Oscar nominee Matthew Heineman’s film “A Private War,” about Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin, brings attention to the danger journalists face reporting on the plight of war victims. VOA’s Penelope Poulou describes how and why “A Private War” was a labor of love, a docudrama delving into Colvin’s psyche.
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Federal Reserve policymakers on Friday signaled further interest rate increases ahead, but raised relatively muted concerns over a potential global slowdown that has markets betting heavily that the Fed’s rate hike cycle will soon peter out.
The widening chasm between market expectations and the rate path the Fed laid out just two months ago underscores the biggest question in front of U.S. central bankers: How much weight to give a growing number of potential red flags, even as U.S. economic growth continues to push down unemployment and create new jobs?
“We are at a point now where we really need to be especially data dependent,” Richard Clarida, the newly appointed vice chair of the Federal Reserve, said in a CNBC interview. “I think certainly where the economy is today, and the Fed’s projection of where it’s going, that being at neutral would make sense,” he added, defining “neutral” as interest rates somewhere between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent.
But that range that implies anywhere from two more to six more rate hikes, and Clarida declined to say how many more increases he would prefer.
He did say he is optimistic that U.S. productivity is rising, a view that suggests he would not see faster economic or wage growth as necessarily feeding into higher inflation or, necessarily, requiring higher interest rates. But he also
sounded a mild warning.
“There is some evidence of global slowing,” Clarida said. “That’s something that is going to be relevant as I think about the outlook for the U.S. economy, because it impacts big parts of the economy through trade and through capital markets and the like.”
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan, in a separate interview with Fox Business, also said he is seeing a growth slowdown in Europe and China.
“It’s my own judgment that global growth is going to be a little bit of a headwind, and it may spill over to the United States,” Kaplan said. .
The Fed raised interest rates three times this year and is expected to raise its target again next month, to a range of 2.25 percent to 2.5 percent. As of September, Fed policymakers expected to need to increase rates three more times next year, a view they will update next month.
Over the last week, betting in contracts tied to the Fed’s policy suggests that even two rate hikes might be a stretch. The yield on fed fund futures maturing in January 2020, seen by some as an end-point for the Fed’s current rate-hike cycle, dropped sharply to just 2.76 percent over six trading days.
At the same time, long-term inflation expectations have been dropping quickly as well. The so-called breakeven inflation rate on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS, has fallen sharply in the last month. The breakeven rate on five-year TIPS hit the lowest since late 2017 earlier this week.
Those market moves together suggest traders are taking the prospect of a slowdown seriously, limiting how far the Fed will end up raising rates.
But not all policymakers seemed that worried. Sitting with his back to a map of the world in a ballroom in Chicago’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans downplayed risks to his outlook, noting that the leveraged loans that some of his colleagues have raised concerns about are being taken out by “big boys and girls” who
understand the risks.
He told reporters he still believes rates should rise to about 3.25 percent so as to mildly restrain growth and bring unemployment, now at 3.7 percent, back up to a more sustainable level.
Asked about risks from the global slowdown, he said he hears more talk about it but that it is not really in the numbers yet.
But the next six months, he said, bear close watching.
“There’s not a great headline” about risks to the economy right now, Evans told reporters. “International is a little slower; Brexit — nobody’s asked me about that, thank you; [the slowing] housing market: I think all of those are in the mix for uncertainties that everybody’s facing,” he said.
“But at the moment, it’s not enough to upset or adjust the trajectory that I have in mind.”
Still, Evans added, the risks should not be counted out: “They could take on more life more easily because they are sort of more top of mind, if not in the forecast.”
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Investigative group Bellingcat and Russian website The Insider are suggesting that Russian intelligence has infiltrated the computer infrastructure of a company that processes British visa applications.
The investigation, published Friday, aims to show how two suspected Russian military intelligence agents, who have been charged with poisoning a former Russian spy in the English city of Salisbury, may have obtained British visas.
The Insider and Bellingcat said they interviewed the former chief technical officer of a company that processes visa applications for several consulates in Moscow, including that of Britain.
The man, who fled Russia last year and applied for asylum in the United States, said he had been coerced to work with agents of the main Russian intelligence agency FSB, who revealed to him that they had access to the British visa center’s CCTV cameras and had a diagram of the center’s computer network. The two outlets say they have obtained the man’s deposition to the U.S. authorities but have decided against publishing the man’s name, for his own safety.
The Insider and Bellingcat, however, did not demonstrate a clear link between the alleged efforts of Russian intelligence to penetrate the visa processing system and Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, who have been charged with poisoning Sergei Skripal in Salisbury in March this year.
The man also said that FSB officers told him in spring 2016 that they were going to send two people to Britain and asked for his assistance with the visa applications. The timing points to the first reported trip to Britain of the two men, who traveled under the names of Alexander Petrov and Anatoly Boshirov. The man, however, said he told the FSB that there was no way he could influence the decision-making on visa applications.
The man said he was coerced to sign an agreement to collaborate with the FSB after one of its officers threatened to jail his mother, and was asked to create a “backdoor” to the computer network. He said he sabotaged those efforts before he fled Russia in early 2017.
