YCLOAK

The word for the night was “heat.” With that prompt, spoken word artists delivered poems about love, sex, gangs, street food, public transport and even a trip to the barbershop.

Sipping beer and rum, the fashionable 100-strong crowd in this open-air performance space just off Ariapita Avenue, the bustling heart of Trinidad’s capital, snapped, clapped and cheered on the verbal dexterity.

The monthly slam poetry event is one of several cultural offerings that have emerged in recent years to liven up the slack period between the annual Carnival celebrations that flood Port of Spain’s streets with costumed revelers.

Trinidad and Tobago’s cultural ecosystem still revolves around Carnival, hooked to Ash Wednesday in February or March.

But arts advocates, creative entrepreneurs and government officials are seeking ways to stimulate a year-round scene that could build an economic alternative for a country otherwise dependent on oil and natural gas.

“I see the creative sector as being key in diversifying our national economy,” said Calvin Bijou, chairman of state-owned cultural promotion enterprise CreativeTT.

Besides rich oil and gas reserves, the twin-island Caribbean country has a wealth of cultural talent.

It is the birthplace of steel pan, widely believed to be the only non-electric, acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century, and the origin of calypso.

Those musical traditions blend with folk crafts like wire-bending and costume design in Trinidad’s world-famous Carnival. Since 2014, it has brought an annual average of 36,000 visitors to the island, who spend some TTD 324 million ($48 million).

But spreading culturally driven economic activity throughout the year is a tough task, and has sparked debate over whether a small island state should focus on audiences at home or abroad.

Backyard Theatre

The spoken word event, “True Talk No Lie,” began in 2013 to capitalize on the Carnival off-season.

It runs from March through November, when the cultural calendar heats up again, with parties showcasing the latest soca hits ahead of the next Carnival.

Poets hit the stage at The Big Black Box, a re-purposed backyard in the former residence of a respected playwright.

Multimedia production outfit 3canal renovated the space in 2014 as a simple “black box” theater with a mango tree soaring through the roof.

In the off-season, the venue hosts weekly live shows and rehearsals for annual productions.

It has also become an incubator for taking Trinidadian arts abroad. Two of 3canal’s rising stars toured Pride and carnival events in Britain and the Netherlands this summer, and ensemble members will perform at the National Theatre of Scotland in November.

In the run-up to Carnival, there are nightly rehearsals for 3canal’s annual show, culminating in Friday night “backyard jams” where spectators can get a taste of the work in progress.

Inside the restored gingerbread house, 3canal maintains a recording studio, office and merchandise store. Having its own infrastructure has allowed the ensemble to escape the constraints of Trinidad’s seasonal cultural scene.

“The convenience of having your own base out of which to explore, express and experiment can’t be beat,” 3canal’s artistic director Wendell Manwarren told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as dancers rehearsed in the courtyard.

“With our new album, we could luxuriate and take our time – as opposed to that Carnival pressure cooker.”

The Big Black Box has joined a cluster of historic residences converted for cultural use within a few blocks of each other in the Woodbrook neighborhood.

A decade ago, a trio of creatives established an artist residency program called Alice Yard. In 2011, Medulla Art Gallery opened to showcase contemporary Caribbean art, while older establishments like the Little Carib Theatre, built in 1947, round out the scene.

Carnival remains the center of gravity for some activities like the #1000mokos project in Alice Yard, which teaches a new generation of stilt walkers – moko jumbies in Carnival parlance.

Visual art is less in thrall to the Carnival rhythm, finding a larger audience through the quiet season. In May, a show opening and talk by an up-and-coming painter packed out the subterranean Medulla gallery.

Global or Local?

But as Trinidad’s cultural scene grows, it faces a key question: should it prioritize local audiences or export abroad?

For Rubadiri Victor, president of the Artists’ Coalition of Trinidad and Tobago and a former advisor to the arts minister, the answer lies overseas.

When in government from 2013-2014, he fought unsuccessfully to expand the mission of Pan Trinbago, the world body for steel pan set up by Trinidad, to “make pan and rhythm sections the festival music of Planet Earth.”

