YCLOAK

Cuban authorities have ordered the closure of one of the island’s fastest-growing cooperatives, days after announcing that they would stop issuing new permits for some private enterprise.

Scenius, which provides accounting and business consulting services, will have until December 31 to liquidate, the cooperative’s founder and director, Luis Duenas, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Duenas said the Ministry of Finances and Prices told him the decision to close Scenius was “based on an analysis of our social purpose, or of the activities that we have approved.”

Duenas called the decision an “error” that has no place in the policy of economic opening announced by Cuban officials.

On Tuesday, Cuba’s government said it would suspend the issuance of permits for a range of occupations and ventures, including restaurants and renting out rooms in private homes.

The suspension included the growing field of private teachers as well as street vendors of agricultural products, dressmakers and the relatively recent profession of real estate broker. The announcement did not say when the issuing of permits would resume and said that enterprises already in operation could continue.

Expansion in 2010

President Raul Castro expanded an opening of the economy to private-sector employment in 200 categories of business in 2010. The government says nearly 570,000 people are employed in the enterprises, including hundreds of restaurants and guest houses. It later also legalized nonagricultural cooperatives.

Both recent moves have created fears that Cuba is putting the brakes on plans to reform its centrally planned economy, though officials say the country is not going back on its economic opening.

Duenas regretted that Scenius’ closing occurred days after the package of restrictions on independent work.

“There are many ways to do things, timing is very important, and the country is greatly affected by these things,” Duenas said.

Scenius began in January 2015 with two or three partners and in two years had more than 200. All its 70 clients are state-owned enterprises or business groups in agriculture, industry and communications.

According to official figures, there are more than 400 nonagricultural cooperatives in Cuba.
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Britain is prepared to pay up to 40 billion euros ($47 billion) as part of a deal to leave the European Union, the Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported, citing three unnamed sources familiar with Britain’s negotiating strategy.

The European Union has floated a figure of 60 billion euros and wants significant progress on settling Britain’s liabilities before talks can start on complex issues such as future trading arrangements.

The government department responsible for Brexit talks declined to comment on the Sunday Telegraph article. So far, Britain has given no official indication of how much it would be willing to pay.

The newspaper said British officials were likely to offer to pay 10 billion euros a year for three years after leaving the EU in March 2019, then finalize the total alongside detailed trade talks.

Payments would be made only as part of a deal that included a trade agreement, the newspaper added.

“We know ([the EU’s] position is 60 billion euros, but the actual bottom line is 50 billion euros. Ours is closer to 30 billion euros but the actual landing zone is 40 billion euros, even if the public and politicians are not all there yet,” the newspaper quoted one “senior Whitehall source” as saying.

Whitehall is the London district where British civil servants and ministers are based.

‘Go whistle’

A second Whitehall source said Britain’s bottom line was “30 billion euros to 40 billion euros,” and a third source said Prime Minister Theresa May was willing to pay “north of 30 billion euros,” the Sunday Telegraph reported.

David Davis, the British minister in charge of Brexit talks, said on July 20 that Britain would honor its obligations to the EU but declined to confirm that Brexit would require net payments.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit advocate, said last month that the EU could “go whistle” if it made “extortionate” demands for payment.

Last week, the Bank of England said Brexit uncertainty was weighing on the economy. Finance Minister Philip Hammond wants to avoid unsettling businesses further.

If Britain cannot conclude an exit deal, trade relations would be governed by World Trade Organization rules, which would allow both parties to impose tariffs and customs checks and leave many other issues unsettled.

The EU also wants agreement by October on rights of EU citizens already in Britain, and on border controls between the Irish Republic and the British province of Northern Ireland, before trade and other issues are discussed.
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Supporters of the United Auto Workers say they’re not giving up their fight to unionize a Nissan auto assembly plant in Mississippi after a stinging defeat, even as UAW opponents say Friday’s loss proves workers don’t want the union.

More than 62 percent of workers voting in a two-day election at Nissan Motor Co.’s Canton plant voted against the UAW, with 2,244 ballots against the union according to the National Labor Relations Board. Voting for union representation were 1,307 workers, or 38 percent.

