YCLOAK

Newer Contraception Tries to Engage Men

By Yscien on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Newer birth control for men is beginning to fill the gap between the traditional condoms and sterilization.

One new technology involves inserting a hypodermic needle into the scrotum. It is said to decrease libido.

For men, contraception had remained fairly stagnant for the past century, primarily limited to condoms (85 percent effective when used correctly) and vasectomy, which is usually permanent. New methods are trying to move beyond centuries-old contraception applications, and some younger men say they are enthusiastic about the prospects.

But they want them to be safe.

“Contraceptives are necessary regardless of which partner is using them,” said Shane Sullivan, a senior at Colgate University in New York. But, “I’m adverse to solutions that may induce side effects.”

But as with contraception for women, methods free of side effects are hard to come by.

Nestorone-Testosterone is a hormonal birth control gel for men that’s been in the making for more than a decade. The gel is applied to the arms and shoulders every day and works to shut down hormones responsible for sperm production. But because it drops testosterone levels, reported side effects include a low libido or problems with ejaculation.

Meanwhile, scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland have developed a daily birth control pill called DMAU. It lowers testosterone and sperm production, which decreases the likelihood of pregnancy, according to a study by the University of Washington Medical Center and at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California.

All participants who tried DMAU noted some weight gain and a decrease of high-density lipoproteins (HDL, “good” cholesterol responsible for healthy cardiovascular functioning).

“Despite having low levels of circulating testosterone, very few subjects reported symptoms consistent with testosterone deficiency or excess,” said the study’s senior investigator, professor of medicine Stephanie Page at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“DMAU is a major step forward in the development of a once-daily ‘male pill,’” Page said. “Many men say they would prefer a daily pill as a reversible contraceptive, rather than long-acting injections or topical gels, which are also in development.”

Contraceptives such as Vasalgel block the vas deferens, or the tubes through which sperm travel, with the injection of a gel into the scrotum. The Indian developer of Vasalgel licensed it to non-profit company Parsemus Foundation in the U.S., which focuses its development on innovative but neglected pharmaceutical advances.

Vasalgel can last a few months to a few years. It has shown minimal adverse impacts and the developer calls it the “IUD for men” because it is non-hormonal.

Robert McLachlan, professor of men’s health at Monash University in Melbourne, found another injectable option for men. McLachlan designed an intramuscular shot delivered in the buttocks, increasing testosterone, which greatly reduces sperm production.

The most common side effects for the injectable hormonal contraceptive included acne, injection site pain, mood disorders, and an increased libido.

In a survey conducted with 134 young adults aged 18-27, of which 61 were male, their average likelihood of supporting male contraceptives was 8.6 on a scale from 1 to 10, (1 being the least likely and 10 being the most like to support.) Of all the respondents, 29 percent were quick to note that hormonal contraceptives for women already include the side effects that some of the newer drugs would present for men.

Brennan Sullivan, a 24-year-old research assistant from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (JHMI) noted the impact a male-dominated medical field has on women. He emphasized that “male contraceptives should not be seen as equivalent to female birth control,” and explained how many scientists have not considered these biological differences between men and women when developing medications.

Ahead of Food and Drug Administration approval for oral contraceptives for women in 1960, couples relied on withdrawal and condoms to prevent pregnancy. Soon, women on the early forms of the Pill began to complain of side effects that included hormone imbalance, weight gain, acne, and mood changes because of high estrogen levels. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC), nearly 30 percent of users stopped oral contraceptives, and dosage was modified to balance contraception with user tolerance.

Despite successful findings and trials, the pharmaceutical industry thinks there is a relatively small market for male contraceptives, so it may be a while before these drugs actually hit the shelves. McLachlan noted the industry was “involved in this research until about five years ago and both the big companies that were involved — one pulled out [of research] about a decade ago.”

“Seeing as they’re the same side effects as most female birth control options, it’s not too bad,” said Pavan Devraj, a sophomore at the University of Georgia.

Jameson Carter, a research assistant at the Library of Congress, also expressed support.

“I think this stuff has to start somewhere. I understand it won’t be as convenient as just using a condom, given the side effects. I’d try it.”

Some men see birth control as an opportunity to be equally accountable for contraception.

“Men should absolutely engage in the same difficult choices that women do if they choose to engage in sexual activity,” said Mishka Naiker, 22 and a recent graduate from the University of Alabama. “Women are biologically more responsible for the existence and welfare of a child, even though the creation of a fetus takes both a man and a woman. That is the only time the responsibility is honestly 50/50.”

Wazir Hossain, a 24-year-old recent graduate from the University of Georgia, agrees and says it’s great for men to “have some form of control over the outcome of a situation and hold themselves accountable.”

Computer programmer Kaden Weaver, 23, expressed concerned about potential side effects.

“I am fully supportive of male contraceptive options similar to birth control, but… I feel as though things with these side effects don’t belong in the human body. ”

That attitude is not embraced in all parts of the world. The responsibility for family planning routinely falls to women, and contraception is not accessible to an estimated 214 million women in developing countries, according to a report by the Guttmacher Institute.
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Technology

Smart Mirrors May Motivate You to Get Off the Couch

By Ytech on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Finding the motivation to get in shape can be difficult, but a new category of smart mirrors won’t let users off the hook. Tina Trinh reports.
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Economy

Trade Pact Clause Seen Deterring China Deal with Canada, Mexico

By Yeco on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

China’s hopes of negotiating a free trade pact with Canada or Mexico were dealt a sharp setback by a provision deep in the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that aims to forbid such deals with “non-market” countries, trade experts said on Tuesday.

The provision specifies that if one of the current North American Free Trade Agreement partners enters a free trade deal with a “non-market” country such as China, the others can quit in six months and form their own bilateral trade pact.

The clause, which has stirred controversy in Canada, fits in with U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to isolate China economically and prevent Chinese companies from using Canada or Mexico as a “back door” to ship products tariff-free to the United States.

The United States and China are locked in a spiraling trade war that has seen them level increasingly severe rounds of tariffs on each other’s imports.

Under the clause, the countries in the updated NAFTA, renamed the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), must notify the others three months before entering into such negotiations.

Derek Scissors, a China scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said the provision gave the Trump administration an effective veto over any China trade deal by Canada or Mexico.

If repeated in other U.S. negotiations with the European Union and Japan, it could help isolate Beijing in the global trading system.

“For both Canada and Mexico, we have a reason to think an FTA with China is a possibility. It’s not imminent, but this is a very elegant way of dealing with that,” Scissors said.

“There’s no China deal that’s worth losing a ratified USMCA,” Scissors added.

After months of bashing its Western allies on trade, the Trump administration is now trying to recruit them to join the United States in pressuring China to shift its trade, subsidy and intellectual property practices to a more-market driven focus.

Beijing has demanded that the World Trade Organization recognize it as a “market economy” since its WTO accession agreement expired in December 2016, a move that would severely limit Western trade defenses against cheap Chinese goods.

But the United States and European Union are challenging the declaration, arguing that Chinese state subsidies fueling excess industrial capacity, the exclusion of foreign competitors and other practices are signs it is still a non-market economy.

