The decline of the world’s industrialized honeybees has been well documented. A combination of pesticides and parasites have led to whole bee colonies dying off, a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder. Now, it turns out the pesticides that are hurting the bees are also turning up in the world’s honey supply. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Ira Gerhart finally found a place last year to fulfill his yearslong dream of opening a brewery: a 1923 Presbyterian church. It was cheap, charming and just blocks from downtown Youngstown.

But soon after Gerhart announced his plans, residents and a minister at a Baptist church just a block away complained about alcohol being served in the former house of worship.

“I get it, you know, just the idea of putting a bar in God’s house,” Gerhart said. “If we didn’t choose to do this, most likely, it’d fall down or get torn down. I told them we’re not going to be a rowdy college bar.”

With stained glass, brick walls and large sanctuaries ideal for holding vats and lots of drinkers, churches renovated into breweries attract beer lovers but can grate on the spiritual sensibilities of clergy and worshippers.

At least 10 new breweries have opened in old churches across the country since 2011, and at least four more are slated to open in the next year. The trend started after the 2007 recession as churches merged or closed because of dwindling membership. Sex abuse settlements by the Roman Catholic Church starting in the mid-2000s were not a factor because those payments were largely covered by insurers, according to Terrence Donilon, spokesman for the archdiocese of Boston.

Gerhart’s is scheduled to open this month after winning over skeptics like the Baptist minister and obtaining a liquor license.

“We don’t want (churches) to become a liquor store,” said Michael Schafer, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which has imposed restrictions on turning closed churches into beer halls. “We don’t think that’s appropriate for a house of worship.”

At the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, an early church-turned-brewery that opened in 1996, patrons slide into booths crafted from pews. Towering steel and copper vats sit on the church’s former altar. Yellow flags line the sanctuary emblazoned with the brewery’s motto: “ON THE EIGHTH DAY. MAN CREATED BEER.”

Owner Sean Casey bought the former church because it was cheap and reminded him of beer halls he used to frequent in Munich. Aficionados cite its rustic decor as a major draw.

“It’s got that `wow’ factor,” said Jesse Anderson-Lehnan, 27. “But it still feels like a normal place, it doesn’t feel weird to come and sit at the bar and talk for a few hours.”

When St. John the Baptist Church was desanctified and sold to Casey, Roman Catholics in the diocese voiced their opposition, leading to the deed restrictions to stop other closed churches from becoming bars and clubs.

While the Diocese of Cincinnati also has imposed such restrictions, it’s unclear how much company it and Youngstown have. Limits also exist in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, while the Boston archdiocese says it solicits proposals from potential buyers and screens them to make sure they’re in line with Catholic values.

Churches are uniquely difficult to renovate, preservationists say. Large stained windows and cavernous sanctuaries are tough to partition into condominiums. Historic landmark protections can bar new owners from knocking down some churches, leading them to sit empty and decay.

But the same vaulted ceilings that keep housing developers away from churches also lend them an old-world air hard to replicate elsewhere, making former houses of worship particularly suitable as dignified beer halls.

There, even clergy members sometimes aren’t so opposed to quaffing a pint. Some are regulars at the Church Brew Works, Casey said, where they can order Pipe Organ pale ale or Pious Monk dark lager.

Cincinnati’s Taft’s Ale House kicked off its grand opening in the 167-year-old St. Paul’s Evangelical Protestant Church with a “blessing of the beers.” A television report at the time shows the Rev. John Kroeger, a Catholic priest, giving the blessing.

“God of all creation, you gift us with friends, and food and drink,” he said, eyes cast upward. “Bless these kegs, and every keg that will be brewed here. Bless all those freshened here, and all those gathered in the days, and months, and years to come!”
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Home to half the world’s Mountain gorilla and 50 percent of world bird species, conservation tourism marketing remains a challenge for Uganda.  In a first ever conservation Finance Giants Forum, Uganda also known as the Pearl of Africa, Friday, got an opportunity to market its beauty in a bid to lure more investors and tourists into the country.

Uganda held the first ever Conservation and Tourism Investment Forum Friday, gathering senior business figures from around the world.  

Emphasis was put on new marketing strategies, particularly the need for private sector investment to compliment traditional sources of conservation capital.

The government’s intention was to show investors that Uganda is open for responsible investment in the conservation sector and for conservation organizations to take note of the opportunity to co-manage protected areas with the government.  

Stephen Asiimwe is the Chief Executive Director Uganda Tourism Board.

“Because we’ve got forests, we’ve got Rift Valley, we’ve got the Mountains, we’ve got the national parks, we’ve got places near falls, we’ve got places near rivers, lakes,” said Asiimwe. “So basically, we are selling locations, which offer the customer at the end of the day a fantastic experience that gives them a sense of saying, I want to stay here.”

The investors made it clear what they needed from the government. Max Graham, founder of the elephant conservation group Space for Giants, one of the organizers of the conference, says Uganda has great conservation and tourism potential – but needs investment.

“It’s the opportunity for the first time really to have a very willing partner in government to create the right environment,” said Graham. “Political security, you know, security generally, great apes, and the opportunity to create a unique circuit and then finally a willing partner in government to help make the transaction simple. So, currently across most of Uganda’s protected areas, they are under-resourced. They don’t have the investment to maintain the roads. They don’t have the investment, and this is critical, to protect their wild life populations.”

Reassurance is what they got from President Yoweri Museveni.

“We have been able to establish a strong security system, a strong army which has been able to defeat terrorism,” he said. Then we had some strong anti-poaching measures, that’s how the elephant population came up. Then we have been able to work on some roads, like for instance Murchison Falls and now we have done one for Kibaale Forest Reserve. We are working on the roads to Karamoja, eventually to Kidepo, even towards Bwindi.”

In 2016 Uganda received one million three hundred tourists accounting for 1.3 billion dollars with hope of growing tourism figures to four million by 2020.

 

 
…

Two back-to-back hurricanes in the continental U.S. displaced more workers than first thought resulting in a net loss of 33 thousand jobs in September. But the job losses seem to have had little effect on the national unemployment rate, which fell to 4.2 percent the lowest since 2001. Mil Arcega has more.
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Venezuelans already struggling to find food, medicine and other basic necessities have a new shortage to worry about: cash.

 

Troubling shortfalls of Venezuelan bolivars are forcing many in this distressed South American nation to form long lines outside banks several times a week to withdraw what little cash is available. Others are resorting to bartering goods and services to skirt cash transactions.

 

“As if we didn’t have enough problems already,” said Roberto Granadillo, 37, a watchmaker. “Now we can’t even find bills.”

 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blames the cash crunch on mafias moving bills overseas in an attempt to derail the nation’s economy, though he’s presented only scant evidence to back the claim.

What is certain is that the country’s triple-digit inflation continues to skyrocket, meaning Venezuelans must find larger quantities of the scarce bills to purchase even relatively inexpensive items like bread or a cup of coffee — or turn to electronic transfers from their bank accounts.

 

The Venezuelan government released new, higher denomination bills in values of 500, 5,000 and 20,000 bolivars earlier this year after the currency meltdown left the country’s then-largest note worth around 2 U.S. cents on the black market.

 

But now even the freshly minted bills, printed in rainbow hues and imported in part from the United States, are quickly dwindling in value. In January, one U.S. dollar was worth 4,578 bolivars on Venezuela’s pervasive black market; by October a U.S. dollar got you 29,170 bolivars, according to DolarToday, a website critical of the government that tracks the black market rate.

