Month: September 2019

By day, the unforgiving sun glares off the road beside Ipah’s wooden home with blinding brightness as a passing motorbike stirs a swirl of dust.

By night, the beams of an occasional truck carrying coal or palm fruits pierce the darkness.

This remote corner of Indonesia is set to be transformed from a forest backwater on the island of Borneo to a global city – a new capital of a country whose 260 million people make it the world’s fourth most populous.

At her stall serving ice tea and instant noodles, Ipah, an 18-year-old single mother, worries about what the change will bring.

“Cities in Kalimantan are peaceful and safe,” said Ipah, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, referring to the Indonesian part of Borneo island. “The capital is a city that never sleeps. Too much smoke, too much fuss.”

The capital Jakarta’s reputation as a crowded, polluted mega city of more than 10 million people – one that is slowly sinking into the sea – is partly why Indonesia plans to move government offices to a “Forest City” in East Kalimantan province.

The logic of the plan, first mooted nearly 70 years ago, is also to escape Java’s earthquake risk and to swing Indonesia’s political centre nearer the middle of the archipelago and away from the politically dominant island.

“Within five years, we think there will be 200,000 to 300,000 people. Within 10 years, maybe the population will reach 1 million. And then after that 1.5 million,” Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro told Reuters in Jakarta.

“We will manage the growth of the city so that it doesn’t wildly expand out of control,” he said.

The vision set out in glossy presentations for a $33 billion city is inspired by the good management of Seoul, the greenness of Singapore and Washington’s separation of administration from business, he said.

The site of the new capital is about 1,300 km (800 miles) northeast of Jakarta.

Reuters reporters travelled more than 280 km (175 miles) across the designated area, the thinly populated forested region of North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara, between the existing cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda.

Long-standing dream

By identifying the site for the yet-to-be-named capital last week, President Joko Widodo – known as Jokowi – got closer than ever to realising a move now set to start in 2024.

“Our people are grateful, Alhamdulilah (praise be to God),” said Abdul Gafur Mas’ud, regent of North Penajam Paser. “This regency has been considered undeveloped.”

The congratulatory bouquets arrayed at his office are as bright as the mood in town since the decision.

Many residents spoke of their hopes for better schools and paved roads, for clean, piped water and reliable electricity.

But after initial celebrations, worries are also surfacing that land speculation will drive up prices, and over an influx of outsiders competing for jobs and over environmental destruction.

The potential for massive corruption is also not lost on Indonesians given experiences with new capitals everywhere from Brazil’s Brasilia to Myanmar’s Naypyidaw with its vast projects and still largely empty highways.

“Our people must prepare quickly,” said Awang Yacoub Luthman, secretary of the Kutai Kartanegara Ing Martadipura Sultanate, who has migration at the top of his list of worries.

East Kalimantan touts its openness to religions other than Islam as well as its welcome for outsiders. In fact, many residents are descendants of Javanese settlers who came to the coal mining and palm oil growing region in the 1970s.

But the new planned relocation is on a different scale.

Land worries

The region’s Tribun Kaltim newspaper said asking prices for land surged four times after the announcement.

That said, Bagus Susetyo, local chairman of the Real Estate Indonesia property association, told Reuters major property companies were not acquiring land because they had large land banks in nearby Balikpapan.

While some would gain from the rise in land prices, many Indonesians don’t own the land they live on.

Among them is Ipah, who is already resigned to losing her dwelling, protected against bad luck by two diamond-shaped charms woven from young coconut leaves.

“Mr Jokowi, can you give me free land, even just a square metre or a free house?” she asked.

It is not only human homes at risk.

East Kalimantan is known for forests inhabited by orangutans, sun bears and long-nosed monkeys.

There will be no building in protected forest and the government plans to reforest abandoned mines and illegal palm oil plantations, Planning Minister Brodjonegoro said.

He floated the idea of an orangutan conservation center similar to one for giant pandas in the Chinese city of Chengdu.

The fate of the apes is particularly sensitive in Indonesia given that they have become symbols for campaigners targeting the world’s biggest palm oil industry over the destruction of forests for plantations.

Conservationists said they were far from convinced that there would be no spillover effects from moving the capital to East Kalimantan.

“The city centre might be located quite far away,” said Aldrianto Priadjati, an executive of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, which is based in Kutai Kartanegara. “But the development will be everywhere, just like – sorry to say it – Jakarta.”

…

Argentine economists sharply hiked 2019 inflation forecasts and cut their gross domestic product outlook for the year, according to a central bank poll released on Tuesday, following a wave of  political uncertainty that beat the local peso down 26% in August.

The survey came two days after the government announced capital controls in a bid to halt a run on the peso currency.

The controls, which followed an announcement that Argentina would extend the maturities of about $100 billion in debt, were a massive setback for the government’s free-markets reform effort.

Inflation was seen at 55% for the year, according to the survey of 39 analysts, up from 40% in the same central bank poll a month earlier. The new weakness in the peso, which fell 50.5% against the U.S. dollar last year, is expected to lead to rising consumer prices over the months ahead.