Canadian Sovereignty Questioned

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, seeking to diversify Canada’s export base, held exploratory talks with China on trade in 2016, but a launch of formal negotiations has failed to materialize.

Tracey Ramsey, a legislator for Canada’s left-leaning New Democrats, said in the House of Commons on Tuesday that the clause was “astonishing” and a “severe restriction on Canadian independence.”

“Part of Canada’s concessions in this deal was to include language that holds Canada hostage to the Americans if we decide to trade with another country,” Ramsey said. “Why did the Liberal (Party) give the go-ahead for the U.S. to pull us into their trade wars?”

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau downplayed the provision, arguing it was not significantly different from NAFTA’s clause that allows any member to leave the pact in six months’ time for any reason.

“It is largely the same. It recognizes though that the non-market economy is of significant importance as we move forward. But I don’t think it’s going to make a material difference in our activities,” Morneau told a business audience.

Mexico’s business community sided with the Trump administration in endorsing the pact.

“We are associating ourselves with countries that promote market freedom and that promote free trade in the world, free trade under equal circumstances,” said Juan Pablo Castañon, head of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial (CCE), which represented Mexico’s private sector during the NAFTA trade talks.
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Economy

Mexican, Canadian Steel Lobbies Urge Fix to US Tariff Dispute

By Yeco on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Mexico and Canada on Tuesday urged their governments to resolve a tariff dispute with the United States before signing a new trilateral trade deal that was unveiled this week.

In late May, the Trump administration announced tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports, prompting quick retaliation from top trading partners including Canada and Mexico.

Late on Sunday, the United States and Canada reached a deal to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), complementing an accord the Trump administration brokered with Mexico, the third member of NAFTA, in late August.

Mexican steel producers association Canacero welcomed the new trade pact, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), but said it viewed “with concern” the ongoing steel dispute and the “serious situation” it created for the industry.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs would remain in place for Canada and Mexico until they “can do something different like quotas, perhaps.”

In a statement, Canacero said it supported efforts to find a solution to the impasse before the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada signed USMCA, which officials say could happen at a G20 summit at the end of November.

If no solution can be found, Mexico should put tariffs on U.S. steel to level the playing field, Canacero said.

Mexico has already slapped tariffs on U.S. pork, bourbon, motor boats and other products. Canada has levied tariffs on a range of U.S. imports, including steel and aluminum.

Joseph Galimberti, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, said he expected Canada’s government to continue to support the industry after the USMCA breakthrough.

“There is clearly an opportunity to constructively engage the United States between the achievement of a deal in principle and the ratification or signature of that deal,” he said.

Canada is the top exporter of steel and aluminum to the United States. The United Steelworkers of Canada adopted a less conciliatory tone after the new trade deal was announced, calling it a “sell-out” for Canadian workers.

Mexican officials have said they hope the steel and aluminum dispute can be resolved before USMCA is signed.

Since the tariff row broke out, Mexican steel exports to the United States had fallen 30 percent on average, Canacero said.
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Science

Puny Dwarf Planet, Named ‘Goblin,’ Found Far Beyond Pluto

By Yscien on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

A scrawny dwarf planet nicknamed “the Goblin” has been discovered well beyond Pluto.

A round frozen world just 186 miles (300 kilometers) across, the Goblin was spotted by astronomers in 2015 around Halloween, thus its spooky name. But it wasn’t publicly unveiled until Tuesday following further observations with ground telescopes.

Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science, one of the astronomers who made the discovery, said the Goblin is on the small end for a dwarf planet. It is officially known as 2015 TG387 by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

This is the third dwarf planet recently found to be orbiting on the frigid fringes of our solar system.

Goblin’s orbit is extremely elongated — so stretched out, in fact, that it takes 40,000 years for it to circle the sun.

At its most distant, the Goblin is 2,300 times farther from the sun than Earth. That’s 2,300 astronomical units, or AU. One AU is the distance from Earth to the sun, or roughly 93 million miles (150 million kilometers).

At its closest, the Goblin is 65 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 65 AU. Pluto, by comparison, is approximately 30 to 50 AU.

Sheppard, along with Northern Arizona University’s Chad Trujillo and the University of Hawaii’s David Tholen, spotted the Goblin in October 2015 when it was relatively nearby — around 80 AU.

The two other dwarf planets are Sedna, discovered in 2003, which is about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) across, and 2012 VP113, about 310 miles (500 kilometers). They were found by some of the same astronomers.

Thousands — even a million — more such objects could be way out there orbiting in the so-called Inner Oort Cloud, according to the researchers. They’re in hot pursuit of them, as well as a potentially bigger-than-Earth planet known as Planet 9, or Planet X, believed by some scientists to be orbiting at a distance of hundreds of AU.

“These objects are on elongated orbits, and we can only detect them when they are closest to the Sun. For some 99 percent of their orbits, they are too distant and thus too faint for us to observe them. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg,” Sheppard said in an email.

Sheppard said the faraway objects are “like bread crumbs leading us to Planet X.”

“The more of them we can find, the better we can understand the outer solar system and the possible planet that we think is shaping their orbits — a discovery that would redefine our knowledge of the solar system’s evolution,” he said in a statement.
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Economy

Disaster Undoes Hard-won Progress for Indonesian Port City

By Yeco on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Palu, the Indonesian city devastated by an earthquake, tsunamis and mudslides, has strived to transform itself into a major trading hub, but the city’s buildings and other infrastructure were no match for the triple whammy that has left more than 1,200 people dead.

The disasters that struck late Friday left the city’s port in ruins, its lone gantry crane atilt in the water. Its airport terminal was a sea of shattered glass and broken ceiling panels. A seven-story, 4-year-old hotel lay flat on its side. Its biggest bridge disintegrated, its picturesque yellow arches mangled in the mud.

Ringed by coconut, coffee and cocoa farms, over the past two decades Palu has acquired modern shopping malls, hotels and other amenities to suit its ambitions. Poverty has fallen from nearly a third of its 380,000 residents to under one in 10, local officials say.

A national blueprint calls for developing Palu as part of the “Sulawesi Economic Corridors” — a plan to attract investment and build up trade and commerce in a region that has remained somewhat isolated since the days of the ancient spice trade.

Given how seismically active the area is — the Palu-Koro fault runs right through the city — it’s been a race against the odds. Historical records show the area has been hit by tsunamis — triggered by powerfully destructive earthquakes — at least seven times in the past two centuries.

It’s unclear what standards were required, or enforced, in the construction of Palu’s modern buildings.

It’s an issue for all of Indonesia, an archipelago that sits square on the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Teddy Boen, an expert on earthquake-resistant engineering who has consulted with foreign governments and international organizations, has been researching the problem for a half-century.

“From 50 years ago until today, there is similar damage. Somebody is not doing their job,” he said in a phone interview. “The codes are complete. The manuals are complete. The political will is not there.”

The collapse of a mezzanine floor inside the Jakarta Stock Exchange in January that injured dozens of people underscores the extent of the problem, even in Indonesia’s capital.

After a tsunami in 2004 killed 230,000 people in Indonesia and elsewhere across Asia, it became apparent that in many communities, sturdy mosques and other strong buildings dating back to colonial times were the only structures still standing while newer structures often crumbled.

