By the end of the week, thousands of soldiers will be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border in anticipation of caravans of migrants from Central America heading northward. The military presence is drawing reaction from those who live and work in border communities on both sides of the fence. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from San Diego, Calif.
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Month: October 2018
Cuba Says Investor Interest Up Despite US Hostility
Cuba’s foreign trade and investment minister said on Wednesday the country had signed nearly 200 investment projects worth $5.5 billion since it slashed taxes and made other adjustments to its investment law in 2014.
Cuba began a major effort to attract foreign investment as socialist ally Venezuela’s economy went into crisis and has ratcheted it up as export revenues decline and the Trump administration backtracks on a detente begun under then-U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Foreign investment in Cuba is growing despite the recent strengthening of the U.S. economic, trade and financial blockade, though it is below what we want,” the minister, Rodrigo Malmierca, said at an investment forum in Havana.
Even as the forum unfolded, debate on an annual resolution condemning U.S. sanctions got under way at the U.N. General Assembly in New York and the Trump administration said that on Thursday it would announce new sanctions aimed at Cuba’s military and security services.
Malmierca said 40 new projects were signed over the last year valued at $1.5 billion.
Many agreements are in the tourism sector and are often simple management and marketing accords. Others are in manufacturing, oil exploration and, to a lesser extent, areas such as pharmaceuticals, agriculture and logistics.
Cuba says it wants a minimum $2.5 billion per year in direct foreign investment to dig its way out of years of crisis and stagnation.
While $5.5 billion in deals may have been signed since 2014, the government has said only around $500 million has actually been invested annually, including foreign government credits and donations.
Diplomats and business officials report that many projects are hard pressed to obtain financing and the Communist-run country’s bureaucracy also slows deals from getting off the ground.
For example, since 2014 five golf resorts valued at close to $2.5 billion were signed with British, Chinese and Spanish investors, but ground has yet to be broken on any of them, according to foreign business officials and diplomats with knowledge of the projects.
Malmierca said the country was working to overcome numerous obstacles for investors, such as lengthy delays for project approval, lack of experience among Cuban negotiators and Cuba’s dual monetary system with fixed exchange rates.
Under then-leader Fidel Castro, foreign investment was first nationalized, then, after the fall of former benefactor the Soviet Union it was viewed as an unfortunate necessity. Today it is lauded as an integral part of the country’s development strategy.
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Rare NATO-Russia Talks Address Military Drills, 1987 Missile Treaty
NATO and Russia envoys on Wednesday discussed their respective large-scale military exercises and a Cold War-era missile treaty that Washington vows to quit over accusations of Russian non-compliance, the Western alliance said.
The talks, the first between the former Cold War foes since May, came against a backdrop of renewed tensions between the West and Russia, most notably over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and involvement in eastern Ukraine.
A NATO statement said the sides had an “open exchange” of views on Ukraine, Russia’s Vostok military exercises and NATO’s ongoing Trident Juncture drills, as well as on Afghanistan and hybrid security threats.
NATO this month launched its largest exercises since the Cold War in Norway, whose non-NATO Nordic neighbors Sweden and Finland have drawn closer to the alliance since being spooked by Russia’s role in the turmoil in Ukraine.
NATO troops are manoeuvring close to the borders of Russia, which held its huge annual Vostok military drill in September. The two are regularly irked by each other’s exercises, where a show of force and deterrence play a major role.
The drills have steadily grown in size in recent years as an atmosphere of stand-off between Russia and the West has grown. Russia’s 2018 edition of Vostok mobilized 300,000 troops and included joint exercises with the Chinese army — the biggest such drills since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
NATO head Jens Stoltenberg also called on Russia to make quick changes to comply in full with the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. Russia denies violating it.
“We all agree that the INF Treaty has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security … Allies have repeatedly expressed serious concerns about the new Russian missile system, known as the 9M729 or SSC-8,” Stoltenberg said in the statement.
He said development of the SSC-8 land-based, intermediate-range Cruise missile posed “a serious risk to strategic stability.”
“NATO has urged Russia repeatedly to address these concerns in a substantial and transparent way, and to actively engage in a constructive dialogue with the United States … We regret that Russia has not heeded our calls,” Stoltenberg added. At the same time, NATO hopes Washington — whose other rivals China or Iran are not constrained by the treaty that rid Europe of land-based nuclear missiles — will not pull out in the end.
European leaders worry any collapse of the INF treaty could lead to a new, destabilizing arms race.
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US Supreme Court Divided Over How Google Settled Privacy Case
U.S. Supreme Court justices, in an internet privacy case involving Google, disagreed on Wednesday over whether to rein in a form of settlement in class action lawsuits that awards money to charities and other third parties instead of to people affected by the alleged wrongdoing.
The $8.5 million Google settlement was challenged by an official at a Washington-based conservative think tank, and some of the court’s conservative justices during an hour of arguments in the case shared his concerns about potential abuses in these awards, including excessive fees going to plaintiffs’ lawyers.
Some of the liberal justices emphasized that such settlements can funnel money to good use in instances in which dividing the money among large numbers of plaintiffs would result in negligible per-person payments. Conservatives hold a 5-4 majority on the high court.
The case began when a California resident named Paloma Gaos filed a proposed class action lawsuit in 2010 in San Jose federal court claiming Google’s search protocols violated federal privacy law by disclosing users’ search terms to other websites. Google is part of Alphabet Inc.
A lower court upheld the settlement the company agreed to pay in 2013 to resolve the claims.
