Month: January 2018

Trump Lauds US Economic Performance

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U.S. President Donald Trump touted the continued growth of the U.S. economy on Sunday, saying it is “better than it has been in many decades.”

“Businesses are coming back to America like never before,” Trump said in a Twitter remark, a likely theme of his State of the Union address on Tuesday. “Unemployment is nearing record lows. We are on the right track!”

He said, “Chrysler, as an example, is leaving Mexico and coming back to the USA,” an exaggeration of Chrysler’s expansion plans. Fiat Chrysler, the world’s eighth biggest auto manufacturer, says it is investing $1 billion to manufacture its profitable Ram pickup trucks in the midwestern state of Michigan, shifting the production from Mexico, but at the same time is not cutting any of its vehicle manufacturing jobs in Mexico.

The U.S. jobless rate has held steady at 4.1 percent for the last three months, the lowest figure in 17 years. The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, advanced at a 2.3 percent pace last year, Trump’s first year in office, up from 1.5 percent in 2016.

The U.S. economy, however, slowed in the last three months of 2017, expanding at a 2.6 percent annual rate, down from the 3.2 percent figure in the July-to-September period.

Attack on Jay-Z

In praising the U.S. economic performance, Trump also attacked Jay-Z, after the rap musician had assailed Trump in a Saturday news talk show over the president’s recent reported vulgar descriptions of people from Haiti and Africa as he seeks to block their immigration to the United States.

“Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!” Trump said. The black unemployment rate in the U.S. has fallen to 6.8 percent, which is still higher than the 3.7 percent figure for whites.

Jay-Z told CNN interviewer Van Jones that economic advances for blacks do not outweigh Trump’s attacks on predominantly black countries.

“Everyone feels anger, but after the anger, it’s really hurtful because he’s looking down on a whole population of people. And he’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people,” Jay-Z said, adding, “It’s not about money at the end of the day. Money doesn’t equate to happiness. It doesn’t. That’s missing the whole point.

“You treat people like human beings,” he said.

 

 

 

 
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Early Diagnosis and Treatment Can Prevent Disability from Leprosy

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To mark World Leprosy Day, the World Health Organization is calling for the eradication of this ancient disfiguring disease by combating the stigma and discrimination that discourages people from seeking the help they need.

Leprosy, a hideously disfiguring disease that has blighted the lives of countless millions since Biblical days, is curable. And yet, the World Health Organization reports more than 200,000 people, most in Southeast Asia, are affected with the disease and new cases continue to arise every year.

Leprosy is a chronic bacterial disease with a slow incubation period of about five years. In some cases, symptoms may occur within one year, but can take as long as 20 years to appear.

Leprosy was eliminated globally as a public health problem in 2000, but the disease persists in individuals and communities. WHO spokesman, Tarik Jasarevic, tells VOA this is unacceptable, as an effective treatment exists that can fully cure people of leprosy.

“Since ’95, WHO has provided this multi-drug therapy free of cost to all leprosy patients in the world,” he said. “In 2016, WHO launched global leprosy strategy, 2016-2020, accelerating toward a leprosy-free world. This is basically to revamp the efforts for leprosy control. The strategy focuses on avoiding disabilities, especially among children.”

This year’s World Leprosy Day focuses on preventing disabilities in children. WHO reports children account for nearly nine percent of all new cases of leprosy, including almost seven percent of those with visible deformities.

The U.N. health agency notes early diagnosis and early treatment can prevent disability. It says disabilities do not occur overnight, but happen after a prolonged period of undiagnosed and untreated disease.

Unfortunately, it notes many people do not seek help until it is too late and deformities already have appeared. This is because of the stigma and discrimination associated with leprosy.

WHO is calling for laws discriminating against people with leprosy to be abolished and replaced with policies promoting inclusion of such people within society.
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Burkina Faso Music Honored at Grammys, but Artists Cry Foul

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For musicians from the West African nation of Burkina Faso, a nomination for a Grammy Award should have been the crowning achievement of a musical career.

