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Business, News 01/14/2018 No comments

Protests in Tunisia Spur Government to Pledge Aid to Poor

Tunisia plans to increase aid for poor families by $70.3 million, after nearly a week of protests over austerity measures, an official said Saturday.

“This will concern about 250,000 families,” Mohamed Trabelsi, minister of social affairs, said. “It will help the poor and middle class.”

President Beji Caid Essebsi was also scheduled to visit the poor district of Ettadhamen in the capital, Tunis, which was hit by protests.

Essebsi was set to give a speech and open a cultural center, Reuters reported. It was to be the president’s first visit to the district.

Several hundred protesters took to the streets Saturday in Sidi Bouzid, where a 2011 uprising began, touching off the Arab Spring protests. And on Friday, protesters in cities and towns across the country waved yellow cards — a warning sign to the government — and brandished loaves of bread, a symbol of the day-to-day struggle to afford basic goods.

Anger has been growing since the government introduced price hikes earlier this month, which came atop already soaring inflation.

WATCH: Protests Erupt Again in Tunisia, Cradle of 2011 Arab Spring

Since Monday, security forces have been deployed in Tunis and across the country. Several hundred people have been arrested, including opposition politicians, while dozens have been injured in clashes with police. A 55-year-old man died earlier this week, though the circumstances of his death remained unclear.

The scenes of protest are reminiscent of January 2011, when demonstrations swept across the country, eventually toppling dictator Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali before spreading across the region.

“Why did we do the revolution? For jobs, for freedom and for dignity. We obtained freedom, sure — but we’re going hungry,” unemployed protester Walid Bejaoui said Friday.

One of the main protest organizations is using the Arabic social media hashtag “Fesh Nestannew?” or “What Are We Waiting For?” The group is urging a return to the spirit of the 2011 revolt.

“We believe a dialogue is still possible and reforms are still possible. The yellow card is to say, ‘Attention: Today we have the same demands that we have been having for years. It’s time to tackle the real problems, the economic crisis, the high cost of living,’ ” said Henda Chennaoui, a Fesh Nestannew protester.

The government enacted a new law this month raising taxes to try to cut the deficit, a move largely driven by Tunisia’s obligations to its international creditors, said analyst Max Gallien of the London School of Economics.

“I think that this government feels that its ability to make its own economic policy or its ability to roll back these austerity reforms is very much limited by the demands of international financial institutions,” he said, “primarily the IMF,” or International Monetary Fund.

The government has condemned the violence but pledged to listen to the protesters.

“No matter what the government undertakes, its top priority — even during tough decisions — is improving the economic and social conditions of the people,” Prime Minister Youssef Chahed told reporters Thursday.

So could the region witness a repeat of 2011, with the protests gaining momentum?

“We’re looking at a different region now. But at the same time, there are similarities: the issue of austerity, of socioeconomic nationalization, of corruption and predation by elites,” analyst Gallien said.

The Tunisian government’s task is to address those deep-rooted problems before the protests spin out of control.
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News, World 01/13/2018 No comments

Angry Reactions Continue to Trump’s Vulgar Immigration Remark

Reactions to President Donald Trump’s use of a vulgar slur to explain his opposition to Haitian and African migration to the United States were continuing to circulate Saturday.

Trump stunned lawmakers Thursday in a White House meeting on immigration when, according to multiple reports and confirmation from attendees, he asked, “Why are we having all these people from s—hole countries come here?”

Ninety-five percent of Haitians are black, as are the vast majority of Africans.

Trump said the United States should allow in more people from places such as Norway, whose population is mostly white.

Trump took to Twitter on Friday to deny using the vulgar term, which is slang for an extremely dirty or shabby place and includes a synonym for excrement. He said his language was “tough,” but denied using the vulgarity.

Since then, reactions to his remark have continued to come via Twitter and statements to the media. Trump’s former presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, noted that Friday was the anniversary of a devastating earthquake in Haiti, from which the island has never fully recovered.

“The anniversary of the devastating earthquake 8 years ago is a day to remember the tragedy, honor the resilient people of Haiti, & affirm America’s commitment to helping our neighbors. Instead, we’re subjected to Trump’s ignorant, racist views of anyone who doesn’t look like him,” she tweeted Friday.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tweeted Friday, “I hope our next president will rehire all the diplomats who have resigned over Trump’s racist words and harmful actions. We will need all the help we can get to repair the damage he is doing to our country’s international reputation and interests.”

‘No change in our dedication’

And the U.S. Embassy in South Africa tweeted Friday that “the U.S. deeply respects the people of Africa & values partnerships w/them. There has been no change in our dedication to partners & friends across the Continent.”

Also Friday, the U.N. human rights spokesman, Rupert Colville, called the comments racist, but he added that the episode was “not just a story about vulgar language. It’s about opening the door wider to humanity’s worst side, about validating and encouraging racism and xenophobia that will potentially disrupt and destroy the lives of many people.”

The African Union said Friday that it was “frankly alarmed” by the president’s reported statement. AU spokeswoman Ebba Kalondo told The Associated Press, “Given the historical reality of how many Africans arrived in the United States as slaves, this statement flies in the face of all accepted behavior and practice.”

“This is particularly surprising,” she added, “as the United States of America remains a global example of how migration gave birth to a nation built on strong values of diversity and opportunity.”

The U.S. State Department said Friday that American diplomats in Haiti and in Botswana had been summoned by government officials to discuss the remarks.

U.S. Republican Representative Mia Love of Utah, whose family came from Haiti, said the president’s comments were “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values. This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation.”

Love called on Trump to apologize to the people of Haiti.

U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, said in an interview, “It’s incomprehensible that these words came out of the mouth of the president of the United States of America, a country that was founded on being free from discrimination and treating people fairly and having people come here, the land of the free. … This is a president that has had a sordid, terrible history of making racist statements.”

Ros-Lehtinen also tweeted that Trump’s “calling #Haiti a ‘s**thole country’ ignores the contributions thousands of Haitians have made to our #SoFla community and nation. Language like that shouldn’t be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn’t be heard in the White House.”

‘Ashamed’ of Trump’s position

Minnesota state Representative Ilhan Omar, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party who in 2016 became the first Somali-American elected to a state legislative office in the United States, released a statement saying, “I am not ashamed of the country where I was born. I am not ashamed to call myself an American now. I am a proud immigrant, refugee, Minnesotan and a proud State Legislator.

“But make no mistake, I am ashamed, disturbed, and outraged that the leader of the United States can’t see beyond his own embarrassing privilege to embrace the diversity that has made this country great for generations.”

U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, said he wanted more details “regarding the president’s comments.”

“Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin,” Hatch added.

U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, tweeted late Thursday, “My ancestors came from countries not nearly as prosperous as the one we live in today. I’m glad that they were welcomed here.”

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, said in a tweet, “Immigrants from countries across the globe — including and especially those from Haiti and all parts of Africa — have helped build this country. They should be welcomed and celebrated, not demeaned and insulted.”

U.S. Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, “President Trump’s comments are yet another confirmation of his racially insensitive and ignorant views. It also reinforces the concerns that we hear every day, that the president’s slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ is really code for ‘Make America White Again.’ ”

The White House released a statement Thursday that defended the president’s views, without referencing his specific comments.

“Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation. He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway.”