Critics have said the settlements, known as “cy pres” [pronounced “see pray”] awards, are unfair and encourage frivolous lawsuits, conflicts of interest and collusion between both sides to minimize damages for defendants while maximizing fees for plaintiffs’ lawyers. Supporters have said these settlements can benefit causes important to victims and support underfunded entities, such as legal aid.
During the arguments, several justices, both liberal and conservative, wondered whether the plaintiffs had suffered harm through the disclosure of their internet searches, sufficient to justify suing in federal court, signaling they may dismiss the case rather than deciding the fate of cy pres settlements.
Liberal Justice Stephen Breyer seemed doubtful that simple searches, of one’s own name for instance, would be enough to sustain a privacy lawsuit.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh appeared to disagree.
“I don’t think anyone would want … everything they searched for disclosed to other people,” Kavanaugh said. “That seems a harm.”
Google agreed in the settlement to disclose on its website how users’ search terms are shared but was not required to change its behavior. The three main plaintiffs received $5,000 each for representing the class. Their attorneys received about $2.1 million.
Under the settlement, the rest of the money would go to organizations or projects that promote internet privacy, including at Stanford University and AARP, a lobbying group for older Americans, but nothing to the millions of Google users who the plaintiffs were to have represented in the class action.
Cy pres awards, which remain rare, give money that cannot feasibly be distributed to participants in a class action suit to unrelated entities as long as it would be in the plaintiffs’ interests.
‘A sensible system’
While wrestling over the privacy aspects of Google searches, the justices also disagreed about the settlement both sides reached. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito raised concerns that the money would go to groups that some plaintiffs might not like but have no say in opposing.
“How can such a system be regarded as a sensible system?” Alito asked.
Chief Justice John Roberts, another conservative, noted that AARP engages in political activity, an issue that the Google deal’s opponents, led by Ted Frank, director of litigation for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, had raised.
Google has called Frank a “professional objector.”
Roberts also said it was “fishy” that settlement money could be directed to institutions to which Google already was a donor. Some beneficiary institutions also were the alma mater of lawyers involved in the case, Kavanaugh noted.
Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Frank, who argued the case on Wednesday, that at least the plaintiffs get an “indirect benefit” from the settlement.
“It seems like the system is working,” added Justice Sonia Sotomayor, another liberal.
In endorsing the Google settlement last year, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said each of the 129 million U.S. Google users who theoretically could have claimed part of it would have received “a paltry 4 cents in recovery.”
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UK Chief Brexit Negotiator Says He Expects Deal by November 21
Britain’s Brexit secretary has told lawmakers that he expects a long-elusive divorce deal with the European Union to be finalized before November 21, though there is still little sign of a breakthrough on the vexed issue of the Irish border.
Dominic Raab told Parliament’s Exiting the EU Committee in a letter that he would give evidence to the panel “when a deal is finalized, and currently expect 21 November to be suitable.”
The committee released the October 24 letter Wednesday. Raab’s Department for Exiting the European Union said later “there is no set date for the negotiations to conclude” and that the secretary mentioned November 21 in response to a suggestion that he appear before the committee on that date.
Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29, but London and Brussels have not reached an agreement on their divorce terms and a smooth transition to a new relationship. The stalemate has heightened fears that the U.K. might leave without a deal in place, leading to chaos at ports and economic turmoil.
Prime Minister Theresa May has said a Brexit deal is 95 percent done, but the two sides remain at odds over the issue of the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.
Britain and the EU agree there must be no customs posts or other barriers that could disrupt businesses and residents on either side of the border and undermine Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace process. But the two parties have rejected each other’s proposed solution.
Raab said in his letter that “despite our differences, we are not far from an agreement on this issue.”
He said the U.K. and the EU agree “on the principle of a U.K.-wide customs backstop” – a plan to keep the U.K. in a customs union with the bloc, rendering border checks on goods unnecessary.
Britain has said such a solution must be temporary, while the EU wants a permanent fix. But Raab said agreement should be possible, and “the end is now firmly in sight.”
An October 17-18 EU summit that had been billed as the deadline for a breakthrough ended with the talks still deadlocked. But behind-the-scenes talks have continued.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Wednesday in Paris that a deal in the next month was feasible, but “if they want to conclude the text of a withdrawal treaty in November, then the negotiations need to intensify.”
Any agreement reached by the two sides must be approved by the British and European parliaments.
May’s proposed deal faces strong domestic opposition both from pro-Brexit lawmakers, who say it keeps Britain bound too closely to the bloc, and from pro-EU legislators, who argue it will create barriers between the U.K. and its biggest trading partner.
Birthday Blues for Bitcoin as Investors Face Year-on-Year Loss
Bitcoin was heading towards a year-on-year loss on Wednesday, its 10th birthday, the first loss since last year’s bull market, when the original and biggest digital coin muscled its way to worldwide attention with months of frenzied buying.
By 1300 GMT, bitcoin was trading at $6,263 on the BitStamp exchange, leaving investors who had bought it on Halloween 2017 facing yearly losses of nearly 3 percent.
A year ago, bitcoin closed at $6,443.22 as it tore towards a record high of near $20,000, hit in December.
That run, fueled by frenzied buying by retail investors from South Korea to the United States, pushed bitcoin to calendar-year gains of over 1,300 percent.
Ten years ago, Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s still-unidentified founder, released a white paper detailing the need for an online currency that could be used for payments without the involvement of a third party, such as a bank.