He wanted the country’s best steel pan bands playing the world’s top festivals, including the dozens of Caribbean-style carnivals in cities globally, which he estimates generate some TTD 15 billion ($2.23 billion) in revenues per year.

He pointed to examples of Trinidadian cultural success abroad – from several Olympic opening ceremonies choreographed by Carnival artist Peter Minshall in the 1990s and early 2000s, to the popular steel pan band that accompanied fans to Germany for Trinidad’s first-ever World Cup appearance in 2006.

But exporting Trinidadian culture requires public funding and support, Victor noted. “If you don’t have those enablers, it’s just difficult,” he said.

3canal’s Manwarren is more interested in local audiences.

“We tend to focus too much on outside validation,” he said. “We need to break through to ourselves.”

The government, meanwhile, is trying to straddle both lines.

It runs youth programs to teach steel pan, maintains a national artist registry, and coordinates mentorship by master artists – including Manwarren, who teaches live show production.

It hopes to offer funding for artists to showcase their skills abroad, but lacks a national cultural policy that would streamline such opportunities, though public consultations are underway to develop one.

“The cultural has to be seen as a political tool and priority, alongside energy, trade and manufacturing,” said Ministry of Arts official Marlon De Bique.

($1 = 6.7070 Trinidad & Tobago dollars)
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Chinese officials on Monday defended Beijing’s initiative to build a “New Silk Road” of railways and other infrastructure across Asia against complaints it leaves host countries with too much debt after Malaysia canceled two high-profile projects.

The officials said President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy initiative is creating assets that are needed by developing countries but might take time to pay off.

The deputy chairman of the Cabinet planning agency, Ning Jizhe, rejected what he said were foreign news reports that blamed the initiative for debt problems.

“People’s livelihoods and economic development have been boosted,” Ning said at a news conference. “No ‘debt trap’ has been created.”

Other governments welcomed Xi’s initiative in 2013 in a region the Asian Development Bank says needs more than $26 trillion of infrastructure investment by 2030 to keep economies growing.

The initiative, called “One Belt, One Road” in Chinese and the “Belt and Road Initiative” in English, is a business venture, not aid. Chinese officials say financing is on commercial terms. Beijing wants to attract non-Chinese investors but that has happened only on a few of the hundreds of railway, power plant, highway and other projects.

Some governments including the United States, Japan and India worry Beijing is trying to build a China-centered structure that will erode their influence.

Some Chinese-led projects have run into complaints that they are too costly and give too little work to local contractors. Some governments including Thailand, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Nepal have scrapped, scaled back or renegotiated projects.

This month, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad canceled projects including a $20 billion railway he said his country cannot afford. Last December, Sri Lanka sold control of its port of Hambantota to a Chinese state-owned company after falling behind in repaying $1.5 billion in loans from Beijing.

Advisory board

Chinese authorities choose projects “very carefully” and examine host country finances to make sure they can repay loans, said a deputy commerce minister, Qian Keming. However, he said they would welcome the participation of developed countries and international organizations to improve transparency and guarantee “high quality” projects.

“These physical facilities will play a long-term role,” said Qian. “But we don’t necessarily see a return in the short run.”

A deputy foreign minister, Zhang Jun, said “Belt and Road” officials were preparing to appoint an advisory board of former political leaders, academics and experts. He said an “international commercial expert committee” was appointed this week to give legal advice.

“Belt and Road” is a loosely defined umbrella for Chinese-built or financed projects across 65 countries from the South Pacific through Asia to Africa and Europe. They range from oil drilling in Siberia to construction of ports in Southeast Asia, railways in Eastern Europe and power plants in the Middle East.
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Turkey warned on Monday that U.S. trade sanctions against it could destabilize the Middle East and ultimately bolster terrorism and the refugee crisis, underscoring the regional impact of Ankara’s deepening rift with Washington.

Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, who is President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law, used a visit to Paris to both take aim at the United States and highlight Ankara’s push for better ties with Europe, given the standoff with Washington.

