YCLOAK

Israel has been known as the land of milk and honey since Biblical times – but the land of single malt whiskey? One appropriately named distillery is trying to turn Israel into a whiskey powerhouse.

Smooth, honey-brown whiskey is not the first thing that comes to mind when most people think of Israel. However, at the Milk and Honey Distillery, rows of casks proudly stamped “Tel Aviv” hold liters of the stuff.

The country’s first whiskey distillery is preparing to release Israel’s first single malt whiskey.

“It’s a young whiskey,” said Eitan Attir, the distillery’s CEO.

Attir says the brew is aged for three years and two months in virgin oak and old bourbon barrels at the company’s renovated former bakery in a rugged industrial area of south Tel Aviv.

“It’s complex for its age,” he said. “The taste feels like more than three years, more like seven or eight and again the story is much more important in this case. This is the first ever single malt whiskey that any distillery has released from Israel.”

Although wine has been produced in the Holy Land for millennia, and modern Israeli wines have gained international renown in recent years, whiskey production is new to the country.

Milk and Honey was founded in 2013 and began distilling small experimental batches of whiskey a year later. One hundred bottles from their first cask of Single Malt are set to be sold at an online auction starting August 11.

Whiskey is universally acceptable for religious Jews to consume, Attir says, and Milk and Honey’s drink is “ultra-kosher.”

“We don’t work on Saturday, we don’t work on Yom Kippur or Passover,” he said. “And we want to symbolize our being Jewish or Israeli and then we called it the Milk and Honey Distillery.”  

Warmer climate more amenable

The single malt was made in Israel from start to finish, according to the company’s website, though the ingredients, barrels and equipment were imported from the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere. The warmer climate in Israel allows for a speedier aging process in the barrel than whiskey made in colder climates, according to Ran Latovicz, an Israeli whiskey connoisseur and bar owner.  

“In colder climates like Scotland or Ireland, whiskey usually ages for about seven to 10 to 12 years before it’s even bottled because [it is] just the way, you know, it gets to its full potential,” he said.

The distillery believes it is well positioned to ride a wave of growing international interest in new world whiskeys, like rising stars from Taiwan or India, and hopes this initial offering whets the appetites of aficionados everywhere.

“There’s a huge demand nowadays for whiskey from other places around the world – new world whiskey. There’s more than 70 countries now with a minimum of one distillery and one of them is Israel,” Attir said.

Gal Kalkshtein, Milk and Honey’s founder and owner, said he hopes that once the whiskey starts getting shipped abroad in 2019, it will create a buzz for Israeli whiskies.

“We want to be recognized for our quality, not the gimmick,” he said.
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Four U.S. Senate Republicans from oil-refining states Thursday urged the Trump administration not to block oil shipments from Venezuela as part of U.S. sanctions against the country, saying it could raise costs for U.S. fuel consumers.

The United States sanctioned President Nicolas Maduro and other Venezuelan officials after Maduro established a constituent assembly run by his Socialist Party loyalists and cracked down on widespread opposition. It has not placed sanctions on the OPEC member’s oil industry.

Four senators

Senators John Cornyn of Texas, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi said in the letter, which was seen by Reuters, that unilaterally blocking oil exports could harm the U.S. economy and the Venezuelan people.

The United States imports about 740,000 barrels per day of oil from Venezuela.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the letter, which was addressed to President Donald Trump.

“We believe it is critical to consider the role the U.S. energy industry and refining sector play in our economic and national security interest,” the senators wrote. “Blockading imports could inflict great harm on this industry and burden U.S. taxpayers with the cost.”

Effects on Venezuela

The senators said sanctions on shipments of Venezuelan oil to the United States could also increase the likelihood of a disorderly default by Venezuela, given the oil business is its main source of revenue. Creditors could then seize Venezuelan oil assets and cut off the government’s remaining sources of financing.

They also noted that such sanctions could expand the interests of China and Russia in Venezuela’s oil business. Both countries have invested in Venezuela for years.

Sources have said the United States could use heavy crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve held in caverns along the Gulf Coast, to relieve any short-term supply pressure if Venezuela’s shipments were blocked. Nearly 680 million barrels of oil are in reserve.

A drilling boom in the United States has allowed the government to store more oil than it needs to meet international spare supply agreements. 
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Arctic fjords that hid Soviet nuclear-powered submarines during the Cold War are now being used as a weapon in the sanctions war with Europe – to rear fish that Russia can no longer import.

Three years ago, Russia banned food imports from the West in response to a series of Western sanctions that aimed to punish Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis, including its annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Trout and salmon, grown specially for Russia’s vast market at farms in Norway next door, were among the first victims of the sanctions war.

Moscow’s ban on the largest exporter of red fish to Russia led to a sharp hike in prices, while also offering lucrative prospects for Russian fish farmers.

In the Murmansk region in Russia’s northwest, where the rocky coastline of the Ura Bay still features deserted Soviet-era bases and top secret berths for today’s submarine fleet, huge fish farming cages are now becoming part of the landscape.

Thousands of adult trout and salmon swarm inside the open-sea cages as workers toss in generous portions of high-calorie feed.

The cages belong to Russian Aquaculture which farms salmon and trout in the Barents Sea off Murmansk and in Russia’s northern Karelia region.

When they mature, the fish are loaded onto special ships and, still alive, are brought to a Murmansk factory for processing.

Here the fish are either deep frozen or turned into filets and steaks.

Russian Aquaculture reared fish before the Ukraine crisis but under a different name. Once the sanctions were introduced, it increased production to fill the gap in the market previously occupied by Norwegian imports.

