A Malaysian businessman and his Chinese partners have set their sights on a traditional American pastime — horse racing. As VOA’s Abby Sun reports, two horses partly owned by the China Horse Club are among the top contenders to win this weekend’s Kentucky Derby. Robert Raffaele narrates.
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Month: May 2018
Nigerian, Chinese Central Banks Agree to Currency Swap
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Peoples Bank of China (PBoC) have agreed on a currency swap worth $2.5 billion to reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar in bilateral trade.
CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele led Nigerian officials, while the PBoC governor, Yi Gang, led the Chinese team to the signing ceremony in Beijing last week.
The agreement is aimed at providing sufficient local currency liquidity for Nigerian and Chinese industrialists and other businesses and to reduce difficulties as they search for a third currency.
The deal, purely an exchange of currencies, also will make it easier for Chinese manufacturers seeking to buy raw materials from Nigeria to obtain naira, the Nigerian currency, from Chinese banks to pay for their imports.
According to Nigerian economist Yusha’u Aminu, excluding United States in the agreement would help to lower the exchange rates between both countries.
This report originated in VOA’s Hausa service.
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Cuban Artists Plan to Stage Alternative Havana Biennial
A group of Cuban artists plans on Saturday to launch a biennial independent of state institutions on the Communist-run island, despite fierce opposition from the government, which has called it a “provocative maneuver.”
Organizer Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara said he came up with the idea of the “00Biennial” when the government postponed the official one by a year to 2019, saying it had to prioritize funds on rebuilding after Hurricane Irma.
His project is controversial in a country where the state dominates all aspects of society, including culture, which it has promoted heavily since Cuba’s leftist 1959 revolution. Many Cuban artists told Otero Alcantara they fear their careers could be affected if they participate, he said.
Still, more than 100 artists, including several foreign ones, have agreed to participate and will display their work in the independent studios that have flourished in Havana in recent years, said Otero Alcantara.
That so many Cuban artists are backing the 00Biennial reflects both the eagerness of those already working outside institutions for an alternative platform and the increasing independence of others.
The growth in tourism, the private sector and internet access has made it easier for them to gain visibility and make money.
“I would like… to break with the myth built over 60 years that to do something independent, separate from the state, is the devil, or counterrevolution,” said Otero Alcantara.
Cuba’s National Union of Writers and Artists issued a statement on Thursday saying the 00Biennial aimed to “create a climate propitious to promoting the interests of the enemies of the nation” using “funds of the mercenary counter-revolution.
“We will not allow the name and significance of the Biennale of Havana to be tarnished,” it said.
Cuba’s longtime foe, the United States, has in the past provided funds to promote its alternative arts scene like rap as part of efforts to foster democracy on the island.
Otero Alcantara said he aimed for the 00Biennial to be inclusive and non-political.
But Jorge Fernandez, head of Cuba’s Museum of Fine Arts and director of the last official biennial, said that was either naive or disingenuous.
“Unfortunately, everything that is done in Cuba is politicized,” he said, standing in front of a vibrant work by Cuban surrealist Wifredo Lam inside the museum. “Even if they are not trying to, it can be done from abroad.”
The most famous participant is set to be Cuban performance artist Tania Bruguera, who works in both Havana and New York and won the Tate Modern’s coveted commission for the Turbine Hall this year.
She has had several run-ins with Cuban authorities over works testing the boundaries of freedom of expression, although she still has pieces exhibited on the island. In 2015, she set up an “Institute of Artivism” in her Havana home, holding workshops to “foster civic literacy and policy change.”
Foreign artists said they had not been aware of the controversy surrounding the 00Biennial when they applied to participate.
“I just thought – this is a way to show my work,” said Diego Gil Moreno de Mora, who plans to hang rows of skinned pig heads representing the people society chooses as scapegoats.
Given the 00Biennial’s meager funds, raised mainly through crowdfunding, according to organizers, participants were told they would have to finance their own flights and accommodations, and should present a work they could easily create on site.
One reason for this, they later learned, was that their work risked being confiscated by customs officials at the airport.
Colombian artist Natalia Lopez arrived early to create thousands of cubes of dirt in Havana’s parks for an installation in which visitors would walk on them, turning them once more into part of the earth.
The underlying concept was the importance of the earth as a whole rather than divided into territories, she said.
Some artists operating outside Cuban state institutions, like Osvaldo Navarro, part of the rap group La Alianza, said there was a need for alternative platforms.
He chose to leave the state-run Cuban Rap Agency a few years ago to be more free with his lyrics, but struggled to reach his public due to the state monopoly on the media and spaces.
“I hope they understand what we want to do,” said Navarro, after filming a video for a rap song about the 00Biennial on a Havana rooftop, “which is to showcase artists who don’t have a space elsewhere but who do good, pro-social art.”
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Tesla’s Musk Calls Wall Street Snub ‘Foolish’ but Defends His Behavior
Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk acknowledged on Friday that it was “foolish” of him to snub analysts on a conference call earlier in the week, but further needled Wall Street with a series of accusatory tweets.
In a post-earnings call on Wednesday, Musk refused to answer questions from analysts on the electric vehicle maker’s capital requirements, saying “boring, bonehead questions are not cool,” before turning questions over to a little known investor who runs HyperChange, a YouTube investment channel.
The outspoken performance shocked many analysts, sparked a fall in Tesla’s share price and led some to question whether Musk’s behavior could risk the company’s ability to raise capital.
In early-morning tweets on Friday, Musk said the two analysts he cut off — RBC Capital Markets’ Joseph Spak and Bernstein’s Toni Sacconaghi — “were trying to justify their Tesla short thesis.”
‘Shorting’ means they were betting the stock would fall, but the two have ‘hold’ or ‘neutral’ ratings on the stock, according to Thomson Reuters data. “I should have answered their questions live. It was foolish of me to ignore them,” Musk tweeted.
The two analysts were not immediately available for a comment.
The spat comes at a crunch time for Tesla, when it is struggling to ramp up production of its Model 3 sedan, on which its profitability depends. It is trying to build 5,000 of the vehicles per week by the end of June and overcome manufacturing hurdles that have delayed its rollout.
Although Musk has insisted the company neither needs nor wants new funding, many believe the company will seek to raise more capital by the end of 2018.
