Author: Uponbiz

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will not sign a trade deal with China unless it is a “very good deal.”

Trump made the comments Friday as he left the White House to tour tornado damage in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. The United States and China have been battling over trade tariffs since last year.

The White House is planning a summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Florida later this year.

“If this isn’t a great deal, I won’t make a deal,” Trump said. Then he added: “We will do very well either way, with or without a deal.”

The trade dispute between the United States and China has begun to affect China’s economic growth.

China’s exports and imports fell significantly more than expected in the month of February, data published Friday by the country’s customs administration showed.

China’s trade surplus with the U.S. narrowed to $14.7 billion for the month, from $27.3 billion in January.

China’s February exports plummeted 20.7 percent from the same period a year prior, and imports dropped 5.2 percent from a year earlier, considerably more than expected. According to a Bloomberg News poll, the forecast was 5.0 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.   

China economist Chang Liu of Capital Economics in London told VOA that the drop in Chinese exports is due, at least in part, to the tariffs. Last year, he said, “firms were front-loading their shipments [shipped more goods in the first half of the year] to avoid further threat of further tariffs. So that dropped the exports in the second half of last year. … So, literally, that is a tariff effect.”

Recent economic data reveal the difficulties China faced in the fourth quarter of 2018 as its growth rate slowed to 6.4 percent.

In January, an import barometer of prices in the industrial sector neared contraction, while manufacturing activity in February marked the worst performance in three years.

China’s government announced major tax cuts, fee reductions and a looser monetary policy to combat the economic growth slowdown.
…

Wall Street has rewarded its most patient investors handsomely over the past 10 years. Is there more to come?

The S&P 500, the U.S. market’s benchmark index, has gained about 309 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 points in March 2009 during the Great Recession, according to FactSet. The index is now 5.4 percent below its recent peak of 2,930.75 set on Sept. 20. 

This bull market’s lifespan, the longest on record, speaks to financial markets’ resiliency in the face of a variety of shocks, including a brutal fourth quarter of 2018.

Whether the bull keeps running hinges on whether companies can continue raking in profits, a key driver of the stock market, and whether the U.S. economy can avoid sliding into a recession. Bull markets tend to wither when fear of a recession kicks in. 

Profits are ‘oxygen’

“As long as corporate profits are growing, that’s usually the oxygen for further gains in the stock market,” said David Lefkowitz, senior Americas equity strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Profit growth for the companies in the S&P 500 averaged 25.6 percent in the first three quarters of last year. That slipped to 13.4 percent in the fourth quarter, but still topped expectations.

But earnings are expected to decline slightly in the first quarter and grow in the mid-single digits for the full year, according to FactSet. And the U.S. economy has been showing signs of slowing and is expected to continue to do so this year. 

“The risk of recession grows,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, noting that the U.S. economy’s current expansion will become the longest in history by the end of July.

“However, we currently see no quarterly GDP declines through the fourth quarter of 2020, let alone back-to-back declines, which have been a rule of thumb for recessions,” he said.  

Meanwhile, the wild card for the market — and the economy — might be the long-running, costly trade conflict between Washington and Beijing. While reportedly on track for a resolution as early as this month, the spat continues to weigh on investors’ nerves and many companies’ plans. 

Concerns in late 2018

The bull market has looked very vulnerable at times during its decade-long run, most recently at the end of last year. That’s when a bevy of concerns, including rising interest rates, the trade spat, slowing global economic growth and some tepid profit forecasts, sent the S&P 500 into a skid that resulted in the index’s worst December since the Great Depression.

That slide culminated on Dec. 24, when the S&P 500 closed 19.8 percent below its all-time high. A drop of 20 percent or more would have ushered in a bear market. 

What we've seen and continue to see is doubts,'' said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL.People have doubted it the whole way up.” 

And yet, the bull shrugged that off, too, and now the market is off to its best start to a year since 1991. 

It was a good-sized correction that freaked everybody out,'' Detrick said.Then the realization comes that the economy is on good footing.” 

The Federal Reserve put investors at ease in January when it signaled a prolonged pause in further interest rate hikes. That calmed fears that the central bank would keep raising rates at a pace that could derail the economy. 

One of the key questions in gauging the longevity of the bull market is the outlook for inflation and what action the Fed will take to try to manage it. 

For now, inflation remains below the 2 percent target used by the Fed to determine whether annual price increases are growing too rapidly. It was up 1.7 percent in the 12 months ended in December.

As long as inflation remains at that level, the Fed has less incentive to raise rates. 

Slower growth

The U.S. economy turned in a solid performance in 2018, boosted in part by tax cuts and higher government spending. But economic growth slowed to 2.6 percent in the last three months of the year from 3.4 percent in the third quarter.

Most economists envision a weaker performance for the coming months and probably years. Some expect gross domestic product to drop to a growth rate of 2 percent or less in the current January-March period. 

Investors have grown cautious about business conditions going forward as signs of weakness in the global economy have emerged. Uncertainty over trade has also helped cloud the outlook for company profits this year. 

Still, even modest company earnings growth should keep the bull market rolling. 

We think the bull market is still intact,'' Lefkowitz said.And at some point, we’re likely to see new all-time highs for the broad market gauges.” 
…

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called Venezuela one of the most “complex situations” it had ever seen. 

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice described Venezuela and its economy as a combination of “food and nutrition crises, hyperinflation, a destabilized exchange rate, debilitating human capital and physical productive capacity, and a very complicated debt situation.” 

Rice said tackling this challenge would take “strong resolve” and “broad international support” from all 189 IMF members. 

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told The Economist Radio, a podcast, that the fund would help “as soon as we are asked by the legitimate authorities of that country.” 

“We will open our wallet, we will put our brain to it, and we will make sure our heart is in the right place to help the poorest and most exposed people,” she added, calling the task it faced in Venezuela  “monumental.” 