VOA correspondents Cindy Saine, Natalie Liu, Steve Herman and Michael Bowman contributed to this report.
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Business, News 01/13/2018 No comments

Report: Traffic Fatalities Hold Back Developing Economies

Deadly traffic accidents are more than just individual tragedies. They’re a drag on economic growth in developing countries, according to a new World Bank report.

The study is among the first to show that investing in road safety in low- and middle-income countries would raise national incomes.

Ninety percent of the world’s annual 1.25 million traffic deaths happen in the developing world. The World Health Organization says traffic accidents are the leading cause of death worldwide for people between 15 to 29 years old. That includes crashes that kill pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists.

But the issue does not get much official attention, according to World Bank transportation expert Dipan Bose.

“There is not a lot of political will in many low and middle income countries to take definitive actions to reduce road deaths and injuries,” he said.

Bose co-authored a study focused on five countries: China, India, Thailand, the Philippines and Tanzania. The authors used economic models to estimate what each country’s overall economy would gain over a 24-year period by cutting traffic deaths in half.

“The results were quite startling,” he said.

Thailand would see a 22 percent boost to national income. The country’s high rates of both economic growth and traffic accidents meant it had the most to gain.

Tanzania would gain seven percent. The other countries fell in between.

These kinds of economic gains are “something which no national government can ignore,” Bose said. The report “gives the economic story of why it is important to take strong actions on road safety.”

Enforcing speed limits, helmet and seat belt laws and cutting down on drunk driving are “low-hanging fruit” to reduce traffic injuries, the report says.

Not only drivers at fault

But drivers are only partly responsible for traffic deaths, according to a separate report co-authored by the World Bank and the World Resources Institute. City planners and government officials are responsible for building safety into the transportation system.

“If the system’s not safe – if people don’t have the opportunity to cross the road safely, or drive in a safe vehicle – then a small error can result in a fatality,” said report co-author Anna Bray Sharpin at the World Resources Institute. “And that should not be the case.”

For example, she said, “many cities have applied highway design guidelines even to their city streets.” Wide, multi-lane boulevards are designed for “maximum traffic flow and speed,” but not for cyclists or pedestrians.

“People tend to take risks to try and cross the road,” she said. “And that comes back to this issue of whether this is a personal responsibility, or a co-responsibility between governments and planners and people using the road.”

The report offers guidance for incorporating safety into road design. Public transit, walking and biking lower the number of cars on the road and the number of accidents. Installing sidewalks, raised crosswalks and protected cycle lanes helps keep these road users out of harm’s way. On rural roads, median barriers can reduce head-on collisions.

Bray Sharpin notes that many developing countries are currently planning major road infrastructure projects.

“There’s a window of opportunity now to integrate safety into their planning,” she said. It’s much cheaper than trying to retrofit it later. Plus, once these roads are built, they’ll be around for decades.

If they don’t build in safety now, she added, they will be “locked into their dangerous infrastructure for the very long term.”
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Business, News 01/13/2018 No comments

Awash in Corn, Soybeans, US Farmers Focus on Trade Deals

For Illinois farmer Garry Niemeyer, it’s a slow time of year, spent indoors fixing equipment, not outdoors tending his fields, which now lie empty.

All of his corn and soybeans were harvested in what has turned out to be a good year.

“This is the largest amount of corn we’ve had ever,” he said.

And this bounty is not limited to Niemeyer’s farm. It can be seen throughout the United States.

“We’re talking 14½ billion bushels of corn,” Niemeyer told VOA. “That’s a lot of production.”

WATCH: Awash in Corn, Soybeans, US Farmers Focus on Trade Deals

Piles of corn, soybeans

That production is easy to see at nearby elevators, where large piles of corn under white plastic wrap extend into the sky. There is more corn and soybeans than existing storage facilities can hold.

“You can drive by just about any elevator out here in the country and see some pretty large piles of corn that are covered outside of the bins,” said Mark Gebhards, executive director of Governmental Affairs and Commodities for the Illinois Farm Bureau. “That is a direct result of a lot of carry-over from last year; i.e., we need to move this and create market demand to get the product moving.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports record harvests of corn and soybeans in the United States in 2017, with stocks overflowing at elevators and storage bins across the country.

In Illinois, Gebhards notes that up to half of the state’s corn supply, and even more soybeans, will eventually reach foreign shores.

“Usually we say every other row of beans is going into the export market,” Gebhards said.

But Niemeyer wants even more of his crop to find a market overseas.

“We have overproduced for our domestic market,” he told VOA. “Our profits will lie in the amount of exports we are able to secure in the future.”

The NAFTA question

Which is why the Illinois farmer is looking for some indication from U.S. President Donald Trump on the current efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

“NAFTA is huge,” Niemeyer said. “NAFTA consumes $43 billion worth of our crops and livestock and other things we exported out of this country in 2016.”

Niemeyer is pleased with Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental regulations and institute tax reform. But there was little hint of NAFTA’s fate during Trump’s Jan. 8 speech to the American Farm Bureau Federation Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.

“If anything was maybe left as an area of concern, it’s still what’s going to happen to that trade agreement,” said Gebhards, who warns the U.S. withdrawing from NAFTA could impact prices.

“On the livestock side, it’s estimated you would see $18 per hog or $71 per cow if we were to withdraw. It’s estimated that we would see potentially a $0.30 per bushel decrease in the corn price and $0.15 on the soybean side.”

Prices are a factor growers like Niemeyer maintain a close watch on.

“(The) price of corn is about $3.30 a bushel, so $3 corn, it’s hard to make anything work, even with a large yield,” which, Niemeyer said, is why many farmers are holding on to what they have.

“Everybody’s sitting still, that’s the reason you aren’t seeing much corn move right today because the price has done absolutely nothing,” he said.

Niemeyer wants a final NAFTA agreement soon, so negotiators can focus on new trade agreements that could help create more demand, improve prices and ultimately move the supply that has piled up in the U.S.

Gebhards said the world is watching the negotiations for clues on how reliable the U.S. is as a trading partner under Trump.

“It’s a short term issue for us not to lose ground as we try to renegotiate NAFTA,” Gebhards said. “But I think the long term is what kind of a signal do you send as a reliable trading partner to the rest of the world that if you enter into this agreement with the United States you know that you will be able to get that product that you’ve agreed to buy.”

Trump has recently suggested a deadline extension for modernizing NAFTA, which means the uncertainty for farmers like Niemeyer could extend into March or April, when he is preparing to put a new crop in the ground.
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News, World 01/13/2018 No comments

Unpacking What Remains of Iran Sanctions

On Friday, President Donald Trump waived economic sanctions on Iran, the third time he’s issued a sanctions waiver under a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers.

The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, restricted Iran’s controversial nuclear program in exchange for broad relief from international sanctions.

While the United States, the United Nations and the European Union have lifted most nuclear-related sanctions, unilaterally imposed U.S. sanctions going back decades remain in place. These restrictions were levied because of Iran’s human rights violations, support of terrorism, and pursuit of a ballistic missile program.

Sorting out the myriad sanctions requires “a team of lawyers,” said Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington.

“It’s a maze, in many ways,” Vatanka said.

Here is the status of key sanctions on Iran, based largely on a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, as well as those with the Treasury and State departments:

What sanctions relief Iran has received under the nuclear deal

As part of the deal, the U.S. agreed to waive several key Iran sanctions laws and revoke related presidential executive orders.