Gross domestic product was forecast to shrink 2.5% this year, the poll said, versus the previous month’s survey, which saw 2019 GDP shrinking by 1.4%.

The poll was conducted after the Aug. 11 primary election, which triggered a sharp fall in the value of the peso currency when business-friendly President Mauricio Macri was soundly trounced by his populist-leaning rival Alberto Fernandez.

Peronist Fernandez is now the front-runner ahead of the Oct. 27 general election. Macri is running for a second term, but his popularity has been beaten down by the poor economy.

“Capital controls imply a full reversal of Macri’s reforms,” said Alberto Bernal, chief emerging markets strategist at XP Investments in New York. “He did his best to try to change the course of the country, but the situation is dire now.”

On Sunday, the government authorized the central bank to restrict purchases of dollars as it burns through reserves to prop up the peso.

Fernandez’s vice presidential running mate is former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, a free-spending populist who applied heavy currency controls during her eight years in power through December 2015, when Macri took office.

Her presence on the ticket has caused concern about the return of the interventionist left to power, although the more moderate Fernandez has said he alone will set policy.

“The markets have ZERO confidence on the likely future government,” Bernal said in an email. “The hope of the markets is that Alberto Fernandez will prove a pragmatist.”

…

Saber Sessi was working the night shift at a municipality vehicle depot in Carthage, Tunisia, when he signed off on five bulldozers in the early hours of July 9.

Unbeknownst to him, the intended target for those bulldozers was his home.

“I opened the gate, I handed [the keys] over and then I saw them drive around to my house,” said Sessi, 50, who lived beside the depot in the working-class neighborhood of Mohamed Ali, in the northern surburbs of the Tunisian capital.

Sessi’s house and nine other buildings were razed to the ground that night in a government operation to clear illegal homes from the area that used to be a battleground for gladiators in the Roman Empire — the Circus of Carthage.

Today, two-thirds of Carthage — about 430 square km (165 square miles) — is archaeological land, according to Hayet Bayoudh, the municipality’s mayor.

The area earned a spot on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979. Now Carthage’s place on that list is under threat, due to what the U.N.’s cultural body calls “uncontrolled urban sprawl.”

All building projects and repair works within the boundaries of Carthage must first be approved by the municipality and the National Heritage Institute (INP), Bayoudh explained.

But over the years, a number of homes and buildings have gone up without permission.

“We need to clear and clean two zones, the Punic Port [in the area’s south] and the Roman Circus — the two black points for UNESCO,” Bayoudh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “These demolitions are an urgent measure.” 

Off the list

Today, the only obvious trace of ancient grandeur on the site of the Circus is the inspiration for the name of a popular cafe on Mohamed Ali’s main high street: Amphitheatre.

But the cafe and the cluster of homes behind it sit on land that archaeologists consider to be of immense historical value.

UNESCO first expressed concern about the conservation of Carthage in 2012, prompting a “monitoring mission,” explained Mustapha Khanoussi, a consultant with the INP.

So far, 90 demolitions have been carried out in the area since 2013, with another 30 planned by February 2020, according to mayor Bayoudh.

UNESCO procedures say all sites risk being removed from the World Heritage list if they are not sufficiently protected.

However, “it is extremely rare that a site loses its status. It has only happened twice,” said Laetitia Kaci, a spokeswoman for the organization.

According to UNESCO’s website, it deleted Oman’s Arabian Oryx Sanctuary from the list in 2007, after the country decided to pursue hydrocarbon exploration on the site.

Tunisia has been given until February 2020 to take action on UNESCO’s recommendations.

Local discontent

The cluster of houses on the Circus is mainly made up of half-built structures lining un-tarmacked roads, but there are also street lights, running water and authorized electricity connections.

Hayet and Nacer Gerbi, a couple in their 60s, bought a plot of land on the Circus in 2016.

Two months after they built their house and finalized the deed for their property, Hayet Gerbi said they were informed by the authorities that their land was to be confiscated as heritage.

“The municipality had installed electricity here, we have running water,” she noted, showing an INP-stamped document granting the previous owner permission to install electricity in 2010.

“I said, ‘If you want to crush the house, crush me with it.'”

The Gerbis and others in the neighborhood are battling court cases over their homes, but “permission to install electricity doesn’t mean permission to build,” noted Achour, the INP conservationist.

As for Sessi and his wife, they are now renting a studio in Mohamed Ali.

Residents and civil society activists see the demolitions in the Mohamed Ali neighborhood as discrimination.

“The demolitions only happen in this zone, where the poor are,” said Hechmi Mohamed Salah, a 59-year-old Mohamed Ali resident.

Bayoudh, the mayor, denied that the clearing operation focuses only on poorer areas. “We target the sites, not the people — unfortunately the Roman Circus is in a poor neighborhood,” she said.

Land in flux

The status of land in Carthage has been in flux over the past few decades.

Before the country’s revolution in 2011, some parts of the area were declassified to benefit those close to former dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali so they could sell the land and build luxury properties, explained Khanoussi of the INP.

