Economy

Solar Boom or Bust? Companies Seek Tariffs on Solar Imports

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

Cheap solar panels imported from China and other countries have led to a boom in the U.S. solar industry, where rooftop and other installations have surged 10-fold since 2011.

But two U.S. solar manufacturers say the flood of imports has led one to bankruptcy and forced the other to lay off three-quarters of its workforce.

The International Trade Commission is set to decide Friday whether the imports, primarily from Asia, are causing “serious injury” to the companies. If so, the commission will recommend this fall whether the Trump administration should impose tariffs that could double the price of solar panels from abroad.

President Donald Trump has not cozied up to the solar industry, as he has for coal and other fossil fuels, but he is considered sympathetic to imposing tariffs on solar imports as part of his “America first” philosophy. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment Thursday.

Both sides of the dispute were making their case ahead of Friday’s meeting.

“Simply put, the U.S. industry cannot survive under current market conditions,” a lawyer for Georgia-based Suniva Inc. wrote in a petition filed with the commission. Suniva brought the case with Oregon-based SolarWorld Americas.

Opposition to tariffs

Governors of four solar-friendly states — Nevada, Colorado, Massachusetts and North Carolina — oppose the tariff, warning it could jeopardize the industry. They cited a study showing that a global tariff could cause solar installations to drop by more than 50 percent in two years, a crushing blow as states push for renewable energy that does not contribute to climate change.

“The requested tariff could inflict a devastating blow on our states’ solar industries and lead to unprecedented job loss, at steep cost to our states’ economies,” the two Republicans and two Democrats wrote in a letter Thursday to the trade commission.

A group of former U.S. military officials also urged the Trump administration to reject solar tariffs, noting that the Defense Department is the nation’s largest energy consumer and follows a federal law calling for the Pentagon to procure 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025.

Suniva called the case a matter of fairness. Even with better manufacturing methods, lower costs and “dramatically improved efficiency,” the company has “suffered substantial losses due to global imports,” Suniva said in its petition. The company declared bankruptcy this spring after laying off 190 employees and closing production sites in Georgia and Michigan.

SolarWorld Americas, meanwhile, has trimmed its workforce from 1,300 to 300, with more cuts likely.

“After nearly 30 factories have shut down in the wake of surging imports, the legacy of this pioneering American industry hangs in the balance,” said Juergen Stein, CEO and president of SolarWorld Americas.

“We believe that the promise of solar — energy sustainability and independence — can be realized only with healthy American manufacturing to supply growing U.S. demand,” Stein said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Trade group speaks out

In a twist, the main trade group for the solar industry opposes tariffs and calls the trade case “an existential threat” to the industry.

“The stakes are exceedingly high. We are talking about 88,000 people in this country who could lose their jobs if these tariffs are put in place,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents an array of solar companies.

A global tariff could cause a sharp price hike that could force the U.S. to lose out on solar installations capable of powering more than 9 million homes over the next five years — more than has been installed to date, Hopper said. States could lose out on billions of dollars of infrastructure investment, she added.

Suniva and SolarWorld have themselves to blame for their struggles — not pressure from overseas, Hopper said.

“Here is the real story of this case: We have two foreign-owned, poorly managed companies using U.S. trade laws to put U.S. manufacturers out of business and causing U.S. employees to lose their jobs,” she said.

Indeed, while Suniva’s U.S. operations are based in Georgia, the company’s majority owner is in China. SolarWorld Americas is a subsidiary of German solar giant SolarWorld, which declared insolvency last month.

If an injury finding is made, the trade commission would have until mid-November to recommend a remedy to the president, with a final decision on tariffs expected in January.
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Science

NASA’s Asteroid Chaser Swings by Earth on Way to Space Rock

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

NASA’s asteroid-chasing spacecraft is swinging by Earth on its way to a space rock.

Launched a year ago, Osiris-Rex will pass within about 11,000 miles (17,700 kilometers) of the home planet Friday afternoon. It will use Earth’s gravity as a slingshot to put it on a path toward the asteroid Bennu.

If all goes well, Osiris-Rex should reach the small, roundish asteroid next year and, in 2020, collect some of its gravel for return to Earth.

Friday’s close approach will occur over Antarctica. It will be a quick hello: The spacecraft will speed by at about 19,000 mph (31,000 kph). NASA has taken precautions to ensure Osiris-Rex does not slam into any satellites. Ground telescopes, meanwhile, have been trying to observe the spacecraft while it’s in the neighborhood.
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Technology

Tech Under Scrutiny in Russian Investigation

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

The tech industry pitches itself as a force for good, connecting the world and helping information flow freely. But Silicon Valley is under increasing scrutiny with reports that people in Russia were able to use these services to target and influence U.S. public sentiment. At TechCrunch Disrupt, a big tech conference this week in San Francisco, VOA’s Michelle Quinn walked around tech booths to find out how those pitching their startups see tech’s role in society.
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Economy

Mercedes-Benz to Invest $1 Billion in US Electric Car Plant 

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

German carmaker Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to invest $1 billion to start making electric vehicles at its manufacturing plant in the southern U.S. state of Alabama.

The luxury automaker said it will manufacture electric SUVs under Mercedes’ EQ subbrand at the plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in just more than three years. The expansion is expected to create 600 jobs.

Daimler-Benz, which has more than 30 plants worldwide, said the Tuscaloosa plant will become the first in the U.S. to produce electric vehicles, and only the sixth in the world to do so.

Construction is to begin next year on the 92,900-square-meter facility. Daimler also said it will build a new global logistics center and aftersales North American hub in Bibb County, Alabama, about 8 kilometers from the Tuscaloosa plant.
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Science

As Africa Warms, Mosquito Carrying Zika, Dengue More Likely to Thrive

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

From deadly droughts and destroyed crops to shrinking water sources, communities across sub-Saharan Africa are struggling to withstand the onslaught of global record-breaking temperatures.

But the dangers do not end there. Rising heat poses another threat, one that is far less known and studied but could spark disease epidemics across the continent, scientists say.

Mosquitoes are the menace, and the risk goes beyond malaria.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads debilitating and potentially deadly viruses, from Zika and dengue to chikungunya, thrives in warmer climates than its malaria-carrying cousin, known as Anopheles, say researchers at Stanford University.

In sub-Saharan Africa, this means malaria rates could rise in cooler areas as they heat up, but fall in hotter places that now battle the disease. In those areas, malaria, one of the continent’s biggest killers, may be rivaled by other vector-borne diseases as major health crises.

