring Rep. Pat Tiberi. The race had become a proxy fight between Tiberi, a GOP moderate, and conservative Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. Tiberi’s candidate, Troy Baldersonof Zanesville pulled out a win.

And on the local level, a woman who accused Trump of sexually harassing her more than a decade ago claimed the Democratic nomination in a race to represent an area southeast of Toledo in the state House of Representatives. Democrat Rachel Crooks, a 35-year-old university administrator, ran unopposed, but must next win a November general election to become the first Trump accuser to hold elected office.

A bright spot for Republicans in swing-state Ohio: GOP turnout was considerably stronger than Democratic voting in the open governor’s race. With nearly two-thirds of the vote counted, 567, 000 Republicans cast votes, to 412,000 Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, with Trump’s support, won the Republican primary to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November.

West Virginia

Yet none of Tuesday’s other contests was expected to have more impact on the midterm landscape than West Virginia, where Blankenship had embraced Trump’s tactics, casting himself as a victim of government persecution and seizing on xenophobia, if not racism, to stand out in a crowded Republican field that included Attorney General Morrisey and Congressman Evan Jenkins.

No matter Tuesday’s winner, Trump’s team was keeping pressure on Manchin. A pro-Trump political action committee America First was airing ads promoting Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee to be CIA director, and urging residents to call Manchin to support her confirmation.

Manchin coasted to the Democratic nomination, but he remains a top Republican target this fall.

Speaking Tuesday night at his Charleston headquarters, he said he expects Trump to get involved in the contest, despite Manchin’s “good relationship” with the president. The Democrat said he would campaign as he always has: a bipartisan problem solver who works “for West Virginians.”

GOP Outsiders In, and Out, as Primary Season Begins

Republican voters rejected ex-convict Don Blankenship Tuesday in a West Virginia Senate primary in which he sold himself as “Trumpier than Trump” but was vigorously opposed by the president. GOP voters in Indiana, meanwhile, chose wealthy businessman Mike Braun over two sitting congressmen to lead the party’s charge against a vulnerable Democratic senator in the fall.

President Donald Trump and his allies cheered the West Virginia result, which helped avert a potential political disaster for a GOP bracing for major losses in the November midterm elections.

In a possible sign of party unrest, however, Rep. Robert Pittenger lost in North Carolina to the Rev. Mark Harris, a Baptist pastor he narrowly beat two years ago. Pittenger is the first incumbent to lose his seat this primary season.

The day’s slate of early season elections tested the limits of the anti-establishment fervor that has defined the Trump era.

Hopelessly behind in West Virginia, Blankenship conceded defeat in the contest to determine Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s general election challenger. The Republican president fought in the campaign’s final days to defeat Blankenship, a retired coal executive, who remained popular among some West Virginia Republicans despite having served a year in prison for his role in a deadly mine disaster and attacked the Asian heritage of the top Senate Republican’s wife.

State Attorney General Patrick Morrisey claimed the nomination instead, promoting his record of challenging policies of the administration of former President Barack Obama and deflecting criticism of his roots in New Jersey, where he lost a 2000 congressional race.

“Mr. President, if you’re watching right now, let me tell you, your tweet was huge,” Morrisey said in his nomination address, referring to Trump’s election eve call for voters to shun Blankenship’s candidacy. “You’ve been to the state now four times. I’d like you to come back as many times as you can between now and November.”

Key contests

The key Senate contests headlined primary elections across four states on Tuesday that will help shape the political landscape in this fall’s midterm elections. Control of Congress is at stake in addition to state governments across the nation.

In most cases, the Republican candidates on the ballot had competed to be seen as the most conservative, the most anti-Washington and the most loyal to the Republican president.

Indiana

In Indiana, Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly will face off in November against Braun, a multimillionaire owner of a national auto parts distribution business who loaned more than $5.4 million of his own money to his campaign. Braun credited his victory to voter disenchantment with “business as usual” and said he hoped to join other Republican senators who came from outside politics.

Another Indiana contest was less contentious: Greg Pence won the primary for the congressional seat his younger brother, Vice President Mike Pence, once held. Greg Pence is a Marine veteran and owner of two antique malls who once ran the now-bankrupt chain of Tobacco Road convenience stores. He’ll be the favorite to win the seat in November.

Ohio

In Ohio’s high-profile governor’s race, Democrats nominated Obama-era consumer watchdog Richard Cordray while Republicans selected state Attorney General Mike DeWine.

An Ohio state senator won the Republican primary to succeed retiring Rep. Pat Tiberi. The race had become a proxy fight between Tiberi, a GOP moderate, and conservative Republican Rep. Jim Jordan. Tiberi’s candidate, Troy Baldersonof Zanesville pulled out a win.

And on the local level, a woman who accused Trump of sexually harassing her more than a decade ago claimed the Democratic nomination in a race to represent an area southeast of Toledo in the state House of Representatives. Democrat Rachel Crooks, a 35-year-old university administrator, ran unopposed, but must next win a November general election to become the first Trump accuser to hold elected office.

A bright spot for Republicans in swing-state Ohio: GOP turnout was considerably stronger than Democratic voting in the open governor’s race. With nearly two-thirds of the vote counted, 567, 000 Republicans cast votes, to 412,000 Democrats.

U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, with Trump’s support, won the Republican primary to challenge Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November.

West Virginia

Yet none of Tuesday’s other contests was expected to have more impact on the midterm landscape than West Virginia, where Blankenship had embraced Trump’s tactics, casting himself as a victim of government persecution and seizing on xenophobia, if not racism, to stand out in a crowded Republican field that included Attorney General Morrisey and Congressman Evan Jenkins.

No matter Tuesday’s winner, Trump’s team was keeping pressure on Manchin. A pro-Trump political action committee America First was airing ads promoting Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee to be CIA director, and urging residents to call Manchin to support her confirmation.

Manchin coasted to the Democratic nomination, but he remains a top Republican target this fall.

Speaking Tuesday night at his Charleston headquarters, he said he expects Trump to get involved in the contest, despite Manchin’s “good relationship” with the president. The Democrat said he would campaign as he always has: a bipartisan problem solver who works “for West Virginians.”

US Trade Embargo Has Cost Cuba $130B, UN says

A United Nations agency said on Tuesday an “unjust” U.S. financial and trade embargo on Cuba had cost the country’s economy $130 billion over nearly six decades, coming up with the same estimate as the island’s communist government.

Although many U.S. allies join Washington in criticizing Cuba’s one-party system and repression of political opponents, the United States has lost nearly all international support for the embargo since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The U.N. has adopted a non-binding resolution calling for an end to the embargo with overwhelming support every year since 1992. In a report ahead of the vote last year, Cuba estimated total damage from the embargo at $130 billion.

“This country which welcomes us today .. is testing its own ways to face the brutal human costs that it has sustained during an unjust blockade,” the head of the U.N.’s regional economic body for Latin America, ECLAC, Alicia Barcena told its biennial meeting in Havana on Tuesday.

“We evaluate it every year as an economic commission and we know that this blockade costs the Cuban people more than $130 billion at current prices and has left an indelible mark on its economic structure,” she said, without detailing how the organization came to that estimate.

After agreeing to a historic U.S.-Cuban detente in 2014, former U.S. President Barack Obama eased the embargo, which was fully put into place in 1962. But U.S. President Donald Trump last year tightened travel and trade restrictions again. Only the U.S. Congress can lift it in full.

“Despite the difficulties the Cuban economy is faced with, particularly due to the intensification of the blockade imposed on Cuba… we will continue to focus on the development goals set,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in his opening remarks at the meeting, attended also by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Cuba’s Soviet-style, centralized economy has grown just 2.4 percent on average per year over the past decade, official statistics show, much less than the 7 percent annual expansion the government has estimated it needs in order to develop.

