Author: Busman

The World Bank is downgrading its outlook for the global economy this year, citing rising trade tension, weakening manufacturing activity and growing financial stress in emerging-market countries. In a report titled “Darkening Skies,'' the anti-poverty agency said Tuesday that it expects the world economy to grow 2.9 percent in 2019, down from the 3 percent it forecast back in June. It would be the second straight year of slowing growth: The global economy expanded 3 percent last year and 3.1 percent in 2017. 'Risks are rising' “Global growth is slowing, and the risks are rising,'' Ayhan Kose, the World Bank economist who oversees forecasts, said in an interview. “In 2017, the global economy was pretty much firing on all cylinders. In 2018, the engines started sputtering.'' The bank left its…

Peru Attorney General Pedro Chavarry resigned on Tuesday after a public outcry over his handling of the high-profile corruption investigation involving Brazilian builder Odebrecht. His departure from the public prosecutors office marks a fresh victory for President Martin Vizcarra and supporters of his measures to uproot entrenched corruption in one of Latin America's fastest-growing economies. Chavarry prompted widespread scorn and days of street protests after he announced on New Year's Eve that he was removing two lead prosecutors from the Odebrecht inquiry, which has targeted former presidents and presidential candidates. Vizcarra responded by sending Congress legislation to suspend Chavarry and overhaul the prosecutor's office. Resignation protects prosecutor? Chavarry denied he was trying to meddle in the investigation and said he was stepping down to protect the independence of the prosecutor's…

Labor rights campaigners warned against complacency as the European Union on Tuesday withdrew its threat to ban Thai fishing imports into the bloc, saying that the country has made progress in tackling illegal and unregulated fishing. The EU's so-called "yellow card" on Thai fishing exports has been in place since April 2015 as a warning that the country was not sufficiently addressing the issues. "Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing damages global fish stocks, but it also hurts the people living from the sea, especially those already vulnerable to poverty," Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for environment and fisheries said. "Today's decision reverses the first step of a process that could have led to a complete import ban of marine fisheries products into the EU," he said in a statement. Thailand has…

Hospitals in Zimbabwe are turning away patients as a strike by doctors enters its sixth week. There is no end in sight to the strike, as President Emmerson Mnangagwa's government says it cannot meet the doctors’ demands. The Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, Zimbabwe’s largest treatment center, is largely empty as a doctors’ strike that began December 1 drags on. Sixty-nine-year-old Kasirina Zibveka had a lung infection in September, according to her medical records. After numerous tests were done, it was confirmed that her right lung had gone bad and needed to be removed.   But by then, doctors were on strike. She was discharged December 13 and was told to return Monday for the ailing lung to be removed. But with the strike unresolved, that did not happen.   Her…

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said there is "a very good chance" that the United States and China will reach a trade agreement.  Ross told CNBC he is hopeful such a deal would address “all the key issues.” Working-level trade talks between the United States and China began Monday in Beijing with negotiators for the world's two biggest economies trying to resolve tariff disputes that have roiled world markets in recent weeks. In a sign the meeting was off to a good start, China’s economic czar, Vice Premier Liu He, dropped by the talks on Monday to encourage the negotiators. While Chinese officials expressed optimism at the start of the two-day talks, Beijing at the same time complained about the sighting of the U.S.S. McCampbell, a warship, in what it…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday that his crackdown against fuel theft was yielding positive results, even as the intervention sparked severe fuel shortages in parts of the country and long lines of angry motorists. In a bid to eliminate years of mounting theft, state oil firm Pemex has changed its distribution, triggering shortfalls in at least six states, including Guanajuato, a major car-making hub in central Mexico. Guanajuato's state government said that less than one third of the state's gas stations were open on Monday. Lopez Obrador told a news conference the government had not established a date for when operations would return to normal, but stressed that supply was not in danger. "We are changing the whole distribution system, that's the reason for the shortage.…

A U.S. trade delegation has arrived in Beijing. The group is in China to hold two days of talks, beginning Monday, focusing on how best to carry out an agreement reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to postpone new tariff hikes. On December 1, the two leaders agreed to complete talks about technology, intellectual property and cyber theft issues within 90 days, and hold off on new tariffs in the meantime. U.S. officials have said that if the talks fail to produce a satisfactory agreement Washington will increase tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent.       ...

A surge in U.S. job creation and some reassuring words from the head of the U.S. central bank sent U.S. stocks soaring Friday.   The Labor Department reported a net gain of 312,000 jobs in December, far more than economists predicted. The unemployment rate, however, rose slightly, to 3.9 percent. Many analysts said the rising unemployment rate was probably good news because rising wages prompted many jobless people to start looking for work. People are not counted as officially unemployed unless they have searched for work in the past four weeks. In December, the labor force expanded by a healthy 419,000 people as wages rose 3.2 percent over the past year. PNC Bank Chief Economist Gus Faucher said the data meant worries about a possible recession were probably "overblown." Worried investors have sent…

Marriott International Inc said Friday that fewer than 383 million customer records were stolen in a massive cyberattack disclosed last month, down from its initial estimate that up to 500 million guests were affected. The hotel operator also said that some 25.55 million passport numbers were stolen in the attack on the Starwood Hotels reservation system, 5.25 million of which were stored in plain text. Another 8.6 million encrypted payment cards were also taken in the attack, it said. Marriott previously confirmed that passport numbers and payment cards were taken, but not said how many. The company disclosed on Nov. 30 that it had discovered its Starwood hotels reservation database had been hacked over a four-year period in one of the largest breaches in history. At least five U.S. states…