“As temperatures go past 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), you move away from the peak transmission window for malaria, and towards that of diseases such as dengue,” said Erin Mordecai, an assistant professor at Stanford.

“We have this intriguing prospect of the threat of malaria declining in Africa, while Zika, dengue and chikungunya become more of a danger,” she said. 

Besides a warming planet, scientists fear growing urbanization across Africa could also fuel the transmission of diseases carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which flourishes in cities and slums, the opposite of the country-loving Anopheles.

Half of Africans are expected to live in cities by 2030, up from 36 percent in 2010, according to World Bank data.

A soaring number may become prey to vector-borne viruses like dengue, which have struck Africa at a record pace in recent years, fuelled by urbanization, population growth, poor sanitation and global warming, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

“We see poorly planned development in Africa, not just with megacities but smaller settlements … which often lack proper water and sanitation,” said Marianne Comparet, director of the International Society for Neglected Tropical Diseases.

“Climate change, disease and the interaction between man and habitat — it is a crisis going under the radar … a time bomb for public health problems,” she added.

Neglected diseases

Last year was the hottest on record, for the third year in a row, with global temperature rise edging nearer a ceiling set by some 200 nations for limiting global warming, according to the European Union’s climate change service.

Parts of Africa were among the regions suffering from unusual heat.

As temperatures keep rising, mosquitoes in low-latitude regions in East African countries are finding new habitats in higher altitude areas, yet malaria rates are falling in warmer regions, such as northern Senegal in the Sahel, studies show.

So as cooler parts of sub-Saharan Africa gear up for the spread of malaria, hotter areas should prepare for future epidemics like chikungunya and dengue, experts say.

While not as lethal as malaria, chikungunya lasts longer and can lead to people developing long-term joint pain. Dengue causes flulike symptoms and can develop into a deadly hemorrhagic fever.

There is a danger that the global drive to end malaria, which absorbed $2.9 billion in international investment in 2015, has left African countries ill-prepared to deal with other vector-borne diseases, said Larry Slutsker of the international health organization PATH.

“Diseases such as dengue and chikungunya have been neglected and under-funded,” said Slutsker, the leader of PATH’s malaria and neglected tropical diseases programs. “There needs to be much better surveillance and understanding.”

Malaria kills around 430,000 people a year, about 90 percent of them young African children.

Dengue, the world’s fastest-spreading tropical disease, infects about 390 million annually but is often badly recorded and misdiagnosed, health experts say.

Some experts believe the global alarm triggered by Zika, which can cause birth defects such as small brain size, may see more money pumped into fighting neglected tropical diseases in sub-Saharan Africa, especially after outbreaks in Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau in the last year.

Although 26 African nations, almost half of the continent, have strategies in place to fight vector-borne diseases, most of them only target malaria, according to data from the WHO.

Malaria rates have been slashed in recent decades through the use of bed nets, indoor spraying and drugs. But there are no dedicated treatments or vaccines for chikungunya and dengue.

“The most important preventive and control intervention is vector management, particularly through community engagement,” said Magaran Bagayoko, a team leader for the WHO in Africa.

Disentangling data

However, efforts to beat back mosquitoes are hampered by a lack of quality and affordable climate data that could help predict outbreaks and indicate risks, said Madeleine Thomson of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

“What countries really want to know is what they can do to improve their programs, as well as the capacity of their health workers,” said the scientist at the Columbia University-based institute.

But to do that, “climate information must be put into practice,” Thomson added.

African nations also must improve coordination between their health ministries and meteorological agencies, said the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), a new continentwide public health agency launched this year by the African Union.

“They are not linked, or talking to each other,” said Sheila Shawa, a project officer at the Africa CDC headquarters in Ethiopia. “There needs to be better communication in order to model neglected diseases, such as chikungunya, across Africa.”

Yet climate scientists and health experts warn of the difficulty of analyzing the impact of rising temperature on mosquito-borne diseases without looking at other factors.

“We have a major challenge of isolating effects of rising temperatures — which are really variable — from all the other aspects like rainfall patterns, humidity, mobility and migration, as well as socioeconomic factors,” said Stanford’s Mordecai.

“They are all changing at the same time, making individual drivers very difficult to isolate and disentangle for analysis.”
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Science

Deep Sleep: Even Jellyfish Need Their Slumber

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

Even a jellyfish — one of Earth’s first and most ancient animals — needs its sleep.

Scientists said on Thursday they have demonstrated that a primitive type of jellyfish called Cassiopea goes to sleep nightly. While sleep has been confirmed in other invertebrates such as worms and fruit flies, the jellyfish is the most evolutionarily ancient animal that has been shown to slumber.

“These results suggest that even those animals that lack a centralized nervous system require sleep, which means that sleep is one of the most ancient behavioral states, deeply rooted within the animal lineage,” California Institute of Technology biologist Ravi Nath said.

Jellyfish have thrived in the seas for at least 600 million years, longer than nearly any other animal. By comparison, dinosaurs appeared roughly 230 million years ago and humans appeared roughly 300,000 years ago. The findings involving such a primordial creature raise fresh questions about sleep’s origin and purpose.

“We do not know if sleep is limited to just animals,” said Nath, who helped lead the study published in the journal Current Biology.

“Sleep is a genetically encoded behavioral state. Genes and neural circuits interact to generate the sleep state,” Nath added. “I think it would be hard to demonstrate a sleep state in an organism that is not an animal, but I think the sleep state that we know may have been co-opted from periods of quiescence in organisms as diverse as plants, bacteria and fungi.”

Jellyfish are among the first animals to have developed neurons — nerve cells — though they lack a brain, spine or central nervous system.

Cassiopea jellyfish live in clear, shallow, tropical waters of the Pacific and western Atlantic oceans, eating plankton.

Measuring about 1-2 inches (2.5-5 cm) in diameter, they are dubbed the “upside-down jellyfish” because they lie on the seafloor inverted in the water with their tentacles upward.

Through lab experiments, the researchers determined Cassiopea met three important sleep criteria: periods of decreased activity known as behavioral quiescence; a decreased response to stimuli; and an increased sleep drive after being sleep deprived.

The jellyfish were found to display periods of inactivity at night, pulsing their bodies 30 percent less often than during daytime. When a platform underneath them was removed, they took up to 5 seconds to “wake up” and reorient themselves. And when deprived of nighttime sleep by being nudged with a squirt of water, they became more likely to sleep during the day.