Traders and market participants said the Halloween milestone was inevitable, given losses of around 70 percent from bitcoin’s peak and the continuing but incomplete shift towards investment by mainstream financial firms.
“The value mechanisms of crypto and bitcoin today are based more on underlying tech than hype and FOMO (fear of missing out),” said Josh Bramley, head trader at crypto wealth management firm Blockstars.
Growing use of blockchain – the distributed ledger technology that underpins bitcoin – is now powering valuations of the digital currency, he said, cautioning that some expectations for widespread use have not yet materialized.
Others said improvements to infrastructure such as custody services may allow mainstream investors who are wary of buying bitcoin to take positions.
“We see behind closed doors financial and non-financial institutions beavering away to create the infrastructure,” said Ben Sebley, head of brokerage at NKB Group, a blockchain advisory and investment firm.
Bitcoin has endured year-on-year losses before, according to data from CryptoCompare, most recently in 2015.
Retail investors still account for a strong proportion of trading, market players said.
Investors who bet early on bitcoin and have stuck with it have faced a roller-coaster ride in its first decade. Many told Reuters they are optimistic that they are still onto a winner.
UK-Canadian ‘Grand Committee’ Seeks to Question Zuckerberg
Parliamentary committees in Britain and Canada on Wednesday urged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before a joint hearing of international lawmakers examining fake news and the internet.
Damian Collins, the head of the U.K. parliament’s media committee, is joining forces with his Canadian counterpart, Bob Zimmer, to pressure Zuckerberg to personally take part in hearings, as he did before the U.S Congress and the European Parliament. The so-called “international grand committee” session would be held Nov. 27 and could include lawmakers from other countries.
“We understand that it is not possible to make yourself available to all parliaments. However, we believe that your users in other countries need a line of accountability to your organization — directly, via yourself,” the pair said in a letter to Zuckerberg. “We would have thought that this responsibility is something that you would want to take up.”
Social media companies have been under scrutiny in Britain following allegations that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica used data from tens of millions of Facebook accounts to profile voters and help U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. The committee is also investigating the impact of fake news distributed via social media sites globally.
Collins has been irate with Facebook for sending Zuckerberg’s underlings to his committee’s hearings while the leader of the Silicon Valley company declined invitations to attend. Joining forces with Canada — and perhaps other countries — seems designed to prod Zuckerberg and persuade him to change his mind.
“No such joint hearing has ever been held,” the pair wrote. “Given your self-declared objective to ‘fix’ Facebook, and to prevent the platform’s malign use in world affairs and democratic process, we would like to give you the chance to appear at this hearing.”
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Facebook Caught in an Election-security Catch-22
When it comes to dealing with hate speech and attempted election manipulation, Facebook just can’t win.
If it takes a hands-off attitude, it takes the blame for undermining democracy and letting civil society unravel. If it makes the investment necessary to take the problems seriously, it spooks its growth-hungry investors.
That dynamic was on display in Facebook’s earnings report Tuesday, when the social network reported a slight revenue miss but stronger than expected profit for the July-September period.
Shares were volatile in after-hours trading — dropping the most, briefly, when executives discussed a decline in expected revenue growth and increasing expenses during the conference call.
With the myriad problems Facebook is facing, that passes for good news these days. It was definitely an improvement over three months ago, when Facebook shares suffered their worst one-day drop in history, wiping out $119 billion of its market value after executives predicted rising expenses to deal with security issues along with slowing growth.
“Overall, given all the challenges Facebook has faced this year, this is a decent earnings report,” said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly users at the end of the quarter, below the 2.29 billion analysts were expecting. Facebook says it changed the way it calculates users, which reduced the total slightly. The company’s user base was still up 10 percent from 2.07 billion monthly users a year ago.
The company earned $5.14 billion, or $1.76 per share, up 9 percent from $4.71 billion, or $1.59 per share, a year earlier. Revenue was $13.73 billion, an increase of 33 percent, for the July-September period.
Analysts had expected earnings of $1.46 per share on revenue of $13.77 billion, according to FactSet.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg called 2019 “another year of significant investment” during the earnings call. After that, he said “I know that we need to make sure our costs and revenue are better matched over time.”
The company had already warned last quarter that its revenue growth will slow down significantly for at least the rest of this year and that expenses will continue to balloon as it spends on security, hiring more content moderators around the world and on developing its products, be they messaging apps, video or virtual reality headsets.
The following day the stock plunged 19 percent. Shares not only haven’t recovered, they’ve since fallen further amid a broader decline in tech stocks .
Facebook’s investors, users, employees and executives have been grappling not just with questions over how much money the company makes and how many people use it, but its effects on users’ mental health and worries over what it’s doing to political discourse and elections around the world. Is Facebook killing us? Is it killing democracy?
The problems have been relentless for the past two years. Facebook can hardly crawl its way out of one before another comes up. It began with “fake news” and its effects on the 2016 presidential election (a notion Zuckerberg initially dismissed) and continued with claims of bias among conservatives that still haven’t relented.
Then there’s hate speech, hacks and a massive privacy scandal in which Facebook exposed the data of up to 87 million users to a data mining firm, along with resulting moves toward government regulation of social media. Amid all this, there have been sophisticated attempts from Russia and Iran to interfere with elections and stir up political discord in the U.S.
All this would be more than enough to deal with. But the business challenges are also piling up. There are stricter privacy regulations in Europe that can impede how much data it collects on users. Facebook and other tech companies face a new ”digital tax ” in the UK.
