Science fiction has long teased consumers about a future where robots are our personal assistants. But it’s no longer science fiction. The recent spike in consumer-grade “smart speakers” that respond to users’ voice commands has been given a face — with the help of a self-navigating robot that listens to its owner’s commands. Arash Arabasadi has more.
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Asia’s growing appetite for meat and seafood over the next three decades will cause huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions and antibiotics used in foods, researchers said Tuesday.
Rising population, incomes and urbanization will drive a 78 percent increase in meat and seafood demand from 2017 to 2050, according to a report by Asia Research and Engagement Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based consultancy firm.
“We wanted to highlight that, because of the large population and how fast the population is growing, it is going to put a strain on the environment,” said co-author Serena Tan.
“By recognizing this and where it comes from, we can tackle the solutions,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
More carbon dioxide, antibiotics
With supply chains ramping up to meet demand, greenhouse gas emissions will jump from 2.9 billion tons of CO2 per year to 5.4 billion tons, the equivalent of the lifetime emissions of 95 million cars, the researchers said.
A land area the size of India will be needed for additional food production, according to the report, while water use will climb from 577 billion cubic meters per year to 1,054 billion cubic meters per year.
The use of antimicrobials, which kill or stop the growth of microorganisms, and include antibiotics, will increase 44 percent to 39,000 tons per year, said the report, which was commissioned by the Hong Kong-based ADM Capital Foundation.
Overuse and misuse of antibiotics in food is rife in Southeast Asia, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this year, warning of serious risks for people and animals as bacterial infections become more resistant to treatment.
Income growth
Growing urban areas contribute to the rising demand for meat and seafood, because people there usually have better access to electricity and refrigeration, said David Dawe, a senior economist at the FAO in Bangkok.
“But income growth is the big driver,” he added.
Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Pakistan are among nations likely to contribute most to the rise in meat and seafood consumption, while countries with aging populations, like China, will likely limit growth, Tan said.
Food producers can increase efficiency by implementing rainwater harvesting, using sustainable animal feed and capturing biogas from cattle, Tan said.
Regulators, consumers and investors can also pressure restaurant chains and producers to limit the use of antibiotics in meat supplies, she added.
At meal times, consumers can also choose plant-based foods made to look like meats as an alternative, Tan said.
“You have a lot of people in Asia who don’t get that great a diet so animal-sourced food intake will increase,” said the FAO’s Dawe. “In many ways it’s a good thing for nutrition, but it does raise environmental issues.”
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Turkey saw the inflation rate rise to nearly 18 percent in August, a 15-year high fueled by a collapse in the Turkish lira, which fell more than 20 percent over the past few weeks.
The rising inflation and a falling currency are stoking fears Turkey is on the verge of financial and economic crisis.
“It’s the beginning of the slippery slope. It’s going to get worse unless there is a miraculous improvement in the exchange rate,” political analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners said. “We’ve reached the stage where there is nothing to anchor price expectations. People simply can’t gauge what prices or wages or costs will be next month.”
“It’s a very dismal set of numbers. The likelihood is headline inflation will reach 20 percent in (the) coming months,” economist Inan Demir of Nomura Securities said. “This is clearly a set of numbers that warrant a monetary response from inflation targeting the central bank.”
The Turkish Central Bank, in a statement on its website, vowed to act, promising to use all tools at its disposal and reshape its monetary policy stance at a Sept. 13 meeting where they will discuss interest rates.
The lira recouped much of its initial heavy losses following the release of the latest inflation figures.
“This (the central bank statement) is seen as a signal for a rate hike in that meeting,” Demir said. “Even though the wording of the statement is very uncertain, the expectation of tightening are curbing lira weakness after bad inflation numbers.”
International criticism
International investors sharply criticized the central bank for failing to aggressively raise interest rates to rein in inflation and defend the currency. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s influence is widely seen as responsible for the failure of the bank to act. Erdogan has repeatedly voiced opposition to raising interest rates.
“There will be a massive sell-off to the point of panic if they don’t raise rates,” Yesilada said. “This time, they have no option, even if they meant something else (in their statement), as everyone interpreted it as rates will be hiked. But there are two questions: by how much, and will it help at all?” he added.
Investors and analyst claim the central bank needs to raise rates by at least 4 percent, while some suggest a 10 percent raise is needed to avoid further drops in the currency, which analysts warned would open the lira to further pressure.
“In such a scenario, Turkish residents would want to hold more FX (foreign exchange) rather than Turkish lira … to protect their savings. That is a big risk to the currency,” Demir said.
Already, 40 percent of individual accounts in banks are in foreign currency.
However, an aggressive increase in rates may not be enough to rein in inflation or defend the lira, analysts warned.
“The concerns are on multiple fronts,” Demir said.
“What Turkish policy needs to do is straightforward,” he added. “They need to hike rates, tighten fiscal policy (cut government spending) and ease tensions with the United States, removing the threat of further sanctions by releasing (American) pastor (Andrew) Brunson.
“There is a way out of this, but it’s not obvious that the policymakers will take that way,” Demir said.
US trade tariffs
Last month’s imposition of trade tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump over the ongoing detention of Brunson was the trigger for the latest rout in the Turkish currency. Brunson is on trial on terrorism charges, a case dismissed by Washington as politically motivated.
Ignoring U.S. pressure, Turkey’s top appeals court judge, Rustu Cirit, on Monday supported Erdogan’s refusal to release Brunson, saying the pastor’s release is a matter only for the courts.
“To use brute force to reverse this fact, which is a basic principle of contemporary democracies and law of nations, would mean weakening human rights, rather than strengthening them,” Cirit said.
Trump is warning of further sanctions against Turkey if Brunson is not released. American regulatory authorities are considering reportedly a multibillion-dollar fine against Turkish state-controlled Halkbank for violations of Iranian sanctions.
Analysts warn the financial implications of an escalation of U.S.-Turkish tensions will continue to undermine confidence in the lira. However, Erdogan continues to take a robust stance against Washington, insisting the Turkish economy remains strong.
“The list of concerns is long, definitely, but the chief concern I have right now is the policymakers. They need to accept first that there is a significant problem that needs to be addressed,” Demir said. “But we heard this morning from finance minister (Berat) Albayrak that short-term fluctuations in inflation are normal. ”
Turkey already seems set to face a severe recession. Similar depreciations of the currency in past decades was accompanied by a double-digit contraction of the economy.
Analysts warn the stress on the economy will only grow.