The company’s drive to increase output hit difficulties in 2015 when many of its fish succumbed to diseases. It says it has now overcome those problems, and is pushing hard again to produce more fish.

Over the next five to 10 years, Russian Aquaculture aims to ramp up its output to produce 25,000-30,000 tons of fish per year. In the first half of this year, the company produced 8,400 tons of fish.
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Venezuelan homemaker Carmen Rondon lives in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, but has spent weeks cooking with firewood due to a chronic shortage of home cooking gas – leaving her hoarse from breathing smoke.

Finding domestic gas cylinders has become increasingly difficult, a problem that oil industry analysts attribute to slumping oil output in the OPEC nation – which is struggling under an unraveling socialist economy.

State oil company PDVSA says the problem is due to difficulties in distributing tanks amid four months of anti-government protests in which its trucks have been attacked.

“I’ve spent three weeks cooking with wood and sometimes the food does not even soften properly, I can’t stand it anymore,” said Rondon, as she lined up to buy a cylinder under the scorching sun in the city of San Felix in southern Venezuela.

More than 100 people were ahead of her in line.

Nine out of 10 Venezuelan homes rely on cylinders for home gas usage, with only 10 percent receiving it via pipelines, according to official figures. The government launched a plan 12 years ago to bring some 5 million  households onto the natural gas network but was unable to follow through.

Venezuela’s socialist economy has been in free-fall since the oil price collapse in 2014, creating shortages of everything from diapers to cancer medication and spurring inflation to triple-digit levels.

President Nicolas Maduro says he is the victim of an “economic war” by the opposition, and says violent street protests are part of an effort to overthrow him.

With oil output near 25-year lows, PDVSA has been forced to import liquid petroleum gas, or LPG, which is used to fill natural gas cylinders. Venezuela imported 26,370 barrels per day of LPG in the first half of 2017, according to data seen by Reuters.

PDVSA did not respond to a request for comment.

Long lines to buy cylinders have spurred protests.

Demonstrators in May burned 22 PDVSA trucks in a single day in response to the shortages.

The company says it is now distributing gas cylinders at night and before daybreak due to such protests, which also include roadblocks that prevent free movement of vehicles.

“It’s not fair that a country with so much oil is going through this,” complained Maria Echeverria, a 44-year-old homemaker, who started waiting at dawn to buy a gas cylinder in San Cristobal, near the border with neighboring Colombia.
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Talks between African and U.S. officials to review the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) free-trade deal ended Thursday with no decision and a feeling on all sides that it has achieved little since it was set up.

President Donald Trump’s top trade negotiator, Robert E. Lighthizer, and other U.S. officials have been in the tiny West African nation of Togo over the past two days to discuss the Clinton-era trade pact with sub-Saharan Africa.

Trump’s “America First” campaign has seen him withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, threaten to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and seek to renegotiate the U.S.-South Korea free-trade deal. But his administration has said little about Africa, and had not previously mentioned the 2000 AGOA trade agreement.

It is not clear whether the U.S. wants to change the deal before it expires in 2025 or extend it. No decision was made on either count.

AGOA allows tariff-free access for thousands of goods from 38 African nations to U.S. markets.

“The number of countries benefiting from AGOA is very limited, as is the number of sectors,” Peter Barlerin, deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, said at the forum Wednesday. “We will see if the situation improves in the coming years, but it is also up to the beneficiary countries to enhance their business climate.”

‘Constraints’ on some

Bernadette Legzim-Balouki, Togo’s trade minister, who presided over the meeting, was equally lukewarm on AGOA.

“Not all the countries eligible have benefited from the law,” she said. “We are trying to examine the constraints that prevent some African countries from profiting.”

Legzim-Balouki added that the United States and the nations eligible for AGOA had agreed on some loose aims, including: development of a better plan to take full advantage of the pact; bilateral talks between the U.S. and each eligible country; development of a mechanism to protect African producers from price volatility.

The U.S. trade deficit with the AGOA countries shrank to about $7.9 billion last year from a peak of $64 billion in 2008, as U.S. shale oil production increases have lessened the need for oil imports from major exporters Nigeria and Angola.

“AGOA is an excellent opportunity but we aren’t making the most of it, mainly due to a lack of knowledge about it,” Beninois agribusinessman Sylvain Adewoussi told Reuters.
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Croatia revoked on Thursday its decision to raise import fees on some farm products by 220 percent, avoiding a trade war with its Balkan neighbors who had threatened to hit back with counter-measures.

European Union-member Croatia last month raised its fees for phytosanitary controls — agricultural checks for pests and viruses on fruits and vegetables — at its borders to 2,000 kuna ($317.52) from 90 kuna, citing compliance with EU standards and protection of its consumers.

EU candidates Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as fellow EU aspirant Bosnia, have called on Croatia to withdraw its decision, saying otherwise each of them would take counter-measures it considered adequate to protect its economic interests.

Serbia, which is the only country in the region that operates a trade surplus with its neighbor, has already stepped up phytosanitary controls on all organic produce from Croatia and said it would increase them further.

Croatia’s agriculture ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it cut the import fee for a shipment of one brand of fruits and vegetables to 90 kuna, and that the decision will become effective on Friday.

The ministry also agreed with neighboring countries that agricultural inspections on their borders will go back to normal routine as of Friday, while all other pending issues will be analyzed and discussed, it said in the statement.

Most countries in the region import more than they export to Croatia, except for Serbia. Serbia’s exports to Croatia in 2016 reached 116 million euros ($136.04 million) versus imports worth 79 million euros.