The rift with the United States over an American evangelical Christian pastor detained in Turkey on terrorism charges has helped accelerate a crisis in the Turkish lira, which is down about 40 percent this year. U.S. President Donald Trump this month authorized a doubling of duties on aluminum and steel imported from Turkey.

Investors are also worried about a U.S. Treasury investigation into majority state-owned Turkish lender Halkbank, which faces a potentially hefty fine for allegations of Iran-sanctions busting. The bank has said all of its transactions were legal.

“These steps taken with political motivation will not only impact the global financial system but also global trade and regional stability,” Albayrak told a news conference following a meeting with his French counterpart, Bruno Le Maire.

“With the damage [the measures] will cause to regional stability, they will unfortunately contribute to chaotic problems that feed terrorism and also the refugee crisis.”

With the dollar stronger globally, the lira weakened as far as 6.2960 from 6.00 on Friday, when a holiday to mark the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha came to an end. It stood at 6.1200 at 1529 GMT.

“The exchange rate sensitivity created by the tension between us and the United States continues,” said Seda Yalcinkaya Ozer, an analyst at brokerage Integral.

Diverging interests

Turkey and the United States are also at odds over diverging interests in Syria and U.S. objections to Ankara’s ambition to buy Russian defense systems.

The United States has expressed concern that NATO member Turkey’s planned deployment of the Russian-made S-400 could risk the security of some U.S.-made weapons and other technology used by Turkey, including the F-35 jet.

A committee from the U.S. Congress visited Turkey on Monday and held meetings with officials regarding the F-35 program, Turkey’s foreign ministry said.

In a conference call earlier this month, Albayrak told investors that Turkey would emerge stronger from the crisis, insisting its banks were healthy but that the authorities were ready to provide support to the sector if needed.

Turkey’s central bank and banking watchdog have taken steps to underpin the lira in recent weeks, including cutting limits for Turkish banks’ swap transactions. On Monday, the Istanbul stock exchange said it had started work on setting up a swap market as part of efforts to make the city an international finance center.

Investors remain concerned about the lira, given Erdogan’s opposition to high interest rates and with inflation near 16 percent in July, its highest in more than 14 years.

August inflation data will be released next Monday and the central bank will hold a policy-setting meeting Sept. 13, having left rates on hold at its last meeting, contrary to expectations.

Erdogan has cast the lira slide as the result of an “economic war” against Turkey, a comment echoed by his spokesman last week when Trump ruled out concessions to Ankara in return for Brunson’s release.

The main BIST 100 share index was up 1.22 percent at Monday’s close. The yield on the benchmark 10-year bond dipped to 21.95 percent from 21.98 percent a week earlier.
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Governments and corporations are increasingly using legal persecution to portray indigenous activists as criminals and terrorists, putting them at heightened risk of violence, the United Nations said Monday.

Indigenous leaders and campaigners fighting to protect land from development are being stymied and silenced by rising militarization, national security acts and anti-terrorism laws, according to a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Globally, up to 2.5 billion people live on indigenous and community lands, which make up more than half of all land worldwide, but they legally own just 10 percent, according to rights groups.

The U.N. report cited a “drastic increase” in violence against indigenous people actively opposing large-scale projects such as mining, infrastructure, hydroelectric dams and logging.

“It’s a new war,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, who authored the report.

“It’s getting worse because many of the remaining resources in the world are found in indigenous territories,” Tauli-Corpuz told Reuters.

This month, an indigenous leader was murdered in Brazil, part of a battle over logging in the Amazon.

In Guatemala, seven indigenous members of farmers’ organizations advocating for land rights and political participation were killed, it said.

Last year, more than 200 activists were killed, the highest since 2002, according British campaign group Global Witness.

“In the worst instances, escalating militarization, compounded by historical marginalization, results in indigenous peoples being targeted under national security acts and antiterrorism legislation, putting them in the line of fire, at times literally, by the army and the police,” it said.

No global numbers

Governments and corporations are using legal means to designate indigenous people as trespassers subject to eviction, while arrests are made on vague charges or uncorroborated witness testimony, followed by long periods of pretrial detention.

Criminal charges have been filed against activists, showing prosecutors and judges colluding with companies and landowners in some cases, it said.