After Ben Ali’s ousting, many of these sites were reclassified; some building projects were halted, while others continued illegally.

Most of the building on the Circus site — which was never declassified under Ben Ali — took place after 2011, in the chaotic period following the revolution, said Moez Achour, a Carthage conservationist with the INP.

“We are now paying the price for the actions [of previous administrations],” he added.

Illegal constructions were allowed in order to “appease people,” Achour said of the houses on the Circus.

Permission was also obtained through corruption and nepotism, he added, using the example of the upmarket Phoenix restaurant, which was built on top of the Roman Cisterns of La Malga after the site was listed.

The families of some Mohamed Ali residents used to live on those cisterns, a collection of more than 20 huge stone containers forming one of the biggest water reservoirs in the antique world, until the government moved them in the 1960s.

They were told to move “for archaeological reasons,” said Achour, and offered new houses in Mohamed Ali. Out of more than 90 households, only 3 remain on the cisterns site.

These original houses in the Mohamed Ali neighborhood are legal, Achour explained.

The issue is with the people living on and around the Circus who, like Sessi, legally own their land but are not allowed to build on it because of its historical value, said Bayoudh and Achour.

For now, local authorities and residents are waiting for the government to draw up a Plan for Protection and Valorization of Carthage, which will redefine the site’s boundaries.

“The question is how to share this land between the archaeological and the urban,” the mayor added.

Walking through the rubble of Sessi’s house, his sister Najet fumed.

Her home a few meters away is legal, but located in a “control zone” meaning she needs permission from the INP for necessary repairs.

Documents issued to her from the INP show those requests have repeatedly been rejected.

“Where is Carthage? Is this Carthage?” Najet said, pointing to the debris and illegal rubbish dumps surrounding her house. “The municipality say it is archaeological, but they don’t even clean it. They chase people off and then do nothing for the site.”

…

When Maria Augusta Almeida, 45, heard her grandson cough incessantly, she knew what was to blame: the fires raging in the Amazon forest, some of them more than 200 miles (322 km) away from Porto Velho.

The smoke permeating the city, the capital of Brazil’s northwestern state of Rondonia, is leading concerned parents to wait for hours in line at local hospitals to get help for their children who are struggling to breathe.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation visited four health centers in the city, one of the hardest hit by smoke from the burning rainforest. In all, there were reports of children, some of them infants, seeking medical care due to smoke inhalation.

Last month, Brazil’s space research agency, INPE, revealed the number of fires in the Amazon was the highest since 2010. 

That sparked international calls for the country to do more to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest — key to curbing climate change — from deforestation and other threats.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro authorized the military to fight the fires after several days of public protests and criticism from world leaders.

In Porto Velho, residents said the Cosme e Damiao Children’s Hospital, run by the Rondonia state government, had become the epicenter for children with breathing difficulties.

The symptoms from outdoor smoke inhalation have evolved into a full-blown crisis for some parents, as they do not know how to protect their children from what is in the air.

The daughter of local salesman Mauro Ribeiro do Nascimento, almost two years old, has asthma and could not stop coughing.

“I have taken her to Cosme e Damiao three times already,” her father said. “They were doing nothing but putting her on a nebulizer.”

The device helps patients breathe in medicine as a mist through a mask or a mouthpiece, to treat respiratory problems.

Worried about the strain on her lungs, do Nascimento took his daughter to a different center for an X-ray, which showed her lungs were “congested” due to irritation caused by smoke.

Staff at Cosme e Damiao were not authorized to say how many children they had attended since the fires escalated, and did not respond to requests for comment.

But volunteers and locals said the lines grew much longer about a month ago, when smoke began choking the city streets.

“The city was so filled with smoke you did not know if you should keep the windows open to maybe get some fresh air, or close them to stop more smoke from getting in,” said Sara Albino, a nursing student who volunteers at the hospital.

At her worst, Albino’s 20-month-old daughter had to use a nebulizer five times a day, which she has at home.

Eye drops had to be applied constantly to ease the burning sensation in the child’s eyes, her mother said. 

“Her eyes would not stop tearing up … they were almost glued shut; it was like conjunctivitis,” she said.

Urban fires

According to the World Health Organization, fires in the Amazon pose a risk to health including from respiratory diseases, especially in children.

But not all fires affecting Porto Velho are far away in the jungle, as they have become a cheap way to clear vegetation from urban areas for construction purposes, according to residents.

Last week, the city’s airport had to shut down after smoke from an urban fire got out of control. The vegetation on the roadsides leading to the airport was burned to a crisp.

The fires in Brazil’s sprawling Amazon rainforest have receded slightly since Bolsonaro sent in the military to help battle the blazes last week.

Meanwhile, families do what they can at home.

“I bought a humidifier … we keep it in my granddaughter’s room,” said Raimundo dos Santos, 71, who was selling water to people waiting in line at a Porto Velho health center.

The machine, which increases moisture in the air, has helped his eight-year-old granddaughter breathe. But the rest of the family is still struggling.

