Trade Optimism Lifts Stocks, But 2018 Ends in Red

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Equities around the world rose Monday as possible progress in resolving the trade dispute between the United States and China engendered some investor optimism in what has been a punishing end of year for markets.

The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 stock index advanced in light trading volume after U.S. President Donald Trump said he held a “very good call” with China’s President Xi Jinping on Saturday to discuss trade and said “big progress” was being made.

Chinese state media were more reserved, saying Xi hoped the negotiating teams could meet each other halfway and reach an agreement that was mutually beneficial.

The rise in U.S. equities mirrored that in Asian and European markets, which were also buoyed by trade optimism.

Despite Monday’s advance, equities ended the year largely in the red, victims of investor anxiety over trade tensions and slowing economic growth. Asian and European shares had been sluggish for much of the year, and in recent months, U.S. stocks followed suit.

“If the European economy continues to decelerate and the Chinese economy decelerates because of tariffs, there is definitely going to be spillover to the United States,” said Shannon Saccocia, chief investment officer at Boston Private.

The S&P 500 dropped more than 9 percent in December, its largest decline since the Great Depression. For the year, the index slid more than 6 percent, its biggest drop since the 2008 financial crisis.

Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan ended down 16 percent for the year, while the STOXX 600 was more than 13 percent lower.

MSCI’s gauge of stocks around the globe fell 11.1 percent in 2018.

A further blow to the Chinese economy could spur a quicker resolution to the U.S.-China trade dispute and thus boost global equities, Saccocia said. Survey data on Monday showed Chinese manufacturing activity contracting for the first time in two years even as the service sector improved.

On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 265.06 points, or 1.15 percent, to 23,327.46, the S&P 500 gained 21.11 points, or 0.85 percent, to 2,506.85 and the Nasdaq Composite added 50.76 points, or 0.77 percent, to 6,635.28.

MSCI’s emerging markets index rose 0.32 percent, while the MSCI world stock index gained 0.66 percent.

No more hikes

Yields on U.S. Treasuries fell on Monday, keeping with the trend over the past two months as investors moved to lower-risk investments.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 15/32 in price to yield 2.686 percent, compared with 2.738 percent late Friday.

The fall in Treasury yields reflects expectations of a slowdown, if not a pause altogether, in the Federal Reserve’s progression of interest-rate hikes.

The precipitous drop in yields has undermined the U.S. dollar in recent weeks. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six other currencies, was down 0.3 percent and on track to end December with a loss. It is, however, still set for its highest yearly percentage gain since 2015.

On Monday, the dollar fell to a six-month low against the yen.

The euro was up 0.2 percent to $1.1459, on track to end the year down nearly 5 percent against the dollar.

Oil posted its first year of losses since 2015, with Brent crude futures down 19.5 percent and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures down 24.8 percent.

On Monday, Brent crude settled 59 cents higher, or 1.11 percent, at $53.80 a barrel. U.S. crude settled up 8 cents, or 0.18 percent, at $45.41 a barrel.

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China Factory Activity Shrinks for First Time in 2 Years

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China’s factory activity shrank in December for the first time in more than two years, an official survey showed Monday, intensifying pressure on Beijing to reverse an economic slowdown as it enters trade talks with the Trump administration.

The purchasing managers’ index of the National Bureau of Statistics and an industry group, the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, fell to 49.4 from November’s 50.0 on a 100-point scale. Any reading below 50 shows that activity is contracting. The December figure was the lowest since February 2016 and the first drop since July 2016.

 

In the quarter that ended in September, China’s economic growth sank to a post-global crisis low of 6.5 percent compared with a year earlier. The slowdown occurred despite government efforts to stem the downturn by ordering banks to lend more and by boosting spending on public works construction.

 

Forecasters expect annual growth of about 6.5 percent, down slightly from 2017’s 6.7 percent. But some industry segments, including auto and real estate sales, have suffered more serious declines.

 

“Downward pressure on the economy is still large,” economist Zhang Liqun said in a statement issued with the PMI.

 

Overall orders and exports both contracted, indicating that Chinese factories are suffering from weak demand at home and abroad. Exports to the United States kept growing at double-digit monthly rates through late 2018 despite President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs. But growth in exports to the rest of the world fell sharply in November and forecasters expect American demand to weaken in early 2019.

 

That adds to complications for Chinese leaders who are trying to reverse a broad economic slowdown and avert politically dangerous job losses.

 

Chinese and U.S. envoys are due to meet in early January for negotiations that are intended to resolve their economically threatening trade war. Over the weekend, Trump sounded an optimistic note, tweeting that he had spoken with President Xi Jinping by phone.

 

“Deal is moving along very well,” Trump tweeted. “If made, it will be very comprehensive, covering all subjects, areas and points of dispute. Big progress being made!”

 

But economists say the 90-day moratorium on new penalties that was agreed to by Trump and Xi on Dec. 1 is likely too little time to resolve their sprawling dispute.

 

Chinese economic activity already was weakening after Beijing tightened controls on bank lending in late 2017 to cool a debt boom. The downturn was more abrupt than expected, which prompted regulators to shift course and ease credit controls. But they moved gradually to avoid reigniting a rise in debt. Their measures have yet to put a floor under declining growth.

 

Chinese leaders promised at an annual economic planning meeting in mid-December to shore up growth with tax cuts, easier lending for entrepreneurs and other steps.

 

 

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Kenyan GDP Growth at 6 Percent in Third Quarter 2018

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Kenya’s economy expanded faster in the third quarter of this year than in the same period last year due to strong performance in the agriculture and construction sectors, the statistics office said on Monday.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said the economy grew 6 percent in the third quarter of 2018, compared with 4.7 percent in the same period in 2017.

It said the agriculture sector expanded by 5.2 percent compared with 3.7 percent in the third quarter of 2017, helped by better weather.

“Prices of key food crops remained low during the quarter compared to the corresponding quarter of 2017, an indication of relative stability in supply,” KNBS said.

Manufacturing grew by 3.2 percent from a 0.1 percent contraction in the third quarter of 2017, KNBS said.

It said that the electricity and water supply sector grew by 8.5 percent from 4.5 percent in the third quarter of 2017, mainly due to a big increase in the generation of electricity from hydro and geothermal sources.

Gross foreign reserves increased to 1,222.5 billion from 1,085.6 billion in the same period of last year.

The current account deficit narrowed by 23 percent to 116 billion Kenyan shillings ($1.14 billion), it said.

This was mainly due to lower imports of food and higher value of exports of goods and services.

The government forecasts that the economy will expand by 6.2 percent in 2019, up from a forecast 6.0 percent this year.

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The Euro Currency Turns 20 Years Old on Tuesday

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The euro currency turns 20 years old on January 1, surviving two tumultuous decades and becoming the world’s No. 2 currency.

After 20 years, the euro has become a fixture in financial markets, although it remains behind the dollar, which dominates the world’s market.

The euro has weathered several major challenges, including difficulties at its launch, the 2008 financial crisis, and a eurozone debt crisis that culminated in bailouts of several countries.

Those crises tested the unity of the eurozone, the 19 European Union countries that use the euro. While some analysts say the turmoil and the euro’s resilience has strengthened the currency and made it less susceptible to future troubles, other observers say the euro will remain fragile unless there is more eurozone integration.

Beginnings 

The euro was born on January 1, 1999, existing initially only as a virtual currency used in financial transactions. Europeans began using the currency in their wallets three years later when the first Euro notes and coins were introduced.

At that time, only 11 member states were using the currency and had to qualify by meeting the requirements for limits on debt, deficits and inflation. EU members Britain and Denmark received opt-outs ahead of the currency’s creation.

The currency is now used by over 340 million people in 19 European Union countries, which are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

Other EU members are required to join the eurozone when they meet the currency’s monetary requirements.

Popularity

Today, the euro is the most popular than it has ever been over the past two decades, despite the rise of populist movements in several European countries that express skepticism toward the European Union.

In a November survey for the European Central Bank, 64 percent of respondents across the eurozone said the euro was a good thing for their country. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said they thought the euro was a good thing for Europe.

In only two countries — Lithuania and Cyprus — did a majority of people think the euro is a bad thing for their nation.

That is a big contrast to 2010, the year that both Greece and Ireland were receiving international bailout packages, when only 51 percent of respondents thought the euro was a good thing for their country.

Challenges

The euro faced immediate challenges at its beginning with predictions that the European Central Bank (ECB) was too rigid in its policy and that the currency would quickly fail. The currency wasn’t immediately loved in European homes and businesses either with many perceiving its arrival as a price hike on common goods.

Less than two years after the euro was launched — valued at $1.1747 to the U.S. dollar — it had lost 30 percent of its value and was worth just $0.8240 to the U.S. dollar. The ECB was able to intervene to successfully stop the euro from plunging further.

The biggest challenge to the block was the 2008 financial crisis, which then triggered a eurozone debt crisis that culminated in bailouts of several countries.

Tens of billions of euros were loaned to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Cyprus and Spain, either because those countries ran out of money to save their own banks or because investors no longer wanted to invest in those nations.

The turmoil also highlighted the economic disparity between member states, particularly between the wealthier north and the debt-laden southern nations.

Poorer countries experienced both the advantages and disadvantages to being in the eurozone.

Poorer countries immediately benefited from joining the union, saving trillions of euros due to the lowering borrowing costs the new currency offered.

However, during times of economic downturn, they had fewer options to reverse the turmoil.