Rice said Thursday that the IMF had yet to determine whom to recognize as the leader of Venezuela — President Nicolas Maduro or opposition leader Juan Guaido, the self-declared interim president.
…

Chinese tech giant Huawei has sued the U.S. government, arguing that legislation Congress passed last year that restricts its business in the United States is “unconstitutional.” The case, which analysts see more as a public relations move, is but the latest in an intensifying effort by the telecommunications company to fight U.S.security concerns, which Huawei argues are unfair and unfounded.

In its lawsuit, Huawei argues that Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act violates the constitutional principles of separation of powers and due process. By singling out the company and punishing it without a trial, the company also argues that the law violates the Constitution’s bill of attainder clause.

Section 889 bans federal agencies and their contractors from purchasing equipment and services from Huawei as well as another Chinese telecom company ZTE. It was signed into law last year by President Donald Trump.

“This ban is not only unlawful but also harms both Huawei and U.S. consumers,” Huawei’s rotating chairman, Guo Ping, told reporters at news conference in Shenzhen on Thursday. “This section strips Huawei of its due process, violating the separation of powers principles, breaks U.S. legal traditions, and goes against the very nature of the constitution.”

Guo said that Huawei was left with no choice but to take legal action, noting that neither lawmakers nor the government had shown any proof to date to back up concerns the company is a security concern.

Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, added that the clause gives it no recourse to defend itself or clear its name.

“Section 889 is based on numerous false, unproven, and untested propositions. Contrary to the statutes’ premise, Huawei is not owned, controlled, or influenced by the Chinese government,” Song said.

That, however, is a central point of the debate over Huawei: how much a security threat the company is? And is it really independent from China’s authoritarian government?

That debate is heating up at a crucial time as countries across the globe are preparing to roll out next generation mobile communications networks or 5G, an area where Huawei is a global leader.

At the press conference, Huawei officials argued repeatedly that the ban would cut off Americans from its advanced technology. They also gave assurances again that the company would never install backdoors into their equipment and that it puts the security concerns of its customers first.

Some countries such as the United States, Australia and New Zealand believe the company is a security threat and have already banned Huawei from their roll out of next generation mobile communications networks.

Others, including Britain, Canada and Germany, are still weighing a decision. At the same time, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhouis facing extradition to the United States from Canada over violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

With Huawei fighting a battle on multiple fronts, the lawsuit is as much about public relations as it is an effort to clear itself of accusations that it is a security threat.

Legal analysts said it is unlikely the case will even go to trial.

“As a PR matter, this is brilliant, the fact that we are just talking about this now, tells you this is a great PR move, as a legal matter, this is a reach, to put it charitably,” said David Law, a professor of political science and law at Washington University in St. Louis and law at the University of Hong Kong. “I just can’t see how a federal district judge in Texas is going to let this go to trial much less hand Huawei a win.”

The case could put more pressure on the U.S. government to disclose more evidence to support its claims about the security threat the company poses, according to some legal analysts. That could help Huawei in the process, said Calvin Yang, director of the Taiwan Bar Association’s intellectual property commission.

“I think this is a move that carries more political weight than any litigation significance,” Yang said, adding that the company’s case was more about challenging the legitimacy of U.S. accusations. “It’s using judicial procedure to force the federal government to provide more evidence to support its allegations of so-called backdoors in Huawei’s equipment.”

Some legal analysts have noted that Huawei’s case is similar to the legal battle Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky lost late last year. Kaspersky challenged a ban on the use of its software on U.S. government networks, but last November, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of the federal government.

Whether that will figure into the case is too early to tell, and that is if it goes to trial, legal analysts note.

When it comes to national security concerns, they add that courts are unlikely to probe too deeply into those questions.
…

Marin Mendez leaned a shoulder into his rusty Chevy Malibu rolling it forward each time the line of cars inched closer to the pump. Waiting hours to fill up, he says, is the high cost he pays for gasoline that’s nearly free in socialist Venezuela.

“You line up to get your pension, line up to buy food, line up to pump your gas,” an exasperated Mendez said after 40 minutes of waiting in the sweltering heat in Maracaibo — ironically the center of the country’s oil industry — and expecting to be there hours or days more. “I’ve had enough!”

Lines stretching a mile (1.6 kilometers) or more to fuel up have plagued this western region of Venezuela for years — despite the country’s status as holder of the world’s largest oil reserves. Now, shortages threaten to spread countrywide as supplies of petrol become even scarcer amid a raging struggle over political control of Venezuela. 

The Trump administration hit Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA with sanctions in late January in a sweeping strategy aimed at forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido. 

Doomsday predictions immediately followed — mostly fueled by Maduro’s opponents and U.S. officials — that Venezuela’s domestic gasoline supplies would last no more than a week or so. That hasn’t happened yet, but more misery is feared as expected shortages have economic implications far beyond longer gas lines, turning Venezuela’s crisis to a catastrophe.

“Crucially, it will lead to more shortages of food and basic goods,” said Diego Moya-Ocampos, a Venezuela analyst with the London-based consulting firm IHS Global Insight. 

That’s because the vast oil reserves that once made Venezuela Latin America’s wealthiest country provide the primary source of the hard currency it needs to import food and other goods. Today, its basic infrastructure — roads, power grid, water lines and oil refineries — is crumbling. Food and medicine, nearly all of it imported, are scarce and expensive as Venezuela endures the world’s highest inflation. 

Critics blame Venezuela’s collapse on the government’s two decades of self-proclaimed “socialist revolution,” which has been marred by corruption and mismanagement, first under the late Hugo Chavez and now under Maduro’s rule. 

The U.S. sanctions essentially cut PDVSA off from its Houston-based subsidiary Citgo, depriving it of $11 billion in hard currency from exports this year that U.S. officials say bankrolled Maduro’s “dictatorship.” U.S. officials have turned control of Citgo over to Guaido’s interim government, essentially expropriating the company, a strategy Venezuela’s socialist government employed for years by seizing private companies. 