The U.S. waived all provisions of the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), a 1996 law that imposed sanctions on foreign investment in Iran’s energy sector. Among other things, the sweeping legislation mandated penalties on persons and entities that invested more than $20 million in one year in Iran’s energy sector.

The U.S. waived the Iran sanctions provisions of the fiscal year 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Among its other stipulations, the law targeted foreign banks that conducted transactions with Iran’s central bank.

The U.S. waived all provisions of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act (ITRSHR) of 2012 except for those that applied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates. The law had imposed sanctions on companies that provided insurance or reinsurance services for Iran’s national oil company and national tanker company.

The U.S. waived the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA), a 2012 law that penalized companies that did business with Iran’s energy, shipbuilding and shipping sectors, exported precious metals to Iran, and allowed Iran to deal in U.S. banknotes.

The president revoked a 2012 presidential executive order that slapped sanctions on companies that purchased oil from Iran, conducted transactions with its national oil company or helped Iran buy previous metals and U.S. banknotes.

The president revoked a 2013 executive order that punished companies that do business with Iran’s automotive sector, expanded penalties on sales of precious metals to Iran, and prohibited regional banks that conduct business in the Iranian currency from holding U.S. bank accounts.

Also, the U.S. released Iranian assets frozen because of Iran’s nuclear deal. The CRS report puts the figure around $1.7 billion.

What sanctions remain in place

The 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the Iran nuclear deal left intact sanctions on Iran’s development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles as well as Iran’s arms exports and imports.

U.S. and EU sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its affiliates and commanders remain in place.

The Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act of 1992 remain intact. The act imposes penalties on companies that provide Iran with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technology or advanced conventional weaponry.

Under JCPOA, the U.S. relaxed a ban on imports of Iranian luxury goods, such as carpets and caviar, but most U.S. restrictions on trade with and investment with Iran remain in place, according to the CRS report.

A ban on U.S. financial institutions doing business with Iranian banks remains in place.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISDA) of 2010 and a related executive order punishing Iranian human rights violators have survived the nuclear deal.

The legislation allows the Treasury Secretary to imposes travel bans and other sanctions on Iranian individuals and entities accused of human rights violations and other abuses. The Treasury Department announced on Friday that it had designated 14 Iranian individuals and entities under the executive order.

More than $3.7 billion worth of Iranian assets, blocked because of Iran’s human rights record, support for terrorism and missile technology, remain frozen, according to the Congressional Research Service report.
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Business, News 01/13/2018 No comments

Awash in Corn, Soybeans, U.S. Farmers Focus on Trade Deals

The United States Department of Agriculture reports record harvests of corn and soybeans in the United States in 2017, with stocks overflowing at elevators and storage bins across the country. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, record yields don’t necessarily translate into stronger bottom lines for farmers, who increasingly depend on international trade to move their product and improve their prices.
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News, World 01/13/2018 No comments

Trump Under Fire From Countries He Reportedly Deemed ‘S—holes’

The U.S. president is in hot water once again — this time on an international stage — following his reported use of a vulgarity that disparaged poorer nations during a discussion on immigration reform. Global leaders and citizens have been swift and unequivocal in their condemnation. VOA’s Ramon Taylor reports.
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News, Technology 01/13/2018 No comments

New ‘Smart Home’ Tech Lets You Talk to Your Smoke Detector

Gadgets that can make homes smarter are becoming more affordable for consumers. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even simple devices were getting sophisticated new brains. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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News, World 01/13/2018 No comments

Trump Waives Iran Sanctions, Says It’s the Last Time

The White House on Friday decided to continue to waive sanctions on Iran that targeted its nuclear weapons program, preserving the 2015 deal between Tehran and six world powers. But Trump administration officials warn this is the last waiver the U.S. will issue. That means Washington could leave the deal within months, reports VOA’s Bill Gallo.
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News, World 01/13/2018 No comments

What’s Next for Immigration Reform After Trump Profanity?

The on-again, off-again effort to decide the future of almost 800,000 undocumented youths in the United States swung wildly from Thursday to Friday, with one of the top Republicans in Congress calling President Donald Trump’s reported use of an expletive to disparage some immigrants’ home countries “unfortunate” and “unhelpful.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan joined politicians from both parties who were critical of the president following the remark, made Thursday during a meeting on immigration policy at the White House. Trump allegedly referred to Haiti and African nations as “s—hole” countries.

While Trump denied the widely reported comment in a tweet, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, one of the top-ranking Democrats and a longtime supporter of immigration reform, said he “personally heard” the president’s comment, and that Trump had repeatedly used “hate-filled, vile and racist” words.

No one is denying, however, that Trump rejected a bipartisan immigration deal brought to him by six senators that addressed not only the now-ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, but also the diversity lottery and temporary protected status programs, funding for border security, and some aspects of the family-based migration system. The deal was a nonstarter for conservative senators at the meeting and also for Trump.

“This is like throwing gasoline to the fire,” Representative Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat, said of Trump’s reported language. Espaillat immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic, located next to Haiti on the island of Hispaniola.

A week to get it done

Next Friday is the deadline for Congress to pass a national budget, something many Democrats, whose votes are needed, have said they will not do unless there is a fix for DACA. Absent a budget, the federal government will have to shut down.

Durbin said Friday that he had hoped for White House approval of the bipartisan deal. Without it, “here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to prepare our bipartisan agreement for introduction into the Senate next week. If the Republican leadership has a better alternative, bring it forward. If they don’t, for goodness’ sake, give us a vote.”

He said he would be on the phone Friday “begging” his colleagues in both parties to support the measure.

But Trump, meanwhile, was disparaging the plan on Twitter as a “big step backwards.”

In a statement Friday, conservative Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia had a different take on the previous day’s meeting.

“What he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system, which does not protect American workers and our national interest. We, along with the president, are committed to solving an issue many in Congress have failed to deliver on for decades,” the statement said.

What now?

In a statement Friday, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), which held events to help DACA applicants process their paperwork, said, “It is unacceptable that the president of the United States would attack a bipartisan effort with his racist, xenophobic, and ill-informed language and beliefs.”

One of the overarching questions as the vote on the federal budget approaches is which components of immigration reform and border security will be included.

NAKASEC joined other groups in calling for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act to be attached to the federal budget vote, in lieu of a massive reform bill that would include cuts to other aspects of the U.S. immigration system.

“The DREAM Act must not be used to implement a family ban by altering the current family sponsorship system, cancel the diversity visa program or allocate our hard-earned taxpayer dollars to building a wall,” the statement read.

Each of these issues has been discussed as a component — in some cases referred to as bargaining chips — of a broader reform package.

Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in restricting immigration levels. Republican lawmakers introduced legislation in 2017 that would cut or eliminate some long-standing parts of the U.S. immigration system, but none of the bills passed.

The White House has also led a nearly yearlong campaign to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the United States, as part of broader immigration restriction efforts.

The turmult comes after a court ruling earlier this week that buoyed the hopes of advocates for the DACA program, which Trump rescinded in September. As VOA reported Wednesday, a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to again process DACA renewal applications.