In Palu, the Arkam Babu Rahman “floating mosque” on the city’s waterfront was pushed off-kilter by Friday’s tsunamis, while its worship halls remained intact. But a bigger, 20-year-old structure topped by a heavy dome was gutted as the debris-laden water swept through.

Few of the buildings in Palu’s suburbs of Petobo, Biromaru and Bala Roa could withstand the sideways mudslide that engulfed those communities in expanses of oozing quicksand.

Indonesia’s disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the soil there had liquefied and that authorities believed hundreds of people may have been buried in the mud. In Bala Roa, the ground violently heaved up and then sank in places, trapping many people under their wrecked homes.

Traditional homes with thatched or tin roofs cannot withstand tsunamis or storm surges from typhoons but pose much less of a risk of severe damage even if they do collapse in an earthquake. Many homes built recently are hybrids, combining traditional styles with unreinforced masonry and tile roofs too heavy for the structures when they are shaken by quakes.

The rush to rebuild after a disaster involves cutting corners, rather than fortifying buildings to prevent future calamities.

“Now, they say, build back better, build back better, but they do the same thing again,” Boen said. “The earthquake comes, they made the same mistakes and people get killed again.”
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Economy

Tokyo Fishmongers Mourn and Protest Closure of Famous Fish Market

By Yeco on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Takako Arai’s earliest memories are of Tsukiji, playing hide-and-seek with her brother in the concrete maze of Tokyo’s sprawling fish market. Years later, she now runs the family’s seafood stall that sells mackerel and yellowfin tuna.

Arai and hundreds of other fish traders are reluctantly packing up and preparing to leave Tsukiji this week for a gleaming new $5 billion market on reclaimed land farther from central Tokyo.

“I feel torn. I grew up here and I feel like we’re losing so much of our history by leaving this place,” said Arai, 45.

The 83-year-old market, a popular tourist attraction, is a warren of shops and warehouses where small turret trucks zip around laden with ice-filled boxes of fish. But city officials say it has become dilapidated and unsanitary.

Many fishmongers want to stay in the area where they also live. They worry about contaminated soil at the new site in Toyosu, and the difficult commute to the new market.

More than 80 percent of Tsukiji fish traders are opposed to the move, said a survey by a group fighting the relocation.

In a last-ditch bid to delay the move, 56 traders sued the city of Tokyo last month, seeking a temporary injunction. They have asked the court to rule before Tsukiji closes on Saturday.

If there are no delays, business will resume at the new Toyosu market on Oct. 11, but traders worry their customers will not follow them.

Arai, whose family have been fish traders for 95 years, said buyers have already told her the new site is inconvenient.

“They say they’re going to buy from other markets nearer to their restaurants,” she said. “What can I say? They’re business people too.”

Fewer customers will make it hard to recoup the hundreds of thousands of dollars each fish trader expects to pay for the move, including replacing freezers and refrigerators.

Some 300 fishmongers and activists voiced their anger during a protest at Tsukiji last Saturday, chanting “Toyosu No No No,” and waving banners saying “Stop the Relocation!”

Tourists visiting one of Tokyo’s most famous landmarks paused in the rain to join the chants.

“We finally made Tsukiji a famous brand and now they’re trying to destroy it,” said Kiyoshi Kimura, who owns one of Japan’s largest sushi chains, Sushi Zanmai.

His gravelly voice rising as he wept, Kimura recalled opening his first sushi restaurant in Tsukiji 17 years ago in a bid to draw tourists and revive the market. Kimura is famous for his winning bids at the market’s New Years auction, where in 2013 he paid a record $1.76 million for a bluefin tuna.

“They have no compassion. That’s it,” Kimura told Reuters. “These bureaucrats have forgotten that human beings live here. It’s all about money for them.”

Final days

The relocation plan has been delayed many times since it was conceived 17 years ago. In 2016, toxic substances were found in soil and groundwater at Toyosu, once home to a gas plant.

Tokyo spent an extra 3.8 billion yen ($33.5 million) to dig hundreds of wells to pump out groundwater.

In July, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike declared the new site safe after experts signed off on additional cleanup measures, but some fish traders remain skeptical.

An official with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said Tsukiji had long supported the city’s residents with its lively market, but it was important for that tradition to continue in a new location with better sanitary conditions.

The old Tsukiji site will provide temporary parking for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and eventually become a tourist center.

Tsukiji feels like a village with its own medical clinics, a bank, library and shops, but with some 40,000 workers and tourists passing through on its busiest days.

In its final days, the market is still a frenzy of activity.

Men unload, sort, pack and display thousands of cartons of white boxes filled with fresh fish and seafood trucked in from ports across Japan.

During the early morning auctions, traders use hand signals to buy and sell fish.

The day’s catch is typically carted to a hangar where traders sell their seafood to buyers strolling down the chaotic cobblestone walkways under large store signs.

Koji Amano, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, started working at Tsukiji after dropping out of high school. Now 47, he and two brothers manage a stall specializing in bluefin tuna, or “maguro,” considered the king of sushi.

As he filleted a hulk of tuna with a sword-like knife, Amano was resigned to Tsukiji’s fate.

“They’re determined to move us out,” he said. “So there’s not much we can really do to stop them.”
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Science

For African Bush Elephants, Wrinkles Are Cool

By Yscien on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

A study of the African bush elephant’s vast network of deep wrinkles has found it is intricately designed to help the animals keep their cool, fight off parasites and defend against sun damage, scientists said on Tuesday.

The fine pattern of millions of channels means the elephant’s skin can retain five to 10 times more water than a flat surface, the scientists said.

The research, conducted by scientists at Switzerland’s University of Geneva and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.

“Because of their huge body size, and their warm and dry habitat, African elephants can avoid over-heating only by losing calories through evaporation of the water they collect in and on their skin,” researchers wrote.

The scientists found that elephant skin channels are not just folds or wrinkles, but actual fractures in the animal’s brittle outermost layer of skin. The skin grows on a tiny lattice framework, they said, causing it to fracture under mechanical stress when the animals move.

African elephants are known to love bathing, spraying and mud-wallowing, and since they have no sweat and sebum glands to keep their skin moist and supple, the tiny crevices trap and hold on to water and mud, helping to regulate body temperature.

They also form a barrier against bugs and solar radiation.
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Science

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Swinging by Venus on Way to Sun

By Yscien on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is swinging by Venus on its unprecedented journey to the sun.

Launched in August, the spacecraft gets a gravity assist Wednesday as it passes within 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of Venus. The flyby is the first of seven that will draw Parker ever closer to the sun.

By the end of October, Parker will shatter the current record for close solar encounters, set by a NASA spacecraft in 1976 from 27 million miles (43 million kilometers) out.

Parker will get within 15 million miles (25 million kilometers) of the sun’s surface in November.

Twenty-four such orbits — dipping into the sun’s upper atmosphere, or corona — are planned over the next seven years. The gap will eventually shrink to 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometers).
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Science

Paris Builds Zero-Carbon Future with Social Conscience

By Yscien on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Arrayed between elegant stone buildings and run-down railway tracks in the northwest of Paris lie bustling playgrounds, plant-filled ponds and stretches of lush grass.

The Clichy-Batignolles area, a former industrial wasteland, has morphed into the French capital’s first “eco-neighborhood,” billed as a model of sustainable development for the rest of the city.