 

Analysts project Venezuela’s inflation could surpass 1,000 percent this year and many Venezuelans worry recently announced sanctions by the Trump administration prohibiting U.S. banks from issuing new credit to the Venezuelan government or its state oil company will deepen the economic crisis. In September, Venezuelan authorities enacted stricter banking and business regulations in an attempt to stem the tide of bolivar bills. Officials are also considering printing bills in even higher values.

 

The cash shortage is already being felt in the daily lives of Venezuelans like Granadillo, who said his weekly income has slipped more than 50 percent as customers use the bills they are able to obtain to purchase food instead of comparative luxuries like a watch repair.

 

Instead of cash, he has recently begun accepting a new form a payment: A kilo (2.2 pounds) of ham, chicken or beef in exchange for a newly ticking watch.

 

“You have to find a way to eat,” Granadillo said.

At the start of 2017, a 20,000 bolivar bill — the equivalent of about $6 and the largest denomination of Venezuelan currency — could easily purchase five basic food products: rice, coffee, corn flour, sugar and pasta. Now Jose Guerra, president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly’s Finance Commission, estimates that a 20,000-bolivar note only has the purchasing power to obtain just one of those and half a standard-sized portion of another. He said the bolivar’s value has crashed 75 percent between January and August, and that banks are limiting the amount of cash they let customers withdraw because the Central Bank is not providing enough bills.

 

“You need a lot more bills,” Guerra said. “And they aren’t there.”

The escalating cash crunch comes on the heels of four months of political upheaval that left at least 120 people dead in near-daily protests decrying Maduro’s rule. In early August, a new, all-powerful constitutional assembly was installed following a vote boycotted by the opposition. One of the new assembly’s first acts was to declare itself superior to all other branches of government, making the nation’s already weakened legislature an essentially powerless institution.

 

Jose Gil, director of Venezuelan polling firm Datanalisis, said the cash shortfall carries a “very high price” for Maduro’s government but the opposition has not been able to capitalize on the discontent.

Venezuela’s Central Bank injected 849 million bills in varying denominations into the nation’s economy up until August, three times the amount released over the same time period in 2016 — yet still not enough to keep up with inflation. It’s not uncommon to see Venezuelans paying for goods with large wads of cash, and authorities have opened investigations into citizens caught hoarding substantial amounts, even if they add up to relatively small dollar values.

 

In one high-profile probe, prosecutors last month seized 200 million bolivars — the equivalent of about $8,000 at the black market rate — from activist Lilian Tintori, the wife of Leopoldo Lopez, the country’s most prominent political prisoner. The cash was found in steel-clad wooden boxes in the back of her car. Tintori claimed the investigation was part of a pattern of persecution against her family and that the cash was needed to pay for emergencies including the hospitalization of her 100-year-old grandmother.

Venezuelan Banking Superintendent Antonio Morales recently told Union Radio that bolivar notes leaving banking institutions are not being returned, as typically happens when cash shifts from customers to commercial businesses and back to banks. He said investigators have uncovered evidence that contraband networks are moving paper cash out of Venezuela and into Colombia. Officials recently detained 121 people allegedly involved in currency crimes, though no details on the charges were released.

 

Morales also blamed some local businesses for hoarding cash.

 

Meanwhile, Venezuelans like Maria Castillo, who works in the kitchen at a public hospital, are struggling to purchase food to sustain their families with the little cash they are able to obtain. The 70-year-old recently waited in an hour-long line at her bank to take out the maximum allowed: 10,000 bolivars — the equivalent of $3.

 

A day later, she was back in line at the bank.

 

“I could only buy a package of rice,” Castillo said. “Now I’m waiting in line again for the same amount.”
…

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce warned on Friday that the Trump administration was making “highly dangerous demands” in the North American Free Trade Agreement modernization talks that could erode U.S. business support and torpedo the negotiations.

John Murphy, the chamber’s senior vice president for international policy, said the largest U.S. business lobby was urging the administration to drop some of its more controversial NAFTA proposals, including raising rules of origin thresholds.

“We’re increasingly concerned about the state of play in negotiations,” Murphy told reporters.

​Fourth round of talks

U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators are preparing for a fourth round of talks to update the 23-year-old trade pact next week in a Washington suburb, Oct. 11-15.

U.S. companies large and small were worried about a proposal by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to add a five-year termination clause to NAFTA, Murphy said. 

He said there was also concern about Lighthizer’s proposal to reduce Canadian and Mexican companies’ access to U.S. public procurement contracts, and to include a U.S.-specific content requirement for autos and auto parts.

“We see these proposals as highly dangerous, and even one of them could be significant enough to move the business and agriculture community to oppose an agreement that included them,” Murphy said.

He also voiced similar concerns about U.S. proposals for revamping dispute settlement mechanisms and trade protections for seasonal U.S. produce.

Some U.S. lawmakers and congressional staff are also growing increasingly concerned that the talks can reach a successful conclusion. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, a pro-trade Republican, has invited Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to speak to the tax- and trade-focused panel Wednesday as negotiators return to the table, a committee spokeswoman said.

​Auto content

Inside U.S. Trade, a trade publication, stirred concerns among auto industry groups by quoting unnamed sources as saying that the Trump administration was also moving forward with a bid to increase North American content requirements for autos to 85 percent from the current 62.5 percent, with a new 50 percent U.S. content requirement.

U.S. Trade Representative spokeswoman Emily Davis declined to comment on the report, but said President Donald Trump had been clear about the need to shake up the agreement governing one of the world’s biggest trade blocs.

“NAFTA has been a disaster for many Americans, and achieving his objectives requires substantial change,” she said. “These changes of course will be opposed by entrenched Washington lobbyists and trade associations.”

Officials from auto industry trade groups said they had not seen a rules of origin proposal with such stringent targets.

“Forcing unrealistic rules of origin on businesses would leave the U.S. unable to compete by increasing the cost of manufacturing and raising prices for consumers,” said Cindy Sebrell, a spokeswoman for the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association, which represents auto parts manufacturers.

Karen Antebi, the trade counselor at Mexico’s embassy in Washington, told a forum on Friday that while there were rumors of a 50 U.S. percent content demand for autos, formal texts had not been proposed on rules of origin.

“Mexico has been firm and consistent that country specific rules of origin within the NAFTA would be unacceptable,” she said.
…

The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday that it is imposing more duties on Canada’s Bombardier C series aircraft, charging that the Canadian company is selling the planes in America below cost.

The 80 percent duty comes on top of duties of nearly 220 percent Commerce announced last month. The case is a victory for U.S. rival Boeing Co.

The U.S. says Montreal-based Bombardier used unfair government subsidies to sell jets at artificially low prices in the United States.

“The United States is committed to free, fair and reciprocal trade with Canada, but this is not our idea of a properly functioning trading relationship,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

Specifically, Boeing charges that Bombardier last year sold Delta Air Lines 75 CS100 aircraft for less than it cost to build them. But Delta has said Boeing did not even make the 100-seat jets it needed.

“These anti-dumping duties on Bombardier’s C Series aircraft unfairly target Canada’s highly innovative aerospace sector and its more than 200,000 workers, and put at risk the almost 23,000 U.S. jobs that depend on Bombardier and its suppliers,” said Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign affairs minister. “Boeing is manipulating the U.S. trade remedy system to prevent Bombardier’s new aircraft, the C Series, from entering the U.S. market.”

