Farmers in the American South are upgrading their cattle to the 21st Century. With tech tools like AI (artificial intelligence) and Wi-Fi, they are now able to monitor the herd and keep tabs on the animals that drive their business. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The Northern Territory government in Australia says it has been approached by nearly 50 Chinese companies looking to buy land to start donkey farms. Demand for donkey products, especially donkey-hide gelatin is increasing in China, while global supplies are falling.
The Northern Territory government has bought a small herd of wild donkeys for its research station near the outback town of Katherine. Earlier this a month of delegation of Chinese business people visited the facility, and up to 50 companies from China have expressed interest in buying land to set up donkey farms.
It is estimated there are up to 60,000 wild donkeys in the Northern Territory. Donkeys were brought to Australia from Africa as pack animals in the 1860s, and many were released when they were no longer needed. For years feral donkeys have been considered a major pest by farmers.The animals trample native vegetation, spread weeds and compete with domestic cattle for food and water.
Now the authorities believe there are economic benefits in captive donkey herds.
Alister Trier, the head of the Northern Territory’s department of primary industry believes the donkey trade has a bright future.
“My feel[ing] is the industry will develop but it will not displace the cattle industry, for example, I just do not think that will happen.What it will do is add some diversification opportunities for the use of pastoral land and Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory,” said Trier.
In China, donkey skins are boiled down to make gelatin, which is then used in alternative Chinese medicines and cosmetics.
Animal rights campaigners are pressuring the authorities not to allow the live export of donkeys to China, claiming that conditions in transit would be cruel and unacceptable.
Activists also insist that donkeys’ health suffers when they are kept in large herds.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Australia wants the donkey skin trade stopped altogether because of concerns the animals are being skinned alive overseas and treated with extreme cruelty.
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Dozens of passengers line up in single file along the platform in the dead of night, ready to gather their luggage and pile into the ageing railway carriages.
At the small railway station in Nampula, in northeastern Mozambique, the 4:00 a.m. train to Cuamba in the north west is more than full, as it is every day, to the detriment of those slow to board and forced to stand.
In recent years, the government in Maputo has made developing the train network a priority as part of its economic plan.
But mounting public debt has meant that authorities had no choice but to cede control of the project to the private sector.
Seconds before the train — six passenger coaches coupled between two elderly US-made locomotives — leaves Nampula station, the platforms are already entirely empty.
No one can afford to be late.
Inside, the carriages remain pitch dark until the sun rises as the operator has not installed any lighting.
A blast of the horn and the sound of grinding metal marks the train’s stately progress along the 350-kilometre (220-mile) line to Cuamba — more than 10 hours away.
Five or six passengers cram onto benches intended for four without a murmur of complaint.
“The train is always full,” said Argentina Armendo, his son kneeling down nearby.
“Lots of people stay standing. Even those who have a ticket can’t be sure of getting on. They should add some coaches!”
‘Enormous growth potential’
“Yes, but it’s not expensive,” insists the conductor Edson Fortes, cooly. “It’s the most competitive means of transport for the poor. With the train, they are able to travel.”
Sitting in a vast, ferociously air-conditioned office Mario Moura da Silva, the rail operations manager for CDN, the company operating the line, appears more concerned about passenger numbers as a measure of success than perhaps their comfort.
In 2017, its trains carried almost 500,000 — a 265-percent increase on a year earlier.
“Passenger traffic isn’t profitable but it’s a requirement of the contract with the government,” said Moura da Silva.
“It’s not that which earns us money, it’s more the retail,” he added, referring to the company’s commercial operation, which has grown by 65 percent in a year.
Brazilian mining giant Vale, which owns CDN along with Japanese conglomerate Mitsui, began its Mozambican rail venture in 2005.
Having won a contract to run the concession from the government, it restored the former colonial line, which linked its inland coal mines with the port at Nacala.
It now operates a network of 1,350 kilometres (840 miles) following an investment of nearly $5 billion (around 4 billion euros).
“The growth potential is enormous,” said Moura da Silva.
Rail corridors
Mozambique’s government is eyeing the project as a bellwether for the industry.
“We have made infrastructure one of our four investment priorities,” said Transport Minister Carlos Fortes Mesquita.
“Thanks to this investment, the country recorded a strong growth in the railway sector.”
Eight new “rail corridor” projects are now under way in Mozambique, all funded with private capital, as the state grapples with a long-standing cash shortage.
The government has been engulfed in a scandal linked to secret borrowing by the treasury, which is juggling debt amounting to 112 percent of GDP.
As a result, a handful of large companies, attracted by Mozambique’s vast mineral wealth, have taken the lead in developing the country’s rail infrastructure.
But it is unclear if their interest in the sector will continue in the long-term.
