Category: Business

U.S. stocks closed lower after a shortened session Friday, bumping the benchmark S&P 500 index into a correction, or drop of 10 percent below its most recent all-time high in September.    Energy companies led the market slide as the price of U.S. crude oil tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year, reflecting worries among traders that a slowing global economy could hurt demand for oil.    "Oil is really falling sharply, continuing its downward descent, and that appears to be giving investors a lot of concern that there's slowing global growth,'' said Jeff Kravetz, regional investment director at U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management. "You have that, and then you have the recent sell-off in tech and in retail, and then throw on there trade tensions and rising rates.'' …

It would have been easy to turn on their computers at home over plates of leftover turkey and take advantage of the Black Friday deals most retailers now offer online.      But across the country, thousands of shoppers flocked to stores on Thanksgiving or woke up before dawn the next day to take part in this most famous ritual of American consumerism.    Shoppers spent their holiday lined up outside the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., by 4 p.m., and the crowd had swelled to 3,000 people by the time doors opened an hour later. In Ohio, a group of very determined women booked a hotel room Thursday night to be closer to the stores. In New York City, one woman went straight from a dance club to a department…

China will go along with changes meant to update global trade rules so long as they protect Beijing’s status as a developing country, a Cabinet official said Friday. The deputy commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, said any changes also must address protectionism and abuse of export controls and security reviews — a reference to Beijing’s trade clash with U.S. President Donald Trump. China agreed in June to work with the European Union to propose changes to the World Trade Organization to address technology policy, subsidies and state industry — all areas in which Beijing faces complaints. U.S. officials complain the global trade referee is too bureaucratic and slow to adapt to changing business conditions. Wang said each country’s “development model” must be respected — a reference to China’s state-dominated economy, which…

Some of Amazon’s workers in Europe are protesting against what they call unfair work conditions, in a move meant to disrupt operations on Black Friday. Amazon Spain said around 90 percent of workers at a logistics depot in near Madrid joined a walkout Friday. Only two people were at the loading bay, spokesman Douglas Harper said. However, he said Amazon had diverted cargo deliveries to its other 22 depots in the country. On a picket line, 38-year-old employee Eduardo Hernandez said the walkout intended to hurt the company financially. “It is one of the days that Amazon has most sales, and these are days when we can hurt more and make ourselves be heard because the company has not listened to us and does not want to reach any agreement,”…

Zimbabwe's finance minister has unveiled the country's 2019 budget. Mthuli Ncube says the plan should help restore the economy of the southern African nation after years of recession. "Madam Speaker, ma'am, in conclusion, this budget should mark a turning point towards realizing the country's vision 2030, as austerity will lead us to prosperity," Ncube said. "To quote the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, "We are rich not by what we possess, but by what we can do without." I now commend the 2019 national budget to this august house. I thank you." Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube said the budget marked a step toward Zimbabwe attaining its vision of an "upper middle income country by 2030." He said Zimbabwe was working toward retiring its ever ballooning debt, which now stands at about $10…

Once-admired auto executive Carlos Ghosn's fall from grace deepened Thursday when directors of Nissan Motor Co. voted unanimously to fire the recently jailed businessman from his post as board chairman. Dismissed along with Ghosn was another director, Greg Kelly, whom the board accused of working with Ghosn to understate their incomes on formal declarations and use company assets for personal purposes. An internal investigation presented to the board found that Kelly had "been determined to be the mastermind of this matter, together with" Ghosn, the company said in a statement.  The board also said that Nissan's longstanding partnership with the French automaker Renault "remains unchanged." While he has been fired as chairman, the company said, it will require a vote of shareholders to remove Ghosn from the board altogether. The…

Lebanon is marking 75 years of independence with a military parade Thursday in Beirut, but many anxious Lebanese feel they have little to celebrate: the country's corruption-plagued economy is dangerously close to collapse and political bickering over shares in a new Cabinet is threatening to scuttle pledges worth $11 billion by international donors. The World Bank issued a stark warning last week, with one official saying that unless a government is formed soon to carry out badly needed reforms, "the Lebanon we know will fizzle away." It's been more than six months since Lebanon held its first national elections in nine years but the prime minister-designate, Saad Hariri, still hasn't formed a government to undertake the reforms necessary to unlock the donors' funds.   The vote, in which the Shi'ite…