“Each day, Ankara lingers or prevaricates the likelihood of a disaster event increases. Right now, the threat is very low, it’s manageable. But as winter approaches, the likelihood increases exponentially,” Yesilada said.
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The U.S. space agency NASA is offering a public challenge, with a lofty $750,000 reward, to anyone who can find ways to turn carbon dioxide into compounds that would be useful on Mars.
Calling it the “CO2 Conversion Challenge,” NASA scientists say they need help finding a way to turn a plentiful resource like carbon dioxide into a variety of useful products in order to make trips to Mars possible.
Carbon dioxide is one resource that is readily abundant within the Martian atmosphere.
Scientists say astronauts attempting space travel to Mars will not be able to bring everything they need to the red planet, so will have to figure out ways to use local resources once they get there to create what they need.
“Enabling sustained human life on another planet will require a great deal of resources and we cannot possibly bring everything we will need. We have to get creative,” said Monsi Roman, program manager of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program.
She said if scientists could learn to transform “resource like carbon dioxide into a variety of useful products, the space — and terrestrial — applications are endless.”
Carbon and oxygen are the molecular building blocks of sugars.
On Earth, plants can easily and inexpensively turn carbon dioxide and water into sugar. However, scientists say this approach would be difficult to replicate in space because of limited resources, such as energy and water.
NASA says the competition is divided into two phases. During the first phase, individuals or teams would submit a design and description of their proposal, with up to five teams winning $50,000 each. In the second phase, the finalists would build and present a demonstration of their proposals, with the winning individual or team earning $750,000.
Those who are up for the challenge need to register by Jan. 24, 2019, and then officially apply by Feb. 28, 2019.
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Yemen’s government says it is giving civil servants and pensioners pay raises, after protests against the country’s woeful economy nearly paralyzed a major port city Sunday.
Officials have not said when the raises would take effect or how much they will be.
Demonstrations against the economy in the port of Aden continued Monday. Many shops were closed, and some people burned tires in the streets.
Some of the marchers demanded to be paid in dollars, accusing senior officials of taking their salaries in the U.S.-based currency while paying the rank-and-file in the increasingly weak Yemeni rial.
The rial has lost more than half its value against the dollar since Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital of Sanaa in 2014, sending the Western-recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia.
It has since returned to set up shop in Aden.
Airstrikes
Meanwhile, the Houthis are demanding a war crimes investigation against the Saudi-led coalition after an airstrike last month that killed 40 children.
In an appeal Monday to the International Criminal Court, the Houthis asked the court to look into its “humanitarian conscience.”
A coalition missile struck a market in a Yemeni town near the Saudi border last month, killing 51 people. Among the dead were 40 children on a school bus coming back from a summer camp outing.
The coalition called the airstrike a “mistake.” It promised to hold those behind the attack legally responsible and to compensate the victims.
But the Houithis accuse the Saudis of being both the “judge and the jury” and “making light” of the civilian deaths.
U.N. human rights officials have said they believe both sides in Yemen may be responsible for war crimes.
The Saudi-led airstrikes have compounded the misery in Yemen, which is not only one of the world’s poorest nations, but is also on the edge of famine.
The U.N. has said about 80 percent of Yemeni civilians lack enough food and medical care.
The coalition airstrikes have obliterated entire neighborhoods, including hospitals and schools.
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Developed countries are dragging their feet on meeting their pledges of billions of dollars to help developing nations tackle climate change, leaving poor nations with mounting costs from rising temperatures, rights groups said.
Rich governments have promised to mobilize $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020 to help poorer nations make the transformation to clean energy and cope with the impact of higher temperatures.
But there is no clear pathway to reach that goal, and poor countries are struggling to cope with losses from floods and drought, campaigners said ahead of a meeting in Bangkok to produce a negotiating draft for the next United Nations climate conference.
“Rich nations are attempting to escape full accountability for their role in causing and exacerbating climate change, and their obligation to deliver climate finance,” said Lidy Nacpil of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development.
“Inadequate climate finance compromises the capacity of the developing world to survive the climate crisis,” she said.
Many of the programs developing countries have promised as part of their efforts to curb climate-related risks and turn to green energy depend on adequate international climate finance.
Negotiators are meeting in Bangkok this week to prepare for the U.N. climate conference in Poland at the end of the year, which aims to set rules for implementing the 2015 Paris climate accord on reducing greenhouse emissions.
Record heatwaves, wildfires and devastating floods across the world this summer will put pressure on almost 200 governments to reach a deal in Poland, said Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary, U.N. Climate Change.
“Every year, the impacts of climate change are getting worse. This means that the poorest and most vulnerable, who have contributed almost nothing to the problem, suffer more,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
But rich countries – including the United States – also have suffered increasingly severe climate-related losses over the last year. Whether that could drive new ambition in trying to curb climate change remains unclear, analysts say.
Espinosa said that broader funding – beyond money channeled through specific climate funds – will be needed to adequately address the needs to reduce emissions and cut risks.
“Developed nations have reiterated their commitment on climate finance. There is also a recognition – even among developing nations – that private-sector finance will play a role in these transformations,” she said on Monday.
Experts say insufficient cash and board disagreements over key decisions are hampering the flagship Green Climate Fund (GCF) that was established at U.N. climate talks in 2010 to channel a substantial portion of the $100 billion per year wealthy nations had pledged.
Of a total of more than $10 billion committed to the fund, since 2015 it has allocated about $3.5 billion for projects in 78 countries to curb heat-trapping emissions and adapt to more extreme weather and rising seas.
But there is disagreement on where the money should go.
“The big fight is that while developed nations are focused on mitigation, developing countries need help with adaptation and loss and damage from floods, storms and drought,” said Harjeet Singh of advocacy group ActionAid.
“People are losing lives; we should not be focusing on trade agreements for solar panels and wind farms,” he said.
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It’s coal people like miner Steve Knotts, 62, who make West Virginia Trump Country.
So it was no surprise that President Donald Trump picked the state to announce his plan rolling back Obama-era pollution controls on coal-fired power plants.
Trump left one thing out of his remarks, though: northern West Virginia coal country will be ground zero for increased deaths and illnesses from the rollback on regulation of harmful emission from the nation’s coal power plants.
An analysis done by his own Environmental Protection Agency concludes that the plan would lead to a greater number of people here dying prematurely, and suffering health problems that they otherwise would not have, than elsewhere in the country, when compared to health impacts of the Obama plan.