Opposition leaders bent on ousting Maduro say they recognize the U.S. crackdown on the oil sector will be painful for their people, but add that the measures are necessary to keep Maduro’s government from further looting Venezuelan resources. 

Meanwhile, a defiant Maduro says the economic war led by the White House is a precursor to a military invasion to oust him from power and seize Venezuela’s vast oil wealth. Maduro tweeted a warning on Wednesday that nobody should be fooled by apparent gestures of assistance, alluding to tons of U.S. humanitarian aid he recently blocked from entering.

“The Venezuelan opposition and the U.S. government don’t want to help the country,” Maduro said. “Just the opposite. They crave our natural resources. They want to unleash ‘The Oil War’ to invade and dominate our homeland.”

Despite years of economic decline leading to Venezuela’s current crisis, residents enjoy some of the world’s cheapest gasoline — filling up a tank for less than a penny. But gas is already hard to get in Maracaibo and other cities along the Colombian border, where smugglers sneak Venezuela’s dirt-cheap fuel into the neighboring country, selling it at international prices for a quick profit. 

Ixchel Castro, a Mexico City-based analyst at the Wood Mackenzie energy research firm, said Venezuela’s domestic gasoline supply has been down by as much as 15 percent in recent years as the country’s refineries and infrastructure fail — a trend that is expected to accelerate.

PDVSA provided 160,000 barrels a day for domestic use last year, but with the U.S. sanctions and ongoing infrastructure challenges, that supply can be expected to fall to 60,000 barrels a day, she said, meeting just 38 percent of the country’s needs.

Exacerbating the problem are shortages of diluent, a critical product needed to thin Venezuela’s tar-like heavy crude so it can be piped over 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the field to be turned into gasoline. Russia has stepped in, sending two tankers of the thinner, but these supplies will last just five to 10 days, said Russ Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital, a brokerage company.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s a drop in the bucket of what they need.”

Gasoline won’t completely dry up in Venezuela, which still has access to waning domestic production, as well as fuel in storage and shipments from India and European countries that aren’t subject to sanctions. But the fuel quality will suffer and there will be shortages, Castro said.

These are already being felt in San Cristobal near the Colombian border, where 55-year-old mechanic Gerardo Marquez said he got in line one recent Monday afternoon. On Tuesday the gas truck didn’t show up as promised, and on Wednesday he was still there after spending two nights with his car. 

Relatives did bring him food, water and a pillow, and gave him a chance to get away for bathroom breaks, he said. But he barely napped. “We’re all on guard so they don’t rob us,” he said. 

In Maracaibo, once known as the Saudi Arabia of Venezuela as a center of the country’s oil boom, residents have endured shortages for at least three years. Trucks to deliver the fuel are too few and daily power failures compound the problem, leaving gas pumps idle. Just two of Maracaibo’s 150 gas stations have generators to provide gas during rampant blackouts.

Fed up with waiting in lines, the 62-year-old Marin said he plans to start hoarding gas at home, despite the danger the explosive fuel poses to his wife, children and grandchildren. He relies on his car for his part-time job ferrying paying customers to supplement his modest $6-a-month pension checks. 

“My grandchildren don’t know what it’s like to eat a piece of meat or bit of chicken,” he said.

In the capital, Caracas, residents brace for shortages like these to finally hit them. The metropolitan area of 7 million people has so far been immune to frustrating gas lines. 

But an attendant at a PDVSA station sees them coming, recounting how a customer filled up his car then returned a few minutes later with an empty tank. He’d siphoned his tank to get around a government ban on filling up gas cans to crack down on smugglers. 

“Most Venezuelans have no idea of the magnitude of what is coming,” said Caracas taxi driver Jhaims Bastidas, waiting to fill up. “I imagine it’ll go beyond gasoline shortages to food and medicine — even worse than we have it now.”
…

Celebrity chef Mario Batali on Wednesday said he had cut ties with his U.S. restaurants after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Batali has sold his shares in the 16-restaurant operation, including Babbo and Del Posto in New York, to former partners Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her brother, Joe Bastianich, he said.

“I have reached an agreement with Joe and no longer have any stake in the restaurants we built together. I wish him the best of luck in the future,” Batali said in a statement from his representative, Risa Heller.

He is also selling his stake in the Eataly market and restaurant complex, according to a report in The New York Times, citing Eataly spokesman Chris Giglio.

Representatives for Eataly did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The New York Police Department last year opened a criminal investigation into an accusation that Batali drugged and sexually assaulted an employee in 2005, following a CBS “60 Minutes” report on the allegations that aired in May 2018.

Batali at the time denied the report, and the NYPD closed its investigation in January without charges, according to local news media.

Batali’s charisma and culinary flair turned him into a restaurant executive, television star, author and one of the world’s most recognizable chefs. He premiered on Food Network in 1997 on the show “Molto Mario” and in 2011 helped launch “The Chew” on ABC.

He is among dozens of high-profile men who have been fired or resigned from their jobs in politics, entertainment and business after facing allegations of sexually harassing or assaulting women and men.

Before the “60 Minutes” report, online food trade publication Eater New York reported that four women, who were not identified, said the chef had touched them inappropriately in a pattern of behavior that spanned at least two decades. Three worked for the chef.

Following those allegations, ABC Television Network fired Batali in December from “The Chew.” The Food Network also canceled plans to relaunch “Molto Mario.”

In a previous statement, Batali admitted to those allegations, stating that the claims “match up with ways I have acted.” He apologized and had stepped away from the restaurant company B&B Hospitality Group, which the Bastianich family owns.

Representatives of the Bastianich family did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
…

U.S. officials have warned at an energy conference in Brussels that the Trump administration will take punitive action against European companies that are building the Kremlin-favored Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which will deliver energy from Russia to Germany while bypassing Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 (NS2) will largely replace an older pipeline running through Ukraine and Poland that has the backing of the German government. But it is prompting the alarm of Central European governments, increasingly infuriated with Berlin’s dismissal of their concerns.