Cuba hoped market reforms introduced in the last decade would boost growth, but they have so far borne mixed results.

The ruling Communist Party earlier this year admitted implementation had been harder than expected.

ECLAC will support Cuba’s reform program, Barcena said.

US Trade Embargo Has Cost Cuba $130B, UN says

A United Nations agency said on Tuesday an “unjust” U.S. financial and trade embargo on Cuba had cost the country’s economy $130 billion over nearly six decades, coming up with the same estimate as the island’s communist government.

Although many U.S. allies join Washington in criticizing Cuba’s one-party system and repression of political opponents, the United States has lost nearly all international support for the embargo since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The U.N. has adopted a non-binding resolution calling for an end to the embargo with overwhelming support every year since 1992. In a report ahead of the vote last year, Cuba estimated total damage from the embargo at $130 billion.

“This country which welcomes us today .. is testing its own ways to face the brutal human costs that it has sustained during an unjust blockade,” the head of the U.N.’s regional economic body for Latin America, ECLAC, Alicia Barcena told its biennial meeting in Havana on Tuesday.

“We evaluate it every year as an economic commission and we know that this blockade costs the Cuban people more than $130 billion at current prices and has left an indelible mark on its economic structure,” she said, without detailing how the organization came to that estimate.

After agreeing to a historic U.S.-Cuban detente in 2014, former U.S. President Barack Obama eased the embargo, which was fully put into place in 1962. But U.S. President Donald Trump last year tightened travel and trade restrictions again. Only the U.S. Congress can lift it in full.

“Despite the difficulties the Cuban economy is faced with, particularly due to the intensification of the blockade imposed on Cuba… we will continue to focus on the development goals set,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in his opening remarks at the meeting, attended also by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Cuba’s Soviet-style, centralized economy has grown just 2.4 percent on average per year over the past decade, official statistics show, much less than the 7 percent annual expansion the government has estimated it needs in order to develop.

Cuba hoped market reforms introduced in the last decade would boost growth, but they have so far borne mixed results.

The ruling Communist Party earlier this year admitted implementation had been harder than expected.

ECLAC will support Cuba’s reform program, Barcena said.

Porn Star’s Lawyer Says Russian Paid Trump Attorney Cohen

Stormy Daniels’ lawyer said Tuesday he has information showing that Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, received $500,000 from a company associated with a Russian billionaire within months of paying hush money to Daniels, a porn star who claims she had an affair with Trump.

Lawyer Michael Avenatti also said hundreds of thousands of dollars streamed into Cohen’s account from companies including Novartis, AT&T and Korea Aerospace. AT&T confirmed its connection Tuesday evening.

Avenatti did not provide documents to support the claims and did not reveal the source of his information.

But in a seven-page memo he detailed what he said were wire transfers going into and out of the account Cohen used to pay Daniels $130,000 in October 2016 to stay silent about her alleged affair with the soon-to-be president. Trump denies having an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

The memo, containing highly specific dates and amounts, stated that Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire, and his cousin “routed” eight payments totaling approximately $500,000 to Cohen’s company, Essential Consultants, between January and August 2017. The reason for the payment was not known.

Speculating without offering proof, the Avenatti memo said, “It appears these funds may have replenished the account following the payment to Ms. Clifford.”

Avenatti’s memo said the deposits into the account controlled by Cohen were made by Columbus Nova, an American investment company affiliated with the Renova Group, which is controlled by Russian billionaire Victor Vekselberg. 

Columbus Nova’s attorney Richard Owens said in a statement that, after Trump’s inauguration, the firm hired Cohen as a business consultant “regarding potential sources of capital and potential investments in real estate and other ventures,” but that it had nothing to do with Vekselberg.

Owens said any suggestion that Vekselberg used Columbus Nova as a conduit for payments to Cohen are false.

“Neither Viktor Vekselberg nor anyone else, other than Columbus Nova’s owners, were involved in the decision to hire Cohen or provided funding for his engagement,” he said.

Cohen and his attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

At the time of the payments, there was an active FBI counterintelligence investigation – which special counsel Robert Mueller took over last May – into Russian election interference and any possible coordination with Trump associates.

Vekselberg was targeted for U.S. sanctions by the Trump administration last month. He built his fortune, currently estimated by Forbes at $14.6 billion, by investing in the aluminum and oil industries. More recently, he has expanded his assets to include industrial equipment and high technology.

Offering confirmation for at least one of the payments, AT&T said in a statement that Essential Consultants was one of several firms it “engaged in early 2017 to provide insights into understanding the new administration.”

“They did no legal or lobbying work for us, and the contract ended in December 2017,” the company said.

Such a confidential relationship would not violate federal lobbying laws if Cohen did not seek to influence Trump on the companies’ behalf. But hiring the president’s personal attorney for advice on how to woo Trump would be highly unusual, especially given that Cohen was never formally involved in the campaign or Trump’s administration.

Making the arrangement even stranger, the blue-chip companies’ payments to Cohen were routed to Essential Consultants LLC – the same company Cohen used to buy Stormy Daniels’ silence about her alleged affair with the President.

Novartis and Korea Aerospace did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Trump to Allow Year-Round Sales of High-Ethanol Gas

President Donald Trump will allow year-round sales of renewable fuel with blends of 15 percent ethanol as part of an emerging deal to make changes to the federal ethanol mandate.

 

Republican senators and the White House announced the deal Tuesday after a closed-door meeting, the latest in a series of White House sessions on ethanol.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency currently bans the 15-percent blend, called E15, during the summer because of concerns that it contributes to smog on hot days. Gasoline typically contains 10 percent ethanol. Farm-state lawmakers have pushed for greater sales of the higher ethanol blend to boost demand for the corn-based fuel.

 

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley called the agreement good news for farmers and drivers alike, saying it would increase ethanol production and consumer choice at the pump.

 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the deal will save the jobs of thousands of blue-collar workers at refineries in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states.

 

“Terrific final decision from @POTUS meeting,” Cruz tweeted. “This is a WIN-WIN for everyone.”

 

The decision allowing E15 to be sold year-round will provide “relief to refiners” and “protect our hardworking farmers and refinery workers,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. “The president is satisfied with the attention and care that all parties devoted to this issue.”

 

Trump met Tuesday with Grassley, Cruz, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, as well as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

 

The EPA oversees the decade-old Renewable Fuel Standard, commonly known as the ethanol mandate, which sets out how much corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels refiners must blend into gasoline. The program’s intent was to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster the rural economy by requiring a steady increase in renewable fuels over time.

 

The mandate has not worked as intended, and production levels of renewable fuels, mostly ethanol, routinely fail to reach minimum thresholds set in law.

 

Environmental groups criticized the deal, saying it would worsen air pollution during summer months.

 

“Waiving clean-air standards at the behest of one favored industry would not only set a precedent for bad policy, it could cost lives,” a coalition of environmental groups said in a statement.

 

Ernst said allowing year-round sale of E15 “will drive up domestic ethanol production and consumption” while helping to “maintain already low prices” for fuel credits that oil refiners must buy if they can’t blend ethanol into their fuels.

 

She and Grassley also said they were encouraged that the Trump administration will take a closer look at “hardship” waivers that have been granted to small refineries, a practice they say has hurt biofuels and undermined the RFS.

 

The EPA has reportedly granted a waiver to a refinery owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, a former Trump adviser, as well as other small refineries. The agency has not disclosed which refineries received the waivers, saying it did not want to reveal private business information.