Instead, musicians based in Bobo-Dioulasso, whose work is featured on the three-disk compilation “Bobo Yeye,” didn’t even know they had been nominated or that the album even existed.

“As a musician, I am totally disappointed to learn that we have spent time moaning, suffering and that someone else can just make a compilation of our music and that it is going for an award,” musician Stanislas Soré told VOA French to Africa Service on Friday.

Soré is a member of the Volta Jazz group, whose songs are part of the album titled “Bobo Yeye, Belle époque in Upper Volta,” which is nominated for two Grammy Awards.

It is a compilation of recordings in the 1970s in Bobo, second-largest city of Burkina Faso, then known as Upper Volta.

The news of the Grammy nomination surprised the musicians, who wondered how their music was put on CDs and distributed worldwide without their knowledge or consent. It turns out French music producer Florent Mazzoleni made the compilation produced by The Numero Group, a Chicago-based production company.

“These are artists that I have always admired and I wrote about 20 books on African music, including a book in 2015 called ‘Burkina Faso Modern Music Voltaic,’” Mazzoleni said in a phone interview.

Mazzoleni said he wanted “to pay tribute to all those people in the shadows, who made the culture of Bobo-Dioulasso.”

At the time, he said, Upper Volta was a poor country with limited ability for people to communicate with the outside world or record music. “People recorded with what they could get and yet they managed to create one of the most fascinating modern music of the continent,” Mazzoleni said.

Disagreement over book, compilation

But the artists themselves are not happy, saying he has been unfair to them. They pointed out that when they met him, he talked only about a book project.

“All I know, there was this white guy who came here; he tried to get information on what life was like in the orchestras of the old days. We understood he was going to make a book of the history of our music. But when it comes to producing a compilation or stuff like that, we’ve never talked about that, never, never, ever,” Soré, of Volta Jazz, said.

His account was backed up by Nouhoun Traoré Banakourou, saxophonist and guitarist of the group Echo Del Africa, who acknowledged that he worked with Mazzoleni on a book project, but not a compilation.

“What he is doing now is not what he offered me. When he came for the book, my son asked him for a gift for me. He gave me 200,000 CFA francs (around $380) that day,” Nouhoun Traoré recalls.

“He took a recording of our boss, Tanou Bassoumalo, an old recording, and told me he would see if he can recover the tracks and fix them. He left and never came back. Nor did he call me, or say anything else,” Traoré said.

The French producer denies these allegations. He claims to have followed all the necessary steps. “I have all the permissions, all the contracts,” he told VOA.

“I met the founders of the group, the people who had the contracts at the time, what more do you want me to tell you? Obviously, I cannot meet everyone. Obviously, when you have a project like this that comes to fruition, people talk about it and the fact that it is nominated for the Grammy Awards, it attracts the interest of some people,” Mazzoleni said.

Whatever the outcome at the award ceremony on Sunday in Madison Square Garden, Burkinabe musicians and citizens see it as an honor for their music and culture, which is getting world exposure, despite the controversy.
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At Juilliard Festival, a Challenge to Western Preconceptions of Chinese Composition

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Without the use of traditional instruments and in an interconnected world, what makes a Chinese composition distinctively Chinese? The Juilliard School’s Focus! Festival 2018 seeks to challenge our preconceptions of the 1.4 billion-population nation, led by a cast of contemporary Chinese composers and acclaimed Juilliard orchestral students. VOA’s Ramon Taylor sat down with one of China’s most prominent young conductors and the festival’s founding director on the evolving commonalities and differences of orchestral music, East and West.
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Scientists Create a New Type of Hologram

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Projecting three-dimensional (3D) images in thin air, called holography, moved from science fiction to reality a long time ago. But this type of graphic display is not in wide use because the required equipment is still expensive. Scientists at the Brigham Young University have discovered a cheaper method of holography, using particles floating in the air. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Toothpaste Ingredient Could Fight Malaria, Research Shows

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A common ingredient of toothpaste could be developed to fight drug-resistant strains of malaria. Scientists at Britain’s Cambridge University found that triclosan has the potential to interrupt the infection at two critical stages — in the liver and the blood. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Using Technology to Teach Not Distract

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Incorporating technology into learning can sometimes be a slippery slope toward computer distraction. That’s why some of the best new educational tools work in the real and the virtual world. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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AP Fact Check: Data Melt Trump’s Cooling, Ice Claims

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President Donald Trump’s description of the climate on planet Earth doesn’t quite match what data show and scientists say.