Until the coal runs out?
“Today the Nacala line only exists because of coal. But once the mine closes, who will be able to justify continuing operations?” asked Benjamin Pequenino, an economist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
“The private sector won’t continue to invest if it knows it will lose money,” he said.
But in the absence of any alternative, former parliament speaker Abdul Carimo accepts that public-private partnerships are the least worst option.
Carimo, who remains close to the ruling party, now heads up the “Zambezi Development Corridor”.
The scheme is managed by Thai group, ITD, and plans to build 480 kilometres of track between Macuse port and the coal mines at Moatize for a price tag of $2.3 billion.
Carimo, who closely follows developments on the project, has vowed that “his” line will not only be used to carry minerals but will stimulate activity across the region it serves.
“I hate coal but I want this infrastructure to relaunch agriculture in Zambezi province,” he said, adding that the region was “one of the richest in the country in the 1970s.”
Gesturing towards the White House, home to President Donald Trump who has called himself “a very stable genius,” Isaac Newton begged to differ.
“Knowing many geniuses, and being one myself, I would venture to say that was rather a boastful claim on his part,” said “Newton,” actually Dean Howarth, a Virginia high school physics teacher in period dress.
Howarth was among hundreds of people who turned out to a “March for Science” Saturday in Washington to “create tangible change and call for greater accountability of public officials to enact evidence-based policy,” according to organizers.
That was the formal message of the rally, one of more than 200 events being carried out around the world.
But as keynote speaker Sheila Jasanoff said, the signs carried by people like Howarth told a more direct and simple story.
Many of those messages, while more restrained than Howarth’s, carried implicit criticism of Trump, who withdrew from the global Paris Agreement on climate change, has defended coal-fired power plants, seeks to roll back environmental regulations, and has yet to name his top science advisor.
“Make America Smart Again,” said a placard carried by one demonstrator, giving an alternative take on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” pledge.
“We’re here because no one wants to be led by the gut feelings of our elected officials,” Jasanoff, a Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard, said in her opening address without specifically referring to Trump’s widely-reported tendency to govern by instinct rather than analysis.
“Good science depends on good democracy. Let me repeat: good science needs good democracy,” she said.
David Titley, a retired rear admiral who led the US Navy’s task force on climate change, told the crowd that science shows we need to “take actions now to avoid the worst of the risks we know are highly likely to appear.”
Many in the crowd listened under the shade of cherry blossom trees beneath the Washington Monument on the first summer-like Saturday of the year.
“Science is what separates facts from fallacies, falsehoods and fanaticism,” Titley said. “If we ignore and denigrate science we do so at our own peril.”
Suzelle Fiedler, 44, a former laboratory worker, told AFP she attended the rally because of the administration’s desire to cut research funding, and “they’re dismissing a lot of scientific facts like climate change.”
Steven Schrader’s sign proclaimed that he is not a “mad scientist. I’m furious.”
Schrader, 66, told AFP the administration “is trying to essentially take science out of decision making.”
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Auntie Caterina is a regular taxi driver, who offers free rides to cancer patients in the Italian city of Florence. She inherited the taxi when her partner died of cancer 17 years ago and says this is a way to honor his legacy. To show gratitude and support of the Tuscany Region, she was recognized for her work last month as its “Solidarity Ambassador”. VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports.
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The search for new worlds outside our solar system will enter a new phase (April 16), when NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, takes off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working with NASA on the mission. Faith Lapidus reports.
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday that he was leaving a summit of Latin American countries in Peru very hopeful that the United States, Mexico and Canada were close to a deal on a renegotiated NAFTA trade pact.
Pence told reporters it was possible that a deal would be reached in the next several weeks.
The vice president also said that the topic of funding for U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S. border with Mexico did not come up in Pence’s meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
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India’s federal police said Saturday that they had filed a case against a former chairman of state-run UCO Bank and several business executives alleging criminal conspiracy that caused a loss of 6.21 billion rupees ($95.17 million).
Police said officials at the bank had colluded with private infrastructure firm Era Engineering Infra Ltd. and investment banking firm Altius Finserve Pvt. Ltd. to siphon bank loans.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said in a statement that Arun Kaul, the bank’s chairman from 2010 to 2015, had helped clear the loan.
Kaul did not respond to Reuters’ calls for comment. Era Engineering and Altius Finserve did not respond to calls outside regular business hours.
The case revealed yet another case of alleged bank fraud in India since February, when two jewelry groups were accused of using nearly
$2 billion of fraudulent bank guarantees in what has been dubbed the biggest fraud in India’s banking history.
That case put the banking sector under a cloud, with the CBI unearthing a string of other bank frauds since then.