Canada will allow businesses to write off additional capital investments to make them more competitive at a time when the United States is aggressively cutting taxes, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Wednesday.  But Morneau, speaking as he unveiled a budget update that forecast a slightly smaller than predicted deficit for 2018-19, said Ottawa would not be slashing taxes to match aggressive moves by Washington.  "If we were to do that, it would add tens of billions in new debt," he told the House of Commons.  The move could disappoint business groups that said Ottawa needed to do much more to match the U.S. cuts. Morneau acknowledged their concern and said it would be neither rational nor responsible to do nothing.  The federal government will allow businesses to immediately write off for tax purposes the full cost of machinery and equipment used…

The Trump administration has invited the heads of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler to the White House to discuss U.S. tariffs on carmakers, the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Wednesday. Citing industry and diplomatic sources, the paper said the meeting could possibly take place as soon as next week, depending on circumstances. Handelsblatt said it was not known whether U.S. President Donald Trump would attend the meeting. A spokesman for Volkswagen declined to confirm or deny whether the carmaker had received an invitation. Sources close to VW said it had not received an invitation.   Daimler and BMW did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has threatened for months to impose tariffs on all European Union-assembled vehicles, a…

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday thanked Saudi Arabia for tamping down world oil prices, a day after saying the U.S. would not turn its back on Riyadh despite its responsibility for killing a dissident U.S.-based Saudi journalist. From his retreat along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida, Trump praised the Saudis, second only to the U.S. as an oil producer but the biggest global exporter, for sending enough crude to world markets to keep oil prices in check. Before leaving Washington for the Thanksgiving holiday, Trump told reporters at the White House that U.S. national security and economic interests outweigh any human rights concerns. He said turning his back on Saudi Arabia, despite the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, "would be a terrible mistake." "We're staying with Saudi Arabia," Trump announced.…

Stocks dropped again Tuesday as losses mounted for the world's largest technology companies. Retailers also fell, and energy companies plunged with oil prices as the market sank back into the red for the year.    Oil prices tumbled another 6.6 percent as Wall Street reacted to rising oil supplies and concerns that global economic growth will slow down, a worry that's intensified because of the trade tensions between the U.S. and China.    Technology companies were hit after the Trump administration proposed new national security regulations that could limit exports of high-tech products in fields such as quantum computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence.    Retailers also skidded. Target's profit disappointed investors as it spends more money to revamp its stores and its website, while Ross Stores, TJX and Kohl's…

Analysts say Boeing Co. is canceling a conference call that it scheduled to discuss issues around its newest plane, which has come under scrutiny since a deadly crash in Indonesia.  The company didn't immediately give an explanation Tuesday.  CFRA Research analyst Jim Corridore said canceling the call as “a bad look for the company'' when it's facing questions about potential problems with sensors on the 737 MAX.  U.S. airline pilots say they weren't told about a new feature that could pitch the nose down automatically if sensors indicate the plane is about to stall.  On Oct. 29, a Lion Air MAX 8 plunged into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.  Boeing shares are down about 13 percent since Nov. 9.  ...

Shares in automakers Nissan, Mitsubishi and Renault fell sharply Tuesday after the arrest of executive Carlos Ghosn on allegations of "significant acts" of financial misconduct. All three firms are considering replacing him as chairman. Nissan, one of the world's biggest automakers, said Ghosn falsified reports about his compensation "over many years" and that its internal investigation also found he had used company assets for personal purposes. Japanese media reported Monday that Ghosn is being questioned by Tokyo prosecutors, suspected of failing to report millions of dollars in income.  Nissan said that based on a report by a whistleblower, it conducted an internal investigation of Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly and shared its findings with public prosecutors. The company said both men had been arrested. The automaker said its investigation…