In an interview with Piers Morgan airing Sunday on Britain’s ITV News, the president said the world was cooling and warming at the same time and that claims of melting ice caps haven’t come true.

TRUMP: “There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming. That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place.”

Ten different climate scientists contacted by The Associated Press said the president was not accurate about climate change. Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis responded in an email: “Clearly President Trump is relying on alternative facts to inform his views on climate change. Ice on the ocean and on land are both disappearing rapidly, and we know why: increasing greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that trap more heat and melt the ice.”

THE FACTS: The world hasn’t had a cooler-than-average year since 1976 and hasn’t had a cooler-than-normal month since the end of 1985, according to more than 135 years of temperature records kept by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The last four years have been the four hottest years on record globally, with 2010 the fifth hottest year, according to NOAA. Every year in the 21st century has been at least three quarters of a degree (0.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average and in the top 25 hottest years on record, NOAA records show.

And while a good chunk of the United States had a frigid snap recently, most of the rest of the world was far warmer than normal, according to temperature records.

Zeke Hausfather of the Berkeley Earth temperature monitoring program, initially funded by nonscientists who doubt that the world is warming, said in an email: “The world has been warming steadily over the past 50 years, with 17 of the past 18 years being the warmest since records began in the 1850s. It is not accurate to say that the climate has been ‘cooling as well as warming.’”

TRUMP: “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records. They’re at a record level.”

THE FACTS: It is a bit more nuanced, but not quite right.

While a small number of experts a decade ago had predicted that Arctic would be free of summer sea ice by now, most mainstream scientists and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did not, instead they said Arctic sea ice would shrink, which it has, said Pennsylvania State University ice scientist Richard Alley. Most scientists, including the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, are predicting that the Arctic will be free of summer sea ice sometime around the 2040s.

The Arctic set a record for the lowest amount of sea ice in the winter, when sea ice usually grows to its maximum levels, in March 2017. In 2012, the Arctic set a record for lowest sea ice levels. 

Sea ice recovered slightly from that record and in 2017 in September, the annual low was only the eighth lowest on record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. But the 10 lowest years of sea ice have been all in the last 11 years. Arctic sea ice is declining at a rate of 13.2 percent per decade, according to NASA.

Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said the Antarctic sea ice pack, less directly influenced by global climate change, varies from year to year. Antarctica hit a record low for sea ice in March 2017, the same month the Arctic hit a record winter low. Antarctic sea ice also reached a record high in 2014.

“Both of the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are losing hundreds of billions of tons of ice per year. Sea ice continues to decline significantly in the Arctic decade by decade, and the thickness of Arctic ice is now less than 50 percent of what it was 40 years ago,” National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist Ted Scambos said in an email.
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Coincheck to Return $425M in Virtual Money Lost to Hackers

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Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc said Sunday it would return about 46.3 billion yen ($425 million) of the virtual money it lost to hackers two days ago in one of the biggest-ever thefts of digital money.

That amounts to nearly 90 percent of the 58 billion yen worth of NEM coins the company lost in an attack Friday that forced it to suspend withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin.

Coincheck said in a statement it would repay the roughly 260,000 owners of NEM coins in Japanese yen, though it was still working on timing and method.

Theft and security

The theft underscores security and regulatory concerns about bitcoin and other virtual currencies even as a global boom in them shows little signs of fizzling.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) sent a notice to the country’s roughly 30 firms that operate virtual currency exchanges to warn of further possible cyber-attacks, urging them to step up security.

The financial watchdog is also considering administrative punishment for Coincheck under the financial settlements law, one of the sources said.

