Some 1.3 billion people live with some form of vision impairment, according to the World Health Organization. A team of innovators at an Israeli technology company has developed a small device to help them. As Laura Sepulveda reports from Jerusalem, the device connects to regular glasses and helps people with visual limitations identify people and products, and read in more than 14 languages.
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Category Archives: News
Worldwide news. News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called “hard news” to differentiate it from soft media
Federal Shutdown Compounds Risks for US Economy
Now in its 10th year, America’s economic expansion still looks sturdy. Yet the partial shutdown of the government that began Saturday has added another threat to a growing list of risks.
The stock market’s persistent fall, growing chaos in the Trump administration, higher interest rates, a U.S.-China trade war and a global slowdown have combined to elevate the perils for the economy.
Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said he thinks the underlying fundamentals for growth remain strong and that the expansion will continue. But he cautioned that the falling stock market reflects multiple hazards that can feed on themselves.
“What really matters is how people perceive these headwinds — and right now markets and investors perceive them as leading us into a recessionary environment,” Daco said.
Many economic barometers still look encouraging. Unemployment is near a half-century low. Inflation is tame. Pay growth has picked up. Consumers boosted their spending this holiday season. Indeed, the latest figures indicate that the economy has been fundamentally healthy during the final month of 2018.
Still, financial markets were rattled Thursday by President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the government unless his border wall is funded as part of a measure to finance the government — a threat that became reality on Saturday. As tensions with the incoming Democratic House majority have reached a fever pitch, Trump warned Friday that he foresees a “very long” shutdown.
The expanding picture of a dysfunctional Trump administration grew further with the surprise resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis in protest of Trump’s abrupt decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria — a move that drew expressions of alarm from many Republicans as well as Democrats.
How markets and government officials respond to such risks could determine whether the second-longest U.S. expansion on record remains on course or succumbs eventually to a recession.
A closer look at the risks:
Administration chaos
It has been a tumultuous few days, even for a White House that has been defined by the president’s daily dramas.
Trump faces an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections that has led to indictments and criminal convictions of some of his closest confidants. He is coping with a wave of top staff defections, having lost both his chief of staff and defense secretary. He is in the process of installing a new attorney general.
Then there is the partial government shutdown that Trump himself has pushed.
The shutdown is unlikely to hurt economic growth very much, even if it lasts awhile, because 75 percent of the government is still being funded. S&P Global Ratings estimates that each week of the shutdown would shave a relatively minuscule $1.2 billion off the nation’s gross domestic product.
Still, the problem is that the Trump administration appears disinclined to cooperate with the incoming House Democratic majority. So the federal support through deficit spending that boosted the economy this year will likely wane, Lewis Alexander, U.S. chief economist at Nomura, said in his 2019 outlook.
That, in part, is why the economy is widely expected to weaken from its roughly 3 percent growth this year, which would be the strongest performance since 2005.
Tumbling stocks
Stock investors have been trampled since October, with the Dow Jones industrial average sinking nearly 15 percent. The plunge followed a propulsive winning streak for the stock market that began in 2009. But investors are internalizing all the latest risks, including Trump’s trade war with China and higher borrowing rates, and how much they might depress corporate profits and the economy.
“Markets people are forward-looking, so they’re taking into account the latest information,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.
Markets can often fall persistently without sending the economy into a tailspin. But O’Sullivan warned of a possible feedback loop in which tumbling stock prices would erode consumer and business confidence, which in turn could send stocks sinking further. At that point, the economy would likely worsen, the job market would weaken and many ordinary households would suffer.
Trade war
For economists, this may pose the gravest threat to the economy. Trump has imposed tariffs against a huge swath of goods from China, which has retaliated with its own tariffs on U.S. products. These import taxes tend to dampen economic activity and diminish growth.
“The trade war with China is now the biggest impediment to U.S. economic growth,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in his forecast for the first half of 2019.
In part because of the taxes Trump imposed on Chinese imports, manufacturing growth appears to be slowing, with factory owners facing higher costs for raw materials. The president has held off on further escalating tariffs to see if an agreement, or at least a lasting truce, can be reached with China by March.
Any damage from trade wars tends to worsen the longer the disputes continue. So even a tentative resolution in the first three months of 2019 could remove one threat to economic growth.
Interest rate hikes
The Federal Reserve has raised a key short-term rate four times this year and envisions two more increases in 2019. Stocks sold off Wednesday after Chairman Jerome Powell laid out the rationale. Powell’s explanation, in large part, was that the Fed could gradually raise borrowing costs and limit potential U.S. economic growth because of the job market’s strength.
The Fed generally raises rates to keep growth in check and prevent annual inflation from rising much above 2 percent. But inflation has been running consistently below that target.
If the central bank were to miscalculate and raise rates too high or too fast, it could trigger the very downturn that Fed officials have been trying to avoid. This has become a nagging fear for investors.
Global slowdown
The world economy is showing clear signs of a downshift, with many U.S. trading partners, especially in Europe and Asia, weakening or expected to expand at a slower speed. Their deflating growth can, in turn, weigh down the U.S. economy.
Several other global risks abound. There is Britain’s turbulent exit from the European Union. Italy appears close to recession and is struggling to manage its debt. China, the world’s second-largest economy after the U.S., is trying to manage a slowdown in growth that is being complicated by its trade war with Trump.
“Next year is likely to be challenging for both investors and policymakers,” Alexander, the Nomura economist, concluded in his outlook.
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Spacex Halts Launch of US Military Satellite due to Winds
Elon Musk’s SpaceX scrapped Saturday’s launch of a long-delayed navigation satellite for the U.S. military due to strong upper-level winds.
The next launch attempt will be on Sunday at 8:51 a.m. EST/13:51 UTC, according to Space X officials.
The launch would have been the rocket firm’s first national security space mission for the United States.
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US Envoy to Anti-IS Coalition Quits Over Trump’s Syria Move
Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group, has resigned in protest over President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, a U.S. official said, joining Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in an administration exodus of experienced national security figures.
Only 11 days ago, McGurk had said it would be “reckless” to consider IS defeated and therefore would be unwise to bring American forces home. McGurk decided to speed up his original plan to leave his post in mid-February.
Appointed to the post by President Barack Obama in 2015 and retained by Trump, McGurk said in his resignation letter that the militants were on the run, but not yet defeated, and that the premature pullout of American forces from Syria would create the conditions that gave rise to IS. He also cited gains in accelerating the campaign against IS, but that the work was not yet done.
His letter, submitted Friday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was described to The Associated Press on Saturday by an official familiar with its contents. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter before the letter was released and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In a tweet shortly after news of McGurk’s resignation broke, Trump again defended his decision to pull all of the roughly 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria in the coming weeks.
“We were originally going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago – we never left,” Trump tweeted. “When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!”
Although the civil war in Syria has gone on since 2011, the U.S. did not begin launching airstrikes against IS until September 2014, and American troops did not go into Syria until 2015.
McGurk, whose resignation is effective Dec. 31, was planning to leave the job in mid-February after a U.S.-hosted meeting of foreign ministers from the coalition countries, but he felt he could continue no longer after Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria and Mattis’ resignation, according to the official.
Trump declaration of a victory over IS has been roundly contradicted by his own experts’ assessments, and his decision to pull troops out was widely denounced by members of Congress, who called his action rash and dangerous.
Mattis, perhaps the most respected foreign policy official in the administration, announced on Thursday that he will leave by the end of February. He told Trump in a letter that he was departing because “you have a right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours.”
Trump defended his decision Saturday to order the troop withdrawal, tweeting, “Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!”
The withdrawal decision will fulfill Trump’s goal of bringing troops home from Syria, but military leaders have pushed back for months, arguing that the IS group remains a threat and could regroup in Syria’s long-running civil war. U.S. policy has been to keep troops in place until the extremists are eradicated.
Among officials’ key concerns is that a U.S. pullout will leave U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces vulnerable to attacks by Turkey, the Syrian government and remaining IS fighters. The SDF, a Kurdish-led force, is America’s only military partner in Syria
A second official said McGurk on Friday was pushing for the U.S. to allow the SDF to reach out to troops allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government for protection. McGurk argued that America had a moral obligation to help prevent the allied fighters from being slaughtered by Turkey, which considers the SDF an enemy.