Knotts, a coal miner for 35 years, isn’t fazed when he hears that warning, a couple of days after Trump’s West Virginia rally. He says the last thing people in coal country want is the government slapping down more controls on coal — and the air here in the remote West Virginia mountains seems fine to him.
People here have had it with other people telling us what we need. We know what we need. We need a job,” Knotts said at lunch hour at a Circle K in a tiny town between two coal mines, and 9 miles down the road from a coal power plant, the Grant Town plant.
The sky around Grant Town is bright blue. The mountains are a dazzling green. Paw Paw Creek gurgles past the town.
Clean-air controls since the 1980s largely turned off the columns of black soot that used to rise from coal smokestacks. The regulations slashed the national death rates from coal-fired power plants substantially.
These days pollutants rise from smoke stacks as gases, before solidifying into fine particles — still invisible — small enough to pass through lungs and into bloodstreams.
An EPA analysis says those pollutants would increase under Trump’s plan, when compared to what would happen under the Obama plan. And that, it says, would lead to thousands more heart attacks, asthma problems and other illnesses that would not have occurred.
Nationally, the EPA says, 350 to 1,500 more people would die each year under Trump’s plan. But it’s northern two-thirds of West Virginia and the neighboring part of Pennsylvania that would be hit hardest, by far, according to Trump’s EPA.
Trump’s rollback would kill an extra 1.4 to 2.4 people a year for every 100,000 people in those hardest-hit areas, compared to under the Obama plan, according to the EPA analysis. For West Virginia’s 1.8 million people, that would be equal to at least a couple dozen additional deaths a year.
Trump’s acting EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist whose grandfather worked in the coal camps of West Virginia, headed to coal states this week and last to promote Trump’s rollback. The federal government’s retreat on regulating pollution from coal power plants was “good news,” Wheeler told crowds there.
In Washington, EPA spokesman Michael Abboud said Trump’s plan still would result in “dramatic reductions” in emissions, deaths and illness compared to the status quo, instead of to the Obama plan. Obama’s Clean Power Plan targeted climate-changing carbon dioxide, but since coal is the largest source of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, the Obama plan would have curbed other harmful emissions from the coal-fired power plants as well.
About 160 miles to the south of Grant Town, near the state capital of Charleston, shop owner Doris Keller figures that if Trump thinks something’s for the best, that’s good enough for her.
“I just know this. I like Donald Trump and I think that he’s doing the right thing,” said Keller, who turned out to support Trump Aug. 21 when he promoted his rollback proposal. She lives five miles from the 2,900-megawatt John Amos coal-fired power plant.
“I think he has the best interests of the regular common people at the forefront,” Keller says.
Trump’s Affordable Clean Energy program would dismantle President Barack Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan, which has been caught up in court battles without yet being implemented.
The Obama plan targeted climate-changing emissions from power plants, especially coal. It would have increased federal regulation of emissions from the nation’s electrical grid and broadly promoted natural gas, solar power and other cleaner energy.
Trump’s plan would cede much of the federal oversight of existing coal-fired power plants and drop official promotion of cleaner energy. Individual states largely would decide how much to regulate coal power plants in their borders. The plan is open for public review, ahead of any final White House decision.
“I’m getting rid of some of these ridiculous rules and regulations, which are killing our companies … and our jobs,” Trump said at the rally.
There was no mention of the “small increases” in harmful emissions that would result, compared to the Obama plan, or the health risks.
EPA charts put numbers on just how many more people would die each year because of those increased coal emissions.
Abboud and spokeswoman Ashley Bourke of the National Mining Association, which supports Trump’s proposed regulatory rollback on coal emissions, said other federal programs already regulate harmful emissions from coal power plants. Bourke also argued that the health studies the EPA used in its death projections date as far back as the 1970s, when coal plants burned dirtier.
In response, Conrad Schneider of the environmental nonprofit Clean Air Task Force said the EPA’s mortality estimates had taken into account existing regulation of plant emissions.Additionally, health studies used by the EPA looked at specific levels of exposure to pollutants and their impact on human health, so remain constant over time, said Schneider, whose group analyzes the EPA projections.
With competition from natural gas and other cleaner energy helping to kill off more than a third of coal jobs over the last decade, political leaders in coal states are in no position to be the ones charged with enforcing public-health protections on surviving coal-fired power plants, said Vivian Stockman of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition.
“Our state is beholden to coal. Our politicians are beholden to coal,” Stockman said outside Trump’s West Virginia rally, where she was protesting. “Meanwhile, our people are being poisoned.”
And when it comes to coal power plants and harm, Schneider said, “when you’re at Grant Town, you’re at Ground Zero.”
Retired coal miner Jim Haley, living 4 miles from the town’s coal-fired power plant, has trouble telling from the smokestack when the plant is even operating.
“They’ve got steam coming out of the chimneys. That’s all they have coming out of it,” Haley said.
Parked near the Grant Town post office, where another resident was rolling down the quiet main street on a tractor, James Perkins listened to word of the EPA’s health warnings. He cast a look into the rear-view mirror into the backseat of his pickup truck, at his 3-year-old grandson, sitting in the back.
“They need to make that safe,” said Perkins, a health-care worker who had opted not to follow his father into the coal mines. “People got little kids.”
The Iranian rial hit a record low against the U.S. dollar on the unofficial market Monday amid a deterioration in the economic situation and the reimposition of sanctions by the United States.
The dollar was being offered for as much as 128,000 rials, according to foreign exchange website Bonbast.com, which tracks the unofficial market.
The currency has been volatile for months because of a weak economy, financial difficulties at local banks, and heavy demand for dollars among Iranians who fear the pullout of Washington from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal and renewed U.S. sanctions could shrink Iran’s exports of oil and other goods.
A set of U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s oil industry is due to take effect in November.
Last week, Iran’s parliament sacked the minister of economic affairs and finance, the latest in a continuing shakeup of top economic personnel. In early August, Iranian lawmakers voted out the minister of labor; in July, President Hassan Rouhani replaced the head of the central bank.
Protests linked to the tough economic situation in Iran erupted last December, spreading to more than 80 cities and towns and resulting in 25 deaths.
Sporadic protests, led by truck drivers, farmers and merchants in Tehran’s bazaar, have continued since then and have occasionally resulted in violent confrontations with security forces.
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A key opponent of high-tech, automated weapons known as “killer robots” is blaming countries like the U.S. and Russia for blocking consensus at a U.N.-backed conference, where most countries wanted to ensure that humans stay at the controls of lethal machines.