Bombardier can appeal any sanctions to a U.S. court or to a dispute-resolution panel created under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Canadian government can also take the case to the World Trade Organization in Geneva.
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Tropical Storm Nate is being blamed for more than 20 deaths across Central America even as it tracks toward a likely U.S. landfall this weekend as a hurricane.

“The system is forecast to strengthen over the Gulf of Mexico, and could affect portions of the northern Gulf Coast as a hurricane this weekend, with direct impacts from wind, storm surge, and heavy rainfall,” the National Hurricane Center said Thursday. “However, it is too early to specify the timing, location or magnitude of these impacts.”

Nate is expected to reach the northern Gulf Coast at hurricane strength this weekend before making landfall early Sunday somewhere between southeast Louisiana and the Florida Panhandle.

Residents in part of Louisiana’s coastal St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans, have been ordered to evacuate as the state prepares for Nate. The evacuation for areas outside of the parish levee system was set to begin Thursday evening.

A state of emergency was declared for 29 Florida counties and the city of New Orleans.

Even as the threat of Nate draws near, several parts of the country are still struggling to recover from previous storms.

​Hurricane Maria

A group of Puerto Ricans who recently arrived in Florida met Thursday with Vice President Mike Pence as he prepared to go to Puerto Rico to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Maria.

Everlinda Burgos, who flew into Orlando from her home in Naranjito, told Pence, “Don’t go to San Juan. Go inside the country like where I live.’’ Burgos told Pence that President Donald Trump went to “another part’’ earlier this week. But she says the vice president should “go to the center’’ Friday “because that’s where the disaster is.’’

Some two weeks after the catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory is still reeling from its devastating effects. 

Governor Ricardo Rossello Nevares said just 8.6 percent of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority clients have had their power restored; 365 of 1,619 telecommunication towers have been repaired, but landlines are functioning at 100 percent.

The government’s hope is to have the power back on for a quarter of the island within a month’s time, and for the entire territory of 3.4 million people by March.

While 63.3 percent of the San Juan metropolitan region has safe drinking water, just 14 percent in the northern part of the island and 30 percent in the west region has such access.

As part of his daily news briefing on recovery efforts, the governor reported that 76 percent of island gas stations are open and 70 percent of the supermarkets are reported open.

​Hurricane Irma

The Florida Keys, devastated by Hurricane Irma last month, have reopened just in time for prime tourist season. The keys, which stretch about 200 kilometers off Florida’s southern tip, were closed after Irma made landfall Sept. 10 as a Category 4 hurricane.

Tourism-related jobs account for about 50 percent of the workforce in the area.

Meanwhile, the last shelter used for Hurricane Irma evacuees closed in Miami-Dade County Wednesday.

As Irma approached Florida, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez issued evacuation orders covering 600,000 residents. The county opened 43 shelters capable of housing about 100,000 people. Some 32,000 people ended up taking shelter in county facilities.

​Hurricane Harvey

Texas lawmakers, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, urged Congress to approve $18.7 billion more in funding for relief and recovery efforts from Hurricane Harvey. The request came a day after the Trump administration sent Congress a proposal for $29 billion in disaster aid to Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

While some Federal Emergency Management Agency money has reached Texas, the substantial funds needed for extensive home repairs or rebuilds, could take up to 32 months to work their way through several layers of government agencies.

The Houston Chronicle reports the bulk of the requested funds, $10 billion, would go to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for repairs and upgrades to dams, waterways and ports. Another $7 billion would be allocated for Community Development Block Grant disaster recovery funds, doubling the amount that was allocated in September.

Another $800 million would go to state educational agencies for repairs to schools and colleges, and rest of the funding would be applied toward small businesses, economic aid and transportation infrastructure.

More than 185,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by the Category 4 hurricane.
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A new party led by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said on Friday it hopes to pursue policies to revive the economy that do not rely excessively on fiscal and monetary stimulus steps in a party platform unveiled ahead of a national election on Oct. 22.

Koike’s Party of Hope said it would seek to boost Japan’s potential growth through deregulation in a package of measures dubbed “Yurikonomics.”

Taxing companies’ huge cash-pile and using the proceeds to create jobs would be among its proposed steps, along with increasing capital expenditure and revitalizing Japan’s stock market, according to the platform.

The party, which is challenging Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling coalition, also vowed to end nuclear power by 2030 amid public safety worries after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Abe announced the snap election last week in the hope his Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition would keep its majority in parliament’s lower house, where it held a two-thirds “super majority” before the chamber was dissolved.

However, Koike’s new party — launched last week as a “reformist, conservative” alternative to Abe’s equally conservative LDP — has clouded the outlook amid signs voters are disillusioned with Abe after nearly five years in power.
…

Experts met in Stockholm this week to assess progress on securing land rights for indigenous people and local communities and how businesses connect to them.

More than half of land rights conflicts in the developing world are not resolved, pitting companies, governments and businesses against indigenous communities, according to research published at the conference.

Here are the views of 10 experts interviewed by Reuters during the two-day conference on the role of local communities, technology and business in ensuring secure land rights.

Boubacar Diarra, Pilot Coordinator, Helvetas

“Tenure rights, in a country like Mali that has just experienced a crisis, are very important for … development because more than 60 percent of the population is rural and lives from the land and … more than 50 percent of them are women. So the issue of land rights, especially women’s land rights, is very important.

The issue of land rights is also strongly linked to the question of climate change. The more people have rights over their lands, the better they protect them, the better they manage them to fight against climate change.”

Candido Mezua Salazar, Executive Board Member, Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests

“For indigenous people, having secure land rights means securing their lives now and for future generations. It is also very important for protecting our climate, it contributes to maintaining forests and in general it contributes to the development of indigenous people. … If there is no legal recognition, our forests are more likely to disappear.

Unfortunately, the reality is still that the dollars that are invested in indigenous lands still count more than the well-being of our communities.”

Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation

“We have two existential threats to the planet. The first is climate change, and the second is inequality. By working on land rights, secure tenure for indigenous people and local communities, we can achieve first a reduction of inequality in the world by providing these people with the assets and resources that improve their economic well-being.

At the same time, as the research shows that by giving land to indigenous people, they protect their forest and reduce deforestation, which in turn contributes to a better climate.”

Carin Jamtin, Director-General, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

“Land rights matter in different ways, in the fight against climate change, but also … in eradicating poverty and in reaching the [United Nations’] Sustainable Development Goals. It matters because knowing who has the right to use a forest, the land, et cetera in different ways … gives indigenous people and local communities possibilities to support themselves, to build their own capacity … their own present but also their own future.

Therefore, land rights are important to make a clear distinction of who has the responsibility of actually combating and stopping climate change and the possibility of eradicating poverty.”

Mikhail Tarasov, Global Forestry Manager, Ikea

“Land rights are a very important issue. It’s really critical to secure that businesses are responsible. … Securing land rights is critical for addressing the biggest challenges we are facing today. It’s deforestation, it’s climate change, it’s gender equality, it’s rights of people.

But it’s also about the livelihoods and the rights of those people living in rural areas who own the resources.”

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples Rights

“Land rights are very crucial for the continuing survival, dignity and well-being of indigenous peoples. If their lands are taken away from them, it really means their identities, their cultures are also going to be destroyed.

