Category: News

President Donald Trump is threatening to "respond" after several major U.S. drug companies raised prices of some widely prescribed medicines. "Pfizer and others should be ashamed that they have raised drug prices for no reason," Trump tweeted Monday. "They are merely taking advantage of the poor and others unable to defend themselves while at the same time giving bargain basement prices to other countries in Europe and elsewhere." Pfizer hiked the cost of about 40 different drugs earlier this month, including Viagra for male impotence, Lipitor for treating high cholesterol, and the arthritis drug Xeljanz. Trump, who campaigned on promises to lower drug prices, said in May that some companies were volunteering to cut prices. Pfizer said the list price of medicines do not include discounts and rebates, and that…

Behind a row of sealed red incubator doors in a new facility in northern China, about 400,000 chicks are hatched every day, part of the rapidly modernizing supply chain in China's $37 billion egg industry, the world's biggest. As China overhauls production of everything from pork to milk and vegetables, farmers raising hens for eggs are also shifting from backyards to factory farms, where modern standardized processes are expected to raise quality and safety. That's an important step in a country where melamine-tainted eggs and eggs with high antibiotic residues have featured in a series of food safety scandals in recent years. It is also spurring demand for higher priced branded eggs over those sold loose in fresh produce markets. "These days if you're a small farmer, your eggs won't…

What started as a simple desire to be able to provide for her children has turned into a multimillion-dollar business for Tammie Umbel of Dulles, Virginia. She not only runs a cosmetics company but home-schools her 14 children — and says she still finds time for herself. Leysa Bakalets has her story. ...

Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will seek to end the country's massive fuel imports, nearly all from the United States, during the first three years of his term while also boosting refining at home. The landslide winner of last Sunday's election told reporters Saturday morning before attending private meetings with members of his future cabinet that he would also prioritize increasing domestic production of crude oil, which has fallen sharply for years. "The objective is that we stop buying foreign gasoline by the halfway point of my six-year term," said Lopez Obrador, repeating a position he and his senior energy adviser staked out during the campaign. "We are going to immediately revive our oil activity, exploration and the drilling of wells so we have crude oil," he said. On the campaign trail, the leftist former mayor of Mexico City pitched his plan…

One of the world's biggest cargo shippers announced Saturday that it was pulling out of Iran for fear of becoming entangled in U.S. sanctions, and President Hassan Rouhani demanded that European countries to do more to offset the U.S. measures. The announcement by France's CMA CGM that it was quitting Iran dealt a blow to Tehran's efforts to persuade European countries to keep their companies operating in Iran despite the threat of new American sanctions. Iran says it needs more help from Europe to keep alive an agreement with world powers to curb its nuclear program. U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned the agreement in May and has announced new sanctions on Tehran. Washington has ordered all countries to stop buying Iranian oil by November and foreign firms to stop doing business there or face U.S. blacklists. European powers that still support…

The opening shots have been fired in what some fear may be the start of a major trade war. China retaliating at midnight Friday with equivalent tariffs on U.S. goods after the U.S. followed through on its threat to raise tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports. All this as the U.S. job market posted solid gains last month. Mil Arcega has more. ...

Amid the very real hardships Syrian refugees face, little has been said about another major health and humanitarian issue: What to do with the massive accumulations of trash and waste. But one refugee camp in Jordan is doing something about it. With the help of an international nonprofit group, the residents of the Zaatari Refugee Camp launched a recycling program to eliminate the trash left by the tens of thousands of refugees who live there ... and provide jobs. Arash Arabasadi reports. ...

The political squabbling between China and the United States over trade and other issues affect the world's two largest economies through a variety of mechanisms with unpredictable results.  For example, prices of stock in both nations have been hurt as some shareholders sold their shares and other investors were reluctant to buy shares of companies that might be hurt by rising tariffs. These actions cut demand for certain stocks, making prices fall. Shareholders are part-owners of companies who hope to profit when the company prospers and grows. Rising tariff costs make growth less likely, and that hurts investor confidence. World Trade Organization spokesman Dan Pruzin told Reuters that worries about trade are already being felt. "Companies are hesitating to invest, markets are getting jittery, and some prices are rising," he…

U.S. employers kept up a brisk hiring pace in June by adding 213,000 jobs, a sign of confidence in the economy despite the start of a potentially punishing trade war with China. The job growth wasn't enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising from 3.8 percent to 4 percent, the government said Friday. But the jobless rate rose for an encouraging reason: More people felt it was a good time to begin looking for a job, though not all of them immediately found one. The growing optimism that people can find work suggested that the 9-year old U.S. economic expansion — the second-longest on record — has the momentum to keep chugging along. Yet its path ahead is uncertain. Just hours before the monthly jobs report was released, the…