Neighboring countries welcomed Croatia’s move.

“Bringing the prices back at the previous level will contribute to the relaxation of relations among the countries of the region,” said Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

($1 = 0.8527 euros)

($1 = 6.2989 kuna)
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Egypt’s official statistics agency says the country’s inflation rate has jumped to 33 percent in July – up from 29.8 percent in June.

The announcement comes as Egyptians struggle in the face of steep price hikes as part of the government’s economic reform plan.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics made the announcement Thursday.

Economists believe the hike is driven by an increase in fuel prices. They expect inflation to remain above 30 percent over the next two months, especially after an increase in electricity, transportation and drinking water prices.

Egypt raised fuel prices in June by 55 percent for the commonly used 80-octane gasoline and diesel. It also doubled the price of the butane gas canisters, used in the majority of Egyptian households for cooking.
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China urged the U.S. government Thursday to act “prudently” to avoid damaging economic relations between the two countries, in a strongly worded response to Washington’s preliminary decision to place anti-dumping duties on Chinese aluminum foil.

In a statement posted on the Ministry of Commerce’s Wechat account, the government said the United States had ignored cooperation offered by Beijing and Chinese companies in making its ruling this week.

The statement, attributed to Wang Hejun, head of the Commerce Ministry’s trade remedy and investigation bureau, was more strongly worded than typical responses to trade disputes with the United States.

The statement said there were no grounds to accuse China’s aluminum producers of benefiting from subsidies.

 
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The exchange of threats and harsh rhetoric between North Korea and Donald Trump has rattled many investors. Stock prices fell in Asia, Europe and the United States, while demand rose for safe-haven investments like gold.

Key stock indexes in Hong Kong, Germany, and France were down by one percent or more. U.S. stocks were down as much as four-tenths of a percent in Wednesday’s mid-day trading. Before Tuesday’s angry exchange of words, U.S. stocks had been setting a series of record highs.

Demand for gold, a traditional way of protecting assets in troubled times, pushed up the price for the precious metal by about one percent in Wednesday’s trading. Oil prices also posted gains.

South Korea is home to more than 50 million people and major companies like Samsung and Hyundai. World Bank data show South Korea has a $1.4 trillion economy, which is nearly two percent of global economic activity.
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A U.S. proposal for Mexico and Canada to vastly raise the value of online purchases that can be imported duty-free from stores like Amazon.com and eBay is emerging as a flashpoint in an upcoming renegotiation of the NAFTA trade deal.

Vulnerable industries like footwear, textiles and bricks and mortar retail in Mexico and Canada are pushing back hard against the proposal by the U.S. trade representative to raise Mexican and Canadian duty-free import limits for e-commerce to the U.S. level of $800, from current thresholds of $50 and C$20, respectively.

For the Mexicans, the main worry is that such a move could open a back door for cheap imports from Asia and beyond. For Canadian retailers, the fear is that e-commerce companies will undercut their prices.

The U.S. plan was unveiled in July as part of the Trump administration’s goals to renegotiate the 25-year-old treaty.

While Mexico and Canada are still formulating their responses, Mexico City is leaning strongly against the proposal in its current form, and Ottawa may not be far behind.

The proposed $800 level “opens a completely unnecessary door” to imports from outside the NAFTA trading bloc, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Thursday on the sidelines of a NAFTA-related event, calling it “a very sensitive topic.”

The growing controversy over how to account for a burgeoning regional e-commerce sector dominated by the United States highlights a rare area where the Trump administration is pushing to liberalize trade rules rather than tightening them.

Much of Trump’s criticism of NAFTA stems from his belief it has decimated U.S. manufacturing as companies shifted production to Mexican factories with cheaper labor, creating a U.S. trade deficit with Mexico worth more than $60 billion.

Top priority

But Mexican and Canadian business leaders fear the rule change could make their industries vulnerable, arguing that unless online retailers can show products are made in North America, they should not be exempted from duties levied on other imports.

“We can’t open the door to inputs from outside the region coming in tax-free when we’re talking about the need to reduce the deficit and create jobs,” said Moises Kalach, who fronts the international negotiating arm of Mexico’s CCE business lobby. “It goes completely against that.”

Guajardo said Mexico’s retail group the National Self-service and Department Store Association, which includes powerful members such as Wal-Mart de Mexico , had visited him last week to express concerns about the proposal.

He said the group’s representative brought to the meeting a $250 jacket bought on the internet as evidence that violations to the existing limit were already threatening members’ businesses.

“Suppose there was an $800 free limit. Can you imagine how many shirts Vietnam could send to Mexico in a packet below that price? They could easily flood us with packets of 100,” he said, while recognizing the need to smooth customs processes.

Complicating efforts to agree on a common set of rules is a tangle of diverging regulations on tax and how the restrictions on imports differ in the region depending on whether they enter by air, sea or land.

Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc. declined to comment for this story.

eBay has previously said it supports an increase to Canada’s low-value customs “de minimis” threshold for ecommerce to promote seamless access to the global marketplace.

Increasing the threshold “absolutely” is eBay’s top priority in the NAFTA renegotiation, a person familiar with the matter said.

Canadian opposition is being led by retailers, whose industry association said it was concerned about “the behavioral shift that would inevitably result if shoppers can buy a far wider range and higher value of goods tax-free and duty-free.”

The Retail Council of Canada said in a submission to the government that clothes, books, toys, sporting goods and consumer electronics would be among the items most affected, and expressed confidence Ottawa would fend off such requests.