Japan started to require cryptocurrency exchange operators to register with the government in April 2017. Pre-existing operators such as Coincheck have been allowed to continue offering services while awaiting approval. Coincheck’s application, submitted in September, is still pending.

Coincheck told a late-Friday news conference that its NEM coins were stored in a “hot wallet” instead of the more secure “cold wallet,” outside the internet. Asked why, company President Koichiro Wada cited technical difficulties and a shortage of staff capable of dealing with them.

Shades of Mt. Gox

In 2014, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which once handled 80 percent of the world’s bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy after losing around half a billion dollars worth of bitcoins. More recently, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Youbit last month shut down and filed for bankruptcy after being hacked twice last year.

World leaders meeting in Davos last week issued fresh warnings about the dangers of cryptocurrencies, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin relating Washington’s concern about the money being used for illicit activity.
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Canada Hopes NAFTA Talks Proceed to Next Round; Some Progress Made

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Officials trying to settle differences over how to update the North American Free Trade Agreement have made some progress and hope politicians decide the talks should continue, Steve Verheul, Canada’s chief negotiator, told Reuters on Saturday.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are due to finish the sixth of seven planned rounds of NAFTA discussions on Monday, with several major issues far from being resolved.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who describes the $1.2 trillion pact as a disaster, has frequently threatened to walk away from it unless major changes are made.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo will hold a news conference later Monday to announce the next steps.

Asked whether he thought the three ministers would decide there is enough momentum to continue with the next round, Verheul said: “Well, that’s our hope.”

Later in the day, he told reporters: “We’re moving in a slightly more positive direction. We’ll take that encouragement where we can.”

On balance, a ‘positive’

A Mexican official, who asked not to be named, said “we don’t foresee a negative reaction to the round. We believe the balance will be positive.”

Work is moving ahead on less contentious parts of NAFTA, the Mexican official and a Canadian source close to the talks said Saturday, and the three nations have closed a chapter on measures to fight corruption.

Canada and Mexico initially dismissed some of the main U.S. demands as unworkable but later made it clear they were ready to be more flexible.

During the sixth round, Canada raised what it called creative ways of meeting U.S. demands for higher North American content in autos, a sunset clause that would allow one party to quit the treaty after five years, and major changes to existing conflict resolution mechanisms.

“I think we have demonstrated we have engaged on most of the big issues,” Verheul said in his remarks to Reuters. “We’ve made progress on some of the smaller ones, so I think [it was] not a bad week.”

The Mexican official said that Canada’s proposals on rules of origin for autos, the sunset clause and conflict resolution mechanism were “positive, inasmuch as they are an attempt to move things forward.”

Speaking separately, a second Canadian government source said Ottawa was cautiously optimistic about the round, given that the U.S. side had not summarily rejected the proposals for compromise.

But the source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said much would depend on Lighthizer’s reaction on Monday.

Fear for pact’s future

Markets and industries are worried about the possible collapse of the $1.2 trillion pact.

“It’s unclear to us that anything that anyone does here will be enough … which is concerning for agriculture,” said Brian Innes, president of the Canadian Agri-food Trade Alliance.

“Our position with all the political parties is that the negotiations must go on,” said Juan Pablo Castanon, president of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, the umbrella group representing Mexican private sector interests at the talks.

“We want free trade, but not at any cost,” he said.

The talks were initially scheduled to wrap up by the end of March to avoid clashing with Mexico’s presidential election in July. Guajardo told Reuters on Friday that the process could be extended if need be.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist front-runner in the presidential race, said on Friday that the renegotiation should wait until after the election so that the next government, which he aims to lead, would get a say in the treaty’s future.
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Wozniacki Bests Halep to Win Australian Open

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Danish tennis star Caroline Wozniacki won her first grand slam title Saturday at the Australian Open in Melbourne, besting Romanian Simona Halep, 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-4.

“I have to take a second to hug Daphne,” Wozniacki told reporters after being awarded the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup at the prize ceremony. “It’s a dream come true, and my voice is shaking. It’s a very emotional moment.”