The researchers did not examine whether jellyfish dream.
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Science

Human Frontiers: How Much Heat Can the Body and Mind Take?

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

What Christian Clot remembers most vividly from his days in Iran’s boiling Dasht-e Lut desert was having to stay completely still for 12 hours a day — or die.

“It was so hot I had to lie down behind some rocks between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Staying in a tent was too dangerous as it would have instantly overheated,” he recalled.

Clot, a French-Swiss explorer, is testing the limits of human endurance, including to worsening temperature extremes.

In the Iranian desert and on three other 30-day expeditions alone in the world’s harshest climates, he has explored what impacts extreme weather might have on people, both physically and mentally.

“Most studies on the human body have been done in labs rather than in real settings,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I wanted to experience what you can’t find in scientific journals.”

If planet-warming emissions continue to rise at their current pace, three in four people in the world will face deadly heat by the turn of the century, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change in June.

Emily Y.Y. Chan, a professor of public health at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, expects heatwaves to become not just more frequent but also longer by the end of the century.

That could lead to a range of worsening health problems — including some unexpected ones, such as more malnutrition.

Ability to keep cool

For his experiment with heat, Clot chose Iran’s Dasht-e Lut desert, where the daytime temperature can reach nearly 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit).

“I knew I could die within hours of exposure to such high temperatures,” he admitted. Each day, Clot collected data, including his heart rate and body temperature, and carried out tests to assess the heat’s impact on his mental abilities, including his decision-making and memory.

Although his scientific team are still analyzing the results, Clot said the biggest challenge was extreme physical and mental tiredness.

“Every movement I made was slower and demanded more effort,” he explained. “I was conscious of the threat surrounding me but found it extremely challenging to stay attentive at all times.”

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, thinks Clot’s struggle with excessive heat is hardly unique.

“The average human doesn’t tolerate heat well,” he said — but some can cope better than others.

“The human body functions like the radiator of your car: your ability to cool yourself down depends on a range of factors like your age, your capacity to sweat, whether or not you’re taking any medication,” he said.

For those unable to regulate their body temperature effectively, the spectrum of heat-related illness ranges from simple sunburn to severe dehydration and heatstroke, which can be life-threatening, he added.

Pressure on hospitals

Another study, published in the journal Science Advances in June, found that expected future increases in temperatures globally could result in a “drastic” hike in deaths in India and other developing countries.

Separately, Chan and her team identified temperature thresholds beyond which deaths and hospital admission rates start to rise in Hong Kong.

“We found that daily mortality increases by 1.8 percent for every degree above the threshold of 28.2 degrees Celsius, while daily hospitalization — for respiratory and infectious diseases, for example — increases by 4.5 percent for every degree above the threshold of 29 degrees Celsius,” she said.

That suggests increasingly hot temperatures could leave health systems overwhelmed by surging demand, she added.

She worries that governments and the public are ill-prepared to deal with rising temperatures because of a general lack of awareness about how heat can impact people’s health.

Benjamin of the American Public Health Association agrees.

“Human beings are terrible at evaluating risk in a pro-active way. We rationalize why not to do things,” he said.

Being prepared is key

To limit deaths, governments should try to understand better where the most heat-vulnerable people, such as the elderly, live so they can swiftly open emergency cooling centers nearby and boost electricity supplies when it gets too hot, Benjamin said.

In rural areas, ensuring that people have access to enough water and shelter in times of extreme heat is crucial, he said.

Chan said extreme weather warnings that take into account people’s age and literacy level can help reach and protect the most vulnerable groups.

Other ways to cope with heat include adjusting the schedules of outdoor workers based on temperature, she said.

Clot said getting people to listen to, and take into account health warnings can be tough.

“We tend to think we’re stronger than nature,” he said. “But we’re not.”

He plans to repeat his desert heat expedition next year, this time with a group of 10 men and 10 women. The aim is to assess how climate extremes affect group dynamics, something he hopes will help people “better adapt to weather extremes and other environmental challenges that might come our way.”

 
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Economy

Next Round of NAFTA Talks Take on Thornier Issues

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

The United States will present new proposals and begin to weigh into thornier issues of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the third round of negotiations starting in Ottawa Saturday, U.S. chief negotiator John Melle said Thursday.

The stepped-up negotiations come with four more rounds of talks left after Ottawa and a self-imposed year-end deadline to finish the talks before Mexico launches campaigning for its July presidential election.

“With progress made in several issue areas in the first two NAFTA negotiation rounds, USTR (United States Trade Representative) looks to move forward with additional new text proposals in round three of the negotiations,” Melle said in comments emailed to Reuters.

“At this point in the negotiations, more challenging issues will start taking center stage,” he added, without elaborating.

Third round

The first two rounds of talks between the United States, Canada and Mexico focused on consolidating language on chapters covering small- and medium-sized enterprises, competitiveness, digital trade, services and the environment.

Now, negotiators will begin to weigh into more contentious issues such as rules of origin — how much of a product’s components must originate from within North America — labor standards aimed at increasing Mexican wages and mechanisms for resolving trade and investment disputes.

In its negotiating strategy for revising NAFTA ahead of the start of the talks in July, the United States said it would emphasize reducing the U.S. trade deficit as a priority.

It also said it wanted to eliminate an arbitration system for resolving trade disputes, known as Chapter 19, that has largely prohibited the United States from pursuing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases against Canadian and Mexican firms.

Canada has suggested it will walk away from the talks if Chapter 19 is tossed aside.

Dispute resolution, sunset clause

Politico reported Thursday that the United States was considering dropping a binding mechanism in NAFTA for resolving government-to-government disputes in favor of an advisory system.

The proposal would be a major shift away from a decades-old push by the United States to build an international system of enforceable trade rules, Politico reported.

Canada and Mexico have dismissed a proposal by the Trump administration to add a five-year sunset provision to NAFTA.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said last week such a provision was needed because forecasts for U.S. export and job growth when NAFTA took effect in 1994 were “wildly optimistic” and failed to live up to expectations.

Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray told Reuters Sept. 15 that the sunset clause was unnecessary because the pact’s members can trigger a renegotiation or leave it at any time.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked NAFTA and threatened to tear up the agreement, Mexico has pushed to secure more access to the European Union, Brazil, Israel, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

Polls show support for NAFTA

A Reuters poll of economists Thursday found that Mexico and Canada will survive current talks with the United States on trade relatively unscathed.