McGurk said at a State Department briefing on Dec. 11 that “it would be reckless if we were just to say, ‘Well, the physical caliphate is defeated, so we can just leave now.’ I think anyone who’s looked at a conflict like this would agree with that.”
A week before that, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. had a long way to go in training local Syrian forces to prevent a resurgence of IS and stabilize Syria. He said it would take 35,000 to 40,000 local troops in northeastern Syria to maintain security over the long term, but only about 20 percent of that number had been trained.
McGurk, 45, previously served as a deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran, and during the negotiations for the landmark Iran nuclear deal by the Obama administration, led secret side talks with Tehran on the release of Americans imprisoned there.
McGurk, was briefly considered for the post of ambassador to Iraq after having served as a senior official covering Iraq and Afghanistan during President George W. Bush’s administration.
A former Supreme Court law clerk to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, McGurk worked as a lawyer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and joined Bush’s National Security Council staff, where in 2007 and 2008, he was the lead U.S. negotiator on security agreements with Iraq.
Taking over for now for McGurk will be his deputy, retired Lt. Gen. Terry Wolff, who served three tours of active duty in Iraq.
Jim Jeffrey, a veteran diplomat who was appointed special representative for Syria engagement in August, is expected to stay in his position, officials said.
IS militants still hold a string of villages and towns along the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, where they have resisted weeks of attacks by the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces to drive them out. The pocket is home to about 15,000 people, among them 2,000 IS fighters, according to U.S. military estimates.
But that figure could be as high as 8,000 militants, if fighters hiding out in the deserts south of the Euphrates River are also counted, according to according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict through networks of local informants. Military officials have also made it clear that IS fighters fleeing Euphrates River region have found refuge in other areas of the country, fueling concerns that they could regroup and rise again.
The SDF said Thursday: “The war against Islamic State has not ended and the group has not been defeated.”
VOA contributed to this report.
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Trump Reportedly Discussed Firing Fed Chairman Powell
U.S. President Donald Trump has discussed firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, Bloomberg reported Saturday.
Citing four people familiar with the discussions, Bloomberg reported Trump has become more frustrated with Powell after months of stock market losses and the central bank’s interest rate hike on Wednesday.
Advisers reportedly have warned Trump that firing Powell would further roil financial markets, yet they said Trump has discussed the matter many times in the past few days.
The sources who spoke with Bloomberg on condition of anonymity were not convinced Trump would fire Powell, and were hopeful the president’s anger over the situation would subside over the holidays.The White House and the Federal Reserve have declined to comment.
A firing of Powell would come after weeks of heavy losses in the markets. On Friday, equities closed their worst week since 2011, with the S&P 500 Index plummeting more than 7 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index plunging into a bear market.
Trump has been busy shaking up his administration since the November midterm elections. He has announced the departures of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Defense Secretary James Mattis.
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Holiday-season Gridlock in DC Brings Partial Federal Closure
Christmas-season gridlock descended on the nation’s capital Saturday like an unwelcomed present just before the holiday as America’s elected leaders partially closed down the government over their inability to compromise on money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Congressional Democrats are refusing to accede to President Donald Trump’s demands for $5 billion to start erecting his long-promised barrier, and the stalemate is a chaotic coda for Republicans in the waning days of their two-year reign controlling government.
Vice President Mike Pence, Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney left the Capitol late Friday after hours of bargaining with congressional leaders produced no apparent compromise.
Mulvaney sent agency heads a memorandum telling them to “execute plans for an orderly shutdown.” He wrote that administration officials were “hopeful that this lapse in appropriations will be of short duration.” That expectation was widely shared.
With negotiations expected to resume, the House and Senate scheduled rare Saturday sessions. House members were told they would receive 24 hours’ notice before any vote.
The impasse blocks money for nine of 15 Cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Interior, Agriculture, State and Justice.
The disruption affects many government operations and the routines of 800,000 federal employees. Roughly 420,000 workers were deemed essential and will work unpaid just days before Christmas. An additional 380,000 will be furloughed, meaning they will stay home without pay.
Federal employees already were granted an extra day of vacation on Monday, Christmas Eve, thanks to an executive order that Trump signed this past week. The president did not go to Florida on Friday as planned for the holiday.
Those being furloughed include nearly everyone at NASA and 52,000 workers at the Internal Revenue Service. About 8 in 10 employees of the National Park Service were to stay home; many parks were expected to close.
The Senate passed legislation ensuring that workers will receive back pay. The House seemed sure to follow suit.
Some agencies, including the Pentagon and the departments of Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services, were already funded and will operate as usual.
The U.S. Postal Service, busy delivering packages for the holiday season, will not be affected because it’s an independent agency. Social Security checks will be mailed, troops will remain on duty and food inspections will continue.
Also still functioning will be the FBI, the Border Patrol and the Coast Guard. Transportation Security Administration officers will continue to staff airport checkpoints and air traffic controllers will be on the job.
Trump has savored the prospect of a shutdown over the wall for months. Last week he said he would be “proud” to close down the government, and on Friday said he was “totally prepared for a very long” closure. Many of Congress’ most conservative Republicans welcomed such a confrontation, but most GOP lawmakers have wanted to avoid one because polling shows the public broadly opposes the wall and a shutdown over it.
Initial Republican reaction to the shutdown was muted. Among the few GOP lawmakers who issued statements as it began were Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who expressed disappointment at the lack of a deal, and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. “This is a complete failure of negotiations and a success for no one,” Alexander said.
The Democratic leaders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, said in a statement that Trump “threw a temper tantrum and convinced House Republicans to push our nation into a destructive Trump Shutdown in the middle of the holiday season.”
Trump had made clear last week that he would not blame Democrats for any closure. Now, he and his GOP allies have spent the past few days saying Democrats bear responsibility.
The president said now was the time for Congress to provide taxpayers’ money for the wall, even though he long had claimed Mexico would pay for it. Mexico repeatedly has rebuffed that idea.
Partial Government Shutdown Appears Likely as US House Adjourns
As U.S. Senate leaders continued negotiating funding for border security measures, a partial government shutdown seemed all but assured as the U.S. House of Representatives adjourned late Friday.
Lawmakers have until midnight in Washington to enact a spending bill or portions of the federal government will close.
But with the House voting to adjourn until noon Saturday, it appeared that operations for about a quarter of the government would cease early Saturday, meaning more than 800,000 federal employees’ jobs would be disrupted, and more than half of those employees would be required to work without pay.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated that while talks were continuing among lawmakers and with the White House, no deal on a spending bill had yet been reached to avert the problem.
Earlier Friday, the Senate had voted to advance a House-passed bill that included $5 billion for President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall. The procedural vote gave the Senate “flexibility” to continue negotiating, McConnell said.
Senate leaders gave no time for a vote on a spending bill, with leaders saying a vote would occur only when a deal had been reached.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told The Washington Post that Democrats were open to discussions but would not agree to any new funding for a border wall.
On Thursday, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a temporary spending bill that included billions for Trump’s proposed wall along the southern U.S. border.
After previously saying he would “proudly” accept responsibility for a partial U.S. government shutdown if Congress did not pass legislation that included funding for his proposed border wall, Trump early Friday tweeted, “The Democrats now own the shutdown!”
Friday afternoon he tweeted, “If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last a very long time.”
Later Friday at the White House, Trump doubled down on his 11th-hour effort to blame the impending shutdown on Democratic lawmakers.
In an attempt to bolster the slim chances of the measure’s passage in the Senate, Trump summoned Senate Republicans to the White House Friday morning to discuss the bill and border security.
Trump repeatedly has demanded funds to build the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and he told House Republican leaders before Thursday’s vote he would not sign a bill approved by the Senate that did not include funding for the wall.
Schumer told colleagues Friday on the Senate floor that Trump was making unilateral decisions that were creating chaos throughout the world.
“All of this turmoil is causing chaos in the markets, chaos abroad, and it’s making the United States less prosperous and less secure,” Schumer said. “There are not the votes in the Senate for an expensive taxpayer-funded border wall. So President Trump, you will not get your wall. Abandon your shutdown strategy. You’re not getting your wall today, next week or on January 3rd, when Democrats take control of the House.”
McConnell argued for the wall’s funding, saying, “The need for greater security on our southern border is not some partisan invention. It’s an empirical fact and the need is only growing.”
