Victoria Graham is a beauty queen. But what is truly extraordinary about this pageant winner are her efforts to overcome a severe genetic condition so that she could use her title wins to highlight her illness. Anush Avetisyan reports from Manchester, Maryland.
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Month: January 2019
Proponents of Big Tech say the march of technology into our daily lives is designed to make our lives easier. For some, it’s arguable if a smart refrigerator can actually make life easier. But for the disabled community, technological advances can make a huge difference. Some of that new technology was on display this week at the Consumer Electronics’ show. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Despite the U.S. stock market recovery, Macy’s and American Airlines’ revised revenue forecasts for 2018 have sent their stock prices spiraling. Other retail stocks fell, too, including J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and Kohl’s. The reports come amid news of another iconic department store, Sears, fighting for survival. But U.S. trade and financial officials say the U.S. economy is on solid ground and will continue to grow for years to come. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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The 800,000 federal workers who are not being paid or are working without pay during the partial government shutdown were the first to feel its impact. But as Anna Kook reports, other segments of the economy are also being hurt, especially in Washington, home to the largest number of federal workers in the country.
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U.S. officials expect a visit from China’s top trade negotiator this month in Washington, signaling that higher-level discussions are likely to follow this week’s talks with midlevel officials in Beijing as the world’s two largest economies try to reach a deal to end a tit-for-tat tariff war.
“The current intent is that the Vice Premier Liu He will most likely come and visit us later in the month and I would expect the government shutdown would have no impact,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters Thursday in Washington. “We will continue with those meetings just as we sent a delegation to China.”
The U.S. government is in the 20th day of a partial shutdown with President Donald Trump, a Republican, and congressional Democrats feuding over funding and Trump’s desire for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
People familiar with the talks in Beijing said Thursday that hopes were mounting that Liu would continue talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mnuchin.
Higher level, key decisions
Talks at that level are viewed as important for making the key decisions to ease a festering trade war, which has disrupted trade flows for hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods and roiled global markets.
Trump has demanded better terms of trade with China, with the United States pressing Beijing to address issues that would require structural change such as intellectual property theft, forced technology transfers and other non-tariff barriers.
On Thursday Trump said the United States was having “tremendous success” in its trade negotiations with China. A spokeswoman for Lighthizer’s office declined to comment.
Few details on progress
More than halfway through a 90-day truce in the U.S.-China trade war agreed on Dec. 1 when Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the G20 summit in Argentina, there have been few details provided of any progress made.
Trump has vowed to increase tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports March 2 if China fails to take steps to protect U.S. intellectual property, end policies that force American companies to turn over technology to a Chinese partner, allow more market access for U.S. businesses and reduce other non-tariff barriers to American products.
Ambitious timeline and hope
The timeline is seen as ambitious, but the resumption of face-to-face negotiations has bolstered hopes of a deal.
“We have the two sides back at the table. That’s encouraging,” said Myron Brilliant, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s head of international affairs, while speaking to reporters at an event Thursday.
China’s commerce ministry said Thursday that additional consultations with the United States were being arranged after the Beijing talks addressed structural issues and helped establish a foundation to resolve U.S. and Chinese concerns.
Commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters the two sides were “serious” and “honest.”
Asked about China’s stance on issues such as forced technology transfers, intellectual property rights, non-tariff barriers and cyber attacks, and whether China was confident it could reach agreement with the United States, Gao said these issues were “an important part” of the Beijing talks.
“There has been progress in these areas,” he said without elaborating.
China has repeatedly played down complaints about intellectual property abuses, and has rejected accusations that foreign companies face forced technology transfers.
‘Cordial standoff’
Discussions on those issues were an extensive part of the talks, said people in Washington familiar with the discussions.
Chinese officials listened “politely” to U.S. grievances, they said, but responded by saying that the Americans had some issues wrong and misunderstood others, but that some other issues could be addressed.
“It was a cordial standoff,” said one person familiar with the discussions. China has said it will not give ground on issues that it perceives as core.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said officials from the two sides discussed “ways to achieve fairness, reciprocity and balance in trade relations,” and focused on China’s pledge to buy a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured, and other products and services from the United States.”
