Facebook Widens Probe Into Alleged Russian Meddling in Brexit

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Facebook Inc said on Wednesday it would conduct a new, comprehensive search of its records for possible propaganda that Russian operatives may have spread during the run-up to Britain's 2016 referendum on EU membership. Some British lawmakers had complained that the world's largest social media network had done only a limited search for evidence that Russians manipulated the network and interfered with the referendum debate. Russia denies meddling in Britain's vote to exit the European Union, known as Brexit, or in the 2016 U.S. elections. Facebook, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google and YouTube have been under intense pressure in Europe and the United States to stop nations from using tech services to meddle in another country's elections, and to investigate when evidence of such meddling arises. Facebook's new search…


US Financial Crime Fighters Eye Overseas Virtual Currency Platforms

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Financial crime fighters at the U.S. Treasury are "aggressively" pursuing virtual currency platforms that lack strong internal safeguards against money laundering, a top official told a Senate panel on Wednesday. With more criminals using the emerging asset class to store and transmit their ill-gotten gains, Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will pursue malfeasant virtual currency platforms even if they are located overseas, Sigal Mandelker, the U.S. Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, told the Senate Banking Committee. U.S.-based platforms for bitcoin and other virtual currencies are required to comply with antimoney laundering (AML) rules including filing suspicious activity reports, with around 100 such platforms registered with FinCEN. But many other countries have no such requirements. "The real vulnerability that we all have to address is that while…


Apple to Build 2nd Campus, Hire 20,000 in $350B Pledge

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Apple is planning to build another corporate campus and hire 20,000 workers during the next five years as part of a $350 billion commitment to the U.S. economy. The pledge announced Wednesday is an offshoot from the sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code championed by President Donald Trump and approved by Congress last month.   Besides dramatically lowering the standard corporate tax rate, the reforms offer a one-time break on cash being held overseas.   Apple plans to take advantage of that provision to bring back more than $250 billion in offshore cash, generating a tax bill of roughly $38 billion.   The Cupertino, California, company says it will announce the location of a second campus devoted to customer support later this year.     ...


Technology Developers Call on Others to Make Use of It

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The world’s biggest Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is over but this year’s battle for consumers and their pocketbooks has only began. As smaller companies do not have the resources for research and development, big companies, such as Samsung, Canon and others, have a common message for them – let your imagination tell you how to use our technologies. VOA’s George Putic reports. ...


Gourmet Chocolate Becomes Economic Lifeline in Venezuela

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In a modest apartment near a Caracas slum, nutrition professor Nancy Silva and four aids spread rich, dark Venezuelan cocoa on a stone counter to make chocolate bars to be sold in local shops that cater to the crisis-hit country's dwindling elite. Like some 20 recently launched Venezuelan businesses, Silva uses the country's aromatic cocoa to make gourmet bars of the kind that can fetch more than $10 each in upscale shops in Paris or Tokyo. The oil-rich but recession-devastated nation's Byzantine bureaucracy makes large-scale exports nearly impossible for small businesses. As a result, most of her bars are sold locally for less than one U.S. dollar - well out of reach of millions of Venezuelans who earn less than that in a week, but reasonably priced for the well-heeled…


El Salvador Eyes Work Scheme with Qatar for Migrants Facing Exit from US

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El Salvador is discussing a deal with Qatar under which Salvadoran migrants facing the loss of their right to stay in the United States could live and work temporarily in the Middle Eastern country, the government of the Central American nation said on Tuesday. Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration said that as of September 2019, it would eliminate the temporary protected status, or TPS, that allows some 200,000 Salvadorans to live in the United States without fear of deportation. Presidential communications chief Eugenio Chicas said El Salvador was in talks to see how Salvadorans could be employed in Qatar, a wealthy country of some 2.6 million people that is scheduled to host the soccer World Cup in 2022. "The kingdom of Qatar ... has held out the possibility…


Mexican Car Sales Slump Ahead of Election

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Car dealerships in Mexico City have kicked off the new year offering "clearance sales" and free insurance as 2017 models collect dust on their lots, a reminder that consumer nerves over high interest rates could slow the economy ahead of elections. The first drop in auto sales in eight years is the most visible sign that the great Mexican shopper, the heart and soul of Latin America's second-largest economy, is feeling the pinch of inflation at a 16½-year high and a battered peso. A government decision to scrap fuel subsidies last year has made running a car more expensive, while the central bank's battle with inflation has put car loans out of reach for many. "If I'm going to buy a new car and then not be able to fill…