In September, British intelligence released surveillance images of the agents of Russian military intelligence GRU accused of the March nerve agent attack on double agent Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. Bellingcat and The Insider quickly exposed the agents’ real names and the media, including The Associated Press, were able to corroborate their real identities.
The visa application processing company, TLSContact, and the British Home Office were not immediately available for comment.
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Marijuana is getting its time in South Africa’s spotlight after being decriminalized in September.
The landmark constitutional court ruling, which still needs to be translated into law, allows South Africans to legally grow and consume their own cannabis at home.
The ruling explicitly forbids dealing in marijuana products, meaning if you don’t already have it, you can’t buy or sell it.
But the buzz around this long-forbidden plant is sparking a slew of pot-themed products on South African shelves.
Poison City Brewing released a popular cannabis-infused beer right after the court ruling.
“We sold out of our first batch of stock within 10 days of its release, and at the moment we brewed 100,000 liters for the next batch, which we’ve sold out already, so we’ve doubled that to 200,000 liters for the next batch. So it’s absolutely incredible,” said sales manager Natasha Nkonjera.
None of these store-friendly products contain tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the chemical that causes marijuana’s “dazed and confused” effects, which is still considered a prohibited narcotic.
Cannabis advocate Connor Davis released a hemp-infused gin through his family distillery, Monk’s Gin. He says these novelty drinks are just the start of pot products in South Africa.
“There are over 100,000 products that can come from cannabis,” he said. “The industrial benefits of it — I mean, you can build an entire house from cannabis alone. From the insulation to the actual brickwork to your carpeting, to your linen, everything can be made from hemp. So that has incredible potential.”
South Africa — with its sunny and temperate weather and rich, arable land — has long been one of the world’s top growers and exporters of illegal cannabis.
But, with the change in law, the government’s Department of Trade and Industry is now studying the economic potential of the plant.
Davis says he believes the cannabis industry can help address South Africa’s severe unemployment rates.
“The statistics we have been comparing, from the United States to South Africa, potentially, immediately from day one, we’ve got at least 200,000 jobs to be given in the cannabis industry,” he said.
Julian Stobbs and Myrtle Clarke are longtime marijuana advocates who led the push for South Africa’s landmark ruling. They see a number of commercial uses for marijuana, such as the lucrative beauty market.
“I think the cosmetic potential of cannabis is enormous,” Clarke said. “I use a one-percent THC-infused moisturizer, which is absolutely amazing. And everything from balms for your tattoos to hair products — I think that has got huge potential to try and get rid of as many of the chemicals that we put in our skin and our hair.”
Stobbs is less optimistic about commercialization, but sees marijuana entering the culture in a way it never has before.
“I see quite a scary future. I see different cultures trying to get in on the deal, now that it’s hip to the groove, and not a scaly thing to be doing, smoking skanky joints. And now it’s really hip, and you’ve got beautiful vaporizers and stuff, and epic glass, and Beverly Hills chicks doing it on chat shows,” he said.
But that, Stobbs admits, is the point of legalizing cannabis: Once you plant that seed, it grows like, well, a weed.
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Now that South Africa’s highest court has relaxed the nation’s laws on marijuana, local entrepreneurs are trying to cash in on the popular herb. Among the latest entries to the market: several highly popular cannabis-laced alcohol products, which deliver the unique taste, though without the signature high. Marijuana activists say this could just be the beginning and that the famous plant could do much more for the national economy. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg.
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Place names in Arlington County have never been a simple matter. A major fight broke out when National Airport was named for Ronald Reagan in 1998. A fight continues over whether to name a park next to the airport for Nancy Reagan. And in the 1920s, the Postal Service refused to establish a post office in Arlington because the street names were so confusing and haphazard.
So it is fitting that as Arlington officials celebrated Amazon’s decision to locate a new headquarters in the area, there was a bit of confusion over the place name.
Amazon announced Tuesday that it was coming to National Landing, a place people had not heard of because it doesn’t exist. Economic development officials who were wooing the online retailing giant came up with the name as a way to describe the multiple neighborhoods that were being offered as a site.
Those neighborhoods — Crystal City and Pentagon City in Arlington County, and Potomac Yard in the city of Alexandria — span multiple jurisdictions, so the name allowed Alexandria and Arlington to work cooperatively without marketing one locality over another.
Unfortunately, because the yearlong process of wooing Amazon had been so secretive, the moniker that had become so commonplace in the economic-development discussions had zero recognition among the general public. So Amazon’s use of the name in its big announcement left people scratching their heads.
Some people confused it with National Harbor, a new development in Maryland that has attracted one of the biggest casinos on the East Coast. Comedian Remy Munasifi, who made his name poking fun at Arlington in a YouTube rap that has been viewed more than 2 million times, suggested that Arlington National Cemetery would soon be renamed “Kindle Shores.”
Rep. Don Beyer, whose congressional district encompasses the neighborhoods, got in on the act when he suggested that the location of a new $1 billion graduate campus be dubbed “Hokie Landing.” The campus was a key incentive offered to Amazon by Virginia, which promised to double the number of students who graduate each year with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and related fields.