 

Cruz said the president also agreed to consider his proposal to include fuel credits for ethanol that is produced domestically and exported. The proposal is meant to make it easier for the industry to meet annual sales volumes required under the renewable-fuel mandate.

 

“This is good for farmers, refiners and America,” Cruz said in a statement.

 

But the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry group, said allowing exports to qualify for RFS compliance could dramatically reduce domestic demand and result in retaliatory trade barriers from countries that import U.S. ethanol.

 

The group’s president, Bob Dinneen, called the export idea a “disgrace” and said ethanol producers and farmers would bear the brunt of any retaliatory tariffs.

Trump to Allow Year-Round Sales of High-Ethanol Gas

President Donald Trump will allow year-round sales of renewable fuel with blends of 15 percent ethanol as part of an emerging deal to make changes to the federal ethanol mandate.

 

Republican senators and the White House announced the deal Tuesday after a closed-door meeting, the latest in a series of White House sessions on ethanol.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency currently bans the 15-percent blend, called E15, during the summer because of concerns that it contributes to smog on hot days. Gasoline typically contains 10 percent ethanol. Farm-state lawmakers have pushed for greater sales of the higher ethanol blend to boost demand for the corn-based fuel.

 

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley called the agreement good news for farmers and drivers alike, saying it would increase ethanol production and consumer choice at the pump.

 

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the deal will save the jobs of thousands of blue-collar workers at refineries in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states.

 

“Terrific final decision from @POTUS meeting,” Cruz tweeted. “This is a WIN-WIN for everyone.”

 

The decision allowing E15 to be sold year-round will provide “relief to refiners” and “protect our hardworking farmers and refinery workers,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. “The president is satisfied with the attention and care that all parties devoted to this issue.”

 

Trump met Tuesday with Grassley, Cruz, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, as well as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

 

The EPA oversees the decade-old Renewable Fuel Standard, commonly known as the ethanol mandate, which sets out how much corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels refiners must blend into gasoline. The program’s intent was to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster the rural economy by requiring a steady increase in renewable fuels over time.

 

The mandate has not worked as intended, and production levels of renewable fuels, mostly ethanol, routinely fail to reach minimum thresholds set in law.

 

Environmental groups criticized the deal, saying it would worsen air pollution during summer months.

 

“Waiving clean-air standards at the behest of one favored industry would not only set a precedent for bad policy, it could cost lives,” a coalition of environmental groups said in a statement.

 

Ernst said allowing year-round sale of E15 “will drive up domestic ethanol production and consumption” while helping to “maintain already low prices” for fuel credits that oil refiners must buy if they can’t blend ethanol into their fuels.

 

She and Grassley also said they were encouraged that the Trump administration will take a closer look at “hardship” waivers that have been granted to small refineries, a practice they say has hurt biofuels and undermined the RFS.

 

The EPA has reportedly granted a waiver to a refinery owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, a former Trump adviser, as well as other small refineries. The agency has not disclosed which refineries received the waivers, saying it did not want to reveal private business information.

 

Cruz said the president also agreed to consider his proposal to include fuel credits for ethanol that is produced domestically and exported. The proposal is meant to make it easier for the industry to meet annual sales volumes required under the renewable-fuel mandate.

 

“This is good for farmers, refiners and America,” Cruz said in a statement.

 

But the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry group, said allowing exports to qualify for RFS compliance could dramatically reduce domestic demand and result in retaliatory trade barriers from countries that import U.S. ethanol.

 

The group’s president, Bob Dinneen, called the export idea a “disgrace” and said ethanol producers and farmers would bear the brunt of any retaliatory tariffs.

China Cuts US Soybean Purchases

With the threat of tariffs and counter-tariffs between Washington and Beijing looming, Chinese buyers are canceling orders for U.S. soybeans, a trend that could deal a blow to American farmers if it continues.

At the same time, farmers in China are being encouraged to plant more soy, apparently to help make up for any shortfall from the United States.

 

Beijing has included soybeans on a list of $50 billion of U.S. exports on which it has said it would impose 25 percent tariffs if the United States follows through on its threats to impose the same level of tariffs on the same value of Chinese goods. The U.S. tariffs could kick in later this month; China would likely retaliate soon after.

It can take a month or longer for soybean shipments to travel from the U.S. to China. Any soybeans en route to China now could be hit by the tariff by the time they arrive.

“The Chinese aren’t willing to buy US soybeans with a 25 percent tax hanging over their head,” said Dan Basse, president of AgResource, an agricultural research and advisory firm. “You just don’t want the risk.”

China typically buys most of its soybeans from South American nations such as Brazil and Argentina during spring and early summer. It shifts to U.S. soybeans in the fall. As a result, for now, the cutbacks from the United States are relatively small.

But should they persist, it could cause real pain to U.S. farmers. Roughly 60 percent of U.S. soybeans are shipped to China.

There might also be a political impact: Three of the top five soybean-exporting states — Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska — voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.

Illinois, the top soybean exporter, and Minnesota, the third-largest, backed Hillary Clinton.

Basse said that it has been roughly three weeks since China has made any major soybean purchases, an unusually long delay.

Some Chinese buyers might be showing support for their government in the trade dispute by turning away U.S. soybeans, Basse said. The dispute may also make it seem too risky to buy from the United States over the long run.

“The United States could lose the reliable supplier label that we’ve had these many years,” Basse said.

Data from the U.S. government data show that sales of soybeans have fallen from about 255,000 metric tons in the first week of April, when the trade dispute began, to just 7,900 in the week that ended April 26.

Cancellations have also jumped, to more than 140,000 metric tons in the week ending April 26. In the same week last year, there were no canceled sales at all.

Some analysts argue that the shifts aren’t yet particularly significant. China buys most of its soybeans from the United States in the late summer and fall, and then switches to South American sources, mainly Brazil and Argentina, in the spring. So the current market activity doesn’t necessarily reflect the pattern that would occur during the main buying season.

“These numbers we’re talking about are pretty minor,” said John Baize, an economist for the U.S. Soybean Export Council.

The U.S. ships about 35 million metric tons of soybeans to China a year, Baize said. China usually imports about 100 million tons a year and can’t import enough from other countries, he said, to abandon the United States as a source.

“Where’s China going to buy its beans?” Baize asked.

That may be true in the short run. But Basse suggests that Brazil has enough land that could be used for soybean cultivation that it could soon mostly replace the United States as a supplier to China.

And if the Chinese market were to be closed to U.S. farmers, they might be able to sell some portion of their soybeans to other markets. Baize said that huge multinational companies, such as Cargill and ADM, might, for example, sell more U.S. soybeans to Europe, where they wouldn’t face any tariffs, though this likely wouldn’t make up for the loss of the Chinese market.

At the same time, China is looking more to its own farmers. Since China announced its potential tariffs on U.S. soy in April, the government has encouraged farmers to cultivate more soybeans. Beginning this month, Chinese farmers say, Beijing reduced corn subsidies and raised annual soybean subsidies from 2550 yuan ($400) per hectare to 3000 yuan ($470) or more per hectare in major soybean-producing provinces in northeast China.

An adjustment had already been planned to help draw down China’s substantial corn stockpiles, so the change wasn’t necessarily aimed at U.S. soy growers, analysts say.

But the subsidy adjustment did come with political undertones. Officials in major soybean-producing provinces were describing the promotion of local soybeans as “the most important political task in agricultural production at present.” Heilongjiang in northeast China announced a pilot project to plant soybeans on over 100,000 new hectares, with an extra 2,250 yuan ($353) subsidy per hectare.

The moves are prompting farmers like Liu Cong to focus more on growing soy. Liu says he used most of his land to grow corn last year but this year is planting more soybeans.