Typically in a financial crisis, a country’s currency would plunge, making its goods more competitive and allowing the economy to stabilize. But in the eurozone, the currency in poorer countries cannot devalue because stronger economies like Germany keep it higher.

Experts said the turbulent times of the debt crisis exposed some of the original flaws of the euro project.

However, the euro survived the financial crisis through a combination of steps from the ECB that included negative interest rates, trillions of euros in cheap loans to banks and buying more than 2.6 trillion euros in government and corporate bonds.

Future

ECB chief Mario Draghi was credited with saving the euro in 2012 when he said the bank would do “whatever it takes” to preserve the currency.

Some experts say the flexibility of the bank proves it is able to weather financial challenges and say the turmoil of the past two decades have left the ECB better able to deal with future crises.

However, other observers say that the 19 single currency nations have not done enough to carry out political reforms necessary to better enable the countries to work together on fiscal policy and to prepare for future downturns.

Proposals for greater coordination, including a eurozone banking union as well as a eurozone budget are still in the planning phases.

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NASA Probe to Make History New Year’s Day

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NASA scientists are getting a very special New Year’s Day gift. The New Horizons spacecraft is moving into unexplored space beyond Neptune to investigate objects so far out in our solar system they can hardly be seen by telescope. As VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports, the trip far out in space may help scientists figure out how the solar system was created.

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Trump Says ‘Big Progress’ on Possible China Trade Deal

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Saturday that he had a “long and very good call” with Chinese President Xi Jinping and that a possible trade deal between the United States and China was progressing well.

As a partial shutdown of the U.S. government entered its eighth day, with no quick end in sight, the Republican president was in Washington, sending out tweets attacking Democrats and talking up possibly improved relations with China.

The two nations have been in a trade war for much of 2018 that has seen the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods between the world’s two largest economies disrupted by tariffs.

Trump and Xi agreed to a ceasefire in the trade war, agreeing to hold off on imposing more tariffs for 90 days starting Dec. 1 while they negotiate a deal to end the dispute following months of escalating tensions.

“Just had a long and very good call with President Xi of China,” Trump wrote. “Deal is moving along very well. If made, it will be very comprehensive, covering all subjects, areas and points of dispute. Big progress being made!” Chinese state media also said Xi and Trump spoke on Saturday, and quoted Xi as saying that teams from both countries have been working to implement a consensus reached with Trump.

Chinese media also quoted Xi as saying that he hopes both sides can meet each other half way and reach an agreement that is mutually beneficial as soon as possible.

Having canceled his plans to travel to his estate in Florida for the holidays because of the government shutdown that started on Dec. 22, Trump tweeted, “I am in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come on over and make a deal.”

The Republican-controlled Congress was closed for the weekend and few lawmakers were in the capital.

The shutdown, affecting about one-quarter of the federal government including 800,000 or so workers, began when funding for several agencies expired.

Congress must pass legislation to restore that funding, but has not done so due to a dispute over Trump’s demand that the bill include $5 billion in taxpayer money to help pay for a wall he wants to build along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Farmers Risk Loss of Federal Payments, Loans, From Shutdown

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The end of 2018 seemed to signal good things to come for America’s farmers. Fresh off the passage of the farm bill, which reauthorized agriculture, conservation and safety net programs, the Agriculture Department last week announced a second round of direct payments to growers hardest hit by President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

Then parts of the government shut down.

The USDA in a statement issued last week assured farmers that checks would continue to go out during the first week of the shutdown. But direct payments for farmers who haven’t certified production, as well as farm loans and disaster assistance programs, will be put on hold beginning next week, and won’t start up again until the government reopens.

There is little chance of the government shutdown ending soon. Trump and Congress are no closer to reaching a deal over his demand for border wall money, and both sides say the impasse could drag well into January.

Although certain vital USDA programs will remain operational in the short term, that could change if the shutdown lasts for more than a few weeks.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, helps feed roughly 40 million Americans. According to the USDA, eligible recipients are guaranteed benefits through January. Other feeding programs, including WIC, which provides food aid and nutrition counseling for pregnant women, new mothers and children, and food distribution programs on Indian reservations, will continue on a local level, but additional federal funding won’t be provided. School lunch programs will continue through February.

USDA has earmarked about $9.5 billion in direct payments for growers of soybeans, corn, wheat, sorghum and other commodities most affected by tariffs. The first round of payments went out in September. The deadline to sign up for the second round of payments is January 15.

The impact of the shutdown, which began shortly before most federal workers were scheduled for a holiday break, started coming into focus by midweek.

About 420,000 employees are working without pay, while 380,000 are being forced to stay home. In the past, federal employees have been paid retroactively. But government contractors won’t get paid for hours they’ll lose staying home, causing problems for those who rely on hourly wages.

In anticipation of the financial bind many federal workers and contractors may soon find themselves in, the Office of Personnel Management offered some advice: haggle with landlords, creditors and mortgage companies for lower payments until the shutdown is over.

The shutdown also is affecting national parks, although unevenly: Some remain accessible with bare-bones staffing levels, some are operating with money from states or charitable groups, while others are locked off.

 

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Hong Kong Economy Caught in US-China Trade Crossfire

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The storm winds of the recent trade war between the United States and China have settled in a truce for now, but the weeks of agitation — of rising tariffs and counter duties — battered one economy close to Beijing: Hong Kong’s.

In December, Hong Kong government economist Andrew Au said he anticipated near-term troubles for the territory’s economic forecast. GDP growth — a year after a record high of 341.5 billion — slowed significantly, from 4.6 percent growth in the first quarter to 2.9 percent in the third.

The government says the impact of the trade war can be seen in consumer prices, slower spending and lighter trade. Consumer price inflation ticked up 2.8 percent in the third quarter. The government warned that inflation could head upward as local costs rise along with residential rental rates.

Kelvin Ho-Por Lam, a former economist with HSBC based in Hong Kong, predicted another problem for Hong Kong from overseas.

Double whammy

“It’s not just the trade war, it’s facing a double whammy at the moment,” Lam said. “The trade war impacts on this economy, which is showing up in this Hong Kong GDP over the last two quarters. The second impact is from rising interest rates in the U.S.” The Federal Reserve raised rates four times in 12 months. A slower U.S. economy means less buying from China.

Adding to the impact is great unease. 

“It poses uncertainty on the economic agents in society. Businesses are more concerned going ahead with their investment plans,” Lam said. “They’re shelving their investments and therefore they are not investing in capacity in Hong Kong or in China.”

Trade and logistics — the apparatus to move the shoes and dresses and smartphones from Chinese factories to markets worldwide — are central to Hong Kong’s economy. The sector accounts for nearly one-fifth of the city’s GDP, higher than the substantial financial and banking industry here. When tariffs hit, goods cost more to sell in the United States, which means companies decrease stock and consumers buy less.

China’s economic growth weakened in the third quarter from a year earlier, its lowest expansion since the global financial crisis in 2008.

Consumers wary

Clearly consumers are wary. Retail sales in Hong Kong, the semi-autonomous Chinese territory, grew in September at their slowest pace in 15 months. Also hurting the city was substantial damage from typhoon Mangkhut.

Favorite shops of mainland tourists — Sa Sa International, Chow Tai Food Jewelry, and Luk Fook Holdings, all posted slowed sales in the third quarter.

Hong Kong also saw its economy lag for local reasons. Home prices in what is often called the world’s least affordable market chilled this year as interest rates rose. The number of residential property transactions fell by 24 percent from 18,900 in the second quarter to 14,400 in the third quarter, according to the government.

Property sellers saw the slowdown in sales set in this summer, after the residential property market had churned hard for 28 consecutive months. Median home prices dropped by as much as 5 percent from June, agents told the South China Morning Post in October. The city’s rating and valuation Index, which tracks prices of older homes, in August marked the first monthly decline in more than two years. Even the government offered discounts. A 97,300-square-foot plot of the former Kai Tak airport in the city’s Kowloon district sold for $1.03 billion to a unit of China Overseas Land & Investment, nearly 13 percent lower than another Kai Tak sale in November.

The market chill began in August after Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, introduced a tax to compel developers to create more housing. Meanwhile, banks raised mortgage rates for the first time in 12 years.

That means mortgage holders have less extra money to spend, Kelvin Lam said. He forecast that there will be fewer tourists visiting Hong Kong, perhaps because of the volatility in China.

“The Hong Kong economy is very sensitive to these things,” he said. “It will reduce people spending for their own personal consumption.”

​Folded into China’s economy

Hong Kong produces very little domestically, Kelvin Lam pointed out. Lam said because the territory’s economy is so entwined with China’s, and because the range of products and services are so narrow, the impact of the extra tariffs will be felt on whatever the city acquires from China and re-exports.

Hong Kong is likely to suffer more during China’s downturns as the former British colony is folded into China’s economy and as the government plans for a massive technology hub to be rooted in nearby Shenzhen.

Andrew Sheng, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong, wrote in an email that he didn’t think the city would encounter much inflation, despite the downward pressure coming from lower property prices and a slowing global economy.

“The Hong Kong economy will suffer from the trade conflict,” said the former central banker and financial regulator in Asia. “Although it is very resilient to overseas shocks.”

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Social Media’s Year of Falling From Grace

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Silicon Valley has enjoyed years of popularity and growing markets.

But 2018 has been rocky for the industry.