In Ethiopia, indigenous land rights defenders have been prosecuted and imprisoned under antiterrorist legislation, it said.

There are no tallies of criminal charges filed against indigenous peoples worldwide, but Tauli-Corpuz cited recent upticks in the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mexico and Peru.

“What disarticulates a community? Arresting its leaders, criminalizing the leaders,” said Dinaman Tuxa, executive coordinator of Brazil’s Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples known as Apib, an umbrella group of advocacy groups.
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The United States told the World Trade Organization on Monday it would block the reappointment of one of the WTO’s four remaining appeals judges next month, confirming trade experts’ fears of a crisis in the system for

settling global rows.

U.S. President Donald Trump has railed against the WTO, calling it a catastrophe and a disaster. He has said the United States loses cases because other countries have most of the judges.

In fact, trade experts say, the United States has a similar, if not better, lose-win rate than other countries that have taken complaints to the WTO, and it has a rare privilege in that the judges on the WTO’s Appellate Body have always included one American.

Trump faces a barrage of disputes at the WTO against his trade policies, including global tariffs on steel and a tariff war with China. Since he came to power, Washington has blocked all appointments to the appeals chamber as existing judges’ terms end.

There are normally seven WTO appeals judges, but if Shree Baboo Chekitan Servansing, a trade judge from Mauritius, is not reappointed when his term expires on September 30, only three will remain — the minimum for the system to function.

It looks set to break down finally when two more judges’ terms expire in December 2019, but it could seize up sooner if any judges need to recuse themselves from a case for legal reasons.

If the U.S. veto paralyses the dispute system, it would end 23 years of WTO enforcement, the keystone of international efforts to prevent trade protectionism, at a time of heightened global trade tensions.

At the WTO’s monthly dispute settlement meeting, 67 member states have repeatedly petitioned Washington to drop its veto and keep the system working.

But U.S. Ambassador Dennis Shea told Monday’s meeting that the Appellate Body had consistently over-stepped its authority by reviewing and reversing factual findings by trade arbitration panels, and by interpreting WTO members’ domestic laws.

“The invention of an authority to review panel fact-finding … has added complexity, duplication and delay to every WTO dispute,” he told the meeting, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks.

Shea has previously promised to be “disruptive where necessary” to reform the WTO and has said the United States may choose not to accept appeals if they take longer than the allowed 90 days.

The United States has not followed through on the threat, but since legal rulings are routinely delayed, it effectively signaled that Washington reserved the right to ignore rulings that Washington does not like.
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Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Sunday that bilateral negotiations with the United States about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were in the “final hours.”

Speaking as he arrived for talks at the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, Guajardo said the negotiators would need at least a week to work with Canada, the third country in the trilateral trade pact, pushing any possible final deal into at least September.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States could reach a “big Trade Agreement” with Mexico soon as incoming Mexican trade negotiators signaled possible solutions to energy rules and a contentious U.S. “sunset clause” demand.

 
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John Cronin has never been one to let disability hold him back. The 22-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., was born with Down syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes developmental and intellectual delays. Motivated by his family’s love and encouragement, Cronin teamed up with his father 18 months ago to open a business. But not just any business. John’s Crazy Socks sells, you guessed it, socks. And as Faiza Elmasry reports, it’s a business worth $4 million. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk says investors have convinced him that he shouldn’t take the company private, so the firm will remain on the public stock markets.

The eccentric and sometimes erratic CEO said in a statement late Friday that he made the decision based on feedback from shareholders, including institutional investors, who said they have internal rules limiting how much they can sink into a private company.

Musk met with the electric car and solar panel company’s board on Thursday to tell them he wanted to stay public and the board agreed, according to the statement.

In an Aug. 7 post on Twitter, Musk wrote that he was considering taking the company private. He said it would avoid the short-term pressures of reporting quarterly results.
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has appointed a former federal prosecutor to monitor China’s ZTE Corp — after people familiar with the matter said he rescinded an offer to a former U.S. official for signing a “Never Trump” letter before the 2016 presidential election.