“This is encouraging for farmers,” he said in a phone interview. “We’re more motivated.”

Zhang Xiaoping, China director for the U.S. Soybean Export Council, says that Chinese buyers have been canceling soybean purchases of last year’s U.S. soybean harvest because of the threat of tariffs.

“The buyers literally stopped buying from the U.S.,” Zhang said. “Exporters cannot find any buyers in China.”

China Cuts US Soybean Purchases

With the threat of tariffs and counter-tariffs between Washington and Beijing looming, Chinese buyers are canceling orders for U.S. soybeans, a trend that could deal a blow to American farmers if it continues.

At the same time, farmers in China are being encouraged to plant more soy, apparently to help make up for any shortfall from the United States.

 

Beijing has included soybeans on a list of $50 billion of U.S. exports on which it has said it would impose 25 percent tariffs if the United States follows through on its threats to impose the same level of tariffs on the same value of Chinese goods. The U.S. tariffs could kick in later this month; China would likely retaliate soon after.

It can take a month or longer for soybean shipments to travel from the U.S. to China. Any soybeans en route to China now could be hit by the tariff by the time they arrive.

“The Chinese aren’t willing to buy US soybeans with a 25 percent tax hanging over their head,” said Dan Basse, president of AgResource, an agricultural research and advisory firm. “You just don’t want the risk.”

China typically buys most of its soybeans from South American nations such as Brazil and Argentina during spring and early summer. It shifts to U.S. soybeans in the fall. As a result, for now, the cutbacks from the United States are relatively small.

But should they persist, it could cause real pain to U.S. farmers. Roughly 60 percent of U.S. soybeans are shipped to China.

There might also be a political impact: Three of the top five soybean-exporting states — Iowa, Indiana and Nebraska — voted for President Donald Trump in 2016.

Illinois, the top soybean exporter, and Minnesota, the third-largest, backed Hillary Clinton.

Basse said that it has been roughly three weeks since China has made any major soybean purchases, an unusually long delay.

Some Chinese buyers might be showing support for their government in the trade dispute by turning away U.S. soybeans, Basse said. The dispute may also make it seem too risky to buy from the United States over the long run.

“The United States could lose the reliable supplier label that we’ve had these many years,” Basse said.

Data from the U.S. government data show that sales of soybeans have fallen from about 255,000 metric tons in the first week of April, when the trade dispute began, to just 7,900 in the week that ended April 26.

Cancellations have also jumped, to more than 140,000 metric tons in the week ending April 26. In the same week last year, there were no canceled sales at all.

Some analysts argue that the shifts aren’t yet particularly significant. China buys most of its soybeans from the United States in the late summer and fall, and then switches to South American sources, mainly Brazil and Argentina, in the spring. So the current market activity doesn’t necessarily reflect the pattern that would occur during the main buying season.

“These numbers we’re talking about are pretty minor,” said John Baize, an economist for the U.S. Soybean Export Council.

The U.S. ships about 35 million metric tons of soybeans to China a year, Baize said. China usually imports about 100 million tons a year and can’t import enough from other countries, he said, to abandon the United States as a source.

“Where’s China going to buy its beans?” Baize asked.

That may be true in the short run. But Basse suggests that Brazil has enough land that could be used for soybean cultivation that it could soon mostly replace the United States as a supplier to China.

And if the Chinese market were to be closed to U.S. farmers, they might be able to sell some portion of their soybeans to other markets. Baize said that huge multinational companies, such as Cargill and ADM, might, for example, sell more U.S. soybeans to Europe, where they wouldn’t face any tariffs, though this likely wouldn’t make up for the loss of the Chinese market.

At the same time, China is looking more to its own farmers. Since China announced its potential tariffs on U.S. soy in April, the government has encouraged farmers to cultivate more soybeans. Beginning this month, Chinese farmers say, Beijing reduced corn subsidies and raised annual soybean subsidies from 2550 yuan ($400) per hectare to 3000 yuan ($470) or more per hectare in major soybean-producing provinces in northeast China.

An adjustment had already been planned to help draw down China’s substantial corn stockpiles, so the change wasn’t necessarily aimed at U.S. soy growers, analysts say.

But the subsidy adjustment did come with political undertones. Officials in major soybean-producing provinces were describing the promotion of local soybeans as “the most important political task in agricultural production at present.” Heilongjiang in northeast China announced a pilot project to plant soybeans on over 100,000 new hectares, with an extra 2,250 yuan ($353) subsidy per hectare.

The moves are prompting farmers like Liu Cong to focus more on growing soy. Liu says he used most of his land to grow corn last year but this year is planting more soybeans.

“This is encouraging for farmers,” he said in a phone interview. “We’re more motivated.”

Zhang Xiaoping, China director for the U.S. Soybean Export Council, says that Chinese buyers have been canceling soybean purchases of last year’s U.S. soybean harvest because of the threat of tariffs.

“The buyers literally stopped buying from the U.S.,” Zhang said. “Exporters cannot find any buyers in China.”

US Lawmakers’ Help Sought on Use of Encrypting Apps

A digital rights organization has asked congressional leaders for help in persuading Google and Amazon to support a technology that people in authoritarian countries use to get around censorship controls worldwide.

In a letter sent this week, Access Now, which is based in New York, sought to put pressure on Google and Amazon, which decided recently to close a loophole that allowed some encrypted-communication apps to assume a disguise as messages moved through the internet.

Access Now asked for help from leaders of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, the House and Senate commerce committees and the Congressional Executive Committee on China.

At issue is the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between governments, such as Russia, Iran and China, and those who use internet and messaging technologies, like Telegram and Signal, to communicate outside censors’ oversight.

In this case, encrypted-messaging apps have been using a digital disguise known as “domain fronting.” Some of these technologies have received financial support from the Open Technology Fund, a U.S. government program funded by Radio Free Asia and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency that oversees Voice of America.

Disguising final destination

As an encrypted message moves through networks, it appears to be going to an innocuous destination, such as google.com, by routing through a Google server, rather than its true destination.

If a government acts against the domain google.com, it conceivably shuts down access to all services offered by the internet giant for everyone in the country. The gamble is that governments wouldn’t want to cut off residents’ access to large swaths of the internet just to block a specific communication.

Russia did just that in mid-April when it sought to crack down on Telegram.

But it’s not just dissidents and religious or human rights activists who are using these apps. Hackers can also use this disguise to mask malware, according to ZDNet.

In recent weeks, first Google and then Amazon Web Services said they would close the loopholes that allowed apps to use the disguise.

“No customer ever wants to find that someone else is masquerading as their innocent, ordinary domain,” said Amazon in a news release announcing better domain protections.

“Domain fronting has never been a supported feature at Google,” a Google representative said. “But until recently it worked because of a quirk of our software stack. We’re constantly evolving our network, and as part of a planned software update, domain fronting no longer works. We don’t have any plans to offer it as a feature.”

Matthew Rosenfield, who helped develop the Signal technology, said that “the idea behind domain fronting was that to block a single site, you’d have to block the rest of the internet as well. In the end, the rest of the internet didn’t like that plan.”

Amazon sent Signal an email telling it that its use of circumvention was against Amazon’s terms of service. In Middle East countries, such as Egypt, Oman and Qatar, Signal disguised itself as Souq.com, Amazon’s Arabic e-commerce platform.

Letter to Congress

In its letter to Congress, Access Now wrote that “until this change by Amazon and Google, domain fronting was the most effective and most widely used method of enabling free speech, free association and freedom online in countries that aggressively filter and monitor internet access.”

“The end of domain fronting will not permanently impede progress toward our shared goal of global internet freedom, but it will set it back, and the adverse effects will be felt most direly by those already experiencing repressive censorship and surveillance,” the letter said.