Data breaches, controversies over offensive speech and misinformation — as well as reports of foreign operatives’ use of their services — have left many people skeptical about the benefits of social media, experts say.

Worries about social media in Congress meant tech executives had to testify before committees several times this year.

“2018 has been a challenging year for tech companies and consumers alike,” said Pantas Sutardja, chief executive of LatticeWork Inc., a data storage firm. “Company CEOs being called to Congress for hearings and promising profusely to fix the problems of data breach but still cannot do it.”

 

WATCH: Social Media’s Year of Falling From Grace

An apology tour

Facebook drew the most scrutiny. The social networking giant endured criticism after revelations that its lax oversight allowed a political consulting firm to exploit millions of its users’ data.

In the spring, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, went on what was dubbed “an apology tour” to tell users that the company would do a better job of protecting their data.

The California firm faced other problems when data breaches at the site compromised user information. Other sharp criticism hit Facebook when false reports on its site sparked violence in places like Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

​Using social media to sow division

“Are America’s technology companies serving as instruments of freedom?” asked Kevin McCarthy, R-California and the House Majority Leader during a congressional hearing. “Or are they serving as instruments of manipulation used by powerful interests and foreign governments to rob the people of their power, agency, and dignity?”

Adding to concerns, the year saw new revelations of foreign operatives using social media to secretly spread divisive and often bogus messages in the U.S. and worldwide.

“It doesn’t matter to whose benefit they were operating,” said Walt Mossberg, a former tech columnist with the Wall Street Journal. “What bothers people here is that a foreign country, using our social networks, digital products and services that we have come to feel comfortable in … has come in and used that against us.”

​Tech workers stand up

In addition to data privacy and misinformation, online speech became a big issue this year. Under pressure, social media companies like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook’s Instagram tightened restrictions on the kinds of speech they tolerate on their sites.

Tech workers pressed managers about their company’s government contracts, and Google workers staged a worldwide walkout over the treatment of female colleagues.

The issue of user data has led some companies such as LatticeWork, a data storage firm, to create new ways for users to protect their data and themselves. Playing off people’s concerns about data, LatticeWorks markets its products as a way to “bring your data home.”

#DeleteFacebook?

What’s unclear however is whether concerns about personal data and tech company decisions will spur users to leave these services. Facebook revelations prompted some like Mossberg to give up Facebook and its other services such as Instagram. He wants federal law to limit U.S. internet firms collection and use of user data.

“Governments and citizens of countries around the world need the right to regulate them without closing down free speech,” he said. “And that’s tricky.”

Some congressional members have vowed to pass a federal data privacy bill in the coming year, something that tech firms say they support.

But whether new regulations build trust in digital services remains to be seen.

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Lampert Makes $4.4 Billion Bid to Keep Sears Alive

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Sears Holdings Corp. Chairman Eddie Lampert submitted a $4.4 billion takeover bid for the bankrupt U.S. retailer, representing its only chance of escaping liquidation and laying off tens of thousands of workers, a spokesman for the billionaire’s hedge fund said Friday.

Lampert’s bid is backed in part by $1.3 billion in financing from three different financial institutions, the spokesman for his hedge fund, ESL Investments Inc., said. It would preserve about 425 stores that Sears has yet to close and secure the jobs of up to 50,000 workers out of the 68,000 employed by the retailer. An affiliate of ESL, Transform Holdco LLC, submitted the bid, the spokesman said.

​People familiar with the matter said the financing comes from Sears’ existing lenders Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc, as well Royal Bank of Canada, which was not previously a lender, which together agreed to provide a $950 million asset-based loan and a $350 million revolving credit line.

Some of Lampert’s bid relies on $1.8 billion of Sears debt that ESL already holds and plans to forgive to back the offer, the sources said. The bid also includes about $400 million in financing from non-bank lenders, the sources said.

The bid contemplates assuming protection agreements Sears has previously sold to reassure customers who have bought appliances, televisions, lawn tractors and other big-ticket items, the ESL spokesman said.

“Factoring for all considerations, we believe that our going concern bid provides the best path forward for the company, the best option to save tens of thousands of jobs and is superior for all of Sears’ stakeholders to the alternative of a complete liquidation,” the ESL spokesman said. “Much work remains and there is no assurance our proposal will be completed.”

Next move is Sears’

Sears will now evaluate the bid to determine whether it is viable, and there remains a possibility the company could reject it, some of the sources said.

A Sears spokeswoman declined to comment. Bank representatives either had no immediate comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A U.S. bankruptcy court judge must approve any sale of Sears. The judge will weigh the opinions of other stakeholders, including unsecured creditors who have argued they could recover more of their investment if the department store operator winds down.

Without the financing or another buyer, Sears faces the prospect of closing its doors for good and putting roughly 68,000 people out of work.

​125-year-old retailer

The 125-year-old retailer filed for bankruptcy Oct. 15 and developed plans to restructure around the sale of 500 stores and businesses including Kenmore, DieHard and the company’s home services division. Only Lampert’s ESL offered to buy the entire company.

The only other bids Sears has received are from suitors interested in pieces of the company and liquidators prepared to run going-out-of-business sales at stores and shut down the retailer.

Sears dates back to the late 1880s. Its mail-order catalogs with merchandise ranging from toys, medicine and gramophones to automobiles, kit houses and tombstones made it the Amazon.com Inc. of its time.

But the iconic retailer gradually lost its shine as consumers increasingly favored brick-and-mortar rivals such as Walmart Inc and Target Corp and e-commerce.

Lampert, who through ESL is Sears’ biggest shareholder and creditor, formed Sears Holdings in 2005 by acquiring Sears Roebuck in an $11 billion deal and combining it with discount chain Kmart, which he had also taken over.

Lampert had pledged to restore Sears to its glory days, when it owned the Sears Tower in Chicago, then the world’s tallest building, and companies that included a radio station and Allstate insurance. But the company stopped turning a profit in 2011, and it gradually started to sell assets, such as its legendary Craftsman brand and many of its properties, to stay afloat.

Sears Holdings listed $6.9 billion in assets and $11.3 billion in liabilities in documents filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.

The largest U.S. toy retailer, Toys ‘R’ Us, tried to emerge from its 2017 bankruptcy filing but was forced to liquidate six months later after creditors lost confidence in its turnaround plan.

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Strong Week, Yet Horrible Month for Wall Street

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Wall Street capped a week of volatile trading Friday with an uneven finish and the market’s first weekly gain since November. 

 

Losses in technology, energy and industrial stocks outweighed gains in retailers and other consumer-focused companies. Stocks spent much of the day wavering between small gains and losses, ultimately unable to maintain the momentum from a two-day winning streak. 

 

Even so, the major stock indexes closed with their first weekly gain in what’s been an otherwise painful last month of the year. The Dow Jones industrial average and S&P 500 rose more than 2 percent for the week, while the Nasdaq added nearly 4 percent. The indexes are still all down around 10 percent for the month and on track for their worst December since 1931. 

 

“It seems like convulsions in either direction have been the real norm for much of December and that’s certainly been the case this week,” said Eric Wiegand, senior portfolio manager for Private Wealth Management at U.S. Bank. “The initial push higher and then seeing it subside a little bit is perhaps getting back to a little bit more of a normal environment, reflecting the reality that we have still a number of issues overhanging the market.” 

 

The market’s sharp downturn since October has intensified this month, erasing all its 2018 gains and nudging the S&P 500 closer to its worst year since 2008. 

 

Investors have grown worried that the testy U.S.-China trade dispute and higher interest rates would slow the economy, hurting corporate profits. This week, with trading volumes lower than usual because of the Christmas holiday, served up some pronounced swings in the market. 

 

A steep sell-off during the shortened trading session on Christmas Eve left the major indexes down more than 2 percent. On Wednesday, stocks mounted a stunning rebound, posting the market’s best day in 10 years as the Dow shot up more than 1,000 points for its biggest single-day point gain ever. 

Late reversal

 

The market appeared ready to give much of those gains back on Thursday, before a late-afternoon reversal that erased a 600-point drop in the Dow left the market with a two-day winning streak. 

 

“The market was so oversold and then Wednesday and Thursday were key reversal days, but also stronger closes than opens,” said Janet Johnston, portfolio manager at TrimTabs Asset Management. 

 

“The market was starting to price in the worst-case scenario: a recession,” Johnston said 

 

Still, the market’s downturn has left stocks substantially less expensive than they were heading into the fourth quarter, Johnston noted. 

 

“And that sets up a good buying opportunity,” she said. 

 

On Friday, the S&P 500 index fell 3.09 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,485.74. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 76.42 points, or 0.3 percent, to 23,062.40. The average had briefly climbed to 243 points. 

 

The Nasdaq added 5.03 points, or 0.1 percent, to 6,584.52. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks climbed 6.11 points, or 0.5 percent, to  1,337.92. 

 

Technology companies, a big driver of the market’s gains before things deteriorated in October, were among the big decliners. Alliance Data Systems dropped 1.4 percent to $149.82. 

 

Oil prices recovered after wavering in midmorning trading. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.6 percent to settle at $45.33 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, inched up 0.1 percent to close at $52.20 a barrel in London. 

 

Despite the rise in oil prices, energy sector stocks declined. Cabot Oil & Gas slid 3.5 percent to $22.95, while Hess lost 2.8 percent to $40.38. 

 

Retailers and other consumer-focused companies fared better. Amazon rose 1.1 percent to $1,478.02. 