They object to Nord Stream 2 — which will run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany, and snake under the Baltic Sea — not only because they’ll lose lucrative transit fees from the older pipeline, but because they fear the Kremlin wants to develop NS2 largely for political reasons, not commercial ones.

Speaking at the energy conference in the Belgian capital, Nicole Gibson, deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s office for Europe, warned that if European companies resume laying pipe later this year they “risk significant sanctions.”

Declining to go into any details about the threatened sanctions, Gibson said Washington doesn’t accept that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal. “Some people say it is a fait accompli that Nord Stream 2 will be done. We don’t see it that way… We call on European leaders to make sure Nord Stream 2 is not implemented,” she said.

Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko has warned that NS2 would allow the Kremlin to switch off gas to Ukraine and Central Europe when it wants to blackmail its nearer neighbors without disrupting supplies to Western Europe, lessening likely push back from the more powerful European countries while it toys with weaker ones.

Her high-profile warning, upping the political stakes, comes two months after Richard Grenell, the U.S. envoy to Germany, sent letters to dozens of European construction and energy companies saying they face sanctions if they resume in the spring the laying of NS2’s concrete-coated steel pipes. Construction work was suspended in December because of winter weather.

Washington’s opposition to Nord Stream 2 has been consistent — the Obama administration also was critical.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s opposition has a harder edge, however, with officials seeing a dark political menace behind the new pipeline. They argue NS2 will undermine European security, deepen Western Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and give the Kremlin a greater opportunity to use natural-gas supplies to exert political influence and blackmail Western European governments.

Nord Stream 2, which will be owned by the Kremlin-directed energy giant Gazprom, would double the capacity of Russian gas delivered to Germany, the European Union’s most powerful economy. NS2 will cost billions of dollars to build. Russia currently supplies more than one-third of the natural gas Europe uses, though with demand increasing, that could reach closer to 50 percent next decade, forecast energy industry experts.

Last July, during his visit to the annual summit of NATO allies in Brussels, President Trump expressed his frustration with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the Russia-to-Germany undersea pipeline, saying, “We’re supposed to protect you from Russia, but Germany is making pipeline deals with Russia. You tell me if that’s appropriate. Explain that.”

But Merkel has dug in amid pressure from Germany businesses, which say NS2 will slash their energy costs. The German Chancellor also appears to be distancing herself from a promise she made last year to Central European leaders when she acknowledged for the first time allies’ geopolitical concerns, saying NS2 could proceed only if Ukraine’s role as a transit country for Russian gas also was protected.

Germany, along with NS2 transit countries Finland, Sweden and Denmark, counter-argue the pipeline will increase Europe’s energy security by avoiding potential cutoffs from the more politically volatile Ukrainian route. Washington believes the pipeline also is a Russian bid to hurt Ukraine economically by stripping it of gas transit fees.

Ukrainian officials estimate their losses from Nord Stream 2 will be high, running at about $2.5 billion a year.

“When Nord Stream 2 is finished this year, there will be no need to use the Ukrainian gas transit system,” Yuriy Vitrenko, managing director of Ukraine’s Naftogaz, a state-owned oil and gas company, told the Brussels conference. “Ukraine will lose approximately 4 percent of GDP,” he added.

Kremlin officials say Washington wants to stop NS2 because U.S. energy giants are hoping to export surplus shale gas to Europe as liquified natural gas (LNG). U.S. officials have made no secret of their hopes that American energy firms will be able to profit from a halt to NS2, but say that isn’t the major reason for their objections to the pipeline.

U.S. officials’ alarm about NS2 is echoed by European security officials. NATO’s former head, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has described Nord Stream 2 as a “geopolitical mistake” for the EU, saying it would make a mockery of EU sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
…

When it comes to getting a job, women lag far behind men.  The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports the work and pay gender gap remains wide, and only strong policies and laws that are implemented will change this situation for the better.  

The ILO has reached the conclusion in a new report – A Quantum Leap for Gender Equality: For a Better Future of Work for All – it is releasing in advance of International Women’s Day on March 8.

The ILO finds the needle on this has hardly moved over the past 27 years. It says 26 percent fewer women than men are likely to be employed.

It says this also extends to women in top jobs. ILO data show globally that just one-quarter of managers or leaders are women. It says women who make it to the top tend to be one year younger and better educated than their male counterparts.

Despite these qualifications, authors of the study say women do not draw the same salary for the same top job done by men. Globally, the study finds the gender wage gap remains at an average of 20 percent.  

Shauna Olney, chief of the ILO Gender, Equality and Diversity branch, says mothers of young children up to age 6 have the lowest chance of being employed.

“The motherhood employment penalty has increased over the past 10 years by 38 percent. So, again, something is not going right.  This is going in the wrong direction. There is also a motherhood leadership penalty as only 25 percent of managers with young children are women, and women’s share in managerial positions rises to 31 percent when they do not have children,” she said.

Olney told VOA the work done by women in leadership roles tends to be underrated. When it comes to job performance, she said women tend to be praised for their so-called soft skills, for their ability to communicate and relate well with people.

“I think the fact that we call them soft shows they are undervalued. They are not the hard skills, they are not the serious stuff. They are soft. So, why should we pay for them? Why should we give them any value? So I think there are a lot of biases and the evidence is very clear there in terms of how we evaluate what women and men do,” Olney said.

The report advocates certain measures to accelerate the pace of change in achieving gender parity. It calls for strong laws and policies that prohibit discrimination in the workplace and promote equality of treatment, opportunity and outcome. It recommends supporting women through work transitions and giving them a greater voice and representation in regard to labor matters.  

 
…

As iPhone sales slip, Apple has been positioning its booming digital-services business as its new profit engine. But there could be a snag in that plan.

A brewing backlash against the rich commissions Apple earns from all purchases and subscriptions made via iPhone apps could undercut the app store, which generates about a third of the company’s services revenue.