Meanwhile, a separate poll by IPSOS published Thursday showed broad-based support among Americans, Canadians and Mexicans for NAFTA.
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Economy

Rohingya Crisis Dents Myanmar Hopes of Western Investment Boom

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

When officials from Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon toured six European countries in June, they were hoping to drum up investment in transport, energy and education.

Instead, they were bombarded with questions about the country’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority, who have long complained of persecution by the Buddhist majority in the oil-rich, ethnically divided, western state of Rakhine.

“In each of every country, that issue was always brought up,” Hlaing Maw Oo, secretary of Yangon City Development Committee, told Reuters after the 16-day trip.

The situation in Rakhine has worsened dramatically since then, with more than 400,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh to escape a military counterinsurgency offensive the United Nations has described as “ethnic cleansing.”

Western trade and investment in Myanmar is small, but there were hopes that a series of reforms this year would pry open an economy stunted by international sanctions and decades of mismanagement under military rule.

With most sanctions now lifted, an expected flood of Western money was seen as a key dividend from the transition to civilian rule under Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Regional diplomats saw it balancing China’s growing influence over its neighbor.

But Aung San Suu Kyi has been beset by international criticism for saying little about human rights abuses against the Rohingya, and lawyers, consultants and lobbyists say the European and U.S. companies that had been circling are now wary of the reputational risks of investing in the country.

Louis Yeung, managing principal of Yangon-based investment firm Faircap Partners, said one of his business partners — a listed, U.S.-based food and beverage company — decided to hold off its plan to enter the Myanmar market for three to five years, citing factors including slower-than-expected reforms and the Rohingya crisis.

“Their conclusion is that it wasn’t the right time for them,” he said. “They want to see more traction from the government and Rakhine is not helpful.”

On hold

The pressure has been growing in recent months, even on existing investors, with rights group AFD International calling on foreign firms to stop investing in Myanmar.

A small group of investors in U.S. oil major Chevron filed an unsuccessful motion at its annual general meeting urging it to pull out of its production-sharing contract with a state-run firm to explore for oil and gas, while Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor, which runs a mobile network in Myanmar, issued a statement calling for human rights protection.

Chevron declined to comment on its investment in Myanmar, while Telenor did not respond to several requests for comment.

Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, said last week his delegation postponed a visit to Myanmar indefinitely, saying the human rights situation “does not allow a fruitful discussion on a potential EU-Myanmar investment agreement.”

Khin Aung Tun, vice chairman of the Myanmar Tourism Federation, told Reuters that global firms planning to hold conferences in Myanmar were now considering other locations.

“People were just starting to see Myanmar as a ‘good news’ story,” said Dane Chamorro, head of South East Asia at Control Risks, a global risk consultancy.

“Now you can imagine a boardroom in which someone mentions Myanmar and someone else says ‘hold on, I’ve just seen something on Myanmar on TV: villages burned down, refugees, etc.'”

In an interview published in Nikkei Asia Review on Thursday, Aung San Suu Kyi acknowledged it was “natural” for foreign investors to be concerned, but repeated her view that economic development was the key to solving poor Rakhine’s long-standing problems.

“So, investments would actually help make the situation better,” she said.

In China’s orbit

Myanmar’s $70 billion economy should be a strong investment proposition for Western firms. It boasts large oil and gas reserves and natural resources such as rubies, jade and timber.

Wages are low and its youthful population of more than 50 million is eager for retail and manufacturing jobs.

In April, Myanmar passed a long-awaited investment law, simplifying procedures and granting foreign investors equal treatment to the locals. A game-changing law allowing foreigners to buy stakes in local firms is expected later this year.

“The investment conditions were improving,” said Dustin Daugherty, ASEAN lead for business intelligence at Dezan Shira & Associates, a consultancy for foreign investors in Asia.

Myanmar’s economy may not suffer much, however, if Western firms shun the country — or even if their governments were to reimpose some sanctions, although that appears unlikely for now.

Aung San Suu Kyi has sought to deepen relations with China at a time when Beijing is keen to push projects that fit with its Belt and Road initiative, which aims to stimulate trade by investment in infrastructure throughout Asia and beyond.

Myanmar trades with China as much as it does with its next four biggest partners: Singapore, Thailand, Japan and India.

None of that top five participated in previous sanctions.

Trade with the United States is only about $400 million and U.S. investment is just 0.5 percent of the total. Europe accounts for around a 10th of investment, while China and Hong Kong make up more than a third, and Singapore and Thailand another third.

Than Aung Kyaw, Deputy Director General of Myanmar’s Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, told Reuters that European investors might have “second thoughts,” but he expected Asian investors to stay put.

China is already in talks to sell electricity to energy-hungry Myanmar and pushing for preferential access to a strategic port on the Bay of Bengal. In April, the two countries reached an agreement on an oil pipeline that pumps oil across Myanmar to southwest China.

“It is going to feed Aung San Suu Kyi straight into the hands of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping,” said John Blaxland, director at the ANU Southeast Asia Institute and head of the Strategic and Defense Studies Center.
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Economy

China’s Small Factories Fear ‘Rail Armageddon’ with Orders to Ditch Trucks

By on Friday, September 22, 2017

Thousands of small factories in China, making everything from steel to chemicals, are scrambling for access to the country’s clogged rail network as Beijing curbs the use of diesel trucks in an effort to tackle air pollution.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) last month gave tens of thousands of companies in 28 cities until Nov. 1 to halve their use of diesel trucks over the winter months, when pollution is at its worst.

The ministry, in a policy document, also set more stringent, permanent targets for more than 20 power and steel companies, including Zhengzhou Xinli Power, Xingtai Iron & Steel and Hebei Risun Coke, directing them to send at least half their shipments by rail.

Trucking is a cheaper and preferred mode of transport for heavy industry in China, especially for inland companies moving goods over relatively short distances and those far from railways.

Some provinces have taken even tougher stances on trucks.

In Hebei and central Henan, some steel producers must deliver as much as 90 percent of their products via rail on a permanent basis, up from around 50 to 60 percent currently.

The moves are the latest in Beijing’s years-long battle to tackle the pollution that blankets the north as houses turn up the heat between November and March, drawing on the nation’s power plants, which are mainly fueled with coal.

China is also forcing steel mills and other factories to shut up to 50 percent of capacity across the north to try and prevent toxic air during the winter.