Clarisse Genton, project coordinator for the Clichy-Batignolles district, said it aims to be “environmentally responsible” — with solar panels on homes and clean geothermal energy for heating, for example.

But the eco-effort also has a social aim: to address the city’s affordable housing crisis and ensure green benefits reach the poor as well as the rich.

“We wanted to create a district that’s accessible to all and to bridge the gap between poor and rich parts of the city,” said Genton, referring to the neighboring posh district of Monceau and the poorer La Fourche.

Paris is one of more than 70 cities worldwide that have pledged to become “carbon neutral” by 2050, meaning they will produce no more climate-changing emissions than they can offset, such as by planting carbon-absorbing trees.

Each is going about achieving the goal in its own way. But because cities account for about three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.N., and consume more than two-thirds of the world’s energy, whether they succeed or fail will have a huge impact on whether the world’s climate goals are met.

“Cities are where everything comes together: homes, transport, public spaces — so there’s a real role for them to help create the living places of the future,” said Eliot Whittington, director of the Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group, a coalition of businesses promoting climate action.

“We’ve got to a state of accepting a certain level of waste and energy [use], but climate change [and] heat waves affect us all and have a real toll on people’s lives,” he told Reuters.

Global warming is currently set to exceed the more ambitious limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degree Fahrenheit) called for in the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb climate change, according to a draft U.N. report due for publication in October.

Following public consultations, Paris adopted its climate action plan in March. It aims to make the city carbon-neutral and entirely powered by renewable energy by 2050.

From swimming pools heated by sewage to ensuring the city is fully “cyclable” by 2020, it includes more than 500 initiatives to reimagine Paris as a zero-carbon capital.

‘Green lung’

The Clichy-Batignolles area of 54 hectares (130 acres), once chosen as Paris’s Olympic village as part of the city’s failed 2012 bid, is built around a 10-hectare park containing a skate park, deck chairs and wooden bridges.

Martin Luther King Park acts as a “green lung” and an “island of coolness” for the neighborhood, said Genton, showing a miniature model of the district to two passersby.

“Rainwater is channeled toward wetlands rather than discharged into sewers, and household waste is collected through an underground pneumatic system — removing the need for garbage trucks,” she added.

Buildings are heated by a new geothermal plant, and about two-thirds of homes are equipped with solar panels on their roof.

But the eco-district is about more than energy efficiency and biodiversity, said Genton, adding that “we urgently need affordable homes in a city that cannot grow and where prices are skyrocketing.”

Half of the neighborhood’s newly built flats qualify as social housing and can be rented for about 300 euros a month, she said.

Local residents have so far warmed to their new neighborhood, and say they feel “more connected” to the rest of the city, she said.

But many still await the arrival of a promised metro line, which should help reduce traffic and public transport congestion in the area, Genton said.

Virgile Geraud, a retired carpenter who has lived in Clichy-Batignolles for 40 years and is considering renting one of the new homes, said that “this new park, these new buildings … it’s really nice, it’s a change of lifestyle.”

“But some people think the new buildings are too tall or too modern,” he added, pointing to a bright yellow crane looming over a half-completed building.

Denis Musanga, who two months ago moved to Clichy-Batignolles from the Paris suburb of Villiers-le-Bel, said he was “shocked by how clean it is, even at night.”

He is less convinced of the “affordable” label, however, saying that he pays 650 euros for one room in a two-bed flat — “much more than what I paid in the suburbs.”

Citizen-led

If zero-carbon initiatives are to succeed, citizens need to buy into them, according to the city of Paris’ climate plan, which received hundreds of proposals from residents to improve their city.

Fortunately, many ways of cutting emissions can also help people be more comfortable or save money, experts said.

Improving home insultation, for instance, can curb emissions, make people more comfortable and make a “significant difference” in their energy bills, Whittington said.

“Loft insulation for example is one of the easiest things to do, but what holds people back from doing it is the hassle. When do you do it? How do you clear the loft?”

European cities have come a long way in improving energy efficiency in buildings and homes, he said, but still have a “huge body of old, inefficient buildings.”

“That’s a missed opportunity to tackle energy waste and improve people’s lives,” he said.

Aiming to tackle this is France’s Passeport Efficacite Energetique (Energy Efficiency Passport) — a project led by think tanks and companies such as French utility EDF. It encourages householders to renovate their homes step by step.

Still in its pilot phase, the project involves auditing the energy efficiency of homes and storing any progress made — such as the use of more efficient lighting — with an online tool.

Musanga, whose building is not yet equipped with solar panels, said he is open to the idea but “wants proof” that going greener can save him money.

“If it helps the planet, then that’s a bonus,” he said, tying on his rollerblades before disappearing into the distance.
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Economy

Canada PM Takes Quebec Dairy Gamble to Preserve Big Trade Deal

By Yeco on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

With his political future at stake, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will mount a charm offensive to placate dairy farmers who say he sold them out in order to win approval of a continental trade deal.

Compounding Trudeau’s challenges in the influential province of Quebec, where many dairy farmers are based, voters there tossed out one of his allies on Monday in favor of a new center-right party that opposes immigration and supports supply management, as Canada’s dairy protection system is known.

Unhappy Quebec farmers – who are a political force – are already complaining to legislators from the ruling Liberals, and insiders concede there is no guarantee of winning them over, leaving Trudeau potentially vulnerable in a federal election set for October 2019.

The prime minister needed a win on trade after a year that has left his environmental and energy policy in tatters. That said, opposition leaders have struggled to connect with voters and their parties face their own challenges in Quebec.

Under the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Ottawa on Sunday bowed to long-standing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to grant more access to the highly protected dairy market.

In return, the United States dropped a threat to impose tariffs on Canadian auto exports. This would have caused major damage to the economy and disproportionately affected Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, which also tilted right in a June provincial election.

“Dairy was Trump’s personal obsession, and so there was no way we could have made a deal without some form of dairy concessions,” said one senior Liberal, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the situation.

The government plans to discuss a promised compensation package with dairy farmers in coming months, as well as ways the industry can be made more competitive.

“There is going to be a rough patch and our members of Parliament are already hearing it, especially those in rural areas,” said the Liberal source.

Trudeau says farmers will be fully compensated, which in the past has helped mute their protests over concessions agreed in earlier trade deals.

“We are reaching out to them, we want to work with them.

That’s going to be the message and hopefully that will be sufficient to get over this, but there’s nothing guaranteed in life,” said the Liberal.

The dairy industry is concentrated in Ontario and Quebec, which together account for 61.5 percent of the population.

Trudeau has no chance of retaining power unless the Liberals do well in both provinces.

“People feel betrayed,” said Bruno Letendre, chairman of a group representing Quebec’s dairy farmers. “They don’t want compensation. They want to produce for the Canadian market.”

Quebec’s premier-elect, Francois Legault, plans to meet with farmers on Tuesday before deciding on what options to pursue. He told reporters, “I will do everything to defend them.”

The Liberals, who now hold 40 of Quebec’s 78 seats in the federal House of Commons, privately say that to retain their parliamentary majority next year they need to win another 20 to offset expected losses elsewhere, including in British Columbia where a pipeline dispute has pitted the province against Ottawa.