21 States Sue to Keep Net Neutrality as Senate Democrats Reach 50 Votes

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A group of 21 U.S. state attorneys general filed suit to challenge the Federal Communications Commission's decision to do away with net neutrality on Tuesday, while Democrats said they needed just one more vote in the Senate to repeal the FCC ruling. The attorneys general filed a petition with a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., to challenge the action, calling it "arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion" and saying that it violated federal laws and regulations. The petition was filed as Senate Democrats said they had the backing of 50 members of the 100-person chamber for repeal. Senator Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement that all 49 Democrats in the upper chamber backed the repeal. Earlier this month, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she would back…


French Startup Launches Hydrogen-powered Bicyles

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A French start-up has become the first company to start factory production of hydrogen-powered bicycles for use in corporate or municipal fleets. Pragma Industries, which is based in Biarritz, France and makes fuel cells for military use, has sold some 60 hydrogen-powered bikes to French municipalities including Saint Lo, Cherbourg, Chambery and Bayonne. At about 7,500 euros per bike, and at least 30,000 euros for a charging station, the bikes are too expensive for the consumer market, but Pragma is working to cut that to 5,000 euros, which would bring their price in line with premium electric bikes. "Many others have made hydrogen bike prototypes, but we are the first to move to series production," said founder and chief executive Pierre Forte. The firm's Alpha bike runs for about 100…


Ethiopian Airlines to Re-launch Zambia’s National Carrier

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Ethiopian Airlines says it has finalized an agreement with Zambia to re-launch the southern African country's national carrier. The partnership with Zambia comes as Ethiopian Airlines is opening new routes and hubs and is acquiring new aircraft. In a statement Tuesday, the airline said it will have a 45 percent stake in the Zambian carrier and it aims to make the Zambian capital, Lusaka, its newest aviation hub. The remaining 55 percent will be acquired by the Zambian government which is aiming to revive the country's aviation sector after Zambia Airways ceased operations on January 2009. "The launching of Zambia Airways will enable the traveling public in Zambia and the Southern African region to enjoy greater connectivity options," said Ethiopian Airlines CEO, Tewolde Gebremariam. "It is only through partnerships among…


Bitcoin, Rival Cryptocurrencies Plunge on Crackdown Fears

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Bitcoin slid as much as 18 percent on Tuesday to a four-week low, as fears of a regulatory crackdown on the market spread after reports suggested it was still possible that South Korea could ban trading in cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin’s slide triggered a selloff across the broader cryptocurrency market, with biggest rival Ethereum down 23 percent on the day at one point, according to trade website Coinmarketcap, and the next-biggest, Ripple, plunging by as much as a third. Bitcoin traded as low as $11,191.59 on the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange. By 1400 GMT it has edged up to $11,650, but that was still down more than 14 percent, leaving it on track for its biggest one-day fall since September. Jamie Burke, chief executive of Outlier Ventures, a venture capital firm that is…


Clean Energy Investment Rose to $333.5B in 2017, Research Shows

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New clean energy investment worldwide rose by 3 percent last year to $333.5 billion from a year earlier, driven by a surge in solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, research showed on Tuesday. The figure is below 2015's record amount of $360.3 billion, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) said in an annual report. Solar investment totaled $160.8 billion in 2017, up 18 percent from the previous year even though technology costs have fallen. Just over half of that was spent in China, the research showed. "The 2017 total is all the more remarkable when you consider that capital costs for the leading technology — solar — continue to fall sharply. Typical utility-scale PV systems were about 25 percent cheaper per megawatt last year than they were two years earlier," said Jon Moore, the chief…


US Net Neutrality Move May Lead to Trade War with Chinese Internet Firms

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A recent decision by the United States' Federal Communications Commission to repeal net neutrality, which are rules designed to prevent the selective blocking or slowing of websites, has wide-ranging implications for China, which never believed in net neutrality and banned hundreds of foreign websites. The decision could result in a major trade war involving Chinese telecom and Internet companies, which are interested in accessing the U.S. market, analysts said. The move will allow American telecom service providers to charge differential prices for various services and even examine the data of their customers. Though this aspect has stirred controversy in the United States, the situation there is still very different from the realities in China. "In China, the government is monitoring and controlling the networks whereas [in U.S.] it is, at…