Late last year, Netflix rebelled against Apple’s fees, which can range from 15 percent to 30 percent. Analysts fear other companies may follow. And attorneys representing consumers in a pending Supreme Court case charge that Apple is an unfair monopolist in the market for iPhone apps. An adverse decision in that case could open a legal door that might eventually force Apple to cut its generous commissions.

Apple shares have plunged 25 percent from their peak in early October thanks to concern over iPhone sales. Investors are now hanging onto Apple services as a “life preserver in the choppy seas” just as it’s about to float away, Macquarie Securities analyst Benjamin Schachter concluded after the Netflix move.

These app-store fees mostly hit app developers themselves, although some pass along the costs to users of their iPhone apps. Spotify, for instance, used to tack $3 onto the cost of its $10-a-month paid service — but only for users who signed up via its iPhone or iPad app.

Apple has doubled down on digital services as consumers cling to older iPhone models, hurting sales. Apple’s iPhone revenue this year is expected to drop by 15 percent from last year’s $141 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Services, by contrast, are expected to generate about $46 billion in revenue this year, according to the same survey. Schachter estimates the app store will account for $16 billion of the services revenue. By those estimates, both services and app store revenue will have doubled in just three years.

Apple didn’t respond to the AP’s inquiries about its app fees. It has previously defended the system as reasonable compensation for reviewing all apps and ensuring its store remains a safe and secure place for e-commerce. Google charges similar fees in its own app store, although its overall business isn’t as dependent on them.

Netflix

Besides the app fees, Apple’s services division includes revenue from its Apple Music streaming service, iCloud storage, Apple Care, Apple Pay and ad commissions that Google pays to be the iPhone’s built-in search engine. Apple is also expected to roll out its own streaming-video service this spring, although few details are available.

The potential streaming competition from Apple may have triggered Netflix’s decision to stop allowing customers to pay for new video subscriptions through its iPhone app. Instead, it directs users to its website, thus avoiding the extra fees. (Netflix did likewise with Google’s app store last year.)

Netflix alone won’t put a significant dent in Apple’s finances, even though it paid Apple more money last year than any other non-gaming app, according to App Annie, a firm that tracks the app market. That sum came to about $110 million, accounting for just 0.3 percent of the services division revenue, based on disclosures made in Apple’s earnings calls last year. More than 30,000 third-party apps now accept subscriptions through Apple’s store.

Netflix declined to discuss its reasons for ending new subscriptions through the app store. But its move drew more attention to an app store tax that other technology companies have already attacked as an abuse of the power that Apple has amassed since opening its app store years ago.

​Spotify

Almost three years ago, Spotify also stopped accepting new subscriptions through Apple’s app store. Its move followed the debut of Apple Music, which obviously doesn’t have to pay any commissions.

“They’re trying to have their cake and eat ours, too,” Spotify spokesman Jonathan Prince told The Associated Press in 2016. “We find it bad for consumers, unfair to consumers and ultimately something that could stifle music streaming subscriptions across the board.” 

Spotify regularly harps on the unfairness of Apple’s app-fee system in its securities filings. The company didn’t respond to interview requests for this story.

Few other apps reach as many customers as Netflix and Spotify, making it unlikely that the rebellion against Apple’s app store commissions will greatly swell, said Amir Ghodrati, director of market insights for App Annie.

Apple doesn’t seem to be worried. In fact, it’s reportedly demanding an even higher commission — roughly 50 percent — for a Netflix-like news service that it is trying to create with a variety of publishers, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report based on unidentified people familiar with the negotiations.

That proposal faces resistance from The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publishers who believe Apple is trying to exploit its market power to extract excessive fees.

​Epic Games

Most app makers, however, are too worried about losing access to the app stores to speak out against the fees. Epic Games, maker of the popular Fortnite video game, has been a notable exception.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney lashed out at app fees as a “parasitic loss ” at a video game conference 18 months ago, according to the trade publication GamesIndustry.biz. “We should be angry about this, and we should constantly be on the lookout for other solutions, and new ways to reach gamers,” Sweeney said at the time. The North Carolina company didn’t respond to interview requests.

Since then, Epic has refused to release its Fortnite app in Google’s Play store for Android phones, although it continues to offer an iPhone version. But Epic has opened its own app store for all video games built for personal computers, and only takes 12 percent of the revenue — a rate that Schachter fears Apple may eventually be pressured into adopting as well.

Sweeney broadcast a rallying cry for app makers on his Twitter account in January, not long after the news broke about Netflix abandoning Apple’s subscription system.

A 30 percent commission “completely breaks the economics of content distribution businesses like Netflix, Spotify, Kindle, and any digital stores that aim to compete,” Sweeney tweeted. “This has got to change in 2019!”
…

Leaders of Mexico’s agricultural sector are urging “mirror measures” on U.S. farm imports in politically sensitive products such as yellow corn and poultry, in an effort they argue would counter decades of subsidized imports from the United States.

The three-month-old government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is currently working on an updated list of products imported from its northern neighbor on which to possibly apply a second round of tariffs in response to U.S. measures imposed on Mexican steel and aluminum by the Trump administration last year.

Last June, Mexico imposed tariffs of between 15 and 25 percent on steel products and other U.S. goods, in retaliation for the tariffs applied on the Mexican metals imports that Trump imposed citing national security concerns.

Mexico’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade Luz Maria de la Mora told Reuters last week that Mexico is reviewing the list of U.S. products to which former President Enrique Peña Nieto applied reprisals. She said a new list would be set by the end of April if the United States has not withdrawn tariffs on Mexican steel and aluminum before then.

“Yes, there is the lobby, and yes we agree that a mirror policy applies,” Bosco de la Vega, head of Mexico’s National Farm Council, told reporters on Tuesday when asked if Mexican farmers are pushing to include specific U.S. grains, chicken and beef products in the new list.