Trudeau could be spared the worst in Quebec, where a prominent Conservative recently quit to form his own party, threatening to split the right-leaning vote. The leftist New Democrats, who compete directly with Trudeau’s Liberals, are losing public support.

Opinion polls taken before the trade talks ended showed the Liberals comfortably ahead of the official opposition Conservatives, who have spent the last two days accusing Trudeau of selling Canada short in the trade deal.

“The political calculus for the Liberals would be that failing on NAFTA was really not an option because that would leave them significantly vulnerable in terms of their economic track record,” said pollster Nik Nanos of Nanos Research.

“I think they decided it would probably be easier … to take their lumps with the dairy farmers than to face a broader narrative of mismanagement of the trade file and the economy among many Canadians,” he said in an interview.
…

Science

US Working to Halt Spread of Diseases from Venezuela

By Yscien on Wednesday, October 3, 2018

The United States is working with governments across Latin America to help prevent the spread of diseases like diphtheria and measles from Venezuela as refugees flee the chaotic country, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said on Tuesday.

Azar, a former executive at drugmaker Eli Lilly, said it was important to effectively treat infirm Venezuelan migrants before diseases like malaria spread through neighboring countries.

“Disease knows no boundaries. And as we’ve had the complete collapse of the public health infrastructure in Venezuela and then migrants fleeing Venezuela to neighboring countries, they’re bringing their health conditions with them,” Azar told Reuters during a stop in Brazil ahead of a G20 meeting of health ministers in Argentina this week.

“We’re working with our health ministerial counterparts … because we want to ensure that these individuals are vaccinated, that they get the care that they need, because we of course don’t want measles to become endemic in the Western Hemisphere again. We don’t want diphtheria to become widespread.”

Venezuela is now in the fifth year of an economic crisis that has caused its healthcare system to collapse and sparked malnutrition, hyperinflation, and a migration crisis.

Refugees have ignited health emergencies in neighboring countries, including in Brazil. Almost 300 cases of measles were recorded in the Brazilian border state of Roraima between February and early August, spurring the government to launch a nationwide campaign to vaccinate 11 million children.

While in Brazil, Azar visited a popular type of 24-hour health clinic known as a UPA, where patients can receive basic medical treatment.

UPAs have helped reduce the number of hospital visits for patients whose issues can be dealt with locally. Azar said they could serve as a useful model for some U.S. communities.

Brazil, particularly the nation’s northeast, was hard-hit by the 2015-16 outbreak of the Zika virus, in which some infected pregnant women gave birth to children with abnormal smallness of the head, a condition known as microcephaly.

Azar said that collaboration between the United States and Brazil on developing a Zika vaccine continued. He added that the United States and Brazil were to sign an agreement Tuesday under which they would contribute 14 million reais ($3.5 million) each for research next year into a range of diseases including dengue and AIDS.
…

Economy

Media Report: Trump Built Fortune Via Tax Fraud

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

President Donald Trump used questionable tax dodges and outright fraud to greatly increase his fortune that started with money from his parents, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

Trump likes to portray himself as a self-made man, saying he started with a relatively modest $1 million loan from his father and built his riches through investments and deals.

But in an extensive and detailed 40,000-word story, the Times reports Trump received about $413 million from his father, Fred Trump, a New York real estate mogul.

Fred Trump began funneling money to Donald Trump and his siblings when they were young children, and the newspaper said they are still getting money from the real estate empire today.

Improper deductions alleged

The newspaper reported that Trump helped his father build up his fortune by dodging taxes, including what the paper called improper tax deductions.

The report alleged Donald Trump schemed to underestimate the value of Trump real estate holdings to sharply reduce the tax bill.

The Times also reported that Donald Trump and his siblings set up a fake corporation to hide large cash gifts from their father.

According to the newspaper, tax records show the Trump family paid just a small fraction of the taxes they were obligated to pay to the federal government under the tax code.

The newspaper based its story on interviews with Fred Trump’s former employees and more than 100,000 pages of documents, including the elder Trump’s personal tax returns.

Apparently, none of the president’s tax returns were used to write the Times report. The president refused to release his tax returns, breaking with recent White House practices.

A Trump lawyer, Charles Harder, said in a statement Tuesday that the Times’ allegations of fraud and tax evasion “are 100 percent false and highly defamatory. There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which the Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”

A statement from Trump’s brother, Robert, pointed out that Fred Trump died in June 1999, and he said the Internal Revenue Service closed his estate two years later. He said the Trump family had no further comment on the allegations and appealed to everyone to let Fred and Mary Anne Trump rest in peace.

The Times said that according to tax experts, Trump was unlikely to face criminal prosecution for tax fraud because the alleged crimes took place too long ago.

But the experts told the Times he could still face civil penalties and fines.
…

Economy

Fed Chair Powell Says Gradual Rate Hikes Best Approach

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday that he sees no need to drop the central bank’s current gradual approach to raising interest rates.

Powell said the combination of steady, low inflation and very low unemployment shows the country is going through “extraordinary times.”

The central bank is trying to make sure it doesn’t raise rates too quickly and push the country into a recession, or move too slowly and set off higher inflation, he said. He added that the Fed’s goal of gradual increases in interest rates is an effort to balance those risks and extend the current expansion, now the second longest in U.S. history.

Powell’s comments, delivered to the annual conference of the National Association of Business Economics, came a week after the central bank approved a third quarter-point hike in its benchmark policy rate, pushing it to a level of 2 percent to 2.25 percent.

It marked the third rate hike this year and the eighth increase. The Fed began gradually raising rates in December 2015 after a period of seven years in which it kept its policy rate at a record low near zero to try to lift the economy out of a deep recession.

During a question and answer session, Powell discussed how the Fed might respond to the next economic downturn.

He said the Fed expects to turn to similar tactics it used during the last recession as needed. The central bank cut rates and purchased billions of dollars of bonds to push long-term rates lower, efforts that brought criticism from some in Congress that it had been too aggressive in its efforts.

“We will use the tools we used in the financial crisis to the extent that we have to,” Powell said. Last year the Fed examined potential responses to the next recession and plans to further study the issue in the coming year.

Powell noted in his speech that the unemployment rate stands near a 20-year low of 3.9 percent, while inflation has risen close to the Fed’s 2 percent target for annual increases in inflation.

The Fed’s economic forecast is in line with many others that show unemployment remaining below 4 percent through the end of 2020, with inflation staying near the 2 percent target over the same period, he said.

He was asked by a reporter at his news conference last week whether this forecast was too good to be true. He called that “a reasonable question” given that since 1950, the country has never experienced such a long period of low, stable inflation and very low unemployment for such an extended period.

He said it runs counter to an economic theory known as the “Phillips curve,” which argues that low unemployment forces employers to push up wages to compete for scarce workers, triggering more inflation.

Powell said he did not think the Phillips curve is dead. But various changes in the economy, including better conduct of monetary policy by the Fed, had “greatly reduced, but not eliminated, the effects that tight labor markets have on inflation,” he said.