In the UCO Bank case, it charged Kaul and several officials and accountants at the two companies with criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the bank of about 6.21 billion rupees by diverting and siphoning loans, according to the
statement.
“The loan was not utilized for the sanctioned purpose and was secured by producing false end use certificates issued by the chartered accountant and by fabricating business data,” the CBI said.
The offices of the companies, accountants and the residences of the accused are being searched, the CBI said.
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Rural communities in United States and elsewhere often use portable backup electricity generators in case of power outages. But these machines can be costly to run for longer times and require periodic attendance. A team from West Virginia University is developing a small, natural gas-powered generator that will be able to run for years. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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More trouble may be ahead for Facebook as the Philippine government said it is investigating the social media giant over reports information from more than a million users in the Philippines was breached by British data firm Cambridge Analytica.
The Phliippines’ National Privacy Commission, or NPC, said it sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to let him know the NPC is requiring that the company “submit a number of documents relevant to the case, to establish the scope and impact of the incident to Filipino data subjects.”
The privacy watchdog also said through its website it wants to determine whether there is unauthorized processing of personal data of Filipinos. The letter was dated April 11.
A Facebook spokesperson tells the Reuters news agency the company is committed to protecting people’s privacy and is engaged with the privacy watchdog.
During U.S. congressional hearings this past week, Zuckerberg apologized for how Facebook has handled the uproar over online privacy and revelations the data breach allowed Cambridge Analytica to access the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users.
As Zuckerberg sat through about 10 hours of questioning over two days, nearly 100 members of Congress expressed their anger over Facebook’s data privacy controversy and delved into the social media platform’s practices.
And many legislators made it clear they did not think current U.S. laws were sufficient to protect users.
“As has been noted by many people already, we’ve been relying on self-regulation in your industry for the most part,” said Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado. “We’re trying to explore what we can do to prevent further breaches.”
For Congress, the hearings proved to be an education in how internet companies handle user data and the legal protections for consumers.
While Zuckerberg said many times that Facebook doesn’t sell user data, congressional leaders wanted to know how 87 million people’s data ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica without their knowledge or permission.
“I think what we’re getting to here is, who owns the virtual you? Who owns your presence online?” asked Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican.
“Congresswoman, I believe that everyone owns their own content online,” answered Zuckerberg.
Shadow profiles?
But can Facebook users see all the information that the social media platform has about them, including what it has picked up from outside firms?
That is something congressional leaders probed in questions about “shadow profiles,” information the social network has collected about people who do not have Facebook accounts.
Zuckerberg maintained that Facebook collects this information for security reasons but congressional leaders wanted to know more about what non-Facebook users can do to find out what the company knows about them.
New federal agency?
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission has taken the lead in overseeing internet firms and is investigating Facebook in the Cambridge Analytica case. Congressional leaders, however, pointed out the FTC cannot make new rules. They asked whether the FTC should be given new powers, or whether a new agency focused on privacy in the digital age should be created.
“Would it be helpful if there was an entity clearly tasked with overseeing how consumer data is being collected, shared and used, and which could offer guidelines, at least guidelines for companies like yours to ensure your business practices are not in violation of the law?” Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-California), asked. “Something like a digital consumer protection agency?”
“Congressman, I think it’s an idea that deserves a lot of consideration,” Zuckerberg replied. “But I think the details on this really matter.”
During the two days of hearings, congressional leaders repeatedly looked to Europe, where new regulation known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, governing people’s digital lives, goes into effect May 25. Zuckerberg said the regulation would apply to people in the U.S.
Zuckerberg said the company already has some of the new regulation’s privacy controls in place; but, the GDPR requires the company to do a few more things, “and we’re going to extend that to the world.”
A website dedicated to GDPR notes that organizations “in non-compliance may face heavy fines.”
Analysts note the controversy may lead to changes in how digital privacy issues are handled.
“We saw during these hearings that many, many members of Congress are ready and willing to get to work on privacy legislation,” said Natasha Duarte, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy & Technology, an advocacy group focused on digital rights. “I think the details of what is the right legislation for the U.S. are very complex and we all need to come together and hammer it out.”
User privacy vs. monetized data
Ideas such as an outside auditor who will be checking on Facebook’s handling of user data will run into the business model of many internet firms that need data about people to offer them targeted ads.
“Monetizing data, for better or worse, is the model free services rely on,” she said.
That tension was on display in questions from Rep. Anna Eshoo, (D-California), who counts Zuckerberg among her Palo Alto constituents.
“Are you willing to change your business model in the interest of protecting individual privacy,” she asked.
In that instant, Zuckerberg demurred, saying he didn’t understand what the congresswoman meant, but acknowledged that there likely would be more internet regulation.