Brazilian Miner Vale Ordered to Repair Environmental Damage

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A Brazilian court on Monday ordered the world's largest iron ore miner Vale SA to repair environmental damages its operations caused in land belonging to a community of descendants of escaped slaves in northern Brazil. Federal prosecutors announced the ruling in a statement that said the electricity transmission lines and a bauxite pipeline damaged soil and silted up rivers in the Moju "quilombola" territory in the northeast of  Pará state. The court also ordered Vale to set up a project to generate income for the 788 families affected by the company's operations and compensate them with cash until it was implemented. No value was given for the cost of the reparations Vale must pay. The Rio de Janeiro-based company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a…


America Last? EU Says Trump Losing on Trade

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The European Union's trade tsar has no idea what Donald Trump will tell his audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, but she is clear what the EU's message to the U.S. president will be. America is shooting itself in the foot by withdrawing from global leadership on trade, Cecilia Malmstrom, the 49-year-old Swede who has served as Europe's trade commissioner for the past three years, told Reuters. Under Malmstrom's direction, the EU has juggled a dizzying array of trade talks over the past year. In July it clinched a preliminary deal with Japan. And early this year it hopes to seal agreements with Mexico and the Latin American Mercosur bloc. The retreat of the United States under Trump has played a big role in this push,…


UN: Indigenous Women Are ‘Seed Guardians’ in Latin America Hunger Fight

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Indigenous women in Latin America must be at the center of efforts to adapt agriculture to deal with the threat of climate change and help tackle hunger and poverty, said a top U.N. food official. Jose Graziano da Silva, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said women were too often left out of development schemes, despite expert knowledge of the environment passed down through generations. "They have fundamental roles in the spiritual, social and family arenas and are seed guardians — critical carriers of specialized knowledge," Graziano da Silva told a Mexico City forum. "Their social and economic empowerment is ... a necessary condition to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in their communities," he said, according to a statement. Poor health care, malnutrition and illiteracy are other issues faced…


Palestinians to Get 3G in West Bank, After Israel Lifts Ban

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Palestinians in the West Bank are finally getting high-speed mobile data services, after a yearslong Israeli ban that cost their fragile economy hundreds of millions of dollars, impeded tech start-ups and denied them simple conveniences enjoyed by the rest of the world.   Palestinian cell phone providers Wataniya and Jawwal are expected to launch 3G broadband services in the West Bank by the end of this month, Palestinian officials said, after Israel assigned frequencies and allowed the import of equipment.   "It's about time," Wataniya CEO Durgham Maraee said of the anticipated launch, speaking to The Associated Press at company headquarters in the West Bank last week. ``It has taken a very, very long time.''   The belated move to 3G comes a decade after Palestinian operators first sought Israeli…


Uganda Considering Launching Its Own Social Media Platforms

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[Uganda is mulling over the idea of creating its own social media platforms. But social media users and government critics see this as a potential effort to control free expression. Facebook and Twitter should brace themselves for competition from Uganda. With no name yet or date on when the new services will be operational, the Uganda Communications Commission is planning to launch its own social media platforms. Commission Director Godfrey Mutabazi says Uganda has many young people who have come up with innovations and applications that can be deployed to serve the population. “There is open information for everything. We have got over almost 70 percent penetration," he said. "We are moving into digital era, data communication. We are hope that by the end of this year 20-25 percent, maybe…


Vietnam Seeks Upper Hand on Dissent with Rules On Foreign Internet Services

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Vietnam is adding pressure on foreign internet firms to keep data on local users and be more accessible to the country’s authorities as the country tightens control over online dissent. A bill that the Southeast Asian country’s Ministry of Public Security offered to legislators this month would require foreign internet services to open representative offices if they have at least 10,000 Vietnamese users or if otherwise requested, official media say. The bill being reviewed by the National Assembly also calls for making the same foreign companies store data on Vietnamese users in Vietnam, VnExpress International reported Jan. 11.  Those providers should collect “important data collected or generated from activities in the country,” the report adds. Legislation on normally free-wheeling foreign internet firms such as Facebook and Google, both popular among…