No official steps were ever taken to rename the region, and local officials have made clear they have no intention of trying to rename Crystal City or any other neighborhood.
In a tweet posted by Arlington Economic Development on Thursday, Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz explained that National Landing was simply “a way to avoid saying, ‘Parts of Arlington, parts of Alexandria.’ ”
Christina Winn, director of business investment for Arlington Economic Development, said officials never imagined “there would be so much conversation” about the concept. Winn said there’s no intention to supplant or override the name of Crystal City, which draws its name from a big chandelier in one of the first apartment buildings to go up in the area in the 1960s.
Still, she said, if Arlington and Alexandria team up on another economic-development pitch in the future, she said that the moniker might be revived.
“It worked once,” she said.
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Cicely Tyson received her first and only Oscar nomination in 1972. It was for best actress for her work in “Sounder,” which she thinks of as her first major role. She wasn’t called to the stage that year — Liza Minnelli was for “Cabaret” — but now 45 years later, Tyson is finally getting her Oscar.
“It is an emotionally wrenching matter to me,” Tyson said.
Tyson, 93, is no stranger to awards and honors. She’s won three Emmys (two in the same year for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” and one for “The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All”), a Tony award (for “The Trip to Bountiful”), been a Kennedy Center honoree and, in 2016 was given a Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. Now she can add one more award to that list as she prepares to accept her honorary Oscar at the 10th annual Governors Awards Sunday in Hollywood.
“I come from lowly status. I grew up in an area that was called the slums at the time,” Tyson said. “I still cannot imagine that I have met with presidents, kings, queens. How did I get here? I marvel at it.”
When film academy President John Bailey called her to inform her that the Board of Governors voted unanimously to give her the award, she “went to water.”
“It is the last thing in the world that I ever expected,” Tyson said, thinking, “I hadn’t done a major movie since ‘The Help.'”
Tyson has worked since the 2011 film, with roles in “Last Flag Flying’ and the television show “How to Get Away With Murder,” but ‘The Help’ was the last film that had anyone mentioning her name alongside Oscar. Oprah even called her and predicted she’d get a nomination, to which she responded: “My role was two seconds!’
“I am extremely grateful to the Board that they even know my name,” Tyson added with a hearty laugh.
She is being honored Sunday along with publicist Marvin Levy and composer Lalo Schifrin.
Born in Harlem, Tyson started out as a model and theater actress, eventually landing a role in the film “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” in 1968. Her pursuit of acting caused a rift with her mother, who disapproved, but Tyson said she was her “motivating force.”
“I was determined to prove her wrong,” Tyson said.
Plus, she learned quickly that she had a larger purpose than just acting. On the press tour for “Sounder,” which took her to parts of the United States that she hadn’t yet been to, she remembers a man in a press conference telling her that watching the film made him realize that he was prejudiced.
“He said, ‘You know, I could not accept the fact that your older son was referring to his father as daddy. That’s what my son calls me,'” Tyson said. “And I thought to myself, `My God. My God.’ It was those kinds of experiences as I went across the country promoting ‘Sounder’ that made me realize that I, Cicely Tyson, could not afford the luxury of being an actress. There were some issues that I definitely had to address and I chose my profession as my platform.”
It led to a lifetime of activism and humanitarianism off screen. Tyson even has a performing arts school named after her in New Jersey and frequently goes on tour to speak to children. On screen Tyson has portrayed women like Coretta Scott King and Harriet Ross Tubman. She decided early that she would only take jobs that “speak to something,” which is also why she ends up saying “no” a lot.
“My honorary Oscar proves to me that I was on the right track and I stayed on it,” Tyson said.
And while most of the time “no” works, sometimes it doesn’t. Tyson tried to say no to wearing a terrifically large hat to Aretha Franklin’s funeral only to be overruled by her designer. The hat would become a viral highlight.
“I never thought in my career that I would be upstaged by a hat! And I did not want to wear it,” Tyson said. “I said, ‘I can’t wear that hat, I will be blocking the view of the people behind me, they won’t be able to see and they’ll call me all kinds of names.’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Put the hat on.'”
She came around, eventually, thinking of the hat as homage to Franklin’s appearance at Obama’s inauguration.
As for whether or not she’ll don a similarly spectacular piece of art on her head Sunday night at the Governors Awards? Tyson just laughs.
“Oh no!” she said. “I won’t even mention it to him.”
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Companies could help refugees rebuild their lives by paying them to boost artificial intelligence (AI) using their phones and giving them digital skills, a tech nonprofit said Thursday.
REFUNITE has developed an app, LevelApp, which is being piloted in Uganda to allow people who have been uprooted by conflict to earn instant money by “training” algorithms for AI.
Wars, persecution and other violence have uprooted a record 68.5 million people, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
People forced to flee their homes lose their livelihoods and struggle to create a source of income, REFUNITE co-chief executive Chris Mikkelsen told the Trust Conference in London.
“This provides refugees with a foothold in the global gig economy,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s two-day event, which focuses on a host of human rights issues.