“The internet is growing in importance around the world and in people’s lives,” he said. “And I think it will be inevitable that there will need to be some regulation. So my position is not that there should be no regulation. But I think you have to be careful about the regulation you put in place.”
In light of the furor involving user data privacy, Facebook announced last month it was suspending Cambridge Analytica after finding such policies had been violated. Cambridge Analytica has counted U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign among its clients.
Separately, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has denied reports in the local media that his own 2016 election campaign worked with Cambridge Analytica. Duterte was quoted as saying, “I might have lost with them.”
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A key decision on whether to place a $1.4 billion telescope in Hawaii to further astronomy research has been delayed, leaving open the possibility the project may be moved to Spain, a panel said Friday.
The board of governors for the project dubbed the Thirty Meter Telescope International Observatory still wants to build the telescope on its preferred site of Mauna Kea, a mountain in Hawaii.
But an alternative location in Spain’s Canary Islands remains under consideration, the board said in a statement after meeting this week to discuss legal and regulatory challenges to the Hawaii telescope plan that could last years.
“We continue to assess the ongoing situation as we work toward a decision,” said Ed Stone, the executive director of the observatory.
He said no decision could be made on where to put the telescope “until we have a place to go, and we don’t decide when we have a place to go — that’s decided by the courts and agencies.”
Dormant volcano
The 30-meter (98 feet) diameter telescope would be placed on one side of Mauna Kea and is far more advanced than the world’s largest current telescopes that measure 10 meters (32 feet) in diameter. The new telescope could potentially allow scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries about black holes, exoplanets, celestial bodies, and even detect indications of life on other planets.
Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano and Hawaii’s tallest mountain, was selected in July 2009 as the target location for the telescope after a five-year search.
Scientists called it the best site in the world for astronomy, given a stable, dry, and cold climate, which allows for sharp images. The atmosphere over the mountain also provides favorable conditions for astronomical measurements, according to the TMT website.
The island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, which already has an astronomical observatory, is considered a viable alternative. But scientists have said the telescope’s design would have to be altered for more adaptive optics given the mountain site’s lower altitude and different climate. That means it would take scientists more time to achieve the same discoveries they could make at Mauna Kea, Stone said.
Years of debate
The Hawaii site has been subject to years of public debate and legal challenges. Researchers say it will help usher in scientific and economic developments, while opponents maintain it will hurt the environment and desecrate land considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians. Mauna Kea already houses a number of high-powered telescopes at its summit.
“Thirty years of astronomy development has resulted in adverse significant impact to the natural and cultural resources of Mauna Kea,” said Kealoha Pisciotta, president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, an indigenous, Native Hawaiian group that works on environmental issues. “Trying to build more would have added to the cumulative impact.”
On Thursday, the Hawaii Senate approved a bill to ban new construction atop Mauna Kea, and included a series of audits and other requirements before the ban could be lifted. But House leaders said they don’t have plans to advance the bill. Democratic House Speaker Scott Saiki told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the “bill is dead on arrival in the House.”
There are also two appeals before the Hawaii Supreme Court. One challenges the sublease and land use permit issued by the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources. The other has been brought by a Native Hawaiian man who says use of the land interferes with his right to exercise cultural practices and is thus entitled to a case hearing.
The telescope project is a collaboration among universities in the U.S. and California, including the University of Hawaii and national science and research institutes of Japan, China, and India.
“It’s a privilege to practice astronomy on Mauna Kea and we’re not satisfied with where we’re at right now,” Dan Meisenzahl, a spokesperson for the University of Hawaii, said in a statement. “We will continue to push ourselves to improve our stewardship of the mountain.”
AP-WF-04-13-18 2343GMT
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Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s compensation rose 53.5 percent to $8.9 million in 2017, a regulatory filing showed Friday, largely because of higher costs related to the 33-year old billionaire’s personal security.
About 83 percent of the compensation represented security-related expenses, while much of the rest was tied to Zuckerberg’s personal usage of private aircraft.
Zuckerberg’s security expenses climbed to $7.3 million in 2017, compared with $4.9 million a year earlier.
His base salary was unchanged at $1, while his total voting power at Facebook rose marginally to 59.9 percent.
Menlo Park, California-based Facebook, which has consistently reported stronger-than-expected earnings over the past two years, has faced public outcry over its role in Russia’s alleged influence over the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Earlier this week, Zuckerberg emerged largely unscathed after facing hours of questioning from U.S. lawmakers on how the personal information of several million Facebook users may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
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Scientists will leave their labs and march on Washington and more than 200 other cities around the world Saturday, protesting government policies on issues from climate change to gun violence that they say ignore scientific evidence.