Coordinator Mary Wareham of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots spoke Monday after experts from dozens of countries agreed before dawn Saturday at the U.N. in Geneva on 10 “possible guiding principles” about such “Lethal Automated Weapons Systems.”
Point 2 said: “Human responsibility for decisions on the use of weapons systems must be retained since accountability cannot be transferred to machines.”
Wareham said such language wasn’t binding, adding that “it’s time to start laying down some rules now.”
Members of the LAWS conference will meet again in November.
When President Donald Trump pulled the plug on an upcoming trip to North Korea by his secretary of state, he pointed a finger of blame at China and the global superpower’s trade practices.
In his recent trade breakthrough with Mexico, Trump praised the country’s outgoing president for his help on border security and agriculture.
Both developments offered fresh evidence of how Trump has made trade policy the connective tissue that ties together different elements of his “America First” foreign policy and syncs up them with his political strategy for the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s 2016 triumph was paved in part by his support among blue-collar voters in Midwestern manufacturing states that narrowly supported him over Democrat Hillary Clinton, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
His aggressive trade tactics, epitomized by tariffs and standoffs with longtime economic partners and allies, are aimed at reversing what he has long viewed as unfair trade deals while maintaining support among largely white, working-class voters who have been hurt by the loss of manufacturing jobs.
“Trump understands that economic policy is foreign policy and vice versa,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser and visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “The most important element of foreign policy is to not just keep the world safe but to also promote America’s economic interest. That’s what Trump does — this is America First.”
It’s also good politics, in Trump’s view.
“It’s a populist position. But it’s also a popular position with a lot of Americans,” Moore said.
As he puts a high premium on trade gains, Trump is intertwining the issue with a host of top foreign policy concerns.
Trump, asked by reporters last week about North Korea living up to its commitments to denuclearize, said “part of the North Korean problem is caused by our trade disputes with China,” pointing to the U.S. trade imbalance with China.
“We have to straighten out our trade relationship because too much money is being lost by us,” Trump said. “And as you know, China is the route to North Korea.”
Trade has been a common refrain at the president’s rallies, where he has vowed to pursue “fair and reciprocal trade.”
“We don’t want stupid trade like we had for so long,” Trump said during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, in June.
Trump’s second year as president has been marked by a number of trade disputes with traditional U.S. allies and global rivals alike, an approach cemented by his tweet that “trade wars are good.”
He imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in March, prompting retaliation from the European Union and other American allies. Later in the month, Trump announced tariffs on China to combat what he called the theft of U.S. technology from a wide range of goods and services.
China struck back with its own sanctions on a variety of U.S. products, including Midwest farm-produced soybeans in a way to hit hard against the president’s base of voters. The two sides have clashed during the spring and summer, raising the stakes in their trade fight.
In late July, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reached a temporary deal at the White House to avert tariffs on automobile imports and a ramping up of their trade dispute — although the threat still remains.
After a breakthrough with Mexico, Trump’s team has been engaged in talks with Canada aimed at creating a new version of the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.
While previous administrations have often used a carrot-and-stick approach to trade as a way to forge agreements, before Trump’s arrival trade agendas had emphasized multi-lateral and bilateral deals aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership around the world, promoting American values and improving human rights.
This administration, by contrast, “is leveraging foreign policy tools to achieve its trade goals,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
Critics say Trump’s insistence on trade concessions could hamper his ability to move forward in other areas.
On North Korea, for example, Trump has sought to turn his meeting with Kim Jong Un into a vivid example of how his unconventional style can bring longstanding U.S. adversaries to the bargaining table.
But by raising China’s trade practices as essential to any progress to ensuring North Korea gets rid of its nuclear weapons, Trump runs the risk of getting bogged down in both areas — and having little to show for it.
Mixing foreign policy and trade policy introduces so many variables it’s “virtually impossible to close on a precise policy decision,” said Daniel Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Columbus, Ohio. “You’re constantly chasing after the next issue as opposed to having a very targeted approach to the objective.”
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Tanned and wearing a swimsuit, So Myong Il walks to the barbecue pit and throws on some clams.
He obviously loves the beach he’s on as well as the rugged, emerald Chilbo mountains that rise abruptly behind it. He loves them enough to forget, for a moment at least, that he is a senior official sent to deliver an ideology-soaked pitch singing their praises and instead lets the natural beauty surrounding him speak for itself.
Comrade So sees great things for North Korean attractions like this.
Hotels, big and small. Tourists from all over the country, maybe the world. “As long as we have the leadership of our respected Marshal,” he says, referring to leader Kim Jong Un, “our future will be bright indeed.”
So wouldn’t think of questioning the leader, but there is a hint of apprehension in his voice. And he isn’t alone.
North Korea is pushing ahead with a new strategy of economic development and the intensified diplomacy with China, South Korea and the United States that such a move requires. But hopes for a better future are mixed with concern over potential downsides of political or social volatility, and something that’s harder to articulate: a fear of the unknown – even if it appears far more promising than the arduous path the country has been on for decades.
Even before announcing in January that he had sufficiently perfected his nuclear arsenal and could start to focus on other things, Kim has held economic development to be his primary long-term concern.
He has allowed markets and entrepreneurialism to flourish and, since succeeding his father as leader seven years ago, has dramatically transformed the skyline of the capital, Pyongyang, with several high-rise districts. The transformation in the east coast city of Wonsan, where Kim has a summer villa, has been almost as spectacular.
As Kim prepares for the 70th anniversary of North Korea’s founding on Sept. 9, his ambitious development plan is being implemented, from the small-time renovation of town halls to the almost biblical-scale mobilization of “soldier-builders,” who are working around the clock to turn the remote northern city of Samjiyon into yet another showcase of Pyongyang-style socialism.
Economic development – and how U.S. capital and know-how could speed it along – was President Donald Trump’s big carrot when he met with Kim in Singapore three months ago to try to negotiate a denuclearization deal.
But Kim’s diplomatic overtures aren’t intended to open the door to American capitalists, a scenario that would make any good party cadre shudder. They are aimed at breaking down support for sanctions and getting the U.S. to step out of the way. Kim’s game is to play China and the U.S. off each other, grab whatever concessions he can along the way and adjust his position as the situation evolves.
In the meantime, lest anyone get the wrong idea, the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea has begun churning out paeans to socialism in its daily newspaper along with anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism screeds that underscore North Korea’s official opposition to essentially anything that might be considered the American way of life. Or, as it’s known in the jargon of North Korea’s propaganda machine, “the imperialists’ bourgeois ideological and cultural poisoning.”
