Category: News

Sameera Al Salam folds a discarded piece of newspaper into a long strip then loops it round her finger to form a tight circle, the first stage of making the upcycled handbags, trays and bowls the Syrian refugee hopes will help her earn a living. Al Salam, 55, was a hairdresser with a passion for "art and making things" before she fled her war-torn homeland for Irbid in northern Jordan with her family in 2012. Now she has two teenagers and a husband left paralyzed by a stroke to support in a country where she has no automatic legal right to work, and they are three months behind on their rent. "We were living a really happy life. I had a garden where I grew everything," Al Salam told the…

China calls President Donald Trump’s threat to slap more tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S. “extreme pressure and blackmail” and threatens to retaliate. Beijing reacted Tuesday to Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese goods “if China refuses to change its practices.” “China apparently has no intention of changing its unfair practices related to the acquisition of American intellectual property and technology,” a presidential statement said late Monday. “Rather than altering those practices, it is now threatening United States companies, workers, and farmers who have done nothing wrong.” The president has ordered Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to identify a list of $200 billion in additional Chinese goods subject to a 10 percent tariff — a move that would bring on another round of Chinese penalties…

Is this what a trade war looks like? The Trump administration and China's leadership have threatened to impose tariffs on $50 billion of each other's goods. Trump has proposed imposing duties on $400 billion more if China doesn't further open its markets to U.S. companies and reduce its trade surplus with the United States. China, in turn, says it will retaliate. In recent years, tariffs had been losing favor as a tool of national trade policy. They were largely a relic of 19th and early 20th centuries that most experts viewed as mutually harmful to all nations involved. But President Donald Trump has restored tariffs to a prominent place in his self-described America First approach. Trump enraged U.S. allies Canada, Mexico and the European Union earlier this month by slapping…

The World Cup in Russia is the most expensive ever – with the official price tag around $15 billion. The result: several huge new stadiums, railroads and upgraded airports, plus the chance to reboot Russia’s global image. So, will the tournament represent a good value for Russians? As Henry Ridgwell reports from Moscow, the government appears to have used the World Cup to bury some bad economic news. ...

China says it will take appropriate countermeasures if the United States follows through with additional tariffs on Chinese goods.  U.S. President Donald Trump announced Monday that he had asked the U.S. trade representative to identify a list of products to subject to 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods. The president said the move was in retaliation to Beijing's decision to impose tariffs on $50 billion in U.S. goods, matching the first set of tariffs imposed by Trump. In a statement issued Tuesday, China's commerce ministry criticized Trump's latest move as nothing more than "extreme pressure and blackmail" that "deviates from the consensus reached by both sides" during multiple talks.  "China apparently has no intention of changing its unfair practices related to the acquisition of American intellectual property…

President Donald Trump's tariff battle with key buyers of U.S. apples, soybeans and corn threatens the support of some of his biggest backers - U.S. farmers now seeing their livelihoods in jeopardy. Farmers overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2016 election, welcoming how he championed rural economies and vowed to repeal estate taxes that often hit family farms hard. Now those same farmers are seeing crop prices fall and export markets shrink after Trump's tariffs triggered a wave of retaliation from buyers of U.S. apples, cheese, potatoes, bourbon and soybeans. "A lot of people in the ag community were willing to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt," said Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade. "The reason you are seeing people increase the pressure now is because…

A pop-up "Corruption Park" has opened in Ukraine to highlight the scale of the problem with interactive exhibits and displays of ill-gotten gains including a $46,000 crystal falcon. One of the first things visitors see in the EU-funded show is a tent shaped like the gold loaf of bread found in the house of ex-president Viktor Yanukovych after he fled Ukraine in 2014. Elsewhere, they can inspect a $300,000, limited-edition BMW seized from a corrupt official, and a copy of a 8-million-euro chandelier that, the display says, could have paid for a family's electricity bill for 64,000 years. In another tent, visitors lie back in a four-poster bed and watch a multimedia film of the imagined nightmares of a guilty government functionary. The EU Anti-Corruption Initiative, which staged the show…

For the first time, the World Health Organization is adding Gaming disorder to the section on Mental and Addictive Disorders in its new International Classification of Diseases. The ICD provides data on the causes of thousands of diseases, injuries and deaths across the globe and information on prevention and treatment. The International Classification of Diseases was last revised 28 years ago. Changes, which have occurred since then are reflected in this edition. Gaming disorder has been added to the section on mental and addictive disorders because demand for services to tackle this condition has been growing. Gaming disorders usually are linked to a system of rewards or incentives, such as accumulating points in competition with others or winning money. These games are commonly played on electronic and video devices. WHO…

German authorities have arrested the chief executive of Volkswagen's Audi division, Rupert Stadler. He was arrested Monday as part of an investigation about cars Audi sold in Europe that are believed to have been equipped with software that turned emissions controls off during regular driving. Last week, Munich prosecutors raided Stadler's home on suspicion of fraud and improprieties of documents. Volkswagen Audi said "the presumption of innocence remains in place for Mr. Stadler." Volkswagen has pleaded guilty to emissions test cheating in the United States. CEO Martin Winterkorn was charged in the United States, but he will unlikely face those charges since Germany does not extradite its nationals to countries outside the European Union. ...