 

Wells Fargo settlement

Wells Fargo rose 0.5 percent to $45.78 on news that the lender has agreed to pay $575 million in a national settlement with state attorneys general over its fake bank accounts scandal. The San Francisco-based bank has acknowledged that its employees opened millions of unauthorized bank accounts for customers in order to meet unrealistic sales goals. 

 

Tesla climbed 5.6 percent to $333.87 after naming two independent directors to its board under an agreement with federal regulators. 

 

Homebuilders fell broadly in the morning after the National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index fell last month as fewer Americans signed contracts to buy homes. Higher mortgage rates and prices are squeezing would-be buyers out of the market, especially in the West. The stocks mostly recovered by midafternoon. William Lyon Homes gained 3.4 percent to $10.81. 

 

Bond prices recovered after a midday dip, sending the yield on the 10-year Treasury down to 2.72 percent from 2.74 percent late Thursday. 

 

The dollar declined to 110.41 yen from Thursday’s 110.74 yen. The euro weakened to $1.1442 from $1.1449. 

 

Gold edged up 0.1 percent to $1,283 an ounce and silver gained 0.8 percent to $15.44 an ounce. Copper rose 0.5 percent to $2.68 a pound. 

 

Overseas, major indexes in Europe closed higher while markets in Asia mostly rose. London’s FTSE 100 gained 2.3 percent, while the Nikkei 225 index fell 0.3 percent.  

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US Army Looks for a Few Good Robots, Sparks Industry Battle

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The U.S. Army is looking for a few good robots. Not to fight — not yet, at least — but to help the men and women who do.

These robots aren’t taking up arms, but the companies making them have waged a different kind of battle. At stake is a contract worth almost half a billion dollars for 3,000 backpack-sized robots that can defuse bombs and scout enemy positions. Competition for the work has spilled over into Congress and federal court.

The project and others like it could someday help troops “look around the corner, over the next hillside and let the robot be in harm’s way and let the robot get shot,” said Paul Scharre, a military technology expert at the Center for a New American Security.

The big fight over small robots opens a window into the intersection of technology and national defense and shows how fear that China could surpass the U.S. drives even small tech startups to play geopolitics to outmaneuver rivals. It also raises questions about whether defense technology should be sourced solely to American companies to avoid the risk of tampering by foreign adversaries.

Regardless of which companies prevail, the competition foreshadows a future in which robots, which are already familiar military tools, become even more common. The Army’s immediate plans alone envision a new fleet of 5,000 ground robots of varying sizes and levels of autonomy. The Marines, Navy and Air Force are making similar investments.

“My personal estimate is that robots will play a significant role in combat inside of a decade or a decade and a half,” the chief of the Army, Gen. Mark Milley, said in May at a Senate hearing where he appealed for more money to modernize the force.

Milley warned that adversaries like China and Russia “are investing heavily and very quickly” in the use of aerial, sea and ground robots. And now, he added, “we are doing the same.”

Such a shift will be a “huge game-changer for combat,” said Scharre, who credits Milley’s leadership for the push.

The promise of such big Pentagon investments in robotics has been a boon for U.S. defense contractors and technology startups. But the situation is murkier for firms with foreign ties.

Concerns that popular commercial drones made by Chinese company DJI could be vulnerable to spying led the Army to ban their use by soldiers in 2017. And in August, the Pentagon published a report that said China is conducting espionage to acquire foreign military technologies — sometimes by using students or researchers as “procurement agents and intermediaries.” At a December defense expo in Egypt, some U.S. firms spotted what they viewed as Chinese knock-offs of their robots.

The China fears came to a head in a bitter competition between Israeli firm Roboteam and Massachusetts-based Endeavor Robotics over a series of major contracts to build the Army’s next generation of ground robots. Those machines will be designed to be smarter and easier to deploy than the remote-controlled rovers that have helped troops disable bombs for more than 15 years.

The biggest contract — worth $429 million — calls for mass producing 25-pound robots that are light, easily maneuverable and can be “carried by infantry for long distances without taxing the soldier,” said Bryan McVeigh, project manager for force projection at the Army’s research and contracting center in Warren, Michigan.

Other bulkier prototypes are tank-sized unmanned supply vehicles that have been tested in recent weeks in the rough and wintry terrain outside Fort Drum, New York.

A third $100 million contract — won by Endeavor in late 2017 — is for a midsized reconnaissance and bomb-disabling robot nicknamed the Centaur.

The competition escalated into a legal fight when Roboteam accused Endeavor, a spinoff of iRobot, which makes Roomba vacuum cleaners, of dooming its prospects for those contracts by hiring a lobbying firm that spread false information to politicians about the Israeli firm’s Chinese investors.

A federal judge dismissed Roboteam’s lawsuit in April.

“They alleged that we had somehow defamed them,” said Endeavor CEO Sean Bielat, a former Marine who twice ran for Congress as a Republican. “What we had done was taken publicly available documents and presented them to members of Congress because we think there’s a reason to be concerned about Chinese influence on defense technologies.”

The lobbying firm, Boston-based Sachem Strategies, circulated a memo to members of the House Armed Services Committee. Taking up Endeavor’s cause was Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat — and, like Bielat, a Marine veteran — who wrote a letter to a top military official in December 2016 urging the Army to “examine the evidence of Chinese influence” before awarding the robot contracts.

Six other lawmakers later raised similar concerns.

Roboteam CEO Elad Levy declined to comment on the dispute but said the firm is still “working very closely with U.S. forces,” including the Air Force, and other countries. But it’s no longer in the running for the lucrative Army opportunities.

Endeavor is. Looking something like a miniature forklift on tank treads, its prototype called the Scorpion has been zipping around a test track behind an office park in a Boston suburb.

The only other finalist is just 20 miles away at the former Massachusetts headquarters of Foster-Miller, now a part of British defense contractor Qinetiq. The company did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The contract is expected to be awarded in early 2019.

Both Endeavor and Qinetiq have strong track records with the U.S. military, having supplied it with its earlier generation of ground robots such as Endeavor’s Packbot and Qinetiq’s Talon and Dragon Runner.

After hiding the Scorpion behind a shroud at a recent Army conference, Bielat and engineers at Endeavor showed it for the first time publicly to The Associated Press in November. Using a touchscreen controller that taps into the machine’s multiple cameras, an engineer navigated it through tunnels, over a playground-like structure and through an icy pool of water, and used its grabber to pick up objects.

It’s a smaller version of its predecessor, the Packbot, which was first used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2002 and later became one of soldiers’ essential tools for safely disabling improvised explosives in Iraq. Bielat said the newer Scorpion and Centaur robots are designed to be easier for the average soldier to use quickly without advanced technical training.

“Their primary job is to be a rifle squad member,” Bielat said. “They don’t have time to mess with the robot. They’re going to demand greater levels of autonomy.”

It will be a while, however, before any of these robots become fully autonomous. The Defense Department is cautious about developing battlefield machines that make their own decisions. That sets the U.S. apart from efforts by China and Russia to design artificially intelligent warfighting arsenals.

A November report from the Congressional Research Service said that despite the Pentagon’s “insistence” that a human must always be in the loop, the military could soon feel compelled to develop fully autonomous systems if rivals do the same. Or, as with drones, humans will still pull the trigger, but a far-away robot will lob the bombs.

Said P.W. Singer, a strategist for the New America Foundation think tank: “China has showed off armed ones. Russia has showed them off. It’s coming.”

 

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Cybersecurity Law: Vietnam Will Censor Internet, Not Close Websites

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Expect to get caught if you post anti-government material on the internet in Vietnam or take a phishing trip. From 2019 authorities can build evidence against you from material provided by email services and social media networks including Facebook. Yet the country, mindful of its role in the emerging digital economy, won’t close down websites the way China does.

Vietnam has long walked a thin line between a free internet as part of its economic growth and resistance against what market research firm IDC’s country manager Lam Nguyen calls “digital disasters.” The country is getting testier toward online dissent at the same time.

A draft Cybersecurity Law decree to take effect Jan. 1 after 18 months in the making will help the communist government reach these goals by ordering service providers to do some of its surveillance work.

Despite objections from Google and Facebook, global social media as well as email and e-commerce providers may be asked to store data in Vietnam, according to the Cybersecurity Law. Alternately, they can self-censor, turn over customer profiles and delete certain content, Nguyen said.

“It’s like saying OK, as an online service provider with Vietnam users, you do collect data about such users and their online activities, but you are letting users use your platform or services for unlawful activities, so please come to the front of the line (so) that we can keep an eye out for you,” said Yee Chung Seck, partner with the Baker McKenzie law firm in Ho Chi Minh City.

Catching up in cybersecurity

According to a United Nations index, Vietnam ranked 101 out of 165 countries in exposure to cyberattacks. 

“Vietnam has been historically weak when in it comes to cybersecurity,” cyber intelligence analyst Emilio Iasiello wrote in a commentary for the Cyber Research Databank.

Domestic websites were hit by more than 6,500 malware or phishing attacks in the first eight months of 2018, Viet Nam News reports.

Vietnam does not block the websites of foreign internet services that could spread objectionable content. Vietnam, like much of Asia, is trying to develop a digital economy, but unlike China it lacks easy-to-control homegrown alternates to the major Silicon Valley internet firms.

“Obviously, the business and user communities are more likely hoping to avoid censorship of the internet outright, due to the growing digital commerce economy and also wanting a platform where freedom of expressions and opinions are allowed,” Nguyen said.