US Lawmakers’ Help Sought on Use of Encrypting Apps

A digital rights organization has asked congressional leaders for help in persuading Google and Amazon to support a technology that people in authoritarian countries use to get around censorship controls worldwide.

In a letter sent this week, Access Now, which is based in New York, sought to put pressure on Google and Amazon, which decided recently to close a loophole that allowed some encrypted-communication apps to assume a disguise as messages moved through the internet.

Access Now asked for help from leaders of the House and Senate foreign affairs committees, the House and Senate commerce committees and the Congressional Executive Committee on China.

At issue is the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between governments, such as Russia, Iran and China, and those who use internet and messaging technologies, like Telegram and Signal, to communicate outside censors’ oversight.

In this case, encrypted-messaging apps have been using a digital disguise known as “domain fronting.” Some of these technologies have received financial support from the Open Technology Fund, a U.S. government program funded by Radio Free Asia and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency that oversees Voice of America.

Disguising final destination

As an encrypted message moves through networks, it appears to be going to an innocuous destination, such as google.com, by routing through a Google server, rather than its true destination.

If a government acts against the domain google.com, it conceivably shuts down access to all services offered by the internet giant for everyone in the country. The gamble is that governments wouldn’t want to cut off residents’ access to large swaths of the internet just to block a specific communication.

Russia did just that in mid-April when it sought to crack down on Telegram.

But it’s not just dissidents and religious or human rights activists who are using these apps. Hackers can also use this disguise to mask malware, according to ZDNet.

In recent weeks, first Google and then Amazon Web Services said they would close the loopholes that allowed apps to use the disguise.

“No customer ever wants to find that someone else is masquerading as their innocent, ordinary domain,” said Amazon in a news release announcing better domain protections.

“Domain fronting has never been a supported feature at Google,” a Google representative said. “But until recently it worked because of a quirk of our software stack. We’re constantly evolving our network, and as part of a planned software update, domain fronting no longer works. We don’t have any plans to offer it as a feature.”

Matthew Rosenfield, who helped develop the Signal technology, said that “the idea behind domain fronting was that to block a single site, you’d have to block the rest of the internet as well. In the end, the rest of the internet didn’t like that plan.”

Amazon sent Signal an email telling it that its use of circumvention was against Amazon’s terms of service. In Middle East countries, such as Egypt, Oman and Qatar, Signal disguised itself as Souq.com, Amazon’s Arabic e-commerce platform.

Letter to Congress

In its letter to Congress, Access Now wrote that “until this change by Amazon and Google, domain fronting was the most effective and most widely used method of enabling free speech, free association and freedom online in countries that aggressively filter and monitor internet access.”

“The end of domain fronting will not permanently impede progress toward our shared goal of global internet freedom, but it will set it back, and the adverse effects will be felt most direly by those already experiencing repressive censorship and surveillance,” the letter said.

Can Shutting Down Online Hate Sites Curb Violence?

GoDaddy has pulled the plug on another online peddler of violence.

The popular internet registration service last week shut down altright.com, a website created by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and popular with many in the so-called alt-right movement.

The takedown is the latest example of how companies like GoDaddy are increasingly responding to growing public pressure to clamp down on violent sites in the wake of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer.

GoDaddy, which registers domains for more than 75 million websites around the world, said it generally does not delist sites that promote hate, racism and bigotry on the ground that such content is protected as free speech.

But it said altright.com had “crossed the line and encouraged and promoted violence in a direct and threatening manner.”

“In instances where a site goes beyond the mere exercise of these freedoms, however, and crosses over to promoting, encouraging or otherwise engaging in specific acts of violence against any person, we will take action,” GoDaddy said in a statement emailed to VOA.

The company would not say whether it canceled altright.com’s domain registration in response to pressure but it stressed that “we take all complaints about content on websites very seriously, and have a team dedicated to investigate each complaint.”

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based civil rights organization, said it filed such a complaint with GoDaddy last month, citing several instances in which altright.com carried content that advocated violence.

In one example, a January 26, 2018, article encouraged “use of live ammunition at the border, in order to create a substantial chance that they [immigrants crossing the border] lose their life in the process,” according to the organization’s complaint.

Kristen Clarke, the group’s president and executive director, said the shutdown of altright.com was part of her organization’s campaign to combat a recent “hate crime crisis” in the United States.

“We know that so much hate that we see today originates online,” Clarke said. “It originates in dangerous platforms and online hubs that provide a space to people to essentially coordinate violence and incite people to violence.”

There is no tally of sites that promote violence on the internet. But Clarke said there are “too many” and that her organization is in talks with domain and web hosting companies to shut down close to a dozen of them. She declined to name the websites.

“We’re focused on some of the biggest platforms and places where we’re seeing some of the most dangerous and violent activity,” she said. “We’ll see if those efforts bear fruit.”

Spencer denounced the closure of his website.

“The Left will not stop their censorship crusade with the Alt-Right,” Spencer tweeted on Thursday. “They’re going to come for every right-wing website. Free speech will cease to exist if the GOP fails to enact legislation.”

Altright.com’s takedown comes as public scrutiny of hate sites has grown and internet intermediaries have started to strictly enforce their terms of service and acceptable use policies in the wake of the Charlottesville rally.

Prior to the rally, tech companies had largely left it to users to police online content. But after the march, social media and payment processing companies took steps to close the accounts of several white nationalist leaders, and hosting companies shut down websites associated with the movement such as The Daily Stormer and Stormfront.

“They did know that they had very hateful groups using their services but there didn’t seem to be either political or public pressure to get rid of them,” said Natasha Tusikov, a criminology professor at York University in Toronto.

After Charlottesville, “we saw a number of them suddenly become more pressured publicly and politically.”

Amid growing public pressure, she said, “I think we’re going to see more of these cases.”

But shuttering entire websites is not likely to eliminate violence-mongering online. For one, there is no dearth of small services that would host sites banished by others. Indeed, while The Daily Stormer and Stormfront were forced by their closure to hop from host to host for several months, they eventually found a home. Altright.com is likely to similarly resurface.

The crackdown can also push some websites underground into the dark web — content on networks that use the internet but require specific authorization to access — making it difficult to track them and find out “who their members are and what they’re doing,” Tusikov said. 

Tusikov said that what she finds even more problematic is the way in which these sites are shut down. Internet intermediaries such as GoDaddy give themselves “considerable” latitude to close websites for any number of reasons. 

“A lot of us would agree that any kind of hateful violent speech should be removed,” she said. “The question is in murkier areas, when it gets to other types of perhaps controversial speech but lawful speech.”

In the U.S. and other countries with a strong free-speech tradition, governments have largely shied away from regulating online content, leaving it to internet intermediaries to assume the role. But Tusikov said internet intermediaries are ill-equipped to distinguish between legal and illegal content. 

Instead, she said, policymakers should institute regulations such as the Manila Principles, a set of standards adopted by civil society groups and digital rights advocates in 2015. Among other things, the Manila Principles require that content restriction policies must “follow due process” and “comply with the tests of necessity and proportionality.” 

“So if you have one problem with one element of copyright infringement, you shouldn’t take the entire site down,” Tusikov said. “You should deal with that one problem.” 

Can Shutting Down Online Hate Sites Curb Violence?

GoDaddy has pulled the plug on another online peddler of violence.

The popular internet registration service last week shut down altright.com, a website created by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and popular with many in the so-called alt-right movement.

The takedown is the latest example of how companies like GoDaddy are increasingly responding to growing public pressure to clamp down on violent sites in the wake of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer.