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Partial Government Shutdown Appears Likely as US House Adjourns
As U.S. Senate leaders continued negotiating funding for border security measures, a partial government shutdown seemed all but assured as the U.S. House of Representatives adjourned late Friday.
Lawmakers have until midnight in Washington to enact a spending bill or portions of the federal government will close.
But with the House voting to adjourn until noon Saturday, it appeared that operations for about a quarter of the government would cease early Saturday, meaning more than 800,000 federal employees’ jobs would be disrupted, and more than half of those employees would be required to work without pay.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell indicated that while talks were continuing among lawmakers and with the White House, no deal on a spending bill had yet been reached to avert the problem.
Earlier Friday, the Senate had voted to advance a House-passed bill that included $5 billion for President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Mexico border wall. The procedural vote gave the Senate “flexibility” to continue negotiating, McConnell said.
Senate leaders gave no time for a vote on a spending bill, with leaders saying a vote would occur only when a deal had been reached.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told The Washington Post that Democrats were open to discussions but would not agree to any new funding for a border wall.
On Thursday, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed a temporary spending bill that included billions for Trump’s proposed wall along the southern U.S. border.
After previously saying he would “proudly” accept responsibility for a partial U.S. government shutdown if Congress did not pass legislation that included funding for his proposed border wall, Trump early Friday tweeted, “The Democrats now own the shutdown!”
Friday afternoon he tweeted, “If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last a very long time.”
Later Friday at the White House, Trump doubled down on his 11th-hour effort to blame the impending shutdown on Democratic lawmakers.
In an attempt to bolster the slim chances of the measure’s passage in the Senate, Trump summoned Senate Republicans to the White House Friday morning to discuss the bill and border security.
Trump repeatedly has demanded funds to build the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and he told House Republican leaders before Thursday’s vote he would not sign a bill approved by the Senate that did not include funding for the wall.
Schumer told colleagues Friday on the Senate floor that Trump was making unilateral decisions that were creating chaos throughout the world.
“All of this turmoil is causing chaos in the markets, chaos abroad, and it’s making the United States less prosperous and less secure,” Schumer said. “There are not the votes in the Senate for an expensive taxpayer-funded border wall. So President Trump, you will not get your wall. Abandon your shutdown strategy. You’re not getting your wall today, next week or on January 3rd, when Democrats take control of the House.”
McConnell argued for the wall’s funding, saying, “The need for greater security on our southern border is not some partisan invention. It’s an empirical fact and the need is only growing.”
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More Losses Leave US Markets With Worst Week in 7-Plus Years
After almost 10 years, Wall Street’s rally looks like it’s ending.
Another day of big losses Friday left the U.S. market with its worst week in more than seven years. All of the major indexes have lost 16 to 26 percent from their highs this summer and fall. Barring huge gains during the upcoming holiday period, this will be the worst December for stocks since 1931.
There hasn’t been one major shock that has sent stocks plunging. The U.S. economy has been growing since 2009, and most experts think it will keep expanding for now. But it’s likely to do so at a slower pace.
As they look ahead, investors are finding more and more reasons to worry. The U.S. has been locked in a trade dispute with China for nine months. Economies in Europe and China are slowing. And rising interest rates in the U.S. could slow its economy even more.
Dreadful month
Stocks are now headed for their single worst month since October 2008, when the market was being battered by the global financial crisis.
December is generally the strongest time of the year for U.S. stocks. Traders often talk about a “Santa rally” that adds to the year’s gains as people adjust their portfolios in anticipation of the year to come.
But not this year.
No sector of the market has been spared. Large multinational companies join smaller domestic ones in their losses. And huge high-tech companies, once the best-performing stocks on the market, are now leading the way lower.
Technology’s huge popularity during the recent boom years made it even more vulnerable as investors’ moods turn sour. Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, have seen their market values fall by hundreds of billions of dollars.
“If you live by momentum, you die by momentum,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for CFRA.
The Nasdaq composite, which contains a high concentration of tech stocks, has sunk almost 22 percent from its record high in late August. Several big technology companies, notably Facebook and Twitter, have also suffered as a result of scandals over matters such as data privacy and election meddling, and traders worry that the industry will face greater government regulation that could increase costs and affect their profits.
The major U.S. indexes fell 7 percent this week and they’ve sunk more than 12 percent in December.
Global slowdown
Investors around the world have grown increasingly pessimistic about the global economy’s prospects over the next few years. It’s widely expected to slow down, but traders are concerned the cooling might be worse than they previously believed.
After a sharp early gain Friday, the S&P 500 index retreated 50.84 points, or 2.1 percent, to 2,416.58. The S&P 500, the benchmark for many index funds, has fallen 17.5 percent from its high in September.
The Dow Jones industrial average sank 414.23 points, or 1.8 percent, to 22,445.37. The Nasdaq skidded 195.41 points, or 3 percent, to 6,332.99. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks lost 33.92 points, or 2.6 percent, to 1,292.09.
European markets rose slightly and Asian markets were mixed.
The price of oil has also fallen sharply in recent weeks, down 40 percent from the high it reached in October, amid concerns over a glut in the market and the slowing economy.
On Friday the price of U.S. crude slipped 0.6 percent to $45.59 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, fell 1 percent to $53.82 a barrel in London.
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More Losses Leave US Markets With Worst Week in 7-Plus Years
After almost 10 years, Wall Street’s rally looks like it’s ending.
Another day of big losses Friday left the U.S. market with its worst week in more than seven years. All of the major indexes have lost 16 to 26 percent from their highs this summer and fall. Barring huge gains during the upcoming holiday period, this will be the worst December for stocks since 1931.
There hasn’t been one major shock that has sent stocks plunging. The U.S. economy has been growing since 2009, and most experts think it will keep expanding for now. But it’s likely to do so at a slower pace.
As they look ahead, investors are finding more and more reasons to worry. The U.S. has been locked in a trade dispute with China for nine months. Economies in Europe and China are slowing. And rising interest rates in the U.S. could slow its economy even more.
Dreadful month
Stocks are now headed for their single worst month since October 2008, when the market was being battered by the global financial crisis.
December is generally the strongest time of the year for U.S. stocks. Traders often talk about a “Santa rally” that adds to the year’s gains as people adjust their portfolios in anticipation of the year to come.
But not this year.
No sector of the market has been spared. Large multinational companies join smaller domestic ones in their losses. And huge high-tech companies, once the best-performing stocks on the market, are now leading the way lower.
Technology’s huge popularity during the recent boom years made it even more vulnerable as investors’ moods turn sour. Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, have seen their market values fall by hundreds of billions of dollars.
“If you live by momentum, you die by momentum,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for CFRA.
The Nasdaq composite, which contains a high concentration of tech stocks, has sunk almost 22 percent from its record high in late August. Several big technology companies, notably Facebook and Twitter, have also suffered as a result of scandals over matters such as data privacy and election meddling, and traders worry that the industry will face greater government regulation that could increase costs and affect their profits.
The major U.S. indexes fell 7 percent this week and they’ve sunk more than 12 percent in December.
Global slowdown
Investors around the world have grown increasingly pessimistic about the global economy’s prospects over the next few years. It’s widely expected to slow down, but traders are concerned the cooling might be worse than they previously believed.
After a sharp early gain Friday, the S&P 500 index retreated 50.84 points, or 2.1 percent, to 2,416.58. The S&P 500, the benchmark for many index funds, has fallen 17.5 percent from its high in September.
The Dow Jones industrial average sank 414.23 points, or 1.8 percent, to 22,445.37. The Nasdaq skidded 195.41 points, or 3 percent, to 6,332.99. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks lost 33.92 points, or 2.6 percent, to 1,292.09.
European markets rose slightly and Asian markets were mixed.
The price of oil has also fallen sharply in recent weeks, down 40 percent from the high it reached in October, amid concerns over a glut in the market and the slowing economy.
On Friday the price of U.S. crude slipped 0.6 percent to $45.59 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, the standard for international oil prices, fell 1 percent to $53.82 a barrel in London.