The past few months have been tense in Pyongyang.
Restrictions on some of the movements of foreign diplomats have been tightened, for example, and even requests by The Associated Press to interview government officials or to speak with regular citizens have mostly been denied.
Uncertain of where it might all end up, state-run media have provided only limited coverage of Kim’s meetings with Trump in June and his multiple summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Reports have portrayed Kim as the consummate statesman, firmly in charge of a carefully considered strategy to make his country safer and more prosperous.
Kim is ardently wooing South Korean investment to help him build the very things Trump was offering: infrastructure, particularly roads and railways, and the development of selected tourism zones. After a high-profile chill last year, he is also actively courting Beijing, which continues to be an essential source of fuel, a key market for North Korea’s coal and other natural resources and a fairly reliable check on U.S. power in the region.
Pyongyang’s explanation for the shift in its foreign policy has been consistent: Having successfully built a credible nuclear deterrent to U.S. aggression, Kim is reaching out to Seoul to join hands in a “for Koreans, by Koreans” effort to secure a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, unhindered by the meddling of foreign powers.
Undoubtedly, images of the leader smiling and shaking hands with Trump, whose face had never been on the front pages of their newspapers before, signaled a major and bewildering change to many North Koreans.
But officials have made sure they don’t have much time to ruminate on it.
Normal routines of work and study have been put on hold for large segments of the populace who have been mobilized for the development projects. Tens of thousands of people in Pyongyang, meanwhile, have spent the past several months feverishly preparing for mass rallies and mass games to mark the anniversary.
Mount Chilbo, a collection of rocky peaks and a stretch of largely untouched seashore on the country’s northeastern fringe, is one of North Korea’s most cherished natural wonders.
The first hotel for non-Korean visitors opened in the 1980s, followed in 2004 by homestay-style lodgings near the beach, said So, a North Hamgyong Province People’s Committee official. Together they have a capacity of fewer than 100 guests and only operate from April until early November.
Many North Koreans bring tents and sleep on the beach.
But even in this rustic corner of the country, the pressure to contribute to Kim’s grand development scheme is keenly felt.
So said he would soon travel to China to discuss possible areas of cooperation.
As an indicator of Kim’s success with Beijing, tourism from China is already on the rise. Pyongyang’s longer-term goal, however, is to tap the South Korean market. The idea is that, if handled properly, South Korean tourism would present a chance to promote the North in a positive light and boost its image within South Korea.
That’s a gamble too.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, South Koreans were allowed to visit in a highly regulated and controlled manner, and massive investment from South Korean businesses helped the North fund infrastructure projects in the same Wonsan-Mount Kumgang area that Kim is focusing on now. But it ended badly in 2008 when a South Korean woman who entered a restricted area was shot to death by a North Korean soldier.
So said he believes Chilbo, like Kim’s pet projects in Wonsan, could be a big draw for tourists. But he worries about where the money will come from and what might be lost.
“Whatever we do, we need to protect the natural beauty of this place,” he said.”I think there will be many changes in the coming years. Plans are being discussed. But nothing is decided.”
Britt’Nee Brower grew up in a largely Inupiat Eskimo town in Alaska’s far north, but English was the only language spoken at home.
Today, she knows a smattering of Inupiaq from childhood language classes at school in the community of Utqiagvik. Brower even published an Inupiaq coloring book last year featuring the names of common animals of the region. But she hopes to someday speak fluently by practicing her ancestral language in a daily, modern setting.
The 29-year-old Anchorage woman has started to do just that with a new Inupiaq language option that recently went live on Facebook for those who employ the social media giant’s community translation tool. Launched a decade ago, the tool has allowed users to translate bookmarks, action buttons and other functions in more than 100 languages around the globe.
For now, Facebook is being translated into Inupiaq only on its website, not its app.
“I was excited,” Brower says of her first time trying the feature, still a work in progress as Inupiaq words are slowly added. “I was thinking, ‘I’m going to have to bring out my Inupiaq dictionary so I can learn.’ So I did.”
Facebook users can submit requests to translate the site’s vast interface workings — the buttons that allow users to like, comment and navigate the site — into any language through crowdsourcing. With the interface tool, it’s the Facebook users who do the translating of words and short phrases. Words are confirmed through crowd up-and-down voting.
Besides the Inupiaq option, Cherokee and Canada’s Inuktut are other indigenous languages in the process of being translated, according to Facebook spokeswoman Arielle Argyres.
“It’s important to have these indigenous languages on the internet. Oftentimes they’re nowhere to be found,” she said. “So much is carried through language — tradition, culture — and so in the digital world, being able to translate from that environment is really important.”
The Inupiaq language is spoken in northern Alaska and the Seward Peninsula. According to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, about 13,500 Inupiat live in the state, with about 3,000 speaking the language.
Myles Creed, who grew up in the Inupiat community of Kotzebue, was the driving force in getting Inupiaq added. After researching ways to possibly link an external translation app with Facebook, he reached out to Grant Magdanz, a hometown friend who works as a software engineer in San Francisco. Neither one of them knew about the translation tool when Magdanz contacted Facebook in late 2016 about setting up an Inupiatun option.
Facebook opened a translation portal for the language in March 2017. It was then up to users to provide the translations through crowdsourcing.
Creed, 29, a linguistics graduate student at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, is not Inupiat, and neither is Magdanz, 24. But they grew up around the language and its people, and wanted to promote its use for today’s world.
“I’ve been given so much by the community I grew up in, and I want to be able to give back in some way,” said Creed, who is learning Inupiaq.
Both see the Facebook option as a small step against predictions that Alaska’s Native languages are heading toward extinction under their present rate of decline.
“It has to be part of everyone’s daily life. It can’t be this separate thing,” Magdanz said. “People need the ability to speak it in any medium that they use, like they would English or Spanish.”
Initially, Creed relied on volunteer translators, but that didn’t go fast enough. In January, he won a $2,000 mini grant from the Alaska Humanities Forum to hire two fluent Inupiat translators. While a language is in the process of being translated, only those who use the translation tool are able to see it.
Creed changed his translation settings last year. But it was only weeks ago that his home button finally said “Aimaagvik,” Inupiaq for home.
“I was really ecstatic,” he said.
So far, only a fraction of the vast interface is in Inupiaq. Part of the holdup is the complexity of finding exact translations, according to the Inupiaq translators who were hired with the grant money.