He said these developments support the Fed’s current cautious approach in raising interest rates even as unemployment keeps moving to lows not seen in 50 years. But he said there were risks to the Fed’s current gradual approach to raising rate hikes. For that reason, central bank officials will be prepared quickly to change policy if conditions warrant such a change.
…

Economy

Homeboy Industries Turns Ex-Convicts’ Lives Around

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Can ex-convicts completely turn their lives around? A program called “Homeboy Industries” believes so. It provides training, classes and support to former gang members and people just out of prison. The aim: make them productive citizens and leave a life of crime behind. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story.
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Economy

Poll: Half of Young Americans See Better Financial Future

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

About half of young Americans expect to be financially better off than their parents, according to a new poll, a sign that the dream of upward mobility is alive but somewhat tempered.

The poll, by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and MTV, found that half of 15- to 26-year-olds said they thought they would be better off than their parents in terms of household finances. About 29 percent expected to do as well as their parents, and 20 percent expected to be worse off.

Parents were slightly more optimistic: Sixty percent said they thought their children would do better than they did, a view that held true for parents across all income groups. Overall, only 12 percent of parents said that they felt their children might do worse.

It’s no longer a guarantee that children will achieve upward income mobility. About half of the Americans born in 1984 earned more at age 30 than their parents, down from 92 percent in 1940, according to the study by famed economist Raj Chetty and others that was released in 2016.

Jennifer Narvaez, 23, is among those who expect their financial futures to be brighter than those of their parents. The Miami resident said she expected to have more opportunities as a college graduate to get a job and own a home than her parents, who grew up in Nicaragua and immigrated to the United States. Narvaez holds an undergraduate degree in biology and is planning on attending medical school to become a cardiologist.

‘A weird time’

Narvaez is less certain about the prospects of the U.S. economy, particularly as the nation appears to be marching into a trade war with China.

“It’s a weird time,” she said. “I feel like it’s hard to predict what will happen because of the kind of administration we have.”

Alex Barner, 20, also felt optimistic that he might fare better than his mother, who had him at age 18 and raised him as a single mother. He is attending college in New Mexico and is considering a career in business management.

While Barner is hopeful he will do well in life, he also has some concerns about the trajectory of the nation and its economy. Like Narvaez, he’s concerned by the trade policy of President Donald Trump’s administration.

Barner also said he felt politicians needed to focus more on matters that affect people in the here and now, such as health care and student loan relief.

Respondents were divided about how they expected the nation’s economy would fare in the year ahead. About 29 percent of young people expected the economy to improve, 30 percent expected it would get worse and 41 thought it would stay the same. Similarly, 35 percent of parents expected improvement, 27 percent expected conditions to get worse and 38 percent expected the economy to stay as is.

The Youth Political Pulse poll was conducted Aug. 23-Sept. 10 by the AP-NORC Center and MTV. The poll was conducted using NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. It includes 580 young people ages 15-26 and 591 parents of children in the same age group. The margin of sampling error for all young people is plus or minus 6.6 percentage points and for parents plus or minus 7.5 percentage points.
…

Technology

Trump to Meet With Google CEO, Other Tech Heads in October

By Ytech on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to meet with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other tech executives this month at a social media summit.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Tuesday that the administration hoped Facebook and Twitter would send representatives to the meeting. Kudlow added the event would most likely happen in mid-October, though no date has been set.

Prominent conservatives, including the president, have accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of silencing right-leaning voices on their platforms, a suspected practice called “shadow banning.”

Kudlow had a meeting with Pichai last Friday, which he described as “great.”

Pichai drew flack from senators last month after failing to send an executive to a hearing, and he has agreed appear at another.
…

Science

2nd Round of Cholera Vaccinations Under Way in Yemen

By Yscien on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

The World Health Organization and its partners are conducting a second round of cholera vaccinations in Yemen in hopes of staving off a third major wave of this fatal disease.

A first round of cholera vaccinations was conducted in August in the Yemeni governorates of Hodeida and Ibb. They are considered to be the most vulnerable to an escalation of cholera.

Seventy-two percent coverage of the target group, has been reached. That amounts to nearly 390,000 people.

In the second round of vaccinations, the World Health Organization reports more than 3,000 local health workers aim to reach an estimated 540,000 people, including children under the age of one.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says this campaign is a crucial component in various efforts under way to try to prevent another massive outbreak of cholera in Yemen.

“We have been seeing the number of cholera cases increasing in Yemen since June and this increase has been even more important in the last three weeks,” said Jasarevic. “And, this is basically, a number of suspected cases, a number of cases that were positive by rapid diagnostic tests. But, also cases that were positive by tests done by growing the culture.”

The World Health Organization reports nearly 155,000 suspected cholera cases and 197 associated deaths between January and the end of August.

Since April 2017, more than 1,200,000 suspected cases of cholera have been reported, including 2,515 deaths.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea and dehydration. If left untreated, it can kill within hours.

The WHO says most people recover with a treatment of oral rehydration salts. People who are seriously ill will need to receive intravenous fluids and antibiotics.
…

Technology

Google’s First Urban Development Raises Data Concerns

By Ytech on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Heated streets will melt ice and snow on contact. Sensors will monitor traffic and protect pedestrians. Driverless shuttles will carry people to their doors.

A unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet is proposing to turn a rundown part of Toronto’s waterfront into what may be the most wired community in history — to “fundamentally refine what urban life can be.”

Sidewalk Labs has partnered with a government agency known as Waterfront Toronto with plans to erect mid-rise apartments, offices, shops and a school on a 12-acre (4.9-hectare) site — a first step toward what it hopes will eventually be a 800-acre (325-hectare) development.

High-level interest is clear: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alphabet’s then-Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt appeared together to announce the plan in October.

But some Canadians are rethinking the privacy implications of giving one of the most data-hungry companies on the planet the means to wire up everything from street lights to pavement. And some want the public to get a cut of the revenue from products developed using Canada’s largest city as an urban laboratory.

“The Waterfront Toronto executives and board are too dumb to realize they are getting played,” said former BlackBerry chief executive Jim Balsillie, a smartphone pioneer considered a national hero.

Complaints about the proposed development prompted Waterfront Toronto to re-do the agreement to ensure a greater role for the official agency, which represents city, provincial and federal governments.

So far the project is still in the embryonic stage. After consultations, the developers plan to present a formal master plan early next year.

Dan Doctoroff, the CEO of Sidewalk Labs, envisions features like pavement that lights up to warn pedestrians of approaching streetcars. Flexible heated enclosures — described as “raincoats” for buildings — will be deployed based on weather data during Toronto’s bitter winters. Robotic waste-sorting systems will detect when a garbage bin is full and remove it before raccoons descend.

“Those are great uses of data that can improve the quality of life of people,” he said. “That’s what we want to do.”

Sidewalk Labs promotional materials promise “a place that’s enhanced by digital technology and data, without giving up the privacy and security that everyone deserves.”

Doctoroff said the company isn’t looking to monetize people’s personal information in the way that Google does now with search information. He said the plan is to invent so-far-undefined products and services that Sidewalk Labs can market elsewhere.

“People automatically assume because of our relationship to Alphabet and Google that they will be treated one way or another. We have never said anything” about the data issue, he said. “To be honest people should give us some time. Be patient.”