It sounds like a Hollywood caper: A group of investors and officials convince European banks to loan a total of $2 billion to a resource-rich African nation trying to rebuild after a bruising civil war.   The money promptly disappears, and then this caper turns tragic.  The government doesn't learn of the loans until three years after they happen. It defaults on the loans, and that triggers an economic crisis: the currency tumbles, prices rise, hospitals run out of basic supplies and key roads go unrepaired.  Thousands of people contract cholera – an easily preventable and treatable illness that is often caused by a breakdown of health services. This isn't Hollywood. This, allegedly, is Mozambique, according to an indictment that has resulted in the arrests of at least four figures…

Asian markets Friday continued the global sell-off triggered by Apple’s warning of lower revenues and futures indicators predict a sharply lower opening for U.S. markets. The Tokyo market dropped 3 percent in morning trading, and markets in Shanghai, Sydney, Seoul and Taipei were also down. Stock markets across the globe dropped Thursday after tech giant Apple said sales of its devices had fallen sharply in China last month, perhaps signaling a broader slowing in the world economy. Apple has blamed U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with China for its shrinking outlook, but the U.S. leader tweeted his defense Thursday, claiming, “The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly. In the…

Herb Kelleher, who changed the airline industry by helping create and lead Southwest Airlines, a low-fare carrier that made air travel more accessible to the masses, has died. He was 87.    Southwest confirmed that Kelleher died Thursday.    Kelleher was a lawyer in San Antonio when a client came to him in the late 1960s with the idea for a low-fare airline that would fly between big cities in Texas. Today, Southwest carries more passengers within the United States than any other airline.    At a time when many other airlines were run by colorless finance wizards, Kelleher boasted about drinking whiskey and showed a gift for wacky marketing ploys.   ...

Three former Credit Suisse Group AG bankers were arrested in London on Thursday on U.S. charges that they took part in a $2 billion fraud scheme involving state-owned companies in Mozambique, a spokesman for U.S. prosecutors said. Andrew Pearse, Surjan Singh and Detelina Subeva were charged in an indictment in Brooklyn, New York federal court with conspiring to violate U.S. anti-bribery law and to commit money laundering and securities fraud, according to spokesman John Marzulli. They have been released on bail. The arrests came five days after former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang was arrested in South Africa as part of the same criminal case, which was brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. The prosecutors will seek to have all of the defendants extradited to the United States, according to…

A federal judge says a New York City law forcing Airbnb and HomeAway home-sharing platforms to reveal detailed information about its business seems unconstitutional. Judge Paul Engelmayer on Thursday blocked the law from taking effect on Feb. 2, finding there’s a greater than 50 percent chance the companies would prevail on claims that the law violates the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling comes at an early stage of the litigation. Lawyers for the city and the companies will gather additional evidence before Engelmayer makes a final ruling. The city did not immediately comment. The San Francisco-based Airbnb in a statement called the ruling a “huge win.” The law was passed last summer.   ...

Tesla made about 9,300 more vehicles than it delivered last year, raising concerns among industry analysts that inventory is growing as demand for the company’s electric cars may be starting to wane. If demand falls, they say, the company will enter a new phase of its business. Like other automakers, Tesla will have to either cut production or reduce prices to raise sales. A drop in demand could also curtail the company’s earnings and jeopardize CEO Elon Musk’s promise to post sustained quarterly profits. On Wednesday, Tesla did cut prices, knocking $2,000 off each of its three models. The company said the cuts will help customers deal with the loss of a $7,500 federal tax credit, which was reduced to $3,750 this month for Tesla buyers and will gradually go…

The sweet aroma of mutton smoke drifts through a maze of crumbling alleyways, a barbecue tang that for decades has lured meat-eaters from across Pakistan to the frontier city of Peshawar. The ancient city, capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has retained its reputation for some of Pakistan's tastiest cuisine despite bearing the brunt of the country's bloody war with militancy. University student Mohammad Fahad had long heard tales of Peshawar's famed mutton. "Earlier we heard of Peshawar being a dangerous place," he told AFP — but security has improved in recent years, and he finally made the hours-long journey from the eastern city of Lahore to see if it could live up to the hype. "We are here just to see what the secret to this barbecue is," he…

Rotting hides on the road are all that is left of three butchered cows. Such carnage is common in Venezuela's cattle country, where thieves, squatters and government policy threaten a vital food resource. Venezuela's severe economic crisis is felt keenly in cities — where food sources are limited — but it's also cutting a swath through what should be the country's food basket. Seeing the hides on the road — the handiwork of cattle poachers — Jose Labrador stops his truck and explodes with rage. "It's as if they were telling us: 'We are killing your cattle, so what?'" the 46-year old rancher says, fuming that complaining is useless — police and local authorities will do nothing. Labrador and other farmers in the cattle-rearing region of San Silvestre, in the…

Digital developments that have upended businesses throughout the global economy, from music to manufacturing, are also changing what the world trades and how manufacturers and merchants move and sell their goods. Experts tell VOA's Jim Randle, the digital revolution presents significant opportunities, but also serious problems, for countries. ...

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…