So it’s not a simple matter of land as an asset or a means of production. It’s really land that is the source of life, of identity, culture. Not recognizing those land rights basically means ethnocide. In some cases, it’s genocide and will lead to the disappearance of the people.”

Adam Klaptocz, Co-Founder, We Robotics

“Technology is always a tool that can be used to scale the work of organizations working on land rights issues. Drones can capture aerial data in a much faster, more efficient and higher quality way to provide a basis for land rights organizations to show the current state of land.

In a very accurate way, [drones can] demarcate people’s own property and lands of communities and provide a specific proof of what the current state of land looks like that can then be used to provide people with rights to the land on which they live.”

Kate Mathias, Group Development Consultant, Illovo Sugar

“As an agribusiness, land and people are very much at the foundations of our business. … We can’t operate in an unhealthy environment. We need to investigate land rights on our own estates and in our supply chain and need to identify and understand the challenges to find sustainable solutions.

We’re also looking at assisting farmers to address their own land rights challenges to improve the transparency and sustainability of our supply chain and enable them to take better control of their livelihoods, make better choices on how they use their land and feel more secure in how they engage with us or with anybody else they choose to engage with.”

Nonette Roca, Executive Director, Global Tenure Facility

“Humans are the stewards of the earth, of the land and the natural resources. To be able to be good stewards, we have to recognize [indigenous people’s] land rights. This is the purpose of our work: We assist them and help them in the process of recognizing these rights, so they can do the work they do so well. Stewardship is part and parcel of their lifestyle. … It is their contribution to the earth. Ours is the recognition and assistance to help them in the recognition of [their] land rights.”

Jean De Dieu Wasso Milange, Coordinator, Africapacity, Democratic Republic of Congo

“Forests are vital for communities. It’s where they live, where they find their food, their culture, their education and it is in these forests that they find everything that is indispensable for their lives. If we chase them from their traditional forests, they become beggars, they become people without roots and they lose their culture and their way of life. And so they are condemned to die.”
…

Students who attended for-profit colleges were twice as likely or more to default on their loans than students who attended public schools, according to a federal study published Thursday.

The report by the National Center of Education Statistics looks at students who began their undergraduate education in 2003 and defaulted on at least one loan over the next 12 years. Fifty-two percent of the students who attended for-profit schools defaulted on their loan. That’s compared to 17 percent for those who attended a four-year public institution and 26 percent at community college.

The report also finds that the for-profit students defaulted on their federal student loans in greater numbers than their predecessors eight years before.

The report comes as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rewrites rules that had been put in place by the Obama administration to protect students who said they were defrauded by their for-profit colleges.

The study also found that this group of students is defaulting on their federal student loans in greater numbers than their predecessors eight years before.

Default rate

Of the students who started college in 2003, 27 percent had defaulted on at least one loan after 12 years, the study found. For those who started their undergraduate education in 1995, the default rate was 18 percent. The rate of full repayment was 20 percent in the younger group, compared to 24 in the older group.

Robert Kelchen, a professor of education at Seton Hall University, suggested that the higher rate among the 2003 freshmen might be due to them entering the labor market at the height of the Great Recession.

Default rates were higher for those students who never completed their education, the study said.

“Degree completion is a key component of a student’s ability to repay their loan,” said Joshua Goodman, a professor of public policy at Harvard University. “Simply attending college without completion doesn’t really pay off.”

Among borrowers in the 2003 group, the median amount owed after 12 years was $3,700 for those who earned undergraduate certificates, $11,700 for students getting associate’s degrees and $13,800 for bachelor’s degrees or higher.
…

At 52 years old, with two grown children, Newton Gunathileka thought he should be working less by this point. Instead he has never worked so hard — and earned so little.

Gunathileka, from the Sri Lankan village of Periyakulam, in the North Western Puttalam District, is among hundreds of thousands of rural Sri Lankans who have borne the brunt of the worst drought in four decades.

He has not seen any substantial rains on his farm in at least a year and has lost two harvests, resulting in a loss of more than 200,000 Sri Lankan rupees ($1,325) — and growing debts. He has now abandoned his two acres of rice paddy land and spends his time looking, mainly unsuccessfully, for other work in 40 degree Celsius heat.

“There is no work. Everyone, big or small, has lost out to the drought,” he said.

According to data released in September by the United Nations, there are hundreds of thousands of households like Gunathileka’s facing serious food security issues in Sri Lanka.

With rice production for 2017 expected to be the lowest in a decade, “over 300,000 households (around 1.2 million people) are estimated to be food insecure, with many households limiting their food intake and in some cases eating just one meal a day,” the United Nations update said.

The worst affected areas are the North Western, North Central, Northern and South Eastern Provinces that rely heavily on agriculture. The U.N. Office in Colombo said that affected households were in some cases limiting their food intake, which was hampering people’s day-to-day lives.

Eating their seed

Gunathileka, who hails from the North Western Province, said his family was now eating some of the rice that he had put away to use as seed for the next growing season.

“For the next month or two we are okay with rice, but we have been limiting eating meat, eggs and vegetables we buy from outside. The other big problem I have is my children’s higher education. If we can’t get a harvest at least by the end of the year both of them will have to work,” he said.

His daughter is taking a course in secretarial work while the son is getting ready to sit university entrance exams. The family now survives on about Rs 800 ($5) or less a day, and both Gunathileka and his wife earn cash doing whatever work they can find.

The U.N report also said that household debt was rising due to the drought. A World Food Program survey released in August said that debts of surveyed families had risen by 50 percent in the last year.

“Households reported that the amount of money owed in formal loans has not increased, indicating that families are turning to informal lenders for credit,” the WFP survey said.

Gunathileka said that he was thinking of using the deeds to his paddy rice land as collateral and seeking a small loan from local money lenders.

“The banks will not lend because I can’t show any income. [But] if I don’t get to pay back the money lenders, I lose my land,” he said.

Rain and aid

Government officials said they anticipated the island had weathered the worst of the drought, and rains expected in late October would bring more relief.

Recent rains have dropped the overall number of people affected by drought from 2.2 million a month ago to 1.7 million now, said G.L. Senadeera, director general of the government Disaster Management Center.

He said the government planned to distribute relief food packs worth Rs 5000 ($34) to about 200,000 drought-hit families and provide compensation up to Rs 8500 ($56) per acre for harvest losses this year.

The government’s drought relief efforts, which began in August and were accelerated in September, officials say, are expected to cost about Rs 2.5 billion (about $16 million), according to the Treasury department.

The World Food Programme said in its August report that of 81,000 families surveyed in the 10 worst-hit districts, only 22 percent had access to government relief by early August.

For now, Gunathileka and his wife look up to the sky each time they step out looking for work.

“All we see are clear skies. All we want to see are dark clouds over the horizon,” he said.
…

Greece welcomed Wednesday a decision by senior archaeologists to conditionally permit a major tourism project in Athens, saying it cleared the way for the country to turn the site into one of Europe’s biggest coastal resorts.

The 8-billion-euro ($9.4 billion) project to develop the disused Hellenikon airport site is a key term of Greece’s international bailout and is closely watched by its official creditors and potential investors in the crisis-hit country.

Greek developer Lamda signed a 99-year lease with the state in 2014 for the 620-hectare (1,530-acre) area, once the site of Athen’s airport. But the project has faced delays, partly over a long-running disagreement between developers and those who fear it will damage the environment and cultural heritage.