“I myself have already been to the hospital since the fires started,” dos Santos said, adding that he was treated for smoke inhalation.

…

Few in the Bahamas will be able to sleep tonight with Hurricane Dorian stalled over Grand Bahama Island, pounding it overnight with fierce winds and massive rainfall.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis has confirmed at least five deaths on the Bahamas’ Abaco Island, calling the destruction in the northern Bahamas “unprecedented and extensive.”

Dorian is the strongest Atlantic hurricane to strike land in 84 years and the worst ever to hit the Bahamas.

“The images and videos we are seeing are heartbreaking,” he said at a news conference in Nassau. “Many homes, businesses, and other buildings have been completely or partially destroyed. There is an extraordinary amount of flooding and damage to infrastructure.”

Minnis says the U.S. National Guard is on Abaco to help with rescues, but the major rescue efforts will have to wait until the storm eases.

“I ask Bahamians and residents on islands not devastated by this monster storm to open their homes to friends, families, and others who may be in need. This is the time for us as Bahamians to show our love, our care, and our compassion for our fellow brothers and sisters.”

Dorian is a Category 4 hurricane with top sustained winds downgraded slightly late Monday to 225 kilometers per hour.

Meteorologists say the wind currents high in the atmosphere that dictate the direction a hurricane will move have been completely calm above Dorian, keeping the storm parked over the Bahamas.

But forecasters predict Dorian will remain a Category 4 as drifts “dangerously close” to the east coast of Florida late Tuesday and Georgia and South Carolina coasts Wednesday and Thursday.

Hurricane warnings are posted from just north of Miami to the Florida-Georgia border. Millions from Florida to South Carolina have been ordered to evacuate.

A National Guard spokesman says there has been almost no resistance from people being told they have to get out.

“People do understand that Dorian is nothing to mess around with,” he said.

Even if Dorian does not make landfall on the Atlantic Coast, the storm’s hurricane-force winds extend 56 kilometers to the west. Towns and cities can still expect up to 25 centimeters of rain, life-threatening flash floods, and some tornadoes.

Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Jared Moskowitz says “Hurricane Dorian is the strongest storm to ever threaten the state of Florida on the East Coast. No matter what path this storm takes, our state will be impacted.

Forecasters predict Dorian will remain a hurricane as it moves up the Atlantic seaboard this week. Forecast maps show the storm reaching an area off Nova Scotia, Canada by Saturday.

…

An environmental spat between France and Brazil, rolling in questions about integrity, colonialism and Bic pens, shows signs of deepening with calls by dozens of French lawmakers and environmental groups to slap trade sanctions on Brazilian beef and soybeans. 

In a petition published Sunday in France’s weekly Le Journal du Dimanche, the group also called on the European Union to suspend a recently agreed Mercosur trade deal with South America and take broader steps barring products issued from deforestation and other environmentally harmful activities from entering the European market.

“What is lacking is political will” in France and elsewhere in Europe in ensuring green commerce, wrote the group of signatories, who included members of French President Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique en Marche (LREM) party.

While opposition to trade pacts is nothing new, the backlash to Mercosur comes at a time when other trade spats, including between the U.S. and China and Japan and South Korea, are also making headlines. And, some analysts say, it reflects growing alarm of ordinary Europeans about the social and environmental impacts of trade deals that is resonating among their leaders. 

“Europeans are very concerned about climate and human rights, and the Bolsonaro administration’s policies are going in all the wrong directions,” said Uri Dadush, senior fellow at Brussels-based economic think-tank Bruegel, referring to Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro. “That’s a different dimension from the trade agreement, but the two are becoming linked.” 

G-7 and wildfires

The citizen pushback adds kindling to a diplomatic dispute that ignited last month when G-7 host Macron added Amazon wildfires to the summit’s agenda, claiming their environmental impact was of global concern. The move, along with Macron’s threat to block the Mercosur trade deal over Amazon inaction, spiraled into trans-Atlantic barbs, ranging from Bolsonaro’s accusations of colonialism and an apparent slur targeting Macron’s wife, to claims the Brazilian leader lied over climate change promises. 

More recently, Bolsonaro — who conditioned accepting some $20 million in G-7 aid to fight Amazon fires to Macron’s apologizing for calling him rude — announced he would stop using French Bics, although the pens sold in Brazil are manufactured locally.

Beyond the mud slinging, however, environmentalists hope the wildfires will nudge European leaders into a bigger rethink of Mercosur. 

“We saw Europe was inclined to sign the treaty,” said Adelie Favrel, forest specialist for NGO France Nature Environnement, one of the signatories of the Amazon petition. “If deforestation had not become center stage, with the media talking about it, these environmental concerns might not have been raised.”

She and others are demanding France enforce a two-year-old law requiring companies to mitigate the environmental and human rights consequences of their actions — such as importing soybeans that may contribute to the Amazon’s deforestation — and that EU countries adopt similar legislation. 

A separate French petition to boycott companies supporting Bolsonaro’s government has recently collected nearly 2,000 signatories. More broadly, a number of U.S. and European countries have paused or reconsidered financial deals with Brazil over the Amazon fires, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reports. 