On Tuesday, Arjuna Capital and the New York State Common Retirement Fund filed a shareholder proposal asking Facebook to publish a report on its policies for governing what is posted on its platform and explain what it is doing to “address content that threatens democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.”
“Young users are deleting the app and all users are taking breaks from Facebook,” said Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital. “When you start to see users turn away from the platform, that’s when investors get concerned.”
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that more than a quarter of U.S. Facebook users have deleted the app from their phones and 42 percent have taken a break for at least a few weeks. Younger users were much more likely to delete the app than their older counterparts.
Nonetheless, Facebook is still enjoying healthy user growth outside the U.S.
Facebook’s stock climbed $4.07, or 2.8 percent, to $150.29 in after-hours trading. The stock had closed at $146.22, down 17 percent year-to-date.
Spain: Artist Arrested for Red Paint on Late Dictator’s Tomb
An artist has been arrested after painting a dove in red on Gen. Francisco Franco’s tomb, an attack that comes as debate rages in Spain over the exhumation of the country’s 20th-century dictator.
Artist Enrique Tenreiro can be seen in a video shared online as he kneels before Franco’s tomb in the Valley of the Fallen, draws a dove and writes “for freedom” before security personnel take hold of him.
Police later arrested Tenreiro, according to a statement by Spain’s National Heritage department, which manages the glorifying mausoleum where Franco was interred in 1975.
The Spanish government has promised to relocate his remains before next year.
In a statement signed by the artist and emailed by aides, Tenreiro says he wanted to make a statement on behalf of Franco’s victims.
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Austria Will Not Join Global Migration Agreement
Austria said Wednesday it will join the United States and Hungary in not signing a global agreement meant to minimize the factors that push migrants to leave their home country, while boosting safety, access to services and inclusion for those who are compelled to go.
Nations are due to gather in early December in Morocco to adopt the non-binding Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which was negotiated through a U.N.-led process during the past two years.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said his government fears the agreement would pose a threat to its national sovereignty and that it would blur the lines between legal and illegal migration.
Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said there is not and should not be a human right to migration.
Hungary also cited concerns about the agreement going against national interests when it announced in July it would not be part of the pact.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters that contrary to his government’s policies, the agreement would promote migration as “good and inevitable,” and “it could inspire millions” of migrants.
The United States was the first to step away from the negotiations, deciding in December of last year that the proposed agreement was “inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies.”
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States supports international cooperation on migration issues, “but it is the primary responsibility of sovereign states to help ensure that migration is safe, orderly, and legal.”
The Global Compact features 23 objectives, including boosting access to basic services, strengthening anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking efforts, eliminating discrimination, safeguarding conditions that ensure decent work, and facilitating safe and dignified return for those who are sent back home.
The United Nations estimates there are about 258 million migrants in the world — or just over three percent of the world’s population. The world body considers a migrant to be anyone who changes their country, regardless of the reason. It expects the number of migrants to increase due to factors such as population growth, trade, rising inequality and climate change.
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S. Korean Voting Machines at Center of DRC Election Dispute
As elections approach in the central African nation the Democratic Republic of Congo, concerns have been raised over the integrity of electronic voting machines being used in the national poll that were made by South Korea’s Miryu Systems. VOA’s Steve Miller reports from Seoul on the risks.
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Mexican Town Hit by Quake Welcomes Migrants, Quietly Defying Trump
An impoverished Mexican town nearly flattened by a 2017 earthquake welcomed thousands of tired and hungry Central Americans in a U.S.-bound caravan this week in quiet defiance of U.S. President Donald Trump’s condemnation of the group.
On Monday, the same day that Trump ordered 5,200 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to block the migrants, residents of the southern town of Niltepec, who still live among piles of rubble that once were their homes, prepared for the caravan with homemade soup, medical tents, and diapers for children.
“We wish we had a space dignified enough to offer our visitors,” said Zelfareli Cruz Medina, Niltepec’s mayor.
As she spoke, caravan members were stringing up garbage bags to use as tents in Niltepec’s main square. Surrounding buildings were scarred with cracks and gaping holes caused by the 8.2 magnitude earthquake that struck the region on Sept. 7, 2017.
Of 1,720 homes in Niltepec, 1,602 were damaged in the quake, according to town officials, while 530 collapsed entirely. At least 100 families are still without homes, they said.
A tower atop Niltepec’s main church was stripped down to its fragile wood skeleton by the quake and Cruz said the town needed help to rebuild its library and the mayor’s offices, which were serving as a shelter for the caravan’s women and children.
But a willingness to help the needy comes as almost second-nature to residents of the hardscrabble town in Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest states, Cruz said. “We know now what it means to suffer,” she said.
Near the church, three local families gathered at lunchtime in the shared backyard of rebuilt homes to cook an offering of chicken soup for the migrants, many of whom have said they are fleeing violence and grinding poverty in their homeland.
Later Monday evening, Mariela Escobar, 52, a part-time cleaner, pored over a vat of fuming tamales – “hundreds of them,” she said – to hand out free for dinner.
“People helped us greatly,” said her neighbor, Angela Moreno Galves, 81. “So now, of course, we want to help too.”
Setting out from Honduras on Oct. 13, the caravan quickly swelled to number several thousand people. The latest estimates put its size at 3,500 to more than double that – matching or exceeding Niltepec’s population of 3,800.
The warmth of the welcome in Niltepec stood in deliberate, stark contrast to Trump’s hostility, said Jorge Luis Fuentes, a senior town official.
“It’s a form of struggle,” he said. “It’s a way to demonstrate that rights are universal.”