Protection urged for part of site

After three inconclusive meetings in recent weeks, the Central Archaeological Council, an advisory body, recommended Tuesday that about 30 hectares (74 acres) of the 620-hectare plot under the project be declared an archaeological site.

“The decision is fine,” Deputy Economy Minister in charge of investments, Stergios Pitsiorlas, told Reuters. “The fact that a small area is declared of archaeological interest shields the whole process from future litigation.”

Pitsiorlas said the recommendation meant that archaeologists will have a closer supervision of construction work.

Backed by Chinese and Gulf funds, Lamda submitted its detailed development plan for Hellenikon in July, setting off a licensing process that will wrap up with a decree.

The Council approved the plan Tuesday and designated specific areas where construction should not be allowed. It was not immediately clear how the Council’s recommendation could affect Lamda’s construction plan.

​Impact on development

Lamda said it was waiting to be officially notified over the decision before making any public statement, saying “the importance of the archaeological findings has been included from the beginning in the company’s undertakings.”

It said it should be able to assess the impact of the Council’s decision on its development plan once it has reviewed the resolutions and accompanying diagrams.

The recommendation is not binding, however, the culture ministry always respects the body’s decisions.

Greece on Monday overcame another hurdle to the project by winning an appeal over objections by forestry officials.

Hellenikon has become a major political issue in Greece, which is slowly emerging from a multi-year debt crisis.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose leftist party strongly opposed it before coming to power in 2015, is now seen as keen to implement the deal to help boost economic activity and reduce unemployment, the euro zone’s highest.

Referring to the council’s decision, Deputy Foreign Minister Giannis Amanatidis said it was “a complicated process which was resolved in the best possible way.”
…

South Korea indicated Wednesday it was open to talks on revising a 2012 trade pact with the United States after initial differences that followed President Donald Trump’s threat to terminate the accord unless it was renegotiated.

After a day of talks in Washington, South Korea’s trade ministry said in a statement, “The two sides recognized the need to amend the FTA to enhance mutual benefits of the KORUS FTA,” as the pact is called.

The U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, said the United States looked forward to stepped-up talks “to resolve outstanding implementation issues as well as to engage soon on amendments that will lead to fair, reciprocal trade.”

The statements mark a shift from an initial meeting in August, when the two sides failed to agree on next steps after Lighthizer had made demands to amend the agreement to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea.

Since the trade agreement went into effect in 2012, the U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea more than doubled to $27.6 billion last year. But through July 2017, the bilateral trade deficit fell to $13.1 billion from $18.8 billion during the same period of 2016, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

No date was given for a third round of talks between the two countries, which comes as Lighthizer is also focused on revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada.
…

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday that the Fed is committed to making sure that the regulations it imposes on the nation’s community banks are not overly burdensome, noting a proposed rule issued last week to simplify requirements governing how much capital these banks must hold.

 

In remarks to a community banking conference in St. Louis, Yellen said the proposed new rule on capital requirements was the latest effort by regulators to ease burdens on smaller banks. She says the Fed is seeking to increase the number of community banks eligible for less frequent examinations and loosen requirements for property appraisals on commercial real estate transactions.

 

Yellen has defended the tougher regulations imposed following the 2008 banking crisis but has said there is room to ease regulatory burdens on smaller banks.

 

“For community banks, which by and large avoided the risky business practices that contributed to the financial crisis, we have been focused on making sure that much-needed improvements to regulation and supervision are appropriate,” Yellen told the conference.

 

During last year’s election campaign, Donald Trump attacked the Dodd-Frank Act passed by Congress in 2010 to prevent future crises as a disaster that he said had stifled the economy by limiting bank lending. Yellen, however, has said that the major parts of Dodd-Frank have made the financial system safer and should be retained.
…

U.S. business groups expressed frustration on Wednesday with what they said are China’s efforts to tilt the economic playing field in favor of domestic companies, adding that World Trade Organization rules are insufficient to police all of Beijing’s trade practices.

U.S. companies face increasing threats from Chinese investment rules, industrial policies, subsidies to state-owned enterprises, excess manufacturing capacity, cybersecurity regulations and forced technology transfers, the groups told a public hearing held by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

The session will influence an annual report on China’s WTO compliance by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office as well as a USTR investigation into China’s intellectual property practices that could lead to imposition of trade sanctions by President Donald Trump.

China has woven a ‘tapestry’

Josh Kallmer, senior vice president of global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council, said China had woven a “tapestry” of rules and policies that places foreign companies at a disadvantage and incentivizes the transfer of technology.

“It just in general puts a thumb on the competitive scale in a way that significantly and profoundly affects U.S.-based and foreign companies,” said Kallmer, who was representing a coalition of technology groups from semiconductors to software.

The concerns are not new. They were highlighted in the USTR’s last report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance issued on Jan, 1, 2017, and raised in subsequent meetings by Trump administration officials.

USTR Assistant Secretary Edward Gresser told the hearing that there was a growing recognition that WTO rules did not cover all of China’s practices viewed as unfair. The United States and other WTO members needed “to find effective ways to address those Chinese government practices that may violate the spirit of the WTO that nevertheless may not fall squarely within the WTO disciplines,” he said.

For investors, China less attractive

Jeremie Waterman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for Greater China, said China’s restrictive investment regime and other industrial policies requiring technology transfers in recent years have made China a less attractive place to invest for foreign firms, and not all of these policies can be changed with full WTO compliance.

This has been made worse by China’s “Made in China 2025” plan, which aims to supplant foreign products and technologies with domestic ones and new cybersecurity regulations that put foreign information technology products at a disadvantage, Waterman said.

“The ballast has become less stable in recent years” in the U.S.-China economic relationship, he added.
…

Dozens of tourists pack beach chairs at a Tunisian luxury hotel, where everything from the swimming pool to the wall paint, the furniture at the shiny reception hall, the police post at its gate and even its name is new.

Nothing reminds holiday-makers of the day in June 2015 when an Islamic State militant shot dead 39 foreigners in this beach resort, triggering an exodus of tourists from the country and severely damaging its economy.

Now some of those tourists are coming back, thanks to a massive security presence and advertising abroad. Tourism revenues rose 21 percent to $851 million in the first nine months of 2017 compared with last year, central bank data show.

The rise is helping the government weather an economic crisis as it prepares an austere budget and tax increases. The reforms were agreed to with the International Monetary Fund in return for a new $350 million loan.

Hotels fill up

Westerners are still reluctant to come back, even though most countries have lifted travel warnings. But hotels have managed to fill rooms, mostly with Algerians and Russians — the latter avoiding Egypt since Islamic State downed a Russian plane in 2015.

“It’s great here. Security is better than in Egypt,” said Galina Rasputov, a vacationer from Moscow. “I’ll come back.”

Rasputov was taking a break from the beach at the bar of the hotel where a Tunisian gunman trained in Libya opened fire with a Kalashnikov in 2015. The hotel was called Imperial Marhaba then; it reopened this summer after undergoing a facelift and changing its name to the Steigenberger Kantaoui Bay.

“We are fully booked,” said Zohra Driss, who owns this and other hotels in Sousse, a tourist beach town 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of the capital, Tunis. “Many are Russians but we also have Algerians, Germans.”