Wozniacki is the first player from Denmark to win a major singles title. It came nine years after her first attempt in 2009, when she lost the U.S. Open final to Kim Clijsters. She also lost the U.S. Open in 2014, to Serena Williams.

Wozniacki also paid tribute, apologetically, to her opponent. “I want to congratulate Simona. I know today is a tough day and I’m sorry I had to win,” she told reporters. 

Halep, like Wozniacki, had played two major singles finals in the past without a win.

“Maybe the fourth time will be with luck,” she said before leaving the court at Laver Arena.

The competitors both took medical timeouts in their final, grueling match on a sweltering summer day.

Halep complained of dizziness and a headache when taking her timeout. After the end of the match, she said she was spent. “It was close again, but the gas was over in the end,” she said of her loss. Wozniacki, she said, “was better. She was fresher. She actually had more energy in the end.”

Wozniacki told reporters that the best thing about Saturday’s win was that she would never again have to answer a question about when she was going to win a Grand Slam title.

Now, she said, “I’m just waiting for the question, ‘When are you going to win the second one?’ ”
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Italy Joins Growing Number of Nations Banning Microplastics

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The world has another ally in the war against microplastics. Just before Christmas, the Italian government voted to ban the tiny beads that show up primarily in beauty products by 2020. Italy joins a growing list of countries, the United States included, that have banned microplastic products. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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EPA Puts Brakes on Approval Process for Gold, Copper Mine

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In a surprise move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reversed itself Friday and stopped the approval process for the proposed Pebble Mine copper and gold mine project in southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

“It is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has championed increased domestic mining, and the EPA’s decision to halt the Pebble Mine’s approval process comes as a surprise.

“Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection,” Pruitt said.

The Obama administration blocked the proposed mine in 2014 over environmental concerns. Last year, Pruitt reversed that decision, allowing the Canadian company behind the mine project to apply for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Pebble Limited Partnership, comprising Canadian miners Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd and First Quantum Minerals Ltd, is planning to mine 1.2 billion tons of material, including 287 million pounds of copper.

Environmentalists, commercial and sport fishermen, many Alaska Native tribal organizations and even some Republican politicians have all criticized the project, which would be built on land near Lake Clark National Park.

Alaska Governor Bill Walker, an independent, applauded the decision and thanked Pruitt “for listening to my input and that of thousands of Alaskans” who oppose the mine.

Pruitt indicated the mine could ultimately be approved.

“This decision neither deters nor derails the application process of Pebble Limited Partnership’s proposed project,” he said.

“The project proponents continue to enjoy the protection of due process and the right to proceed. However, their permit application must clear a high bar, because EPA believes the risk to Bristol Bay may be unacceptable,” he said.
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The Iconic Building-Block of Our Childhoods Celebrates 60th Birthday

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One of the world’s most famous toys turns 60 on Jan. 28. The Lego building block, a tool of innovation and cause of severe pain to anyone who’s ever stepped on one, celebrates a milestone. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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World’s Coral Reefs Facing Increasing Pressure

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All coral reefs go through bleaching episodes, and these episodes of drought or extreme heat can hurt even the healthiest of reefs. But climate change means more heat, more often, and new research is showing the world’s reefs do not have time to recover. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Pacific Trade Deal Will Move Forward Without the US

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President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy on trade aims to reverse decades of lopsided exchange by withdrawing from international trade deals, renegotiating others and raising tariffs on foreign-made goods destined for the U.S. But, in a connected global economy, analysts warn the U.S. could find itself increasingly isolated as other countries rush forward to embrace new trade deals. Mil Arcega reports.
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Enthusiast Builds a Steam-powered SUV

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Although long replaced by more efficient types of engines, steam-powered machines still have a certain appeal, and not just for museum-goers. In Britain, the country that gave us both the steam engine and the legendary off-road vehicle the Land Rover Defender, one inventor combined the two, much to the amusement of technology enthusiasts. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Alaska Delegation Wants Some Waters Out of Drilling Plan

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Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation three weeks ago praised Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke after he announced nearly all federal waters off the state’s coast could be offered for petroleum lease sales.