“They know we didn’t need it,” said Nissan worker Kim Barber, an outspoken union opponent who said she was celebrating Friday’s result. “We didn’t need outside interference coming into our plant.”

UAW defiant

Amid tears at a union office near the plant just north of Jackson, UAW supporters voiced defiance, with some calling for the election to be rerun after the minimum six-month wait. The union filed charges moments before the polls closed Friday night making new allegations that Nissan had broken federal labor law and intimidated workers into voting “no.” If the labor board agrees, it could order a new election at the plant.

“It hurts,” said union supporter Phillip White. “We ran against a machine; we ran against a monster; we ran against all the lies.”

The UAW has never fully organized an international automaker in the traditionally anti-union South, although it did persuade some maintenance workers to join at a Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee. The UAW’s lack of influence among southern autoworkers has reduced its bargaining power when Detroit automakers lose market share and close plants. After pouring resources into the organizing drive at Nissan, this loss could leave UAW leaders with tough decisions.

Odds of success 

“The result of the election was a setback for these workers, the UAW and working Americans everywhere, but in no way should it be considered a defeat,” UAW President Dennis Williams said in a statement.

Kristen Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research said that although the UAW was the underdog, odds were unlikely to improve soon, as President Donald Trump’s appointees take over the National Labor Relations Board. A corruption scandal involving union employees allegedly taking bribes from a former Fiat Chrysler executive also threatened to spread.
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The U.S. job market exceeded expectations last month adding 209,000 new workers to the economy in July and lowering the national unemployment rate to 4.3 percent. But wages continue to underperform, as did the nation’s labor participation rate. Economists say that’s because millions of working-age Americans are choosing to remain on the sidelines, some going back to school, others staying at home to take care of their families. Why does that matter? Mil Arcega explains.
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Rajeev Sakhuja has kept a hectic schedule in recent months as he makes scores of presentations in Delhi and surrounding towns about why and how to invest in equities.

The investment adviser has an attentive audience as traditional avenues of gold and real estate lose their luster and as stock markets trade at record highs. Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians are now investing more money into mutual funds.

“That old-fashioned investment, people are not interested. So where should they switch, where to invest, what to do, nobody has any clue,” said an upbeat Sakhuja, whose firm, PTIC India, is doing brisk business.

India’s stock markets have been among Asia’s top performers this year. The benchmark BSE Sensex has gained more than 16 percent since the start of the year, buoyed by optimism about the world’s fastest-growing economy. But unlike the past, when foreign investors were at the helm of a bull run, there has been a huge pickup in domestic investment.

That’s good news, say economists. The government has long fretted that most of the country’s household savings go into unproductive assets such as gold and real estate and has been trying to nudge domestic investors toward channeling more of their savings into equities, a source of corporate finance.

There is a huge market to be tapped. The total investment of Indian household savings into stocks is much smaller compared with those in many other countries.

Gaurav Mehta, portfolio manager at Ambit Investment Advisors in Mumbai, said the rising interest of domestic investors is part of a structural shift that signals a more modernizing and transparent economy.

“Till five, six years ago, physical assets were a good two-thirds of all household savings,” Mehta said. “That ratio now has swung in favor of financial assets.”

‘More formalized’ savings

The trend has been accelerated by a crackdown on the black economy. Last November, the government banned high denomination notes in a bid to flush out illegal cash.

“As savings become more formalized, then obviously you don’t need to park them in spurious places like land, real estate, et cetera,” Mehta said. “So a lot of this money is now moving into financial assets.”

And to tap that market, the mutual fund industry is reaching out to potential investors through television advertisements, social media and billboards, pitching the funds as attractive alternatives.

The sales pitch is not difficult: In the last four years, the Sensex has climbed 60 percent, whereas gold has fallen by 5 percent, real estate markets are down sharply and declining bank interest rates cannot keep pace with inflation. And the government is offering favorable tax policy for investors in mutual funds.

Most small investors are opting for mutual funds, hoping to grow their savings to beat inflation.