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has intensified his war on graft by announcing that all public servants will undergo a compulsory lifestyle audit to account for their sources of wealth. This latest announcement follows financial scandals that have rocked the country with revelations that millions of dollars were lost in various government agencies through corrupt deals that involved government officials. Kenyatta offered himself to be the first leader to undergo the audit that seeks to identify corrupt public officials, saying the lifestyle audits would control the misuse of public funds. He said public servants would be required to explain their sources of wealth with an aim of weeding out those found to have plundered government funds. “You have to tell us, this is the house you have, this is your salary,…

After two consecutive years of decline, remittances, the money migrant workers send home, increased in 2017 according to figures released by the World Bank. Remittances are a significant financial contribution to the well-being of families of migrant workers and to the sustainable development of their countries of origin. The U.N. recognizes their importance every year on June 16, designated International Day of Family Remittances. VOA's Cristina Caicedo Smit reports on this vital lifeline. ...

Seventy percent of Canadians say they will start looking for ways to avoid buying U.S.-made goods in a threat to ratchet up a trade dispute between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump, an Ipsos Poll showed Friday. The poll also found a majority of Americans and Canadians are united in support of Trudeau and opposition to Trump in their countries' standoff over the renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Amid the spat, Trump pulled out of a joint communique with six other countries last weekend during a Quebec summit meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized democracies and called Trudeau "very dishonest and weak." Trump was reacting to Trudeau's having called U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs insulting to Canada. Trudeau has said little about the matter since a Trump Twitter assault.  Despite the tensions, 85 percent…

A set of retaliatory tariffs released by China on Friday includes a plan to tax American lobster exports, potentially jeopardizing one of the biggest markets for the premium seafood.  Chinese officials announced the planned lobster tariff along with hundreds of other tariffs amid the country's escalating trade fight with the United States. China said it wants to place new duties on items such as farm products, autos and seafood starting July 6. The announcement could have major ramifications for the U.S. seafood industry and for the economy of the state of Maine, which is home to most of the country's lobster fishery. China's interest in U.S. lobster has grown exponentially in recent years, and selling to China has become a major focus of the lobster industry. "Hopefully cooler heads can…

President Donald Trump has approved a plan to impose punishing tariffs on tens of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods as early as Friday, a move that could put his trade policies on a collision course with his push to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. Trump has long vowed to fulfill his campaign pledge to clamp down on what he considers unfair Chinese trading practices. But his calls for billions in tariffs could complicate his efforts to maintain China’s support in his negotiations with North Korea. Trump met Thursday with several Cabinet members and trade advisers and was expected to impose tariffs on at least $35 billion to $40 billion of Chinese imports, according to an industry official and an administration official familiar with the plans. The…

AT&T Inc may close its $85 billion deal to buy Time Warner Inc under an agreement reached on Thursday with the U.S. government, which might still appeal a case seen as a turning point for the media industry. AT&T said it could close the deal by Friday. The government has not ruled out an appeal and has 60 days to file. AT&T agreed to temporarily manage Time Warner’s Turner networks separately from DirecTV, including setting prices and managing personnel, as part of the deal approved by Judge Richard Leon late Thursday. The conditions agreed to by AT&T would remain in effect until Feb. 28, 2019, the conclusion of the case or an appeal. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Tuesday that the deal…

Nyet. Non. Nein. No. That's the answer the Supreme Court gave Thursday to the question of whether federal courts in the United States must accept statements from foreign governments about their own laws as binding. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for a unanimous court that a “federal court should accord respectful consideration to a foreign government's submission,” but is not required to treat it as conclusive. Given “the world's many and diverse legal systems and the range of circumstances in which a foreign government's views may be presented,” there is no single formula on how to treat the information a foreign government provides, Ginsburg wrote. Ginsburg said the appropriate weight given to a government's statement in each case will depend on the circumstances. Among the factors that U.S. courts should…

Caterers in Washington tweeted a photo of maroon sashimi appetizers served to 700 guests attending the governor's inaugural ball last year. They were told the tuna was from Montauk. But it was an illusion. It was the dead of winter and no yellowfin had been landed in the New York town. An Associated Press investigation traced the supply chain of national distributor Sea To Table to other parts of the world, where fishermen described working under slave-like conditions with little regard for marine life. In a global seafood industry plagued by deceit, conscientious consumers will pay top dollar for what they believe is local, sustainably caught seafood. But even in this fast-growing niche market, companies can hide behind murky dealings, making it difficult to know the story behind any given…