The U.S. trade agency said the talks also focused on ways to ensure enforcement and verification of Chinese follow-through on any commitments it makes to the United States.
Steps taken
U.S. and Chinese officials made more progress on straightforward issues such as working out the details of Chinese pledges to buy a “substantial amount” of U.S. agricultural, energy and manufactured goods and services, sources said.
Since the Trump-Xi meeting, China has resumed purchases of U.S. soybeans. Buying had slumped after China imposed a 25 percent import duty on U.S. shipments of the oilseed on July 6 in response to U.S. tariffs.
China has also cut tariffs on U.S. cars, dialed back on an industrial development plan known as “Made in China 2025” and told its state refiners to buy more U.S. oil.
Earlier this week, China approved five genetically modified crops for import, the first in about 18 months, which could boost its overseas grains purchases and ease U.S. pressure to open its markets to more farm goods.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Thursday stressed again that the U.S. central bank can be patient in approving any further rate increases as officials gauge whether the U.S. economy will slow this year, as some in financial markets worry, or continue motoring ahead as the Fed itself expects.
Powell’s second appearance in less than a week generated a subdued response in financial markets, a sign he may have found his footing in how to describe central bank policy without surprising investors. Several of his recent appearances have generated large market swings in both directions.
With no sign of excessive inflation or outsized risk in financial markets, Powell said the Fed would be “waiting and watching” in coming months.
“Especially with inflation low and under control, we have the ability to be patient and watch patiently and carefully as we … figure out which of these two narratives is going to be the story of 2019,” Powell said at the Economic Club of Washington.
WATCH: Despite Volatility in Retail Stocks, US Officials Predict Continued Growth
The S&P 500 edged up 0.45 percent on Thursday, while yields on Treasury securities were unchanged. In contrast, his remarks in his three previous appearances since late November moved stocks an average of 2.4 percent in either direction, and his comments last Friday spurred the largest market reaction yet to any of his 17 public appearances since taking office last February.
The S&P gained 3.43 percent, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose 11 basis points.
In that appearance Powell emphasized the Fed’s flexibility and patience in evaluating data, easing expectations of steady rate hikes in a message amplified by a half dozen other Fed officials in recent days.
Bullard is blunt
In remarks at an appearance in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Thursday, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard was blunt, saying that the central bank had reached the “end of the road” in its current rate increase cycle.
Powell and others have been less demonstrative and noted that economic data remains strong, particularly after a recent payroll report that showed more than 300,000 jobs added in December.
The central bank’s vice chairman, Richard Clarida, said later on Thursday that if the global slowdown and tightening of financial markets persists, the Fed would take policy steps to offset that. It would not want to wait too long to see overseas weakness affect the U.S. economy, he added.
Powell on Thursday also reiterated that, separate from what happens with interest rates, the Fed would continue allowing its nearly $4 trillion portfolio of bonds to shrink each month, to a level “substantially smaller” than it is now.
The monthly reductions, effectively running on autopilot, have been criticized by some as a steady tightening of financial conditions the Fed should reconsider.
New narrative
Still, Powell’s comments and those of other officials “are developing a new narrative … Big picture: they don’t have that much further to go and they don’t have to go there fast,” said Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist with PGIM Fixed Income in Newark, New Jersey.
Part of that message is meant to downplay the significance of the policy projections that officials issue every three months. The latest forecasts issued in December suggested rates could rise by a median of two more times in 2019, but Powell said it was a mistake to construe that as any sort of official forecast or “plan.”
“There is no such plan,” Powell said. “That was conditional on a very strong outlook for 2019,” which may or may not materialize, with the Fed adjusting policy accordingly.
The U.S. central bank raised rates four times last year in the face of robust economic growth and unemployment that touched its lowest level in half a century.
Fed officials and many forecasters expect growth to slow in 2019, but to remain strong enough to continue generating jobs and keeping the unemployment rate near its almost 50-year low.