A digital economy gives Vietnam an opportunity to resolve “big issues in its economic development,” the deputy minister of industry and trade was quoted saying in June. The manufacturing-reliant economy has grown 6 to 7 percent per year since 2012.

About 70 percent of Vietnam’s 92 million people use the internet, with 53 million on social media sites.

Protest from multinational internet content providers

After Vietnam’s National Assembly approved the Cybersecurity Law in June, 17 U.S. congressional representatives sent a letter to Google and Facebook. They urged both to avoid storing data in Vietnam, to establish “transparent guidelines” on content removal and to publish the number of requests for removal.

Facebook, Google and other foreign internet companies said earlier this month via a lobbying group that requirements to localize data would hobble investment and economic growth in Vietnam. The law also requires firms with more than 10,000 local users to set up local representative offices.

Facebook said for this report it “remains committed to its community in Vietnam and in helping Vietnamese businesses grow at home and abroad.”

Internet providers also worry the cybersecurity law gives “too much power” to Vietnam’s police ministry and lacks “due process,” Nguyen said. Authorities, they fear, could “seize customer data” and expose a provider’s users, partners or employees to arrest, which goes against privacy protection policies, he said.

​Fear among online activists

Vietnam is looking to the cybersecurity law as well to control public criticism of government activity, activist bloggers believe. A string of Vietnamese bloggers was arrested in 2016 and 2017.

Authorities will be able to collect user names, profiles and data on their friends, media reports and analysts say.

“This law threatens and further curbs freedom to information, infringes (on) personal privacy, and will be certainly used as a tool to give more power to police force, which violates rights, even on behalf of the court on judging on the use of internet,” Hanoi-based internet blogger and human rights activist Nguyen Lan Thang said.

Vietnamese activists leaned heavily on internet media to spread information about what they considered slow government reaction to a mass fish die-off in 2016. They use it now to decry corruption.

“The Cybersecurity Law will have a huge impact on Vietnam’s dissidents and online activists. It will be a tool to silence dissidents, social commentators, and activists in general,” said Vu Quoc Ngu, a writer in Hanoi and director of the non-profit Defend the Defender.

Vu Pham, Michelle Quinn of VOA contributed to this report.

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US Fossil Fuel Exports Spur Growth, Climate Worries

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In South Korea’s largest shipyard, thousands of workers in yellow hard hats move ceaselessly between towering cranes lifting hulks of steel. They look like a hive of bees scurrying over a massive circuit board as they weld together the latest additions to the rapidly growing fleet of tankers carrying super-chilled liquefied natural gas across the world’s oceans. 

 

The boom in fossil-fuel production in the United States has been matched by a rush on the other side of the Pacific to build the infrastructure needed to respond to the seemingly unquenchable thirst for energy among Asia’s top economies. When Congress lifted restrictions on shipping crude oil overseas in 2015, soon after the Obama administration opened the doors for international sales of natural gas, even the most boosterish of Texas oil men wouldn’t have predicted the U.S. could become one of the world’s biggest fossil-fuel exporters so quickly.  

  

Climate experts say there is little doubt increased American production and exports are contributing to the recent rise in planet-warming carbon emissions by helping keep crude prices low, increasing consumption in developing economies.  

Better than dirtier fuel, some say

  

Backers of U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, argue that the boom will produce environmental benefits because it will help China and other industrial nations wean themselves from coal and other dirtier fossil fuels. 

 

Environmentalists counter that the massive new supplies unleashed by American advances in extracting natural gas from shale doesn’t just make coal-fired power plants less competitive. LNG also competes with such zero-carbon sources of electricity as nuclear, solar and wind — potentially delaying the full adoption of greener sources. That’s time climate scientists and researchers say the world doesn’t have if humans hope to mitigate the worst-case consequences of our carbon emissions, including catastrophic sea-level rise, stronger storms and more wildfires.  

  

“Typically, infrastructure has multi-decadal lifespans,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “So, if we build a natural-gas plant today, that will impact carbon emissions over decades to come. So those are the critical and crucial decisions that are being made today. Do we increase access to and use of fossil fuels, or do we make decisions that limit and eventually reduce access to fossil fuels?”  

Boon to shipyards

While it is difficult to estimate how much America’s rise as major exporter of fossil fuels is contributing to a hotter climate, some of the economic benefits are plain to see in South Korea’s shipyards. 

 

At the sprawling Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering facility on the island of Geoje, more than half of the 35 vessels scheduled for delivery in 2018 were LNG carriers. A similar number of vessels are lined up for completion next year. 

 

It’s the same story at the two other major Korean yards. The construction of the big gas tankers has been credited with lifting the nation’s shipbuilding sector out of the doldrums from a decade ago, when the Great Recession caused a downturn in transoceanic trade.  

South Korea’s big three shipbuilders — Daewoo, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries — won orders for 53 new LNG carriers in 2018 at about $200 million each, soaking up the lion’s share of the 62 vessels ordered globally, according to numbers compiled by the London-based shipping group Clarkson Research. South Korea is expected to finish 2018 at the top spot in overall orders for new commercial ships, surpassing China for the first time in seven years. 

 

“We are getting out of a long tunnel,” Song Ha-dong, a senior Daewoo executive, said as he surveyed the company’s 1,200-acre yard from above the British Contributor, a gargantuan LNG carrier with a freshly painted deck covered in a maze of pipes. “The U.S.-led shale gas boom is getting fully under way, and China, Japan and South Korea are increasing their consumption of natural gas.”  

During a recent visit by The Associated Press, three of the LNG carriers were being assembled inside a massive dry dock. Another 13, including the British Contributor, had been floated out to nearby berths where workers were putting on finishing touches.  

  

The Korean shipyards have developed a niche in building ships with the complex systems needed to transport natural gas. The gas is compressed and liquefied for storage by keeping it really cold, about -260 Fahrenheit. In this liquid state, natural gas is about 600 times smaller than at room temperature. 

Top three importers

 

The British Contributor is as long as three football fields and can carry enough liquefied gas to fill about 70 Olympic-sized swimming pools — nearly two days’ national supply for South Korea. The country used about 1.9 trillion cubic feet of LNG in 2017, finishing third behind China and Japan as the world’s biggest importers, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

 

With no domestic oil and gas resources and an unfriendly neighbor blocking overland shipments from the north, South Korea relies exclusively on oceangoing tankers. Nearly half of South Korea’s gas imports come from Qatar and Australia, but the share shipped from the U.S. is growing fast as additional export terminals along the Gulf coast are coming online to handle the glut of gas unleashed by hydraulic fracturing in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. 

 

U.S. LNG exports quadrupled in 2017, with this year on track to see similarly exponential growth. Nearly a fifth of all that gas goes to South Korea.  

The British Contributor is the third of six LNG carriers being built by Daewoo for British energy giant BP, which will mainly use them to transport U.S. gas to Asia under a 20-year contract with the Freeport LNG facility south of Houston. Daewoo delivered four similar ships this year to the government-owned Korea Gas Corporation, which has a 20-year deal to buy gas exported from Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Louisiana. 

 

South Korea has been vying with Mexico for the title of the largest importer of U.S. LNG, and its reliance on gas could further increase under the government of President Moon Jae-in, who has pledged to transition his country away from nuclear power following the Fukushima meltdown in Japan.  

  

Park Moo-hyun, a senior analyst at Hana Financial Investment, predicts shipping companies will need to place orders for around 480 new LNG carriers over the next decade to match the U.S.-driven increase in global LNG trade — roughly doubling the current worldwide fleet. 

 

“The impact brought by the emergence of shale is not just about an increase in U.S. energy exports — there has been tremendous growth in the production of energy sources that hadn’t been used much, such as LNG,” Park said. “Once the groundwork is established for the stable use of these new energy sources, industries are pushed to adapt.” 

 

Natural gas has the added appeal of producing about half the carbon dioxide of coal when it’s burned. Its increased adoption for generating electricity has been pitched by the U.S. and others as a way for nations to make progress toward meeting their emissions reductions goals under the 2015 Paris climate accord. Burning gas also creates less particulate pollution. 

 

In China, the Communist government has declared a “Blue Sky Defense War” to reduce the choking smog in Beijing and two dozen surrounding cities with a program to convert hundreds of thousands of homes and industrial facilities from burning coal to gas.  In February, Texas-based Cheniere signed a 25-year deal with the state-controlled China National Petroleum Corporation to export LNG from its export terminal in Corpus Christi. 

Carbon emissions increase

 

But the increased gas exports from the U.S. and other sources hasn’t really put much of dent in Chinese coal consumption, which has remained largely flat in 2018. Overall carbon emissions for China, the globe’s biggest emitter, increased nearly 5 percent in 2018.  

Daniel Raimi, a researcher at the Washington-based think tank Resources for the Future, said determining whether U.S. gas exports are a net good or bad for the climate is difficult. When considering China, researchers can’t just look at whether coal use or carbon emissions are falling. They must also try to calculate how much more coal would have been burned had ample supplies of gas not been available. 

 

Another challenge is that the primary component of natural gas is methane, a potent greenhouse gas that traps far more heat in the atmosphere than a comparable amount of carbon dioxide. Studies have shown that a significant amount of natural gas leaks into the air at almost every stage of its production and transport — from wells to pipelines, processing facilities to ships. Raimi said the impact of all that leaking methane on the climate is roughly 84 times more powerful than the same amount of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. 