It comes a year after the first March for Science, three months into the Trump administration, when researchers feared that science would be pushed aside in the new president’s zeal to eliminate government regulations.
WATCH: Rough Year in Science Policy Brings Researchers Back to March
This year, “I think our worst fears are coming to fruition,” said Chris Zarba, who retired in February as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory board staff office. Those panels evaluate the evidence guiding decisions on government environmental regulations.
EPA woes
Last October, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a directive that changed the rules governing membership on those panels.
Pruitt barred researchers who had received EPA grants. He said agency funding could compromise their objectivity.
“Whatever science comes out of EPA shouldn’t be political science,” Pruitt said in a statement. “From this day forward, EPA advisory committee members will be financially independent from the agency.”
But scientists with funding from the industries EPA regulates are not held to the same standard, Zarba said.
“Nobody believes now that those panels are independent,” he added.
As the Trump administration undoes what it calls job-killing regulations on climate change, air and water pollution, pesticides and more, Zarba said industry has a voice but science does not.
“Human health and the environment will suffer,” he said.
It’s one reason Zarba said he would be marching Saturday.
Politics and science
But march organizers say the attacks on science did not start with the Trump administration. For decades, they say, ideology has overtaken evidence on issues in women’s health, gun violence and other controversial subjects.
“This isn’t a new phenomenon,” said March for Science Interim Executive Director Caroline Weinberg. “We reached a tipping point. But these protests should have been happening for years.”
In a polarized country, however, the march walks a fine line.
“I’m always cautious about trying to politicize something as important as science,” said Rob Young, director for the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina.
“Certainly, scientists have had a rough go for the last year,” he added, and a march advocating for science is fine. “But to the extent that that’s incorporated with political messages, or slings and arrows against the president or members of his administration, then that’s a little bit more problematic.”
Fired up
It’s Trump administration policies that have scientists fired up, however, from withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement to loosening air and water pollution rules.
“There’s no question that there’s fear and anxiety, given the elections of 2016,” said Chris McEntee, executive director of the American Geophysical Union, the professional society representing Earth and space scientists.
She said that in the eight years she has been with AGU, it has become easier to get members to speak up on policy issues.
“What we’re seeing is scientists coming to us to want to engage,” McEntee said.
More members are writing letters to elected officials and getting training on communicating science to policymakers and the public, she said. New programs AGU launched to help scientists communicate are overflowing.
And they are scoring some victories. Science agencies got a raise in the latest federal budget.
“It’s been a very long time, actually, since we had significant increases,” McEntee noted.
New issues
Scientists are wading into controversial issues that many had previously avoided.
This year, March for Science organizers rallied support to lift a ban on gun violence research. Weinberg said they debated whether the issue was too partisan for the group to weigh in on. But they decided that it was more important to support research that would help policymakers make good decisions.
“It’s only partisan because we’ve let that become the conversation,” she said. “Pushing against that, I think, is one of the most vital roles we can play.”
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If cancer is suspected in a patient, surgeons, in most cases, would have to cut some of the suspected tissue out and test it. Getting the results could be a long process. A new invention called a MasSpec Pen could cut the wait time to just seconds. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Austin, Texas, where the pen was created.
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On Saturday, researchers who say they are fed up with politicians ignoring science will once again take to the streets in Washington and hundreds of cities around the world. The second March for Science takes place after a turbulent year in science policy under the Trump administration. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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Nonprofit international organization for public competitions XPRIZE has announced 10 finalists in its race to develop new technologies to lower carbon-dioxide emissions. Each team will get an additional incentive of $5 million to scale up their ideas and present them for the top prize of $20 million. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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After weeks of railing against online shopping giant Amazon, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday creating a task force to study the United States Postal System.
In the surprise move, Trump said that USPS is on “an unsustainable financial path” and “must be restructured to prevent a taxpayer-funded bailout.”
The task force will be assigned to study factors including its pricing in the package delivery market and will have 120 days to submit a report with recommendations.
The order does not specifically mention Amazon or it owner, Jeff Bezos. But Trump has been criticizing the company for months, accusing it of not paying its fair share of taxes, harming the postal service, and putting brick-and-mortar stores out of business. Trump has also gone after Bezos personally and accused The Washington Post, which he owns, of being Amazon’s “chief lobbyist.”
The U.S. Postal Service has indeed lost money for years, but package delivery has actually been a bright spot for the service.
Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has enjoyed double-digit revenue increases from delivering packages. That just hasn’t been enough to offset pension and health care costs as well as declines in first-class letters and marketing mail, which together make up more than two-thirds of postal revenue.