Tesla’s stock recovered a little on Friday, up 2.4 percent at $291 in early afternoon trade. But short sellers, who shorted nearly 400,000 shares on Thursday, doubled that amount on Friday, according to financial analytics firm S3 Partners.
“Musk’s meltdown will change Tesla’s ability to raise capital when he needs it with a sector of investors,” said Eric Schiffer, chief executive of the Patriarch Organization, a Los Angeles-based private-equity firm.
“At this critical point, he needs to reinforce confidence, not raise a narrative of him as unstable and whose rational side is lost in space,” said Schiffer, who does not hold Tesla shares.
Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois said the underlying business fundamentals were more important in any capital raise, although “management credibility” was also a factor.
“That has an impact but it’s not something that will prevent them from raising capital,” Houchois said.
Nord LB analyst Frank Schwope said that Musk’s refusal to answer questions or receive criticism was “not very clever” but added that his ability to find new money was still intact.
‘Dry’ questions
The questions Musk cut short on Wednesday related to Model 3 reservations and capital requirements.
“The ‘dry’ questions were not asked by investors, but rather by two sell-side analysts who were trying to justify their Tesla short thesis. They are actually on the opposite side of investors,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
“HyperChange represented actual investors, so I switched to them,” he wrote. On the call, he devoted 23 minutes to 25-year-old Tesla investor, Galileo Russell, who runs HyperChange TV.
At least three brokerages cut price targets on the stock following the call.
Sacconaghi, one of the rebuffed analysts, wrote: “We do worry that such theatrics will unnecessarily undermine investor confidence in Tesla’s outlook.”
Sacconaghi has a price target of $265 on Tesla’s stock and Spak lowered his target to $280 from $305 on Thursday. Tesla’s median Wall Street price target is $317.
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Google to Verify Identity of US Political Ad Buyers
Google said Friday in a blog post that it would do a better job of verifying the identity of political ad buyers in the U.S. by requiring a government-issued ID and other key information.
Google will also require ad buyers to disclose who is paying for the ad. Google executive Kent Walker repeated a pledge he made in November to create a library of such ads that will be searchable by anyone. The goal is to have this ready this summer.
Google’s blog post comes short of declaring support for the Honest Ads Act, a bill that would impose disclosure requirements on online ads, similar to what’s required for television and other media. Facebook and Twitter support that bill.
Google didn’t immediately provide details on how the ID verification would work for online ad buys.
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Top 5 Songs for Week Ending May 5
We’re unwrapping the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending May 5, 2018.
Last week, we had a Hot Shot Debut in the Top Five … that doesn’t happen this time, but we do get a new entry.
Number 5: Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey “The Middle”
It happens in fifth place, where Zedd, Maren Morris and the U.S. duo Grey jump a slot with “The Middle.”
Current pop songs often travel a winding road to the countdown and this is no exception. Variety magazine reports that many singers auditioned for this song before Maren got the nod … among them Charli XCX, Camila Cabello, Carly Rae Jepsen, Tove Lo, Bebe Rexha, Demi Lovato, Elle King and others.
Number 4: Post Malone & Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”
Post Malone and Ty Dolla $ign chill in fourth place with “Psycho.” Post dropped his second album “Beerbongs & Bentleys” on April 27, and it shattered some first-day streaming records. Spotify tweeted that the album posted record numbers both domestically, with 47 million streams, and globally, with 78 million. And that was only on the first day!
Number 3: Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”
Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line continue to dominate the Billboard Hot Country Songs list with “Meant To Be,” while holding in third place on the Hot 100. On April 25, James Cordon’s Carpool Karaoke Twitter page posted a selfie from Bebe and Wiz Khalifa … meaning we should probably look for them both in the popular show’s upcoming season. No release date has yet been announced.
Number 2: Drake “God’s Plan”
It’s no longer your Hot 100 champ, but “God’s Plan” hasn’t fallen far, spending another week in the runner-up slot. Drake’s next album “Scorpion” won’t appear for another month, but the roll-out points to an even bigger opening than “Views” in 2016. Forbes magazine writer Bryan Rolli credits Drake with using his stature to build up others through his music on this album cycle … which benefits everyone.
Number 1: Drake “Nice For What”
We’re not done with Drake yet: “Nice For What” spends a second week atop the Hot 100. Along with debuting atop the Hot 100, it also opened at No. 1 on the Streaming Songs Chart. It’s Drake’s fourth Streaming champ – tying him with Justin Bieber for the most victories on this list.
Will Drake keep his streak alive next week? We’ll find out in seven days.
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More Arrests Expected in Case Against ‘Smallville’ Actress
A prosecutor says more people will be charged in the criminal investigation of a cult-like group that included former “Smallville” actress Allison Mack.
At a court hearing on Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Moira Penza told a judge the government plans to file a new indictment naming more defendants, but he didn’t go into specifics.
Mack appeared at the hearing along with Keith Raniere, the leader of the group NXIVM. Both are charged with coercing women who joined the organization into becoming sex slaves.
Some of the women were branded with a symbol that prosecutors said contained Raniere’s initials.
Mack and Raniere have pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking. They have denied wrongdoing.
Raniere has been held without bail. Mack was freed with restrictions after a court appearance last month.
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Meghan Markle’s Parents to Visit Queen, Have Wedding Roles
Meghan Markle’s divorced parents will meet with Queen Elizabeth II and other royals before her May 19 wedding to Prince Harry and will have special roles in their daughter’s wedding, a palace spokesman said Friday.
At the wedding, the royal couple also plan to honor the memory of the late Princess Diana, Harry’s mother, who died in a Paris car crash in 1997.
Officials didn’t predict the weather — springtime in England can be glorious or horrid, sometimes on the same day — but they outlined plans for a celebration designed to spread from the privileged environs of Windsor Castle throughout Britain and the world, via television and the internet.
Here are some of the plans disclosed by Harry’s press secretary, Jason Knauf, during a briefing at Buckingham Palace:
Meghan’s parents to meet the queen, take part in wedding
Markle’s parents, Thomas Markle and Doria Ragland, will arrive during the week before the May 19 wedding so they have time to meet Harry’s family.