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Many Residents of Border Communities Say Extra Troops Unnecessary
By the end of the week, more than 5,200 soldiers will be deployed to the southwestern border of the U.S. and Mexico in anticipation of a caravan of migrants from Central America heading northward. The military presence is drawing reaction from those who live and work in border communities on both sides of the fence. VOA’S Elizabeth Lee reports from San Diego, California.
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Bolsonaro’s Economic Guru Urges Quick Brazil Pension Reform
The future economy minister tapped by Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro insisted on Tuesday that he wanted to fast-track an unpopular pension reform to help balance government finances despite mounting resistance to getting it done this year.
Paulo Guedes, whom Bolsonaro selected as a “super minister” with a portfolio combining the current ministries of finance, planning and development, has urged Congress to pass an initial version of pension reform before the Jan. 1 inauguration.
“Our pension funds are an airplane with five bombs on board that will explode at any moment,” Guedes said on Tuesday. “We’re already late on pension reform, so the sooner the better.”
He called the reform essential to controlling surging public debt in Latin America’s largest economy and making space for public investments to jump-start a sluggish economy. Markets surged in the weeks ahead of Bolsonaro’s Sunday victory on the expectation that he could pull off the tough fiscal agenda.
Brazil’s benchmark Bovespa stock index rose 3.7 percent on Tuesday, boosted by strong corporate earnings and the resolve shown by Guedes on pension reform.
Yet the University of Chicago-trained economist, who is getting his first taste of public service, met with skepticism from more seasoned politicians.
Rodrigo Maia, the speaker of the lower house of Congress, said on Tuesday that reform is urgent, but cautioned that the conditions to pass it were still far off.
Major Olimpio, a lawmaker from Bolsonaro’s own party who helped run his campaign, agreed the political climate was not ready for reform.
Even Bolsonaro’s future chief of staff, Onyx Lorenzoni, said in a Monday radio interview that he only expects to introduce a reform plan next year.
After a meeting with Lorenzoni, Guedes said the decision on timing was ultimately a political one that the chief of staff would weigh.
“We can’t go from a victory at the ballot box to chaos in Congress,” Guedes told journalists.
On other issues, Guedes made clear he was the final word on economic matters, laying out plans to give the central bank more institutional independence and clarifying comments made by Lorenzoni about exchange-rate policy.
“You are all scared because he is a politician talking about the economy. That’s like me talking about politics. It’s not going to work,” Guedes said.
Hot Button Issues
While advisers work out the details of his economic program, Bolsonaro revisited some of his most contentious campaign promises on Monday night: looser gun laws, a ban on government advertising for media that “lie,” and urging a high-profile
judge to join his government.
In interviews with TV stations and on social media, Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old former Army captain who won 55 percent of Sunday’s vote after running on a law-and-order platform, made clear he would push through his conservative agenda.
Bolsonaro said he wants Sergio Moro, the judge who has overseen the sprawling “Car Wash” corruption trials and convicted former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of graft, to serve as his justice minister.
Barring that, he said he would nominate Moro to the Supreme Court. The next vacancy on the court is expected in 2020.
Bolsonaro had not formally invited Moro as of Tuesday afternoon, and the judge remained noncommittal on the proposal.
“In case I’m indeed offered a post, it will be subject to a balanced discussion and reflection,” Moro said in a statement.
Media Showdown
Late on Monday, Bolsonaro said in an interview with Globo TV that he would cut government advertising funds that flow to any “lying” media outlets.
During his campaign, the right-winger imitated U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy of aggressively confronting the media, taking aim at Globo TV and Brazil’s biggest newspaper, the Folha de S.Paulo.
“I am totally in favor of freedom of the press,” Bolsonaro told Globo TV. “But if it’s up to me, press that shamelessly lies will not have any government support.”
Bolsonaro was referring to the hundreds of millions of reais the Brazilian government spends in advertising each year in local media outlets, mainly for promotions of state-run firms.
The UOL news portal, owned by the Grupo Folha, which also controls the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, used Brazil’s freedom of information act as the basis for a 2015 article that showed Globo received 565 million reais in federal government spending in 2014. Folha got 14.6 million reais that year.
Globo said on Tuesday that federal government advertising represented less than 4 percent of the revenue for its flagship channel, TV Globo, without providing more detailed figures.
Grupo Folha did not reply to requests for comment.
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Guatemala Lawmakers Propose Jail for Some Political Speech
Five lawmakers introduced legislation Tuesday that would punish with prison time certain kinds of speech criticizing elected officials and candidates in Guatemala, prompting charges that it would violate constitutional measures guaranteeing freedom of expression.
The initiative targets “those who make acts of pressure, persecution and harassment” against politicians “in any medium of diffusion and/or on digital platforms, with the end of impeding the exercise of their political rights.”
It calls for sentences of two to three years.
Eva Monte, a lawmaker who has supported President Jimmy Morales, denied that the bill would stifle free speech and said it aims to crack down on defamation.
“This will serve to punish, for example, when a candidate or politician is linked to cases of corruption but in reality is not being investigated or accused,” Monte said. “That would be a kind of coercion and should be punished.”
“This also seeks to protect lawmakers, the vice president and the president,” she added.
Morales is suspected of accepting illicit campaign finance contributions, but a request to withdraw the immunity from prosecution that he enjoys as sitting president was not approved by congress. The president denies wrongdoing.
Human rights prosecutor Jordan Rodas warned that the measure is unconstitutional.
