EU Mulls New Link Between Budget, Civic Rights

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The EU’s justice commissioner is working on a proposal that could oblige member states such as Poland, which has clashed with Brussels over reforms to its courts, to pass tests on the independence of their judicial systems before receiving funding. Vera Jourova said there was agreement within the executive European Commission to work on ideas to encourage strong judiciaries in planning for the new budget from 2021. “One way could be to insist that independent justice systems are necessary for effective control of the use of EU funds,” she said. “I would like to propose that link.” Seven-year budget plan A Commission spokesman said on Monday the work by Jourova was part of broader preparations for a new, seven-year EU budget plan, due to be published in May, and was…


Amazon Opens Store With No Cashiers, Lines or Registers

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No cashiers, no lines, no registers — this is how Amazon sees the future of in-store shopping. The online retailer opened its Amazon Go concept store to the public Monday, selling milk, potato chips and other items typically found at a convenience shop. Amazon employees have been testing the store, which is at the bottom floor of the company's Seattle headquarters, for about a year. The public opening is another sign that Amazon is serious about expanding its physical presence. It has opened more than a dozen bookstores, taken over space in some Kohl's department stores and bought Whole Foods last year, giving it 470 grocery stores. But Amazon Go is unlike its other stores. Shoppers enter by scanning the Amazon Go smartphone app at a turnstile. When they pull…


IMF: Global Economic Growth Getting Stronger, Risks Remain

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The International Monetary Fund says the global economy grew at a faster than expected 3.7 percent pace in 2017 and will do better this year and next. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde called predictions of strengthening growth "very welcome news." She spoke Monday in Davos, Switzerland, at the annual World Economic Forum. IMF experts say 120 nations, representing three-quarters of the global economy, saw growth last year. IMF experts said tax cuts in the United States will have a positive but "short term" impact on the economy. Lagarde urged political and economic leaders to take advantage of good times to make reforms that will soften the impact of the next, inevitable, economic downturn. She said there is "significant" uncertainty in the year ahead, where a long period of low interest…


Solar Industry on Edge as Trump Weighs Tariffs on Panels

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Some in the U.S. solar-power industry are hoping a decision this week by President Donald Trump doesn't bring on an eclipse. Companies that install solar-power systems for homeowners and utilities are bracing for Trump's call on whether to slap tariffs on imported panels. The solar business in the U.S. has boomed in recent years, driven by falling prices for panels, thanks in part to cheap imports. That has made solar power more competitive with electricity generated from coal and natural gas. A green-technology research firm estimates that tariffs could cost up to 88,000 U.S. jobs related to installing solar-power systems. On the other side are two U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies that argue the domestic manufacturing of solar cells and modules has been decimated by a flood of imports, mostly…


Maldives Ex-Leader: Chinese Projects Akin to Land Grab

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The exiled former leader of the Maldives said Monday that this year's presidential election could be the last chance to extricate his country from increasing Chinese influence, which he described as a land grab in the guise of investments in island development.   Mohamed Nasheed told reporters in Sri Lanka's capital that current President Yameen Abdul Gayoom has opened the doors to Chinese investment without any regard for procedure or transparency.   "A large emerging power is busy buying up the Maldives,'' Nasheed said, explaining that he was referring to China.   China is "buying up our lands, buying up our key infrastructure and effectively buying up our sovereignty," he said.   China considers Maldives to be key cog in the Indian Ocean in its "One Belt One Road" project…


US Tests Nuclear Power System to Sustain Astronauts on Mars

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Initial tests in Nevada on a compact nuclear power system designed to sustain a long-duration NASA human mission on the inhospitable surface of Mars have been successful and a full-power run is scheduled for March, officials said on Thursday. National Aeronautics and Space Administration and U.S. Department of Energy officials, at a Las Vegas news conference, detailed the development of the nuclear fission system under NASA's Kilopower project. Months-long testing began in November at the energy department's Nevada National Security Site, with an eye toward providing energy for future astronaut and robotic missions in space and on the surface of Mars, the moon or other solar system destinations. A key hurdle for any long-term colony on the surface of a planet or moon, as opposed to NASA's six short lunar…