But recipients may not see any benefits soon, or at all. The ruling applies only to those who had been enrolled in DACA before Trump rescinded the program and does not apply to first-time applicants. Moreover, the Trump administration has already announced its intention to appeal.
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News, World 01/12/2018 No comments

Report: Trump Lawyer Brokered $130,000 Payment to Porn Star

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer brokered a $130,000 payment to a porn star to prevent her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.

Trump met Stephanie Clifford, whose goes by the name Stormy Daniels in films, at a golf event in 2006 — a year after Trump’s marriage to his wife, Melania.

According to the Journal’s report, Clifford began talking with ABC News in the fall of 2016 for a story involving an alleged relationship with Trump, but reached a $130,000 deal a month before the election, which prevented her from going public.

Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen arranged for the payment through Clifford’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, the Journal reported.

In a statement to the Journal, Cohen did not address his role in negotiating the supposed payment but said Trump denies any such relationship with Clifford. Clifford has previously denied an alleged relationship with Trump.

On Friday afternoon, the White House issued a statement calling the Journal’s story “old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.”

Cohen also accused the Journal of perpetuating “a false narrative for over a year.”

Just days before the 2016 election, the Journal published a story stating that the National Enquirer — run by David Pecker, a fervid supporter of Trump — had paid $150,000 to silence former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal about a sexual relationship she allegedly had with Trump a decade ago.
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News, World 01/12/2018 No comments

Most Americans ‘Don’t Want’ Oprah to Run for President

Americans may love Oprah Winfrey, but most don’t want the chat show queen to run for president, although if she did she would beat Donald Trump, a poll revealed Friday.

Winfrey’s rousing speech at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony ignited speculation that the billionaire entertainment mogul, the first black woman to own a television network, is harboring Oval Office ambitions.

Sixty-four percent of respondents have a favorable view of Winfrey, including 43 percent of Trump supporters, according to the NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist survey.

But when asked if they wanted Winfrey to run in 2020, only 35 percent said yes. A majority — 54 percent — said no and 11 percent said they were unsure.

Yet if a hypothetical presidential head-to-head was held today, 50 percent of national registered voters said they would vote in Winfrey as a Democrat. Only 39 percent said they would return Trump to office.

Voters were predictably split along party lines. Ninety-one percent of Democrats backed Winfrey. Eighty-five percent of Republicans said they would vote for Trump.

While there is little indication that 63-year-old Winfrey wants the job, Hollywood’s loathing of Trump and Democrats’ bafflement that a reality TV star could win with no previous government experience has fueled talk of finding their own celebrity candidate.

Trump said Tuesday he doubted Winfrey would run, but if she did, he would win.

The survey was carried out among 1,350 adults earlier this week, after Oprah’s speech made headlines. The poll carried a margin of error of 2.7 percent and three percent among registered voters.
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News, Technology 01/12/2018 No comments

No Pedal to Metal in GM’s Planned Self-driving Cruise AV Car

General Motors Co is seeking U.S. government approval for a fully autonomous car — one without a steering wheel, brake pedal or accelerator pedal — to enter the automaker’s first commercial ride-sharing fleet in 2019, executives said.

For passengers who cannot open doors, the Cruise AV — a rebranded version of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt EV — has even been designed to perform that task. It will have other accommodations for hearing and visually impaired customers.

This will be one of the first self-driving vehicles in commercial passenger service and among the first to do away with manual controls for steering, brakes and throttle. What is the driver’s seat in the Bolt EV will become the front left passenger seat in the Cruise AV, GM said.

Company President Dan Ammann told reporters GM had filed on Thursday for government approval to deploy the “first production-ready vehicle designed from the start without a steering wheel, pedals or other unnecessary manual controls.”

GM is part of a growing throng of vehicle manufacturers, technology companies and tech startups seeking to develop so-called robo-taxis over the next three years in North America, Europe and Asia. Most of those companies have one or more partners.

On Friday, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed GM had petitioned for approval to operate up to 2,500 vehicles without steering wheels or human drivers.

“Safety is the [Transportation] department’s top priority. The department will review this petition and give it careful consideration,” the agency said in a statement.

Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday it will partner with delivery service Postmates Inc as the automaker starts testing ways to transport people, food and packages this spring in its self-driving cars, which are being developed by Ford’s Argo unit.

Other companies, from Uber Technologies Inc to Alphabet Inc’s Waymo, have been testing self-driving vehicle prototypes in limited ride-sharing applications, but have been less explicit than GM in announcing plans for commercial robo-taxi services.

GM executives said the automaker has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow 16 alterations to existing vehicle safety rules — such as having an airbag in what would normally be the driver’s seat, but without a steering wheel — to enable the deployment of the Cruise AV.

The automaker would then need to obtain similar approval from individual U.S. states. GM executives said seven U.S. states already allow the alterations sought by the automaker.

In other states — including those that stipulate a car must have a licensed human driver — GM will work with regulators to change or get a waiver from existing rules.

The company declined to identify the first states in which it plans to launch the vehicle or say when it would begin testing.

GM wants to control its own self-driving fleet partly because of the tremendous revenue potential it sees in selling related services, from e-commerce to infotainment, to consumers riding in those vehicles.

At a Nov. 30 briefing in San Francisco, GM’s Ammann told investors the lifetime revenue generation of one of its self-driving cars could eventually be “several hundred thousands of dollars.” That compares with the $30,000 on average that GM collects today for one of its vehicles, mostly derived from the initial sale.

GM’s Cruise AV is equipped with the automaker’s fourth-generation self-driving software and hardware, including 21 radars, 16 cameras and five lidars — sensing devices that use laser light to help autonomous cars “see” nearby objects and obstacles.

The Cruise AV will be able to operate in hands-free mode only in premapped urban areas.

GM’s prototype self-driving vehicles have been developed in San Francisco by Cruise Automation, the onetime startup that GM acquired in March 2016 for a reported $1 billion.
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News, Technology 01/12/2018 No comments

Jeff Bezos Contributes $33M to ‘Dreamers’ Scholarship Program

Scholarship program TheDream.US said on Friday it had received a $33 million donation from Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie Bezos to fund 1,000 college scholarships.

The scholarship program will fund U.S. high school graduates with a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, an Obama-era program protecting young immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents — commonly known as Dreamers.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the federal court system as “broken and unfair” after a judge blocked his administration’s move to end the DACA program.

2,850 students are currently enrolled in different colleges as part of TheDream.US scholarship, which covers the cost of tuition, fees and books.

Bezos’ parents, Mike and Jackie Bezos, were among the early donors to TheDream.US. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pershing Square Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are also among the other major contributers to the program.
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News, Technology 01/12/2018 No comments

Cybersecurity Firm: US Senate in Russian Hackers’ Crosshairs

The same Russian government-aligned hackers who penetrated the Democratic Party have spent the past few months laying the groundwork for an espionage campaign against the U.S. Senate, a cybersecurity firm said Friday.

The revelation suggests the group often nicknamed Fancy Bear, whose hacking campaign scrambled the 2016 U.S. electoral contest, is still busy trying to gather the emails of America’s political elite.

“They’re still very active — in making preparations at least — to influence public opinion again,” said Feike Hacquebord, a security researcher at Trend Micro Inc., which published the report . “They are looking for information they might leak later.”

The Senate Sergeant at Arms office, which is responsible for the upper house’s security, declined to comment.