 

As part of its broad rollback of environmental rules, the Trump administration moved in September to weaken Obama-era regulations designed to prevent methane from escaping into the atmosphere during oil and gas operations. The regulatory rollbacks are part of President Donald Trump’s pro-industry “Energy Dominance” strategy to ramp up U.S. fossil fuel production without concern for the corresponding increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Trump has falsely claimed climate change is a “hoax,” and he moved in 2017 to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris accord. 

 

“With or without increased U.S. oil and gas exports, ambitious policy measures are the essential ingredient to achieving long-term climate goals such as those laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement,” Raimi said. “For U.S. LNG exports to reduce global emissions, they must primarily displace coal, and methane emissions must be limited both domestically and abroad.” 

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Dow Finishes Up 1.1 Percent as US Stocks Rebound

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Wall Street stocks finished solidly higher Thursday following a late-afternoon surge as worries over slowing economic growth gave way to bargain-hunting.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished at 23,138.82, an increase of 1.1 percent and up some 870 points from the low point of the session.

The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 0.9 percent to 2,488.83, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.4 percent to 6,579.49.

The push into positive territory came in the final 30 minutes of the session. While trading is usually light during Christmas week, data has suggested volumes more in line with non-holiday sessions.

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Instagram ‘Back to Normal’ After Bug Triggers Temporary Change to Feed

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Facebook Inc’s photo-sharing social network Instagram said on Thursday it has fixed a bug that led to a temporary change in the appearance of its feed for a large number of users.

The bug led to a small test being distributed widely, the company said. As part of the test, some users had to tap and swipe their feed horizontally to view new posts, similar to its Stories feature.

The momentary change sparked a widespread outrage among users on Twitter, with several comparing it to Snapchat’s unpopular redesign.

“The Instagram update is so trash it’s worse than the Snapchat update,” @samfloresxo tweeted.

The redesigned Snapchat app has struggled to attract more users since its roll-out last year and newer versions have been criticized for being too confusing.

In response to a tweet, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri apologized for the confusion and said, “that was supposed to be a very small test that went broad by accident.”

“We quickly fixed the issue and feed is back to normal,” Instagram said in an emailed statement.

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Pluto Explorer Ushering in New Year at More Distant World

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The spacecraft team that brought us close-ups of Pluto will ring in the new year by exploring an even more distant and mysterious world.

 

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will zip past the scrawny, icy object nicknamed Ultima Thule soon after the stroke of midnight.

 

One billion miles beyond Pluto and an astounding 4 billion miles from Earth (1.6 billion kilometers and 6.4 billion kilometers), Ultima Thule will be the farthest world ever explored by humankind. That’s what makes this deep-freeze target so enticing; it’s a preserved relic dating all the way back to our solar system’s origin 4.5 billion years ago. No spacecraft has visited anything so primitive.

 

“What could be more exciting than that?” said project scientist Hal Weaver of Johns Hopkins University, part of the New Horizons team.

 

Lead scientist Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, expects the New Year’s encounter to be riskier and more difficult than the rendezvous with Pluto: The spacecraft is older, the target is smaller, the flyby is closer and the distance from us is greater.

 

New horizons 

NASA launched the spacecraft in 2006; it’s about the size of a baby grand piano. It flew past Pluto in 2015, providing the first close-up views of the dwarf planet. With the wildly successful flyby behind them, mission planners won an extension from NASA and set their sights on a destination deep inside the Kuiper Belt. As distant as it is, Pluto is barely in the Kuiper Belt, the so-called Twilight Zone stretching beyond Neptune. Ultima Thule is in the Twilight Zone’s heart.

 

Ultima Thule

 

This Kuiper Belt object was discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. Officially known as 2014 MU69, it got the nickname Ultima Thule in an online vote. In classic and medieval literature, Thule was the most distant, northernmost place beyond the known world. When New Horizons first glimpsed the rocky iceball in August it was just a dot. Good close-up pictures should be available the day after the flyby.

Are we there yet ?

 

New Horizons will make its closest approach in the wee hours of Jan. 1 — 12:33 a.m. EST. The spacecraft will zoom within 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of Ultima Thule, its seven science instruments going full blast. The coast should be clear: Scientists have yet to find any rings or moons around it that could batter the spacecraft. New Horizons hurtles through space at 31,500 mph (50,700 kph), and even something as minuscule as a grain of rice could demolish it. “There’s some danger and some suspense,” Stern said at a fall meeting of astronomers. It will take about 10 hours to get confirmation that the spacecraft completed — and survived — the encounter.

 

Possibly twins

 

Scientists speculate Ultima Thule could be two objects closely orbiting one another. If a solo act, it’s likely 20 miles (32 kilometers) long at most. Envision a baked potato. “Cucumber, whatever. Pick your favorite vegetable,” said astronomer Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins. It could even be two bodies connected by a neck. If twins, each could be 9 miles to 12 miles (15 kilometers to 20 kilometers) in diameter.

 

Mapping mission

 

Scientists will map Ultima Thule every possible way. They anticipate impact craters, possibly also pits and sinkholes, but its surface also could prove to be smooth. As for color, Ultima Thule should be darker than coal, burned by eons of cosmic rays, with a reddish hue. Nothing is certain, though, including its orbit, so big that it takes almost 300 of our Earth years to circle the sun. Scientists say they know just enough about the orbit to intercept it.

 

Comparing flybys

 

New Horizons will get considerably closer to Ultima Thule than it did to Pluto: 2,220 miles versus 7,770 miles (3,500 kilometers vs. 12,500 kilometers). At the same time, Ultima Thule is 100 times smaller than Pluto and therefore harder to track, making everything more challenging. It took 4 { hours, each way, for flight controllers at Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, to get a message to or from New Horizons at Pluto. Compare that with more than six hours at Ultima Thule.

 

What’s next 

It will take almost two years for New Horizons to beam back all its data on Ultima Thule. A flyby of an even more distant world could be in the offing in the 2020s, if NASA approves another mission extension and the spacecraft remains healthy. At the very least, the nuclear-powered New Horizons will continue to observe objects from afar, as it pushes deeper into the Kuiper Belt. There are countless objects out there, waiting to be explored.

 

 

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Source: Foxconn to Begin Assembling Top-End Apple iPhones in India in 2019

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Apple Inc will begin assembling its top-end iPhones in India through the local unit of Foxconn as early as 2019, the first time the Taiwanese contract manufacturer will have made the product in the country, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Importantly, Foxconn will be assembling the most expensive models, such as devices in the flagship iPhone X family, the source said, potentially taking Apple’s business in India to a new level.

The work will take place at Foxconn’s plant in Sriperumbudur town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, said the source, who is not authorized to speak to the media and so declined to be named.

Foxconn, which already makes phones for Xiaomi Corp in India, will invest 25 billion Indian rupees ($356 million) to expand the plant, including investment in iPhone production, Tamil Nadu’s Industries Minister M C Sampath told Reuters.

The investment may create as many as 25,000 jobs, he added. Another source also said Foxconn planned to assemble iPhones in India, in a move that could help both it and Apple to limit the impact of a trade war between the United States and China.

The Hindu newspaper first reported on Dec. 24 that the Foxconn plant would begin manufacturing various models of the iPhone. Reuters is first to report the size of the investment and the kind of phones to be assembled.

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment. Foxconn said it did not comment on matters related to current or potential customers, or any of their products.

Lower-end phones

Until now, Cupertino, California-based Apple has only assembled the lower-cost SE and 6S models in India through Wistron Corp’s local unit in the Bengaluru technology hub.

Its sales in India have also been focused on lower-end phones – more than half of its sales volume is driven by models older than the iPhone 8, launched last year, according to technology research firm Counterpoint.

Apple launched the pricey iPhone X last year but has cut production of that phone, according to industry analysts, since it began selling the newer versions, iPhone XS and XR, globally this year.

Still, it could potentially get Foxconn to make the older iPhone X version in India where it sells cheaper models in a bid to get a bigger share of the world’s fastest growing major mobile phone market.

Full details of Apple’s deal with Foxconn are not yet clear and could change.

It is not known if any of the iPhone assembly is being moved from existing Foxconn factories in China and elsewhere. It is also unclear whether the production will be confined to assembly or include any component production in India.

Looking beyond China

For Apple, widening assembly beyond China is critical to mitigate the risks of the Sino-U.S. trade war.

Foxconn, the world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer, is considering setting up a factory in Vietnam, Vietnamese state media reported this month. If that goes ahead, it will be one of the biggest recent steps by a major company to secure an additional production base outside of China.

Foxconn has previously admitted the China-U.S. trade spat was its biggest challenge and that its senior executives were making plans to counter the impact.

“Widening iPhone manufacturing in India through Foxconn will allow Apple to hedge the risk of any new U.S. trade policies,” said Navkendar Singh, an associate research director at International Data Corporation.

Indian taxes on import of devices and components have also heightened Apple’s headache in a market where it has only a 1 percent share by smartphone shipments.

Making more phones locally will help Apple save costly duties and boost Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship drive to make India a manufacturing hub, Singh said.

Apple shocked investors last month with a lower-than-expected sales forecast for the Christmas quarter that jolted parts suppliers across the world.

Foxconn has previously expressed concern over demand for Apple’s flagship devices.

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Tesla Sets up Shanghai Financial Leasing Unit as China Plans Accelerate

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Tesla Inc has registered a financial leasing company in China, a local business registration filing shows, in the latest sign the U.S. electric car maker is attempting to speed up its push into China.