Move Over Traditional Billboards. Make Way for 3D Holographic Ads

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Move over traditional billboards. Three-dimensional, slightly hypnotic holograms may soon replace two-dimensional signs and ads. Several companies with this technology said 3D holograms will revolutionize the way businesses and brands talk to potential customers. "It’s already replacing billboards, LED screens, LCD screens, because there hasn't been any revolution in the display industry for decades," said Art Stavenka, founder of Kino-mo, a company with offices in London and Belarus.  The main hardware of the technology is a blade that emits a strip of light creating holograms of images and words. Multiple blades can be synchronized for larger holograms. "As soon as this piece of hardware spins, you stop seeing hardware and you start seeing (a) hologram, and the piece of hardware spins fast enough so a human eye does not see…


Traditional Billboards Make Way for 3-D Holographic Ads

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Those two-dimensional billboards that dot the landscape of many cities around the world may soon be replaced -- with 3-D holograms. Companies working on this technology say it will revolutionize the way businesses and brands talk to potential customers. VOA's Elizabeth Lee got a glimpse of advertising's future at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. ...


Australia, Canada Trade Blows over Wine

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Australia has filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization that accuses Canada of placing "discriminatory" rules on the sales of imported wine. Canada is Australia's fourth-biggest wine market. Officials in Canberra say rules in Canada unfairly discriminate against overseas wine. An official protest has been lodged with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against regulations in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where wine produced locally can be sold in grocery stores but imports must be sold in a "store within a store" with a separate cash register. Canberra's objection also targets policies in other provinces, including Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, as well as federal practices in Canada, which could breach a WTO agreement. They mean higher prices for foreign wines, as well as other barriers to sale,…


Iran May Try to Loosen Revolutionary Guard’s Grip on Economy

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Iran's supreme leader has ordered the Revolutionary Guard to loosen its hold on the economy, the country's defense minister says, raising the possibility that the paramilitary organization might privatize some of its vast holdings. The comments this weekend by Defense Minister Gen. Amir Hatami appear to be a trial balloon to test the reaction of the idea, long pushed by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate. Protests over the country's poor economy last month escalated into demonstrations directly challenging the government.   But whether the Guard would agree remains unclear, as the organization is estimated to hold around a third of the country's entire economy.   Hatami, the first non-Guard-affiliated military officer to be made defense minister in nearly 25 years, made the comments in an interview published Saturday…


Saudis Urge Oil Production Cooperation Beyond 2018

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Saudi Arabia’s energy minister urged global oil producing nations on Sunday to extend their cooperation beyond 2018, but said this might mean a new form of deal rather than continuing the same supply cuts that have boosted prices in recent months. It was the first time that Saudi Arabia had publicly raised the possibility of a new form of coordination among oil producers after 2018. Their agreement on supply cuts, originally launched last January, is set to expire in December this year. Cooperation 'here to stay' Khalid al-Falih, speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting later in the day of the joint ministerial committee, which oversees implementation of the cuts, said extending cooperation would convince the world that coordination among producers was “here to stay.” “We shouldn’t limit our efforts…


British Group Works to Preserve Afghanistan’s Arts & Crafts Heritage

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Afghanistan's arts and architecture were once the pride of Asia. However, more than four decades of war have left many of the country’s traditional crafts on the verge of extinction. Now a Britain-based organization, Turquoise Mountain, is working to preserve Afghan heritage in the capital’s still surviving commercial district, Murad Khani. VOA Deewa service’s Munaza Shaheed reports from a recent trip to Kabul. ...


FACT CHECK: Trump Disdained Jobless Rate, Now Loves It

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Donald Trump, the presidential candidate, would not like the way Trump, the president, is crowing about today’s unemployment rate. He’d be calling the whole thing a “hoax.” Trump raised a red flag about declining jobless numbers during his campaign, denying President Barack Obama any credit. Trump noted that the jobless rate masks the true employment picture by leaving out the millions who have given up looking for work. But Trump is seeing red no more. The same stats he assailed in 2015 and 2016 now are his proof of “fantastic,” “terrific” economic progress, for which he wants the credit. That disconnect is part of why Trump’s statements about the economy this past week, some accurate on their face, fall short of the whole truth. Trump also made the far-fetched claim…