GoDaddy, which registers domains for more than 75 million websites around the world, said it generally does not delist sites that promote hate, racism and bigotry on the ground that such content is protected as free speech.

But it said altright.com had “crossed the line and encouraged and promoted violence in a direct and threatening manner.”

“In instances where a site goes beyond the mere exercise of these freedoms, however, and crosses over to promoting, encouraging or otherwise engaging in specific acts of violence against any person, we will take action,” GoDaddy said in a statement emailed to VOA.

The company would not say whether it canceled altright.com’s domain registration in response to pressure but it stressed that “we take all complaints about content on websites very seriously, and have a team dedicated to investigate each complaint.”

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a Washington-based civil rights organization, said it filed such a complaint with GoDaddy last month, citing several instances in which altright.com carried content that advocated violence.

In one example, a January 26, 2018, article encouraged “use of live ammunition at the border, in order to create a substantial chance that they [immigrants crossing the border] lose their life in the process,” according to the organization’s complaint.

Kristen Clarke, the group’s president and executive director, said the shutdown of altright.com was part of her organization’s campaign to combat a recent “hate crime crisis” in the United States.

“We know that so much hate that we see today originates online,” Clarke said. “It originates in dangerous platforms and online hubs that provide a space to people to essentially coordinate violence and incite people to violence.”

There is no tally of sites that promote violence on the internet. But Clarke said there are “too many” and that her organization is in talks with domain and web hosting companies to shut down close to a dozen of them. She declined to name the websites.

“We’re focused on some of the biggest platforms and places where we’re seeing some of the most dangerous and violent activity,” she said. “We’ll see if those efforts bear fruit.”

Spencer denounced the closure of his website.

“The Left will not stop their censorship crusade with the Alt-Right,” Spencer tweeted on Thursday. “They’re going to come for every right-wing website. Free speech will cease to exist if the GOP fails to enact legislation.”

Altright.com’s takedown comes as public scrutiny of hate sites has grown and internet intermediaries have started to strictly enforce their terms of service and acceptable use policies in the wake of the Charlottesville rally.

Prior to the rally, tech companies had largely left it to users to police online content. But after the march, social media and payment processing companies took steps to close the accounts of several white nationalist leaders, and hosting companies shut down websites associated with the movement such as The Daily Stormer and Stormfront.

“They did know that they had very hateful groups using their services but there didn’t seem to be either political or public pressure to get rid of them,” said Natasha Tusikov, a criminology professor at York University in Toronto.

After Charlottesville, “we saw a number of them suddenly become more pressured publicly and politically.”

Amid growing public pressure, she said, “I think we’re going to see more of these cases.”

But shuttering entire websites is not likely to eliminate violence-mongering online. For one, there is no dearth of small services that would host sites banished by others. Indeed, while The Daily Stormer and Stormfront were forced by their closure to hop from host to host for several months, they eventually found a home. Altright.com is likely to similarly resurface.

The crackdown can also push some websites underground into the dark web — content on networks that use the internet but require specific authorization to access — making it difficult to track them and find out “who their members are and what they’re doing,” Tusikov said. 

Tusikov said that what she finds even more problematic is the way in which these sites are shut down. Internet intermediaries such as GoDaddy give themselves “considerable” latitude to close websites for any number of reasons. 

“A lot of us would agree that any kind of hateful violent speech should be removed,” she said. “The question is in murkier areas, when it gets to other types of perhaps controversial speech but lawful speech.”

In the U.S. and other countries with a strong free-speech tradition, governments have largely shied away from regulating online content, leaving it to internet intermediaries to assume the role. But Tusikov said internet intermediaries are ill-equipped to distinguish between legal and illegal content. 

Instead, she said, policymakers should institute regulations such as the Manila Principles, a set of standards adopted by civil society groups and digital rights advocates in 2015. Among other things, the Manila Principles require that content restriction policies must “follow due process” and “comply with the tests of necessity and proportionality.” 

“So if you have one problem with one element of copyright infringement, you shouldn’t take the entire site down,” Tusikov said. “You should deal with that one problem.” 

Uber, US Army To Test Quiet Aircraft Technology

Uber Technologies said Tuesday that it would work with the U.S. Army to advance research on a novel, quiet aircraft rotor technology that could be used in future flying cars, or military aircraft.

The alliance highlights stepped-up efforts by Uber and other companies to transform flying cars from a science fiction concept to real hardware for residents of mega-cities where driving is a time-consuming bore.

Uber and the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering command said in a statement that they expected to spend $1 million to develop and test prototypes for a rotor system that would be used on a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle.

The system would have two rotors, one stacked atop the other, moving in the same direction under the command of sophisticated software. This approach, which Uber and the Army said had not been deployed in a production aircraft, could lead to quieter operation than conventional stacked rotor systems.

“Achieving ultra-low noise is one of the critical obstacles” to deploying aerial taxis in urban areas, Rob McDonald, head of vehicle engineering for Uber Elevate, the company’s flying car operation, said in an interview.

The Army wants to develop a new generation of unmanned drones that do not need runways and are quieter than current drones, said Dr. Jaret Riddick, director of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Vehicle Technology Directorate.

The Army is increasingly turning to partnerships with private companies to research advanced technology, Riddick said in an interview.

Uber is planning more alliances with government agencies as it aims to launch prototype airborne taxis by 2020, Mark Moore, Uber’s director of engineering and aircraft systems and a former NASA researcher, said in an interview.

Uber already has a partnership with NASA, the U.S. government space agency, to develop software for managing large numbers of aircraft over cities, Moore said.

Uber is one of several companies, including aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus SE and a venture backed by Alphabet co-founder Larry Page, that are investing in the concept of small, automated and electrified aircraft that could be used to ferry passengers or cargo across congested cities.

Uber said it would develop its low-noise rotor system in collaboration with Launchpoint Technologies Inc., a Goleta, California, engineering company focused on electric and hybrid aircraft technologies.

Uber will hold a conference on flying vehicles this week in Los Angeles.

Uber, US Army To Test Quiet Aircraft Technology

Uber Technologies said Tuesday that it would work with the U.S. Army to advance research on a novel, quiet aircraft rotor technology that could be used in future flying cars, or military aircraft.

The alliance highlights stepped-up efforts by Uber and other companies to transform flying cars from a science fiction concept to real hardware for residents of mega-cities where driving is a time-consuming bore.

Uber and the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering command said in a statement that they expected to spend $1 million to develop and test prototypes for a rotor system that would be used on a vertical takeoff and landing vehicle.

The system would have two rotors, one stacked atop the other, moving in the same direction under the command of sophisticated software. This approach, which Uber and the Army said had not been deployed in a production aircraft, could lead to quieter operation than conventional stacked rotor systems.

“Achieving ultra-low noise is one of the critical obstacles” to deploying aerial taxis in urban areas, Rob McDonald, head of vehicle engineering for Uber Elevate, the company’s flying car operation, said in an interview.

The Army wants to develop a new generation of unmanned drones that do not need runways and are quieter than current drones, said Dr. Jaret Riddick, director of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory’s Vehicle Technology Directorate.

The Army is increasingly turning to partnerships with private companies to research advanced technology, Riddick said in an interview.

Uber is planning more alliances with government agencies as it aims to launch prototype airborne taxis by 2020, Mark Moore, Uber’s director of engineering and aircraft systems and a former NASA researcher, said in an interview.

Uber already has a partnership with NASA, the U.S. government space agency, to develop software for managing large numbers of aircraft over cities, Moore said.

Uber is one of several companies, including aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus SE and a venture backed by Alphabet co-founder Larry Page, that are investing in the concept of small, automated and electrified aircraft that could be used to ferry passengers or cargo across congested cities.