Mercosur trade agreement 

Still Europe is divided over linking the Mercosur pact to Amazon action. Along with France, Luxembourg and Ireland have similarly threatened to block it. But powerhouse Germany counts among other EU members opposed to such a move. 

“We’re not going to attack the climate challenge by refusing to do trade,” European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom told Le Monde newspaper. 

Macron initially gave a thumbs up to the Mercosur trade agreement signed in June between the EU and four South American nations after years of talks. But the good will vanished with the Amazon fires, as the French leader accused Bolsonaro of “lying” over climate change promises made just weeks before.

The French president has earned kudos overseas for spearheading a green agenda, including his iconic “Make the Planet Great Again” twist to the Trump administration’s America-first agenda. But at home, critics claim Macron has failed to match rhetoric with deeds. His popular environment minister Nicolas Hulot quit a year ago, citing lack of progress on climate and other green goals. 

“Macron’s talked a lot about being an environmental champion, but we haven’t seen any action,” said environmentalist Favrel. “If the EU ultimately signs Mercosur without any concrete changes, it will be the same as what’s happened in France.” 

Dadush of Bruegel thinks Mercosur faces challenges for other reasons. Other powerful interest groups, including European farmers, are against the deal. Brazil has threatened to pull out of Mercosur if Argentina’s opposition wins next month’s presidential elections.  

“The agreement overall is under significant risk,” he said, “and the fires in the Amazon do not help at all.” 

…

Wall Street stock futures weakened in early trade on Monday, setting a dour tone for Asian markets after tit-for-tat tariffs between the United States and China took effect, reinforcing investors’ gloomy expectations for global growth prospects.

The E-mini futures for U.S. S&P500 ESc1 fell as much as 1.06% in early trade and last stood down 0.68% at 2,905 while Chicago-traded Nikkei futures NIYcm1 suggest Japan’s Nikkei .N225 is on course to fall 0.7%.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS, which lost 4.7% last month, is likely to stay under pressure.

The United States slapped 15% tariffs on a variety of Chinese goods on Sunday – including footwear, smart watches and flat-panel televisions – while China imposed new duties on U.S. crude, the latest escalation in a bruising trade war.

In EscalatingTrade war, US Consumers May See Higher Prices

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday

A variety of studies suggest the tariffs will cost U.S. households up to $1,000 a year and the latest round will hit a significant number of U.S. consumer goods.

In retaliation, China started to impose additional tariffs on some of the U.S. goods on a $75 billion target list. Beijing did not specify the value of the goods that face higher tariffs from Sunday.

Many market players say the market’s reaction was likely exaggerated by algorithm-driven players’ flows in thin trading conditions at start of Asian trade on Monday.

Liquidity could be even more limited than usual because of a U.S. market holiday on Monday.

“(The market move) goes to show you how many data mining algos are involved with equity linked compared to forex-linked. Was anyone surprised by these tariffs that took effect yesterday?” said Takeo Kamai, head of execution at CLSA in Tokyo.

Trade War Sowing Seeds of Doubt With US Farmers

The typical routines of life on a family farm carry a heavier burden these days for Pam Johnson.

“First thing I do is make a pot of coffee,” she told VOA in an interview in one of the cavernous sheds that contain her green and yellow John Deere farming equipment. Once she has that coffee, she “(goes) to the computer and look at what grain prices have done overnight and usually do a gut clutch, because they’ve been going down. They’re at five-month lows.”

Driven there in part by retaliatory tariffs imposed by one of the largest importers of U.S.

Despite the volatility, the moves lower reflect investors’ underlying worries about increasing costs of Sino-U.S. trade war on the global economy.

An official survey published on Saturday showed factory activity in China shrank in August for the fourth month in a row, further evidence of hit to the world’s second-largest economy from trade war.

Tension is also running high in Hong Kong, with police and protesters clashing in some of the most intense violence since unrest erupted more than three months ago over concerns Beijing is undermining democratic freedoms in the territory.

Thousands of protesters blocked roads and public transport links to Hong Kong airport and police made several arrests after demonstrators smashed CCTV cameras and lamps with metal poles and dismantled station turnstiles.

China, eager to quell the unrest before the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, has accused foreign powers, particularly the United States and Britain, of fomenting the unrest.

Oil prices also fell in early Monday trade.

Brent crude LCOc1 futures fell 0.68% to $58.85 a barrel while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 lost 0.54% to $54.80 per barrel.

The currency market was calmer for now, with the dollar down slightly against the yen at 106.12 yen JPY=, down 0.13% from late U.S. levels.

The euro stood almost flat at $1.09905 EUR=, not far from two-year low of $1.0963 hit in U.S. trade on Friday.

…

The United States and China on Sunday put in place their latest tariff increases on each other’s goods, potentially raising prices Americans pay for some clothes, shoes, sporting goods and other consumer items before the holiday shopping season.

President Donald Trump said U.S.-China trade talks were still on for September. “We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters as he returned to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat. “But we can’t allow China to rip us off anymore as a country.”