World stock markets fell Monday as worries about softening demand for the iPhone dragged down shares of Apple Inc and persistent trade tensions between China and the United States sapped investor sentiment. Concerns about slowing economic growth also pushed down the dollar. The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 stock index dropped 1.7 percent following a decline in shares of Apple and its suppliers. The Wall Street Journal reported Apple had cut production orders in recent weeks for iPhone models it launched in September. Renewed tensions between China and the United States also weighed. At an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative meeting in Papua New Guinea over the weekend, the issue prevented leaders from agreeing on a communique, the first time such an impasse had occurred in the group's history. U.S. Vice President Mike…

A new United Nations survey finds that opium cultivation in Afghanistan has decreased by 20 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year, citing a severe drought and falling prices of dry opium at the national level. The total opium-poppy cultivation area decreased to 263,000 hectares, from 328,000 hectares estimated in 2017, but it was still the second highest measurement for Afghanistan since the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) began monitoring in 1994. The potential opium production decreased by 29 percent to 6,400 tons from an estimated 9,000 tons in 2017. The UNODC country representative, Mark Colhoun, while explaining factors behind the reduction told reporters in Kabul the farm-gate prices of dry opium at the harvest time fell to $94 per kilogram, the lowest since 2004. The decreases,…

Japanese automaker Nissan says it has determined that its chairman, Carlos Ghosn, falsified reports about his compensation "over many years." The company said its internal investigation also found Ghosn had used company assets for personal purposes. Japanese media are reporting Monday that Ghosn is being questioned by Tokyo prosecutors on allegations that he underreported his income and that he will likely be arrested. Ghosn is suspected of failing to report hundreds of millions of dollars in income. Nissan says Ghosn will be dismissed from the company. The Ashai newspaper reported that prosecutors have raided Nissan's headquarters in Yokohama. The Brazilian-born Ghosn, who is of Lebanese descent and a French citizen, was the rare foreign top executive in Japan. Ghosn was sent to Nissan in the late 1990s by Renault SA…

The United States and China offered competing views to regional leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Papua New Guinea, trading sharp words over trade, investment, and regional security.  Washington said it can provide a better option for regional allies under is “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy.  as VOA's State Department correspondent Nike Ching reports, the APEC gathering ended without a formal leaders' statement. ...

Federal Reserve policymakers on Friday signaled further interest rate  increases ahead, but raised relatively muted concerns over a potential global  slowdown that has markets betting heavily that the Fed's rate hike cycle will soon peter out. The widening chasm between market expectations and the rate path the Fed laid out just two months ago underscores the biggest question in front of U.S. central bankers: How much weight to give a growing number of potential red flags, even as U.S. economic growth continues to push down unemployment and create new jobs? "We are at a point now where we really need to be especially data dependent," Richard Clarida, the newly appointed vice chair of the Federal Reserve, said in a CNBC interview. "I think certainly where the economy is today, and…

Now that South Africa's highest court has relaxed the nation's laws on marijuana, local entrepreneurs are trying to cash in on the popular herb. Among the latest entries to the market: several highly popular cannabis-laced alcohol products, which deliver the unique taste, though without the signature high. Marijuana activists say this could just be the beginning and that the famous plant could do much more for the national economy. VOA's Anita Powell reports from Johannesburg. ...

Place names in Arlington County have never been a simple matter. A major fight broke out when National Airport was named for Ronald Reagan in 1998. A fight continues over whether to name a park next to the airport for Nancy Reagan. And in the 1920s, the Postal Service refused to establish a post office in Arlington because the street names were so confusing and haphazard. So it is fitting that as Arlington officials celebrated Amazon’s decision to locate a new headquarters in the area, there was a bit of confusion over the place name. Amazon announced Tuesday that it was coming to National Landing, a place people had not heard of because it doesn’t exist. Economic development officials who were wooing the online retailing giant came up with the…

Climate change, steel and migration have emerged as sticking points in the final communique that world leaders will issue at the end of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina later this month, an Argentine government official said on Thursday. Those issues were the “most complicated” areas of discussion, said Argentina's Pedro Villagra Delgado, the lead organizer, or “sherpa,” for the summit of leaders from key industrialized and developing economies.  But he told a press briefing he was optimistic these issues would be resolved in time. The G20 communique is a non-binding agreement on key international policy issues and will be presented at the conclusion of the two-day summit, which begins on Nov. 30. Climate goals concern United States Villagra Delgado said the United States was resistant to including language…