Attacks in 2015

Tourism accounts for about 8 percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product, provides thousands of jobs and is a key source of foreign currency, but it has struggled since two major attacks in 2015.

The first, at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, left 21 tourists dead. The Sousse attack killed 39, mostly British vacationers.

And risks remain. Jihadists are returning from Syria, Iraq and Libya after Islamic State lost most of its territory there.

But the number of foreign tourists rose by 23.4 percent to reach 5.366 million up to September, compared with the same period last year. Officials hope 6.5 million will come in all of 2017, which would be a return to the normal level.

The number of European visitors, however, rose by just 16.5 percent. Major tour operators like Thomas Cook have resumed bookings in select hotels, but the European tourists remain far below their pre-2015 levels.

That has left the industry relying on Algerians, whose numbers rose by 44 percent to 1.8 million up to September.

Almost half a million Russians also came.

“We seek to attract more tourists next year from new destinations like China and Canada while we will still focus on our traditional markets like U.K. and Germany,” said Neji Ben Othman, director general of the tourism ministry.

More security

Tunisia has increased security in Sousse and other tourist spots. Checkpoints were erected on the main roads and at hotels, ancient sites and airports. After police were criticized for a slow response to stop the hotel gunmen, security forces have cracked down on militants, dismantling dozens of cells.

With hotels resembling fortresses, many tourists book “all inclusive” tours that benefit chains and tour operators. But they stay indoors, leaving souvenir traders and cafes idle in the old city. Russians and Algerians, who come by car, also tend to spend less than Germans or Brits, the former clientele.

“Most come only to watch, like in a museum,” said Lutfi Laoun, a vendor who sells traditional pottery. “I haven’t had a single customer today.”
…

Ford Motor Co.’s new CEO plans to cut $14 billion in costs, drop some car models and focus the company’s resources on trucks, SUVs and electric vehicles as part of a renewed effort to win over skeptical investors.

Jim Hackett, who became Ford’s CEO in May, met with around 100 investors Tuesday in New York to lay out his plans for the future. He said getting the company lean and flexible will help it handle the changes the auto industry is facing, from car-sharing to self-driving vehicles, to the shift to electric cars.

“I feel a real sense of urgency for what we’re doing here,” Hackett said.

Hackett and his executive team spent the summer reevaluating Ford’s operations after former CEO Mark Fields was ousted in May. Hackett traveled to Russia and Turkey and visited North American plants and Ford’s Silicon Valley research center as part of his review.

He said he was impressed by the talent at Ford, but wants to update factories and speed product development and decision-making. One of his first moves was to pare down the number of people reporting to him. Hackett has eight direct reports, compared to 18 for Fields.

Ford told investors it expects to reduce material costs by $10 billion by 2022 through new deals with suppliers and simpler designs. The company plans to share more parts between vehicles and reduce the options available for configuring a car. For example, customers can now order a Ford Fusion sedan in 35,000 possible combinations. Ford is reducing that to 96.

Ford also says it will cut $4 billion in engineering costs through 2022 by making fewer prototypes and reducing product-development time.

It plans to cut one-third of its engine development costs and redeploy them to electric and hybrid vehicles. Ford plans to introduce 13 new electrics and hybrids over the next five years, including a small electric SUV coming in 2020.

The company plans to reallocate $7 billion from cars to SUVs and trucks. Global demand for those vehicles is rising, and they are critical to Ford’s bottom line. Jim Farley, head of Ford’s global markets, said Ford plans more off-road SUVs like the upcoming Bronco for North America and more low-end small SUVs and seven-passenger SUVs for China.

The automaker plans to cut some cars from its lineup, but didn’t name them Tuesday. Farley said Ford will still offer small cars, like the Focus, but will stick to more expensive — and more profitable — versions.

Smarter vehicles

Ford emphasized that it’s open to new partnerships, such as its recent agreement with Indian automaker Mahindra Group to cooperate on mobility, electric cars and other projects. It is also working with ride-hailing company Lyft on self-driving technology and with China’s Zotye Automobile Co. about an electric car partnership.

The company says its vehicles will get smarter, with 90 percent of its global vehicles getting modem connectivity by 2020. That will allow things like software updates or apps that help drivers find parking. Ford can differentiate itself by offering, say, connected commercial vans that help small businesses keep track of their deliveries.

Marcy Klevorn, Ford’s head of mobility, said Ford launched a medical van service eight weeks ago that can pick up wheelchair-bound patients and take them to the doctor. The service uses Ford-developed software for scheduling appointments, and it will help the company figure out ways that consumers will eventually use self-driving vehicles.

“We have created a box of assets that we can pull out and use for various things,” Klevorn said.

Share price

Ford stuck to its previous guidance for 2017 on Tuesday. The company expects adjusted earnings of $1.65 to $1.85 for the full year. Ford earned $1.76 per share 2016.

Hackett, the former CEO of office furniture company Steelcase Inc., joined Ford’s board in 2013. He briefly led Ford’s mobility unit before being tapped as CEO.

Ford hired Hackett, in part, to turn around its share price, which has languished for the last two years even as rival General Motors Co. saw its shares rise to their highest level in seven years. Ford sunk below Tesla Inc. in market value earlier this year, even though it earned $4.6 billion in 2016 and Tesla has never made a full-year profit.

Ford’s shares rose 2 percent to close at $12.34 Tuesday before Hackett’s presentation. It’s not yet clear if his pitch will improve investors’ confidence.

“Straddling the now and the future will be tricky, especially in terms of profitability,” said Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst for the car-buying site Autotrader.com.

Investors have been critical of Ford for waiting too long to bring a long-range electric vehicle to market, as GM did with the Chevrolet Bolt. They also struggled to understand Ford’s plans to compete on autonomous cars.

“In the past few years, Ford simply hasn’t had a compelling narrative that investors could latch onto,” Barclay’s analyst Brian Johnson wrote in a recent note to investors.
…

North Korea’s U.N. ambassador accused the United States on Tuesday of imposing “an economic blockade” on his country and deploying nuclear assets on the Korean Peninsula aimed at toppling leader Kim Jong Un.

Ja Song Nam said the U.S. push for countries to implement what he called “illegal and unjustifiable” U.N. sanctions on North Korea is part of America’s “frantic attempt to completely block our peaceful economy for people’s everyday lives and humanitarian cooperation.”

“The U.S. is clinging to unprecedented nuclear threats and blackmail, economic sanctions and blockade to deny our rights to existence and development, but they only result in our sharper vigilance and greater courage,” he told the General Assembly committee that deals with economic and financial issues.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed its toughest sanctions ever on North Korea in response to its continuing nuclear weapons and ballistic missile tests, with the aim of pressuring Kim’s government into returning to negotiations on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

The measures include a ban on countries importing North Korean coal, iron ore and textiles and new limits on its crucial oil and petroleum product imports. But the economic pressure has had no visible impact on Kim’s government, which appears to be accelerating toward what it says is its goal: putting the entire United States within range of its nuclear weapons.

A week ago, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters that U.S. President Donald Trump had “declared the war on our country” by tweeting that North Korea’s leadership “won’t be around much longer.” Hours later, the White House pushed back, saying: “We have not declared war on North Korea.”

No regime change

The Trump administration, referring to the tweet, stressed that the U.S. was not seeking to overthrow North Korea’s government. U.S. Cabinet officials, particularly Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have insisted that the U.S.-led campaign of diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea is focused on eliminating its nuclear weapons program, not its totalitarian government.