“It goes against the free expression of thought,” Rodas said. “Politicians should mind their actions to avoid criticism.”
The bill goes first to a congressional commission for analysis of its constitutionality. Two similar initiatives earlier this year were heavily criticized, including by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and failed to win approval by lawmakers.
Amid allegations of possible illegal activity against Morales, family members and political associates, the president has moved to defang a U.N. commission investigating corruption in the country.
The president recently declined to renew the commission’s mandate for another two years, giving it until the end of its current term next September to wrap up its activities and leave the country.
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Google Spinoff to Test Truly Driverless Cars in California
The robotic car company created by Google is poised to attempt a major technological leap in California, where its vehicles will hit the roads without a human on hand to take control in emergencies.
The regulatory approval announced Tuesday allows Waymo’s driverless cars to cruise through California at speeds up to 65 miles per hour.
The self-driving cars have traveled millions of miles on the state’s roads since Waymo began as a secretive project within Google nearly a decade ago. But a backup driver had been required to be behind the wheel until new regulations in April set the stage for the transition to true autonomy.
Waymo is the first among dozens of companies testing self-driving cars in California to persuade state regulators its technology is safe enough to permit them on the roads without a safety driver in them. An engineer still must monitor the fully autonomous cars from a remote location and be able to steer and stop the vehicles if something goes wrong.
Free rides in Arizona
California, however, won’t be the first state to have Waymo’s fully autonomous cars on its streets. Waymo has been giving rides to a group of volunteer passengers in Arizona in driverless cars since last year. It has pledged to deploy its fleet of fully autonomous vans in Arizona in a ride-hailing service open to all comers in the Phoenix area by the end of this year.
But California has a much larger population and far more congestion than Arizona, making it even more challenging place for robotic cars to get around.
Waymo is moving into its next phase in California cautiously. To start, the fully autonomous cars will only give rides to Waymo’s employees and confine their routes to roads in its home town of Mountain View, California, and four neighboring Silicon Valley cities — Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and Palo Alto.
If all goes well, Waymo will then seek volunteers who want to be transported in fully autonomous vehicles, similar to its early rider program in Arizona . That then could lead to a ride-hailing service like the one Waymo envisions in Arizona.
Can Waymo cars be trusted?
But Waymo’s critics are not convinced there is enough evidence that the fully autonomous cars can be trusted to be driving through neighborhoods without humans behind the wheel.
“This will allow Waymo to test its robotic cars using people as human guinea pigs,” said John Simpson, privacy and technology project director for Consumer Watchdog, a group that has repeatedly raised doubts about the safety of self-driving cars.
Those concerns escalated in March after fatal collision involving a self-driving car being tested by the leading ride-hailing service, Uber. In that incident, an Uber self-driving car with a human safety driver struck and killed a pedestrian crossing a darkened street in a Phoenix suburb.
Waymo’s cars with safety drivers have been involved in dozens of accidents in California, but those have mostly been minor fender benders at low speeds.
All told, Waymo says its self-driving cars have collectively logged more than 10 million miles in 25 cities in a handful of states while in autonomous mode, although most of those trips have occurred with safety drivers.
Will Waymo save lives?
Waymo contends its robotic vehicles will save lives because so many crashes are caused by human motorists who are intoxicated, distracted or just bad drivers.
“If a Waymo vehicle comes across a situation it doesn’t understand, it does what any good driver would do: comes to a safe stop until it does understand how to proceed,” the company said Tuesday.
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Senior US Official: Venezuela a Threat to Regional Stability, Security
Venezuela poses a clear threat to regional stability and its economic collapse could drag down key U.S. allies in Latin America such as Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, a senior Treasury Department official warned Tuesday.
Marshall Billingslea, assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department, also accused the government of President Nicolas Maduro of contaminating Venezuelan water supplies at gold mining sites.
“Venezuela poses a clear threat to regional stability and security on top of the horrific humanitarian crisis that is unfolding before our very eyes,” Billingslea told the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
“This is a hemispheric issue and the implosion of the regime there is a direct challenge for us,” he added.
Oil-rich Venezuela’s economy has sunk into crisis under Maduro forcing tens of thousands of Venezuelans into neighboring countries amid hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, and power cuts.
Billingslea said Maduro’s government was “one of the largest criminal enterprises in the Western Hemisphere” involved in money laundering, graft, fraud and illegal mining schemes, including mining gold and sending it to Turkey for processing.
“It is being done not just illegally, but it is being done at enormous environmental expense,” he said. “The regime has basically awarded itself control over a huge percentage of the country and is now stripping this gold out and dumping massive amounts of chemical and mercury contaminants into water supplies.
“We have highlighted the fact that a lot of this non-monetary gold appears to be destined for Turkey,” he added.
Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment about Billingslea’s remarks.
The Trump administration has sought to pressure Maduro, his relatives, and senior members of the Socialist Party through sanctions but the government has shown no willingness to hand over power or negotiate a transition.
Billingslea said the United States was collaborating with countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Panama, Argentina and Spain to block assets stolen from Venezuela.
“We are on the hunt for Maduro and [his wife] Cilia Flores’ money and we are not going to stop until we find it,” Billingslea said, adding: “It’s not their money, it’s money they stole.”
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Electronics Flexes Into the Future
Advancements in digital printing are leading to more sophisticated, flexible electronics capable of changing the way we live and the way we use technology. Reporter Deana Mitchell takes a look at the latest technological innovations at a research center in San Jose, California.