The 15% U.S. taxes apply to about $112 billion of Chinese imports. All told, more than two-thirds of the consumer goods the United States imports from China now face higher taxes. The administration had largely avoided hitting consumer items in its earlier rounds of tariff increases.

But with prices of many retail goods now likely to rise, the Trump administration’s move threatens the U.S. economy’s main driver: consumer spending. As businesses pull back on investment spending and exports slow in the face of weak global growth, American shoppers have been a key bright spot for the economy.

“We have got a great economy,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. “But I do think that the uncertainty caused by volatile tariff situation and this developing trade war could jeopardize that strength, and that growth, and that is I think that’s a legitimate concern,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

As a result of Trump’s higher tariffs, many U.S. companies have warned that they will be forced to pass on to their customers the higher prices they will pay on Chinese imports. Some businesses, though, may decide in the end to absorb the higher costs rather than raise prices for their customers.

In China, authorities began charging higher duties on American imports at midday Sunday, according to employees who answered the phone at customs offices in Beijing and the southern port of Guangzhou. They declined to give their names.

Tariffs of 10% and 5% apply to items ranging from frozen sweet corn and pork liver to marble and bicycle tires, the government announced earlier.

After Sunday’s move, 87% of textiles and clothing the United States buys from China and 52% of shoes will be subject to import taxes.

On Dec. 15, the Trump administration is scheduled to impose a second round of 15% tariffs — this time on roughly $160 billion of imports. If those duties take effect, virtually all goods imported from China will be covered.

The Chinese government has released a list of American imports targeted for penalties on Dec. 15 if the U.S. tariff hikes take effect. In total, Beijing says Sunday’s penalties and the planned December increases will apply to $75 billion of American goods.

Washington and Beijing are locked in a war over U.S. complaints that China steals U.S. trade secrets and unfairly subsidizes its own companies in its drive to develop global competitors in such high-tech industries as artificial intelligence and electric cars.

“I give the president credit for challenging China on some of its really egregious behavior” on intellectual property and technology transfers, for example, Toomey said. He said he hopes that’s what Trump’s focus is, “not just the fact that Chinese clothing and shoes are popular among consumers. That’s not the problem.”

If China changes its behavior “in a meaningful way in that area … then we will have ended up in a better place. That’s what I’m hoping for. But let’s be honest. In the meantime, we’re doing damage. It’s a double-edged sword,” he said.

To try to force Beijing to reform its trade practices, the Trump administration has imposed import taxes on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese imports, and China has retaliated with tariffs on U.S. exports.

“It’s a good thing taking on China. Unfortunately, he’s done it the wrong way,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“To take on China there has to be a multilateral approach. One country can’t take on China to try to dry up its overcapacity because they just send it through to you in other ways,” he said.

Trump has insisted that China itself pays the tariffs. But in fact, economic research has concluded that the costs of the duties fall on U.S. businesses and consumers. Trump had indirectly acknowledged the tariffs’ impact by delaying some of the duties until Dec. 15, after holiday goods are already on store shelves.

A study by J.P. Morgan found that Trump’s tariffs will cost the average U.S. household $1,000 a year. That study was done before Trump raised the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 tariffs to 15% from 10%.

The president has also announced that existing 25% tariffs on a separate group of $250 billion of Chinese imports will increase to 30% on Oct. 1.

That cost could weaken an already slowing U.S. economy. Though consumer spending grew last quarter at its fastest pace in five years, the overall economy expanded at just a modest 2% annual rate, down from a 3.1% rate in the first three months of the year.

The economy is widely expected to slow further in the months ahead as income growth slows, businesses delay expansions and higher prices from tariffs depress consumer spending. Companies have already reduced investment spending, and exports have dropped against a backdrop of slower global growth.

Americans have already turned more pessimistic. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, released Friday, fell by the most since December 2012.

“The data indicate that the erosion of consumer confidence due to tariff policies is now well underway,” said Richard Curtin, who oversees the index.

Some retailers may eat the cost of the tariffs. Target confirmed to The Associated Press that it warned suppliers that it won’t accept cost increases arising from the China tariffs. But many smaller retailers won’t have the bargaining power to make such demands and will pass the costs to customers.

Philip Levy, chief economist at the San Francisco freight company Flexport who was an adviser in President George W. Bush administration, said it’s hard to say for sure when the latest tariffs may hit U.S. customers in the form of higher prices.

But, he added, “If you had to pick a time to do it, this is the worst possible time” because it’s when the bulk of holiday goods are brought into the country.

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The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen staged multiple airstrikes on a detention center operated by the Houthi rebels in the southwestern province of Dhamar, killing at least 100 people and wounding dozens more Sunday, officials and the rebels’ health ministry said.

Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen, suggested that the death toll could be higher after visiting the site of the attack, saying relatively few detainees survived. A Red Cross statement said the detention center held around 170 detainees. It said 40 of those were being treated for injuries and the rest were presumed dead.

“Witnessing this massive damage, seeing the bodies lying among the rubble, was a real shock. Anger and sadness were natural reactions,” Rauchenstein said.