No evidence of recession
While markets may be concerned about global trade tensions and slower growth overseas, Powell said there is no evidence of a U.S. recession on the horizon. If conditions weaken, the Fed would react.
“There is no pre-set path for rates … particularly now,” he said. If global growth slows more, “I can assure you … we can flexibly and quickly move policy, and we can do so significantly if that’s appropriate,” he added.
The Fed chief was also asked about the partial U.S. government shutdown. He said an “extended” shutdown would show up in economic data “pretty quickly” and, since it shutters some agencies that provide economic data, it would also make the picture of the economy less clear for the Fed.
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Could the devices being blamed for teen depression be useful in revealing it?
Studies have linked heavy smartphone use with worsening teen mental health. But as teens spend time on sites like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, they also leave digital trails that may offer signs about their mental well-being.
Experts say possible warning signs include changes in writing speed, voice quality, word choice and how often a student stays home from school.
There are more than 1,000 smartphone “biomarkers,” said Dr. Thomas Insel, former head of the National Institute of Mental Health, which is the largest mental health research organization in the world. Insel is a leader in the smartphone psychiatry movement.
Researchers are testing smartphone apps that use artificial intelligence, or AI, to predict depression and possible self-harm. Using smartphones as mental health detectors require permission from users to download an app, and permission could be revoked any time.
Nick Allen, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, has created an app being tested on young people who have attempted suicide. Allen says the biggest barrier is discerning the mental health crisis signals in the information on people’s phones.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10 and 34 in the United States. By 2015, suicide rates among teen boys rose to 14 in every 100,000 and five in every 100,000 people, among girls. A recent study suggested a rise in smartphone use has probably worsened the crisis.
People with mental illness, Insel said, usually get treatment “when they’re in crisis and very late. … We want to have a method to identify the earliest signs.”
If smartphones can become effective predictors, app developers say the goal might be to offer automated text messages and links to assistance, or digital messages to parents, doctors and first responders.
Facebook employs “proactive detection.” Last year, after a suicide was broadcast on Facebook Live, the company trained its AI systems to look for words in online posts that could predict possible self-harm. Friends’ comments expressing concern about the user’s well-being are part of that detection system.
Facebook has helped first responders quickly reach around 3,500 people in the past year. But the company did not offer followup details on those people.
Ongoing research includes a Stanford University study of about 200 teens. Many of them are at risk for depression because of bullying, family issues or other problems. Teens who have been studied since grade school get an experimental phone app that asks them questions about their mood three times a day for two weeks.
Laurel Foster, 15, is part of the study. Foster said she is stressed about school and friendships. Depression is common at her San Francisco high school, she said. The smartphone app felt a little like being spied on, she said, but many websites are already following users’ behaviors.
Alyssa Lizarraga, 19, is also part of the study. Lizarraga said she has had depression since high school, and worries about her heavy use of smartphones and social media. She said comparing herself with others online sometimes causes her sadness. But she believes using smartphones to identify mental health problems might help push people to seek early treatment.
At the University of California, Los Angeles, researchers offer online counseling and an experimental phone app to students who show signs of at least minor depression on a test. It is part of a larger effort launched in 2017 by the university to battle depression in its students. About 250 UCLA students agreed to use the app during their first year.
At the University of Illinois’ Chicago campus, researchers are using crowdsourcing to test their experimental phone app. Nearly 2,000 people have downloaded the app and agreed to let researchers follow typing behaviors. Alex Leow, a professor of psychiatry and bioengineering at the university, helped develop the app.
The study is for people 18 and older, but Leow said it could also be used for children if successful.
Along with studies at universities, technology companies such as Mindstrong and Verily — the tech health division of Google — are testing their own experimental apps.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The world’s oceans are rising in temperature faster than previously believed as they absorb most of the world’s growing climate-changing emissions, scientists said Thursday.
Ocean heat – recorded by thousands of floating robots – has been setting records repeatedly over the last decade, with 2018 expected to be the hottest year yet, displacing the 2017 record, according to an analysis by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
That is driving sea level rise, as oceans warm and expand, and helping fuel more intense hurricanes and other extreme weather, scientists warn.