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UN Says Planned Elections in E. Ukraine Could Contradict International Agreements
The U.N.’s political chief cautioned Tuesday that planned local elections in two separatist areas of eastern Ukraine next month could contradict international agreements.
“The U.N. urges all parties to avoid any unilateral steps that could deepen the divide or depart from the spirit and letter of the Minsk agreements,” Rosemary DiCarlo told a Security Council meeting on the issue.
In 2015, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and pro-Russia separatists signed the Minsk agreement in the Belarus capital. It seeks to halt the fighting through a cease-fire and the withdrawal of foreign troops and heavy weapons, and open the way to a permanent, legal and political solution to the conflict in Ukraine, which began in 2014.
De facto authorities in the separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk have announced that they plan to hold elections on Nov. 11.
“As we understand, two separate ballots in both Donetsk and Luhansk are reportedly being planned: one for the “head of Republic” and one for the “People’s Councils,” DiCarlo said. She said the posts will reportedly be for five-year terms.
She noted that election-related matters are covered in the Minsk agreements.
“I therefore caution that any such measures taken outside Ukraine’s constitutional and legal framework would be incompatible with the Minsk agreements,” she said.
Western council members echoed her concerns and condemned the planned ballot.
“These sham elections staged by Russia run directly counter to efforts to implement the Minsk peace agreements,” said U.S. deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Cohen. “The elections also obstruct and undermine efforts to end the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.”
“We do see these so-called elections as illegitimate,” said British Ambassador Karen Pierce. “They are the latest example in the Russian campaign to destabilize Ukraine. They are a clear breach of the Minsk agreements, and they are illegal under Ukrainian law.”
Even China, a close ally of Moscow, expressed concerns.
“China respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, including Ukraine, and opposes the interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs by any external forces,” Beijing’s deputy envoy told the council.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissed the criticism.
“Today, we are witnesses of the latest round of hypocrisy — the total and inexcusable sabotage by Kyiv of the Minsk agreements, over the long term, factually from Day One, has been completely ignored,” Nebenzia said. “Instead of recognizing this fact, in the discussion in the Security Council we are discussing the forthcoming elections in November, which are a necessary measure in conditions of sabotage by Kyiv of its political commitments.”
He said European and American sanctions imposed on Moscow because of the Ukrainian situation is an invitation to Kyiv to continue undermining its Minsk obligations because Russia will be the one to pay for it.
Ukraine’s ambassador, Volodymyr Yelchenko, said holding these “so-called early elections’ would amount to putting armed gangs’ leaders in seats in illegitimate representative bodies.” He said the move is a “provocation” and a “further escalation” of the situation by Russia.
While he acknowledged to reporters later that there is little Kyiv authorities can do to stop the voting from going forward, he said the results would be null and void and not be recognized by Ukraine or the international community.
After a brief calm over the summer months, the U.N. said during the past six weeks, cease-fire violations have spiked, and casualty levels have risen. It also reports increased tensions in the Sea of Azov, warning there is a “need to avoid any risk of escalation, provocation or miscalculation.”
The Kyiv government has been clashing with Russian-backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine since 2014. The United Nations says more than 3,000 civilians have been killed, and up to 9,000 injured since the start of the conflict.
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Merkel Looks to Africa to Cement A Legacy Shaped by Migration
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged on Tuesday a new development fund to tackle unemployment in Africa, a problem spurring the mass migration that has shaped her long premiership as it nears its end.
Merkel hosted a summit of African leaders a day after her announcement that she would retire from politics by 2021, which sent shockwaves across Europe and started a race to succeed her.
She needs the Compact with Africa summit to show that progress has been made in addressing the aftermath of one of the defining moments of her 13 years in power: her 2015 decision to open Germany’s doors to more than a million asylum seekers.
The Berlin summit, attended by 12 presidents and prime ministers including Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, is designed to showcase the continent as a stable destination for German investment.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde is also there, along with a host of international development officials.
The aim is to create good jobs for Africans, easing the poverty which, along with political instability and violence, has encouraged large numbers to head for Europe. But with Africa’s population growing at almost three percent a year, the task is enormous.
“We Europeans have a great interest in African states having a bright economic outlook,” Merkel said in her opening speech, announcing the fund to help small and medium-sized enterprises from both Europe and Africa to invest on the continent.
The 119,000 Africans who arrived in Europe in 2018, according to the International Organization for Migration, are the tip of the iceberg. International Labor Organization figures show that 16 million migrants were on the move within Africa in 2014.
While European Union countries invested $22 billion in Africa in 2017, breakneck economic growth will be needed to help bring down the migrant numbers.
Berlin hopes Germany’s manufacturing-based economy, which drove Eastern Europe’s rapid economic growth after the 1989 collapse of Communism, could turn things round.
Merkel needs results fast if she is to ensure the leadership of her Christian Democrats passes to a centrist ally, such as its general secretary, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
A marshall plan for Africa?
Other candidates for the party leadership, including Health Minister Jens Spahn or her old rival, the strongly pro-business Friedrich Merz, are well to her right politically and could be expected to want to challenge much of her legacy.
Merkel has said she will remain chancellor but that her current, fourth term up to 2021 will be her last. A whopping 71 percent of Germans welcomed Merkel’s decision, a poll released Tuesday by broadcasters RTL and n-tv showed.
Germany has introduced tax incentives for its companies to set up plants in Africa, reflecting her view that state aid must give way to private investment if jobs are to be created in their millions.