The truck restrictions follow bans earlier this year on transporting coal by diesel trucks in major port cities.

A shift to using more of the country’s 120,000 km of railroads, one of the world’s largest networks, is also a cornerstone of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, which aims to revive old trade routes linking Chinese companies with overseas markets.

The scale of the change under way is immense. Highways accounted for 77 percent of more than 43 billion tons of freight transported last year, compared with 8 percent for rail.

“It’s another indication of how seriously they’re taking the environmental impact, although it’s a blunt way of doing it and some trips won’t make sense by rail,” said Jonathan Beard, head of transportation and logistics in Asia for Arcadis, a design and consultancy company.

The Ministry of Rail declined to comment. The MEP and the state planner that oversees rail freight prices did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

‘Railway Armageddon’

Companies were already preparing for a grim winter, having been ordered to slash output as part of measures to clean up the air in Chinese cities.

Now, many are struggling to get space on the rail network by the Nov. 1 deadline.

Major state-owned companies like Sinopec and Aluminium Corp. of China have long-term access to the railroad, leaving little room for smaller companies. Many of the factories are also hundreds of miles away from any station.

There are also concerns that bottlenecks could create chaos, cutting off supplies of critical raw materials and hurting the ability of companies to get products to market, executives interviewed by Reuters said.

Rail is also more expensive and takes longer for some routes.

An executive from Xingtai Iron & Steel estimated that using rail will add as much as 40 yuan per ton, or 10 percent, to his costs. The executive and others interviewed by Reuters requested anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

“We might resort to reducing production in the winter if we cannot get enough supplies and have difficulties sending our products due to the railway Armageddon,” said a manager with Yanzhou Coal Mining Co’s coke plant in Shandong province, which produces two million tons per year.

In Shandong, the nation’s eastern industrial and agricultural heartland, the rail bureau proposed hiking freight rates by 1 cent per ton per kilometer at an internal meeting with key clients two weeks ago, according to the Yanzhou Coal manager.

That is equivalent to an almost 10 percent increase to move products to Jiangsu, about 100 miles to the south. It is not clear whether the plan has been submitted to the state planner for approval. The state planner sets freight prices.

“Some of our clients are only 40 miles away from us,” said a sales manager with Xingtai Iron & Steel’s steel wire subsidiary.

“Trucking is more flexible than rail and cheaper,” the manager said. “For our clients in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, about 500 miles away, rail takes almost a week but trucking takes one or two days.”

Under orders

Rail traffic has increased this year due to increased shipments of coal. Rail is the most popular mode of transport for coal, which accounted for a third of traffic last year. China’s rail network is mainly run by China Railway Corp.

State-owned companies such as China National Coal Group and coal miner China Shenhua Energy also own some specific routes, giving them lower transportation costs.

Many are bewildered by the enormity of the undertaking ahead. A manager with Longyu Chemical Co. in central Henan province said he had no access to rail.

“I honestly have no idea how we are going to deal with it this winter,” he said. “The trucking freight rate is also rising because of the crackdown on diesel trucks.”
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Economy

Trafficking, Debt Bondage Rampant in Thai Fishing Industry, Study Finds

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

More than a third of migrant fishermen in Thailand clearly were victims of trafficking over the past five years, and even more workers in the industry were possibly trafficked as well, according to a report published Thursday.

Routinely underpaid and physically abused, three-quarters of migrants working on Thai fishing vessels have been in debt bondage, working to pay off an obligation, said the study by the anti-trafficking group International Justice Mission (IJM).

Thailand’s multibillion-dollar seafood sector came under fire in recent years after investigations showed widespread slavery, trafficking and violence on fishing boats and in onshore food-processing factories.

The politically unstable country, which is under military rule, has vowed to crack down on trafficking and recently introduced reforms to its fisheries law.

The IJM study of 260 fishermen from Myanmar and Cambodia found 38 percent were clearly trafficked and another 49 percent possibly trafficked.

Only 13 percent reported fair labor conditions at sea and no exploitative recruitment, it said.

Three-quarters reported working at least 16 hours a day, and only 11 percent said they were paid more than 9,000 Baht ($272 U.S.) per month, the legal monthly minimum wage in Thailand.

One fisherman was quoted in the report as saying he was held in debt bondage, owing 20,000 Baht ($604) to his brother, who worked as a supervisor overseeing fishermen.

In debt to brother

“I fear for my life as he has killed in front of me before,” he was quoted as saying. “I don’t dare to run. He would kill my children.”

Field researchers surveyed the 260 fishermen in 20 Thai fishing localities in 2016, collecting information on fishing jobs they had held in the previous five years.

Thailand, the world’s third-largest seafood exporter, had more than 42,000 active fishing vessels as of 2014, and more than 172,000 people were employed as fishermen, the study said.

The study was funded by the Walmart Foundation, the charitable arm of giant U.S. retailer Walmart. With release of the study, the foundation announced a grant to help the IJM improve law enforcement efforts against human trafficking in the Thai fishing industry.

Neither Walmart nor the charity would specify the value of the grant.

Walmart spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email that “combating forced labor remains a key challenge throughout the world.”

“Regardless of where it occurs in the global supply chain, Walmart is committed to help eliminate forced labor through transparency and collaboration,” she wrote.

Gary Haugen, the chief executive of IJM, said in a statement that “no person should have to live under the oppression or ownership of another.

“As consumers, we shouldn’t have to wonder if the products we’re purchasing are the result of violent injustice,” he said.
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Technology

Iraqis Track Abandoned Homes With Digital Tools

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

In camps across northern Iraq, people forced from their homes by Islamic State militants are using their phones to track what is happening to their properties, according to researchers who say returning home is crucial for building a safe future in the war-torn nation.

More than three million Iraqis have been driven from their homes, land and farms, according to the United Nations, many of them by armed groups like Islamic State (IS).

As pro-government forces intensify the fight against IS, clearing militants from much of Mosul and other cities they once held, displaced people are hoping to return home soon.

Before leaving the camps, they are keeping a close eye on Facebook and digital messaging services to better understand what they will be returning to or who might be occupying their homes, said Nadia Siddiqui from Social Inquiry, a research group based in northern Iraq.

With conflicting land claims and weak property rights in parts of Iraq due to years of violence, establishing who rightfully owns what is crucial for reducing violence and building social trust, Siddiqui said.

Digital tools are helping establish ownership by allowing them to build dossiers of what belongs to them with photographic evidence, title deeds and other data which could be used in court to prove their claims.