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US Intelligence Report: Russia, China, Iran Sought to Influence 2018 Elections
Russia, China and Iran sought to meddle in the recent U.S. midterm election, but their actions did not compromise the “nation’s election infrastructure that would have prevented voting, changed vote counts, or disrupted the ability to tally votes,” according to a report released Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Director Dan Coats said U.S. intelligence did find “Russia, and other foreign countries, including China and Iran, conducted influence activities and messaging campaigns targeted at the United States to promote their strategic interests.”
But he said the intelligence community “did not make an assessment of the impact that these activities had on the outcome of the 2018 election.”
The ODNI report on election meddling now goes to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the attorney general (AG), who have another 45 days to review the findings. If both the AG and DHS concur with the findings, the report could trigger automatic sanctions against Russia, China and Iran.
The U.S. intelligence community findings on election meddling support the initial assessment by DHS in the days and weeks following November’s midterm elections.
“There were no indications at the time of any foreign compromises of election equipment that would disrupt the ability to cast or count a vote,” Christopher Krebs, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, said in mid-November, adding at the time, “We haven’t changed that assessment.”
Quick reaction to the new report came from Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner, who said in a statement, “As the Director of National Intelligence reminds us, the Russians did not go away after the 2016 election.
“Now that the Russian playbook is out in the open, we’re going to see more and more adversaries trying to take advantage. … Congress has to step up and enact some much-needed guardrails on social media.”
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US Intelligence Report: Russia, China, Iran Sought to Influence 2018 Elections
Russia, China and Iran sought to meddle in the recent U.S. midterm election, but their actions did not compromise the “nation’s election infrastructure that would have prevented voting, changed vote counts, or disrupted the ability to tally votes,” according to a report released Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Director Dan Coats said U.S. intelligence did find “Russia, and other foreign countries, including China and Iran, conducted influence activities and messaging campaigns targeted at the United States to promote their strategic interests.”
But he said the intelligence community “did not make an assessment of the impact that these activities had on the outcome of the 2018 election.”
The ODNI report on election meddling now goes to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the attorney general (AG), who have another 45 days to review the findings. If both the AG and DHS concur with the findings, the report could trigger automatic sanctions against Russia, China and Iran.
The U.S. intelligence community findings on election meddling support the initial assessment by DHS in the days and weeks following November’s midterm elections.
“There were no indications at the time of any foreign compromises of election equipment that would disrupt the ability to cast or count a vote,” Christopher Krebs, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, said in mid-November, adding at the time, “We haven’t changed that assessment.”
Quick reaction to the new report came from Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner, who said in a statement, “As the Director of National Intelligence reminds us, the Russians did not go away after the 2016 election.
“Now that the Russian playbook is out in the open, we’re going to see more and more adversaries trying to take advantage. … Congress has to step up and enact some much-needed guardrails on social media.”
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Differences With Trump’s Views Prompted Mattis Departure
U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis Thursday announced he was quitting, personally handing his letter of resignation to U.S. President Donald Trump following a lunch meeting at the White House.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the letter from Mattis outlined sharp differences between his views and those of the president, notably on the importance of allies and the use of U.S. power.
“We must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,” Mattis wrote, warning that Russia and China in particular “want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model-gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions.”
“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down,” Mattis concluded, saying he would step down at the end of February.
The defense secretary’s decision came one day after Trump announced he would withdraw some 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, a move the Pentagon opposed.
Mattis did not mention the dispute over Syria in his letter, but he did note his “core belief” that U.S. strength is “inextricably linked” with the nation’s alliances with other countries.
President Trump first announced Mattis’s departure on Twitter, saying the former four-star Marine general will retire “with distinction.”
“During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly. I greatly thank Jim for his service!”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters late Thursday that Trump and Mattis are on good terms despite not agreeing on foreign policy and other issues.
“He and the president have a good relationship, but sometimes they disagree,” Sanders said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have a good relationship with somebody. He was laying out the reasons he was stepping down from his post.”
Still, the resignation has sparked an outpouring of anger and despair from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, and even top U.S. officials.
“I was deeply saddened,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in an official statement Friday, describing Mattis as a “national treasure.”
“The experience and sound judgement that Secretary Mattis has brought to our decision-making process is invaluable,” Coats continued. “His leadership of our military won the admiration of our troops and respect of our allies and adversaries.”
Much of the pushback from U.S. officials and lawmakers has centered on the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the fight against the Islamic State terror group in Syria – a decision that, according to some officials, ultimately convinced Mattis to resign.
U.S.-backed forces have made steady progress against Islamic State over the past several years. Last week, taking advantage of a dramatic increase in U.S. and coalition airstrikes, the forces were able to enter the town of Hajin, part of the terror group’s last stronghold in eastern Syria.
But despite Trump’s declaration of victory against IS, senior administration officials have said it will be up to the U.S. partner forces to liberate the rest of Hajin and the surrounding areas, where about 2,000 IS fighters have been mounting a stubborn last stand for several months.
Pentagon officials have also warned that despite the gains, IS was still well-positioned to rebuild. And Mattis had said that before leaving, the U.S. must train enough local troops to assume the role of suppressing the militants. He said the United Nations peace process in Syria must progress toward a resolution of the country’s eight-year-old civil war.
While a relatively small number of troops are involved, their withdrawal will have sweeping consequences in Syria’s long-running civil war. Allies will be more heavily burdened with confronting energized adversaries and Turkey, Iran and Russia’s influence in Syria will increase.
“This is scary,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat. “Secretary Mattis has been an island of stability amidst the chaos of the Trump administration.”
Republican senator and former presidential hopeful Marco Rubio tweeted, “It makes it abundantly clear that we are headed toward a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances and empower our adversaries.”
While the decision to pull out of Syria may have been the last straw for Mattis, tensions have been simmering over other issues for quite some time, including on Russia and Iran.
Mattis believed Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trying to undermine NATO and assaulting Western democracies.
“[Putin’s] actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point, but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals,” Mattis told U.S. Naval War College graduates at a commencement ceremony in June.
But Trump has praised Putin’s leadership skills and recently caused concern among U.S. allies by calling for Russia’s reinstatement in the group of major industrial nations. Russia was expelled from what was then the Group of Eight after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Another point of contention between the two men involved the Iran nuclear deal.
Mattis argued the U.S. should consider staying in the Iran nuclear deal unless Tehran was found not to be abiding by the agreement. Iran was following the pact’s rules, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the use of nuclear energy and has verified Iranian compliance with the accord multiple times since 2015.
Despite Mattis’s position, Trump pulled out of the deal in May, saying it had been poorly negotiated during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
As Mattis turned in his resignation, the Defense Department was preparing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in the coming months, U.S. officials said. The development marks a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s policy to force the Taliban to the negotiating table after more than 17 years of war.
Rumors of Mattis leaving the Defense Department have been circulating for months.
In October, Trump appeared on the television news show 60 Minutes, where he told TV anchor Lesley Stahl that while “I like General Mattis,” he believed he knew more about NATO than his defense secretary.
“I think he’s sort of a Democrat, if you wanna know the truth,” Trump said. “But General Mattis is a good guy. We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves. Everybody. People leave. That’s Washington.”
Mattis became secretary of defense shortly after Trump’s inauguration and is one of the longest-serving Cabinet members.
Before that, Mattis served 44 years in the Marine Corps and led the Marines and British troops during the bloody Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004.
…
Differences With Trump’s Views Prompted Mattis Departure
U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis Thursday announced he was quitting, personally handing his letter of resignation to U.S. President Donald Trump following a lunch meeting at the White House.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the letter from Mattis outlined sharp differences between his views and those of the president, notably on the importance of allies and the use of U.S. power.
“We must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,” Mattis wrote, warning that Russia and China in particular “want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model-gaining veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic and security decisions.”
“Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down,” Mattis concluded, saying he would step down at the end of February.
The defense secretary’s decision came one day after Trump announced he would withdraw some 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, a move the Pentagon opposed.
Mattis did not mention the dispute over Syria in his letter, but he did note his “core belief” that U.S. strength is “inextricably linked” with the nation’s alliances with other countries.
President Trump first announced Mattis’s departure on Twitter, saying the former four-star Marine general will retire “with distinction.”
“During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly. I greatly thank Jim for his service!”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters late Thursday that Trump and Mattis are on good terms despite not agreeing on foreign policy and other issues.
“He and the president have a good relationship, but sometimes they disagree,” Sanders said. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have a good relationship with somebody. He was laying out the reasons he was stepping down from his post.”