This would be part of a “Marshall Plan for Africa” – named after the U.S.-funded plan that helped to rebuild European states including Germany after World War II – that she sees as central to her legacy.
Merkel presented her decision to open Germany’s borders in 2015 as an unavoidable necessity driven by the vast scale of the human tide, that year mostly fleeing the civil war in Syria.
An agreement with Turkey sharply curtailed the arrival of refugees into the EU through Greece. But hundreds of thousands of mainly African migrants continued to travel across the Mediterranean, a flow that finally began to abate in the past year with improved efforts to halt smuggling from Libya.
The crisis has upturned European politics, bringing the far right to power in Italy and Austria, and in Germany revitalizing the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose demand that the country shut its borders to migrants helped to fuel its surge into parliament in last year’s election.
A successful outcome to the summit may help to strengthen Merkel’s case for remaining chancellor even after stepping down from the party leadership, and could quieten her coalition partners in Bavaria’s conservative CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD).
All three parties have suffered punishing setbacks in regional elections this month, building internal party pressure for them to switch leaders or break up the coalition.
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Companies Rule Out Interest in Alitalia, in Blow to Rescue Plan
Major companies on Tuesday ruled out involvement in a new rescue of Alitalia, complicating a plan led by Rome in which state-controlled railway Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) will bid for the airline this week and bring in partners.
Alitalia was put under special administration last year, leaving the government once again looking to find a buyer to save the carrier. It will be the airline’s third rescue in a decade.
FS is due to present an offer for the whole of Alitalia on Wednesday subject to a series of conditions. FS’s offer would only be a “transitional phase,” a source close to the deal told Reuters.
The source added the deal would be completed in two separate steps, with FS picking up Alitalia on set conditions and then, at a later stage, being joined by an Italian partner and a international one, from the airline sector.
The source added there was very little visibility on next steps, and it was not clear which partners would join FS. “The situation is very messy,” the source said.
Earlier this month Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio suggested that state-controlled companies like oil major Eni , postal operator Poste and defense group Leonardo could all play a role in the relaunch.
Di Maio, also industry minister, said that there were many private investors also interested in Alitalia.
But on Tuesday Eni said that any suggestion that it might pick up a stake in the carrier was “groundless” and that it would not play a role in the rescue, a spokesperson said.
Leonardo too will not join any relaunch of Alitalia, which has already accumulated a loss of over 300 million euros ($340.86 million), a separate source close to the matter told Reuters.
“It would be crazy for Leonardo to enter this madness,” the source said. Shares in the group were down almost 1.5 percent at 1600 GMT after Italian dailies had reported that the company would be involved in an effort spearheaded by FS.
Last month Poste Chief Executive Matteo del Fante said the group was “not at all interested” in joining an overhaul effort for the airline.
Cash drain
Alitalia has cost Italian tax payers almost 10 billion euros over the last 20 years, more than the market capitalization of Air France-KLM, Turkish Airlines, Norwegian Air, Finnair and SAS added together, according to Andrea Giuricin, CEO of transport advisory firm TRA Consulting.
Last year Alitalia accounted for only 8.5 percent of the international traffic to and from Italy, Giuricin added, just under a third of Ryanair’s share.
The sale process was delayed due to the change of Italian government earlier this year, but the ruling coalition, that comprises the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the far-right League, pledged it would close a deal by Wednesday.
Germany’s Lufthansa said earlier on Tuesday that it had no interest in participating in a government-led restructuring effort.
Alitalia must pay back the Italian state almost 1 billion euros in a bridge loan and related interest by mid-December.
($1 = 0.8801 euros)
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China Steps Up VPN Blocks Ahead of Major Trade, Internet Shows
Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to block virtual private networks (VPN), service providers said Tuesday in describing a “cat-and-mouse” game with censors ahead of a major trade expo and internet conference.
VPNs allow internet users in China, including foreign companies, to access overseas sites that authorities bar through the so-called Great Firewall, such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.
Since Xi Jinping became president in 2013, authorities have sought to curb VPN use, with providers suffering periodic lags in connectivity because of government blocks.
“This time, the Chinese government seemed to have staff on the ground monitoring our response in real time and deploying additional blocks,” said Sunday Yokubaitis, the chief executive of Golden Frog, the maker of the VyprVPN service.
Authorities started blocking some of its services on Sunday, he told Reuters, although VyprVPN’s service has since been restored in China.
“Our counter measures usually work for a couple of days before the attack profile changes and they block us again,” Yokubaitis said.
The latest attacks were more aggressive than the “steadily increasing blocks” the firm had experienced in the second half of the year, he added.
The Cyberspace Administration of China did not respond immediately to a faxed request from Reuters to seek comment.
Another provider, ExpressVPN, also acknowledged connectivity issues on its services in China on Monday that sparked user complaints.
“There has long been a cat-and-mouse game with VPNs in China and censors regularly change their blocking techniques,” its spokesman told Reuters.
Last year, Apple Inc dropped a number of unapproved VPN apps from its app store in China, after Beijing adopted tighter rules.
Although fears of a blanket block on services have not materialized, industry experts say VPN connections often face outages around the time of major events in China.
Xi will attend a huge trade fair in Shanghai next week designed to promote China as a global importer and calm foreign concern about its trade practices, while the eastern town of Wuzhen hosts the annual World Internet Conference to showcase China’s vision for internet governance.
Censors may be testing new technology that blocks VPNs more effectively, said Lokman Tsui, who studies freedom of expression and digital rights at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“It could be just a wave of experiments,” he said of the latest service disruptions.
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