How Tech Affects Kids a Concern at Consumer Electronics Show

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Kathryn Green and her husband prevented their young son from playing on screen devices until he was 2 years old. Then they handed him a Square Panda, a screen that sounds out letters. He loved it. “It was pretty incredible and actually scary in some ways to see how quickly he was drawn to it and knew what to do,” said Green, who works at Square Panda. Square Panda, in many parents’ eyes, would qualify as good screen time. It teaches young children early literacy while also engaging them with fun sounds and cartoonlike figures. The company was among thousands last week exhibiting at CES, the large consumer electronics show that took place in Las Vegas. WATCH: Tech's Effects on Kids a Concern at Consumer Electronics Show Worries about kids…


Energy Agency Sees Oil Price Decline, But Analyst Predicts a Boom

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Crude oil prices reached a 30-month high this week. But the government agency that analyzes and disseminates energy information says the rally may have run its course. The Energy Information Administration predicts U.S. crude prices will stabilize to about 55 dollars a barrel for West Texas Crude and 60 dollars a barrel for Brent Crude, with slightly higher prices for both in 2019. One energy expert disagrees and says oil prices are on their way up. Mil Arcega explains. ...


Wahlberg Donates $1.5 Million After Pay Gap Outcry

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Following an outcry over a significant disparity in pay between co-stars, Mark Wahlberg agreed Saturday to donate the $1.5 million he earned for reshoots for All the Money in the World to the sexual misconduct defense initiative Time’s Up. Wahlberg said he’ll donate the money in the name of his co-star, Michelle Williams, who reportedly made less than $1,000 on the reshoots. “I 100% support the fight for fair pay,” Wahlberg said in a statement. Williams issued a statement Saturday, saying: “Today isn’t about me. My fellow actresses stood by me and stood up for me, my activist friends taught me to use my voice, and the most powerful men in charge, they listened and they acted.” She noted that “it takes equal effort and sacrifice” to make a film.…


Protests in Tunisia Spur Government to Pledge Aid to Poor

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Tunisia plans to increase aid for poor families by $70.3 million, after nearly a week of protests over austerity measures, an official said Saturday. "This will concern about 250,000 families," Mohamed Trabelsi, minister of social affairs, said. "It will help the poor and middle class." President Beji Caid Essebsi was also scheduled to visit the poor district of Ettadhamen in the capital, Tunis, which was hit by protests. Essebsi was set to give a speech and open a cultural center, Reuters reported. It was to be the president's first visit to the district. Several hundred protesters took to the streets Saturday in Sidi Bouzid, where a 2011 uprising began, touching off the Arab Spring protests. And on Friday, protesters in cities and towns across the country waved yellow cards —…


Report: Traffic Fatalities Hold Back Developing Economies

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Deadly traffic accidents are more than just individual tragedies. They're a drag on economic growth in developing countries, according to a new World Bank report. The study is among the first to show that investing in road safety in low- and middle-income countries would raise national incomes. Ninety percent of the world's annual 1.25 million traffic deaths happen in the developing world. The World Health Organization says traffic accidents are the leading cause of death worldwide for people between 15 to 29 years old. That includes crashes that kill pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists. But the issue does not get much official attention, according to World Bank transportation expert Dipan Bose. "There is not a lot of political will in many low and middle income countries to take definitive actions to…


Awash in Corn, Soybeans, US Farmers Focus on Trade Deals

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For Illinois farmer Garry Niemeyer, it’s a slow time of year, spent indoors fixing equipment, not outdoors tending his fields, which now lie empty. All of his corn and soybeans were harvested in what has turned out to be a good year. “This is the largest amount of corn we’ve had ever,” he said. And this bounty is not limited to Niemeyer’s farm. It can be seen throughout the United States. “We’re talking 14½ billion bushels of corn,” Niemeyer told VOA. “That’s a lot of production.” WATCH: Awash in Corn, Soybeans, US Farmers Focus on Trade Deals Piles of corn, soybeans That production is easy to see at nearby elevators, where large piles of corn under white plastic wrap extend into the sky. There is more corn and soybeans than…


Awash in Corn, Soybeans, U.S. Farmers Focus on Trade Deals

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The United States Department of Agriculture reports record harvests of corn and soybeans in the United States in 2017, with stocks overflowing at elevators and storage bins across the country. But as VOA's Kane Farabaugh reports, record yields don't necessarily translate into stronger bottom lines for farmers, who increasingly depend on international trade to move their product and improve their prices. ...