After hearing from friends about investment avenues in stock markets, Kumar Gautam, 31, opted for a $50 monthly plan. “Bank interest rates were coming down 4, 5, 6 percent … people told me to opt for a monthly plan. I will have tax savings and get better returns,” he said.

Some, like Bharti Gupta, 33, have been bolder and chosen to trade directly in stocks. “I studied some books, there are courses also that I joined, and there is a WhatsApp group that I have joined, which has some 150 to 200 people, so that is also quite helpful.” She said she had been able to make her investment grow quite well.

And whereas most investors lived in big cities in the past, small-town residents are also investing in equities now.

Vidya Bala, head of research at FundsIndia.com, said one-third of the firm’s customers now are from outside the country’s 15 big cities.

According to Bala, even in very remote places where there are no financial firms or mutual fund offices, people are investing online. “People who are away from the happening cities can also have access to good, regulated products as long as they are digitally aware. This is really set to take off,” Bala said.

Reassurance

Economists say the greater participation of domestic investors is also reassuring for a country that has long worried about the predominant role of foreign money in equities, because that used to play a decisive role in the movement of stock markets.

Meanwhile, ordinary, first-time investors are simply keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that stock markets will continue to do well in the long run and that their investments will be safe.
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As many as 100 elephants are being killed every day for their tusks, according to the United Nations. The United States implemented a near-total ban on the commercial trade of African elephant ivory last year, and in New York this week, conservation groups gathered to destroy merchandise that came from the illegal ivory trade. Faith Lapidus narrates this report from VOA’s Kevin Enochs.
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The head of German automaker Volkswagen’s engineering and environment office pleaded guilty Friday in a U.S. court to charges connected to an emissions scandal involving the company.

Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges that could land him in prison for up to seven years. He will be forced to pay a fine of between $40,000 and $400,000 for his role in a scheme, dubbed Dieselgate, to mislead U.S. environmental regulators.

In March, the company admitted to using software to fool regulators into believing Volkswagen cars complied with U.S. emissions standards. It was ordered to pay $4.3 billion in penalties and another $17.5 billion in civil settlements.

The government said diesel cars that Volkswagen claimed were clean were, in fact, releasing 40 times more nitrogen oxide emissions than is allowed by law.

Schmidt is the second Volkswagen employee to plead guilty to charges related to the scandal. Last year, company engineer James Liang admitted to helping design the devices used to beat emissions tests. The FBI now cites him as a cooperating witness.

Most Volkswagen employees charged in the scheme are in Germany and can’t be prosecuted by U.S. authorities. The company still faces legal issues in countries across the globe and has put aside more than $24 billion to handle costs related to the scandal.
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The U.S. economy had a net gain of 209,000 jobs in July, while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.3 percent. That matches the lowest jobless rate in 16 years.

Friday’s Labor Department report says job gains were seen in restaurants, business services and health care. The average hourly wage rose nine cents an hour in July, to reach $26.36. That is up 65 cents over the past year, or growth at a 2.5 percent rate.

Boosting Labor Participation Rate for Women Key to Healthy Economy

The chief economist for the job search company “Indeed” says slow wage growth may reflect job gains in low-paying areas like food service. Jed Kolko also says the job gains are well above what is needed to keep up with growth in the workforce.

While Friday’s newest government unemployment report shows strong job growth and rising wages, it also shows 7 million Americans out of work and another 5.3 million who want full-time work but can only find part-time employment.

On Twitter Friday, President Donald Trump called the official government job numbers “Excellent” and wrote that cutting regulations helped job growth.

During the campaign, when the official jobless rate was around 5 percent, candidate Trump called the job numbers “phony” and said they should not be believed. Back then, he insisted that the actual unemployment rate was far higher, perhaps as high as 42 percent. 
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Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. said Friday they plan to spend $1.6 billion to set up a joint-venture auto manufacturing plant in the U.S. — a move that will create up to 4,000 jobs. 