$20 a day for AI work
A refugee in Uganda currently earning $1.25 a day doing basic tasks or menial jobs could make up to $20 a day doing simple AI labeling work on their phones, Mikkelsen said.
REFUNITE says the app could be particularly beneficial for women as the work can be done from the home and is more lucrative than traditional sources of income such as crafts.
The cash could enable refugees to buy livestock, educate children and access health care, leaving them less dependant on aid and helping them recover faster, according to Mikkelsen.
The work would also allow them to build digital skills they could take with them when they returned home, REFUNITE says.
“This would give them the ability to rebuild a life … and the dignity of no longer having to rely solely on charity,” Mikkelsen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Teaching the machines
AI is the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.
It is being used in a vast array of products from driverless cars to agricultural robots that can identify and eradicate weeds and computers able to identify cancers.
In order to “teach” machines to mimic human intelligence, people must repeatedly label images and other data until the algorithm can detect patterns without human intervention.
REFUNITE, based in California, is testing the app in Uganda where it has launched a pilot project involving 5,000 refugees, mainly form South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. It hopes to scale up to 25,000 refugees within two years.
Mikkelsen said the initiative was a win-win as it would also benefit companies by slashing costs.
Another tech company, DeepBrain Chain, has committed to paying 200 refugees for a test period of six months, he said.
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Facebook says it is getting better at proactively removing hate speech and changing the incentives that result in the most sensational and provocative content becoming the most popular on the site.
The company has done so, it says, by ramping up its operations so that computers can review and make quick decisions on large amounts of content with thousands of reviewers making more nuanced decisions.
In the future, if a person disagrees with Facebook’s decision, he or she will be able to appeal to an independent review board.
Facebook “shouldn’t be making so many important decisions about free expression and safety on our own,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a call with reporters Thursday.
But as Zuckerberg detailed what the company has accomplished in recent months to crack down on spam, hate speech and violent content, he also acknowledged that Facebook has far to go.
“There are issues you never fix,” he said. “There’s going to be ongoing content issues.”
Company’s actions
In the call, Zuckerberg addressed a recent story in The New York Times that detailed how the company fought back during some of its biggest controversies over the past two years, such as the revelation of how the network was used by Russian operatives in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Times story suggested that company executives first dismissed early concerns about foreign operatives, then tried to deflect public attention away from Facebook once the news came out.
Zuckerberg said the firm made mistakes and was slow to understand the enormity of the issues it faced. “But to suggest that we didn’t want to know is simply untrue,” he said.
Zuckerberg also said he didn’t know the firm had hired Definers Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C., consulting firm that spread negative information about Facebook competitors as the social networking firm was in the midst of one scandal after another. Facebook severed its relationship with the firm.
“It may be normal in Washington, but it’s not the kind of thing I want Facebook associated with, which is why we won’t be doing it,” Zuckerberg said.
The firm posted a rebuttal to the Times story.
Content removed
Facebook said it is getting better at proactively finding and removing content such as spam, violent posts and hate speech. The company said it removed or took other action on 15.4 million pieces of violent content between June and September of this year, about double what it removed in the prior three months.
But Zuckerberg and other executives said Facebook still has more work to do in places such as Myanmar. In the third quarter, the firm said it proactively identified 63 percent of the hate speech it removed, up from 13 percent in the last quarter of 2017. At least 100 Burmese language experts are reviewing content, the firm said.
One issue that continues to dog Facebook is that some of the most popular content is also the most sensational and provocative. Facebook said it now penalizes what it calls “borderline content” so it gets less distribution and engagement.
“By fixing this incentive problem in our services, we believe it’ll create a virtuous cycle: by reducing sensationalism of all forms, we’ll create a healthier, less-polarized discourse where more people feel safe participating,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post.
Critics of the company, however, said Zuckerberg hasn’t gone far enough to address the inherent problems of Facebook, which has 2 billion users.
“We have a man-made, for-profit, simultaneous communication space, marketplace and battle space and that it is, as a result, designed not to reward veracity or morality but virality,” said Peter W. Singer, strategist and senior fellow at New America, a nonpartisan think tank, at an event Thursday in Washington, D.C.
VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
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When Marvin Levy says he never expected to get an Oscar, it’s not false modesty. It just wasn’t a possibility.
Levy is one of the most respected publicists in Hollywood, with more than a half century of experience at companies like MGM, Columbia Pictures, DreamWorks and Amblin. His four-decade partnership with Steven Spielberg is the stuff of legend, having worked on campaigns including “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Back to the Future,” “Schindler’s List” and “Jurassic Park.”
He’s also been a member of the public relations branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for years and even served on its board of governors, which is why he knows for a fact that no publicist’s name has ever even been put forth for honorary Oscar consideration. Until this year.
He compared it to a sports agent winning an MVP award.
“It was way out of left field for me. I couldn’t have imagined it,” Levy said with a laugh. “It’s not like I could say ‘Gee, I’d love to get that one day.’ It was not on my to-do list.”