Uber said it would develop its low-noise rotor system in collaboration with Launchpoint Technologies Inc., a Goleta, California, engineering company focused on electric and hybrid aircraft technologies.

Uber will hold a conference on flying vehicles this week in Los Angeles.

Zimbabwe Parliament Delays Mugabe’s Questioning on Diamond Revenue

Former President Robert Mugabe will not appear before Zimbabwe’s parliament as scheduled on Wednesday to answer questions on diamond mining operations, a legislator said.

Temba Mliswa, who leads the parliamentary committee on mines, said the clerk of parliament hadn’t written to Mugabe to invite him to appear.

“It has been delayed but that resolution still stands,” Mliswa said. “He will have to appear before the committee whether he likes it or not.”

The committee had ordered the 94-year-old Mugabe to face legislators over his previous pronouncements that the state had been deprived of at least $15 billion in diamond revenue by mining companies.

Mugabe said in March 2016 the country was robbed of the revenue by diamond companies, including joint ventures between Chinese companies and the army, police and intelligence services, whose operations were shielded from public scrutiny.

Specifically, he said Zimbabwe lost $15 billion from the Marange gem fields, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the capital. He later expelled the companies and replaced them with a state-owned diamond company.

Mliswa said a new date for Mugabe to testify would be set.

The questioning on Wednesday would have been Mugabe’s first public appearance since the army deposed him last November in a de facto coup.

Zimbabwe Parliament Delays Mugabe’s Questioning on Diamond Revenue

Former President Robert Mugabe will not appear before Zimbabwe’s parliament as scheduled on Wednesday to answer questions on diamond mining operations, a legislator said.

Temba Mliswa, who leads the parliamentary committee on mines, said the clerk of parliament hadn’t written to Mugabe to invite him to appear.

“It has been delayed but that resolution still stands,” Mliswa said. “He will have to appear before the committee whether he likes it or not.”

The committee had ordered the 94-year-old Mugabe to face legislators over his previous pronouncements that the state had been deprived of at least $15 billion in diamond revenue by mining companies.

Mugabe said in March 2016 the country was robbed of the revenue by diamond companies, including joint ventures between Chinese companies and the army, police and intelligence services, whose operations were shielded from public scrutiny.

Specifically, he said Zimbabwe lost $15 billion from the Marange gem fields, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the capital. He later expelled the companies and replaced them with a state-owned diamond company.

Mliswa said a new date for Mugabe to testify would be set.

The questioning on Wednesday would have been Mugabe’s first public appearance since the army deposed him last November in a de facto coup.

US China to Meet for Round 2, But Big Differences Remain

Trade negotiations between China and the United States continue early next week in Washington D.C., but analysts say after the first round, the differences between the two sides are huge. Some believe the differences are so fundamental and big that an escalation of tariffs is unavoidable.

According to a widely circulated copy of Washington’s demands, President Donald Trump’s delegation not only asked Beijing to cut its trade deficit with the United States by $200 billion by 2020, but to also sharply lower tariffs and government subsidies of advanced technologies.

Beijing wants the United States to no longer oppose granting China market economy status at the World Trade Organization, amend an export ban against Chinese tech company ZTE Corp and open American government procurement to Chinese technology and services among other demands.

View to escalation

 

Scott Kennedy, a China scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the first round made it clear just how far apart the U.S. and China are in their views of what’s fair, what they want and expect the other side to do.

 

“I think we’re still headed toward escalation with both sides adopting tariffs in the next few weeks, but at least now we know what the fight is about,” Kennedy said. “It’s about whether or not China should be a market economy, or what you know whether it should be able to maintain its state capitalist system without any constraints.”

 

China joined the WTO in December of 2001 as a non-market economy and after 15 years it was expected the granting of the status as a market economy would naturally follow — along with its opening up.

 

But that is not what has happened, and the United States and European Union have refused to grant China market economy status.

Beijing insists it should be regarded as a market economy regardless of whether other countries believe it fits the definition. Under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has moved to assert greater control over business and the economy.

Competition vs. compensation

 

It has also become increasingly clear that China’s definition of reform and that of the West are strikingly different.

 

In an interview with VOA earlier this year, William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce, said that while many used to assume China would continue to carry out Western style economic reforms initiated in the early 2000s, that is no longer the case.

 

“In the last four or five years, we’ve seen that reform has taken a different direction, that the Chinese economy is on a different trajectory and that is more support for state-owned enterprises,” Zarit said. “And when I hear reforms now, it is more about making state-owned enterprises more efficient and not necessarily competitive in a fully market-based economy.”

But Song Hong, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argues that China has fulfilled its WTO obligations and it is the United States and European Union that have broken their promises to grant the country market economy status.

He said Washington’s demands to slash the trade deficit by $100 billion a year does not make economic sense. He also said the demand for China to lower tariffs and put the two countries on equal footing is impossible.

 

“The market in China is of course not as open as the U.S. market because China remains a developing country, which is no match to the U.S.,” Song Hong said. “The per capita income level in China around $10,000 vs. the U.S.’s some $50,000. How can both countries be equal?”

Talks as clock ticks

 

Some Chinese state media reports have tried to sound upbeat about the meetings focusing on the two sides agreed to keep talking, despite their differences.

On Monday, the White House announced a Chinese delegation led by Liu He, China’s vice premier and a top aide to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, will visit the United States early next week.

 

At the same time, however, the clock is ticking on U.S. threats to implement up to $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods. A day after Liu arrives in Washington, there will be a public hearing to discuss tariffs and the Trump administration’s investigation into China’s trade policies and practices.

If no agreement is reached by May 23, Washington would be well within its right to go ahead with the tariffs, analysts note. To which, China has promised to promptly reply.

 

Kennedy said that while the United States has used unilateral penalties in the past, this time around the chances of escalation are a lot higher.

 

“Not only are the disagreements deeply fundamental, China is much more powerful and ambitious than it used to be. And so it’s not likely to cave easily,” he said.

Brian Kopczynski contributed to this report.

 

 

US China to Meet for Round 2, But Big Differences Remain

Trade negotiations between China and the United States continue early next week in Washington D.C., but analysts say after the first round, the differences between the two sides are huge. Some believe the differences are so fundamental and big that an escalation of tariffs is unavoidable.

According to a widely circulated copy of Washington’s demands, President Donald Trump’s delegation not only asked Beijing to cut its trade deficit with the United States by $200 billion by 2020, but to also sharply lower tariffs and government subsidies of advanced technologies.

Beijing wants the United States to no longer oppose granting China market economy status at the World Trade Organization, amend an export ban against Chinese tech company ZTE Corp and open American government procurement to Chinese technology and services among other demands.

View to escalation

 

Scott Kennedy, a China scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the first round made it clear just how far apart the U.S. and China are in their views of what’s fair, what they want and expect the other side to do.

 

“I think we’re still headed toward escalation with both sides adopting tariffs in the next few weeks, but at least now we know what the fight is about,” Kennedy said. “It’s about whether or not China should be a market economy, or what you know whether it should be able to maintain its state capitalist system without any constraints.”

 

China joined the WTO in December of 2001 as a non-market economy and after 15 years it was expected the granting of the status as a market economy would naturally follow — along with its opening up.

 

But that is not what has happened, and the United States and European Union have refused to grant China market economy status.

Beijing insists it should be regarded as a market economy regardless of whether other countries believe it fits the definition. Under Xi Jinping, the Communist Party has moved to assert greater control over business and the economy.

Competition vs. compensation

 

It has also become increasingly clear that China’s definition of reform and that of the West are strikingly different.