Knauf says they will visit with the queen, her husband Prince Philip, Harry’s father Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, and with Harry’s brother Prince William and his sister-in-law Kate.
Ragland will travel with her daughter by car to Windsor Castle on May 19 and Thomas Markle will walk his daughter down the aisle of St. George’s Chapel for the ceremony.
Knauf says Markle is “delighted” that her parents will be by her side. He did not say whether Markle’s half brother and half sister will attend the wedding.
Princess Diana’s family will have a role as well
The press secretary says Harry is “keen to involve his mother’s family in the wedding” and that all three of Diana’s siblings will be present. One of Diana’s two older sisters, Jane Fellowes, will give a reading during the ceremony to represent Diana’s family.
No Maid of Honor
Markle, an American actress who came to prominence in the TV series “Suits,” will not have a maid of honor during the ceremony.
Harry has chosen William as his best man.
Young bridesmaids and page boys
Knauf says all the bridesmaids and page boys will be children. That may mean a role for Prince George, 4, and Princess Charlotte, 3, the children of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge. But don’t bother looking for Prince Louis — born in late April — as the youngest prince will not attend the wedding.
Don’t ask about the dress
Palace officials are determined that the style and designer of Markle’s wedding gown will be kept secret until the moment she gets out of the car to walk into the chapel. They say this tradition is very important — but that won’t keep speculators from trying to guess who has received the most important dressmaking assignment of the year.
Separated the night before
The press secretary says Harry and Markle will spend the night before the wedding apart. They have been living together in recent months since announcing their engagement. They will spend their first night as a married couple in Windsor Castle.
Good wishes for Prince Philip’s health
Palace officials say they’re hopeful that 96-year-old Prince Philip, Harry’s grandfather, will be well enough to attend the wedding festivities . The queen’s husband has been recovering from hip replacement surgery and has not participated in any public events since being discharged from the hospital in mid-April.
Follow the wedding at home
The palace plans to publish the Order of Service on its website the morning of the wedding so people watching it on television will be better able to follow what’s taking place inside the church.
Delayed honeymoon
Knauf would not reveal where the newest royal couple will spend their honeymoon, but he said they won’t be leaving right after the wedding. Instead they plan to make their first public appearance as a married couple during the week following the ceremony. In the past, they have traveled in Africa together.
your ads here!US Adds Modest 164,000 Jobs; Unemployment Down
U.S. employers stepped up hiring modestly in April, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent, evidence of the economy’s resilience amid the recent stock market chaos and anxieties about a possible trade war.
Job growth amounted to a decent 164,000 last month, up from an upwardly revised 135,000 in March. The unemployment rate fell after having held at 4.1 percent for the prior six months largely because fewer people were searching for jobs.
The overall unemployment rate is now the lowest since December 2000. The rate for African-Americans — 6.6 percent — is the lowest on record since 1972.
Many employers say it’s difficult to find qualified workers. But they have yet to significantly bump up pay in most industries. Average hourly earnings rose 2.6 percent from a year ago.
WATCH: US Unemployment Rate 3.9 Percent, Lowest Since 2000
The pace of hiring has yet to be disrupted by dramatic global market swings, a recent pickup in inflation and the risk that the tariffs being pushed by President Donald Trump could provoke a trade war.
Much of the economy’s strength, for the moment, comes from the healthy job market. The increase in people earning paychecks has bolstered demand for housing, even though fewer properties are being listed for sale. Consumer confidence has improved over the past year. And more people are shopping, with retail sales having picked up in March after three monthly declines.
Workers in the private sector during the first three months of 2018 enjoyed their sharpest average income growth in 11 years, the Labor Department said last week in a separate report on compensation. That pay growth suggests that some of the momentum from the slow but steady recovery from the 2008 financial crisis is spreading to more people after it had disproportionately benefited the nation’s wealthiest areas and highest earners.
The monthly jobs reports have shown pay raises inching up. At the same time, employers have become less and less likely to shed workers. The four-week moving average for people applying for first-time unemployment benefits has reached its lowest level since 1973.
The trend reflects a decline in mass layoffs. Many companies expect the economy to keep expanding, especially after a dose of stimulus from tax cuts signed into law by Trump that have also increased the federal budget deficit.
Inflation has shown signs of accelerating slightly, eroding some of the potential wage growth. Consumer prices rose at a year-over-year pace of 2.4 percent in March, the sharpest annual increase in 12 months. The Federal Reserve has an annual inflation target of 2 percent, and investors expect the Fed to raise rates at least twice more this year, after an earlier rate hike in March, to keep inflation from climbing too far above that target.
The home market, a critical component of the U.S. economy, has been a beneficiary of the steady job growth. The National Association of Realtors said that homes sold at a solid annual pace of 5.6 million in March, even though the number of houses for sale has plunged. As a result, average home prices are rising at more than twice the pace of wages.
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Some Parents More Wary of Vaccines Than Diseases They Prevent
Dr. Paul Offit is an infectious disease specialist and an expert in vaccines. He’s been at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia since 1992. Since then he says not a year has gone by when he has not seen a child die from a vaccine-preventable disease. It’s largely, he says, because the parents chose not to vaccinate their child.
Far from Philadelphia, along the rugged border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, health workers are desperately trying to vaccinate every child against polio so no child will ever again suffer the crippling effects of this disease. If they can complete this task, polio will be a disease of the past.
Offit says the difference between parents in this mountainous border region of southcentral Asia and those in the U.S. is that in Pakistan and Afghanistan, people know the devastating consequences of polio. He says previous generations in the U.S. did, too.
WAYCH: Some Parents More Wary of Vaccines Than the Diseases Vaccines Prevent
“For my parents, who were children of the 1920s and 1930s, they saw diphtheria as a routine killer of teenagers. They saw polio as a common crippler of children and young adults, so you didn’t have to convince them to vaccinate me, my brother and sister.”
Offit says parents in his generation were also quick to vaccinate their children.
“I had measles. I had mumps. I had German measles (rubella). I had the chickenpox so I know what those diseases felt like, and it was miserable,” he said.
23 viruses, two cancers
Vaccines can prevent 23 viruses and two types of cancer, and more vaccines are in the works, including one for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Offit is the co-inventor of a life-saving rotavirus vaccine.