The California-based carmaker, led by billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk, has opened a wholly-owned financial leasing unit in Shanghai’s free trade zone with registered capital of $30 million, according to China’s National Enterprise Information Publicity System.

Its scope includes leasing and consultancy, the document said, which listed the firm’s legal representative as Zhu Xiaotong, Tesla’s boss in China.

Tesla declined to comment.

The company has opened a tender process to build its Shanghai Gigafactory and at least one contractor has started buying materials, Reuters reported earlier this month.

The $2 billion factory, Tesla’s first in China, marks a major bet by the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) maker as it looks to bolster its presence in the world’s biggest auto market where it faces rising competition from a swathe of domestic EV makers and its earnings have been hit by increased tariffs on U.S. imports.

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Report: US Retail Holiday Sales Best in 6 Years

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Retail sales in the U.S. for the 2018 holiday season were up more than 5 percent to more than $850 billion, according to data Mastercard released Wednesday, making 2018 the best holiday retail season in the last six years.

The Mastercard SpendingPulse report tracks retail spending across all payment types, including cash and checks, from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24.

The report said online sales also jumped more than 19 percent from last year.

Clothing and home improvement items were the seasonal favorite, while the sale of electronics fell.

The National Retail Federation had predicted holiday sales to increase between 4.3 and 4.8 percent from 2017, for a total of $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion.

Online giant Amazon said 2018 was a record year for its global holiday sales. Amazon said it shipped a billion products for free in the U.S. alone for its Amazon Prime customers.

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Report: US Trade Team to Travel to China for Talks  

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A U.S. trade delegation will go to China the week of Jan. 7, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

It will be the first time the two sides will meet face to face since U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping agreed to de-escalate a trade war during a meeting in Argentina on Dec. 1.

The U.S. team will be led by Deputy Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish and will include David Malpass, Treasury undersecretary for international affairs, Bloomberg said. 

For months, the U.S. and China have engaged in tit-for-tat increases in tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of exports flowing between the two countries. 

At the meeting in Buenos Aires, the two leaders agreed to a 90-day truce in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump also agreed to leave the tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products at 10 percent, and not raise them to 25 percent on Jan. 1 as he had threatened.

Trump said his agreement with Xi would go down “as one of the largest deals ever made. … And it’ll have an incredibly positive impact on farming, meaning agriculture, industrial products, computers — every type of product.”

Trump and Xi also agreed to immediately begin negotiations on structural changes with respect to forced technology transfer, intellectual property protection, nontariff barriers, cyber intrusions and cyber theft, services and agriculture. 

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who was put in charge of the China talks, said the negotiations would not be extended beyond the 90-day deadline. He said that March 1 was a “hard deadline” that was endorsed by Trump, Bloomberg reported.

Lighthizer will not be part of the team going to Beijing.

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Wall Street Notches Best Day in 10 Years in Holiday Rebound

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Wall Street notched its best day in 10 years as stocks rallied back Wednesday, giving some post-Christmas hope to a market that has otherwise been battered this December.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped more than 1,000 points — its biggest point-gain ever — rising nearly 5 percent as investors returned from a holiday break. The benchmark S&P 500 index also gained 5 percent and the technology heavy Nasdaq rose 5.8 percent.

But even with the rally, the market remains on track for its worst December since 1931, during the depths of the Great Depression, and to finish 2018 with its steepest losses in a decade.

Technology companies, health care stocks, banks drove much of the broad rally. Retailers also were big gainers, as traders cheered a healthy holiday shopping season marked by robust consumer spending. Amazon had its biggest gain in more than a year.

But what really might have pushed stocks over the top was a signal from Washington that President Donald Trump would not try to oust the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

On Monday, Trump tweeted another critical volley about the central bank’s policy, rattling markets over the possibility the White House might interfere with the traditionally independent Federal Reserve. But in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Wednesday, a White House economic adviser said that Fed chairman Jerome Powell is in no danger of being fired.

Energy stock jump

Energy stocks also rebounded as the price of U.S. crude oil notched its biggest one-day gain in more than two years.

All told, the S&P 500 index rose 116.60 points, or 5 percent, to 2,467.70. The Dow soared 1,086.25 points, or 5 percent, to 22,878.45. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 361.44 points, or 5.8 percent, to 6,554.36. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks picked up 62.89 points, or 5 percent, 1,329.81.

Trading volume was lighter than usual following the Christmas holiday. Markets in Europe, Hong Kong and Australia were closed.

“The real question is do we have follow-through for the rest of this week,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist for CFRA.

Wednesday’s gains pulled the S&P 500 back from the brink of what Wall Street calls a bear market — a 20 percent tumble from an index’s peak. A further stumble would have marked the end to the longest bull market for stocks in modern history after nearly 10 years. The index is now down 15.8 percent since its all-time high September 20.

Powell’s position is safe

Stocks fell sharply Monday after Trump lashed out at the central bank. Administration officials had spent the weekend trying to assure financial markets that Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s job was safe. On Tuesday, Trump reiterated his view that the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates too fast, but called the independent agency’s rate hikes a “form of safety” for an economy doing well.

On Wednesday, Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, weighed in, saying Powell is in no danger of being fired, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The lackluster finish to 2018 comes as most economists expect growth to slow in 2019, though not by enough to slide into a full-blown recession. Many economic barometers still look encouraging. Unemployment is at 3.7 percent, the lowest since 1969. Inflation is tame. Pay growth has picked up. Consumers boosted their spending this holiday season.

Even so, traders have been jittery this autumn over signs that the global economy is slowing, the escalating U.S. trade dispute with China and another interest rate increase by the Fed. Many investors are growing worried that corporate profits — which drive stock market gains — are poised to weaken.

Thumps need a ‘vacation’

Some of what Wall Street sees coming out of the White House has added to the market’s uncertainty, specifically the president’s attacks on the Fed and remarks about the ongoing trade conflict with China.

The president could help restore some stability to the market if he “gives his thumbs a vacation,” Stovall said.

“Tweet things that are more constructive in terms of working out an agreement with Democrats and with China. And then just remain silent as it relates to the Fed,” Stovall said.

The partial U.S. government shutdown that started Saturday is unlikely to hurt the economy much, although it may deprive the financial markets of data about international trade and gross domestic product. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said Wednesday that it’s required to suspend all operations until Congress approves funding, which means that the government might not release its fourth-quarter report on gross domestic product as scheduled for January 30.

Technology stocks accounted for much of Monday’s early bounce. Adobe rose 8.7 percent to $222.95. Payment processors Visa and Mastercard also headed higher. Visa added 7 percent to $130.23, while Mastercard gained 6.7 percent to $186.43.

Big retailers were among the gainers. Amazon climbed 9.4 percent to $1,470.90. Kohl’s gained 10.3 percent to $65.92. Nordstrom picked up 5.8 percent to $46.75.

Homebuilders mostly rebounded after an early slide following a report indicating that annual U.S. home price growth slowed in October. PulteGroup climbed 4.7 percent to $25.85.

U.S. crude climbs

Benchmark U.S. crude climbed 8.7 percent to settle at $46.22 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 7.9 percent to $54.47 a barrel in London.

The pickup in oil prices helped boost energy stocks. Marathon Petroleum rose 4.8 percent to $56.93.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.79 percent from 2.75 percent late Monday.

The dollar strengthened to 111.36 yen from 110.41 yen on Monday. The euro weakened to $1.1351 from $1.1404.

Gold edged up 0.1 percent to $1,273 an ounce and silver gained 2 percent to $15.12 an ounce. Copper gained 1.5 percent to $2.70 a pound.

Around the world

In other trading Wednesday, South Korea’s Kospi gave up 1.3 percent, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, which plunged 5 percent on Tuesday, picked up 0.9 percent. Shares fell in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia, but rose in Thailand.

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‘Tech Addicts’ Seek Solace in 12 Steps and Rehab

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We like to say we’re addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service.

But for some people, tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care. We’re talking flunk-your-classes, can’t-find-a-job, live-in-a-dark-hole kinds of problems, with depression, anxiety and sometimes suicidal thoughts part of the mix.

Suburban Seattle, a major tech center, has become a hub for help for so-called “tech addicts,” with residential rehab, psychologists who specialize in such treatment and 12-step meetings.

“The drugs of old are now repackaged. We have a new foe,” Cosette Rae says of the barrage of tech. A former developer in the tech world, she heads a Seattle area rehab center called reSTART Life, one of the few residential programs in the nation specializing in tech addiction.

Use of that word — addiction — when it comes to devices, online content and the like is still debated in the mental health world. But many practitioners agree that tech use is increasingly intertwined with the problems of those seeking help.

An American Academy of Pediatrics review of worldwide research found that excessive use of video games alone is a serious problem for as many as 9 percent of young people. This summer, the World Health Organization also added “gaming disorder” to its list of afflictions. A similar diagnosis is being considered in the United States.

It can be a taboo subject in an industry that frequently faces criticism for using “persuasive design,” intentionally harnessing psychological concepts to make tech all the more enticing.

​One addict’s story

One 27-year-old man, found through a 12-step program for tech addicts, works in the very industry that peddles the games, videos and other online content that has long been his vice. He does cloud maintenance for a suburban Seattle tech company and constantly finds himself fending off temptation.

“I’m like an alcoholic working at a bar,” he laments. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified, fearing he might harm his career in an industry he’s long loved.