 

The plant will have an annual production capacity of about 300,000 vehicles and will produce Toyota Corollas for the North American market. Mazda will make cross-over models there that it plans to introduce to that market, both sides said.

The companies will split the cost for the plant equally. 

Toyota said that it changed its plan to make Corollas at a plant in Mexico, now under construction, and instead will produce Tacoma pickups there. 

 

EV rumors

The Japanese automakers were reportedly planning to work together to develop electric vehicles. 

EVs have become an increasingly competitive market segment because of concerns about global warming and the environment.

 

Japanese rival Nissan Motor Co., which is allied with Renault SA of France and Mitsubishi Motors Corp., is the global leader in electric vehicles.

Better batteries

 

In the past, Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models, was not overly bullish on electric vehicles, noting the limited cruise range of the technology. But recent breakthroughs in batteries allow for longer travel per charge.

 

In 2015, Toyota and Mazda agreed to find new areas where they can work together, but they had not announced specifics.

 

Toyota already provides hybrid technology to Mazda, which also makes compact cars for Toyota at its Mexico plant.

 

Mazda, based in Hiroshima, Japan, used to have a powerful partner in Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co., which bought 25 percent of Mazda in 1979, and raised it to 33.4 percent in 1996. But Ford began cutting ties in 2008, and has shed its stake in Mazda.
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One of the most deprived suburbs in Paris is expected to be a big winner now the French capital is in line to host the 2024 Olympics with thousands of homes and a new swimming center to be built in Seine-Saint-Denis for the games.

The poorest of France’s 101 mainland departments, Seine-Saint-Denis sprawls east and north from Paris, much of it a drab expanse of grey buildings, abandoned factories and poverty.

Paris learned on Monday that it was a near certainty to be the IOC’s chosen host for the 2024 games when its only remaining rival, Los Angeles, agreed to wait another four years. Budapest, Boston, Hamburg and Rome had all pulled out of the race.

“La Joie est Libre! (Joy Ahead!),” said the front-page headline of L’Equipe sports newspaper, welcoming the news with a play on words. A series of Islamist militant attacks frightened away many visitors from the French capital and city officials hope winning the bid will boost tourism.

Organizers of the games say their aim to lift Seine-Saint-Denis’s fortunes helped their case with the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“Bearing in mind the symbolic and real divides which there sometimes still are between Paris and its suburbs, this young, working class place, with young people of all colors and all origins allows us to say to the IOC that these games are a wonderful opportunity to show that Paris is bigger than Paris,” Stephane Troussel, president of Seine-Saint-Denis, told Reuters.

Tony Estanguet, co-chair of the Paris bid, said: “We looked at the success of the games in London and for sure, the fact that London succeeded in leaving a strong legacy, a physical legacy in the east of London, was very important for us.”

Not Convinced

Not all locals are sure of the benefits however. Some have half an eye on Stratford, a swath of east London that was redeveloped for the 2012 games, but where rising rents have pushed locals out of similarly created new housing there.

“When there is a lot of investment landlords will also take advantage by adding a bit, increasing the rents,” said Fode Abass Toure, a 45-year-old resident of Bobigny.

“And even the restaurants will try to increase prices of products because a lot of tourists will come,” he said.

Seine-Saint-Denis has a reputation as a Socialist bastion where the French Communist Party and hard-left have a strong presence. It was in the area where the deaths of two youths who were hiding from police in a power station set off 2005 riots.

Unemployment in and around its main towns of Saint-Denis and Bobigny is approaching double the national average at more than 18 percent. Three out of 10 of its 1.5-million-strong population are immigrants, or the children of immigrants, mostly from Africa, a similar proportion are classed as living in poverty.

The Paris games – which have a relatively modest budget by recent standards at around 7 billion euros ($8.27 billion), will leave behind two permanent new developments, both of them in Seine-Saint-Denis.

They are the Olympic Village itself, which will be converted after the games to provide more than 3,500 homes, and a swimming center to stand alongside the Stade de France stadium, built for the 1998 football World Cup, now to be reborn as the Olympic Stadium where track and field athletes will compete.