The warming, measured since 1960, is faster than predicted by scientists in a 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that looked at ocean warming, according to the study, published this week in the journal Science.
“It’s mainly driven by the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to human activities,” said Lijing Cheng, a lead author of the study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The increasing rate of ocean warming “is simply a signature of increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” Cheng said.
Leading climate scientists said in October that the world has about 12 years left to shift the world away from still rising emission toward cleaner renewable energy systems, or risk facing some of the worst impacts of climate change.
Those include worsening water and food shortages, stronger storms, heatwaves and other extreme weather, and rising seas.
For the last 13 years, an ocean observing system called Argo has been used to monitor changes in ocean temperatures, Cheng said, leading to more reliable data that is the basis for the new ocean heat records.
The system uses almost 4,000 drifting ocean robots that dive to a depth of 2,000 meters every few days, recording temperature and other indicators as they float back to the surface.
Through the data collected, scientists have documented increases in rainfall intensity and more powerful storms such as hurricanes Harvey in 2017 and Florence in 2018.
Cheng explained that oceans are the energy source for storms, and can fuel more powerful ones as temperatures – a measure of energy – rise.
Storms over the 2050-2100 period are expected, statistically, to be more powerful than storms from the 1950-2000 period, the scientist said.
Cheng said that the oceans, which have so far absorbed over 90 percent of the additional sun’s energy trapped by rising emissions, will see continuing temperature hikes in the future.
Because the ocean has large heat capacity it is characterized as a ˜delayed response” to global warming, which means that the ocean warming could be more serious in the future,” the researcher said.
“For example, even if we meet the target of Paris Agreement (to limit climate change), ocean will continue warming and sea level will continue rise. Their impacts will continue.” If the targets of the Paris deal to hold warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, or preferably 1.5C can be met, however, expected damage by 2100 could be halved, Cheng said.
For now, however, climate changing emissions continue to rise, and I don’t think enough is being done to tackle the rising temperatures,” Cheng said.
Rising global authoritarianism, trade protectionism and the weakening of global institutions threaten U.S. businesses, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned Thursday.
In his annual address, Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said for now the U.S. economy is strong and business owners are consistently optimistic, crediting “deregulation and tax reform.”
But Donohue also defended the system of alliances and multilateral institutions set up by the United States after World War II – an implicit criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies.
“The U.S. and our allies spent the last 70 years working to expand democracy and freedom,” Donohue said. “Today, we face the task of rebuilding domestic consensus for supporting democracy abroad.”
Donohue also warned against domestic political dysfunction, including the inability of U.S. lawmakers to pass immigration reform.
The comments come amid a prolonged partial government shutdown related to President Donald Trump’s demand for Congress to provide funds to build a wall on the southern U.S. border.
Building the wall would fulfill a key campaign promise for Trump, who regularly portrays immigrants as a threat. Though he didn’t criticize Trump directly, Donohue said immigrants are crucial to the U.S. economy.
“Employers don’t have the workers they need at every skill level in key industries such as health, agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation,” Donohue said. “Our nation must continue to attract and welcome industrious and innovative people from all over the world.”
U.S. lawmakers, he said, should reach a compromise that would provide legal protection for the so-called Dreamers, who came to the U.S. illegally as children. He also called for Congress to approve the “resources necessary to secure the border.”
Donohue also slammed Trump’s trade policies, saying tariffs on China and other countries are “taxes paid by American families and American businesses, not by foreigners.”
“Instead of undermining our own economy, let’s work with our allies to apply pressure on China and use the tools provided by the U.S. trade and international laws that we helped create,” he said.
WATCH: Despite Volatility in Retail Stocks, US Officials Predict Continued Growth
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Robots that walk, talk, brew beer and play pingpong have taken over the CES gadget show in Las Vegas again. Just don’t expect to find one in your home any time soon.
Most home robot ventures have failed, in part because they’re so difficult and expensive to design to a level of intelligence that consumers will find useful, says Bilal Zuberi, a robotics-oriented venture capitalist at Lux Capital. But that doesn’t keep companies from trying.