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman expects to get new loans from the International Monetary Fund as early as December, once parliament passes a budget of stability that refrains from making pre-election populist moves, he said Thursday. Securing IMF assistance will also unlock loans from the World Bank and the European Union. Groysman also said Ukraine was in negotiations with Washington for a new loan guarantee for sovereign debt. Groysman negotiated a new deal with the IMF last month aimed at keeping finances on an even keel during a choppy election period next year. The new loans are contingent on his steering an IMF-compliant budget through parliament. "This budget is a budget of stability and continuation of reforms," Groysman said in an interview with Reuters. "This is fully consistent with our IMF program." "Yes. We are counting on a tranche in December," he added, when asked about when IMF loans were expected,…

Business leaders expressed growing alarm Thursday as a draft Brexit agreement seen as the only chance of preserving some stability in U.K.-EU trading threatened to unravel, sending stock prices and the pound plunging. Just 12 hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that her cabinet had agreed to the terms of the draft agreement, Brexit minister Dominic Raab and work and pensions minister Esther McVey quit, saying they could not support it. Their departures and those of other, junior ministers, revived the specter for business of Britain leaving the European Union without a deal next March, and sent shares in British housebuilders, retailers and banks tumbling. "The political situation remains uncertain," German carmaker BMW said in a statement. "We must therefore continue to prepare for the worst-case scenario, which…

A U.S. congressional commission said Wednesday that China appears to have relaxed enforcement of sanctions on North Korea and called on the Treasury Department to provide a report on Chinese compliance within 180 days. In its annual report, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said the Treasury report should include a classified list of Chinese financial institutions, businesses and officials involved in trading with North Korea that could be subject to future sanctions. The bipartisan commission said China had appeared to enforce sanctions on North Korea more thoroughly than in the past in 2017 and in early 2018. But this effort appeared to have relaxed since a thaw in relations between China and North Korea as the long-time ally of Beijing began to engage with the United States this…

Safety is the biggest concern for women using public and private transport in five of the world's biggest commuter cities, according to a global poll released Thursday as improving city access for women becomes a major focus globally.  A Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of 1,000 women in London, New York, Mexico City, Tokyo and Cairo found 52 percent of respondents overall cited safety as their main worry, with women in Mexico City the most fearful about safety.  Almost three in every four women in Mexico City lacked confidence they could travel without facing sexual harassment and abuse or sexual violence, with Cairo coming a close second.  The ratio was one in four women in the other three cities.  The time it took to travel around the city — with studies showing women…

The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed on a deal that will give London's vast financial center only a basic level of access to the bloc's markets after Brexit.  The agreement will be based on the EU's existing system of financial market access known as equivalence — a watered-down relationship that officials in Brussels have said all along is the best arrangement that Britain can expect.  The EU grants equivalence to many countries and has so far not agreed to Britain's demands for major concessions such as offering broader access and safeguards on withdrawing access, neither of which is mentioned in the draft deal.  "It is appalling," said Graham Bishop, a former banker and consultant who has advised EU institutions on financial services. The draft text "is particularly…

Britain’s Theresa May scrambled Wednesday to sell to her Cabinet a draft Brexit divorce agreement British negotiators concluded after months of wrangling with their European Union counterparts. But the 500-page draft remains a source of deep dispute within Britain’s ruling Conservative party and also in the country’s parliament, which will have the final say on whether to approve it. As news emerged Tuesday that a text had been agreed, hardline Brexiteers lined up to attack the proposed agreement with former British foreign minister Boris Johnson, who resigned earlier this year, urging other ministers to join him in opposing the terms of the deal. Britain’s main opposition parties also announced their disapproval of the deal, which has not even been published yet.  The agreement, if approved by the Cabinet and subsequently…

Several hundred private cargo planes in the United States deliver millions of packages per year. The FedEx superhub in Memphis Tennessee works around the clock to get parcels delivered to customers and hopefully - on time. VOA's Lesia Bakalets traveled to Memphis to learn what part of day is the busiest for the FedEx team and how quickly they can load a plane. ...