Levy will be accepting his golden statuette at the Governors Awards in Hollywood Sunday, along with actress Cicely Tyson and composer Lalo Schifrin. His longtime friends and colleagues Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall will also be receiving the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
Born and raised on the east side of Manhattan, Levy never set out to be a publicist specifically, but he always liked writing and had a way with words. One of his first jobs was writing questions for a TV quiz show. He was fired when his “big ticket” question got answered too early in the season.
His first publicity job was at MGM in New York, where he was so far down on the ladder he never even got to travel to Los Angeles. And while he doesn’t remember the first film he worked on, he remembers one of the last, the one that made him think, “I’ve got to get out of here.” It was the 1962 remake of “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
“The lion wasn’t roaring too much at that point,” Levy said, and he found his way to legendary publicists Arthur Canton, Bill Blowitz and then Columbia Pictures which eventually took him to California. It was during that time that he first started working with Spielberg. He was told he was only to concentrate on “Close Encounters” and the hot young filmmaker who was fresh off of “Jaws.”
“That started it, and here we are 41 years later,” Levy said. “He’s been such a tremendous part of my life.”
The partnership was sealed after both he and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” were pushed aside at Columbia and he continued on with Spielberg and Kennedy.
Levy has stories for days about film sets he’s been on. There was “The Deep” where he invited journalists to observe filming in scuba suits underwater. And then there was Hurricane Iniki that bonded him for life with everyone on the set of “Jurassic Park.” (“I tell you if you ever get stranded or in an emergency, hope that you’re with a film crew because they have everything!”).
He’s had a few run ins with some “not very nice” actors who he’s had to tote around to media appearances, and remembers the ones who were always late. Ever the professional, he won’t dish on names, but he will say that some of his favorite people to work with have been Cyd Charisse and Shirley MacLaine.
And while many films that Levy has worked on have gone on to win Oscars for the filmmakers and actors, he still remembers the heartbreak when “Saving Private Ryan” lost the best picture trophy to “Shakespeare in Love” at the 71st Academy Awards.
“That was the toughest night of my life in terms of the business,” Levy said.
Immediately after the disappointment, he had to put on “as straight a face as I could” and host a table at the Governors Ball. But he takes pride in the fact that the film is still beloved and now considered a classic.
In fact, many of the films Levy has worked on are having second lives with anniversary releases, including “Schindler’s List,” which is coming to theaters starting Dec. 7 for its 25th anniversary. It’s made for some serious deja-vu for Levy who finds himself approving press releases, artwork and publicity for films he worked on decades ago.
“I live my life in rewind,” Levy laughed.
Not everything is in the rear-view mirror, though. Levy is looking forward to watching Spielberg tackle one of the few genres he hasn’t done — the musical, with “West Side Story.”
“How lucky can you be? I mean it,” he said. “We work for the best filmmaker around.”
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It’s official: 2018 is toxic.
Oxford Dictionaries has chosen “toxic” as its international word of the year.
Oxford University Press monitors changes in the English language and each year selects a word that catches the annual mood.
Oxford’s lexicographers said it’s “the sheer scope of its applications that has made it the standout choice.”
Traditionally defined as “poisonous,” Oxford said people are also using the word to describe relationships, workplaces, politics and habits.
“Toxic” beat out “gas-lighting,” defined as ”manipulating someone by psychological means into accepting a false depiction of reality or doubting their own sanity,” and “orbiting,” which means ”the action of abruptly withdrawing from direct communication with someone while still monitoring, and sometimes responding to, their activity on social media.”
Last year’s top choice was “youthquake,” recognizing the power of the millennial generation. In 2016, it was “post-truth,” defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotional and personal belief.”
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Climate change, steel and migration have emerged as sticking points in the final communique that world leaders will issue at the end of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina later this month, an Argentine government official said on Thursday.
Those issues were the “most complicated” areas of discussion, said Argentina’s Pedro Villagra Delgado, the lead organizer, or “sherpa,” for the summit of leaders from key industrialized and developing economies.
But he told a press briefing he was optimistic these issues would be resolved in time.
The G20 communique is a non-binding agreement on key international policy issues and will be presented at the conclusion of the two-day summit, which begins on Nov. 30.
Climate goals concern United States
Villagra Delgado said the United States was resistant to including language that outlined guidelines for climate goals in the document.
After withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement last year, the United States broke with other G20 member countries who have pledged to end coal usage and take steps to reach the goals outlined in the accord.
Villagra Delgado also said China disagreed with the rest of the G20 countries on steel, but did not provide further details over the specifics of their disagreement.
The United States has skirmished with a number of its trading partners — including China — over steel, imposing a 25 percent duty on imports of steel and a tariff of 10 percent on aluminum.
Other countries objected to including language about immigration in the communique, Villagra Delgado said, but would not elaborate on which countries expressed concern.
WTO reform may be on table
Reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) may also be a topic of discussion at this month’s meeting, Villagra Delgado said, but added that specific issues to be discussed in the G20 sessions were still being worked out.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the WTO, while China has claimed the 20-year-old organization’s dispute resolution mechanisms are outdated in the current global economy.
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Climate change, steel and migration have emerged as sticking points in the final communique that world leaders will issue at the end of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina later this month, an Argentine government official said on Thursday.