But that wasn’t good enough for Julie Di Lorenzo, a prominent Toronto developer who resigned from the Waterfront Toronto board over the project. Di Lorenzo said data and what Google wants to do with it should be front and center in the discussions. She also believes the government agency has given the Google affiliate too much power over how the project develops.

“How can [Waterfront Toronto], a corporation established by three levels of democratically elected government, have shared values with a limited, for-profit company whose premise is embedded data collection?” Di Lorenzo asked.

Di Lorenzo asks who will own the autonomous vehicles. “Is the municipality maintaining the fleet or forcing you to share your vehicle?” She also asks if people who don’t want their data collected will be allowed to live there.

The concerns have intensified following a series of privacy scandals at Facebook and Google. A recent Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on iPhones and Android devices store location-tracking data even if you use privacy settings that are supposed to turn them off.

“It gives all of us pause,” Waterfront board chair Helen Burstyn acknowledged.

Bianca Wylie, an advocate of open government, said it remains deeply troubling that Sidewalk Labs still hasn’t said who will own data produced by the project or how it will be monetized. Google is here to make money, she said, and Canadians should benefit from any data or products developed from it.

“We are not here to be someone’s research and development lab,” she said, “to be a loss leader for products they want to sell globally.”

Ottawa patent lawyer Natalie Raffoul said the fact that the current agreement leaves ownership of data issues for later shows that it wasn’t properly drafted and means patents derived from the data will default to Google.

“We just can’t be too trusting of corporations,” she said.

But Burstyn, the Waterfront Toronto chair, said the upcoming master plan will address data concerns. The agency wants to make Toronto a global hub of a rising new industry, she said.

“Everybody gets worried about the digital and technology aspects that might run amok,” she said. “I don’t worry about that as much as I see the opportunities for developing a really interesting, innovative community.”

Adam Vaughan, the federal lawmaker whose district includes the development, said debate about big data and urban infrastructure is coming to cities across the world and he would rather have Toronto at the forefront of discussion.

“Google is ahead of governments globally and locally. That’s a cause for concern but it’s also an opportunity,” Vaughan said.
…

Technology

EU Warns Facebook Not to Lose Control of Data Security

By Ytech on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

The EU’s top data privacy enforcer expressed worry Tuesday that Facebook had lost control of data security after a vast privacy breach that she said affected five million Europeans.

“It is a question for the management, if they have things under control,” EU Justice and Consumer Affairs Commissioner Vera Jourova told AFP in Luxembourg.

“The magnitude of the company … makes it very difficult to manage, but they have to do that because they are harvesting the data and they are making incredible money on using our privacy as the commodity,” she added.

Jourova spoke just days after Facebook admitted that up to 50 million user accounts around the world had been breached by hackers, in yet another scandal for the beleaguered social platform.

“I will know more … in hours or days but according to our knowledge, five million Europeans have been affected out of those 50, which is an incredible number,” she said.

Jourova said Facebook’s quick revelation of the case demonstrated that new European rules on data protection implemented earlier this year are working.

New EU rules – the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – have been billed as the biggest shake-up of privacy regulations since the birth of the web and give European regulators vast new enforcement powers.

The case for GDPR was boosted by another recent scandal over the harvesting of Facebook users’ data by Cambridge Analytica, a US-British political research firm, for the 2016 US presidential election.

Jourova said the worst cases involve a company finding a major breach then failing to warn authorities or their users, which she said doesn’t appear to be the case in the latest Facebook drama.

Under GDPR, companies can be fined up to four percent of annual global turnover if they fail to abide by the rules, including notification of the data breach within 72 hours.

Facebook met this requirement, Jourova pointed out, which “is one of the factors which might result in lower sanctions, but this is only theoretical”.

…

Economy

Mexican Auto Parts Makers See New Trade Deal Boosting Output

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Auto parts output in Mexico will jump about 10 percent over the next three years as automakers scramble to adhere to stricter content rules laid out in a new North American trade deal, a top industry executive said on Monday.

The United States and Canada reached an agreement on Sunday after weeks of tense bilateral talks to update the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexico and the United States first brokered a bilateral accord in late August.

The new trilateral deal, called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), will raise the minimum North American content threshold for cars needed to qualify for duty-free market access to 75 percent from 62.5 percent.

“Carmakers, especially Asian and European carmakers, will have to invest more in tools, in North American components to comply with the new content rules,” Oscar Albin, head of Mexican auto parts industry association INA, said in an interview.

The so-called rules of origin dictate what percentage of a car needs to be built in North America in order to avoid tariffs in the trade deal.

General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Germany’s Volkswagen AG, Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp., Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. all build autos in Mexico.

“The American carmakers already have a very well-established footprint in the United States and Mexico” and will more easily adhere to the stricter content rules, Albin told Reuters.

The new rules should boost auto parts production from about $90 billion annually at present to “around $100 billion” over the next three years, he added. In the course of that period, the sector should add about 80,000 new jobs, Albin said.

Stocks in auto parts firms were lifted by the deal.

Shares in Nemak, the auto parts unit of Mexican industrial conglomerate Alfa, closed up by more than 8.5 percent. Stock in Mexican auto parts maker Rassini rose by more than 4.5 percent.

“The United States and Canada will also grow since the three countries will benefit (from the new agreement),” said Albin.

The deal set a five-year transition period once the accord enters into force to meet the new content requirements.

That looked like a tough deadline, Albin said.

“I think (time) is a bit short because any adjustment or change of the supply (chain) for cars already being assembled is practically impossible,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump had put creating more manufacturing jobs at the heart of his desire to rework NAFTA.
…

Economy

How NAFTA 2.0 Will Shake Up Business as Usual

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

American dairy farmers get more access to the Canadian market. U.S. drug companies can fend off generic competition for a few more years. Automakers are under pressure to build more cars where workers earn decent wages.

The North American trade agreement hammered out late Sunday between the United States and Canada, following an earlier U.S.-Mexico deal, shakes up — but likely won’t revolutionize — the way businesses operate within the three-country trade bloc.

The new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaces the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which tore down trade barriers between the three countries. But NAFTA encouraged factories to move to Mexico to take advantage of low-wage labor in what President Donald Trump called a job-killing “disaster” for the United States.

Sunday’s agreement is meant to bring manufacturing back to the United States. The president, never known for understatement, said the new deal would “transform North America back into a manufacturing powerhouse.”

But America had to make some concessions, too. For example, it agreed to retain a NAFTA dispute-resolution process that it wanted to jettison but Canada insisted on keeping.

Overall, financial markets were relieved the countries reached a deal. For a time, it had looked like Trump might pull out of a regional free trade pact altogether — or strike one without Canada, America’s No. 2 trading partner. At noon Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 240 points.

Economists, trade attorneys and businesses are still parsing the agreement. But here’s an early look at what it means for different players.

How dairy farmers are affected

Trump has raged about Canada’s tariffs on dairy imports, which can approach 300 percent. American dairy farmers have also complained about Canadian policies that priced the U.S. out of the market for some dairy powders and allowed Canada to flood world markets with its own versions.

The new agreement ends the discriminatory pricing and restricts Canadian exports of dairy powders.

It also expands U.S. access to up to 3.75 percent of the Canadian dairy market (versus 3.25 percent in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement the Obama administration negotiated but Trump nixed his first week in office). Above that level, U.S. dairy farmers will still face Canada’s punishing tariffs. And the “supply management” system Canada uses to protect its farmers is still largely in place.