As a toddler, he sat on his dad’s lap in their Seattle area home as they played simple video games on a Mac Classic II computer. By early elementary school, he got his first Super Nintendo system and spent hours playing Yoshi’s Story, a game where the main character searched for “lucky fruit.”

As he grew, so did one of the world’s major tech hubs. Led by Microsoft, it rose from the nondescript suburban landscape and farm fields here, just a short drive from the home he still shares with his mom, who split from her husband when their only child was 11.

As a teen, he took an interest in music and acting but recalls how playing games increasingly became a way to escape life. “I go online instead of dealing with my feelings,” he says.

He’d been seeing a therapist for depression and severe social anxiety. But attending college out of state allowed more freedom and less structure, so he spent even more time online. His grades plummeted, forcing him to change majors, from engineering to business.

After graduating in 2016 and moving home, he’d go to a nearby restaurant or the library to use the Wi-Fi, claiming he was looking for a job but having no luck.

Instead, he was spending hours on Reddit, an online forum where people share news and comments, or viewing YouTube videos. Sometimes, he watched online porn.

​’Detox’

Others who attend a 12-step meeting of the Internet & Tech Addiction Anonymous know the struggle.

“I had to be convinced that this was a ‘thing,”‘ says Walker, a 19-year-old from Washington whose parents insisted he get help after video gaming trashed his first semester of college. He agreed to speak only if identified by first name, as required by the 12-step tenets.

Help is found at facilities like reSTART. Clients “detox” from tech at a secluded ranch and move on to a group home.

They commit to eating well and regular sleep and exercise. They find jobs, and many eventually return to college. They also make “bottom line” promises to give up video games or any other problem content, as well as drugs and alcohol, if those are issues. They use monitored smartphones with limited function — calls, texts and emails and access to maps.

The young tech worker didn’t go to reSTART. But he, too, has apps on his phone that send reports about what he’s viewing to his 12-step sponsor, a fellow tech addict named Charlie, a 30-year-old reSTART graduate.

At home, the young man also persuaded his mom to get rid of Wi-Fi to lessen the temptation.

He still relapses every couple months, often when he’s tired or upset or very bored. He tells himself that his problem isn’t as bad as other tech addicts.

“Then,” the young man says, “I discover very quickly that I am actually an addict, and I do need to do this.”

Having Charlie to lean on helps. “He’s a role model,” he says.

“He has a place of his own. He has a dog. He has friends.”

That’s what he wants for himself.

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Lobster Divers Risk Injury, Death in Honduras

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Saul Ronaldo Atiliano was diving for lobster in the clear waters off Honduras’ Caribbean coast when he felt a pressure, a pain in his body. And he knew he’d gotten the sickness that has killed or disabled so many of his Miskito comrades.

“The pressure attacked me deep in the water,” said Atiliano, a 45-year-old Miskito who for 25 years has dived for lobster, most of which winds up is exported to the United States.

Thousands of men across the Mosquitia region of Honduras and Nicaragua depend on lobster fishing to eke out a living. And like Atiliano, hundreds have been stricken with the bends — decompression sickness caused when nitrogen bubbles form in divers’ bodies. Some are paralyzed. Some are killed.

With more than 60 per cent of its 9 million people living in poverty, Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, and the Mosquitia is one of the most impoverished areas.

Among exotic, tropical vegetation along the Caribbean coast, the region is sprinkled with small fishing villages where indigenous villagers live in clapboard houses. A sign of the poverty — and also the innocence of childhood — kids play with trucks made of plastic juice boxes with lids for wheels. For many grown-ups, the only option they’ve found to cope with poverty is diving, no matter the risks.

In the Mosquitia, diving permeates everyday life. In the fishing village of Kaukira, worshippers are called to church by the sound of a hammer on a diving tank instead of a bell.

Safe standard diving techniques call for a gradual ascent to the surface to eliminate the nitrogen that the body’s tissues absorb during a dive, and for a limit to the number of dives a person makes in a day.

But many of the divers of Mosquitia dive deeply, surface quickly and then go back for more, racing to collect as much lobster as possible. The boats, where they spend days playing cards and talking among themselves between dives, often have only rudimentary safety equipment and use aging tanks and masks.

Just how many have been stricken is somewhat unclear, though all agree it’s a large number for such small communities.

Jorge Gomez Santos, a former president of the Association of Disabled Honduran Miskito Divers, said this month that at least 2,200 Miskitos now work on the boats, and he said at least 1,300 have been disabled since 1980. Gomez, who uses a wheelchair, said 14 have died this year alone.

A study more than a decade ago cited by the Pan American Health Organization reported there were around 9,000 divers in the Mosquitia, and around 4,200 — 47 percent — were disabled by decompression sickness. Nearly all, it found, had suffered symptoms.

A diver makes 75 lempiras ($3) per pound of lobster and 7 lempiras (28 cents) for each sea cucumber. An average 10-pound (4.5-kilogram) daily haul of lobster is a windfall in one of the most impoverished regions of the Americas, so many take the risk, and many suffer for it, like Atiliano, who dove for 25 years without a problem until that day in September.

The father of 10 was paralyzed on the boat, which didn’t reach the docks for another day and a half. Fellow divers then drove him about 10 blocks to the hospital with a U.S.-donated hyperbaric chamber in city of Puerto Lempira, the area’s largest city.

Decompression sickness is usually treatable with sessions in such high-pressure, oxygen-rich chambers, but there are only a few available along the coast, and divers often must wait several days before they can be treated — reducing the chances of recovery.

“It’s the first accident I’ve had,” Atiliano said, speaking in Miskito through a translator. He appeared exhausted, with a blank stare, after a session of more than three hours in the chamber. He had shown little outward sign of improvement after that early treatment.

Another patient at the chamber was Charles “Charly” Melendez, a 28-year-old Miskito who said he been diving since he was 16 and had harvested 60 pounds of lobster on the day in November 2017 that he was injured.

Even now, after nine sessions, he hasn’t recovered. For a man who always made his living diving, it’s a nightmare being confined to a wheelchair.

“I still can’t stand up by myself,” he said. “I can’t sit for a long time; after an hour my body hurts.”

Cedrack Waldan Mendoza, the physical therapist operating the chamber, said the divers are driven by poverty, and even if injured, return to the boats.

“You run into them in the street and ask them why they’re going (back to diving) and they say it’s because their kids are hungry,” Waldan Mendoza said. “When someone tells you that their kids are hungry there’s no need to ask another question.”

Atiliano and Melendez are among the most vulnerable cogs in the lobster industry, which generated $40 million in sales for Honduras in 2017, nearly all of it from the U.S. market.

Atiliano said he expects to return to sea, not because he wants to, but for lack of options.

“If I recover, by necessity and for lack of work I’ll have to go back to diving,” he said.

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Koreas Celebrate Joint Railway

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North and South Korea held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday to mark the start of a joint project to connect railways throughout the divided peninsula. The event was held after both Korea’s inspected railways along the peninsula’s east coast.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Lee Do-hoon told reporters last week, “The railroad linkage project and related groundbreaking ceremony were given the go-ahead to proceed as scheduled in the working group today,” referring to meetings held with State Department Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Biegun in Seoul.

Jung Dae-jin, a research professor with the Ajou Institute of Unification called the ceremony a strong indicator of both North and South Korea wanting to continue discussions held by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year.

“It looks frozen water from the surface, but the potential of having those conversations is still alive, like the water flowing beneath the ice,” he said.

Jung added that as the North’s rail and roadways are improved, “it can reduce the traveling time which encourages exchanges” between the two governments.

A special train carried 100 South Korean officials, politicians and members of families displaced by the war to the ceremony at Panmun Station in the border city of Kaesong.

In addition to officials from the United Nations, China, Russia, and Mongolia, South Korea’s unification ministry said they were joined by North Korea’s delegation of 100 people.

Following Wednesday’s ceremony, North and South Korea agreed to undertake further railway inspections and work closely with the United States and the United Nations to garner further support for the project and to address sanction concerns.

Railways and sanctions

North Korea’s rail system is said to be antiquated and in desperate need of repair in order to be linked with the South’s. During the first inter-Korean summit in April, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to “modernize” and “connect” the roads and railways across their border as part of efforts to improve ties and promote development and prosperity.

The railway inspection project had been delayed for months amid concerns about possible violations of UN sanctions on North Korea, but the project was given the go-ahead when the UN Security Council granted a sanctions exemption.

Professor Jung recalls that connecting the North’s and South’s rail lines were part of the 2000 Joint Declaration made by Seoul and Pyongyang and between 2007 and 2008, trains traversed the border several hundred times.

But, “if the extra sanctions are not lifted in the future, the whole plan of modernizing North Korea’s railroad will not be possible too,” he said.

Jung ties the future success of President Moon’s initiatives and plans for the connected railway to North Korea’s denuclearization.

“We need to see the New Year’s address by Kim Jong Un,” he said and notes that it is necessary that the global community see concrete measures taken by Pyongyang toward denuclearization for the process of rail and roadway use to proceed.

Lee Ju-Hyun contributed to this report.

 

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Futuristic Fun House Transforms Traditional Games into High Tech Wonders

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Technology is very quickly changing entertainment as we know it. While some worry that people are spending too much time on video games and not enough time with other people, there is a place in Los Angeles where visitors can interact with both. It’s called the Two Bit Circus – a funhouse that incorporates technology and games with group play for people of all ages. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.

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