Those issues were the “most complicated” areas of discussion, said Argentina’s Pedro Villagra Delgado, the lead organizer, or “sherpa,” for the summit of leaders from key industrialized and developing economies.
But he told a press briefing he was optimistic these issues would be resolved in time.
The G20 communique is a non-binding agreement on key international policy issues and will be presented at the conclusion of the two-day summit, which begins on Nov. 30.
Climate goals concern United States
Villagra Delgado said the United States was resistant to including language that outlined guidelines for climate goals in the document.
After withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement last year, the United States broke with other G20 member countries who have pledged to end coal usage and take steps to reach the goals outlined in the accord.
Villagra Delgado also said China disagreed with the rest of the G20 countries on steel, but did not provide further details over the specifics of their disagreement.
The United States has skirmished with a number of its trading partners — including China — over steel, imposing a 25 percent duty on imports of steel and a tariff of 10 percent on aluminum.
Other countries objected to including language about immigration in the communique, Villagra Delgado said, but would not elaborate on which countries expressed concern.
WTO reform may be on table
Reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) may also be a topic of discussion at this month’s meeting, Villagra Delgado said, but added that specific issues to be discussed in the G20 sessions were still being worked out.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the WTO, while China has claimed the 20-year-old organization’s dispute resolution mechanisms are outdated in the current global economy.
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Super-realistic face masks made by a tiny company in rural Japan are in demand from the domestic tech and entertainment industries and from countries as far away as Saudi Arabia.
The 300,000-yen ($2,650) masks, made of resin and plastic by five employees at REAL-f Co., attempt to accurately duplicate an individual’s face down to fine wrinkles and skin texture.
Company founder Osamu Kitagawa came up with the idea while working at a printing machine manufacturer.
But it took him two years of experimentation before he found a way to use three-dimensional facial data from high-quality photographs to make the masks, and started selling them in 2011.
The company, based in the western prefecture of Shiga, receives about 100 orders every year from entertainment, automobile, technology and security companies, mainly in Japan.
For example, a Japanese car company ordered a mask of a sleeping face to improve its facial recognition technology to detect if a driver had dozed off, Kitagawa said.
“I am proud that my product is helping further development of facial recognition technology,” he added. “I hope that the developers would enhance face identification accuracy using these realistic masks.”
Kitagawa, 60, said he had also received orders from organizations linked to the Saudi government to create masks for the king and princes.
“I was told the masks were for portraits to be displayed in public areas,” he said.
Kitagawa said he works with clients carefully to ensure his products will not be used for illicit purposes and cause security risks, but added he could not rule out such threats.
He said his goal was to create 100 percent realistic masks, and he hoped to use softer materials, such as silicon, in the future.
“I would like these masks to be used for medical purposes, which is possible once they can be made using soft materials,” he said. “And as humanoid robots are being developed, I hope this will help developers to create [more realistic robots] at a low cost.”
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Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman expects to get new loans from the International Monetary Fund as early as December, once parliament passes a budget of stability that refrains from making pre-election populist moves, he said Thursday.
Securing IMF assistance will also unlock loans from the World Bank and the European Union. Groysman also said Ukraine was in negotiations with Washington for a new loan guarantee for sovereign debt.
Groysman negotiated a new deal with the IMF last month aimed at keeping finances on an even keel during a choppy election period next year. The new loans are contingent on his steering an IMF-compliant budget through parliament.
“This budget is a budget of stability and continuation of reforms,” Groysman said in an interview with Reuters. “This is fully consistent with our IMF program.”
“Yes. We are counting on a tranche in December,” he added, when asked about when IMF loans were expected, though he did not elaborate on the possible size of the loan.
Ukraine’s government approved a draft budget in September but it will typically undergo a slew of amendments before parliament finally approves it.
Tax proposal dropped
Groysman said a proposal to change how companies are taxed — on withdrawn capital, rather than profits — had been dropped from the budget because of the IMF’s concerns.
He also said he would not bow to opposition parties’ demands to reverse a recent increase in household gas tariffs, a step that his government reluctantly took to qualify for more IMF assistance.
“Populism led to the weakness of Ukraine,” he said. “This should not be allowed.”
The IMF and Kyiv’s foreign allies came to Ukraine’s rescue after it plunged into turmoil following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for separatist rebels occupying the eastern industrial Donbass region.
The United States has also sold coal to plug a domestic shortage caused by rebels taking control of mines in the east. U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine this week.
In response to a question about whether Ukraine would continue to buy coal from the United States and potentially also liquefied natural gas, Groysman said that “liquefied gas is very interesting for Ukraine. We talked about the whole spectrum of our cooperation in the energy sector.”
As for coal, he added, “we will buy it from our international partners until we cover the domestic deficit.”
Washington has also previously issued loan guarantees for Ukrainian debt. Groysman said another such guarantee was “under discussion.”
…
Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman expects to get new loans from the International Monetary Fund as early as December, once parliament passes a budget of stability that refrains from making pre-election populist moves, he said Thursday.
Securing IMF assistance will also unlock loans from the World Bank and the European Union. Groysman also said Ukraine was in negotiations with Washington for a new loan guarantee for sovereign debt.