But some parents are not getting their children vaccinated. Last year there were more than 14,000 cases of measles in Europe, mostly in Romania. Nearly 40 children died. It exasperates health officials like Miljana Grbic, head of the World Health Assembly in Romania.
“We cannot fight this disease if we do not increase vaccination coverage,” she said. “… But we also have to understand why vaccination coverage is going down.”
For some parents, it’s the inconvenience of the trip to the doctor’s office. Others think good hygiene and nutrition are all children need to stay healthy. Still others believe vaccines can give their children autism, diabetes and other diseases.
Offit says persuading these parents to vaccinate their children is hard.
“It’s hard to compel people to vaccinate against something that they don’t fear,” he said. “And when they don’t fear that, what they’ll do is, they’ll fear the vaccines, and I think that’s where we’re at.”
Vaccine refusal spreads
A study published in BMJ suggests that in the U.S., vaccine refusal is contagious. It spreads from communities with a high number of parents who oppose vaccines to other communities nearby when parents who oppose vaccines talk to their friends and parents of their children’s schoolmates.
“Collectively, this factor is driving vaccine refusal and delay,” said Professor Tony Yang, one of the principal authors of the study.
Yang, from George Mason University, and his co-authors looked at the number of non-medical exemptions for vaccines from 2000 to 2013. They found these exemptions increased in geographical clusters.
Some governments are now making it harder for parents not to immunize their children. After a measles outbreak, California passed more restrictive laws. Yang says parents trust their pediatricians, so health care providers need to be more pro-active in getting children vaccinated.
Australia HPV work
Despite hesitancy in some parts of the world, some countries are leading the way in promoting vaccines. Australia has provided the HPV vaccine to school-aged girls since 2007.
The Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, the second most common type of cancer in women worldwide. It also causes head and neck cancers and genital warts.
By 2013, a study showed a significant reduction in the number of young women with abnormal cells of the cervix and a 90 percent decline in genital warts in young women.
Cervical cancer takes 20 to 30 years to develop. By 2035, Australia expects to see up to a 45 percent decline in deaths from cervical cancer all because of a vaccine and the government’s policy.
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Some Parents More Wary of Vaccines Than the Diseases Vaccines Prevent
Vaccines can prevent 23 viruses and two types of cancer, and more vaccines are in the works, including one for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Yet, despite these advances, many people choose to avoid getting these vaccinations for themselves and for their children. VOA’s Carol Pearson has more.
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After Sex Scandal, No Nobel Prize in Literature This Year
The Nobel Prize in literature will not be awarded this year following sex-abuse allegations and other issues that have damaged the public image of the Swedish Academy that selects the winner.
The academy said Friday the 2018 prize will be given in 2019. The decision was made at a weekly meeting in Stockholm a day earlier, on the grounds that the academy is in no shape to pick a winner after a string of sex abuse allegations and financial crimes scandals.
“We find it necessary to commit time to recovering public confidence in the Academy before the next laureate can be announced,” Anders Olsson, the academy’s permanent secretary, said in a statement. He said the academy was acting “out of respect for previous and future literature laureates, the Nobel Foundation and the general public.”
It will be the first time since World War II that the prestigious award is not handed out. Last year, Japanese-born British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro won the prize.
Sexual abuse scandal
The Swedish Academy’s internal feud was triggered by an abuse scandal linked to Jean-Claude Arnault, a major cultural figure in Sweden who is also the husband of poet Katarina Frostenson, an academy member.
The academy later admitted in a report that “unacceptable behavior in the form of unwanted intimacy” took place within its ranks, but its handling of the allegations shredded the body’s credibility, called into question its judgment and forced its first female leader to resign.
A debate over how to face up to its flaws also divided its 18 members, who are appointed for life, into hostile camps and prompted seven members of the prestigious institution to leave or disassociate themselves from the secretive group.
At this week’s meeting, members agreed to review the academy’s operating practices, according to a statement released by the body.
The academy said that “work on the selection of a laureate is at an advanced stage and will continue as usual in the months ahead but the Academy needs time to regain its full complement.”
Nobel Foundation
The Nobel Foundation reacted promptly, saying it presumes that the academy “will now put all its efforts into the task of restoring its credibility as a prize-awarding institution and that the Academy will report the concrete actions that are undertaken.”
“We also assume that all members of the Academy realise that both its extensive reform efforts and its future organizational structure must be characterized by greater openness toward the outside world,” Carl-Henrik Heldin, the chairman of the Nobel Foundation Board said in a separate statement.
Allegations denied
Last fall, Dagens Nyheter, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, published sexual misconduct claims from 18 women against Arnault, who runs a cultural center the academy used to help fund.
Arnault also has been suspected of violating century-old Nobel rules by leaking names of winners of the prestigious award, allegedly seven times, starting in 1996. It was not clear to whom the names were allegedly disclosed.
Bjorn Hurtig, the lawyer for the 71-year-old Arnault, has denied the allegations, telling The Associated Press that his client is the victim of “a witch hunt” and the claims “may only have the purpose of harming” him.
Other missed years
The world’s most prestigious prizes in science, medicine, literature and peacemaking have been withheld 49 times in all since the honors based on the will of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel began in 1901.
No Nobel prizes at all were awarded during the World War II years of 1940-42. The Nobel literature prize has not been given out on seven occasions so far: 1914, 1918, 1935 and 1940-43 — in 1935 because no literature candidate was deemed worthy of the prize.
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At Tribeca Film Festival, Digital, Physical Worlds Mix
Bombs. Destruction. Chaos. This is what it’s like to be in Syria.
It’s a part of the world many will never visit, but a virtual reality experience called “Hero,” puts viewers on the ground there.
“Hero” was part of the Immersive program at the recent Tribeca Film Festival in New York, where it won an award for its innovative approach to storytelling. More than 30 virtual reality and augmented reality projects were on display at the event.
Not a ‘lean back’ experience
Virtual reality fans say they love the technology for its ability to transport and immerse them in new worlds. More and more, these experiences are becoming physical and interactive, not just a “lean back” experience where the viewer watches passively.
For “Hero,” viewers don a high resolution headset by StarVR and an HP Z VR backpack, a wearable computer that allows for an untethered, free-roaming VR experience.