The World Trade Organization is urging nations to resolve trade tensions, warning that restrictive trade measures would have a harmful impact on the global economy. The group refuses to weigh in on what appears to be the start of a trade war between the United States and China, the world's two biggest economies. China has reacted to Washington's decision to slap 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods by reciprocating in kind. While the Geneva-based WTO will not comment on specific actions, the organization's director-general, Roberto Azevedo, has sent out a series of tweets warning nations against giving in to protectionist impulses. Azevedo says a new WTO monitoring report on trade measures enacted by the G-20 countries indicates a disturbing increase in trade restrictions by major economies.…

The world’s two biggest economies have fired the opening shots in a trade war that could have wide-ranging consequences for consumers, workers, companies, investors and political leaders. The United States slapped a 25 percent tax on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports starting Friday, and China is retaliating with taxes on an equal amount of U.S. products, including soybeans, pork and electric cars. The United States accuses China of using predatory tactics in a push to supplant U.S. technological dominance. The tactics include forcing American companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market, as well as outright cyber-theft. Trump’s tariffs are meant to pressure Beijing to reform its trade policies. Though the first exchange of tariffs is unlikely to inflict much economic harm on either…

Drivers of Kenya's digital taxis shut down operations Monday in protest of what they term as exploitative corporate practices. They say the firms are charging low rates to their clients, yet imposing high commissions on the drivers, leading them to work longer hours with little pay. The Digital Taxi Association of Kenya, representing more than 2,000 digital taxi drivers, is in the fourth day of a protest that has seen drivers switch off their services, stalling transportation in the country. The drivers say client charges have reduced over time as more digital taxi apps enter the market, but their commissions to the taxi firms have remained the same. The drivers are demanding a review of their rates and working conditions. Through their association, they want the digital taxi services to…

South Africa has become one of the biggest markets for illegal cigarette sales and is losing out on 7 billion rand ($514 million) a year in potential tax revenue, a report funded by a tobacco industry group said on Thursday. The study carried out by Ipsos found illegal cigarette trade spiked between 2014 and 2017 after a probe into the underground industry was dropped by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) under suspended commissioner Tom Moyane. Moyane, an ally of former President Jacob Zuma, is the main focus of an ongoing SARS commission of inquiry over allegations of widespread corruption at the tax agency under his watch. He denies any wrongdoing. Former head of enforcement at SARS, Gene Ravele, told the inquiry last week the decision to drop the investigation…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she would back lowering European Union tariffs on U.S. car imports, responding to an offer from Washington to abandon threatened levies on European cars in return for concessions. "When we want to negotiate tariffs, on cars for example, we need a common European position and we are still working on it," Merkel said. U.S. President Donald Trump threatened last month to impose a 20-percent import tariff on all EU-assembled vehicles, which could upend the industry's current business model for selling cars in the United States. According to an industry source, the U.S. ambassador to Germany told German car bosses from BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen at a meeting on Wednesday that Trump could abandon such threats if the EU scrapped duties on U.S. cars…

Trade rhetoric is spilling into the real world of jobs and consumer goods. The United States is set to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of goods from China on July 6. Beijing is fighting back with its own $34 billion of tariffs on American goods. As VOA's Arash Arabasadi reports, investors are understandably on edge. ...

United States Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell reportedly told German auto makers Wednesday the U.S. would back off threats of tariffs on European car imports in exchange for the European Union's elimination of duties on U.S. cars. The German newspaper Handelsblatt reported Grenell told BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen executives of the proposal during a meeting Wednesday at the embassy in Berlin. Daimler and Volkswagen declined to comment and BMW was not immediately available for comment, the report said. The reported proposal comes after the European Union warned U.S. President Donald Trump last Friday the potential indirect costs of imposing tariffs on cars could amount to $294 billion. The EU report, submitted to the U.S. Commerce Department, maintained the tariffs would disrupt cross-border supply chains in the automotive industry. The report…

European businesses are unsettled as they watch the U.S. and China collide over trade. And for good reason: the nascent global trade war could represent the biggest single threat to the economic upswing that has helped the region get past its financial crisis. In theory, some European companies could benefit, jumping into market niches if Chinese businesses are kept out of the U.S. market. But that would only be a few companies or sectors. When your entire economy is heavily dependent on trade, an overall slowdown in global commerce caused by tit-for-tat import taxes provokes fear and undermines confidence. And that’s just what’s happening in Europe. By one measure, business confidence has fallen in six of the past seven months in Germany, where exports are almost half of annual economic…

China is putting pressure on the European Union to issue a strong joint statement against President Donald Trump's trade policies at a summit this month, but it's facing resistance, European officials said. In meetings in Brussels, Berlin and Beijing, senior Chinese officials, including Vice Premier Liu He and the Chinese government's top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, have proposed an alliance between the two economic powers and offered to open more of the Chinese market in a gesture of goodwill. One proposal has been for China and the European Union to launch joint action against the United States at the World Trade Organization. But the European Union, the world's largest trading bloc, has rejected the idea of allying with Beijing against Washington, five EU officials and diplomats told Reuters, ahead of the Sino-European summit in Beijing on July 16-17. Instead, the…