Groysman negotiated a new deal with the IMF last month aimed at keeping finances on an even keel during a choppy election period next year. The new loans are contingent on his steering an IMF-compliant budget through parliament.
“This budget is a budget of stability and continuation of reforms,” Groysman said in an interview with Reuters. “This is fully consistent with our IMF program.”
“Yes. We are counting on a tranche in December,” he added, when asked about when IMF loans were expected, though he did not elaborate on the possible size of the loan.
Ukraine’s government approved a draft budget in September but it will typically undergo a slew of amendments before parliament finally approves it.
Tax proposal dropped
Groysman said a proposal to change how companies are taxed — on withdrawn capital, rather than profits — had been dropped from the budget because of the IMF’s concerns.
He also said he would not bow to opposition parties’ demands to reverse a recent increase in household gas tariffs, a step that his government reluctantly took to qualify for more IMF assistance.
“Populism led to the weakness of Ukraine,” he said. “This should not be allowed.”
The IMF and Kyiv’s foreign allies came to Ukraine’s rescue after it plunged into turmoil following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and support for separatist rebels occupying the eastern industrial Donbass region.
The United States has also sold coal to plug a domestic shortage caused by rebels taking control of mines in the east. U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine this week.
In response to a question about whether Ukraine would continue to buy coal from the United States and potentially also liquefied natural gas, Groysman said that “liquefied gas is very interesting for Ukraine. We talked about the whole spectrum of our cooperation in the energy sector.”
As for coal, he added, “we will buy it from our international partners until we cover the domestic deficit.”
Washington has also previously issued loan guarantees for Ukrainian debt. Groysman said another such guarantee was “under discussion.”
…
Business leaders expressed growing alarm Thursday as a draft Brexit agreement seen as the only chance of preserving some stability in U.K.-EU trading threatened to unravel, sending stock prices and the pound plunging.
Just 12 hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her cabinet had agreed to the terms of the draft agreement, Brexit minister Dominic Raab and work and pensions minister Esther McVey quit, saying they could not support it.
Their departures and those of other, junior ministers, revived the specter for business of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal next March, and sent shares in British housebuilders, retailers and banks tumbling.
“The political situation remains uncertain,” German carmaker BMW said in a statement. “We must therefore continue to prepare for the worst-case scenario, which is what a no-deal Brexit would represent.
“We continue to call on all sides to work toward a final agreement which maintains the truly frictionless trade on which our international production network is based.”
The European Union is Britain’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 44 percent of U.K. exports and 53 percent of imports to the UK.
After 45 years of membership, industries including defense, cars and aerospace have created intricate supply chains that rely on smooth, “just-in-time” delivery of thousands of parts across the sea that divides Britain from the continent.
Business leaders fear that the country could stumble toward a no-deal Brexit where border checks block ports and fracture the supply chains that support the likes of Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems.
Karen Betts, the head of the Scotch Whisky Association, said a no-deal Brexit would cause “considerable difficulties” for the industry and increase cost and complexity. It accounts for around 20 percent of all U.K. food and drink exports.
‘Only deal in town’
A senior executive at one of Britain’s biggest banks said this was the most disastrous government he had ever seen.
“The rest of the world is looking at us and laughing. It is time to have some stability so business can get some certainty. This is what the country needs.”
Industry bosses who had been briefed on the draft agreement by ministers late Wednesday had broadly welcomed it as the best chance of a compromise that would secure a transition period and avert the chaos of no deal at all.
May’s office also released statements from a number of major companies such as Diageo, the London Stock Exchange and Royal Mail welcoming the draft deal.
“Most business people ultimately are pragmatists and this is about playing the cards we have been dealt rather than wishing for a better hand,” Roger Carr, chairman of BAE Systems, told BBC Radio.
Iain Anderson, executive chairman of public affairs firm Cicero, which represents many finance companies, said although most executives did not like May’s deal they realized it was now the only game in town.
“Business is watching with horror the resignations now taking place,” he said. “Yesterday we had a plan and stability and today we do not.
“There is now no time to negotiate another deal. We thought we had stability — now we have instability writ large.”
The U.K. chief of German industrial group Siemens, which employs 15,000 people in the U.K., reiterated his call to get behind the draft agreement even as senior politicians called for May to quit.
“We hope all sides keep calm, look at the facts, and move to support this draft to provide UK business with greater certainty,” Juergen Maier said in an emailed statement.
Even if May survives, her chances of winning a vote in parliament to approve the draft agreement are seen as slim.
Market jitters
Lawmakers across the political spectrum have said May’s deal will leave Britain bound by EU rules without having any say.
Many have argued it will also damage the integrity of the United Kingdom by aligning Northern Ireland with the rest of the EU in order to avoid a hard border with EU-member Ireland.
Many executives spoken to by Reuters were trying to guess what could happen next, either a national election, a second referendum or the extension of the negotiating period.
One senior executive at a FTSE 100 company was still holding out hope, however, that lawmakers would eventually be persuaded to vote for the deal when it comes before parliament before the end of the year.