In real life, users are instructed to close their eyes as a guide leads them by the hand into a room constructed with surfaces and objects that correspond to what they’ll see as the film starts.
When a bomb drops out of the sky, it’s not only the noise that’s unsettling, but the grit and gravel that they suddenly feel against their skin. As the dust settles, a young child’s voice faintly calls out for help. Participants can find and rescue her.
“That moment when a person realizes they can actually step around, they can actually lean on a thing, they can reach out and touch a wall, they can grab a piece of rebar, it’s a powerful moment,” said Brooks Brown, global director of Starbreeze Studios, one of the key collaborators behind “Hero.”
For a few unnerving minutes during the search for the child, disbelief is suspended. The combination of realistic graphics and participants’ ability to physically navigate the terrain makes it feel as if real lives might be in danger.
Different impact
When it comes to war-torn Syria, “We’ve seen movies about it and documentaries, and yet none of them have this same kind of impact” as a VR experience, said Navid Khonsari, founder of iNK Stories, which created “Hero.”
“When you’re fully encompassed in it, when everything is stripped away and you’re actually in that experience, then only can you acknowledge what’s actually taking place for others,” Khonsari said.
For Mathias Chelebourg, a virtual reality director, live VR experiences represent “the birth of a new format.” Chelebourg is the director of the VR experience “Jack: Part One,” which was also part of the virtual reality lineup at Tribeca.
Viewers are in the movie
In the retelling of the children’s fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk, viewers can pick up and move physical props and interact with live actors who are outfitted with motion capture markers. Cameras track the markers and movements are rendered simultaneously in virtual reality.
With a format that mixes reality and fantasy, it can take some getting used to, even for the actors.
“Some people don’t dare to move, to touch or just, respond,” said Maria McClurg, one of the actresses in Jack. “Some people give me a really hard time,” she added. “As a performer, it’s always interesting. And at the same time you’re like, ‘How am I going to get through this?’”
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Venezuela to Take Over Major Bank; 11 Execs Arrested
Venezuela said on Thursday it would take over the country’s leading private bank, Banesco, for 90 days and announced the arrest of 11 top executives for “attacks” against the country’s rapidly depreciating bolivar currency.
The detentions came on the heels of last month’s shock arrests of two Venezuelan executives working in the country for U.S. oil company Chevron Corp.
Oil-rich Venezuela is suffering from hyperinflation and a steady collapse of the bolivar currency, which President Nicolas Maduro has attributed to an “economic war,” but critics blame on incompetence and failed socialist policies.
Maduro’s foes say he is cracking down on the business sector to try to shore up support and halt price increases ahead of a controversial May 20 presidential election, which key opposition parties have boycotted as a sham.
Chief Prosecutor Tarek Saab announced the arrests in a televised press conference, but did not provide evidence of wrongdoing or take any questions.
“We have determined the [executives’] presumed responsibility for a series of irregularities, for aiding and concealing attacks against the Venezuelan currency with the aim of demolishing the Venezuelan currency,” said Saab, a former ruling party governor.
State television late on Thursday broadcast a statement announcing the temporary takeover of Banesco, which the government said was designed to ensure the bank continues operating.
The government also said it would be appointing a board of directors led by the country’s vice finance minister, Yomana Koteich.
Banesco’s president, Juan Carlos Escotet, who lives in Spain, earlier blasted the arrests as “disproportionate” and said he was flying to Venezuela to try to free the 11 executives, who include Chief Executive Oscar Doval.
“In the next few hours, I’m taking a plane for Venezuela. We’re going to knock on every door so that this problem is cleared up and they are freed as they deserve to be,” Escotet, who was born in Venezuela to Spanish parents and holds both nationalities, said in a video posted on Twitter.
Escotet has been a frequent target of criticism by ruling party heavyweight Diosdado Cabello, who recently announced that the government was buying Banesco. Escotet denied any sale.
Escotet temporarily excused himself from his role as chairman of Galicia-based bank ABANCA, the bank said in a statement to Spain’s stock market regulator on Thursday.
‘More crisis and misery’
Venezuela’s opposition said the arrests were another sign of Maduro’s turn to authoritarianism.
“The irresponsible government … continues to deny its responsibility in the destruction of our bolivar. Now they’re attacking Banesco. [This] … will only spawn more crisis and misery,” tweeted opposition lawmaker Carlos Valero.
Venezuela maintains exchange controls under which the government is meant to provide hard currency at a steadily weakening official rate, currently 69,000 bolivars per dollar.
But the dollar is fetching around 800,000 bolivars in unofficial trade, which government officials have for years harshly criticized but broadly tolerated.
Hyperinflation has turned once-powerful banks into warehouses of unwanted and mostly useless cash worth a total of only $40 million, according to a recent Reuters analysis of regulatory data.
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Ex-Volkswagen Boss Indicted in Emissions Scandal
A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn with conspiracy and wire fraud in the car builder’s scheme to rig diesel emissions tests.
“If you try to deceive the United States, then you will pay a heavy price,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Thursday. “The indictment unsealed today alleges that Volkswagen’s scheme to cheat its legal requirements went all the way to the top of the company.”
Winterkorn is alleged to have conspired with other top Volkswagen bosses to defraud the U.S. government and consumers with false claims that the company was complying with the Clean Air Act.
Volkswagen already admitted it installed devices on diesel models designed to turn on pollution control devices during emissions tests and turn them off when the car is driven on actual highways.
Volkswagen was fined $2.5 billion and ordered to recall the affected cars.
Winkerton is the ninth Volkswagen executive or employee to be charged. However, he currently lives in Germany, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, and is unlikely ever to see the inside of the U.S. courtroom.
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IOC to Challenge Russian Doping Cases at Swiss Supreme Court
The International Olympic Committee will appeal to Switzerland’s supreme court against rulings that cleared some Russian athletes of doping sanctions from the Sochi Games.
The Olympic body is “not satisfied at all” by the verdicts and written explanations from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, IOC President Thomas Bach said Thursday after an executive board meeting.
The Swiss Federal Tribunal, also based in Lausanne, can overturn CAS verdicts if the legal process was abused, though appeals rarely succeed.