Hacquebord said he based his report on the discovery of a clutch of suspicious-looking websites dressed up to look like the U.S. Senate’s internal email system. He then cross-referenced digital fingerprints associated with those sites to ones used almost exclusively by Fancy Bear, which his Tokyo-based firm dubs “Pawn Storm.”

Trend Micro previously drew international attention when it used an identical technique to uncover a set of decoy websites apparently set up to harvest emails from the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign in April 2017. The sites’ discovery was followed two months later by a still-unexplained publication of private emails from several Macron staffers in the final days of the race.

Hacquebord said the rogue Senate sites — which were set up in June and September of 2017 — matched their French counterparts.

“That is exactly the way they attacked the Macron campaign in France,” he said.

Attribution is extremely tricky in the world of cybersecurity, where hackers routinely use misdirection and red herrings to fool their adversaries. But Tend Micro, which has followed Fancy Bear for years, said there could be no doubt.

“We are 100 percent sure that it can attributed to the Pawn Storm group,” said Rik Ferguson, one of the Hacquebord’s colleagues.

Like many cybersecurity companies, Trend Micro refuses to speculate publicly on who is behind such groups, referring to Pawn Storm only as having “Russia-related interests.” But the U.S. intelligence community alleges that Russia’s military intelligence service pulls the hackers’ strings and a months-long Associated Press investigation into the group, drawing on a vast database of targets supplied by the cybersecurity firm Secureworks, has determined that the group is closely attuned to the Kremlin’s objectives.

If Fancy Bear has targeted the Senate over the past few months, it wouldn’t be the first time. An AP analysis of Secureworks’ list shows that several staffers there were targeted between 2015 and 2016.

Among them: Robert Zarate, now the foreign policy adviser to Florida Senator Marco Rubio; Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who now runs a Washington consultancy; and Jason Thielman, the chief of staff to Montana Senator Steve Daines. A Congressional researcher specializing in national security issues was also targeted.

Fancy Bear’s interests aren’t limited to U.S. politics; the group also appears to have the Olympics in mind.

Trend Micro’s report said the group had set up infrastructure aimed at collecting emails from a series of Olympic winter sports federations, including the International Ski Federation, the International Ice Hockey Federation, the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation, the International Luge Federation and the International Biathlon Union.

The targeting of Olympic groups comes as relations between Russia and the International Olympic Committee are particularly fraught. Russian athletes are being forced to compete under a neutral flag in the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics following an extraordinary doping scandal that has seen 43 athletes and several Russian officials banned for life.

Amid speculation that Russia could retaliate by orchestrating the leak of prominent Olympic officials’ emails, cybersecurity firms including McAfee and ThreatConnect have picked up on signs that state-backed hackers are making moves against winter sports staff and anti-doping officials.

On Wednesday, a group that has brazenly adopted the Fancy Bear nickname began publishing what appeared to be Olympics and doping-related emails from between September 2016 and March 2017. The contents were largely unremarkable but their publication was covered extensively by Russian state media and some read the leak as a warning to Olympic officials not to press Moscow too hard over the doping scandal.

Whether any Senate emails could be published in such a way isn’t clear. Previous warnings that German lawmakers’ correspondence might be leaked by Fancy Bear ahead of last year’s election there appear to have come to nothing.

On the other hand, the group has previously dumped at least one U.S. legislator’s correspondence onto the web.

One of the targets on Secureworks’ list was Colorado State Senator Andy Kerr, who said thousands of his emails were posted to an obscure section of the website DCLeaks — a web portal better known for publishing emails belonging to retired Gen. Colin Powell and various members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign — in late 2016.

Kerr said he was still bewildered as to why he was targeted. He said while he supported transparency, “there should be some process and some system to it.

“It shouldn’t be up to a foreign government or some hacker to say what gets released and what shouldn’t.”
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Business, News 01/12/2018 No comments

Fiat Chrysler to Invest $1 Billion in Michigan Plant, Add 2,500 Jobs

Fiat Chrysler Automobile said on Thursday it will shift production of Ram heavy-duty pickup trucks from Mexico to Michigan in 2020, a move that lowers the risk to the automaker’s profit should President Donald Trump pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Fiat Chrysler said it would create 2,500 jobs at a factory in Warren, Michigan, near Detroit and invest $1 billion in the facility. The Mexican plant will be “repurposed to produce future commercial vehicles” for sale global markets. Mexico has free trade agreements with numerous countries.

Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne a year ago raised the possibility that the automaker would move production of its heavy-duty pickups to the United States, saying U.S. tax and trade policy would influence the decision.

If the United States exits NAFTA, it could mean that automakers would pay a 25 percent duty on pickup trucks assembled in Mexico and shipped to the United States. About 90 percent of the Ram heavy-duty pickups made at Fiat Chrysler’s Saltillo plant in Mexico are sold in the United States or Canada, company officials said.

Negotiators for the United States, Mexico and Canada are scheduled to meet later this month for another round of talks on revising NAFTA. Canadian government officials earlier this week said they are convinced that Trump intends to announce his intention to quit the agreement.

Trump has threatened to force the rollback of NAFTA, which enables the free flow of goods made in the United States, Canada and Mexico across the borders of those countries.

He also has criticized automakers for moving jobs and investment in new manufacturing facilities to Mexico and prodded them to add more auto production in the United States.

On Wednesday, Toyota Motor Corp and Mazda Motor Corp announced they would build a new $1.6 billion joint venture auto assembly plant in Alabama, drawing praise from Trump.

Vice President Mike Pence praised Fiat Chrysler’s announcement. “Manufacturing is back. Great announcement. Proof that this admin’s AMERICA FIRST policies are WORKING!” Pence said in a Twitter posting.

Chrysler raised its output in Mexico by 39 percent in 2017 to 639,000 vehicles, according to Mexican government data. That made Fiat Chrysler the third-largest producer of vehicles in Mexico in 2017, after Nissan Motor Co and General Motors Co.

The United States and Canada are the principal markets for full-size heavy-duty pickup trucks, most of which are produced in the United States by FCA, GM, Ford Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co.

Miguel Ceballos, FCA spokesman for Mexico, said the company in 2018 and 2019 expects more growth in Mexico, and the moment it stops producing the Ram Heavy Duty pickups it will start to produce the new commercial vehicle, “which still does not have a name,” Ceballos said.

“It is going to be for global distribution, at the moment the Ram is only distributed at the level of NAFTA,” he said. Ceballos said there was no current plan to either reduce or grow the workforce in Mexico.

GM has been readying a plant in Silao, Mexico, to build a new generation of large pickup trucks.

FCA on Thursday said it also would make a special bonus payment of $2,000 to about 60,000 FCA hourly and salaried employees in the United States totaling about $120 million.

Typically, U.S. automakers only pay bonuses to hourly workers as part of collective bargaining agreements.
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News, Technology 01/12/2018 No comments

Facebook Says Its Putting Friends, Family First

Facebook on Thursday announced a major update that will put friends and family above pages or celebrities in a user’s news feed — and likely result in people spending less time on the leading social network.

The change to the way Facebook ranks posts will put more weight on social interactions and relationships, according to News Feed product manager John Hegeman.

“This is a big change,” Hegeman said.

People more important

“People will actually spend less time on Facebook, but we feel good about that because it will make the time they do spend more valuable, and be good for our business in the end.”