A new monitor for ZTE is required as part of a June settlement that ended a ban on U.S. companies selling components to China’s No. 2 telecommunications equipment maker. The ban threatened ZTE’s survival and became a source of friction in trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, will lead a compliance team designed to help ensure that ZTE does not illegally sell products with American parts to Iran and other sanctioned countries.

Howard, who got his law degree from the University of Virginia in 1977, is a partner in Barnes & Thornburg’s litigation department in Washington, and served as associate independent counsel during the Clinton and George H. W. Bush administrations.

Howard was not the first choice of Commerce Department officials.

Peter Lichtenbaum, a former assistant secretary for export administration at the Commerce Department, received a letter on Aug. 15 offering him the post, sources said.

Ross then learned that Lichtenbaum was among the dozens of former national security officials who signed a letter in August 2016 saying Trump was not qualified to be president and they would never vote for him, the sources said on condition of anonymity.

Last Friday, two days after making the offer, the department withdrew it, the sources said.

“This is the final decision. Period,” a Commerce Department spokesman said about Ross’ decision to rescind the offer to Lichtenbaum and choose Howard.

Trump, a former real estate magnate and reality television star, drew opposition from establishment Republicans who opposed his candidacy during the 2016 presidential campaign. His administration has been known to reject people who opposed him.

Violations by ZTE

ZTE, which relies on American-origin components for its smartphones and computer networking gear, pleaded guilty last year to violating U.S. sanctions by illegally shipping U.S. goods and technology to Iran.

The ban on ZTE was imposed in April after officials said the company made false statements about disciplining 35 employees tied to the wrongdoing.

As part of the 2017 guilty plea, ZTE paid nearly $900 million. To lift this year’s ban, it paid an additional $1 billion penalty, placed $400 million in escrow in case of future violations, and installed a new board and senior management.

Two monitors​

Under the latest agreement, the Commerce Department is selecting a monitor to oversee compliance for ZTE and its worldwide affiliates for 10 years. Howard will have a staff of at least six people funded by ZTE, including at least one expert in export controls, the Commerce spokesman said.

The government monitor has been designated as a “special compliance coordinator” to distinguish from another monitor for ZTE appointed by a U.S. judge in Texas when the company pleaded guilty last year.

That monitor, James Stanton, a lawyer who has handled personal injury cases among others, was picked by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade, sources told Reuters last year. Kinkeade has control over that monitor.

A key reason the Commerce Department sought a second monitor, according to sources, was to have a qualified person police the company and report directly to the department and the company.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will not lack for urgent topics to address when he gives the keynote speech Friday to an annual gathering of global central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Fed watchers will be listening for anything Powell has to say about financial turmoil in emerging markets, the economic threats posed by the growing trade war launched by President Donald Trump, and Trump’s criticism of the Fed’s recent interest rate hikes.

Investors will especially want to hear whether Powell addresses the central question of whether any of those developments might lead the Fed to alter its plan to raise interest rates two more times this year and to keep raising them next year as well.

If Powell sounds confident that the economy won’t be unduly hurt by the administration’s tariffs on imports and the retaliatory tariffs they have provoked or by a currency crisis in developing markets, Fed watchers will likely conclude that the central bank will maintain a course of gradual rate hikes to reflect a robust economy.

But if Powell strikes a message of concern, it could be read as a sign that the Fed is considering slowing its hikes. A slower pace of rate increases would be intended to encourage continued borrowing and spending by companies and individuals to drive economic growth.

​Political pressure

Amid the grandeur of the Grant Teton Mountains, Powell will be the lead-off speaker at the conference, which has been sponsored for more than three decades by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

It will be Powell’s first chance to respond publicly to Trump’s recent criticism, which critics say amounted to an intrusion on the Fed’s longstanding independence from political influence. Two top Fed officials made clear Thursday that Trump’s criticism won’t affect their decisions on whether to continue raising rates. The Fed is widely expected to resume doing so at its next policy meeting late next month.

“Our job at the Fed is to make decisions on monetary policy and supervision without regard to political considerations, and I’m confident we’ll continue to do that,” Robert Kaplan, head of the Fed’s Dallas regional bank, said in an interview with CNBC. Kaplan said he foresees three to four more rate hikes over the next nine to 12 months.