But after hearing from critics who do not want drilling in their home waters, U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young are backtracking.

In a letter Friday to Zinke, the delegation requested that most Alaska waters from the state’s Panhandle to the Bering Strait be removed from the proposed five-year drilling plan.

Instead, they urged lease sales in only three areas: Cook Inlet, where petroleum platforms have extracted oil and natural gas for decades, and the Arctic waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

“We believe the strongest near-term offshore program in Alaska is one that focuses on the Chukchi, Beaufort and Cook Inlet,” they wrote. “Such a program will maximize agency resources and reflect the areas with the broadest support for development among Alaskans.”

Zinke announced the proposed lease sale plan Jan. 4. He said revisions could be made after public comment.

Immediate opposition

The proposal excluded only one area of Alaska: the North Aleutian Basin, home to Bristol Bay and the world’s largest run of sockeye salmon.

The proposal drew immediate opposition from governors in East and West Coast states. After Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, met with Zinke, the secretary announced that drilling would be “off the table” for waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off Florida.

Subsistence resources

In Alaska, proposed lease sales in the Bering Sea drew strong condemnation from the Bering Sea Elders Group, an association of Alaska Native elders appointed from 39 tribes, and Kawerak Inc., a regional nonprofit organization, which said oil and gas activities pose a serious threat to marine life.

“These basins are where tribes from our region have harvested subsistence resources for millennia and where local people from our region fish and crab commercially,” Kawerak said in an announcement.

Drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, home to polar bears, walrus and ice seals that support the subsistence economies of coastal villages, is strongly opposed by environmental groups. They say the harsh climate makes spills inevitable and that cleanup of a major spill would be impossible in waters choked by or covered in sea ice.

Oil estimates

However, federal regulators say the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska’s north coast, holds an estimated 8.9 billion barrels of oil and the Chukchi, off Alaska’s northwest coast, holds an estimated 15.4 billion barrels.

Royal Dutch Shell spent $2.1 billion on Chukchi Sea leases in 2008, invested another $5 billion overall in U.S. Arctic waters, and pulled out after drilling a dry hole in 2015.

Murkowski, Sullivan and Young contend drilling in Arctic waters can be done safely. They said they strongly support the inclusion of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas for lease sales between 2019 and 2024, while at the same time urging “meaningful consultation” with communities.
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US Trade Body Backs Canadian Plane Maker Bombardier Against Boeing

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A U.S. trade commission on Friday handed an unexpected victory to Bombardier Inc. against Boeing Co., in a ruling that allows the Canadian company to sell its newest jets to U.S. airlines without heavy duties, sending Bombardier’s shares up 15 percent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission’s unanimous decision was the latest twist in U.S.-Canadian trade relations that have been complicated by disputes over tariffs on Canadian lumber and U.S. milk and President Donald Trump’s desire to renegotiate or even abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Trump, who did not weigh in on the dispute personally, took his “America First” message to the world’s elite on Friday, telling a summit that the United States would “no longer turn a blind eye” to what he described as unfair trade practices.

The ITC commissioners voted 4-0 that Bombardier’s prices did not harm Boeing and discarded a U.S. Commerce Department recommendation to slap a near 300 percent duty on sales of the company’s 110- to 130-seat CSeries jets for five years. It did not give a reason immediately.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the commission’s finding “shows how robust our system of checks

and balances is.”

Boeing’s shares closed flat.

“It’s reassuring to see that facts and evidence matter,” said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “This part of the trade policy process works unimpeded despite President Trump’s protectionist rhetoric.”

Removing ‘uncertainty’

The decision will also help Bombardier sell the CSeries in the United States by removing “a huge amount of uncertainty,” at a time when its Brazilian rival Embraer is bringing its new E190-E2 jet to market, a source familiar with the

Canadian plane and train maker’s thinking said.

The ITC had been expected to side with Chicago-based Boeing. The company alleged it was forced to discount its 737 narrow-bodies to compete with Bombardier, which it said used government subsidies to dump the CSeries during the 2016 sale of 75 jets at “absurdly low” prices to Delta Air Lines.