“The chances of winning did not play a role in our discussion,” Bach said at a news conference. “The only factor which led us to this decision was the protection of the clean athletes who have finished behind the Russian athletes who have not been declared innocent.”
Days before the Pyeongchang Winter Games in February, two CAS judging panels upheld appeals of 28 Russian athletes against IOC sanctions that included being subjected to Olympic life bans and being stripped of their Sochi results.
CAS said the IOC’s investigations in those cases did not prove doping offenses, while also stressing the 28 were not formally declared innocent of taking part in orchestrated cheating.
The verdicts irritated Olympic leaders who believed the sports court applied the burden of proof of a criminal case. Sports law in a civil court like CAS typically requires cases to be proven to the “comfortable satisfaction” of judges.
Bach said on Thursday the IOC had “put ourselves into the shoes” of athletes who would want the Russian appeal victories evaluated again.
A further 11 Russians lost their appeals at CAS, which confirmed their Sochi disqualifications.
The Russian athletes’ urgent appeals to CAS followed a slew of IOC disciplinary hearings late last year to process the cases before the Pyeongchang Games, where some hoped to compete.
The IOC disqualified 43 Russians from their Sochi Olympics results for doping offenses. Those cases sought to verify allegations and evidence presented by World Anti-Doping Agency-appointed investigator Richard McLaren and Russian whistle-blower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of testing laboratories in Moscow and Sochi.
In one detailed verdict published two weeks ago, the CAS judges found flaws in the evidence-gathering and conclusions of the two star witnesses. Rodchenkov testified from a secret location in the United States, where he is in a witness protection program.
A 154-page document detailed why a three-man CAS panel upheld the appeal of cross-country skier Alexander Legkov. He was reinstated as the gold medalist in the 50-kilometer freestyle race and the silver medalist in the 4×10-kilometer relay from the Sochi Games.
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More Women Accuse Rose; Some Say They Alerted CBS Managers
With 27 more women accusing former news anchor Charlie Rose of sexual misconduct, a report Thursday calls into question CBS News’ claims that his behavior was a surprise before he was fired last November.
The Washington Post said that on least three occasions prior to that, women reported discomfort about Rose’s actions to superiors. Rose was fired as CBS This Morning anchor and PBS canceled his interview show after an earlier Post report on women who said he groped them, made lewd remarks or walked around naked around them.
In one new allegation, a former research assistant said Rose exposed his penis and touched her breasts when they worked at NBC News’ Washington bureau in 1976.
The Post said Rose, 76, told the newspaper in an email that its story was inaccurate and unfair.
Allegations
Since Rose was fired, CBS News said it has taken steps to ensure a safer workplace, including mandatory misconduct training. Network news President David Rhodes and other key managers have said they were unaware of Rose’s actions. Yet the Post outlined three episodes where word had reportedly spread:
- Annmarie Parr was a 22-year-old news clerk in 1986 when she handed Rose a script and he asked whether she enjoyed sex and how often she liked to have it. She told a senior producer about it and said she didn’t want to be alone with Rose, and said her boss laughed and said, “Fine, you don’t have to be alone with him anymore.”
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In 2011, a woman who worked at CBS This Morning said Rose forcibly kissed her at a holiday party. She complained to the show’s top producer, Chris Licht, but asked him not to tell human resources about it. Licht told the newspaper he followed her wishes and also talked to Rose about the incident.
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A 24-year-old woman who worked the night shift was noticed by Rose last year. He began taking her to expensive restaurants and talked about other jobs. The executive assistant to the show’s new producer, Ryan Kadro, said she told her boss about the attention Rose was paying to the young woman, and said he did not seem alarmed. Kadro disputed that she told him about inappropriate behavior.
Some of the women told the Post they feared reporting bad behavior to their bosses because the network was more concerned about the male TV personalities. “I had been there long enough to know that it was just the way things went,” said Sophie Gayter, 27, who said Rose groped her while they walked down a hall. “People said what they wanted to you. People did what they wanted to you.”
‘Boys will be boys’
Eleanor McManus, co-founder of Press Forward, a group of women who have been victims of sexual misconduct in newsrooms, said the Post report illustrated a systematic problem across news organizations that needed to be addressed.
“It’s pretty clear that there were people in management who were aware that there was a problem, and nothing was done,” McManus told The Associated Press on Thursday. With the stories that have come out about the likes of Rose, Matt Lauer and Mark Halperin, the networks are making strides but women need to know they can report wrongdoings without repercussions, she said.
Marcy McGinnis, who was senior vice president of newsgathering at CBS News when she left in 2005, said she didn’t know Rose but knew he had a reputation as a “ladies man.” His behavior never came up at senior staff meetings, she said, and she was surprised as others when she read about Rose’s behavior.
“This just proves how important it is for people in positions of authority to believe people when they come forward with complaints, instead of brushing them off [by saying] ‘boys will be boys’ or ‘that’s just Charlie,”‘ McGinnis said.
CBS News said it could not confirm or corroborate many of the stories told by the Post.
“We continue to look for ways to improve our workplace and this period of reflection and action has been important to all of us,” the network said.
The network recently appointed a working group led by Karen Raffensberger, CBS standards director, to look at the structure of how CBS handles complaints of inappropriate behavior.
For many years, Rose did his PBS interview show at the same time he worked for CBS, and the Post story also examined his behavior there. In 2003, a then-20-year-old intern was brought by Rose on a trip to California, where she alleged that he squeezed her breast while on a car ride. The woman said she complained to PBS management and was told that Rose was harmless.
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‘Black Panther’ Knocks Out ‘Infinity War’ in MTV Movie Nominations
Superhero movie Black Panther scored a leading seven nominations Thursday for the MTV Movie & TV awards, delivering a knockout punch to box-office blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War.
Supernatural television show Stranger Things landed six nods, MTV announced, including a best performance nomination for 14-year-old Millie Bobby Brown who will also compete in the fan favorite best kiss category.
The youth-oriented TV network, known for its irreverent award shows, again dispensed with gender classifications, placing men and women together in performance categories in a move to embrace equality and gender fluidity.
Other entries in the best kiss category include the Ferris wheel scene between actors Nick Robinson (Simon) and Keiynan Lonsdale (Bram) in popular teen coming out movie Love, Simon.