“The Mexican government knows that the U.S. agricultural sector is what hurts the United States’ government the most,” said de la Vega, pointedly noting that American farmers constitute “President Donald’s hard-core base.”

He said Mexican grains farmers have been “the big losers” during decades of liberalized agricultural trade with the United States.

Lopez Obrador, who took office in December, has pledged to make Mexico self-sufficient in key farm products in which U.S. imports have grown dramatically over the past couple decades, including yellow corn, used mostly by Mexico’s livestock sector.

De la Vega comments largely echo those of senior Lopez Obrador agricultural officials.

“Over the past 25 years, the government allowed corn, wheat, sorghum, soy, milk and other products to be imported below production costs,” said Victor Suarez, a deputy agricultural minister.

Suarez added the long-standing policy of previous Mexican governments to allow heavily subsidized U.S. farm products has not yielded lower prices for consumers and should be replaced by a more protectionist policy.
…

It is Friday morning, and the southeastern fringe of Kibera slum comes alive as teams of women and youngsters converge on the edge of the Nairobi dam.

There, on its northern perimeter, some rake and pile garbage for collection while others plant saplings on cleared terrain.

Known as riparian land, the area they are planting is the strip adjacent to the dam that can absorb flooding. Under Kenyan law, this is public land and it may not be built on.

Their work might look like simple civic pride, but something more is going on: This is a message to developers who might want this unused land for themselves.

“Nairobi dam’s riparian land is not for grabbing,” said Yohana Gikaara, the founder of Kibera 7 Kids, a non-profit that works with young people in the slum.

Forty years ago, this shore was underwater and safe from land-grabbers, he said. At that time, the dam was a popular recreation site for residents of Kenya’s capital.

But years of siltation due to human encroachment and the dumping of waste saw the waters recede. Over that time the dam’s main water source — the Motoine River — was choked by garbage, leaving it just a thread of slimy effluent.

Today, of the original 88 acres the dam once occupied, only a chunk of water about half the size of a football pitch remains, said Gikaara.

Given that land near the dam is worth about 80 million Kenyan shillings ($800,000) an acre, the attractions for developers are clear.

Kibera residents like Gikaara fear the 30 acres of riparian land, and perhaps even the remainder of the dam itself, could disappear thanks to the booming property development industry.

“No one knows when [developers] strike,” he said. “You wake up one morning and find earth-movers in the neighborhood, and that is when you know you or your neighbor will soon be homeless.”

​Wrecking ball

Apartment blocks sprung up in 2014 on the dam’s southeastern flank and, in 2017, greenhouses began popping up too. That prompted non-profits in Kibera to raise the alarm.

Last year, the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) ordered the apartments to be demolished — because, said David Ong’are, the government body’s director in charge of compliance and enforcement, they had been built illegally on riparian land.

Any building near a water body must be between six and 30 meters from the high-water mark, depending on the type of water course, he said.

“The buildings that have breached this threshold at the Nairobi dam are going to be demolished,” Ong’are told Reuters in an interview, adding that some developers had filed court cases in an effort to halt that.

On’gare said more than 4,000 buildings built on riparian land in Nairobi had been earmarked for demolition to date.

One prominent site demolished last year was the South End Mall, which NEMA ordered flattened after ruling it had been built over a section of the Moitone River’s course, he said.

Pollution solutions

In January, Gikaara worked with lobby groups to oppose plans by a parliamentary committee to fill in the rest of the dam — ostensibly as a way to deal with the issue of pollution.

But, said local resident James Makusa, that was simply a ruse cloaked in the name of rehabilitating the dam.

“The real motive is to prepare the ground for property development,” said Makusa, who makes a living by scooping sediment from the Motoine River and selling it to construction sites.

Makusa views his job of clearing the river of sediment as a form of environmental conservation — a better way to rehabilitate the dam, and preferable to filling it with soil.

Mary Najoli, who heads the Shikanisha Akili Women’s Group, suggested another use that would protect the land. Her group, whose name translates as “using your imagination,” makes beadwork from recycled waste collected in Kibera.

But like many others in informal settlements, they lack a permanent venue from where to sell their wares.

“We would like to be allocated [a small area of] the dam’s land as a place where we can display and sell our beadwork. In return, we will ensure that the environment is clean and watch out for illegal encroachment,” she said.

​That might happen, said local MP Nixon Korir, whose constituency includes the dam.

However, he said, the process of reclaiming the land must be finished first: that includes clearing waste and ensuring the planted trees can sustain themselves.

Korir said the reclamation process, which started last year, was designed to benefit Kibera’s residents.

“The rehabilitated riparian land will be turned into a tourism site that can bring revenue and create employment,” he said.

Brighter future?

Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo, the director of the Africa office at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), said Kibera residents were best-suited to keep Nairobi dam clean and safe.

“The people do not have any other alternative but staying where they are and caring for the dam because there is need to restore life here in Kibera through restoration of this dam and its ecosystem,” she said.

She blamed Kibera’s waste problem on poor urban planning, which meant open spaces had become dumping grounds — including the dam’s shores.

Meantime, some view the issue of pollution as a silver lining — among them is Ian Araka of the Foundation of Hope youth group, which combines garbage collection in Kibera with art, drama, traditional dance and poetry.

His 60-strong group has partnered with ASTICOM K Ltd., a social enterprise that is building a recycling factory in Kibera. He said the aim is to supply solid waste collected from the slum to the factory on a contractual basis.

Some will be collected from the dam’s riparian land, and there are plans to recycle polluted water for use by small businesses in the slum, such as car washes and sanitation services, he said.

“This project is going to unite and equip us with a voice to not only be able to chase land-grabbers away, but also invite developers to do something constructive with us,” Araka said.
…

Publication of a U.N. database of companies with business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank has been delayed again, drawing the ire of activists who have campaigned for three years.