“Roboticists, I guess, will never give up their dream to build Rosie,” says Zuberi, referring to the humanoid maid from “The Jetsons.”
But there’s some hope for others. Frank Gillett, a tech analyst at Forrester, says robots with more focused missions such as mowing the lawn or delivering cheeseburgers stand a better shot at finding a useful niche.
ROBOTS THAT DELIVER
There are so many delivery robots at CES that it’s easy to imagine that we’ll all be stumbling over them on the sidewalk — or in the elevator — before long. Zuberi says they’re among the new robot trends with the most promise because the field is drawing on some of the same advances that power self-driving cars.
But it’s hard to tell which — if any — will still be around in a few years.
Segway Robotics, part of the same company that makes electric rental scooters for Lime, Jump and Bird, is the latest to get into the delivery game with a new machine it calls Loomo. The wheeled office robot can avoid obstacles, board elevators and deliver documents to another floor.
A similar office courier called the Holabot was unveiled by Chinese startup Shenzhen Pudu Technology. CEO Felix Zhang says his company already has a track record in China, where its Pudubot robot — which looks like shelves on wheels — navigates busy restaurants as a kind of robotic waiter.
Nearly all of these robots use a technology called visual SLAM, short for simultaneous localization and mapping. Most are wheeled, though there are outliers — such as one from German automotive company Continental, which wants to deploy walking robotic dogs to carry packages from self-driving delivery vans to residential front doors.
A delivery robot will need both sophisticated autonomy and a focused mission to stand out from the pack, says Saumil Nanavati, head of business development for Robby Technology. His company’s namesake robot travels down sidewalks as a “store on wheels.” The company recently partnered with PepsiCo to deliver snacks around a California university campus.
ROBOTS FOR DOGS
Does man’s best friend need a robotic pal of its own? Some startups think so.
“There’s a big problem with separation anxiety, obesity and depression in pets,” says Bee-oh Kim, a marketing manager for robotics firm Varram.
The company’s $99 robot is essentially a moving treat dispenser that motivates pets to chase it around. A herd of the small, dumbbell-shaped robots zoomed around a pen at the show — though there were no canine or feline conference attendees to show how the machines really work.
Varram’s robot takes two hours to charge and can run for 10 hours — just enough time to allow a pet’s guilt-ridden human companion to get home from work.
ROBOTS ON GRANDPARENT WATCH
Samsung is coming out with a robot that can keep its eye on grandparents.
The rolling robot can talk and has two digital eyes on a black screen. It’s designed to track the medicines seniors take, measure blood pressure and call 911 if it detects a fall.
The company didn’t say when Samsung Bot Care would be available. Samsung says it’s also working on a robot for retail shops and another for testing and purifying the air in homes.
ROBOT FRIENDS
Lovot is a simple robot with just one aim — to make its owner happy.
It can’t carry on long conversations, but it’s still social — approaching people so they can interact, moving around a space to create a digital map, responding to being embraced.
Lovot’s horn-shaped antenna — featuring a 360-degree camera — recognizes its surroundings and detects the direction of sound and voices.
Lovot is the brainchild of Groove X CEO Kaname Hayashi, who previously worked on SoftBank’s Pepper, a humanoid robot that briefly appeared in a few U.S. shopping malls two years ago. Hayashi wanted to create a real connection between people and robots.
“This is just supporting your heart, our motivation,” he says.
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Lady Gaga is sorry for her 2013 duet with R. Kelly in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against the singer, and she intends to remove the song from streaming services.
Posting on Twitter Wednesday, Gaga wrote she had collaborated with Kelly on “Do What U Want (With My Body)” during a “dark time” in her life as a victim of sexual assault. She said she should have sought therapy or other help instead.
Gaga said she will not work with Kelly again.
Gaga wrote she’s sorry for her “poor judgment” when she was young and “for not speaking out sooner.”
Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” series, which aired this month, looks at the singer’s history and allegations that he has sexually abused women and girls. Kelly has denied wrongdoing.