Facebook to Prioritize ‘Trustworthy’ News

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Social media giant Facebook said Friday that it would begin to prioritize "trustworthy" news outlets on its site in order to counteract "misinformation." The company said it would ask its more than 2 billion users to rank the news organizations they trusted in order to prioritize "high-quality news" over less trusted sources. It said the new ranking system would seek to separate news organizations trusted only by their own subscribers from ones that are broadly trusted across society. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post that the company was not "comfortable" deciding which news sources are the most trustworthy in a "world with so much division." "There's too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today," he wrote. "Social media enables people to spread information faster than…


Anti-smoking Plan May Kill Cigarettes — and Save Big Tobacco

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Imagine if cigarettes were no longer addictive and smoking itself became almost obsolete; only a tiny segment of Americans still lit up. That's the goal of an unprecedented anti-smoking plan being carefully fashioned by U.S. health officials. But the proposal from the Food and Drug Administration could have another unexpected effect: opening the door for companies to sell a new generation of alternative tobacco products, allowing the industry to survive — even thrive — for generations to come. The plan puts the FDA at the center of a long-standing debate over so-called "reduced-risk" products, such as e-cigarettes, and whether they should have a role in anti-smoking efforts, which have long focused exclusively on getting smokers to quit. "This is the single most controversial — and frankly, divisive — issue I've…


Time After Time: Luxury Watchmaker to Sell Pre-owned Pieces

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Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet said it would launch a second-hand business this year, becoming the first big brand to announce plans to tap into a fast-growing market for pre-owned premium watches. The company told Reuters it would launch the business at its outlets in Switzerland this year. If this proved successful, it would roll out the operation in the United States and Japan. “Second-hand is the next big thing in the watch industry,” Chief Executive Francois-Henry Bennahmias told Reuters in an interview at the SIHH watch fair in Geneva this week. Going to the 'dark side' Luxury watchmakers have hitherto eschewed the second-hand trade, fearing diluting the exclusivity of their brands and cannibalizing their sales. They have instead ceded the ground to third-party dealers. But some are now looking to change tack,…


Foreign Investors Will Take Heart in Vietnam’s Anti-Graft Crackdown

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Foreign investors in Vietnam will welcome a fairer, more predictable set of business practices as the government pursues the heads of local firms over corruption, analysts believe. Some foreign companies might review their own books to ensure clean accounting, as prosecutors investigate executives in Vietnamese firms over suspected graft. Most will laud the crackdown as steps toward transparency, fairness in business and better-run local partner companies, economists predict. “The corruption cleanup, I think so far, seems to be well received,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist with the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore. “There is at least on the surface an effort to clean up and be more transparent in the way of doing business as a way to ensure firmer ground.” Increased confidence among foreign factory investors,…


Tracking Shoes Help Keep Kids Safe

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The worst nightmare for parents is probably a child wandering off and getting lost. And for parents who want to keep their kids within their reach and still give them a chance to play freely and be adventurous, a New York company is offering a solution. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates. ...


Social Media Companies Accelerate Removals of Online Hate Speech

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Social media companies Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube have greatly accelerated their removals of online hate speech, reviewing over two thirds of complaints within 24 hours, new EU figures show. The European Union has piled pressure on social media firms to increase their efforts to fight the proliferation of extremist content and hate speech on their platforms, even threatening them with legislation. Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube signed a code of conduct with the EU in May 2016 to review most complaints within a 24-hour timeframe. The companies managed to meet that target in 81 percent of cases, EU figures seen by Reuters show, compared with 51 percent in May 2017 when the European Commission last monitored their compliance with the code of conduct. EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova has…


Down to Business: Drought-hit Kenyan Women Trade Their Way Out of Poverty

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Widow Ahatho Turuga lost 20 of her goats to drought early last year, but the shopkeeper is planning to reinvest in her herd once she has saved enough money. "I think I will start with four goats and see how it goes," she said, rearranging soap on the upper shelf of her shop in Loglogo, a few kilometers from Marsabit town. She recalled how frequent droughts had left her on the edge of desperation, struggling to care for six of her own children and four others she adopted after their mother died. But Turuga is finding it easier to cope since taking part in a rural entrepreneurship program run by The BOMA Project, a nonprofit helping women in Kenya's dry northern areas beat extreme poverty and adapt to climate change.…