The issue is highly sensitive as companies appearing in such a database could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up pressure on Israel over its West Bank settlements, which most countries and the United Nations view as illegal.

Goods produced there include fruit, vegetables and wine.

Israel has assailed the database, whose creation was agreed by the U.N. Human Rights Council in March 2016, as a “blacklist.”

Michelle Bachelet, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday that despite progress made since launching the study, further work was needed due to the “novelty of the mandate and its legal, methodological and factual complexity.”

Her office aimed to finalize and issue the study “in coming months,” she said in a letter to the Human Rights Council.

Activists voiced outrage, noting that Bachelet’s predecessor, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, had already delayed its publication in 2017 before stepping down in August 2018.

“Israeli authorities’ brazen expansion of illegal settlements underscores why the UN database of businesses facilitating these settlements needs to be published,” Bruno Stagno Ugarte of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

“Each delay further entrenches corporate involvement in the systematic rights abuses stemming from illegal settlements,” he said, calling for Bachelet to commit to a clear publication date.

Palestinian rights groups and trade unions, in a letter dated Feb. 28, had urged Bachelet to publish the database, saying that further delays would undermine her office and foster what they called an “existing culture of impunity for human rights abuses and internationally recognized crimes in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory).”

World Jewish Congress

The World Jewish Congress said its CEO, Robert Singer, had met Bachelet last month and urged the cancellation of the database. The New York-headquartered group welcomed the delay to publication, saying in a statement the report should be put off for good as it would financially hurt thousands of employees, both Israeli and Palestinian, of targeted companies.

In November, home-renting company Airbnb said it would remove listings in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, a move that Israel called a “wretched capitulation” to boycotters and Palestinians hailed as a step toward peace.

Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war. Its settlements there are considered illegal by most world powers.

Palestinians deem the settlements, and the military presence needed to protect them, to be obstacles to their goal of establishing a state. Israel disputes this.
…

Tax cuts and increased defense spending are among the measures China will introduce this year to boost its flagging economy. 

Premier Li Keqiang announced the measures Tuesday on the opening day of China’s annual National People’s Congress in Beijing. 

Li told the legislators that policymakers are targeting economic growth of 6 to 6.5 percent this year, a slight cut from last year’s target of 6.5 percent. The world’s second-largest economy recorded official growth of 6.6 percent in 2018, the slowest pace in nearly three decades, due to slow demand at home and abroad and a bitter trade war with the United States.

The premier said the government will cut $298 billion in corporate taxes and social insurance contribution fees and lower the value-added tax for the manufacturing sector from 16 to 13 percent. Meanwhile, Beijing has approved a $177 billion military budget for this year, an increase of 7.5. percent, and is planning to spend more on 

The legislature is expected to pass a new law during this session that will discourage officials from pressuring foreign companies to transfer their technology to Beijing in exchange for market access. The practice has angered the United States and Europe for years and was cited by President Donald Trump as part of his reason to impose huge tariffs on Chinese imports in an attempt to force China into trade concessions.
…

The speed and elegant appearance of the Concorde inspired awe. Its ear-rattling sonic booms irritated people on the ground and led to restrictions on where the jet could fly.

The Concorde’s maiden flight was 50 years ago this month. Although the plane went out of service in 2003, its delta-wing design and drooping nose still make it instantly recognizable even to people who have never seen one in person.

The Concorde was the world’s first supersonic passenger plane. It was a technological marvel and a source of pride in Britain and France, whose aerospace companies joined forces to produce the plane.

Its first flight occurred on March 2, 1969, in Toulouse, France. The test flight lasted 28 minutes. British Airways and Air France launched passenger flights in 1976.

With four jet engines and afterburners, the plane could fly at twice the speed of sound and cruised at close to 60,000 feet, far above other airliners. It promised to revolutionize long-distance travel by cutting flying time from the U.S. East Coast to Europe from eight hours to three-and-a-half hours.

Depending on the layout, the plane could seat up to 128 passengers, far fewer than on many other planes flying the trans-Atlantic routes. The relative scarcity of seats and the plane’s high operating costs made tickets expensive — typically several thousand dollars — so it was mostly reserved for the wealthy and famous, occasionally royalty.

In the U.S., the plane flew mainly to New York and Washington and attracted quite a buzz. In the mid-1980s, men dressed as Union and Confederate soldiers to re-enact a Civil War battle in Virginia paused in mid-skirmish to gaze up at a Concorde flying into nearby Dulles Airport.

A Concorde captain raved that the plane flew beautifully, and that the only indication of its speed came from looking down at other jets far below that seemed as if they were flying backward — the Concorde was moving about 800 mph faster.

Jamie Baker, an airline analyst and aviation enthusiast, took the plane from New York to London in 2002. Perhaps because it was a morning flight, the mood was more dignified than festive, Baker says. The ride was so smooth that there was hardly any sensation of flight.

“No turbulence. No sense of motion, save for the clouds passing by below us,” Baker says. “Concorde was a tool devised to outwit time.”

Former Boeing engineer Peter Lemme recalls his 1998 flight as a delight, but cramped.

“The seats were more like what we flew domestically in coach,” he says. “The food was excessive,” including caviar, and there was a duty-free cart piled with very expensive items.

However, the Concorde never caught on widely. The plane’s economics were challenging, and its sonic booms led it to be banned on many overland routes. Only 20 were built; 14 of which were used for passenger service.

As time went on, flights were disrupted by mechanical breakdowns including engine failures and a broken rudder. Reviewers complained about the small cabin, noise, and vibrations that started during takeoff and continued once airborne.

The plane’s darkest day came on July 25, 2000, when an Air France Concorde crashed into a hotel and exploded shortly after takeoff in Paris, killing all 109 people on board and four on the ground.

Investigators determined that the plane ran over a metal strip that had fallen off another jet on to the runway, damaging a tire. A piece of the tire crashed into the underside of the wing, shockwaves caused a fuel tank to rupture, and the fuel ignited.