Congo’s Health Ministry says a baby has been born to a mother who recovered from the Ebola virus — a bright spot in an outbreak that is the second-deadliest in history.
The Health Ministry tweeted a photo of “baby Sylvana” in her smiling mother’s arms.
The ministry says the baby is the first in this outbreak born to a mother who has recovered. This is rare, though babies have been born to Ebola survivors in previous outbreaks.
Baby Sylvana was born on Sunday at an Ebola treatment center in Beni, a troubled city where rebel attacks have threatened health workers’ attempts to contain the outbreak.
The Health Ministry says that “she is in good health and is not infected with Ebola.”
This outbreak has killed more than 330 people.
A federal judge has reportedly dismissed part of Ashley Judd’s lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein.
Judge Philip S. Gutierrez of United States District Court in Los Angeles ruled Wednesday that the actress’ sexual harassment claim does not fall within the scope of a California statute. But he said Judd may proceed to trial with separate allegations against Weinstein of defamation and economic interference, according to reports in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.
Judd says that after she rejected Weinstein’s sexual advances two decades ago, he defamed her to “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, hurting her career.
Weinstein, 66, also faces criminal prosecution in New York City and is the target of other criminal investigations.
The former movie mogul has denied engaging in nonconsensual sexual activity.
China’s Commerce Ministry says that the United States and Beijing made progress in discussions about structural issues such as forced technology transfers and intellectual property rights during trade talks this week. But the lack of details from both sides following the meetings highlights the uncertainty that remains, analysts say.
The talks, which were originally scheduled to wrap up on Tuesday stretched to the evening and into Wednesday.
U.S. officials have said the talks are going well, a point Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng echoed on Thursday at a regular briefing.
“The length of the meetings shows that both sides were serious and sincere about the talks,” he said. “Structural issues were an important part of this round of talks and there has been progress in these areas.”
Gao did not comment, however, on whether he was confident that the talks could be wrapped up in the 90-day period laid out by President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.
Also, he did not say when the next round of talks might be held or who might attend, only that discussions between the two sides continue.
In early December, Washington and Beijing agreed to hold off on raising tariffs and to try and reach a deal before the beginning of March. Structural issues and concerns about barriers to investment in China are seen as some of the biggest obstacles to the deal.
On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told the U.S cable news Fox Business Network that the administration is expecting something to come out of the talks.
“We are moving towards a more balanced and reciprocal trade agreement with China,” she said, adding that no one knows yet what that agreement will look like or when it will be ready.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s office gave only a few details about the talks in Beijing, noting in a statement that the discussions “focused on China’s pledge to purchase a substantial amount of agricultural, energy, manufactured goods, and other products and services from the United States.”
At the briefing, Gao did not provide any details about what further purchases China might make.
Darson Chiu, an economist and research fellow at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said the pledges China made looked similar to those it had offered earlier last year. He said it was hard to be optimistic about this first round of talks.
“It looks like short-term compromises have been made, but it remains to be seen if both superpowers are able to resolve their [structural] conflicts,” Chiu said.
He said that if more compromises are made when Chinese Vice Premier Liu He meets U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, an official who is viewed as being more hawkish on trade with China, the crisis will only be halfway averted.
“I don’t think the U.S. will easily remove tariffs that have been imposed on Chinese goods. This is what China has wished for, but I think the U.S. will wait and see,” Chiu said.
Issues such as intellectual property enforcement are very difficult and complex, notes Xu Chenggang, a professor of economics at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. China can say it will do more, but it already has laws for intellectual property protection.
“Really here the key is the reality,” Xu said. “It’s the enforcement of the law and the enforcement of the law is an institutional issue,” which depends on the independence of China’s judiciary system.
Washington has given Beijing a long list of changes that it would like to see from intellectual property rights protection enforcement to industrial subsidies and other non-tariff barriers.
The United States has said that any deal with China must be followed up with ongoing verification and enforcement.
If the two sides are unable to reach a deal by March, President Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods to 25 percent and to possibly levy additional tariffs that would extend to all imports from China.
Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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The United States says talks in Beijing on ending a bruising trade war focused on Chinese promises to buy more American goods. But it gave no indication of progress on resolving disputes over Beijing’s technology ambitions and other thorny issues.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said Thursday the two sides would “maintain close contact.” But neither side gave any indication of the next step during their 90-day cease-fire in a tariff fight that threatens to chill global economic growth.
That uncertainty left Asian stock markets mixed Thursday. Share prices had risen Wednesday after President Donald Trump fueled optimism on Twitter about possible progress.
The U.S. Trade Representative, which leads the American side of the talks, said negotiators focused on China’s pledge to buy a “substantial amount” of agricultural, energy, manufactured goods and other products and services.
No signs of progress
However, the USTR statement emphasized American insistence on “structural changes” in Chinese technology policy, market access, protection of foreign patents and copyrights and cybertheft of trade secrets. It gave no sign of progress in those areas.
Trump hiked tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods over complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology.
Washington also wants changes in an array of areas including the ruling Communist Party’s initiatives for government-led creation of global competitors in robotics, artificial intelligence and other industries.
American leaders worry those plans might erode U.S. industrial leadership, but Chinese leaders see them as a path to prosperity and global influence and are reluctant to abandon them.
The two sides might be moving toward a “narrow agreement,” but “U.S. trade hawks” want to “limit the scope of that agreement and keep the pressure up on Beijing,” said Eurasia Group analysts of Michael Hirson, Jeffrey Wright and Paul Triolo in a report.
“The risk of talks breaking down remains significant,” they wrote.
White House optimism
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders expressed optimism to Fox Business Network. She said the timing was unclear but the two sides “are moving towards a more balanced and reciprocal trade agreement with China.”
The U.S. statement said negotiations dealt with the need for “ongoing verification and effective enforcement.” That reflects American frustration that the Chinese have failed to live up to past commitments.
Beijing has tried to defuse pressure from Washington and other trading partners over industrial policy promising to buy more imports and open its industries wider to foreign competitors.
Trump has complained repeatedly about the U.S. trade deficit with China, which last year likely exceeded the 2017 gap of $336 billion.
Enthusiasm wears thin
U.S. stocks surged Wednesday on optimism higher-level U.S. and Chinese officials might meet.
That enthusiasm was wearing thin Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.5 percent while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 dropped 1.4 percent.
Economists say the 90-day window is too short to resolve all the conflicts between the biggest and second-biggest global economies.
“We can confidently say that enough progress was made that the discussions will continue at a higher level,” said Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council. “That is very positive.”
Chinese exports to the U.S. have held up despite tariff increases, partly because of exporters rushing to fill orders before more increases hit. Forecasters expect American orders to slump this year.
China has imposed penalties on $110 billion of American goods, slowing customs clearance for U.S. companies and suspending issuing licenses in finance and other businesses.
U.S. companies also want action on Chinese policies they complain improperly favor local companies. Those include subsidies and other favors for high-tech and state-owned industry, rules on technology licensing and preferential treatment of domestic suppliers in government procurement.
For its part, Beijing is unhappy with U.S. export and investment curbs, such as controls on “dual use” technology with possible military applications. They say China’s companies are treated unfairly in national security reviews of proposed corporate acquisitions, though almost all deals are approved unchanged.
This week’s talks went ahead despite tension over the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in Canada on U.S. charges related to possible violations of trade sanctions against Iran.
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This week, visitors to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas are getting a look at the latest technology in TVs, computers, smartwatches and drones. But they are also seeing examples of how tech can be used to help people around the world become more resilient. Michelle Quinn reports.
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The annual Consumer Electronics Show is underway in Las Vegas. The massive exhibition highlights trends and new products that should change the way we live — in some cases as early as next week, and in others, years in the future. VOA’s Kevin Enochs looks at a few of the new technologies that will change the way we drive.
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Scattered throughout the city’s outlying neighborhoods, Moscow’s Soviet-era cinemas have for decades served as the center of communities.
With names like “Mars” and “The Diamond,” the cinemas were mostly built in the 1960s and 70s during a Soviet film boom and were popular even after the collapse of the USSR, offering cheaper tickets than their counterparts in shopping centers.