“In the long-term, land and property issues are some of the root causes (of strife),” Siddiqui told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Erbil, Iraq.

Disputes over property exacerbate communal or religious tensions, she said, and lingering issues over unclear ownership can fester for generations, making it difficult to build the economy and move past a history of violence.

“People remember these kinds of things,” Siddiqui said of land disputes.

Clearing up ownership conflicts and creating arbitration processes for competing land claims can help ease social tensions, she said.

Evidence

More than 60 percent of displaced people use digital tools like Facebook, camera phones and messaging apps to actively monitor the status of their properties, according to a July survey in Erbil supported by Social Inquiry.

The average household of displaced people has three mobile phones, the small survey said, meaning tools to collect data on properties are accessible even to those who fled their lands in the dead of night.

Thirty-two percent of displaced people surveyed share information about the status of their properties on social media.

“What is so exciting about the process is that people have this evidence already on their phones or on their Facebook page,” said Emily Frank, an anthropologist turned marketing executive in Montreal, Canada, who has monitored property rights in countries facing conflict.

Many people, however, do not realize these digital documents and photos of the land where they once lived can be used as evidence in court or a property restitution process once it is safe enough to return home, said Frank.

Along with helping individuals claim their homes from armed groups or others who have been occupying them, photos, videos and other digital data become increasingly powerful as more displaced people collect them, she said.

“If more people can submit evidence, it becomes more widely corroborated,” Frank told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It will be a more just and transparent process.”

Domino effect

Jon Unruh, a professor at McGill University in Montreal who studies land rights, has watched the process happen in Iraq first hand.

Unruh interviewed a 76-year-old man in Erbil who, after fleeing an IS-controlled area, asked a relative still living near his home to walk around the property and take pictures to see who was living inside.

IS and its supporters had occupied homes in the area, and the militant group even issued its own property title deeds, so the displaced man used digital tools and family networks to try and gather information about his home to claim it upon return.

This kind of data could be presented before a government arbitration panel or via a transitional justice plan from the U.N. or a similar international agency when the man attempts to reclaim his property, Unruh said.

Iraqi government officials working on property restitution could not be reached for comment.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Iraq, a U.N.-linked body working with the government on property restitution for refugees, was unavailable for comment.

Officials in Kurdistan, the northern semi-autonomous region of Iraq of which Erbil is the capital, are planning a referendum vote on independence for Sept. 25.

The move, opposed by Iraq’s central government, could complicate efforts for displaced people living in the region to claim properties in other parts of Iraq once it is safe enough to leave camps in the Kurdish region.

It is unclear what moves Iraq’s government will make on property rights in areas once controlled by IS based on digital data, Unruh said.

But officials in the capital Baghdad who he met recently understand the importance of property rights in reducing violence.

“The Iraqi government is most concerned people returning home to ISIS-held areas are going to default to armed kin to resolve their property disputes,” Unruh told the Thomson Reuters

Foundation.

“That returnee who finds their property destroyed moves into someone else’s house. When that person returns there is a conflict —It creates a domino effect.”
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Technology

Facebook to Release Russia Ads, Beef Up Election ‘Integrity’

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

Facebook is slowly acknowledging the outsized — if unintended 0151— role it played in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

 

Bowing to pressure from lawmakers and the public, the company said it will provide the contents of 3,000 ads bought by a Russian agency to congressional investigators, while also pledging to make political advertising on its platform more “transparent.”

 

“I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook video and wrote in an accompanying post . “That’s not what we stand for.”

The moves Thursday come amid growing pressure on the social network from members of Congress, who pushed Facebook to release the ads after the company disclosed their existence in early September. Facebook has already handed over the ads to the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

 

Facebook’s reluctance to be more forthcoming with information that could shed light on possible election interference has prompted the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee to call for the company to testify in its election-meddling probe.

 

A More Transparent Facebook

 

In one of the first steps Facebook has ever taken to open up its secretive advertising system to observation, the company will now require political ads to disclose both who is paying for them and all ad campaigns those individuals or groups are running on Facebook.

 

That’s a key step that will allow outsiders to see how many different variants of a given ad are being targeted to various groups of individuals, a tactic designed to improve their effectiveness. At the moment, there’s no way for anyone but Facebook to track these political ads, or for recipients to tell who is sponsoring such messages.

 

Since average users “don’t know if you’re seeing the same messages as everyone else,” Zuckerberg said, Facebook will “make it so you can visit an advertiser’s page and see the ads they’re currently running to any audience on Facebook.”

 

The company will hire 250 more people in the next year to work on “election integrity,” Zuckerberg said.

The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel would go farther. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner is writing a bill that would require social media companies to disclose who funded political ads, similar to rules on television broadcasters. In an interview with The Associated Press, Warner said he hoped to work with social-media companies on the bill.

 

And Yet Still Secretive

 

Zuckerberg suggested that the company may not provide much information publicly, saying that the ongoing federal investigation will limit what he can reveal.

 

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee have sought to bring Facebook executives before their committee for the past couple of weeks. But critics say Facebook should go further. They say the company should tell its users how they might have been influenced by outside meddlers.

 

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, for instance, stressed again on Thursday that the company should make the ads public, “so that everyone can see the nature and extent of the use of Facebook accounts by Russia.”

 

Zuckerberg also warned that Facebook can’t catch all undesirable material before it hits its social network.

 

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you we’re going to catch all bad content in our system. We don’t check what people say before they say it, and frankly, I don’t think our society should want us to,” Zuckerberg said. But those who break the law or Facebook’s policies, he added, “are going to face consequences afterwards.”

 

Facebook won’t catch everyone immediately, he added, but it can “make it harder to try to interfere.”

 

Twitter Also Heads to Capitol Hill

 

Zuckerberg’s move came a day after Twitter confirmed that it will meet next week with staff of the Senate intelligence committee, which has been scrutinizing the spread of false news stories and propaganda on social media during the election.

Warner said the committee wanted to hear from Twitter to learn more about the use of fake accounts and bot networks to spread misinformation.

 

“Twitter deeply respects the integrity of the election process, a cornerstone of all democracies, and will continue to strengthen our platform against bots and other forms of manipulation that violate our Terms of Service,” the company said in a statement.
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Technology

Review: iTunes Video Upgrade Makes New Apple TV Worth It

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

It might seem odd to review the new Apple TV streaming device — one specifically designed to display super-sharp video known as 4K — without actually owning a 4K TV.