Still, the resignation has sparked an outpouring of anger and despair from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, and even top U.S. officials.
“I was deeply saddened,” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in an official statement Friday, describing Mattis as a “national treasure.”
“The experience and sound judgement that Secretary Mattis has brought to our decision-making process is invaluable,” Coats continued. “His leadership of our military won the admiration of our troops and respect of our allies and adversaries.”
Much of the pushback from U.S. officials and lawmakers has centered on the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the fight against the Islamic State terror group in Syria – a decision that, according to some officials, ultimately convinced Mattis to resign.
U.S.-backed forces have made steady progress against Islamic State over the past several years. Last week, taking advantage of a dramatic increase in U.S. and coalition airstrikes, the forces were able to enter the town of Hajin, part of the terror group’s last stronghold in eastern Syria.
But despite Trump’s declaration of victory against IS, senior administration officials have said it will be up to the U.S. partner forces to liberate the rest of Hajin and the surrounding areas, where about 2,000 IS fighters have been mounting a stubborn last stand for several months.
Pentagon officials have also warned that despite the gains, IS was still well-positioned to rebuild. And Mattis had said that before leaving, the U.S. must train enough local troops to assume the role of suppressing the militants. He said the United Nations peace process in Syria must progress toward a resolution of the country’s eight-year-old civil war.
While a relatively small number of troops are involved, their withdrawal will have sweeping consequences in Syria’s long-running civil war. Allies will be more heavily burdened with confronting energized adversaries and Turkey, Iran and Russia’s influence in Syria will increase.
“This is scary,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democrat. “Secretary Mattis has been an island of stability amidst the chaos of the Trump administration.”
Republican senator and former presidential hopeful Marco Rubio tweeted, “It makes it abundantly clear that we are headed toward a series of grave policy errors which will endanger our nation, damage our alliances and empower our adversaries.”
While the decision to pull out of Syria may have been the last straw for Mattis, tensions have been simmering over other issues for quite some time, including on Russia and Iran.
Mattis believed Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trying to undermine NATO and assaulting Western democracies.
“[Putin’s] actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point, but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals,” Mattis told U.S. Naval War College graduates at a commencement ceremony in June.
But Trump has praised Putin’s leadership skills and recently caused concern among U.S. allies by calling for Russia’s reinstatement in the group of major industrial nations. Russia was expelled from what was then the Group of Eight after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Another point of contention between the two men involved the Iran nuclear deal.
Mattis argued the U.S. should consider staying in the Iran nuclear deal unless Tehran was found not to be abiding by the agreement. Iran was following the pact’s rules, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors the use of nuclear energy and has verified Iranian compliance with the accord multiple times since 2015.
Despite Mattis’s position, Trump pulled out of the deal in May, saying it had been poorly negotiated during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
As Mattis turned in his resignation, the Defense Department was preparing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in the coming months, U.S. officials said. The development marks a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s policy to force the Taliban to the negotiating table after more than 17 years of war.
Rumors of Mattis leaving the Defense Department have been circulating for months.
In October, Trump appeared on the television news show 60 Minutes, where he told TV anchor Lesley Stahl that while “I like General Mattis,” he believed he knew more about NATO than his defense secretary.
“I think he’s sort of a Democrat, if you wanna know the truth,” Trump said. “But General Mattis is a good guy. We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves. Everybody. People leave. That’s Washington.”
Mattis became secretary of defense shortly after Trump’s inauguration and is one of the longest-serving Cabinet members.
Before that, Mattis served 44 years in the Marine Corps and led the Marines and British troops during the bloody Battle of Fallujah in Iraq in 2004.
…
Canadian Economy Exceeds Expectations in October
The Canadian economy expanded by a greater-than-expected 0.3 percent in October from September, pushed higher by strength in manufacturing, finance and insurance, Statistics Canada data indicated Friday.
Analysts in a Reuters poll had predicted monthly GDP would increase by 0.2 percent. Fifteen of the 20 industrial sectors — which Statscan says represents around 80 percent of the economy — posted gains.
The release could well be a pleasant surprise for Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, who complained earlier this month that economic data heading into the fourth quarter were weaker than expected.
The manufacturing sector grew by 0.7 percent on higher output of machinery, primary metals, chemicals and food. The finance and insurance sector advanced by 0.9 percent on increased activity in bond and money markets.
Wholesale trade grew by 1.0 percent, while utilities were up 1.5 percent on unseasonably cold weather that contributed to higher electricity demand for heating purposes.
…
Canadian Economy Exceeds Expectations in October
The Canadian economy expanded by a greater-than-expected 0.3 percent in October from September, pushed higher by strength in manufacturing, finance and insurance, Statistics Canada data indicated Friday.
Analysts in a Reuters poll had predicted monthly GDP would increase by 0.2 percent. Fifteen of the 20 industrial sectors — which Statscan says represents around 80 percent of the economy — posted gains.
The release could well be a pleasant surprise for Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz, who complained earlier this month that economic data heading into the fourth quarter were weaker than expected.
The manufacturing sector grew by 0.7 percent on higher output of machinery, primary metals, chemicals and food. The finance and insurance sector advanced by 0.9 percent on increased activity in bond and money markets.
Wholesale trade grew by 1.0 percent, while utilities were up 1.5 percent on unseasonably cold weather that contributed to higher electricity demand for heating purposes.
…
Nigerian Energy Sector’s Crippling Debts Delay Next Power Plant
Plans to build another privately-financed power station in Nigeria to help end decades of chronic blackouts have been delayed because of concerns about persistent shortfalls in payments for electricity across the sector.
The $1.1 billion Qua Iboe Power Plant being developed by energy infrastructure company Black Rhino and the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation won’t get a green light by the end of 2018 as planned and it was unclear when the deal might close, NNPC told Reuters.
The delay is a setback for Africa’s biggest oil producer where 80 million people don’t have access to grid power supplies and it exposes the difficulties in attracting private investment to a sector that successive governments have tried to reform.
The uncertainty surrounding the 540-megawatt Qua Iboe plant stems from the difficulties Nigeria’s first privately-financed independent power project — the 460-megawatt Azura-Edo plant — has encountered since it came online this year.
Azura was meant to be a model for a string of independent power plants financed by international investors. To give them confidence to invest in the first major plant since the power sector was privatized in 2013, the World Bank provided a safeguard known as a partial risk guarantee — meaning the lender would step in if Nigeria defaulted on payments.
Under the current system, the government-owned Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading company (NBET) buys power from generators and passes it on to distributors who then collect money from customers and reimburse NBET.
But because NBET is not paid in full for the power it buys, generators such as Azura have been partly reimbursed from an emergency central bank loan fund created to keep the sector afloat.
NNPC told Reuters one of the reasons the Qua Iboe plant (QIPP), which is due to be built in the southern state of Akwa Ibom, had been delayed was because NBET appeared reluctant to commit to new projects to avoid increasing its liabilities.
“The continued delay relates to the current cashflow challenges at NBET, as highlighted by the Azura project,” a spokesman for NNPC said in an emailed statement. “This concern is justified by the fact that NBET is yet to see an improvement in collections from DISCOs [distribution companies].”
NBET did not immediately respond to a request for comment on NNPC’s statement about QIPP.
NBET chief executive Marilyn Amobi told Reuters in November that it was hard for the company to work because of poor infrastructure and shortfalls in cash from distributors needed to reimburse generators.
“You don’t have the infrastructure, you don’t have the financial position to do it, you don’t actually have the products, and you don’t have the grid,” she said.
World Bank conditions
NNPC said another problem for QIPP was that the World Bank had made a partial risk guarantee, similar to the one that helped Azura attract investors, contingent on the government’s implementation of an agreed power sector recovery plan.
“In theory it is okay, but the risk is there are delays in the approvals which may impact QIPP,” NNPC said. Power ministry officials and the World Bank have been in talks about long-term structural changes needed to trigger the release of a $1 billion loan to help pay for reforms.
A World Bank spokeswoman said the loan had yet to be submitted to its board for approval and that the Washington-based lender considered the recovery plan to be “critical for de-risking the sector for private investments.”
Problems that need to be tackled include decaying infrastructure, mounting debts, low tariffs for electricity and a dilapidated government-owned grid that would collapse if all the country’s power generators operated at full tilt.