The attack was the deadliest so far this year by the coalition, according to the Yemen Data Project, a database tracking the war. The coalition has faced international criticism for airstrikes that have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties, killing thousands of Yemeni civilians.

Saudi Arabia intervened on behalf of the internationally recognized Yemini government in March 2015, after the Iran-backed Houthis took the capital. The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives, thrust millions to the brink of famine and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The attack comes as the Saudi-led coalition’s partners — chiefly the United Arab Emirates and an array of Yemeni militias — are increasingly at odds over the war’s aims. The past weeks have seen heavy fighting in Yemen’s south between Saudi-backed and Emirati-backed forces.

Yemeni officials said Sunday’s strikes targeted a college in the city of Dhamar, which the Houthi rebels were using as a detention center. The coalition denied it had struck a detention center, saying it had targeted a military site used by the rebels to restore drones and missiles.

“We were sleeping and around midnight, there were maybe three, or four, or six strikes. They were targeting the jail, I really don’t know the strike numbers,” wounded detainee Nazem Saleh said while on a stretcher in a local hospital. He said the Red Cross had visited the center two times before the airstrike.

A line of over a dozen white body bags were laid out in the rubble beside flattened buildings and crushed cars, while rescue workers dug through the debris.

“We have seen now under the ruble that there are still many, many dead bodies that its very, very difficult to extract,” said Rauchenstein.

The U.N. human rights office for Yemen said 52 detainees were among the dead, and at least 68 detainees were still missing.

The Red Cross, which inspects detention centers as part of its global mission, said it had visited detainees at the site in the past.

Former detainees said the Houthis had previously used the site to store and repair weapons.

Youssef al-Hadhri, a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry, said at least seven airstrikes hit three buildings in the complex overnight.

The rebels’ Health Ministry said in a statement that more than 60 people were killed in Sunday’s airstrikes and another 50 wounded. Later in the day, health officials said the death toll climbed to 65. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

The Saudi-led coalition said it had hit a military facility “in accordance with international humanitarian law,” and that “all precautionary measures were taken to protect civilians.”

Col. Turki al-Maliki, a spokesman for the coalition, was quoted by the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV as denying the target was a prison.

Local residents said family members arrested for being critical of the Houthis were imprisoned in the detention center. They said at least seven airstrikes hit the area.

Omat al-Salam al-Haj, a mother of a detainee, said the center housed anti-Houthi political detainees who were rounded up over suspicions of cooperating with the coalition.

Former detainee Mansour al-Zelai said the Houthis were restoring weapons in and close to the detention center.

Houthi rebels have been using scores of sites as detention centers, including schools, mosques, and houses, filling them with thousands of political detainees to use later in prisoner-swap deals.

The Associated Press documented that many of these sites were rife with torture and abuses including Dhamar’s community college.

Former detainees recalled torture and abuses inside the detention center, which came under a series of airstrikes before.

Rights groups have also previously documented that Houthis place civilian detainees in detention centers as human shields by placing them next to army barracks, under constant threat of airstrikes.

In October 2016, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a prison complex in the Red Sea port of Hodeida, killing at least 58 people, mostly prisoners. At the time, the coalition said the prison complex was used as a command center for Houthis.

On Sunday, Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi in Amman to discuss her efforts to relaunch negotiations after years of stalemate between Yemen’s warring sides.

“Yemen has been at the center of my attention,” she said in a statement.

Wallstrom also met with Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed and other government officials in Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, according the official Yemeni news agency SABA.

Airstrikes have also punctuated the infighting between erstwhile coalition allies in southern Yemen.

On Thursday, Emirati jets bombed convoys of Saudi-backed government forces, killing scores in series of airstrikes to prevent them from retaking the interim capital, Aden, from militias backed by the UAE.

The Emirati strikes sparked popular anger in Yemen against the UAE. Activists launched an online petition collecting signatures to “kick Emiratis out of Yemen” and members of the Yemeni government issued a statement demanding the president end the UAE’s role in Yemen.

On Sunday, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash posted a reminder on Twitter that the coalition’s goal is to “confront the challenge of the Houthi coup.”

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A list of some of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States in the last two years: 
 
— Aug. 31, 2019: Five people were killed in West Texas in shootings in the area of Midland and Odessa. 
 
— Aug. 4, 2019: A gunman wearing body armor shot and killed nine people at a popular nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio. Police were patrolling the area and killed the suspect.  
 
— Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring more than two dozen. A suspect was taken into custody. 
 
— May 31, 2019: Longtime city worker DeWayne Craddock opened fire in a building that houses Virginia Beach government offices. He killed 12 people and wounded several others before police shot him. 
 
— Feb. 15, 2019: Gary Martin killed five co-workers at a manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, during a disciplinary meeting where he was fired. He wounded one other employee and five of the first police officers to arrive at the suburban Chicago plant before he was killed during a shootout with police. 
 
— Nov. 7, 2018: Ian David Long killed 12 people at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, California, before taking his own life. Long was a Marine combat veteran of the war in Afghanistan.  