Take the comment button, which is still in English. There’s no one-word-fits-all in Inupiaq for “comment,” according to translator Pausauraq Jana Harcharek, who heads Inupiaq education for Alaska’s North Slope Borough. Is the word being presented in the form of a question, or a statement or an exclamatory sentence?
“Sometimes it’s so difficult to go from concepts that don’t exist in the language to arriving at a translation that communicates what that particular English word might mean,” Harcharek said.
Translator Muriel Hopson said finding the right translation ultimately could require two or three Inupiaq words.
The 58-year-old Anchorage woman grew up in the village of Wainwright, where she was raised by her grandparents. Inupiaq was spoken in the home, but it was strictly prohibited at the village school run by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, Hopson said.
She wonders if she’s among the last generation of Inupiaq speakers. But she welcomes the new Facebook option as a promising way for young people to see the value Inupiaq brings as a living language.
“Who doesn’t have a Facebook account when you’re a millennial?” she said. “It can only help.”
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The International Organization for Migration reports more than 270 Nigerian migrants who recently returned from Libya have completed a skills training course to help them start their own businesses.
Migrants attending this weeklong event in the Nigerian capital Lagos have shared stories of the business frustrations that drove them to try to go to Europe in search of better economic opportunities.
U.N. migration agency spokesman, Paul Dillon, told VOA the migrants also have shared stories of the abuse and suffering they endured at the hands of smugglers and traffickers in Libya. At the same time, he said returnees enrolled in this business course have spoken of their hopes for the future.
“The goal of these types of initiatives is always to give people options and providing them with business skills training, for example. It certainly does that.Start up a small business at home, get hired on by a local company, build your life back in Nigeria. I think that is the goal and also to encourage formal migration efforts,” he said.
This is the 21st training course since the program was started in April 2017. IOM reports more than 2,000 Nigerian returnees have participated in courses given in Lagos, Edo, Nassarawa, Kano and Kaduna States.
Dillon said many of the returnees have become involved in collective reintegration schemes or community-based projects, such as fruit juice, palm oil and plantain processing factories.
He said training now is focused on creating more sustainable businesses, not just on regular trading, buying and selling. Therefore, he said there is greater concentration on agriculture-related businesses, which are more sustainable and more beneficial to the returnees’ communities.
He said IOM, together with the Ministry of Labor and the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and industry are organizing a job fair at the end of September.This, he said, will give returnees the opportunity to meet leaders in Nigeria’s private sector and to search for jobs to match their skills.
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Investment banks which lost out on big payouts for the work on the shelved listing of oil giant Aramco are lining up for a raft of other projects as Saudi Arabia pursues reforms.
Banks including JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley worked for months to prepare what would have been the biggest ever stock market debut. But the plan to sell 5 percent of the company for a targeted $100 billion was pulled.
The bankers were paid retainer fees but were expecting around $200 million would be shared among all the banks involved when the deal was done.
Now, they are pinning their hopes on other projects from a privatization program that is part of Riyadh’s economic reform plan to loosen its reliance on oil. Without the funds from the Aramco sale, the government is looking to raise money in other ways, creating new opportunities for the banks, bankers say.
Teams from JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley that worked on the IPO, have been shifted to advise on Aramco’ planned acquisition of up to $70 billion in petrochemicals firm Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC), three people familiar with the details of the transaction told Reuters.
HSBC, which was also an adviser on the Aramco IPO, is expected to play a role in putting together the debt to fund that purchase, they said.
One of the sources said the issue could exceed the 2016 sovereign bond issue of $17.5 billion, which was a record for the kingdom. Aramco said earlier this month it was in “very early-stage discussions” with the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to acquire the stake in SABIC but has not said how it will finance the deal.
Spokespeople for JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and HSBC declined to comment on their role in the Sabic deal. None of those banks have confirmed they were involved in the Aramco IPO. Other deals are expected to be forthcoming.
“The PIF[sovereign wealth fund] has had to reconsider its budget in the last three months, after finding out that they wouldn’t be getting $100 billion from the Aramco IPO right away,” said a banker in Saudi Arabia.
“So there’s been a flurry of activity as they look to raise cash in other ways. A lot of these are smaller deals, $1 billion here and there, but all geared toward financing their commitments for big infrastructure projects without slowing down their timelines.”
The banker did not give details of the other deals. PIF officials did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
After Reuters reported last week that the Aramco deal had been shelved, Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said the government was committed to conducting the IPO at an unspecified date in the future.
Bankers wary
The bankers are nevertheless wary after the Aramco experience. It highlighted the hurdles of doing business in a country governed by an absolute monarchy where public protest and political parties are banned. It also added to uncertainty after scores of top royals, ministers and businessmen were rounded up in an anti-corruption campaign last November.
The preparation for the listing was launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman two years ago and some bankers had flown to the kingdom hundreds of times to work in the Dhahran camp, a gated compound for the oil group’s residents.
A different source said Aramco had demanded it deal only with the very top bankers.
Another person familiar with the Aramco deal said he had made more than 20 trips to Dhahran over 18 months but with little to show for it. He said his team would “give the same presentation each time without getting much feedback.”
Bankers also say the fees are modest in comparison to those paid by other countries.
“The deal flow is huge but there’s a worry that the fees coming from these projects are low,” said a Gulf-based banker who spoke on conditions of anonymity.
“Saudi Arabia is lower than Hong Kong and Dubai when it comes to fees,” he said. “It’s all substandard.”
Typical fees for banks doing IPOs in more developed markets are around 1 percent of the overall deal while estimates from bankers and analysts for an Aramco IPO was 0.2 percent.
The 35 banks who worked on Chinese internet giant Alibaba’s $21.8 billion float, led by six main underwriters, pocketed an estimated $300 million among them, according to Thomson Reuters data.
‘Plenty of deals’
Still, the rewards from a privatization that analysts expect to generate ($9 billion to $11 billion) by 2020 are too big for bankers to ignore.
HSBC is already advising Saudi International Petrochemical Company on a potential merger with Sahara Petrochemical, which is being advised by Morgan Stanley, according to disclosures from March.
U.S. bank Citigroup obtained a license to conduct capital markets business in Saudi Arabia last year after an absence of almost 13 years.
Moelis is preparing to apply for an advisory license in Saudi Arabia and U.S. boutique investment bank Evercore opened an office in Dubai in 2017.