Similarly, Esther George, head of the Kansas City Fed, said she expects the central bank to raise rates twice more this year, with more next year.

“Expressions of angst about higher interest rates are not unique to this administration,” she said in a separate interview with CNBC.

This week, Trump complained in an interview with Reuters that he was “not thrilled” with Powell’s Fed for raising rates. It marked the second time this summer that Trump had publicly criticized the policymaking of the Fed.

That broke a tradition that the White House should refrain from attacks on the Fed because such criticism can shake the confidence of financial markets and that the Fed is committed to keeping inflation under control without regard to political considerations.

Seven interest rate hikes

The Fed has raised its key policy rate seven times since late 2015 after seven years of keeping the rate at a record low near zero to help the economy recovery from the Great Recession. Five of those rate hikes, including two this year, have occurred with Trump in the White House. In June, the Fed boosted its projection for expected hikes this year from three to four.

The Fed’s policy rate stands in a range of 1.75 percent to 2 percent. The rate hikes are intended to prevent the economy from overheating and inflation from accelerating. But higher rates make borrowing costlier and can depress stock prices. Trump has complained that the Fed’s efforts are hampering his attempts to boost growth with his $1.5 trillion tax cut, deregulation and tougher enforcement of trade agreements.
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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled Friday that he expects the Fed to continue gradually raising interest rates if the U.S. economic expansion remains strong.

Powell added that while annual inflation has risen to near the Fed’s 2 percent target rate, it doesn’t seem likely to accelerate above that point. That suggests that he doesn’t foresee a need for the Fed to step up its rate hikes. Late next month, the Fed is widely expected to resume raising rates.

Speaking to an annual conference of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell said the Fed recognizes that it needs to strike a careful balance between its mandates of maximizing employment and keeping price increases stable. He said a gradual approach is the best way for the Fed to navigate between the risks of raising rates too fast and “needlessly shortening the expansion” and moving too slowly and risking an overheated economy.

“My colleagues and I,” the Fed chairman said in his speech, “are carefully monitoring incoming data, and we are setting policy to do what monetary policy can do to support continued growth, a strong labor market, and inflation near 2 percent.”

Powell made no mention of the recent public criticism from President Donald Trump, who has said he’s unhappy with the Fed’s rate hikes. The president has complained that the Fed’s tightening of credit could threaten the continued strong growth he aims to achieve through the tax cuts enacted late last year, a pullback of regulations and a rewriting of trade deals to better serve the United States.

Many have seen Trump’s complaints about the Fed’s rate hikes as an intrusion on the central bank’s longstanding independence from political influence. On Thursday, two top Fed officials made clear Thursday that Trump’s criticism won’t affect their decisions on whether to continue raising rates.

Powell also made no mention in his speech of what many economists see as the most serious threat to the economy: The trade war that Trump has launched with America’s main trading partners — a conflict that risks depressing U.S. and global economic growth the longer it goes on.

The Fed chairman focused his remarks in part on the difficulty the Fed faces in setting interest-rate policies at a time when the economy seems to be undergoing changes that challenge long-standing beliefs of how low unemployment can fall before it ignites inflation pressures. He said there is also much uncertainty over the “neutral” rate of inflation —  the point at which the Fed’s policy rate is neither stimulating economic growth or holding it back.

The Fed’s economic projections, compiled from estimates of all Fed officials, estimates the current neutral rate at 2.9 percent. But Powell noted that there’s a wide difference of opinion about it.

After having kept its key policy rate near zero for seven years to help lift the economy out of the Great Recession, the Fed has raised rates seven times, most recently in March and June this year. Most Fed watchers foresee two more hikes this year — next month and then in December.

Powell said the Fed’s incremental approach to raising rates has so far succeeded.

“The economy is strong,” he said. “Inflation is near our 2 percent objective and most people who want a job are finding one. We are setting policy to do what monetary policy can do to support continued growth, a strong labor market and inflation near 2 percent.”
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