Bombardier called the trade case self-serving after Boeing revealed on December 21 that it was discussing a “potential combination” with Embraer. Boeing denied the trade case was motivated by those talks.

Boeing to look at options

The dispute may not be over. “This can still be appealed by Boeing,” Andrew Leslie, parliamentary secretary to Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia

Freeland, told reporters in Montreal.

Boeing said it would not consider such options before seeing the ITC’s reasoning in February.

But Boeing said it was disappointed the commission did not recognize “the harm that Boeing has suffered from the billions of dollars in illegal government subsidies that the Department of Commerce found Bombardier received and used to dump aircraft in the U.S. small single-aisle airplane market.”

Bombardier, Delta and the U.S. consumer advocacy group Travelers United all called the ITC decision a victory for consumers and airlines.

The decision may end up helping Trump’s goal of boosting U.S. jobs as the CSeries jets for U.S. airlines will be built in the United States rather than Canada.

Through a venture with European planemaker Airbus SE, which has agreed to take a majority stake in the CSeries this year, Bombardier plans to assemble CSeries jets in Alabama to be sold to U.S. carriers starting in 2019.

Sweet surprise

Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders promised to push ahead “full throttle” with the Alabama plans. “Nothing is sweeter than a surprise, a surprise victory,” he said.

The case had sparked trade tensions between the United States and its allies Canada and the United Kingdom. Ottawa last year scrapped plans to buy 18 Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing.

The well-paid jobs associated with the CSeries are important both to Ottawa and the British government. Bombardier employs about 4,000 workers in Northern Ireland.

The British prime minister’s office said it welcomed the decision, “which is good news” for the British industry, while Canada’s innovation minister said the ITC came to the “right decision” on Bombardier.

Former ITC Chairman Dan Pearson praised the decision. “Not a single commissioner was willing to buy Boeing’s arguments,” he said. “I think ‘America First’ is a policy of the White House and the Commerce Department. But it’s not the policy of an independent agency [like the ITC].”
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Casino Mogul Steve Wynn Denies Allegations of Sexual Harassment

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Billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn is denying allegations of sexual harassment after a report in the Wall Street Journal detailed allegations of misconduct and caused shares of his casino company to drop 10 percent Friday.

Wynn said in a statement Friday “The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous” and accused his ex-wife of being behind the accusations.

“The instigation of these accusations is the continued work of my ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, with whom I am involved in a terrible and nasty lawsuit in which she is seeking a revised divorce settlement.”

Several incidents

The Journal article detailed several incidents in which Wynn allegedly pressured staff to perform sex acts. The allegations include those from a manicurist who claims she was forced to have sex with Wynn in 2005, shortly after he opened his flagship Wynn Las Vegas. The paper said she was later paid a $7.5 million settlement.

The Journal said it contacted more than 150 people who work or had worked for Wynn while investigating the story.

“We find ourselves in a world where people can make allegations, regardless of the truth,” Wynn said, “and a person is left with the choice of weathering insulting publicity or engaging in multiyear lawsuits.”

Wynn, 75, is a towering figure in the gambling world; his company helped to revitalize Las Vegas in the 1990s. Wynn Resorts built the Golden Nugget, The Bellagio and Mirage Resorts.

Republican National Committee post

In addition to being a business mogul, Wynn is the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee and has been a large contributor to the Republican Party.

Stocks for Wynn Resorts plummeted 10.1 percent Friday after the Journal report was published. The Wynn Resorts board of directors formed a committee Friday to investigate the allegations, Reuters reported.

There has been a wave of sexual misconduct claims against celebrities, politicians and media personalities since reports surfaced last year detailing alleged harassment by movie producer Harvey Weinstein. However, this is the first time that the sexual harassment claims have centered on the CEO and founder of a major, publicly held company.

Wynn Resorts said in a statement that there has never been a complaint made about Wynn to the company’s independent hotline for reporting harassment.

“The company requires all employees to receive annual anti-harassment training and offers an independent hotline that any employee can use anonymously, without fear of retaliation,” it said.
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