 

In an interview with VOA earlier this year, William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce, said that while many used to assume China would continue to carry out Western style economic reforms initiated in the early 2000s, that is no longer the case.

 

“In the last four or five years, we’ve seen that reform has taken a different direction, that the Chinese economy is on a different trajectory and that is more support for state-owned enterprises,” Zarit said. “And when I hear reforms now, it is more about making state-owned enterprises more efficient and not necessarily competitive in a fully market-based economy.”

But Song Hong, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argues that China has fulfilled its WTO obligations and it is the United States and European Union that have broken their promises to grant the country market economy status.

He said Washington’s demands to slash the trade deficit by $100 billion a year does not make economic sense. He also said the demand for China to lower tariffs and put the two countries on equal footing is impossible.

 

“The market in China is of course not as open as the U.S. market because China remains a developing country, which is no match to the U.S.,” Song Hong said. “The per capita income level in China around $10,000 vs. the U.S.’s some $50,000. How can both countries be equal?”

Talks as clock ticks

 

Some Chinese state media reports have tried to sound upbeat about the meetings focusing on the two sides agreed to keep talking, despite their differences.

On Monday, the White House announced a Chinese delegation led by Liu He, China’s vice premier and a top aide to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, will visit the United States early next week.

 

At the same time, however, the clock is ticking on U.S. threats to implement up to $150 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods. A day after Liu arrives in Washington, there will be a public hearing to discuss tariffs and the Trump administration’s investigation into China’s trade policies and practices.

If no agreement is reached by May 23, Washington would be well within its right to go ahead with the tariffs, analysts note. To which, China has promised to promptly reply.

 

Kennedy said that while the United States has used unilateral penalties in the past, this time around the chances of escalation are a lot higher.

 

“Not only are the disagreements deeply fundamental, China is much more powerful and ambitious than it used to be. And so it’s not likely to cave easily,” he said.

Brian Kopczynski contributed to this report.

 

 

Technology Revolution Can Help or Harm Societies

As artificial intelligence is used in an increasingly connected world, experts say inherent risks need to be addressed now as societies become more and more dependent on the technology for everyday tasks.

“It’s quite explosive what we’re seeing,” said Tom Siebel, chairman and chief executive officer at computer software company C3 IoT, during a recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.

The experts discussed the benefits and dangers of technologies that allow machines to gather and analyze large amounts of data from connected devices. 

Dangers of a connected world

“Well, I think there are very serious concerns that we need to be aware of as it relates to the aggregation of all these data. A lot of this is personal identifiable data, economic data, health history data, human genomic data,” said Siebel, in discussing how the technology is applied to daily life.

Technology experts also said artificial intelligence has the potential to put people out of work.

“When we have autonomous vehicles, what are the taxi drivers in New York City going to do? This idea that we’re going to retrain them to be data scientists, this is crazy,” Siebel said. “What’s happening in the corporate world is corporations are facing a mass extinction event. Since the beginning of this century, 52 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared from the planet.”

In their place are new types of firms such as Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, and even car company Tesla. They exist because of artificial intelligence and big data. These technologies are not only affecting the corporate world, but they also pose a threat to national security, said the technology experts.

“As the most developed country in the world, we are at the most risk. We are connected the most, and our grid can be hacked,” said Usman Shuja, whose company, SparkCognition, works with industrial and defense clients.

“When the physical world gets connected to the internet, it’s not about stealing data, and IP. It’s also about causing a lot of damage. A turbine can be turned into a bomb, and a pump can be turned into something explosive. So, a lot of physical damage can also happen with cyberwarfare,” Shuja said.

Not moving forward with the technology, however, also poses risks, he noted.

“Today, the challenge with AI is if we don’t do it, somebody else can do it, so it’s become a race. If we don’t do it, China could do it. Russia could do it. Iran could do it,” said Shuja.

Technology experts said societies and governments need to prepare for what technology will bring and anticipate how it will change industries and society.

“Somebody needs to legislate. Somebody needs to regulate. These are important issues, and if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to be sorry,” warned Siebel.

The technology has implications for wealthy and developing countries, the experts said.

“AI, on the dangerous side of it, it can widen the gap. It can widen the gap so big that the poor countries can be left out; however, this is also the chance for poor countries and developing countries to skip the industrial revolution and make up for the lost time,” said Shuja.

Benefits of machine learning and AI

The experts predict the benefits of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be seen across industries.

“We can save lives. We can identify illnesses in a predictive way. We can use fitness health data to be able to detect health issues long before they occur,” said Tom Bianculli, Zebra Technologies’ chief technology officer. 

Artificial intelligence can also help the planet, the experts said.

“Energy and power systems will be more environmentally efficient,” noted Siebel.

Technologists said the key is to find ways of minimizing the dangerous side of artificial intelligence while maximizing the benefits to society.

Technology Revolution Can Help or Harm Societies

As artificial intelligence is used in an increasingly connected world, experts say inherent risks need to be addressed now as societies become more and more dependent on the technology for everyday tasks.

“It’s quite explosive what we’re seeing,” said Tom Siebel, chairman and chief executive officer at computer software company C3 IoT, during a recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles.

The experts discussed the benefits and dangers of technologies that allow machines to gather and analyze large amounts of data from connected devices. 

Dangers of a connected world

“Well, I think there are very serious concerns that we need to be aware of as it relates to the aggregation of all these data. A lot of this is personal identifiable data, economic data, health history data, human genomic data,” said Siebel, in discussing how the technology is applied to daily life.

Technology experts also said artificial intelligence has the potential to put people out of work.

“When we have autonomous vehicles, what are the taxi drivers in New York City going to do? This idea that we’re going to retrain them to be data scientists, this is crazy,” Siebel said. “What’s happening in the corporate world is corporations are facing a mass extinction event. Since the beginning of this century, 52 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared from the planet.”

In their place are new types of firms such as Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, and even car company Tesla. They exist because of artificial intelligence and big data. These technologies are not only affecting the corporate world, but they also pose a threat to national security, said the technology experts.

“As the most developed country in the world, we are at the most risk. We are connected the most, and our grid can be hacked,” said Usman Shuja, whose company, SparkCognition, works with industrial and defense clients.

“When the physical world gets connected to the internet, it’s not about stealing data, and IP. It’s also about causing a lot of damage. A turbine can be turned into a bomb, and a pump can be turned into something explosive. So, a lot of physical damage can also happen with cyberwarfare,” Shuja said.

Not moving forward with the technology, however, also poses risks, he noted.

“Today, the challenge with AI is if we don’t do it, somebody else can do it, so it’s become a race. If we don’t do it, China could do it. Russia could do it. Iran could do it,” said Shuja.

Technology experts said societies and governments need to prepare for what technology will bring and anticipate how it will change industries and society.

“Somebody needs to legislate. Somebody needs to regulate. These are important issues, and if we don’t do something about it, we’re going to be sorry,” warned Siebel.

The technology has implications for wealthy and developing countries, the experts said.

“AI, on the dangerous side of it, it can widen the gap. It can widen the gap so big that the poor countries can be left out; however, this is also the chance for poor countries and developing countries to skip the industrial revolution and make up for the lost time,” said Shuja.

Benefits of machine learning and AI

The experts predict the benefits of artificial intelligence and machine learning will be seen across industries.

“We can save lives. We can identify illnesses in a predictive way. We can use fitness health data to be able to detect health issues long before they occur,” said Tom Bianculli, Zebra Technologies’ chief technology officer. 

Artificial intelligence can also help the planet, the experts said.

“Energy and power systems will be more environmentally efficient,” noted Siebel.

Technologists said the key is to find ways of minimizing the dangerous side of artificial intelligence while maximizing the benefits to society.