Still, Trump’s claim the service could be charging more may not be entirely far-fetched. A 2017 analysis by Citigroup concluded that the Postal Service, which does not use taxpayer money for its operations, was charging below market rates as a whole on parcels. Still, federal regulators have reviewed the Amazon contract with the Postal Service each year, and deemed it to be profitable.
China’s exports growth unexpectedly fell in March, raising questions about the health of one of the economy’s key growth drivers even as trade tensions rapidly escalate with the United States.
March import growth beat expectations, however, suggesting its domestic demand may still be solid enough to cushion the blow from any trade shocks.
That left China with a rare trade deficit for the month, also the first drop since last February.
The latest readings on the health of China’s trade sector follow weeks of tit-for-tat tariff threats by Washington and Beijing, sparked by U.S. frustration with China’s massive bilateral trade surplus and intellectual property policies, that have fueled fears of a global trade war.
China’s March exports fell 2.7 percent from a year earlier, lagging analysts’ forecasts for a 10 percent increase, and down from a sharper-than-expected 44.5 percent jump in February, which economists believe was heavily distorted by seasonal factors.
For the first quarter as a whole, exports still grew a hefty 14.1 percent.
Stronger currency
Some analysts had expected a pullback in March exports following an unusually strong start to the year, when firms stepped up shipments before the long Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February. That scenario did not alter their view that global demand remains robust.
But a stronger currency could also be starting to erode Chinese exporters’ competitiveness. The yuan appreciated around 3.7 percent against the U.S. dollar in the first quarter this year, on top of a 6.6 percent gain last year.
No hard timeline has been set by either Washington or Beijing for the actual imposition of tariffs, which leaves the door open to negotiations and a possible compromise that could limit the damage to both sides.
But with the threat of tariffs hanging over nearly a third of China’s exports to the United States, analysts say its companies and their U.S. customers may try to front-load shipments before any measures kick in.
China’s exports to the U.S. rose 14.8 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, while imports rose 8.9 percent.
That sent its quarterly trade surplus with the U.S. surging 19.4 percent to $58.25 billion, though the March reading narrowed to $15.43 billion from $20.96 billion in February.
China’s total aluminum exports in March rose to their highest since June, just as the United States imposed a 10 percent tariff on imports of the metal on March 23 along with a 25 percent duty on steel imports.
Outlook cloudy
China’s exports rode a global trade boom last year, expanding at the fastest pace since 2013 and serving as one of the key drivers behind the economy’s forecast-beating expansion.
But the sudden spike in trade tensions with the United States is clouding the outlook for both China’s “old economy” heavy industries and “new economy” tech firms.
Washington says China’s $375 billion trade surplus with the United States is unacceptable, and has demanded Beijing reduce it by $100 billion immediately.
In a move to further force China to lower the trade surplus running with the U.S., Trump unveiled tariff representing about $50 billion of technology, transport and medical products early this month, drawing an immediate threat of retaliatory action from Beijing.
China’s tech sector, which is key part of Beijing’s longer-term “Made in China 2025” strategy to move from cheap goods to higher-value manufacturing, may be particularly vulnerable.
High-tech products have been among its fastest growing export segments. China exported $137.8 billion worth of high-tech products in the first quarter, up 20.5 percent on-year.
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Researchers say the love youngsters have for wildlife may be clouding the public’s mind about how endangered those creatures are.
The study in the journal PLOS Biology lists what the authors say are the world’s 10 most charismatic animals: tigers, lions, elephants, giraffes, leopards, pandas, cheetahs, polar bears, gray wolves and gorillas.
The common depiction of these animals in cartoons and movies and as toys has led to what the authors call “virtual populations” — people believe the animals are not at risk of extinction in the wild because they appear to be everywhere.
The study uses the popular French baby toy “Sophie the Giraffe” as an example. Eight hundred thousand Sophie toys were sold in France in 2010 — more than eight times the number of real giraffes living in Africa.
The authors recommend that toy companies and others who use endangered species as trademarks donate some of their profits to wildlife conservation.
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U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration might allow the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol year-round, which could help farmers by firing up corn demand but faces opposition from oil companies.
The proposal marked the latest move by the Trump administration to navigate the rival oil and corn constituencies as they clash over the nation’s biofuels policy. Oil refiners say the Renewable Fuel Standard requiring them to add biofuels into gasoline is costly and displaces petroleum, while the farm sector says the law provides critical support to growers.
The Environmental Protection Agency currently bans the higher ethanol blend, called E15, during summer because of concerns it contributes to smog on hot days — a worry biofuels advocates say is unfounded.
Gasoline typically contains just 10 percent ethanol.
“We’re going to be going probably, probably to 15, and we’re going to be going to a 12-month period,” Trump told reporters during a White House meeting. “We’re going to work out something during the transition period, which is not easy, very complicated.”