But in a way, that’s the point.

Most people still don’t have 4K TVs, so the new Apple TV model doesn’t offer them much. But if you’re an Apple fan and already have 4K, the choice is clear. The new Apple TV 4K is out Friday starting at $179, or $30 more than the regular model. It’s a small difference compared with the price of your TV.

It’s worth noting that alternatives to Apple TV are cheaper and equally capable at a basic level. All of the devices connect to a TV so you can stream most major video services on a big screen. Roku and Amazon have 4K models for less than $100 and non-4K versions for even less. Both are even ahead of Apple TV in being able to stream Amazon video now; it’s coming soon to Apple TV.

But none of the rivals will play movies or shows purchased from Apple’s iTunes, at least without clunky workarounds. To watch those on a big screen directly, you need an Apple TV. And Apple has just sweetened the deal on that front.

The future has arrived

Apple’s embrace of 4K is significant, despite the fact that Roku, Amazon and other rivals beat Apple to that milestone. Apple often waits until there’s broad enough appeal for new technologies. That time is now, given growth in sales of 4K TV and more movies and TV shows released in 4K formats.

Parallel to that is the rise of high-dynamic range technology in television sets. HDR increases color range and produces brighter whites and darker blacks. Better contrast means details in bright scenes aren’t washed out. Apple TV 4K supports HDR, too.

Path to upgrades

4K is coming, just as high definition earlier replaced standard definition. The consulting company Futuresource says a third of TVs sold worldwide this year will be 4K capable, up from 25 percent last year. But people tend to keep TVs for many years, unlike high-turnover phones.

In demos with tech companies and visits to Best Buy, I find superior picture quality in 4K. Your couch needs to close enough to the screen to see the difference. My next TV will likely have 4K, but my 4-year-old Vizio HD TV still works fine (though I’m sure I just jinxed it).

Upgrades to iTunes video – and yours

Many Hollywood blockbusters now have 4K versions of home video releases. Netflix and Amazon are also trying to make their original shows available in 4K. But many indie and older titles remain in HD; even older shows like “The Wonder Years” are still stuck in standard definition.

Fortunately, Apple isn’t making you choose now. If you buy something in HD through iTunes, you’ll automatically get the 4K version when it’s out. And if a 4K version is available now, it will cost the same as its HD counterpart. It’s never been clear why HD video is more expensive than SD when actors, directors and others behind the movies were paid the same.

Lots of people were peeved at how the music industry tried to get them to repurchase the same songs on cassette tapes, CDs and then digital files. I have a collection of DVDs and don’t feel like paying again for higher-quality Blu-ray or digital versions.

So Apple’s decision to treat 4K and HD the same is a good one. That only applies to iTunes, though. Netflix is charging extra for a plan that includes 4K, even when viewed on Apple TVs.

A word of caution: While the new iPhone 8 and iPad Pros unveiled this past June will support HDR, they won’t display 4K. Even the upcoming iPhone X falls short in that respect.

Beyond video

The new Apple TV gets a faster processor, which should make high-end games better to play. A new remote offers more precise motion control and a raised menu button to make it easier to orient yourself without looking. These features alone aren’t enough to justify an Apple TV 4K unless you’re a gamer. The non-4K version is getting the new remote, too. Picture quality is the same for both versions on regular HD sets like mine.

In any case, Apple TV — with or without 4K — will be most useful if you’re already tied into Apple’s system with iDevices and iTunes. Given that rival devices are cheaper, what you’re buying isn’t the device, but an experience — integration and syncing with all your other Apple gadgets. For instance, 4K video taken on an iPhone will play easily on an Apple TV 4K.

If you’re in that camp and are thinking of buying a new TV in the next few years, there’s a good chance it will be 4K, so you might as well choose the 4K version of Apple TV now. But if it’s longer, a better Apple TV will likely be out by then. The non-4K version will do just fine for now.
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Economy

Standard & Poor’s Cuts China Credit Rating, Citing Debt

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

The Standard & Poor’s rating agency cut China’s credit rating Thursday due to its rising debts, highlighting challenges faced by Communist leaders as they cope with slowing economic growth.

The downgrade added to mounting warnings about the dangers of increasing Chinese debt, which has fueled fears of a banking crisis or a drag on economic growth. Moody’s Investors Service cut its own rating for China in May.

 

S&P lowered its rating on China’s sovereign debt by one notch from AA- to A+, still among its highest ratings. The agency had given a warning sign of a possible downgrade in March 2016 when it changed China’s outlook to negative.

 

“A prolonged period of strong credit growth has increased China’s economic and financial risks,” S&P said in a statement. “Although this credit growth had contributed to strong real GDP growth and higher asset prices, we believe it has also diminished financial stability to some extent.”

 

The ratings cut, announced after Chinese financial markets closed for the day, could raise Beijing’s borrowing costs slightly, but the more significant impact is on investor sentiment.

 

Phone calls to the Chinese Finance Ministry were not answered. After the Moody’s downgrade in May, the ministry said the agency had used improper methods and misunderstood China’s economic difficulties and financial strength.

 

Communist leaders have cited reducing financial risk as a priority this year. They have launched initiatives to reduce debts owed by state companies, including by allowing banks to accept stock as repayment on loans. But private sector analysts say they are moving too slowly.

 

Beijing relied on repeated infusions of credit to prop up growth after the 2008 global crisis.

 

That helped propel total nongovernment debt to the equivalent of 257 percent of annual economic output by the end of last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements. That is unusually high for a developing country and up from 143 percent in 2008.

 

Chinese economic growth fell from 14.2 percent in 2007 to 6.7 percent last year, though that still was among the world’s strongest.

 

The government is trying to make the economy more productive by giving market forces a bigger role. It is trying to shrink bloated industries such as steel and cement in which supply exceeds demand, which has depressed prices and led to financial losses.

 

Beijing is trying to steer the economy to slower, more sustainable growth based on domestic consumption instead of investment and exports. But growth has dipped faster than planners wanted, raising the risk of politically dangerous job losses. Beijing has responded by flooding the economy with credit.

 

Official efforts to rein in debt “could stabilize the trend of financial risk in the medium term,” S&P said. “However, we foresee that credit growth in the next two to three years will remain at levels that will increase financial risks gradually.”

 

S&P kept its outlook for China stable. It said that reflected expectations the country will “maintain robust economic performance over the next three to four years.”