Not from other nations

“eBay in particular has lead this charge to three different finance ministers in a row — Jim Flaherty, Joe Oliver, and Bill Morneau — and in each case they have failed,” said Karl Littler, a spokesman for the Retail Council of Canada.

“The U.S. raised this quite frequently in the TPP [Trans-Pacific-Partnership trade] round and they also failed to secure this concession,” he added.

There have been hints from Canada’s government about a compromise under which a higher limit would exempt products ordered from e-commerce from duties but not sales taxes.

“When it comes to waiving duties and taxes, we need to carefully consider the impact that would have on Canadians and on Canadian businesses,” said Chloe Luciani-Girouard, a spokeswoman for Morneau.

Mexican firms could accept a higher import limit for goods produced in the NAFTA region — but not from other nations, said Alejandro Gomez Tamez, executive president of the Chamber of Commerce for the footwear industry in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, a hub of textile manufacturing.

“When a product comes in, even if it’s packaged and sent from the United States, if it’s from a third country, it should pay duties,” he said.
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Dozens of glistening pools in a small village on Croatia’s Adriatic coast stand testament to its annual salt harvests from seawater, which use a method largely unchanged for centuries.

The salt works facility in Ston, which says it is the oldest in Europe, consists of 58 pools and covers about 430,000 square meters where the waters of the Adriatic are allowed to seep in and then evaporate, leaving salt behind.

The first of two salt harvests this year kicked off on Tuesday, with around 35 tourists, friends and family of workers raking salt across the pans into gleaming white piles, before transferring to a nearby warehouse by wooden carts.

They expect to harvest some 200 tons of salt in the harvest, with most of it used for industrial purposes while the rest is sold in local markets for use in cooking.
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Tesla said on Monday it would raise about $1.5 billion through its first-ever offering of junk bonds as the U.S. luxury electric carmaker seeks fresh sources of cash to ramp up production of its new Model 3 sedan.

The move to issue junk bonds — lower-quality investments that offer higher yields — represents a bet by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk that bond investors will be as hungry as stock investors to back the company on expectations that its Model 3 will be a hit.

Tesla shares are up 67 percent this year, pushing the company’s market value to about $60 billion, above that of top U.S. automakers General Motors and Ford Motor Co., even though Tesla has yet to make an annual profit.

“Bond investors, who typically don’t love companies that don’t make money, will be far more forgiving when it comes to Tesla,” said bond expert Robbie Goffin, managing director of FTI Consulting, citing the company’s stellar stock market value.

Automaker draws a ‘B-‘ 

Tesla was to start pitching potential investors on Monday, IFR reported, citing lead bankers on the deal.

So far, Tesla has been raising money to pay its bills with a combination of equity offerings and convertible bonds, which eventually convert into shares. In March, the company raised $1.4 billion through a convertible debt offering.

Following the announcement, Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed its negative outlook for the automaker and assigned a “B-” rating for the bond issue — deep into junk credit territory. S&P also maintained its “B-” long-term corporate credit rating on Tesla.

“We could lower our ratings on Tesla if execution issues related to the Model 3 launch later this year or the ongoing expansion of its Models S and X production lead to significant cost overruns,” S&P said in a statement on the bonds.

Rating outlook is stable

Moody’s assigned a junk “B3” rating to the bond issue and said the company’s rating outlook was stable.

The rating agency said the overall company’s “B2” rating was supported by the fact that if Tesla ends up in serious financial trouble, its brand name, products and physical assets would be of “considerable value” to other automakers.

The automaker’s debt load increased significantly last year when it bought solar panel maker SolarCity.

CFRA equity analyst Efraim Levy said the bonds provide Tesla with funds “at least into mid-2018.”

“There is a risk they could still run out of money,” he said. “Then you’d go back to the equity markets and hope it’s not too late” to raise more money.

Burning cash

The latest effective yield on single-B rated bonds maturing in seven to eight years, the class for a Tesla issue, is around 5.5 percent, according to Bank of America/Merrill Lynch Fixed Income Index data.

Tesla’s bond will price later this week after several days of meetings with credit investors, who will weigh factors including the absence of a borrowing history, its lack of profit and its high cash-burn rate against its growth potential and its attractiveness as an environmentally friendly “green” issuer.

Ultimately, the depth of investor interest will determine the bond’s interest rate.

Tesla is counting on the Model 3, its least pricey car, to become a profitable, high-volume manufacturer of electric cars.

Tesla said last week that it had 455,000 net pre-orders for the Model 3, which has a $35,000 base price, and that the sedan was averaging 1,800 reservations per day since it launched late last month.

At the launch, Musk, however, warned that Tesla would face months of “manufacturing hell” as it increases production of the sedan.

Tesla had over $3 billion in cash on hand at the end of the June quarter, compared with $4 billion on March 31.

The company has said it expects capital expenditures of $2 billion in the second half of this year to boost production at its Fremont, California assembly plant and a battery plant in Reno, Nevada.

Tesla’s cash burn has prompted short-sellers like Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn to bet against the Palo Alto, California company.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and RBC are the book-runners on the bond offering, IFR reported.

Shares of Tesla closed down 0.5 percent at $355.17 on Monday.

 
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For Jisi Lazuo, the torch festival in her village in southwest China should be a celebration involving colorful ethnic clothes and eating freshly slaughtered pig.

Instead, it’s a time of stress.

“In my heart I always get worried when the torch festival comes along,” said Jisi, 37, who supports a family of two grandparents and four children.

“Traditional clothes are quite expensive, but for my own kids I can only buy whatever I can get,” she said.