Turkey Business Lobby Calls for End to Emergency Rule

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Turkey’s main business lobby on Thursday called on the government to end the state of emergency as parliament extended it for a sixth time since it was imposed after an attempted coup in 2016. Emergency rule allows President Tayyip Erdogan and the government to bypass parliament in passing new laws and allows them to suspend rights and freedoms. More than 50,000 people have been arrested since its introduction and 150,000 have been sacked or suspended from their jobs. The Turkish parliament on Thursday voted to extend the state of emergency, with the ruling AK Party and the nationalist opposition voting in favor. Rights groups and some of Turkey’s Western allies fear Erdogan is using the crackdown to stifle dissent and crush his opponents. Freedom House, a Washington-based watchdog, downgraded Turkey…


Researchers: Hacking Campaign Linked to Lebanese Spy Agency

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A major hacking operation tied to Lebanon's main intelligence agency has been exposed after careless spies left hundreds of gigabytes of intercepted data exposed to the open internet, according to a report published Thursday. Mobile security firm Lookout, Inc. and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, said the haul, which includes nearly half a million intercepted text messages, had simply been left online by hackers linked to Lebanon's General Directorate of General Security. "It's almost like thieves robbed the bank and forgot to lock the door where they stashed the money," said Mike Murray, Lookout's head of intelligence. Lookout security researcher Michael Flossman said the trove ran the gamut, from Syrian battlefield photos to private phone conversations, passwords and pictures of children's birthday parties. "It was everything. Literally…


Nigeria Moves Closer to Turning Long-awaited Oil Bill Into Law

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Nigeria moved closer to turning the first part of a long-awaited oil industry bill into law after the lower house passed the same version of the legislation approved by the Senate last year, a lawmaker in the House of Representatives said on Thursday. It is the first time both houses have approved the same version of the bill. It still needs the president's signature to become law. The legislation, which Nigeria has been trying to pass for more than a decade, aims to increase transparency and stimulate growth in the country's oil industry. Under President Muhammadu Buhari's administration, the Petroleum Industry Bill was broken up into sections to ease passage. The House of Representatives passed the first part called the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) on Wednesday. "The PIGB, as…


Tap and Donate: Paris Church to Take Contactless Cards

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The Catholic church is going digital in Paris.   The city's diocese will introduce a system allowing contactless card payments during Sunday's mass at Saint Francois de Molitor, a church located in an upscale and conservative Paris neighborhood.   The diocese explained Thursday that five connected collection baskets with a traditional design will be handed out to mass attenders during the service. They will choose on a screen the amount they want to donate - from 2 to 10 euros ($2.4 to $12.2) - and their payment will be processed in “one second.”   The diocese insisted “this new gesture remains extremely close to the usual” one, yet parishioners will still be able to use cash for their donations.   According to the diocese, donations amount to 79 percent of…


Trump Says Solar Tariff Decision Coming Soon, Stakes Huge for Industry

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 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would announce a decision soon on whether to slap tariffs on imported solar panels, and quipped that when countries dump subsidized panels in the United States, “Everybody goes out of business.” The solar industry is anxiously awaiting the decision, which will have wide-reaching implications for the sector. Domestic panel producers opposed to cheap imports would benefit from a tariff. But installers that have relied on the lower-cost hardware for their recent breakneck growth would suffer. In an interview with Reuters, Trump declined to say how he would land on the case — which was triggered last year by a domestic manufacturer’s trade grievance — but complained about the effect of imports on U.S. panel makers. “You know, they dump ’em — government-subsidized,…


Dow Closes Above 26,000, Just 8 Sessions After Earlier Milestone

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Wall Street roared upward Wednesday, with investor enthusiasm sending all three major stock indices to record finishes, and the Dow to its first close above 26,000 points. The blue-chip Dow gained 1.3 percent to close at 26,115.65 — just eight trading sessions after breaking the 25,000 mark — with strong showings from Boeing, IBM and Intel.  The broader S&P 500 added 0.9 percent to close at 2,802.56, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained a full percentage point to settle at 7,298.28. With just 11 trading days so far in 2018, Wednesday's session marked the seventh time this year all three major indices closed at all-time highs. Maris Ogg of Tower Bridge Associates told AFP the sustained rally was boosted by a "confluence of good news," including strong company earnings, slashed corporate tax…