Now — as part of a wider plan changing the face of the Russian capital — almost 40 of them are being turned into modern glass complexes.
Developers say the project will brighten up dreary suburbs and bring more life to dormant residential districts.
But it has faced a backlash from activists and residents, who say it will deprive locals of community focal points and destroy important architectural heritage.
The plan is part of a major city redevelopment program led by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin that has included the construction of a multi-billion-dollar park and the demolition of Soviet-era pre-fab apartments.
Real estate company ADG Group bought 39 Soviet-built cinemas from the government and plans to turn them into what it calls “neighborhood centers.”
‘There is nothing there’
Grigory Pechersky, ADG Group’s founder and co-director, said the majority of the cinemas were in “extremely poor” condition when his company bought them in 2014.
“Around half of them were closed since the 1990s,” he told AFP in the group’s central Moscow office.
Pechersky said the project aims to “recreate the historical function of the cinemas, which is for residents to spend their free time comfortably.”
Moscow’s infrastructure in residential areas is limited, he said, and Muscovites tend to travel to the huge city’s center for quality entertainment and shopping.
“Those areas are very densely populated but in many cases there is nothing there,” he said, adding that around 10 million people live between Moscow’s two main beltways where the cinemas are located.
All but three of the cinemas will be completely torn down and rebuilt.
One of those surviving is the 1938 Rodina (Motherland) cinema, a Stalinist landmark in northeastern Moscow with huge pillars and Soviet mosaics, where ADG Group plans to reopen the building’s original rooftop terrace.
‘Little architectural value’
The rest of the cinemas were built in the brutalist style — a utilitarian form of architecture popular in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 20th century.
Built in the shape of simple squares, some are on local high streets such as Almaz (The Diamond), a 1964 cinema painted turquoise in southern Moscow’s leafy Shabolovka district.
Others — like the Angara, which is named after a Siberian river and already under reconstruction — are surrounded by typical late-Soviet housing blocks.
According to ADG Group, they have “little architectural value.”
The company hired the British architectural firm run by Amanda Levete — who has worked on London’s V&A Museum and Lisbon’s MAAT contemporary art center — to design a concept for the new cinemas.
The group’s main architect Alexei Belyakov said the cinemas will be reconstructed in a similar style, to form a recognizable “network” across the far-flung districts.
In drawings seen by AFP, they will all have a glass front and will be considerably larger, to make room for retail space and cafes.
All they will retain is the logos of their original names — taken from cities and rivers of the Soviet Union, planets, mountains and precious stones.
Belyakov said that while the cinemas “were built in the spirit of the time, they are not practical anymore.”
‘Our favorite cinema’
But many Moscow architects disagree.
Ruben Arakelyan, who runs a Moscow-based architectural bureau, said that while it’s “right” to revive the cinemas, the brutalist buildings could have been preserved.
He said some of the cinemas began “dying out” when people increasingly started to travel to the city center for work after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Local activists worry the cinemas will be turned into regular shopping malls — of which Moscow already has an abundance.
“They tell us that these are depressing places that need to be torn down,” said Klim Likhachev, the head of a residents’ group to save the Almaz cinema.
“But this is our favorite cinema. Nobody asked the residents,” Likhachev said. “By reconstruction they actually mean demolition. They are calling it a ‘neighborhood center’, but it will in fact be another banal shopping center.”
Activist Pyotr Ivanov said the problem with the plan was that it assumed each neighborhood where the cinemas are based had the same needs.
“All of them are different. You could only make universal decisions like that in a command economy like the Soviet Union,” he said.
Two Metro stations away from Almaz, residents have also been fighting to preserve the Ulaanbaatar, named after the capital of once Soviet-friendly Mongolia.
Another of the movie theaters, the Baku Cinema in northwestern Moscow, has served as a community center for the Azerbaijani diaspora since the Soviet era.
ADG Group’s Belyakov brushed aside criticism, saying it was important for the Russian capital to look to the future.
“Moscow is moving forward,” he said.
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