Jisi belongs to the isolated Yi ethnic community. They have a distinct language and culture, and are among the poorest in China.

Most live in Liangshan, a mountainous district in the southwestern province of Sichuan and one of 14 areas of “concentrated poverty” identified by the central government.

Average incomes in Liangshan are just 27 percent of the national average, official data shows.

An ambitious poverty reduction campaign is seeking to change this, ensuring by 2020 that no one is living in poverty — defined by the government as less than 2,300 yuan a year.

China has lifted hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty over the past few decades, but doing the same for groups like the Yi poses a different set of challenges.

“A lot of that poverty is not as easily accessible for the government,” said Ben Westmore, a senior economist at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

“It’s people who live in mountainous areas who are not very well connected, or they’re more dispersed at the provincial level across the prefectures,” he said.

From road building to subsidies, the central government has spent large amounts of money on poverty relief in places like Liangshan.

In 2016, the Liangshan government distributed 940 million yuan ($139 million) in basic income assistance for the poorest in the region, according to the government website.

Officials in charge of Liangshan’s anti-poverty campaign declined to comment on the programs. The State Council poverty alleviation office in Beijing also declined to comment.

While many Yi welcome the state’s help, some question whether cash handouts are sustainable.

“Just giving out money is useless because one day the money will eventually run out,” said Emu Zhiji, one of the few people in his village to receive a university education.

Emu said he hopes to become a sports teacher, something that would be impossible for many Yi. Thirty percent are illiterate, compared to 4 percent nationally, and many do not speak Mandarin, the main language in China. As a result, they have limited options for earning a living beyond farming.

The government has tried to improve access to education for the Yi, but it struggles to recruit teachers to work in such a remote area. Many students battle to keep up with lessons taught in Mandarin.

Emu said more needs to be done to allow the Yi to develop within their own culture if they are to alleviate the poverty and a dependency on government programs.

“If we had better jobs we’d be able to feed and clothe ourselves on our own, but for that we need to be able to use our own language,” he said.
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Nebraska regulators opened a final hearing on TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline on Monday, a week-long proceeding that marks the last big hurdle for the long-delayed project after President Donald Trump approved it in March.

The proposed 1,179-mile (1,897-km) pipeline linking Canada’s Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries has been a lightning rod of controversy for nearly a decade, pitting environmentalists worried about spills and global warming against business advocates who say the project will lower fuel prices, shore up national security and bring jobs.

Nebraska has last word

Trump’s administration handed TransCanada a federal permit for the pipeline in March, reversing a decision by former President Barack Obama to reject the project on environmental grounds. But the line still needs a nod from regulators in Nebraska — which would be the last of three states to approve its proposed path into the heartland.

A lawyer for opponents of the line opened the hearing in front of the five-member Nebraska Public Service Commission on Monday morning by grilling an executive for the Canadian company about how the pipeline will be disposed of after its anticipated 50-year lifetime.

“Do we have to clean up TransCanada’s abandoned pipeline?” attorney David Domina asked TransCanada executive Tony Palmer.

On Sunday, hundreds of pipeline opponents, including members or Indian tribes, marched through downtown Lincoln under police escort, following a rally at the Nebraska Capitol.

Decision expected in November

Nebraska’s Public Service Commission is meant to weigh whether the project is in the state’s public interest, and will announce a decision by November. The arguments of opponents are constrained by the rules of the commission, however: the commission is not permitted to consider the risk of spills because the route already has an environmental permit.

Opponents — including scores of landowners on the proposed route — will instead argue the jobs are temporary and the risks of the pipeline to local industries like cattle ranching too great. They will also note that if the commission approves the line, TransCanada could seek to seize property along the route using eminent domain law — a politically unpalatable option in the conservative state.

Proponents, meanwhile, will argue the project will bring in hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.

Job numbers different

Trump has said the project would create 28,000 jobs nationwide, but a 2014 State Department study predicted just 3,900 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs.

The 830,000 barrel-per-day Keystone XL would link Alberta to an existing pipeline network feeding U.S. refineries and ports along the Gulf of Mexico.

The project could be a boon for Canada, which has struggled to bring its reserves to market. But demand for the line has declined since it was first proposed, due to surging U.S. production, lower prices, and other Canadian pipeline projects.

 
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The Balkans have become embroiled in a trade war over agricultural health checks after Croatia raised import fees on some farm products by around 220 percent, triggering countermeasures by Serbia and threats from others.

Last month European Union-member Croatia raised its fees for phytosanitary controls — agricultural checks for pests and viruses — on fruits and vegetables at its borders to 2,000 kuna ($319) from 90 kuna.

It cited compliance with EU standards and protection of its consumers.

But ministers from EU candidates Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, as well as from fellow EU aspirant Bosnia, said the move violated their respective pre-accession agreements with the bloc under which they were guaranteed equal access to markets.

“These measures are absolutely protectionist in an economic sense. They are populist in political sense and cannot be justified, They are [not] in the spirit of good neighborly relations,” Serbian Economy Minister Rasim Ljajic told reporters after meeting his Balkan counterparts in Sarajevo.

The ministers from the four countries called on Croatia to withdraw its decision and invited the European Commission to get involved to solve an issue they said violated the free trade principles.

They also asked for an urgent meeting with the Croatian agriculture minister. However, until the issue has been resolved, each country will take counter-measures it considered adequate to protect its own economic interests, they said.

Economic War in Sight?

Ljajic said that Serbia has already stepped up phytosanitary controls on all organic produce from Croatia and will increase them further. This means that goods, including meat and dairy products, could be held up at borders from 15-30 days.