 

“We may raise our ratings on China if credit growth slows significantly and is sustained well below the current rates while maintaining real GDP growth at healthy levels,” S&P said. “A downgrade could ensue if we see a higher likelihood that China will ease its efforts to stem growing financial risk and allow credit growth to accelerate to support economic growth.”

 
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Economy

Global Leaders See Globalization as Challenged, Not Failing

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, business and political leaders around the world met to urge cooperation on such issues as trade, investment and international technology to help boost globalization. Without integration between nations, such issues as the environment, economic development and the well-being of societies suffer. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from New York.
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Economy

US Central Bank Keeps Rates Unchanged but Who Will Lead the Fed in 2018?

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

U.S. central bank officials will hold off on the third interest rate hike of the year. But the Federal Reserve says it will go ahead with plans to unload its massive portfolio of Treasuries and mortgage bonds. The decision to delay the rate hike and reduce (or normalize) the Fed’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet had been widely expected. The more pressing question is who will lead the central bank when Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s term ends next year. Mil Arcega has more
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Technology

Google Bets Big on Hardware With HTC Buy

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

Google is biting off a big piece of device manufacturer HTC for $1.1 billion to expand its efforts to build phones, speakers and other gadgets equipped with its arsenal of digital services.

The deal announced Thursday underscores how serious Google is becoming about designing its own family of devices to compete against Apple and Amazon in a high-stakes battle to become the technological hub of people’s lives.

Over the past decade, Google had focused on giving away its Android operating system to an array of device makers, including Taiwan’s HTC, to ensure people would keep using its ubiquitous search engine, email, maps, YouTube video service and other software on smartphones and other pieces of hardware.

But that changed last year when Google stamped its brand on a smartphone and internet-connected speaker. HTC manufactured the Pixel phones that Google designed last year, perhaps paving the way for this deal to unfold.

Although Android powers about four out of every five smartphones and other mobile devices in the world, the software can be altered in ways that result in Google’s services being de-emphasized or left out completely from the pre-installed set of apps.

That fragmentation threatens to undercut Google’s ability to increase the ad sales that bring in most of the revenue to its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc., as people spend more and more time on smartphones and other devices instead of personal computers.

Apple’s iPhone and other hardware products are also particularly popular among affluent consumers prized by advertisers, giving Google another incentive to develop its own high-priced phone as a mobile platform for its products and ads.

Google also wants to build more internet-connected devices designed primarily for home usage, such as its voice-controlled speaker that’s trying to catch up with Amazon’s Echo. The Home speaker includes a digital concierge, called Google Assistant, that answers questions and helps manage people’s lives, much like the Alexa in Amazon’s Echo.

The purchase is a gamble on several fronts for Google and Alphabet.

Google’s previous forays into hardware haven’t panned out to be big winners so far. It paid $12.5 billion for smartphone maker Motorola Mobility five years ago only to sell it to Lenovo Group for less than $3 billion after struggling to make a dent in the market. And in 2014, Google paid more than $3 billion for home device maker Nest Labs, which is still struggling to make money under Alphabet’s ownership.

Expanding into hardware also threatens to alienate Samsung Electronics, Huawei and other device makers that Google relies on to distribute its Android software.
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Economy

SEC: 2016 Hack May Have Enabled Illegal Trades

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

The Securities and Exchange Commission says a cyber breach of a filing system it uses may have provided the basis for some illegal trading in 2016.

In a statement posted Wednesday evening on the SEC’s website, Chairman Jay Clayton says a review of the agency’s cybersecurity risk profile determined that the previously detected incident was caused by a software vulnerability in its EDGAR filing system.

 

The SEC chairman says this breach did not result in exposing personally identifiable information.

 

The SEC files financial market disclosure documents through its EDGAR system, which processes more than 1.7 million electronic filings in any given year.

 

Clayton’s statement also mentioned that a 2014 internal review was unable to locate some agency laptops that may have contained nonpublic information. 
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Science

Huge Sea Turtles Slowly Coming Back From Brink of Extinction

By on Thursday, September 21, 2017

Sea turtles are lumbering back from the brink of extinction, a new study says.

Scientists found more populations of the large turtles improving than declining when they looked at nearly 60 regions across the globe. That’s a big change from a decade or two ago, experts said.

Long-living sea turtles have been pushed to endangered levels by hunting, accidentally being caught in fishing nets, habitat loss, plastics pollution and climate change, experts say.

But massive efforts to save the egg-laying turtles by changing fishing nets and creating protected and darkened beaches are working, said study lead author Antonios Mazaris, an ecology professor at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece.

 

“There’s a positive sign at the end of the story,” Mazaris said. “We should be more optimistic about our efforts in society.”

Seven species of sea turtles

The research was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

 

There are seven different species of sea turtles, all but one endangered. The slow creatures live for several decades with some species weighing about 100 pounds and others well over 1,000 pounds.

Mazaris pointed to Hawaiian green sea turtles, once in trouble 40 years ago, as story of success. Maybe too much success.

“They have more turtles than they know what to do with,” said Roderic Mast, a sea turtle advisory group co-chairman at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which determines the global list of endangered species.

‘Good problem to have’

“Tourists seeking sea turtles create traffic problems and fishermen complain the creatures get in the way, said Mast, who wasn’t part of the study and is president of the Oceanic Society advocacy group. He added: “It’s a good problem to have.”

Mazaris and colleagues looked at 299 sets of turtle populations over different lengths of time around the globe, finding 95 of them increased, while 35 went down. The rest didn’t change or there wasn’t enough data.

 

 There were increases in North and South America on the Atlantic coast but setbacks in the Asia Pacific region.

 “The evidence is widespread and convincing,” said Selina Heppell, head of Oregon State University’s department of fisheries and wildlife, who wasn’t part of the study.

Changes in laws make difference

Mast pointed to Kemp’s ridley sea turtles as a good example of what’s happening, especially in the United States.  In the 1940s, there about 40,000 of them, mostly in the southern U.S. and Mexico. By the 70s, there were only 1,200 left.

The U.S. and Mexican governments changed laws, fishing practices and set aside dark, quiet areas for turtles to nest. That population is increasing by about 10 to 15 percent annually, Mast said. That’s good, but he said they remain critically endangered.

“Sea turtles are bellwethers. They’re flagships that we use to tell the story of what’s going on in the oceans,” Mast said. “And that’s why people should care about turtles.”

 
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