For example, a family video clip posted by a spouse will be deemed more worthy of attention than a snippet from a star or favorite restaurant.

“We think people interaction is more important than passively consuming content,” Hegeman said. “This will be one of the more important updates that we have made.”

Facebook co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has said that bringing people together and strengthening communities in the real world are priorities.

Update coming soon

The news feed ranking update, which is set to roll out globally in the coming weeks, is expected to support that goal.

“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media,” Zuckerberg said in a post at his Facebook page.

“And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

Battling fake news

Google, Twitter and Facebook have come under fire for allowing the spread of bogus news — some of which was directed by Russia — ahead of the 2016 US election and in other countries.

Facebook has introduced a series of changes intended to address the problem.

“We are doing a ton of work to reduce the frequency of bad content on Facebook,” Hegeman said.

“This update is more about amplifying the things people value.”

He cited academic research indicating that interacting with loved ones is crucial to a person’s wellbeing, while reading news articles or watching shared videos may not be.

“There is really no silver bullet here to determine what is most meaningful, but we are trying to mine the signals to get the best representation that we can,” Hegeman said.

Fix Facebook

Known for setting annual personal goals ranging from killing his own food to learning Mandarin, Zuckerberg’s stated mission for this year is to “fix” the social network, including by targeting abuse and hate, and making sure visiting Facebook is time well spent.

“I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions,” Zuckerberg said Thursday.
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News, World 01/12/2018 No comments

Partisan Finger-pointing Threatens Russia Probes on Capitol Hill

Finger-pointing and acrimony surrounding probes of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election intensified Thursday, with the Trump White House and Democratic lawmakers trading accusations of undermining and manipulating investigations that require bipartisan buy-in to succeed.

“There’s been a lot of comments about obstruction of justice, and frankly the only people we’ve seen trying to influence the investigation are former [FBI] director [James] Comey and Democrats in Congress, and that would include Senator Feinstein,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a briefing.

Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California caused an uproar earlier this week by releasing the transcript of private conversations between congressional investigators and a political researcher who, on behalf of Democrats, hired a former British spy in 2016 to document any ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

In the transcript, Fusion GPS co-founder Glen Simpson said Christopher Steele uncovered “alarming” evidence of collusion between the Kremlin and Trump’s team and informed the FBI of his findings.

Trump weighed in on Twitter, blasting “Sneaky Dianne Feinstein” for releasing the transcript “in such an underhanded and possibly illegal way, totally without authorization” — an act he called “a disgrace.

The president also called the Russia probe the “greatest single Witch Hunt in American history” and urged congressional Republicans to “finally take control” of the investigation.

Democrats pushed back, defending Feinstein and saying she was forced to act in the face of mounting Republican efforts to thwart and cut short multiple Russia probes on Capitol Hill.

“Their [Republicans’] goal, it seems, is to discredit the investigation so that, ultimately, they can discredit any findings that are detrimental to their party or their president,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat. “President Trump makes this strategy manifest clear as day almost every day on his Twitter feed.”

Schumer continued, “Here is the president of the United States imploring his party to take control of the investigation. You never thought you’d hear a president saying something like this. And, frankly, you never thought you’d hear such silence from the other side of the aisle [Republicans]. All of us must choose country over party.”

While Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating ties between Russia and Trump’s inner circle on behalf of the Justice Department, House and Senate investigations were launched with the hope that Republicans and Democrats would set party interests aside and join forces in search of the truth.

“It [bipartisanship] has largely been broken,” said political analyst Norman Ornstein of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. “This has gotten more than acrimonious.”

Ornstein compared the Russia probes to Congress’ investigation of the Watergate scandal that caused former President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974.

“What we saw with Watergate was the model of a committee where the ranking Republican set the tone by saying the key here is what did the president know and when did he know it? — and followed through with an investigation with integrity,” he said.

Ornstein added, however, that even if congressional Russia’s probes falter on partisan lines, “The real test comes with whether the integrity of the Mueller investigation is protected and a bipartisan group of members [of Congress] make it clear that the president can’t fire [Mueller] or close off the investigation.”
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News, World 01/12/2018 No comments

Trump Reportedly Calls Haiti, Africa ‘S—hole Countries’

President Donald Trump stunned lawmakers in a White House meeting on immigration Thursday when he reportedly referred to Haiti and African nations as “s—hole countries.”

“Why are we having all these people from s—hole countries come here,” the president asked as was first reported by media including The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN. The crude term means dirty and impoverished.

Trump said the United States should let in more people from places such as Norway, whose prime minister met with him in the White House Wednesday.

White House response

After being asked by media, including VOA, to respond, White House spokesperson Raj Shah issued a statement saying the president will only accept an immigration deal that “adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migration — two programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country.” Chain migration is a term used by immigration critics to refer to the system that allows relatives to sponsor family members to come to the United States.

Shah’s statement did not deny reports that the president used crude language when talking about Haiti and Africa.

It also said Trump will always reject “temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that … undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway.”

VOA also reached out to the offices of U.S. lawmakers who were reportedly present at the meeting. Aides to lawmakers who attended the meeting declined to provide comment on Trump’s remarks, according to the Associated Press.

Trump reportedly made the remark as Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, was explaining the outlines of an agreement reached by six bipartisan senators that would protect nearly 800,000 young immigrants from deportation as well as bolster border security, according to the Post.

Bipartisan comments

By late Thursday, lawmakers were reacting to the reported comments.

Minnesota state Rep. Ilhan Omar, who in 2016 became the first Somali-American elected to a state legislative office in the United States, released a statement, saying, “I am not ashamed of the country where I was born. I am not ashamed to call myself an American now. I am a proud immigrant, refugee, Minnesotan and a proud State Legislator.

Republican Rep. Mia Love, whose family came from Haiti, said the president’s comments are “unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation’s values. This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation.”

Love, of Utah, called on Trump to apologize to the people of Haiti.

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, also a Republican, said he wanted more details “regarding the president’s comments.”

“Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin,” Hatch added.

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican, tweeted late Thursday, “My ancestors came from countries not nearly as prosperous as the one we live in today. I’m glad that they were welcomed here.”

Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida tweeted Trump’s “calling #Haiti a ‘shithole country’ ignores the contributions thousands of Haitians have made to our #SoFla community and nation. Language like that shouldn’t be heard in locker rooms and it shouldn’t be heard in the White House.”

California Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democrat, said in a tweet, “Immigrants from countries across the globe — including and especially those from Haiti and all parts of Africa — have helped build this country. They should be welcomed and celebrated, not demeaned and insulted.’’

Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, “President Trump’s comments are yet another confirmation of his racially insensitive and ignorant views. It also reinforces the concerns that we hear every day, that the President’s slogan Make America Great Again is really code for Make America White Again.”

New Mexico Rep. Michelle Lujan Gisham, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, responded in a statement, “The President’s statement is shameful, abhorrent, unpresidential, and deserves our strongest condemnation. We must use our voices to ensure that our nation never returns to the days when ignorance, prejudice, and racism dictated our decision making.

“Our nation’s strength and the American Dream stem from our immigrant roots and diversity,” she added.

Brian Concannon, executive director of the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, told VOA he is “outraged” at what he regards as an insult to the Haitian people. He said Trump’s apparent description of Haiti as a “s—hole” is “not an accurate description of Haiti.”