“Our goal is not to wage any kind of economic war but to protect our economic interests and the free flow of goods,” he said.

Macedonia and Montenegro said they would file complaints to the World Trade Organization, of which they are members, and seek mechanisms through the body for compensation from Croatia, which raised import fees at a peak of the high season for export of fruits and vegetables from their countries.

Besides discriminating against importers on its own market, Croatia is also making exports to the EU more difficult and expensive because it is vital entry point for imports to the EU from the Balkans, the ministers said.

Commenting on the explanation from Croatia that their move was not aimed against the neighbors but against all non-EU members, Bosnia’s Foreign Trade Minister Mirko Sarovic said: “Croatia does not import raspberries from Trinidad and Tobago but from Serbia and Bosnia.” He said that Bosnia was considering an “adequate response” but declined to elaborate.

Most countries in the region import more than they export to Croatia. Only Serbia operates a trade surplus with its neighbor, with exports in  2016 reaching 116 million euros ($137 million) versus imports worth 79 million euros.

Relations remain strained between the two former Yugoslav countries and bitter foes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, despite improvements in investments, the flow of people and capital.

($1 = 6.2688 kuna)
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The Interior Department on Monday scrapped an Obama-era rule on coal royalties that mining companies had criticized as burdensome and costly.

The Trump administration put the royalty valuation rule on hold in February after mining companies challenged it in federal court. Officials later announced plans to repeal the rule entirely. The final repeal notice was published Monday in the Federal Register and takes effect Sept. 6.

Repealing the rule “provides a clean slate to create workable valuation regulations,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, adding that the repeal will reduce costs that energy companies would otherwise pass on to consumers.

Still, he said Interior remains committed to collecting every dollar due, noting that public lands are assets belonging to taxpayers and Native American tribes.

The valuation rule, crafted under the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama, was aimed at ensuring that coal companies don’t shortchange taxpayers on coal sales to Asia and other markets. Coal exports surged over the past decade even as domestic sales declined.

Federal lawmakers and watchdog groups have long complained that taxpayers were losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually because royalties on coal from public lands were being improperly calculated.

Interior disputed that, saying in the Federal Register notice that the soon-to-be-reinstated regulations “have been in place for more than 20 years and serve as a reasonable, reliable and consistent method for valuing federal and Indian minerals for royalty purposes.” As evidence, the agency noted that the Obama-era rule would have increased royalty payments by less than 1 percent a year.

Rules in place since the 1980s have allowed coal companies to sell their fuel to affiliates and pay royalties to the government on that price, then turn around and sell the coal at a higher price, often overseas. Under the now-repealed rule, the royalty rate would have been determined at the time the coal is leased, with revenue based on the price paid by an outside entity, rather than an interim sale to an affiliated company.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, hailed the repeal, saying it would encourage more responsible energy development and spur investment in federal and Indian lands.

But conservation groups criticized the action, calling it a “sweetheart deal” for the industry that will deprive states of much-needed revenues. About half the coal royalties collected by the federal government is disbursed to states including Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.
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A Trump Organization company has applied for four new trademarks in the Asian gambling hub of Macau, including one for casinos, public records show. The new applications highlight the ethical complexity of maintaining the family branding empire while Donald Trump serves as president, and are likely to stoke speculation about the organization’s future business intentions in Macau, where casino licenses held by other companies come up for renewal beginning in 2020.

The applications for the Trump brand were made in June by a Delaware-registered company called DTTM Operations LLC. They cover gambling and casino services, as well as real estate, construction and restaurant and hotel services. The applications were first reported by the South China Morning Post.

The new applications are identical to four marks applied for in 2006, and granted, but lapsed earlier this year. It was not clear from public records why, though under Macau law trademarks can be forfeited for non-use. There are currently no Trump-branded businesses in Macau.

Trump’s trademarks have been a source of concern to ethics lawyers and Democratic officials, who fear they can give foreign governments the opportunity to try to influence the White House. China has approved dozens of Trump trademarks since the president took office. Three U.S. lawsuits against the president contend that the Chinese marks constitute gifts from a foreign state and stand in violation of the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution. Trump and his lawyers reject that argument and contend that trademarks are a crucial defense against squatters seeking to exploit his name.

Beijing says it has been fair and impartial in its handling of trademarks for the president and his daughter Ivanka Trump.

Macau’s six casino operators, including Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts, face renewals for their licenses starting in 2020. The government of the former Portuguese colony, now ruled by China, has released few details on the renewal process, which will be the first since it ended a decades-long casino monopoly and opened bidding to foreign companies in 2001.

Authorities are expected to grant renewals to all six operators, given the big investments they’ve poured into the city, but there has been speculation that they could issue one additional license to a new investor.

Macau is the world’s largest gambling market, raking in about five times more revenue last year than the Las Vegas Strip. It’s the only place in greater China where casinos are legal.

Donald Trump began applying for a sweep of trademarks in Macau in 2006. The government’s unwillingness to uphold all of them was a source of intense irritation to Trump, who became enmeshed in a lawsuit over rights to the use of his name. He wrote to then-U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in 2011 that the courts of China and Macau were “faithless, corrupt and tainted.”

“Who could expect anything different from a deceitful culture?” he added. “Their behavior should be a clear warning to the rest of the world to refrain from any trade practice or business relationship with them!”

Trump finally prevailed in that case last year after his opponent, a local company that had filed for a “Trump” mark for food and beverage services, let his trademark expire.