Earlier Thursday, EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the agency had been “assessing the legal validity of granting an E15 waiver since last summer” and was awaiting an outcome from discussions with the White House, the Department of Agriculture and Congress before making any final decisions.
Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, said the proposed shift to year-round E15 sales would be “very exciting news.”
“It would be a great morale boost for rural America, and more importantly a real demand boost if it can be moved forward quickly,” he said in an interview.
Annual biofuels figure
Under the RFS, the EPA sets the volume of ethanol and other biofuels that must be mixed into the nation’s fuel supply on a yearly basis — and a move to expand E15 sales could encourage the EPA to set those volumes higher in coming years.
Currently, refiners are required to blend around 15 billion gallons of ethanol into the nation’s fuel annually.
Shares of major biofuels producers rose slightly after the announcement. Archer Daniels Midland Co shares gained 2.7 percent to close at $45.30.
It was unclear, however, whether the move would help the refining sector — which has been lobbying hard instead for a cap on the price of blending credits that refiners must acquire to prove compliance with the RFS.
Greater blending of ethanol through year-round E15 sales would theoretically increase supplies of the tradable credits, and thus reduce prices. But at the same time, more ethanol translates to a smaller share of petroleum-based fuel in American gas tanks, which would hurt refiner sales.
The American Petroleum Institute, which represents big oil companies, issued a statement opposing Trump’s proposal to expand E15 sales, arguing that high-ethanol fuel can damage engines and is incompatible with certain boats, motorcycles and lawn mowers.
“The industry plans to consider all options to prevent such a waiver. The RFS is broken and we continue to believe the best solution is comprehensive legislation,” API Downstream Group Director Frank Macchiarola said in the statement.
Refiners’ shares were mixed after Trump’s comments, with Andeavor closing down 2.6 percent at $110.13 and Valero Energy Corp. up 0.2 percent at $100.53.
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Japan has cautiously welcomed the news that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
“If this means that President Trump is correctly evaluating the significance and effects of the TPP, it’s something we want to welcome,” Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan’s trade minister, said Friday. He added that the trade pact is “as delicate as something made of glass,” making it difficult to renegotiate any part of the agreement.
Trump ordered his top economic and trade advisers Thursday to look into rejoining the Pacific-rim trade pact that he abandoned last year three days after taking power.
Late Thursday night the president tweeted about TPP:
Farm-state lawmakers said after a White House meeting on agricultural trade that Trump told his economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to weigh the benefits of re-entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a deal struck by the Obama administration.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican critic of Trump’s trade policies, said that at one point in the meeting, the president turned to Kudlow and said, “Larry, go get it done.”
Sasse represents a Midwestern farm state. He called Trump’s change of mind on the Pacific trade deal “good news.” He said the president has consistently “reaffirmed the idea that TPP would be easier for us to join now.”
Early Friday, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said he would welcome a move by the United States to rejoin the TPP.
Aso, speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, also said that he expected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump to discuss TPP at their summit meeting next week.
Trump has often said he prefers bilateral trade deals instead of multinational pacts, believing the U.S. does not fare well in bigger trade deals. It was not immediately clear why he now is open to rejoining the TPP.
Trump said throughout his presidential campaign “The Trans-Pacific Partnership is another disaster done and pushed by special interests who want to rape our country, just a continuing rape of our country. That’s what it is, too. It’s a harsh word: It’s a rape of our country.”
During opening statements at Thursday’s meeting before he shooed out reporters, Trump assured the lawmakers that he intends to negotiate better trade deals for the American farmer in the face of threatened new Chinese tariffs and contentious negotiations with Canada and Mexico.
“It’ll be very good when we get it all finished,” Trump said. “The farmers will do fantastically well. Agriculture will be taken care of 100 percent.”
Trump contended that “China has consistently treated the American farmer very poorly,” noting that Beijing had until last year blocked U.S. beef sales for 14 years.
Now, in response to Trump’s announced intention to impose new or higher tariffs on $150 billion worth of Chinese imports, China says it will impose new levies on an array of U.S. exports, including wheat, soybeans, corn, cranberries and orange juice, raising fears among U.S. farmers that their livelihoods are threatened.
Administration officials have said China and the United States can negotiate their differences and avoid a trade war.
Trump said Thursday “we’re having some great discussions” with China and that he believes the outcome will be “tariffs off and the barriers down.”
But a spokesman for China’s commerce ministry said the United States is not showing any sincerity and that China will not hesitate to fight back if the U.S. escalates trade tensions.
VOA’s Kenneth Schwartz contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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The World Trade Organization predicts continued trade growth this year, though it warns that tensions and “tit-for-tat” retaliatory measures, notably between the U.S. and China, could compromise those projections.
WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo laid out the trade body’s predictions at a news conference Thursday amid concerns about a trade war over U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Chinese and other goods and Beijing’s retaliation.
As it stands, the forecast is for 4.4 percent growth in merchandise trade volumes in 2018, easing to 4 percent next year. That’s down from 4.7 percent in 2017.
The WTO is pointing to “broadly positive signs” in world trade but says they face headwinds from “a rising tide of anti-trade sentiment and the increased willingness of governments to employ restrictive trade measures.”
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The European Union executive is seeking to protect farmers by imposing fines on retailers and supermarket chains using unfair trade practices.
EU Farm Commissioner Phil Hogan said Thursday the plan was “about giving voice to the voiceless” as small-scale farmers across the EU have struggled to eke out a living when faced with the negotiating power of major food conglomerates. He didn’t give details.
In recent years milk farmers and others have complained about having to sell below production costs, threatening their livelihood. The EU Commission said farmers are also faced with late payments, last-minute cancellations and unilateral contract changes.
The Copa-Cogeca farm union said that of the value of farm products, farmers now only get 21 percent, with the rest going to processors and retailers.
The sweaty mechanic tossed aside the used jeans one by one, digging deep through the pile of secondhand clothes that are at the center of another, if little-noticed, Trump administration trade war.
The used clothes cast off by Americans and sold in bulk in African nations, a multimillion-dollar business, have been blamed in part for undermining local textile industries. Now Rwanda has taken action, raising tariffs on the clothing in defiance of U.S. pressure. In response, the U.S. says it will suspend duty-free status for clothing manufactured in Rwanda under the trade program known as the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
President Donald Trump’s decision has not gone down well in Rwanda, a small, largely impoverished East African nation still trying to heal the scars of genocide 24 years ago. Similar U.S. action against neighboring countries could follow; Uganda and Tanzania have pledged to raise tariffs and phase in a ban on used clothing imports by 2019.
The action against Rwanda comes just weeks after Trump met Rwandan President Paul Kagame at the World Economic Forum and proclaimed him a “friend,” as Trump sought to calm anger in Africa over his reported vulgar comments about the continent. Kagame currently chairs the African Union, where heads of state just days after the meeting drafted, but decided against issuing, a blistering statement on Trump.
The U.S. trade action is finding a mixed response in Africa, with some upset at Trump again, while others defend the secondhand clothing as popular, inexpensive and well-made.
The U.S. is a “bully” for retaliating against Rwanda’s efforts to grow its own textile industry, said Dismas Nkuranga, who deals in secondhand footwear in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.
“The main objective for Rwanda is to see more companies in the country produce clothes here,” said Olivier Nduhungirehe, state minister for foreign affairs. “It’s also about giving Rwandans the dignity they deserve, not wearing secondhand clothes already used by other people.”
But at the sprawling Owino Market in neighboring Uganda’s capital, Kampala, the trade in used clothing continues to crackle, with some sellers shoving merchandise into the arms of shy potential buyers: a pair of jeans for a fraction of a dollar, a T-shirt for even less.
“Affordability is what I want,” said John Ekure, the mechanic who was shopping for jeans.
As some African governments worry that the bulk imports of used clothes constitute dumping, others question the ability of local clothing makers to satisfy appetites for quality goods at rock-bottom prices.
Rwanda has been supporting Chinese investors to set up textile factories in the hopes that the country eventually can produce affordable products and create 350,000 jobs by 2025. But many in Rwanda who praise the government’s decision to raise tariffs as progressive remain concerned about whether that goal can be reached.
In Uganda, where the per capita income is $615, traders and buyers said they hope the government will not move as swiftly as Rwanda in imposing higher tariffs on used clothes.
One trader said he had noticed a rise in the number of Rwandans coming to his stall to check out trench coats and jackets, apparently because such goods have become rare back home.
“If they are telling us they are going to create many industries making clothes, I can tell you they don’t have the capacity to do that,” Muhammad Kiyingi said of Uganda’s government. “Somebody should tell the government to think carefully.”
He predicted that tightening restrictions on imports of used clothing from the U.S. would lead to a spike in imports from places like China and the United Arab Emirates instead.
Following Rwanda’s lead would “cause more harm than good,” said Ramathan Ggoobi, an economist at Uganda’s Makerere University. “We have not yet built capacity to produce new products… so we would be protecting an inefficient producer.”
To satisfy the demand for Western fashion, African governments could offer incentives for Western textile companies to set up factories on the continent, said Uche Igwe, an analyst who advises the government in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
“It is nice to grow our domestic industries and create employment,” he said. “However, we must first fix our infrastructural deficits so that local producers will produce at competitive costs.”
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