North Korea’s ambassador told the assembly committee that “our people will continue to uphold the line of simultaneous development of the state nuclear force and the economy.”

Ja said the country is committed to implementing U.N. goals to end poverty and preserve the environment by 2030 and said Trump’s announced intention to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate change agreement “illustrates the negative stand of the U.S. towards the sustainable development goals.”

To achieve these goals, Ja said, “we should immediately obliterate the high-handed measures of the U.S., including the sanctions imposed on the developing countries.”

And clearly aiming at the United States and other economic powers, he said the “monopolistic position” of countries that control the monetary and trade system should be destroyed at the same time.
…

The recovery of eastern Caribbean islands hardest hit by recent hurricanes, including Dominica, Barbuda, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla, could cost up to $1 billion, a senior U.N. official said Tuesday.

“It’s going to be a large-scale rebuilding effort that will take time,” said Stephen O’Malley, the U.N. resident coordinator for Barbados and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, “and it will be important to do that right.”

 

He told U.N. correspondents in a phone briefing from Dominica that “we don’t have exact figures yet,” but for the worst-affected islands the recovery bill will be “half a billion to a billion dollars.”

O’Malley said the United Nations, World Bank and Antigua government have conducted a post-disaster needs assessment for Barbuda, whose 1,800 residents were evacuated to Antigua before Hurricane Irma damaged 95 percent of its structures on Sept. 14. And he said a similar assessment will be done in Dominca, which was ravaged on Sept. 18 by Hurricane Maria, a Category 5 storm, probably in about three weeks.

“They want to build back better and they take that very, very seriously — to make sure that that can be done,” O’Malley said.

Making plans for future

Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said he wants to have the world’s first “climate-resilient nation.”

 

He made an impassioned case for the world to do more to help vulnerable countries cope with the effects of global warming and urged the U.N. General Assembly 10 days ago to “let these extraordinary events elicit extraordinary efforts to rebuild nations sustainably.”

O’Malley said the effects of climate change are evident in the Caribbean, where the sea is heating up.

“The fact that the Caribbean Sea heats up, it intensifies the strengths of hurricanes; it doesn’t necessarily make them more frequent but it intensifies” the storm, he said.

O’Malley said the challenge for the islands in rebuilding is: “How do you protect yourself against that? How do you ensure that you have a resilient state and a resilient economy if you know that the risk factors are going to be elevating in this next period of time?”

Immediate disaster relief critical

As for immediate disaster relief following Hurricanes Irma and Maria, he said, regional efforts and military assistance from outside the region have been critical.

He singled out the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency which sent a ship from Barbados to Dominica with initial aid workers the day after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

When he landed at the airport in Dominica on Tuesday, he said there were policemen from St. Kitts, soldiers from Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago securing the airport and other sites.

“That has helped the government set itself back up — that regional solidarity,” O’Malley said.

Some ‘green’ returning to Dominica

He said Dominica has also benefited from timely military support, especially helicopters and water desalination plants on naval vessels that produced water that could be taken inland and distributed.

 

He singled out military help to Dominica from Venezuela, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France and the Netherlands.

Compared with the situation a week ago, O’Malley said he could already see some green returning to the almost totally brown island, streets were clear, roads were opening up, power and water supplies were being restored and the port was open. Now, he said, power and water need to be restored to everyone on Dominica and the economy needs to start operating quickly.

 
…

House Republicans and Democrats on Tuesday grilled Equifax’s former chief executive over the massive data hack of the personal information of 145 million Americans, calling the company’s response inadequate as consumers struggle to deal with the breach. 

Former Equifax CEO Richard Smith apologized for the compromise of such information as names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers. Smith was the lone witness at the first of several Capitol Hill hearings this week. No current Equifax official testified.

“The criminal hack happened on my watch, and as CEO, I am ultimately responsible, and I take full responsibility,” Smith said. “I am here today to say to each and every person affected by this breach, I am truly and deeply sorry for what happened.”

Democrats favor legislation that they say would establish strong data security standards and prompt notification and relief for consumers when their information is hacked. But Republicans tamped down expectations for any congressional action as this year the GOP-led Congress has rolled back several Obama-era rules affecting businesses and the financial sector.

“Equifax deserves to be shamed in this hearing, but we should also ask what Congress has done, or failed to do, to stop data breaches from occurring,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, the chairman of the subcommittee examining the breach, said there are already laws on the books that require companies to secure sensitive consumer data. He said that hearings before four House and Senate panels this week should run their course before lawmakers make a decision about what to do next.

“The big thing we heard today is it was a very human error on their part,” Latta said.

Timeline of breach

Smith offered a timeline of what went wrong, saying the Department of Homeland Security warned the company on March 8 about the need to patch a particular vulnerability in software used by Equifax and other businesses. The company disseminated that warning by email the next day and requested that applicable personnel install the upgrade. The company’s policy requires the upgrade to occur within 48 hours, but that did not occur. The company’s information security department also ran scans on March 15 that did not pick up the vulnerability.

In late July, data security officials noticed suspicious activity on a website, which Smith said “happens routinely around our business.” He said an internal investigation ensued and he was alerted the next day, but he had no knowledge at that time that consumers’ personal information had been accessed.

Lawmakers pressed Smith about company executives selling stock in the company after the suspicious activity had been detected. On August 1 and 2, Equifax Chief Financial Officer John Gamble and two other executives, Rodolfo Ploder and Joseph Loughran, sold a combined $1.8 million in stock.

Smith described the executives as “honorable men, men of integrity.” He said at that point in time the company was unaware that consumer data had been accessed.

Schakowsky said “for a lot of Americans, that just doesn’t pass the smell test.”

Smith said the full extent of what occurred emerged during a meeting he had with cybersecurity experts and outside counsel on August 17. The board was alerted the following week and the public on September 7, after the company had made plans for how it would try to help consumers respond.

‘Damage control’

The timeline laid out by Smith didn’t satisfy many lawmakers, who accused the company of being too slow.

“I worry that your job today is about damage control. You put a happy face on your firm’s disgraceful actions, and then depart with a golden parachute,” said Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. “Unfortunately, if fraudsters destroy my constituent’s savings and financial futures, there’s no golden parachute awaiting them.”

Lawmakers said that at one point Equifax tweeted the wrong link for consumers to check to learn if they were part of the breach.

“Talk about ham-handed responses, this is simply unacceptable,” said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

Smith said he was disappointed in the rollout of call centers and a website designed to help the people affected by the breach. He said the company has increased its number of customer service representatives and the website has been improved. He said more than 400 million consumers contacted the company in the weeks following the announcement of the breach. He said the company wasn’t prepared for that kind of volume.

Lawmakers said they’re getting scores of calls from constituents concerned that their information was stolen and the potential ramifications in the years ahead. Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pa., said hundreds of constituents have contacted his office about the company’s response.

“The slow rollout and how poorly it was done. To me, it was just inexcusable,” Costello said.
…

Indigenous people under threat from companies seeking to develop their land for agriculture, mining and energy projects will be supported with money and practical help through a major global partnership backed by philanthropic and government funding.

The International Land and Forest Tenure Facility is the first initiative to provide grants to advance the rights of indigenous people to help them protect their forest land and resources.