Even though NBET has an agreement to buy 13 gigawatts (GW) from power generators, the system can only cope with distributors sending out an average of 4 GW, according to the ministry of power.
The World Bank spokeswoman confirmed any future guarantees for independent power plants (IPPs) would be linked to the plan’s implementation – because the economic and financial viability of generation capacity expansion was at risk.
A spokeswoman for Black Rhino, which is one of private equity firm Blackstone’s portfolio companies, declined to comment on NNPC’s announcement of a delay to QIPP. When the project was unveiled, Nigerian cement giant Dangote Group was named as a joint venture partner – along with Black Rhino and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
But a Dangote executive told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the company, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, had pulled out.
“The huge debt level, and, the fact the IPPs are not making profits, is another reason for prospective investors to be deterred,” he said. “Further, collecting revenue from the distribution companies is also becoming a mirage.”
A Dangote Group spokesman declined to comment on the delay to QIPP, or whether the company had pulled out.
‘Illiquid and insolvent’
The payment problems in the Nigerian power sector were thrust into the spotlight in March when four generating companies filed a lawsuit against the government and Azura.
To ensure the generating companies were paid in full throughout 2017 and 2018, the government created a 701 billion naira ($2.3 billion) loan fund at the central bank to guarantee payments. When the fund was established in 2017, Azura wasn’t part of the calculations.
But when Azura started producing electricity, the fund was also used to pay the new plant to ensure the terms of loan deals guaranteed by the World Bank were not breached. As a result, the other companies were told they would only receive 80 percent of the sums owed, according to the lawsuit filed in March.
The four energy companies want the fund to reimburse them in full, rather than allocating part of the money to the new plant. Azura declined to comment on payments for power generated.
“If the central bank wasn’t paying, the system would collapse,” an official at a multilateral lender said on condition of anonymity. “Qua Iboe IPP would enter a system that is illiquid and insolvent. The liquidity is being provided by the central bank.”
The official said QIPP would need the same partial risk guarantee Azura received to get off the ground, but the handling of payments to Azura by the Nigerian authorities so far meant there was little appetite to offer the same support.
Fola Fagbule, senior vice president and head of advisory at Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) — one of the multilateral lenders that invested in Azura — agreed that the Qua Iboe project would struggle without payment guarantees.
“What you have is an insolvent system,” he said. “It is really difficult to make a case for a project on that scale.”
A person with direct knowledge of QIPP who declined to be named said Azura’s experience was damaging international investors’ view of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.
“There has to be some understanding of how the sector is going to be able to afford new electrons coming into the grid,” the person said. “[Those involved] do not want QIPP to build a project that could just end up in a default situation.”
‘Knotty issues’
Nigeria’s privatized power sector typically does not use meters to provide invoices, bill collections are low and energy tariffs have remained fixed for three years, meaning customers receive unsustainably cheap electricity.
The effect, say industry experts, is that electricity distribution companies recover so little revenue from customers that they pay less than a third of what they owe to generating companies – and that’s why debts have ballooned.
Sunday Oduntan, spokesman for the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, said debt levels in the sector were caused by the artificial suppression of tariffs. He said there was a 1.3 trillion naira ($4.2 billion) market shortfall that meant distributors were unable to invest in improvements.
“You cannot be selling a product below cost price and expect high remittance. The shortfall in the sector is because of the lack of a cost-reflective tariff,” said Oduntan, who speaks on behalf of Nigeria’s 11 electricity distribution companies.
Debts across the sector partly stem from a currency crisis that took hold in 2016, just months after Azura secured its financing. The bulk of power company costs are in U.S. dollars but customers pay for power in naira.
The naira lost about 30 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in June 2016 but the devaluation was not factored into a government tariff structure that has remained unchanged. Louis Edozien, permanent secretary in the ministry of power, told Reuters there was evidence tariffs must rise, but it was also the responsibility of distributors to improve their collections, partly through better metering and infrastructure.
As for the future of QIPP, the state oil company said it would take six to eight months from whenever NBET executes an agreement to purchase power from the plant before a final investment decision could be taken.
The NNPC spokesman said there were a number of other “knotty issues”, including the completion of a transmission line from the project site. He said QIPP had now agreed in a major concession to pay $20 million for it to be finished.
He also said there was a disagreement between QIPP and the central bank about the exchange rate at which power producers could buy U.S. dollars with naira. He said this had been escalated to the minister of finance.
With the $1 billion World Bank power sector loan on hold for now, the government is considering putting another 600 billion naira into the central bank fund to pay generators when the initial amount runs out early next year, sources said.
It was not clear how the central bank loans to the sector would be repaid.
Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele told Reuters that payments from the fund could be made up to February and that the bank was holding talks with World Bank officials.
“The loan negotiations are still in progress with no terminal date yet fixed,” the power ministry’s Edozien said.
($1 = 306.6000 naira)
…
Nigerian Energy Sector’s Crippling Debts Delay Next Power Plant
Plans to build another privately-financed power station in Nigeria to help end decades of chronic blackouts have been delayed because of concerns about persistent shortfalls in payments for electricity across the sector.
The $1.1 billion Qua Iboe Power Plant being developed by energy infrastructure company Black Rhino and the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation won’t get a green light by the end of 2018 as planned and it was unclear when the deal might close, NNPC told Reuters.
The delay is a setback for Africa’s biggest oil producer where 80 million people don’t have access to grid power supplies and it exposes the difficulties in attracting private investment to a sector that successive governments have tried to reform.
The uncertainty surrounding the 540-megawatt Qua Iboe plant stems from the difficulties Nigeria’s first privately-financed independent power project — the 460-megawatt Azura-Edo plant — has encountered since it came online this year.
Azura was meant to be a model for a string of independent power plants financed by international investors. To give them confidence to invest in the first major plant since the power sector was privatized in 2013, the World Bank provided a safeguard known as a partial risk guarantee — meaning the lender would step in if Nigeria defaulted on payments.
Under the current system, the government-owned Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading company (NBET) buys power from generators and passes it on to distributors who then collect money from customers and reimburse NBET.
But because NBET is not paid in full for the power it buys, generators such as Azura have been partly reimbursed from an emergency central bank loan fund created to keep the sector afloat.
NNPC told Reuters one of the reasons the Qua Iboe plant (QIPP), which is due to be built in the southern state of Akwa Ibom, had been delayed was because NBET appeared reluctant to commit to new projects to avoid increasing its liabilities.
“The continued delay relates to the current cashflow challenges at NBET, as highlighted by the Azura project,” a spokesman for NNPC said in an emailed statement. “This concern is justified by the fact that NBET is yet to see an improvement in collections from DISCOs [distribution companies].”
NBET did not immediately respond to a request for comment on NNPC’s statement about QIPP.
NBET chief executive Marilyn Amobi told Reuters in November that it was hard for the company to work because of poor infrastructure and shortfalls in cash from distributors needed to reimburse generators.
“You don’t have the infrastructure, you don’t have the financial position to do it, you don’t actually have the products, and you don’t have the grid,” she said.
World Bank conditions
NNPC said another problem for QIPP was that the World Bank had made a partial risk guarantee, similar to the one that helped Azura attract investors, contingent on the government’s implementation of an agreed power sector recovery plan.
“In theory it is okay, but the risk is there are delays in the approvals which may impact QIPP,” NNPC said. Power ministry officials and the World Bank have been in talks about long-term structural changes needed to trigger the release of a $1 billion loan to help pay for reforms.
A World Bank spokeswoman said the loan had yet to be submitted to its board for approval and that the Washington-based lender considered the recovery plan to be “critical for de-risking the sector for private investments.”
Problems that need to be tackled include decaying infrastructure, mounting debts, low tariffs for electricity and a dilapidated government-owned grid that would collapse if all the country’s power generators operated at full tilt.
Even though NBET has an agreement to buy 13 gigawatts (GW) from power generators, the system can only cope with distributors sending out an average of 4 GW, according to the ministry of power.
The World Bank spokeswoman confirmed any future guarantees for independent power plants (IPPs) would be linked to the plan’s implementation – because the economic and financial viability of generation capacity expansion was at risk.