The planes were grounded for expensive modifications. After 18 months, BA and Air France both resumed flights, but traffic never recovered.

It was determined that a more intensive and expensive maintenance schedule would be required to keep the fleet flying. In 2003, BA and Air France both stopped Concorde service.

BA’s chief executive called it “the end of a fantastic era in world aviation,” but added that retiring the planes was a prudent business decision.

Supersonic transports could yet make a comeback. Several companies are working on models and hope to test them soon.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday extended by one year sanctions against Zimbabwe saying that the new government’s policies continue to pose an “unusual and extraordinary” threat to U.S. foreign policy.

The renewal comes despite calls by African leaders, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, for the sanctions to be lifted to give the country a chance to recover from its economic crisis.

“The actions and policies of these persons continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States,” Trump said in a notice announcing the extension, adding: “I am continuing for (one) year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13288.”

The renewal comes despite calls by African leaders, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, for the sanctions to be lifted to give the country a chance to recover from its economic crisis.

Trump administration officials had said the sanctions will remain until the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa changes Zimbabwe’s laws restricting media freedom and allowing protests.

According to U.S. officials, there are 141 entities and individuals in Zimbabwe, including Mnangagwa and long-time former president Robert Mugabe, currently under U.S. sanctions.

Mnangagwa has called for the sanctions to be lifted against the ZANU-PF ruling party, top military figures and some government-owned firms, which were imposed during Mugabe’s rule over what the United States said were human rights violations and undermining of the democratic process.
…

At President Donald Trump’s direction, the United States intends to scrap the preferential trade status granted to India and Turkey, officials said Monday.

Washington “intends to terminate India’s and Turkey’s designations as beneficiary developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program because they no longer comply with the statutory eligibility criteria,” the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said in a statement.

India has failed to provide assurances that it would allow required market access, while Turkey is “sufficiently economically developed” that it no longer qualifies, USTR added.

Under the GSP program, “certain products” can enter the US duty-free if countries meet eligibility criteria including “providing the United States with equitable and reasonable market access.”

India, however, “has implemented a wide array of trade barriers that create serious negative effects on United States commerce,” the statement said.

Turkey, after being designated a GSP beneficiary in 1975, has meanwhile demonstrated a “higher level of economic development,” meaning that it can be “graduated” from the program, according to USTR.
…

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin informed Congress on Monday that he will stop making payments into two government retirement funds now that the debt limit has gone back into effect.

In a letter to congressional leaders, Mnuchin said that he would stop making investments into a civil service retirement fund and a postal service retirement fund.

These are among the actions that Mnuchin is allowed to take to keep from exceeding the debt limit, which went back into effect on Saturday at a level of $22 trillion.

The debt limit had been suspended for a year under a 2018 budget deal. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Mnuchin likely has enough maneuvering room to avoid a catastrophic default on the national debt until around September.

The U.S. government has never missed a debt payment although budget battle between then-President Barack Obama and Republicans in 2011 pushed approval of an increase in the debt limit so close to a default that the Standard and Poor’s rating agency downgraded a portion of the country’s credit rating for the first time in history.

The Congressional Budget Office said in a report that issuing new securities for the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund pushed the debt up by $3 billion each month. Mnuchin said both funds would be made whole once Congress approves an increase in the debt limit.

“I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting to increase the statutory debt limit as soon as possible,” Mnuchin said in his letter.
…

Sharp differences have emerged between the United States and Britain over farming standards and practices in any post-Brexit trade deal.

The trans-Atlantic allies have already begun exploratory talks on a trade agreement after Britain’s EU exit, which is scheduled for March 29. Britain, however, is resisting U.S. demands to open its markets to agricultural products currently banned under EU law.

The most widely-cited example is Europe’s import ban on American “chlorinated chicken” — carcasses that have been washed using chlorine to remove harmful bacteria like E. coli and salmonella. Europe says an over-reliance on chlorine lowers overall production and hygiene standards in poultry farming, a claim the United States disputes.

The EU has also banned the import of beef from American cattle that have been treated with artificial growth hormones. The bloc says that one commonly used hormone may cause cancer and concludes there is not enough scientific data on the other hormones to approve their use for public consumption.

Washington has made it clear any trade deal with Britain after Brexit must see these measures dropped.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, former Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, said recently that the millions of Britons visiting the United States every year enjoy perfectly safe food.

“We’d like to have that arrangement being one in which in Britain you can choose to have American chicken, American beef, or other agricultural products just as you could when you come to the United States,” he told VOA. “It is a key lynchpin of an agreement. Financial, manufacturing and agriculture has to be free and fair.”

Issa added that President Trump is committed to sealing a trade deal with Britain after Brexit, and that it could “be the next NAFTA”, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Writing in Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper Saturday, America’s ambassador to Britain, Woody Johnson, attacked what he called “myths” over U.S. farming and alleged they are part of a protectionist agenda.

Britain has repeatedly pledged that it will not lower food standards after Brexit. Responding to Ambassador Johnson’s comments, Britain’s international trade minister, Liam Fox, said London would hold its ground.

“Will we accept things that we believe are against the interests of our consumers or our producers? No we won’t. It’s a negotiation,” Fox told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show Sunday.

The dispute over American beef and poultry is also influencing debate over the Irish border, a key stumbling block in Britain’s attempt to secure an EU exit deal.

Britain and Europe want to avoid border checks between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state. Ireland’s prime minister, Leo Varadkar, recently expressed fears that the border could open a back door into the EU.

“If at some point in the future the United Kingdom were to allow chlorinated chicken or beef with hormones into their markets, we wouldn’t want that coming into our markets or the European Union as well,” Varadkar told reporters.

The United States says a trade deal would deliver huge benefits in sectors like financial services. Britain, meanwhile, is keen to bolster its post-Brexit credentials as a global trading power.

Far away from the skyscrapers of New York or London, it is farming that could prove the biggest barrier to any agreement.

 
…