“Creating mechanisms that allow indigenous peoples and local communities to gain tenure over their land or forests is a key way to tackle climate change and inequality,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, a major backer.

Norway pledges $20 million

The facility won a $20 million pledge from Norway on Tuesday when it was launched at a land rights conference in Stockholm.

Indigenous people and rural communities have customary claims to two thirds of the world’s land but are legally recognized as holding only 10 percent, according to the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a global network.

This has contributed to an increase in conflicts over land in countries rich in tropical forests and natural resources as agribusinesses, mining and energy companies lay claim to indigenous land and forests.

Forests help slow global warming

Forests absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide and when they are degraded or destroyed, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere. Deforestation accounts for 10 to 15 percent of carbon emissions worldwide.

If the facility invests at least $10 million a year for its first 10 years, experts project an increase in titled, protected and well-managed community and indigenous tropical forests of more than 40 million hectares (100,000 acres), an area roughly the size of Sweden.

Such efforts would also prevent deforestation of one million hectares and the release of 500 million tons of carbon dioxide and help reduce poverty among indigenous people, the RRI said.

“The Tenure Facility provides a powerful solution to save the world’s forests from the ground up,” said Carin Jämtin, director general of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, another key funder.

Pilot projects

The facility has already provided grants and guidance for pilot projects in Indonesia, Mali, Peru, Cameroon, Liberia and Panama.

A 2015 peace accord that ended Mali’s civil war failed to address land-based conflicts that contributed to the war, said Boubacar Diarra, the project’s coordinator in the West African country.

The facility helped to set up 17 local land commissions to sort through conflicting claims to determine who owns the land, he said.

“These commissions have reduced conflicts by up to a third by working with local villagers and tribal leaders,” Diarra told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
…

The European Union insisted Tuesday that Brexit negotiations with Britain will not move on to the question of future relations until enough progress has been made on divorce issues, such as how much the country’s exit bill should be.

Britain desperately wants talks to move on to future trade and security arrangements but EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that more needs to be done on the withdrawal issues first.

Juncker told the European Parliament that “we have not made the sufficient progress needed” and the legislators backed him, approving a resolution underscoring the same point with a vote of 557 to 92 with 29 abstentions. It further underscored the unity of the 27 EU nations as they face off with Britain in the talks.

The EU wants London to commit to guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens already in Britain, making sure border posts do not reappear between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and Ireland itself and pay up for everything it had agreed to while it was a member.

Juncker said “the taxpayers in the EU 27 should not pay for the British decision” to leave, while the bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said “serious differences remain” on how many bills the U.K. still has to settle. Estimates vary widely from 20 billion euros ($27 billion) to over three times that amount.

“Serious rifts remain, especially on the financial settlement,” Barnier said. “We will not pay at 27 what has been decided at 28, it is simple as that.”

The parliamentary resolution called for postponing any move to widen the talks with Britain unless “a major breakthrough” takes place during the fifth round of negotiations in Brussels next week.

Observers said decisive progress was highly unlikely. Tuesday’s moves further dampened hopes that the EU leaders might give the green light to an expansion in the talks at a summit on Oct 19-20.

Many lawmakers were also dismissive of Britain’s Conservative government, which is widely seen as insecure and bumbling.

The head of the biggest party group in the European Parliament called for the sacking of British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson for stoking confusion over the Brexit talks.

The European People’s Party chairman, Manfred Weber, appealed to Prime Minister Theresa May: “Please sack Johnson, because we need a clear answer who is responsible for the British position.”

Weber turned Henry Kissinger’s famous observation about the many leaders in the EU onto Britain: “Who shall I call in London? Who speaks for the government? Theresa May, Boris Johnson, or even (Brexit negotiator) David Davis?”

Others are speculating that Britain might actually be stalling to make sure that the member states that trade heavily with the U.K. would buckle and concede at the last moment, sowing discord among the 27.

EPP member Tom Vandenkendelaere said the strong backing of the resolution proved differently. “If the Brits they can play their old divide-and-rule game, they’d better think again,” he said.
…

After several years of struggling to make a living doing odd jobs in and around his village, 26-year-old Pushkar Singh came to New Delhi from the northern Uttarakhand state three months ago to hunt for a job.

The high school dropout is willing to do anything — cook, work as a security guard, a peon in an office. But not only has he failed to secure a job, he has not even got an interview so far.

“It’s a huge worry, not having work,” said a despondent Singh as he wondered how long he can continue staying with his relatives.

The hopes of young people like Singh had been fueled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of creating millions of jobs for the country’s huge young population when he took power in 2014. Optimism rose after India won the tag of the world’s fastest growing economy. 

But the Indian economy has hit a sharp slowdown, leaving tens of thousands of people struggling to find work in mega cities like New Delhi, which are magnets for migrant labor.

The economy clocked a growth rate of 5.7 percent in the April to June quarter, its most sluggish pace in three years.

The bleak number has set alarm bells ringing and raised fears that India could struggle to return to a high growth path.

“It is a cause for concern, the economy has slowed down much more than most had expected,” said D.K. Joshi, Chief Economist at rating agency Crisil in Mumbai.

Reasons for the slowdown

The slowdown has prompted critics to accuse Modi’s government of economic mismanagement.

Most attention has turned to two major measures that have disrupted the economy in the last year. Critics have slammed the government for imposing a currency change last November to flush out illegal cash, saying it slowed down businesses amid massive currency shortages and gave an unnecessary shock to a cash dependent economy.

In July, India implemented a long overdue and widely welcomed tax reform — a goods and services tax (GST) meant to clean up a complex tax regime and make it easier to do business.

But many worry that faulty implementation and multiple tax rates have created confusion for businesses struggling with the new system.

Economists point out that the currency change and GST, coming within months of each other, have made the slowdown sharper and deeper for virtually all sectors of the economy, which had already started losing pace last year.

The impact is evident in the markets of the Indian capital, which are usually the most crowded at this time of the year. It is India’s main festive season, when consumer spending hits a high. But shop owners are disappointed because customers are not opening their wallets easily.

A usually buzzing upmarket area in New Delhi wears a deserted look. Manu Talwar, the owner of a shop selling high-end mobile phones, has been struggling to make a sale in a country counted as the world’s fastest growing smart phone market, where a new device is coveted by an aspirational generation. 

“You can see the market, it does not look like Diwali, the market is so down. Mobiles, accessories, people were crazy about it. As of now, iPhone 8 has launched, but there is no market,” said Talwar.

The government says it is looking for ways to rev up the economy — according to reports, it is considering spending billions of dollars to give investment a push.

Prime Minister Modi, seen as a business-friendly, reformist leader, recently announced the formation of a five-member panel to advise him on economic issues.

At the heart of the challenge is the need for jobs in a country where about 10 million enter the workforce every year. Modi had hoped to give manufacturing a push to create jobs for low-skill labor, but a flagship “Make in India’ program he launched to woo foreign investors has yet to show significant results. And a slowing economy means that jobs are even being lost in several sectors.

“To think of an overall manufacturing push of the kind China gave, or many East Asian economies that we observed in those economies, that does not seem to be a reality in India. There is a lot of ground to cover to reach that level,” said economist Joshi.

Officials are striking an optimistic note, calling the slowdown transitory, but economists warn recovery will be gradual.

That means Pushkar Singh’s hunt for a job and shop owner Manu Talwar’s hopes of the market picking up may not happen anytime soon.
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