The government is also trying to make it easier to do deals, changing the law to allow alternatives to traditional debt finance.
“There are plenty of deals to be made from bigger players looking to consolidate their market position and buy out competitors,” said Mohammed Fahmi, the Dubai-based co-Head of EFG Hermes Investment Banking.
“Good stories will continue to see a following.”
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President Donald Trump’s administration wants to shut down U.S. government radio stations that announce official time, a service in operation since World War II.
WWV and WWVB in the state of Colorado and WWVH on the island of Kauai in the mid-Pacific state of Hawaii, send out signals that allow millions of clocks and watches to be set either manually or automatically.
WWVB continuously broadcasts digital time codes, using very long electromagnetic waves at a frequency of 60 kilohertz, which are automatically received by timekeeping devices in North America, keeping them accurate to a fraction of a second.
“If you shut down these stations, you turn off all those clocks,” said Don Sullivan, who managed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stations between 1994 and 2005.
GPS not good enough
Some argue the terrestrial time signal have been rendered obsolete by the government’s Global Positioning System, whose satellites also transmit time signals, but users disagree, noting GPS devices must have an unobstructed view of a number of satellites in space to properly function.
“Sixty kilohertz permeates in a way GPS can’t,” Sullivan told VOA, explaining that WWVB’s very low frequency signal can be received inside buildings and it is an important backup to GPS in case adversaries attempt to interfere with the satellite radio-navigation system.
WWV and WWVH broadcast on a number of shortwave frequencies, meaning their signals can be received globally.
The Trump administration proposes, in its Fiscal 2019 budget to Congress, cutting $26.6 million and 136 jobs from NIST’s fundamental measurements, quantum science and measurement dissemination activities.
The budget document acknowledges that in addition to synchronizing clocks and watches, the time signals are also used in appliances, cameras and irrigation controllers.
“It’s crazy,” Sullivan said of the proposed cut. “It’s absolutely insane.”
NIST officials say they cannot comment on budget matters. The White House referred questions about NIST’s funding to the Office of Management and Budget, which has not responded to an inquiry from VOA.
Oldest continuously operating radio station
WWV, the oldest continuously operating radio station in the United States, first went on the air from Washington in 1919, conducting propagation experiments and playing music. In the early years, it also transmitted — via Morse code — news reports prepared by the Agriculture Department.
The station subsequently was moved to Maryland and then to Colorado in 1966. WWV has been a frequency standard since 1922 and has disseminated official U.S. time since 1944.
All of the NIST stations rely on extremely precise atomic clocks for the accuracy of their time signals.
WWV, at two minutes past every hour, also transmits a 440 hertz note (A above middle C), something it has done since 1936, allowing musicians to tune their pianos and other instruments.
All three stations retain a huge following worldwide, according to Sullivan.
WWV and WWVH broadcasts can also be heard by telephone and about 2,000 calls are received daily, according to NIST. (To listen to the broadcasts by phone, dial +1-303-499-7111 for WWV and +1-808-335-4363 for WWVH.)
The telephone time-of-day service also is used to synchronize clocks and watches, and for the calibration of stopwatches and timers (although slightly less accurate than radio reception).
Tom Kelly, an amateur radio operator in the state of Oregon, has launched a petition to try to save the stations. His goal is to collect 100,000 online signatures from U.S. residents by September 15 that would compel a response from the White House.
Kelly’s petition calls the stations “an instrumental part in the telecommunications field, ranging from broadcasting to scientific research and education,” noting their transmissions of marine storm warnings, GPS satellite health reports and specific information about solar activity and radio propagation conditions.
Britain, China, Germany, Japan and Russia also have very low frequency time transmissions, but their stations are too distant to automatically set clocks in the United States.
Among other proposed cuts for NIST are its environmental measurement projects measuring the impact of aerosols on pollution and climate change and gas reference materials used by industry to reduce costs of complying with regulations and the Urban Dome research grants for determining how to measure greenhouse gas emissions for cities and across regions.
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The film industry organization that presents the Academy Awards is also developing young talent through a program called Academy Gold — an internship and mentoring program for students and young professionals from communities currently underrepresented in Hollywood. Some of the participants are either immigrants or children of immigrants who are trying to create an unorthodox career path for themselves. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
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Scientists are using a new way to track animal species without having to capture them. Through a process called environmental DNA, scientists can now obtain the genetic trail animals leave behind, which could help to protect and save threatened species. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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Owning your home is the most popular definition of the American Dream. But in today’s economy, more Americans are opting out of buying or renting. Some are choosing to live in housing cooperatives, or “co-living” arrangements, where tenants rent bedrooms and sometimes a bathroom, but share kitchens and other rooms. Tatiana Vorozhko and Dmitriy Savchuk of VOA’s Ukrainian Service visited a co-living house in Brooklyn, N.Y., to find out why some are choosing another version of the American Dream.
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A new U.S. study finds that when temperatures around the world start creeping up, insects that eat crops will not only become hungrier, their numbers will grow. Scientists say this will mean more insect damage to wheat, corn and rice crops, and therefore less food on the dinner table. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Government authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo say 250 schools in North Kivu and Ituri provinces will open their doors to more than 82,500 children when the new school year begins Monday.
These areas are the epicenter of the latest Ebola epidemic in DRC. The Ebola virus is extremely contagious. It can spread quickly through direct contact with blood and other bodily fluids of infected people.
UNICEF says it is scaling up operations in the region to promote prevention measures. It says school principals and teachers will receive training on Ebola prevention and protection and on how to educate children on good hygiene practices to avoid the spread of the virus.
Spokesman Christophe Boulierac said UNICEF and its partners had reached more than 2 million people with Ebola prevention messages since the start of the outbreak on August 1.
“An increasing number of communities are now aware about Ebola and … they know better how to prevent its transmission,” Boulierac said. “The active involvement of concerned communities is key to stopping the spread of the disease. So, we are working closely with them to promote handwashing and good hygiene practices.”
According to the latest World Health Organization estimates, there have been 116 cases of Ebola, including 77 deaths, in the DRC. UNICEF said children make up an unusually high proportion of people affected by the disease. It noted that 24 percent of confirmed cases were in people under age 24.
Boulierac said more than 150 psychosocial workers had been trained to help comfort children infected with the disease in treatment centers. He said they also would support children who were discharged as free of Ebola but were at risk of stigmatization upon returning to their communities.
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California lawmakers have voted to make net neutrality state law, becoming the latest of several states to approve such measures.