Trump has pledged to conduct no new foreign deals while in office and handed control of his business to his sons, though he retains ownership. He also has veered away from the casino business. Hard Rock International bought up the last vestiges of his failed Atlantic City gambling empire this year, paying just $50 million for the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal casino, which cost more than $1 billion to build.

Back in 2001, Donald Trump was part of a consortium of billionaire investors — including two men subsequently convicted of bribery and money laundering — that bid unsuccessfully for a casino license in Macau, the Wall Street Journal reported last year.
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Cuban authorities have ordered the closure of one of the island’s fastest-growing cooperatives, days after announcing that they would stop issuing new permits for some private enterprise.

Scenius, which provides accounting and business consulting services, will have until December 31 to liquidate, the cooperative’s founder and director, Luis Duenas, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Duenas said the Ministry of Finances and Prices told him the decision to close Scenius was “based on an analysis of our social purpose, or of the activities that we have approved.”

Duenas called the decision an “error” that has no place in the policy of economic opening announced by Cuban officials.

On Tuesday, Cuba’s government said it would suspend the issuance of permits for a range of occupations and ventures, including restaurants and renting out rooms in private homes.

The suspension included the growing field of private teachers as well as street vendors of agricultural products, dressmakers and the relatively recent profession of real estate broker. The announcement did not say when the issuing of permits would resume and said that enterprises already in operation could continue.

Expansion in 2010

President Raul Castro expanded an opening of the economy to private-sector employment in 200 categories of business in 2010. The government says nearly 570,000 people are employed in the enterprises, including hundreds of restaurants and guest houses. It later also legalized nonagricultural cooperatives.

Both recent moves have created fears that Cuba is putting the brakes on plans to reform its centrally planned economy, though officials say the country is not going back on its economic opening.

Duenas regretted that Scenius’ closing occurred days after the package of restrictions on independent work.

“There are many ways to do things, timing is very important, and the country is greatly affected by these things,” Duenas said.

Scenius began in January 2015 with two or three partners and in two years had more than 200. All its 70 clients are state-owned enterprises or business groups in agriculture, industry and communications.

According to official figures, there are more than 400 nonagricultural cooperatives in Cuba.
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Britain is prepared to pay up to 40 billion euros ($47 billion) as part of a deal to leave the European Union, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing three unnamed sources familiar with Britain’s negotiating strategy.

The European Union has floated a figure of 60 billion euros and wants significant progress on settling Britain’s liabilities before talks can start on complex issues such as future trading arrangements.

The government department responsible for Brexit talks declined to comment on the Sunday Telegraph article. So far, Britain has given no official indication of how much it would be willing to pay.

The newspaper said British officials were likely to offer to pay 10 billion euros a year for three years after leaving the EU in March 2019, then finalize the total alongside detailed trade talks.

Payments would be made only as part of a deal that included a trade agreement, the newspaper added.

“We know ([the EU’s] position is 60 billion euros, but the actual bottom line is 50 billion euros. Ours is closer to 30 billion euros but the actual landing zone is 40 billion euros, even if the public and politicians are not all there yet,” the newspaper quoted one “senior Whitehall source” as saying.

Whitehall is the London district where British civil servants and ministers are based.

‘Go whistle’

A second Whitehall source said Britain’s bottom line was “30 billion euros to 40 billion euros,” and a third source said Prime Minister Theresa May was willing to pay “north of 30 billion euros,” the Sunday Telegraph reported.

David Davis, the British minister in charge of Brexit talks, said on July 20 that Britain would honor its obligations to the EU but declined to confirm that Brexit would require net payments.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit advocate, said last month that the EU could “go whistle” if it made “extortionate” demands for payment.

Last week, the Bank of England said Brexit uncertainty was weighing on the economy. Finance Minister Philip Hammond wants to avoid unsettling businesses further.

If Britain cannot conclude an exit deal, trade relations would be governed by World Trade Organization rules, which would allow both parties to impose tariffs and customs checks and leave many other issues unsettled.

The EU also wants agreement by October on rights of EU citizens already in Britain, and on border controls between the Irish Republic and the British province of Northern Ireland, before trade and other issues are discussed.
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Supporters of the United Auto Workers say they’re not giving up their fight to unionize a Nissan auto assembly plant in Mississippi after a stinging defeat, even as UAW opponents say Friday’s loss proves workers don’t want the union.

More than 62 percent of workers voting in a two-day election at Nissan Motor Co.’s Canton plant voted against the UAW, with 2,244 ballots against the union according to the National Labor Relations Board. Voting for union representation were 1,307 workers, or 38 percent.

“They know we didn’t need it,” said Nissan worker Kim Barber, an outspoken union opponent who said she was celebrating Friday’s result. “We didn’t need outside interference coming into our plant.”

UAW defiant

Amid tears at a union office near the plant just north of Jackson, UAW supporters voiced defiance, with some calling for the election to be rerun after the minimum six-month wait. The union filed charges moments before the polls closed Friday night making new allegations that Nissan had broken federal labor law and intimidated workers into voting “no.” If the labor board agrees, it could order a new election at the plant.

“It hurts,” said union supporter Phillip White. “We ran against a machine; we ran against a monster; we ran against all the lies.”

The UAW has never fully organized an international automaker in the traditionally anti-union South, although it did persuade some maintenance workers to join at a Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee. The UAW’s lack of influence among southern autoworkers has reduced its bargaining power when Detroit automakers lose market share and close plants. After pouring resources into the organizing drive at Nissan, this loss could leave UAW leaders with tough decisions.