Still, trade attorney Daniel Ujczo of the Dickinson Wright law firm said that “the U.S. dairy industry seems happy … for now.”

Shaking things up for automakers

NAFTA remade the North American auto market. Automakers built complicated supply chains that straddled NAFTA borders. In doing so, they took advantage of each country’s strengths — cheap labor in Mexico, and skilled workers and proximity to customers in the United States and Canada.

The new agreement changes things up. For one thing, the percentage of a car’s content that must be built within the trade bloc to qualify for duty-free status rises to 75 percent from 62.5 percent. A bolder provision requires that 40 percent to 45 percent of a car’s content be built where workers earn $16 an hour. That is meant to bring production back to the United States or Canada and away from Mexico (and perhaps to put some upward pressure on Mexican wages).

The provisions could drive up car prices for consumers.

The new deal also provides some protection to Canada and Mexico if Trump goes ahead with his threat to slap 20 percent to 25 percent taxes on imported cars, trucks and auto parts. It would exclude from the proposed tariffs 2.6 million passenger vehicles from both Canada and Mexico.

The impact on multinational companies

Like other U.S. trade agreements, NAFTA allowed multinational companies to go to private tribunals to challenge national laws they said discriminated against them and violated the terms of the trade agreement. Critics charged the process gave companies a way to get around environmental and labor laws and regulations they didn’t like, overruling democratically elected governments in the process.

U.S. Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer, who negotiated the new deal, had another complaint: The tribunals took some of the risk out of investing in unstable or corrupt countries such as Mexico. Why, Lighthizer argued, should the United States negotiate deals that encourage investment in other countries?

The new pact scales back provisions protecting foreign investment. Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch and a sharp critic of NAFTA, praised the new agreement for reining in what she called NAFTA’s “outrageous” tribunal system that had allowed big companies to launch “attacks on environmental and health policies.”

Windfall for drug companies

The new trade pact delivers a windfall to pharmaceutical companies that make biologics — ultra-expensive drugs produced in living cells. It gives them 10 years of protection from generic competition, up from eight the Obama administration had negotiated in the TPP.

But good news for the pharmaceutical industry could be bad news for users of the drugs and for government policymakers trying to hold down health-care costs.

“New monopoly privileges for pharmaceutical firms … could undermine reforms needed to make medicine more affordable here and increase prices in Mexico and Canada, limiting access to lifesaving medicines,” Wallach said.

Some retailers benefit, other do not

The United States pressured Canada and Mexico to raise the dollar amount that shipments must reach before they become subject to import duties. Canada, for instance, will allow tax- and duty-free shipments worth up to 40 Canadian dollars (about $31), up from 20 Canadian dollars ($16) under NAFTA.

The change makes U.S. products more competitive in Canada because they will be subject to less tax at the border — and delivers savings to Canadians who shop online. However, trade attorney Ujczo notes, the higher threshold poses a threat to Canadian retailers.
…

Technology

3D Map of Singapore Helps City Planner Prepare for Future

By Ytech on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Imagine seeing an incredibly detailed map of your home city in three dimensions, with every citizen carrying a cell phone showing up as a dot on that map. Well, you can’t because there are security issues galore when it comes to tracking people online. But you should know it’s possible, at least in Singapore, where city planners are considering how the technology may help improve life. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Economy

GE, Seeking Path Forward as a Century-old Company, Ousts CEO

By Yeco on Tuesday, October 2, 2018

General Electric ousted its CEO, took a $23 billion charge and said it would fall short of profit forecasts this year, further signs that the century-old industrial conglomerate is struggling to turn around its vastly shrunken business.

H. Lawrence Culp Jr. will take over immediately as chairman and CEO from John Flannery, who had been on the job for just over a year. Flannery began a restructuring of GE in August 2017, when he replaced Jeffrey Immelt, whose efforts to create a higher-tech version of GE proved unsuccessful.

However, in Flannery’s short time, GE’s value has dipped below $100 billion and shares are down more than 35 percent this year, following a 45 percent decline in 2017.

The company was booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average this summer and, last month, shares tumbled to a nine-year low after revealing a flaw in its marquee gas turbines, which caused the metal blades to weaken and forced the shutdown of a pair of power plants where they were in use.

GE warned Monday that it will miss its profit forecasts this year and it’s taking a $23 billion charge related to its power business.

The 55-year-old Culp was CEO and president of Danaher Corp. from 2000 to 2014. During that time, Danaher’s market capitalization and revenues grew five-fold. He’s already a member of GE’s board.

It’s a track record that GE appears to need after a series of notable changes under Flannery failed to gain momentum immediately, although some analysts wonder whether Culp’s history of accomplishments will be enough to reverse the direction of the company.

The challenges GE faces — including the power sector’s cyclical, structural and operational challenges — are not easily or quickly fixable, but “GE should be commended for selecting a credible, seasoned GE outsider as chairman/CEO who is likely to more candidly and quickly identify how bad things may be and what needs to be done about it,” said Gautam Khanna, an analyst at Cowen Inc., in a note to investors.

Investors will want Culp to “clean house, and fast,” said Scott Davis, founding partner of Melius Research, in a research note where he compared GE’s recent history to a slow but fatal train wreck.

“If I’m a GE employee today, I’m happy for the turnaround, but expectations are about to get a whole lot higher…GE employees will either step up or will be replaced,” Davis said.

Flannery faced a titanic task in redirecting General Electric, which was founded in 1892 in Schenectady, New York.

Just six months after taking over as CEO, Flannery said the company would be forced to pay $15 billion to make up for the miscalculations of an insurance subsidiary. While Wall Street was aware of the issues at GE’s North American Life & Health, the size of the hit caught many off guard.

Flannery on the same day said that GE might take the radical step of splitting up the main company’s three main components — aviation, health care and power — into separate businesses.

In June GE said it would spin off its health-care business and sell its interest in Baker Hughes, a massive oil services company. It’s been selling off assets and trying to sharpen its focus since the recession, when it’s finance division was hammered.

“GE still has too much debt and plenty to fix, but at least we have an outsider with an accelerated mandate to fix it,” Davis said.

Flannery vowed to give GE more of a high-tech and industrial focus by honing in on aviation, power and renewable energy — businesses with big growth potential. The shift is historic for a company that defined the phrase “household name.”

GE traces its roots to Thomas Edison and the invention of the light bulb, and the company grew with the American economy. At the start of the global financial crisis in 2008, it was one of the nation’s biggest lenders, its appliances were sold by the millions to homeowners around the world and it oversaw a multinational media powerhouse including NBC television.

But the economic crises revealed how unwieldy General Electric had become, with broad exposure damage during economic downturns.

Shares of General Electric Co., based in Boston, surged 11 percent in midday trading.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, who helped lure GE to Boston from Connecticut in 2016 with incentives like state grants and property tax relief, said he’s not too concerned about GE’s latest travails. He noted that the company is still worth about $100 billion and has what he called a “huge footprint” in Massachusetts in health care, green technology, and renewable energy.

He said the state “did not write a big check to GE based on job projections or anything like that.”
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