“Same in Sport”

At a run-down local pool that will be transformed into a water polo venue, children splashed as they played during a visit by Reuters.

“Sport brings people together,” said sports activity leader Jose Defaria, aged 22.

“Even if we don’t come from the same social background, I think we’re the same in sport, we are brought closer together and we make links and it’s good for everyone. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.”

Paris 2024 – enthusiastically backed by the country’s tennis-playing new President Emmanuel Macron – plans to make the most of the city’s existing sports facilities and take full advantage of its landmarks.

Boxers will compete alongside tennis players at the clay court French Open tennis venue, Roland Garros, on the city’s western fringe, while the nearby clubs Paris Saint Germain and Stade Francais will host respective sports of soccer and rugby.

Distance races on foot and bicycle will start and finish at the Eiffel Tower, in whose shadow the ever-popular beach volleyball competition will play out.

Fencing and taekwondo will be held under the majestic steel and glass of the Grand Palais near the Champs Elysees, and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has bet her reputation on the Seine river being clean enough for open water swimming in time for the games.

Attacks Scared Tourists

Official confirmation due in September would mean one of the world’s most visited cities can mark the centenary of the 1924 Paris Olympics with a repeat showing. Amongst the stars of those games was U.S. swimming gold medalist Johnny Weismuller who later became known for his role in the Tarzan films.

Hoteliers are keen for a much-needed shot in the arm.

Although hotel occupancy rates are rising, up 7.2 percent at 76.9 percent in the first half of this year, they are short of the 80 percent rate hoteliers enjoyed in 2014 before Islamist militant attacks scared off tourists.

A successful Olympic legacy is far from assured for any city, with recent hosts enjoying contrasting fortunes.

The legacy of the Athens Games left derelict, run-down arenas and unused stadiums. Four years earlier, Sydney used the Games to develop an Olympic Park which is now a thriving commercial, residential and sporting suburb.

Four years after Athens, Beijing aimed to use the games to showcase itself as a progressive world power. London’s 2012 evoked a feelgood factor before domestic politics reversed that optimism. In 2016, while Rio’s games lacked a certain luster they underlined the South American nation’s ability to deliver in the face of economic and social adversity.
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Researchers in England are hoping to help root out modern-day slavery in northern India by using detailed satellite imagery to locate brick kilns — sites that are notorious for using millions of slaves, including children.

A team of geospatial experts at the University of Nottingham use Google Maps and dozens of volunteers to identify potential sites of exploitation and report them to authorities.

“The key thing at the moment is to get those statistics right and to get the locations of the brick kilns sorted,” said Doreen Boyd, a co-researcher on the “Slavery from Space” project.

“There are certainly activists on the ground that will help us in terms of getting the statistics and the locations of these brick kilns to [government] officials.”

Anti-slavery activists said the project could be useful in identifying remote kilns or mines that would otherwise escape public or official scrutiny.

“But there are other, more pressing challenges like tackling problematic practices, including withheld wages, lack of transparent accounting … no enforcement of existing labor laws,” said Jakub Sobik, spokesman at Anti-Slavery, a London-based nongovernmental organization.

Millions of people in India are believed to be living in slavery. Despite a 1976 ban on bonded labor, the practice remains widespread at brick kilns, rice mills and brothels, among others.

The majority of victims belong to low-income families or marginalized castes like the Dalits or “untouchables.”

Nearly 70 percent of brick kiln workers in South Asia are estimated to be working in bonded and forced labor, according to a 2016 report by the International Labor Organization. About a fifth of those are underage.

The project relies on crowdsourcing, a process where volunteers sift through thousands of satellite images to identify possible locations of kilns. Each image is shown to multiple volunteers, who mark kilns independently.

The team is currently focused on an area of 2,600 square kilometers in the desert state of Rajasthan — teeming with brick-making sites — and plans to scale up the project in the coming years.

Researchers are now in talks with satellite companies to get access to more detailed images, rather than having to rely on publicly available Google Maps.

The project is one of several anti-slavery initiatives run by the university, which include research on slave labor-free supply chains and human trafficking.
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