A spokeswoman for Black Rhino, which is one of private equity firm Blackstone’s portfolio companies, declined to comment on NNPC’s announcement of a delay to QIPP. When the project was unveiled, Nigerian cement giant Dangote Group was named as a joint venture partner – along with Black Rhino and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.
But a Dangote executive told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the company, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, had pulled out.
“The huge debt level, and, the fact the IPPs are not making profits, is another reason for prospective investors to be deterred,” he said. “Further, collecting revenue from the distribution companies is also becoming a mirage.”
A Dangote Group spokesman declined to comment on the delay to QIPP, or whether the company had pulled out.
‘Illiquid and insolvent’
The payment problems in the Nigerian power sector were thrust into the spotlight in March when four generating companies filed a lawsuit against the government and Azura.
To ensure the generating companies were paid in full throughout 2017 and 2018, the government created a 701 billion naira ($2.3 billion) loan fund at the central bank to guarantee payments. When the fund was established in 2017, Azura wasn’t part of the calculations.
But when Azura started producing electricity, the fund was also used to pay the new plant to ensure the terms of loan deals guaranteed by the World Bank were not breached. As a result, the other companies were told they would only receive 80 percent of the sums owed, according to the lawsuit filed in March.
The four energy companies want the fund to reimburse them in full, rather than allocating part of the money to the new plant. Azura declined to comment on payments for power generated.
“If the central bank wasn’t paying, the system would collapse,” an official at a multilateral lender said on condition of anonymity. “Qua Iboe IPP would enter a system that is illiquid and insolvent. The liquidity is being provided by the central bank.”
The official said QIPP would need the same partial risk guarantee Azura received to get off the ground, but the handling of payments to Azura by the Nigerian authorities so far meant there was little appetite to offer the same support.
Fola Fagbule, senior vice president and head of advisory at Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) — one of the multilateral lenders that invested in Azura — agreed that the Qua Iboe project would struggle without payment guarantees.
“What you have is an insolvent system,” he said. “It is really difficult to make a case for a project on that scale.”
A person with direct knowledge of QIPP who declined to be named said Azura’s experience was damaging international investors’ view of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.
“There has to be some understanding of how the sector is going to be able to afford new electrons coming into the grid,” the person said. “[Those involved] do not want QIPP to build a project that could just end up in a default situation.”
‘Knotty issues’
Nigeria’s privatized power sector typically does not use meters to provide invoices, bill collections are low and energy tariffs have remained fixed for three years, meaning customers receive unsustainably cheap electricity.
The effect, say industry experts, is that electricity distribution companies recover so little revenue from customers that they pay less than a third of what they owe to generating companies – and that’s why debts have ballooned.
Sunday Oduntan, spokesman for the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, said debt levels in the sector were caused by the artificial suppression of tariffs. He said there was a 1.3 trillion naira ($4.2 billion) market shortfall that meant distributors were unable to invest in improvements.
“You cannot be selling a product below cost price and expect high remittance. The shortfall in the sector is because of the lack of a cost-reflective tariff,” said Oduntan, who speaks on behalf of Nigeria’s 11 electricity distribution companies.
Debts across the sector partly stem from a currency crisis that took hold in 2016, just months after Azura secured its financing. The bulk of power company costs are in U.S. dollars but customers pay for power in naira.
The naira lost about 30 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in June 2016 but the devaluation was not factored into a government tariff structure that has remained unchanged. Louis Edozien, permanent secretary in the ministry of power, told Reuters there was evidence tariffs must rise, but it was also the responsibility of distributors to improve their collections, partly through better metering and infrastructure.
As for the future of QIPP, the state oil company said it would take six to eight months from whenever NBET executes an agreement to purchase power from the plant before a final investment decision could be taken.
The NNPC spokesman said there were a number of other “knotty issues”, including the completion of a transmission line from the project site. He said QIPP had now agreed in a major concession to pay $20 million for it to be finished.
He also said there was a disagreement between QIPP and the central bank about the exchange rate at which power producers could buy U.S. dollars with naira. He said this had been escalated to the minister of finance.
With the $1 billion World Bank power sector loan on hold for now, the government is considering putting another 600 billion naira into the central bank fund to pay generators when the initial amount runs out early next year, sources said.
It was not clear how the central bank loans to the sector would be repaid.
Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele told Reuters that payments from the fund could be made up to February and that the bank was holding talks with World Bank officials.
“The loan negotiations are still in progress with no terminal date yet fixed,” the power ministry’s Edozien said.
($1 = 306.6000 naira)
…
NASA Satellite Will Measure the World’s Forests
Forests are often called the lungs of the planet because they produce so much oxygen. But they also store huge amounts of carbon. NASA scientists want to know exactly how much carbon, and so they have just launched a satellite that will finally give them an exact measurement. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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China ‘Resolutely Opposes’ New US Law on Tibet
China denounced the United States on Thursday for passing a new law on restive Tibet, saying it was “resolutely opposed” to the U.S. legislation on what China considers an internal affair, and it risked causing “serious harm” to their relations.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act.
The law seeks to promote access to Tibet for U.S. diplomats and other officials, journalists and other citizens by denying U.S. entry for Chinese officials deemed responsible for restricting access to Tibet.
Beijing sent troops into remote, mountainous Tibet in 1950 in what it officially terms a peaceful liberation and has ruled there with an iron fist ever since.
China: wrong signals
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily briefing that the law “sent seriously wrong signals to Tibetan separatist elements,” as well as threatening to worsen bilateral ties strained by trade tension and other issues.
“If the United States implements this law, it will cause serious harm to China-U.S. relations and to the cooperation in important areas between the two countries,” Hua said.
The United States should be fully aware of the high sensitivity of the Tibet issue and should stop its interference, otherwise the United States would have to accept responsibility for the consequences, she added, without elaborating.
Difficult life in Tibet
Rights groups say the situation for ethnic Tibetans inside what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region remains extremely difficult. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said in June conditions were “fast deteriorating” in Tibet.
All foreigners need special permission to enter Tibet, which is generally granted to tourists, who are allowed to go on often tightly monitored tours, but very infrequently to foreign diplomats and journalists.
Hua said Tibet was open to foreign visitors, as shown by the 40,000 American visitors to the region since 2015.
At the same time, she said it was “absolutely necessary and understandable” that the government administered controls on the entry of foreigners given “local geographic and climate reasons.”
Rights groups welcome law
Tibetan rights groups have welcomed the U.S. legislation. The International Campaign for Tibet said the “impactful and innovative” law marked a “new era of American support” and was a challenge to China’s policies in Tibet.
“The U.S. let Beijing know that its officials will face real consequences for discriminating against Americans and Tibetans and has blazed a path for other countries to follow,” the group’s president, Matteo Mecacci, said in a statement.
Next year marks the sensitive 60th anniversary of the flight into exile in India of the Dalai Lama, the highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
China routinely denounces him as a dangerous separatist, although the Dalai Lama says he merely wants genuine autonomy for his homeland.
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China ‘Resolutely Opposes’ New US Law on Tibet
China denounced the United States on Thursday for passing a new law on restive Tibet, saying it was “resolutely opposed” to the U.S. legislation on what China considers an internal affair, and it risked causing “serious harm” to their relations.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act.
The law seeks to promote access to Tibet for U.S. diplomats and other officials, journalists and other citizens by denying U.S. entry for Chinese officials deemed responsible for restricting access to Tibet.
Beijing sent troops into remote, mountainous Tibet in 1950 in what it officially terms a peaceful liberation and has ruled there with an iron fist ever since.
China: wrong signals
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily briefing that the law “sent seriously wrong signals to Tibetan separatist elements,” as well as threatening to worsen bilateral ties strained by trade tension and other issues.
“If the United States implements this law, it will cause serious harm to China-U.S. relations and to the cooperation in important areas between the two countries,” Hua said.
The United States should be fully aware of the high sensitivity of the Tibet issue and should stop its interference, otherwise the United States would have to accept responsibility for the consequences, she added, without elaborating.
Difficult life in Tibet
Rights groups say the situation for ethnic Tibetans inside what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region remains extremely difficult. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said in June conditions were “fast deteriorating” in Tibet.
All foreigners need special permission to enter Tibet, which is generally granted to tourists, who are allowed to go on often tightly monitored tours, but very infrequently to foreign diplomats and journalists.
Hua said Tibet was open to foreign visitors, as shown by the 40,000 American visitors to the region since 2015.