The NCAAP said in a statement, “The United States’ position as a moral leader throughout the world has been thoroughly damaged by the continuous lowbrow, callous and unfiltered racism repeatedly espoused by President Trump. His decision to use profanity to describe African, Central American and Caribbean countries is not only a low mark for this president, it is a low point for our nation.’’

The White House statement released Thursday:

“Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people. The President will only accept an immigration deal that adequately addresses the visa lottery system and chain migrationtwo programs that hurt our economy and allow terrorists into our country. Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation. He will always reject temporary, weak and dangerous stopgap measures that threaten the lives of hardworking Americans, and undercut immigrants who seek a better life in the United States through a legal pathway.”

VOA correspondents Steve Herman and Michael Bowman contributed to this report.
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News, World 01/11/2018 No comments

Amid Deportation Protests, ICE Detains Immigrant-rights Leader in NYC

Police and immigrant-rights protesters clashed Thursday outside 26 Federal Plaza, New York City’s immigration court, after word spread that Ravi Ragbir, a well-known activist known to protect immigrant families from deportation, had himself been detained by immigration authorities inside the building.

City leaders said Ragbir passed out while in detention, which occurred during a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Some supporters, who were already gathered outside the building for a scheduled prayer march and “vigil against deportation,” confronted a departing ambulance, resulting in multiple arrests, including those of two city councilmen.

Others joined hands and prayed, led by the Reverend Donna Schaper, senior minister of Judson Memorial Church and co-founder of the New Sanctuary Coalition of NYC.

“When ICE does things that are just beyond understanding, when they had other choices, they only make us stronger,” Schaper told VOA. “They need to understand that.”

Ragbir, an immigrant from Trinidad, has faced the threat of deportation since he was convicted of wire fraud 16 years ago. Following removal proceedings in 2006, he spent nearly two years in immigration detention before his release in February 2008, a period during which he became a rising voice for the country’s immigrant community. He is now executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition.

Until his detention, Ragbir had an administrative stay of removal in place, which suspends an order of removal. His attorneys said they had already filed a lawsuit.

“We came into the check-in with the hope that they would allow him to continue checking in as he has for many years, complying with all the rules that have been required of him,” said Alina Das, one of Ragbir’s attorneys who was present with him in the meeting, along with Ragbir’s wife.

“Obviously we are incredibly disappointed and, frankly, outraged by this decision,” Das told VOA. “We continue to pursue our options — the legal challenges — to see that he will hopefully be freed soon and back with his wife and with the community that loves him.”

At the time this report was published, ICE had not responded to VOA’s request for comment regarding Ragbir’s arrest.

‘Crippling’ for the immigrant community

Ragbir’s arrest followed that of Jean Montrevil, an immigrant activist from Haiti who was taken into custody last week near his Far Rockaway, New York, home, and just one day after The Associated Press reported a wave of ICE raids at convenience stores across the country.

Barbara Young, a Barbadian-American immigrant and organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, was present for Thursday’s vigil in lower Manhattan. As she spoke of Ragbir and the nationwide workplace raids, tears rolled down beneath her sunglasses.

“It is crippling for the immigrant community,” Young said. “If you are here in the country and you decide to go find a job, and they’re targeting your workplace, you’re not a criminal.”

Following a group prayer, Schaper, who works closely with Ragbir, remained resilient, asserting the strength of her surrounding community.

“We have so many leaders, in addition to Ravi, whom Ravi has built up over these many, many years,” she said. “We’re not even one bit afraid.”

More protests were scheduled for Thursday evening in front of the detention center where Ragbir was being held.
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Business, News 01/11/2018 No comments

Trump’s EPA Aims to Replace Obama-era Climate, Water Regulations in 2018

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will replace Obama-era carbon and clean water regulations and open up a national debate on climate change in 2018, part of a list of priorities for the year that also includes fighting lead contamination in public drinking water.

The agenda, laid out by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in an exclusive interview with Reuters on Tuesday, marks an extension of the agency’s efforts under President Donald Trump to weaken or kill regulations the administration believes are too broad and harm economic growth, but which environmentalists say are critical to human health.

“The climate is changing. That’s not the debate. The debate is how do we know what the ideal surface temperature is in 2100? … I think the American people deserve an open honest transparent discussion about those things,” said Pruitt, who has frequently cast doubt on the causes and implications of global warming.

Pruitt reaffirmed plans for the EPA to host a public debate on climate science sometime this year that would pit climate change doubters against other climate scientists, but he provided no further details on timing or which scientists would be involved.

Pruitt said among the EPA’s top priorities for 2018 will be to replace the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s centerpiece climate change regulation which would have slashed carbon emissions from power plants. The EPA began the process of rescinding the regulation last year and is taking input on what should replace it.

“A proposed rule will come out this year and then a final rule will come out sometime this year,” he said. He did not give any details on what the rule could look like, saying the agency was still soliciting comments from stakeholders.

He said the agency was also planning to rewrite the Waters of the United States rule, another Obama-era regulation, this one defining which U.S. waterways are protected under federal law. Pruitt and Trump have said the rule marked an overreach by including streams that are shallow, narrow, or sometimes completely dry — and was choking off energy development.

Pruitt said that in both cases, former President Barack Obama had made the rules by executive order, and without Congress. “We only have the authority that Congress gives us,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt’s plans to replace the Clean Power Plan have raised concerns by attorneys general of states like California and New York, who said in comments submitted to the EPA on Tuesday that the administrator should recuse himself because as Oklahoma attorney general he led legal challenges against it.

Biofuels and staff cuts

Pruitt said he hoped for legislative reform of the U.S. biofuels policy this year, calling “substantially needed and importantly” because of the costs the regulation imposes on oil refiners.

The Renewable Fuel Standard, ushered in by former President George W. Bush as a way to help U.S. farmers, requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of biofuels like corn-based ethanol into the nation’s fuel supply every year.

Refining companies say the EPA-administered policy costs them hundreds of millions of dollars annually and threatens to put some plants out of business. But their proposals to change the program have so far been rejected by the Trump administration under pressure from the corn lobby.

The EPA in November slightly raised biofuels volumes mandates for 2018, after previously opening the door to cuts.

The White House is now mediating talks on the issue between representatives of both sides, with input from EPA, and some Republican senators from states representing refineries are working on possible legislation to overhaul the program.

Pruitt said he also hoped Congress could produce an infrastructure package this year that would include replacing municipal water pipes, as a way of combating high lead levels in certain parts of the United States.

“That to me is something very tangible very important that we can achieve for the American people,” he said.

Pruitt added that EPA also is continuing its review of automobile fuel efficiency rules, and would be headed to California soon for more meetings with the California Air Resources Board to discuss them.

California in 2011 agreed to adopt the federal vehicle emission rules through 2025, but has signaled it would opt out of the standards if they are weakened, a move that would complicate matters for automakers serving the huge California market.

In the meantime, Pruitt said EPA is continuing to reduce the size of its staff, which fell to 14,162 employees as of Jan. 3, the lowest it has been since 1988, under Ronald Reagan when the employment level was 14,400. The EPA employed about 15,000 when Obama left office.