The MTV awards show, to be held in June in Los Angeles, features the stars of blockbuster productions and has established itself as an antidote to the winter Hollywood awards season, which honors more serious fare. Winners are chosen by fans voting online.
Black Panther got nominations for Chadwick Boseman as both best hero and best performance, as well as Michael B. Jordan (best villain), Letitia Wright (scene stealer), best fight for the battle between Boseman’s Black Panther and Winston Duke’s M’Baku, and best movie.
Avengers: Infinity War, which assembles more than 20 Marvel superheroes and set a new world record for its opening weekend box office, got three nominations, including best fight, best villain (Josh Brolin’s Thanos) and best movie.
Other best movie nominees included Wonder Woman, horror movie IT and comedy Girls Trip, while best TV shows nods went to teen suicide drama 13 Reasons Why, Game of Thrones, Riverdale, and grown-ish.
Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver scored nods as best hero and best villain respectively for their roles in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, although their lightsaber battles failed to make the cut in the race for best fight.
Girls Trip breakout star Tiffany Haddish will host the MTV Movie & TV Awards ceremony on June 18.
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US Trade Deficit Narrows Sharply; Labor Market Tightening
The U.S. trade deficit narrowed sharply in March as exports increased to a record high amid a surge in deliveries of commercial aircraft and soybeans, bolstering the economy’s outlook heading into the second quarter.
While other data on Thursday showed a modest increase in new applications for jobless benefits last week, the number of Americans receiving unemployment aid fell to its lowest level since 1973, pointing to tightening labor market conditions.
Wage growth is also rising, with hourly compensation accelerating in the first quarter, more evidence that inflation pressures are building.
“The good news is that we are exporting more, but with the labor markets incredibly tight, labor costs are accelerating as well,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “The rise in labor costs will undoubtedly factor into policymakers’ thinking when they meet again in June.”
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged. The Fed said policymakers expected “economic activity will expand at a moderate pace in the medium term and labor market conditions will remain strong.”
The Commerce Department said the trade deficit tumbled 15.2 percent to $49.0 billion in March, the lowest level since September. The trade gap widened to $57.7 billion in February, which was the highest level since October 2008.
March’s decline ended six straight monthly increases in the trade deficit. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the trade gap narrowing to $50.0 billion in March.
The politically sensitive goods trade deficit with China dropped 11.6 percent to $25.9 billion, which will probably do little to ease tensions between the United States and China.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs on up to $150 billion worth of Chinese goods to punish Beijing over its joint-venture requirements and other policies Washington says force American companies to surrender their intellectual property to state-backed Chinese competitors.
China, which denies it coerces such technology transfers, has threatened retaliation in equal measure, including tariffs on U.S. soybeans and aircraft. A U.S. trade delegation arrived in China on Thursday for trade talks.
Trump, who claims the United States is being taken advantage of by its trading partners, has already imposed broad tariffs on imported solar panels and large washing machines. He recently slapped 25 percent import duties on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.
The Trump administration argues that the perennial trade deficit is holding back economic growth. The government reported last week that trade contributed 0.20 percentage point to the first quarter’s 2.3 percent annualized growth pace. The economy grew at a 2.9 percent rate in the fourth quarter.
Brightening prospects
Prospects for the economy are brightening. In a separate report, the Labor Department said initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ended April 28.
Claims remained near a more than 48-year low of 209,000 touched during the week ended April 21. The labor market is considered to be near or at full employment. The unemployment rate is at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, close to the Fed’s forecast of 3.8 percent by the end of this year.
The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid dropped 77,000 to 1.76 million in the week ended April 21, the lowest level since December 1973. With labor conditions tightening, wage growth is picking up.
A second report from the Labor Department showed hourly worker compensation accelerated at a 3.4 percent rate in the first quarter after rising at a 2.4 percent pace in the October-December period. It increased at a 2.5 percent rate compared to the first quarter of 2017.
Prices for U.S. Treasuries were trading higher, while the dollar was little changed against a basket of currencies. U.S. stocks were lower.
In March, exports of goods and services increased 2.0 percent to an all-time high of $208.5 billion, lifted by a $1.9 billion increase in shipments of commercial aircraft. There were also increases in exports of soybeans, corn and crude oil. Real goods exports were the highest on record.
Exports to China jumped 26.3 percent in March.
Imports of goods and services fell 1.8 percent to $257.5 billion, in part as the boost from royalties and broadcast license fees related to the Winter Olympics faded. Imports of capital goods fell by $1.5 billion, weighed down by declines in imports of computer accessories, telecommunications equipment and semiconductors.
Imports of consumer goods decreased by $0.9 billion. Crude oil imports dropped by $0.5 billion in March. Imports from China fell 2.1 percent.
Another report from the Commerce Department showed factory goods orders rose 1.6 percent in March after a similar increase in February. The department, however, revised March orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, which are seen as a measure of business spending plans, to show them falling 0.4 percent instead of dipping 0.1 percent as reported last month.
Orders for these so-called core capital goods rose 1.0 percent in February. Shipments of core capital goods, which are used to calculate business equipment spending in the gross domestic product report, declined 0.8 percent in March instead of the 0.7 percent drop reported last month.
March’s drop in core capital goods orders and shipments suggest business spending on equipment is slowing.
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Chad Gets 6 Rhinos Nearly 50 Years After Losing the Species
Six critically endangered black rhinos are being transported from South Africa to Chad, restoring the species to the country in north-central Africa nearly half a century after it was wiped out there.
African Parks, a Johannesburg-based conservation group, said Thursday that the rhinos will travel by air to Zakouma National Park, a reserve in Chad that it manages with the government.
The group says the goal is to help the long-term survival of black rhinos and to restore biodiversity in Chad. It says there are fewer than 25,000 rhinos in the African wild, of which about 20 percent are black rhinos and the rest white rhinos.
Most of the rhinos are in South Africa, though the population has been hit hard by poachers supplying horns to an illegal Asian market.
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South Korea Developing Economic Projects for North Korea
South Korea is looking into developing and financing economic projects with North Korea that could take effect if a nuclear deal is reached with the United States.