At the same time, she said it was “absolutely necessary and understandable” that the government administered controls on the entry of foreigners given “local geographic and climate reasons.”
Rights groups welcome law
Tibetan rights groups have welcomed the U.S. legislation. The International Campaign for Tibet said the “impactful and innovative” law marked a “new era of American support” and was a challenge to China’s policies in Tibet.
“The U.S. let Beijing know that its officials will face real consequences for discriminating against Americans and Tibetans and has blazed a path for other countries to follow,” the group’s president, Matteo Mecacci, said in a statement.
Next year marks the sensitive 60th anniversary of the flight into exile in India of the Dalai Lama, the highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
China routinely denounces him as a dangerous separatist, although the Dalai Lama says he merely wants genuine autonomy for his homeland.
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Yemeni Mother Holds Dying Baby in California Hospital
A mother from Yemen cradled her dying infant son in a California hospital Thursday when, just a few days ago, she thought she would never be able to tell him goodbye.
The State Department granted Shaima Swileh a waiver to President Donald Trump’s travel ban, allowing her to hold her baby and tell him how much she loves him, perhaps for the last time.
Friends and reporters mobbed Swileh when she arrived at the San Francisco airport Wednesday night.
Husband, son US citizens
Two-year-old Abdullah Hassan, a U.S. citizen, is on life support with a rare genetic brain condition. His father, Ali Hassan, also an American citizen, has been at the hospital with his son.
The couple married in Egypt in 2016. But Swileh, a Yemeni, was not allowed to come to the United States because of the travel ban.
Hassan has said he was ready to take his son off life support, giving up hope his wife would ever be able to see the child.
State Department grants waiver
Lawyers from the Council on American-Islamic Relations sued the State Department, which granted her a visa earlier this week.
State Department spokesman Robert Palladino called it a “very sad case” and said U.S. officials struggle to determine which appeals for waivers are legitimate while balancing national security concerns.
“These are not easy questions. We’ve got a lot of foreign service officers deployed all over the world that are making these decisions on a daily basis, and they are trying to do the right thing at all times,” Palladino said earlier this week.
Trump’s travel ban restricts citizens from Yemen and six other mostly Muslim countries, along with North Korea and Venezuela, from coming to the United States, citing a threat of terrorism.
But critics of the ban have pointed to the Swileh case as an example of what they call discrimination against Muslims.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, also intervened on the family’s behalf, calling the travel ban “heinous” and “un-American.”
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Yemeni Mother Holds Dying Baby in California Hospital
A mother from Yemen cradled her dying infant son in a California hospital Thursday when, just a few days ago, she thought she would never be able to tell him goodbye.
The State Department granted Shaima Swileh a waiver to President Donald Trump’s travel ban, allowing her to hold her baby and tell him how much she loves him, perhaps for the last time.
Friends and reporters mobbed Swileh when she arrived at the San Francisco airport Wednesday night.
Husband, son US citizens
Two-year-old Abdullah Hassan, a U.S. citizen, is on life support with a rare genetic brain condition. His father, Ali Hassan, also an American citizen, has been at the hospital with his son.
The couple married in Egypt in 2016. But Swileh, a Yemeni, was not allowed to come to the United States because of the travel ban.
Hassan has said he was ready to take his son off life support, giving up hope his wife would ever be able to see the child.
State Department grants waiver
Lawyers from the Council on American-Islamic Relations sued the State Department, which granted her a visa earlier this week.
State Department spokesman Robert Palladino called it a “very sad case” and said U.S. officials struggle to determine which appeals for waivers are legitimate while balancing national security concerns.
“These are not easy questions. We’ve got a lot of foreign service officers deployed all over the world that are making these decisions on a daily basis, and they are trying to do the right thing at all times,” Palladino said earlier this week.
Trump’s travel ban restricts citizens from Yemen and six other mostly Muslim countries, along with North Korea and Venezuela, from coming to the United States, citing a threat of terrorism.
But critics of the ban have pointed to the Swileh case as an example of what they call discrimination against Muslims.
U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, a Democrat from California, also intervened on the family’s behalf, calling the travel ban “heinous” and “un-American.”
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USDA Moves to Tighten Work Requirements for Food Stamps
The Trump administration is setting out to do what this year’s farm bill didn’t: tighten work requirements for millions of Americans who receive federal food assistance.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday proposed a rule that would restrict the ability of states to exempt work-eligible adults from having to obtain steady employment to receive food stamps.
The move comes the same day that President Donald Trump signed an $867 billion farm bill that reauthorized agriculture and conservation programs while leaving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves roughly 40 million Americans, virtually untouched.
Passage of the farm bill followed months of tense negotiations over House efforts to significantly tighten work requirements and the Senate’s refusal to accept the provisions.
Currently, able-bodied adults ages 18-49 without children are required to work 20 hours a week to maintain their SNAP benefits. The House bill would have raised the age of recipients subject to work requirements from 49 to 59 and required parents with children older than 6 to work or participate in job training. The House measure also sought to limit circumstances under which families that qualify for other poverty programs can automatically be eligible for SNAP.
Measures don’t make final farm bill
None of those measures made it into the final farm bill despite Trump’s endorsement. Now the administration is using regulatory rule making to try to scale back the SNAP program.
Work-eligible able-bodied adults without dependents, known as ABAWDs, can currently receive only three months of SNAP benefits in a three-year period if they don’t meet the 20-hour work requirement. But states with an unemployment rate of 10 percent or higher or a demonstrable lack of sufficient jobs can waive those limitations.
States are also allowed to grant benefit extensions for 15 percent of their work-eligible adult population without a waiver. If a state doesn’t use its 15 percent, it can bank the exemptions to distribute later, creating what Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue referred to as a “stockpile.”
The USDA’s proposed rule would strip states’ ability to issue waivers unless a city or county has an unemployment rate of 7 percent or higher. The waivers would be good for one year and would require the governor to support the request. States would no longer be able to bank their 15 percent exemptions. The new rule also would forbid states from granting waivers for geographic areas larger than a specific jurisdiction.
Proposed rule a tradeoff
Perdue said the proposed rule is a tradeoff for Trump’s support of the farm bill, which Trump signed Thursday.
“I have directed Secretary Perdue to use his authority to close work requirement loopholes in the food stamp program,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “That was a difficult thing to get done, but the farmers wanted it done, we all wanted it done, and in the end, it’s going to make a lot of people happy.”
Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict SNAP.
“Why at Christmas would you take food out of the mouths of American people?” she said.
The USDA in February solicited public comment on ways to reform SNAP, and Perdue has repeatedly voiced support for scaling back the program.
The Trump administration’s effort, while celebrated by some conservatives, has been met with criticism from advocates who say tightening restrictions will result in more vulnerable Americans, including children, going hungry.
A Brookings Institution study published this summer said more stringent work requirements are likely to hurt those who are already part of the workforce but whose employment is sporadic.
Conaway leads the way
House Agriculture Chairman Michael Conaway, R-Texas, was the primary champion for tighter SNAP work requirements in the House farm bill and remained committed to the provision throughout negotiations.
Conaway praised the rule Thursday for “creating a roadmap for states to more effectively engage ABAWDs in this booming economy.”
Conaway in September blasted the Senate for refusing to adopt work requirements and suggested that Perdue doesn’t have the authority to make broad changes to the SNAP program.
“The Senate seems to have abandoned the idea that it is Congress’ responsibility to fix the waiver issue and that somehow Secretary Perdue could wave a magic wand and fix that. It’s not his responsibility; he does not have the authority,” Conaway said in an interview with Pro Farmer, a trade publication.
Democrats blast farm bill
On Thursday, Conaway spokeswoman Rachel Millard said the congressman was referring to Perdue’s authority to change laws, which he does not have, not the secretary’s ability to pursue regulatory action. She said Conaway continues to support Perdue’s efforts to limit SNAP.
The top Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, who along with its Republican chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, crafted the bipartisan Senate bill without any changes to SNAP, blasted the Trump administration for its attempt to restrict the program.
“This regulation blatantly ignores the bipartisan farm bill that the president is signing today and disregards over 20 years of history giving states flexibility to request waivers based on local job conditions,” Stabenow said. “I expect the rule will face significant opposition and legal challenges.”
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