— Oct. 27, 2018: Robert Bowers is accused of opening fire at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during Shabbat morning services, killing 11 and injuring others. It’s the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. 
 
— June 28, 2018: Jarrod Ramos shot through the windows of the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis, Maryland, before turning the weapon on employees there, killing five at The Capital newspaper. Authorities say Ramos had sent threatening letters to the newspaper prior to the attack. 
 
— May 18, 2018: Dimitrios Pagourtzis began shooting during an art class at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas. The 17-year-old killed eight students and two teachers and 13 others were wounded. Explosives were found at the school and off campus. 
 
— Feb. 14, 2018: Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The incident surpassed Columbine High School as the deadliest shooting at a high school in U.S. history. 
 
— Nov. 5, 2017: Devin Patrick Kelley, who had been discharged from the Air Force after a conviction for domestic violence, used an AR-style firearm to shoot up a congregation at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing more than two dozen. 
 
— Oct. 1, 2017: Stephen Paddock opened fire on an outdoor music festival on the Las Vegas Strip from the 32nd floor of a hotel-casino, killing 58 people and wounding more than 500. SWAT teams with explosives then stormed his room and found he had killed himself. 

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Read more at https://projects.voanews.com/election-2020/english/candidates/background.html

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s next round of tariffs on Chinese imports is scheduled to take effect Sunday, escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies with a big hit to consumer goods.

Trump has targeted about $300 billion in annual goods imports from China for 15% tariffs in two parts, on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. If fully imposed, virtually all Chinese imports, worth about $550 billion, would be subject to punitive U.S. tariffs imposed since July 2018. Here is a look at U.S. tariffs and expected Chinese retaliation scheduled over the next several months.

Sept. 1 tariffs

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency will begin collecting tariffs for Chinese goods at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) Sunday. Guidance issued Friday indicated there will not be a grace period for cargoes that left China before that time, unlike that granted for goods in transit when the United States imposed a tariff increase in May.

The Sept. 1 list covers about $125 billion worth of mostly consumer products, based on a Reuters analysis of 2018 U.S. Census Bureau data. The target list includes flat panel television sets, flash memory devices, power tools, cotton sweaters, bed linens, multifunction printers and many types of footwear.

The largest category of targeted products covers smart watches, smart speakers, Bluetooth headphones and other internet-connected devices that were spared from an earlier round of tariffs, with Chinese imports estimated at $17.9 billion annually by the Consumer Technology Association.

Oct. 1 tariff increase

The Trump administration is accepting public comments through Sept. 20 on a proposed Oct. 1 tariff rate increase to 30% from the 25% duty in place on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports.

These products include $50 billion worth of largely nonconsumer goods, including machinery, electronic components including semiconductors and printed circuit boards, and chemicals. But a later $200 billion list of goods included many consumer goods and building products, including furniture, vacuum cleaners, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, handbags, luggage and vinyl flooring.

Dec. 15 tariffs

The second part of the 15% tariffs on Chinese goods not previously hit by U.S. duties is scheduled to go into effect Dec. 15. This list represents the heart of the consumer technology sector, including $43 billion worth of cell phones imported from China in 2018, $37 billion worth of laptop and tablet computers and $12 billion worth of toys.

Trump delayed tariffs on these products, saying he wanted to avoid hurting Christmas season sales for Apple Inc. and other companies and retailers.

The list covers about $156 billion worth of total 2018 imports from China, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, and includes a wide range of consumer goods, including plastic tableware, socks, light-emitting diode lamps, Christmas decorations and clothing.

Chinese retaliation

After Trump in early August announced that he was moving ahead with tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports, Beijing announced that it would impose additional 5% or 10% tariffs on a total of 5,078 product categories from the United States, representing worth about $75 billion annually.

The Chinese move, which also goes into effect in two steps on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15, targets U.S. crude oil for the first time with a 5% tariff. U.S. soybeans, already subject to a 25% Chinese tariff, will be hit with an extra 5% tariff on Sept. 1, while beef and pork from the United States will get an extra 10% tariff.

Beijing also will reinstitute a 25% tariff on U.S.-made vehicles and a 5% tariff on auto parts that it had suspended in December at a time when U.S.-China trade negotiations were gaining momentum.

China already has tariffs in place on about $110 billion worth of U.S. products, ranging from 5% to 25%, including soybeans, beef, pork seafood, vegetables, liquefied natural gas, whiskey and ethanol. Based on 2018 imports, there is only about $10 billion worth of U.S. imports untouched, with the largest category consisting of large commercial aircraft built by Boeing Co.

US tariff exclusions

The Trump administration has excluded some Chinese-made household furniture including cribs and other baby safety products and bibles and other religious texts from the Sept. 1 and Dec. 15 rounds of tariffs.

Some of the products, including internet modems and routers, were removed because they had already been hit with 25% tariffs previously, while others were taken out for safety or religious reasons. Chinese-made rosaries and religious medals, however, will still be hit with 15% tariffs on Sept. 1.

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