The move by state legislators is a rejection of the Trump administration’s repeal of national net neutrality rules that did not allow internet service providers to discriminate in their handling of internet traffic.
Net neutrality was first put in place by the Obama administration in 2015. When it was repealed, it opened the door for internet service providers to block content, slow data transmission, and create “fast lanes” for consumers who pay premiums.
If California Governor Jerry Brown signs net neutrality into law, the state could possibly face a legal fight from the Federal Communications Commission, which has declared that states cannot pass their own net neutrality rules.
Analysts say other states are watching how California will handle the issue. If the home of Silicon Valley finalizes the new law, that could encourage other states to do the same or encourage national politicians to re-enact national protections.
Jonathan Spalter, president/CEO of the broadband industry group USTelecom, said in a statement that consumers want a “single, national approach to keeping our internet open,” instead of a “confusing patchwork of conflicting requirements.”
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Researchers have been searching for ways to reduce cattle emissions with food additives, such as garlic, oregano, cinnamon and even curry — with mixed results. Dairy farms and other livestock operations are a major source of methane, a heat-trapping gas, much more potent than carbon dioxide. Both gases contribute to global warming. Now, University of California researchers are feeding seaweed to dairy cows in an attempt to make cattle more climate friendly. VOA’s Deborah Block has the story.
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Community and conservation groups in Myanmar have branded a planned highway linking a port project to Thailand an “ecological and social disaster,” saying it would uproot indigenous people from their homes and farms.
Critics said an environmental and social impact assessment for the road project, approved by the Myanmar government in June, failed to adequately specify compensation for loss of land and livelihoods, among other problems.
“This is a road to an ecological and social disaster (in Myanmar),” said Christy Williams, Myanmar director for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an international conservation group.
The highway is considered strategically important to both nations as it would link Thailand to a deep-sea port and planned Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Dawei, a town on the Myanmar side of an isthmus divided between the two countries.
The industrial complex would serve as a gateway to Southeast Asia’s markets, with goods trucked between Dawei and Thailand, avoiding the need for ships to sail southward through the Malacca Straights, the world’s busiest shipping lane.
Region of rich biodiversity
But Williams said the planned road would pass through a region of “huge ecological importance with rich biodiversity.”
The assessment looked only at the effects on people and the environment within 500m (550 yards) of the road, he added, but the impact will affect a much wider area.
He said WWF had been working with communities and provided “extensive recommendations and solutions” to the Myanmar government and Myandawei Industrial Estate Co. Ltd, the Thai firm developing the road and SEZ, but these had “been ignored.”
The impact assessment failed to address many issues brought forward by residents during consultation sessions, said Thant Zin, director of the Dawei Development Association, a local civil society group.
“Our main concerns over the project are forced relocation of thousands of local indigenous people, potential industrial pollution … land grabbing and livelihood issues, and human rights violations in project area,” he said.
A spokesman for Myanmar’s environment ministry did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Gunn Bunchandranon, a spokesman for Myandawei Industrial Estate Co. Ltd, said the highway’s impact assessment was in line with the laws of both Myanmar and Thai.
He said people from affected communities who attended public consultations did not raise any concerns about compensation for loss of land.
However, a 2015 draft of the impact assessment provided by conservation group EarthRights International included the minutes of one such meeting where the land compensation question was raised.
Risk of renewed conflict
Myanmar residents have also expressed fear that the highway could reignite conflict between the government and Myanmar’s oldest armed group, the Karen National Union (KNU), according to Ben Hardman of EarthRights International.
Those concerns did not make it into the impact assessment, Hardman said.
The KNU signed a cease-fire agreement with the military in 2012, ending six decades of fighting. In 2015 it signed a national cease-fire agreement (NCA), along with other armed ethnic groups.
But relations with the government remain tense, and the KNU claims control over territory the highway would pass through.
Saw Tah Doh Moo, the group’s secretary general, said the NCA required that the KNU be consulted about any development projects in areas under its control.
However, neither the company nor the government have officially discussed the road project with them, he said.
“I don’t want to say what would happen, but it would undermine the NCA,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. “We have to think about how to respond.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump notified Congress on Friday of his intent to sign a trade agreement with Mexico after talks with Canada broke up earlier in the day with no immediate deal to revamp the tri-nation North American Free Trade Agreement.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said U.S. officials would resume talks with their Canadian counterparts next Wednesday with the aim of getting a deal all three nations could sign.
All three countries have stressed the importance of NAFTA, which governs billions of dollars in regional trade, and a bilateral deal announced by the United States and Mexico on Monday paved the way for Canada to rejoin the talks this week.
But by Friday the mood had soured, partly on Trump’s off-the-record remarks made to Bloomberg News that any trade deal with Canada would be “totally on our terms.” He later confirmed the comments, which the Toronto Star first reported.
“At least Canada knows where I stand,” he later said on Twitter.
Ottawa has stood firm against signing “just any deal.”
’Making progress’
But at a news conference Friday afternoon, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland expressed confidence that Canada could reach agreement with the United States on a renegotiated NAFTA trade pact if there was “goodwill and flexibility on all sides.”
“We continue to work very hard and we are making progress. We’re not there yet,” Freeland told reporters.
“We know that a win-win-win agreement is within reach,” she added. “With goodwill and flexibility on all sides, I know we can get there.”
The Canadian dollar weakened to C$1.3081 to the U.S. dollar after The Wall Street Journal first reported that the talks had ended Friday with no agreement. Canadian stocks remained 0.5 percent lower.
Global equities were also down following the hawkish turn in Trump’s comments on trade.
Lighthizer has refused to budge despite repeated efforts by Freeland to offer some dairy concessions to maintain the Chapter 19 independent trade dispute resolution mechanism in NAFTA, The Globe and Mail reported Friday.
However, a spokeswoman for USTR said Canada had made no concessions on agriculture, which includes dairy, but added that negotiations continued.
The United States wants to eliminate Chapter 19, the mechanism that has hindered it from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases. Lighthizer said on Monday that Mexico had agreed to cut the mechanism. For Ottawa, Chapter 19 is a red line.
Trump argues Canada’s hefty dairy tariffs are hurting U.S. farmers, an important political base for his Republican Party.
But dairy farmers have great political clout in Canada too, and concessions could hurt the ruling Liberals ahead of a 2019 federal election.
At a speech in North Carolina on Friday, Trump took another swipe at Canada. “I love Canada, but they’ve taken advantage of our country for many years,” he said.
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