Odds of success 

“The result of the election was a setback for these workers, the UAW and working Americans everywhere, but in no way should it be considered a defeat,” UAW President Dennis Williams said in a statement.

Kristen Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research said that although the UAW was the underdog, odds were unlikely to improve soon, as President Donald Trump’s appointees take over the National Labor Relations Board. A corruption scandal involving union employees allegedly taking bribes from a former Fiat Chrysler executive also threatened to spread.
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The U.S. job market exceeded expectations last month adding 209,000 new workers to the economy in July and lowering the national unemployment rate to 4.3 percent. But wages continue to underperform, as did the nation’s labor participation rate. Economists say that’s because millions of working-age Americans are choosing to remain on the sidelines, some going back to school, others staying at home to take care of their families. Why does that matter? Mil Arcega explains.
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Rajeev Sakhuja has kept a hectic schedule in recent months as he makes scores of presentations in Delhi and surrounding towns about why and how to invest in equities.

The investment adviser has an attentive audience as traditional avenues of gold and real estate lose their luster and as stock markets trade at record highs. Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians are now investing more money into mutual funds.

“That old-fashioned investment, people are not interested. So where should they switch, where to invest, what to do, nobody has any clue,” said an upbeat Sakhuja, whose firm, PTIC India, is doing brisk business.

India’s stock markets have been among Asia’s top performers this year. The benchmark BSE Sensex has gained more than 16 percent since the start of the year, buoyed by optimism about the world’s fastest-growing economy. But unlike the past, when foreign investors were at the helm of a bull run, there has been a huge pickup in domestic investment.

That’s good news, say economists. The government has long fretted that most of the country’s household savings go into unproductive assets such as gold and real estate and has been trying to nudge domestic investors toward channeling more of their savings into equities, a source of corporate finance.

There is a huge market to be tapped. The total investment of Indian household savings into stocks is much smaller compared with those in many other countries.

Gaurav Mehta, portfolio manager at Ambit Investment Advisors in Mumbai, said the rising interest of domestic investors is part of a structural shift that signals a more modernizing and transparent economy.

“Till five, six years ago, physical assets were a good two-thirds of all household savings,” Mehta said. “That ratio now has swung in favor of financial assets.”

‘More formalized’ savings

The trend has been accelerated by a crackdown on the black economy. Last November, the government banned high denomination notes in a bid to flush out illegal cash.

“As savings become more formalized, then obviously you don’t need to park them in spurious places like land, real estate, et cetera,” Mehta said. “So a lot of this money is now moving into financial assets.”

And to tap that market, the mutual fund industry is reaching out to potential investors through television advertisements, social media and billboards, pitching the funds as attractive alternatives.

The sales pitch is not difficult: In the last four years, the Sensex has climbed 60 percent, whereas gold has fallen by 5 percent, real estate markets are down sharply and declining bank interest rates cannot keep pace with inflation. And the government is offering favorable tax policy for investors in mutual funds.

Most small investors are opting for mutual funds, hoping to grow their savings to beat inflation.

After hearing from friends about investment avenues in stock markets, Kumar Gautam, 31, opted for a $50 monthly plan. “Bank interest rates were coming down 4, 5, 6 percent … people told me to opt for a monthly plan. I will have tax savings and get better returns,” he said.

Some, like Bharti Gupta, 33, have been bolder and chosen to trade directly in stocks. “I studied some books, there are courses also that I joined, and there is a WhatsApp group that I have joined, which has some 150 to 200 people, so that is also quite helpful.” She said she had been able to make her investment grow quite well.

And whereas most investors lived in big cities in the past, small-town residents are also investing in equities now.

Vidya Bala, head of research at FundsIndia.com, said one-third of the firm’s customers now are from outside the country’s 15 big cities.

According to Bala, even in very remote places where there are no financial firms or mutual fund offices, people are investing online. “People who are away from the happening cities can also have access to good, regulated products as long as they are digitally aware. This is really set to take off,” Bala said.

Reassurance

Economists say the greater participation of domestic investors is also reassuring for a country that has long worried about the predominant role of foreign money in equities, because that used to play a decisive role in the movement of stock markets.

Meanwhile, ordinary, first-time investors are simply keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that stock markets will continue to do well in the long run and that their investments will be safe.
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As many as 100 elephants are being killed every day for their tusks, according to the United Nations. The United States implemented a near-total ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory last year, and in New York this week, conservation groups gathered to destroy merchandise that came from the illegal ivory trade. Faith Lapidus narrates this report from VOA’s Kevin Enochs.
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The head of German automaker Volkswagen’s engineering and environment office pleaded guilty Friday in a U.S. court to charges connected to an emissions scandal involving the company.

Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges that could land him in prison for up to seven years. He will be forced to pay a fine of between $40,000 and $400,000 for his role in a scheme, dubbed Dieselgate, to mislead U.S. environmental regulators.

In March, the company admitted to using software to fool regulators into believing Volkswagen cars complied with U.S. emissions standards. It was ordered to pay $4.3 billion in penalties and another $17.5 billion in civil settlements.

The government said diesel cars that Volkswagen claimed were clean were, in fact, releasing 40 times more nitrogen oxide emissions than is allowed by law.

Schmidt is the second Volkswagen employee to plead guilty to charges related to the scandal. Last year, company engineer James Liang admitted to helping design the devices used to beat emissions tests. The FBI now cites him as a cooperating witness.

Most Volkswagen employees charged in the scheme are in Germany and can’t be prosecuted by U.S. authorities. The company still faces legal issues in countries across the globe and has put aside more than $24 billion to handle costs related to the scandal.
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