Nearly 50 percent of the EPA will be eligible to retire within the next five years, according to the agency.
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Business, News 01/11/2018 No comments

Walmart Hikes Minimum Wage, Announces Layoffs on Same Day

Walmart will raise entry-level wages for U.S. hourly employees to $11 an hour in February as it benefits from last month’s major overhaul of the U.S. tax code and competes for low-wage workers in a tight labor market.

But on the same day, the world’s largest retailer and private employer, officially called Wal-Mart Stores Inc, announced layoffs as it shuttered many of its Sam’s Club discount warehouse stores.

A senior company official who declined to be named said about 62 stores would be affected, about one-tenth of the chain overall.

About 50 stores will be shut permanently after a review of store profitability and up to 12 more stores will be shut and reopened as e-commerce warehouses, the person said.

Every Sam’s Club store employs about 150 workers, bringing the total number of affected jobs to about 7,500, the person said. Many of them will be accommodated in new jobs at the newly opened warehouses and other stores, the official said.

Earlier Thursday, Walmart announced the wage hike saying it would also offer a one-time cash bonus, based on length of service, of up to $1,000, and expand maternity and parental leave benefits.

Reactions

The layoffs went unaddressed but the wage increase attracted praise from the White House.

“Walmart is the largest employer in the country and to see them make that kind of effort to over a million workers is a big deal … and I think further evidence that the tax reform and tax cut package are having the impact that we had hoped,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Thursday.

U.S. Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin also praised Walmart’s decision to raise wages.

The timing of the store closure announcement hours after the wage hike drew some criticism.

“While pay raises are usually a good thing, this is nothing but another public relations stunt from Walmart to distract from the reality that they are laying off thousands of workers and the ones who remain will continue to receive low wages,” said activist Randy Parraz, director of Making Change at Walmart, a United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) affiliate.

Wage hikes

The pay increase, Walmart’s third minimum wage increase since 2015, and bonus will benefit more than 1 million U.S. hourly workers, the company said.

The Walmart wage hike, taking minimum pay up from the current $10 an hour after in-house training, is aimed at helping the company attract workers at a time when the U.S. unemployment rate is at 4.1 percent, a 17-year low, making it harder to attract and retain minimum wage employees.

Walmart is likely to save billions of dollars from the new tax law, which slashed the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, and the wage hikes will cost the retailer only a fraction of those gains, analysts said.

“Given how low unemployment is, they would have had to hike wages anyway, the tax bill just made that move easier,” said Edward Jones analyst Brian Yarborough.

Rival retailer Target Corp raised its minimum wage to $11 in September, and said it would raise its minimum wage to $15 by 2020.

Walmart and Target’s new minimum wage levels exceed the state minimum wage, in all but three states, according to a research note from financial services firm BTIG. Eighteen U.S. states increased their minimum wage on Jan.1 but the federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009.

Walmart’s announcement follows companies like AT&T Inc, Wells Fargo & Co and Boeing Co, which have all promised more pay for workers since the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress passed the biggest overhaul to the U.S. tax code in 30 years.
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News, Technology 01/11/2018 No comments

CTA: Countries With Entrepreneur-friendly Policies Boost Innovation, Economies

More than 60 countries are represented at CES, the giant consumer electronics show taking place this week in Las Vegas, and the large international presence is a testament to the interest worldwide in entrepreneurship and technology.

But while many governments say they support a homegrown innovation economy, policy decisions may hamper entrepreneurial growth, according to a report out this week by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which puts on the marquee Las Vegas technology show.

Innovation factors

The report looked at 12 factors to determine whether a country is an “innovation champion.” They include standard indicators like a country’s tax policy, the education level of its workforce, and broadband access and speeds.

Overall, Finland had the highest ranking, followed by the U.S., Canada, other European nations, Australia and New Zealand.

India, Morocco and Colombia were dubbed “modest innovators,” and they were among the lowest scoring nations.

A different set of countries emerged as leaders, however, when CTA looked at some of the more contentious areas of the tech economy, such as drones, ridesharing, self-driving cars and short-term home rentals such as Airbnb.

Ridesharing leaders

For example, when it comes to ridesharing, the report found that Panama, Peru, Poland, Rwanda and Mexico were among countries that allow ridesharing to operate most freely.

Likewise, for short-term home rentals such as Airbnb, the report gave its highest marks to Chile, Mexico, Nigeria and Peru among other countries.

The best countries for drone testing and deployment are Australia, Finland, Portugal, Singapore and Sweden.

In an interview with VOA, Gary Shapiro, the chief executive of CTA, said that countries were evaluated “from a uniquely American perspective.” The goal, he said, is to identify which countries have the best policies for innovators, and then encourage other countries to create similar environments.

French takeover

At Eureka Park, the exhibit area that’s home to about 800 early stage startups at CES, about one-third are French. They occupy row after row of the show floor, all under signs reading “La French Tech.”

Senegal brought two IT companies that won a competition for their work for the government.

“Right now we hope to meet a lot of companies here to check what we can do for our country,” said Cheikh Bakhoum, with the Senegal’s State Informatics Agency.

Hrvoje Bujas from Croatia said he came hoping to meet investors, but he switched his goals once he arrived at CES.

“I want to get some feedback from our potential users, women that want to get pregnant,” he said.

His second goal? “To get some space in media.”

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Business, News 01/11/2018 No comments

Samsung Targeted by French Lawsuit Amid Alleged Labor Abuse

Two French rights groups have filed a lawsuit against electronics giant Samsung, accusing it of misleading advertising because of alleged labor abuses at factories in China and South Korea.

It’s the latest labor challenge to Seoul-based Samsung, which has faced growing health complaints from workers in recent years, even as profits soar thanks to its blockbuster semiconductor business.

The unusual lawsuit filed Thursday in Paris court by groups Sherpa and ActionAid France names Samsung Global in Seoul and its French subsidiary. It is now up to the court to decide whether to take up the case.

It accuses Samsung of “deceptive trade practices,” based on documents from China Labor Watch and others alleging violations including exploitation of children, excessive working hours and use of dangerous equipment and gases.

Samsung did not immediately comment. On its website, it says it maintains “a world-class environment, safety and health infrastructure and rigorous standards to safeguard our employees’ well-being.”

The lawsuit is part of larger efforts by rights groups to use French courts to hold multinationals to account for alleged wrongdoing, and to push for an international treaty against corporate abuses.

The groups argue that French consumers were among those deceived by Samsung’s pledges of ethical treatment of workers, and therefore French courts can rule in the case. But they want to call attention to the problem beyond French borders.

“We hope to make things evolve not only in France but on an international level,” said Marie-Laure Guislain, legal director for Sherpa.

“It’s not just about Samsung,” she told The Associated Press. “It’s the rights of workers under question.”

China Labor Watch has published several reports on child labor at Samsung suppliers in China based on years of undercover investigations. The New York-based nonprofit has long investigated working conditions at suppliers to some of the world’s best-known companies including Walt Disney Co. and Apple Inc.

In South Korea, where Samsung is a national icon, courts recently have begun to rule in favor of workers believed sickened by chemicals used in manufacturing. Many former Samsung workers have sought compensation or financial aid from the government or from Samsung for a possible occupational disease.

Samsung also is recovering from a management crisis, after its de facto leader Lee Jae-yong was sentenced to prison for bribery and other charges, and the departure of the heads of its semiconductor, mobile business and TV divisions.

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