South Korean Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said on Wednesday the government was “internally carrying out preparations” to organize, finance and implement possible inter-Korea projects. But he also emphasized that Seoul would first seek support from the international community for any North Korean development projects, and would only proceed if the U.S. -North Korea summit, expected to be held in late May or June, produces a joint denuclearization agreement.
North Korea is under tough sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear weapons and missiles tests, including accelerated efforts in the last two years to develop a long-range nuclear missile that could potentially target the U.S. mainland. The international sanctions ban an estimated 90 percent of the country’s external trade.
Seeking sanctions relief is considered a key motivating factor in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s diplomatic pivot this year to suspend further provocative missile and nuclear tests, and to engage in talks to dismantle his nuclear arsenal.
But easing sanctions would make it more difficult to enforce the North’s denuclearization promises.
“Once the sanctions are lifted, North Korea will gain autonomy over its trade, and considering its low labor costs and skilled workforce, I think the North Korean economy would gain power again,” said Shin Beom-chul, the director of Center for Security and Unification at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted he will keep sanctions in place until North Korea completely dismantles its nuclear program.
Infrastructure projects
South Korea, however, is considering a range of economic incentives to encourage Kim to follow through on a nuclear deal with Trump. But these investments are prohibited by the U.N. sanctions and would require a Security Council exemption to proceed.
At the recent inter-Korean summit, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to increase economic cooperation, in addition to supporting the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Developing modern railways that would connect South and North Korea to Russia and China were specifically mentioned in their joint statement. Other possible projects include improving seaports, as well as building roads and electrical power plants in the impoverished and underdeveloped North.
The cost of these infrastructure projects could cost more than $65 billion, and would require extensive financing, as South Korea currently has only $1 billion in its Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund that was established for this purpose.
If North Korea does give up its nuclear weapons, there will likely be economic aid provided by strategic regional powers, including the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. But South Korea is taking a proactive role to be a major investor in developing the North’s mineral trade and other markets.
“It is expected that South Korea will carry most of the costs. In fact there are many economic resources that are strategically valuable in developing North Korea,” said Joung Eun-lee, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
Peacetime economy
Funding infrastructure projects could also help transition the North to a peacetime economy, even while the trade sanctions remain in place.
The two Koreas have agreed to pursue a peace treaty to replace the armistice put in place at the end of the Korean War in 1953. If implemented, North Korea would likely be expected to significantly reduce its conventional forces that currently include over one million soldiers.
International funding could also be used to provide jobs for former soldiers to work on building roads, bridges and other needed development projects.
“It is not so much the relaxation of the trade sanctions as it is subsidized infrastructure development. That is what North Korea needs upfront,” said Bruce Bennett, a North Korea analyst at the Rand Corporation research organization.
South Korea had invested billions of dollars into North Korean development projects in the past, like the Kaesong Industrial Complex that employed over 5,000 North Korean workers before it was shut down in 2016 following a nuclear test, and the Kumgang Mountain tourism program that ended when a South Korean visitor was shot by a North Korean soldier in 2008.
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Analysts Pessimistic About Progress in US-China Trade Talks
A high-level U.S. trade delegation has begun talks with Chinese officials in Beijing as Washington tries to address deep concerns about China’s economic policies. The meeting is seen by some as a positive step, as the two sides attempt to avoid the possible outbreak of a trade war. Analysts say it is unlikely their differences will be resolved during the meetings but a decision to keep talking would be welcome progress.
President Donald Trump said on Twitter U.S. officials are “trying to negotiate a level playing field on trade.”
Raymond Yeung, a senior economist for Greater China at the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, says if the two sides can at least agree to keep talking with each other that would be big progress.
“I think it is too demanding to expect that both sides can come up with an agreement or an announcement or sign a deal,” Yeung said. “But if they are able to promise that they are willing to sit down and continue the dialogue and try and resolve their differences, at least that would signal that the relationship between the two governments is warming up.”
Differences over trade policy and market access have been a persistent concern for the United States and other foreign investors in China. In recent weeks, the debate has become even more heated with President Trump threatening to slap a long $50 billion list of tariffs on Chinese goods to punish Beijing for what his administration calls its unfair trade practices: forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights and state subsidies for technology development.
Beijing has denied Washington’s accusations and insists its market is opening. It recently pledged to do away with a 25 percent tariff on imported foreign cars, albeit by 2022. The Chinese government has also responded with threats of its own, saying that if the U.S. presses ahead with tariffs it will respond in kind.
The seven-member U.S. delegation is led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and is meeting with a group of Chinese officials led by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, a close aide to China’s president, Xi Jinping.
Although it is difficult to predict how the meetings will turn out, Liao Qun, chief economist at China CITIC Bank International, says it is a positive sign that both sides have a desire to sit down and negotiate. How much can be accomplished, depends on Washington, he says.
“It depends on how big Washington’s expectations are and how big its demands for reform and opening up of the Chinese market,” Liao says. “China will make some concessions, but if Washington’s appetite is too big, that will be tough for Beijing to accept.”
Since Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012, China has taken big steps to increase the central government and the communist party’s control over the economy and business, even as Beijing pledges to continue to further open its markets.
In 2015, the government unveiled a key policy plan called Made in China 2025, a plan that aims to make China dominant in 10 major next generation industries from robotics to electric cars, artificial intelligence, bio-tech and aerospace, among others. An investigation by the Trump administration into China’s unfair trade practices mentions the policy more than 100 times.
The policy clearly sets goals for domestic industries to dominate over foreign players in the Chinese market and globally. Beijing has characterized President Trump’s threats to tax exports and attack the government’s policies as an attempt to contain China and force the Chinese market to become more open, something that officials and state media have repeatedly stressed will never happen.
Bridging such a huge gap during two days of talks will be difficult, says Christopher Balding, a professor at Peking University’s HSBC Business School.
“I would be somewhat surprised if there was any real change in the negotiating stance of either party. Specifically China, they don’t want to open their markets, that’s the fundamental point,” Balding says.
He says the best that could be hoped for is that the two can find enough room to compromise to not go forward with the trade war. But these disputes are unlike any other in recent history, he adds.
“This is about how disputes are settled: About how one country views the international system as compared to the other. This is about how one country views how a country should be run and how they have conflicting views of those two things,” Balding says.
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