“We’re going to need the market to throw up and scare them all into voting for it,” he said. The pound was down 1.8 percent against the dollar in early evening trading.
The CEO of French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux, which runs London’s bus-shelter advertising and makes 10 percent of its sales in Britain, called the situation “obviously very serious.”
“Today’s events reinforce the uncertainties in the market,” Jean-Charles Decaux told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference in Barcelona.
Martin Sorrell, ex-CEO and founder of ad agency group WPP and one of Britain’s best-known businessmen, said the country was in a state. “The situation this morning saps the confidence of the city and the country,” he told Reuters.
…
Business leaders expressed growing alarm Thursday as a draft Brexit agreement seen as the only chance of preserving some stability in U.K.-EU trading threatened to unravel, sending stock prices and the pound plunging.
Just 12 hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her cabinet had agreed to the terms of the draft agreement, Brexit minister Dominic Raab and work and pensions minister Esther McVey quit, saying they could not support it.
Their departures and those of other, junior ministers, revived the specter for business of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal next March, and sent shares in British housebuilders, retailers and banks tumbling.
“The political situation remains uncertain,” German carmaker BMW said in a statement. “We must therefore continue to prepare for the worst-case scenario, which is what a no-deal Brexit would represent.
“We continue to call on all sides to work toward a final agreement which maintains the truly frictionless trade on which our international production network is based.”
The European Union is Britain’s biggest trading partner, accounting for 44 percent of U.K. exports and 53 percent of imports to the UK.
After 45 years of membership, industries including defense, cars and aerospace have created intricate supply chains that rely on smooth, “just-in-time” delivery of thousands of parts across the sea that divides Britain from the continent.
Business leaders fear that the country could stumble toward a no-deal Brexit where border checks block ports and fracture the supply chains that support the likes of Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems.
Karen Betts, the head of the Scotch Whisky Association, said a no-deal Brexit would cause “considerable difficulties” for the industry and increase cost and complexity. It accounts for around 20 percent of all U.K. food and drink exports.
‘Only deal in town’
A senior executive at one of Britain’s biggest banks said this was the most disastrous government he had ever seen.
“The rest of the world is looking at us and laughing. It is time to have some stability so business can get some certainty. This is what the country needs.”
Industry bosses who had been briefed on the draft agreement by ministers late Wednesday had broadly welcomed it as the best chance of a compromise that would secure a transition period and avert the chaos of no deal at all.
May’s office also released statements from a number of major companies such as Diageo, the London Stock Exchange and Royal Mail welcoming the draft deal.
“Most business people ultimately are pragmatists and this is about playing the cards we have been dealt rather than wishing for a better hand,” Roger Carr, chairman of BAE Systems, told BBC Radio.
Iain Anderson, executive chairman of public affairs firm Cicero, which represents many finance companies, said although most executives did not like May’s deal they realized it was now the only game in town.
“Business is watching with horror the resignations now taking place,” he said. “Yesterday we had a plan and stability and today we do not.
“There is now no time to negotiate another deal. We thought we had stability — now we have instability writ large.”
The U.K. chief of German industrial group Siemens, which employs 15,000 people in the U.K., reiterated his call to get behind the draft agreement even as senior politicians called for May to quit.
“We hope all sides keep calm, look at the facts, and move to support this draft to provide UK business with greater certainty,” Juergen Maier said in an emailed statement.
Even if May survives, her chances of winning a vote in parliament to approve the draft agreement are seen as slim.
Market jitters
Lawmakers across the political spectrum have said May’s deal will leave Britain bound by EU rules without having any say.
Many have argued it will also damage the integrity of the United Kingdom by aligning Northern Ireland with the rest of the EU in order to avoid a hard border with EU-member Ireland.
Many executives spoken to by Reuters were trying to guess what could happen next, either a national election, a second referendum or the extension of the negotiating period.
One senior executive at a FTSE 100 company was still holding out hope, however, that lawmakers would eventually be persuaded to vote for the deal when it comes before parliament before the end of the year.
“We’re going to need the market to throw up and scare them all into voting for it,” he said. The pound was down 1.8 percent against the dollar in early evening trading.
The CEO of French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux, which runs London’s bus-shelter advertising and makes 10 percent of its sales in Britain, called the situation “obviously very serious.”
“Today’s events reinforce the uncertainties in the market,” Jean-Charles Decaux told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference in Barcelona.
Martin Sorrell, ex-CEO and founder of ad agency group WPP and one of Britain’s best-known businessmen, said the country was in a state. “The situation this morning saps the confidence of the city and the country,” he told Reuters.
…
Office workers often complain that the building is either too hot or too cold. Now, engineers and architects are working on creating “sentient buildings” that can cater to the personal needs and well being of each employee in the hopes of increasing productivity. VOA’S Elizabeth Lee has this report from Los Angeles.
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Office workers often complain that the building is either too hot or too cold. Now, engineers and architects are working on creating “sentient buildings” that can cater to the personal needs and well being of each employee in the hopes of increasing productivity. VOA’S Elizabeth Lee has this report from Los Angeles.
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