U.S.-based Sunoco Pipelines has agreed to pay hefty fines and make procedural changes after it was found in violation of state and federal environmental laws in connection to oil spills in three states. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma said Sunoco Pipelines and its Louisiana partner Mid-Valley Pipeline Company have agreed to make amends for the spills that occurred in 2013, 2014 and 2015. 

Sunoco has also agreed to take additional steps to prevent and detect corrosion in its pipeline segments, including in the ones no longer in use by the company. 

“This excellent result shows how a strong federal and state partnership can bring about effective environmental enforcement to protect local communities in these states,” said Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

The fines of more than $5 million will be used to restore waterway shorelines when disasters strike, including other oil spills. 

“Our nation relies on the oil and gas sector to meet our energy needs, and we also expect companies to do so while protecting our vital water resources,” said EPA Regional Administrator Ann Idsal. “Companies who violate this responsibility must face consequences and assure their future compliance.”
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Whether it’s haggling for a better price or negotiating for a higher salary, there is a skill to getting the most of what you want. Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies are conducting research on how a virtual negotiator may be able to teach you the art of making a good deal. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Whether it’s haggling for a better price or negotiating for a higher salary, there is a skill to getting the most of what you want. Researchers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies are conducting research on how a virtual negotiator may be able to teach you the art of making a good deal. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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An Egyptian court has sentenced the deputy governor of the country’s second-largest city to 12 years in prison on corruption charges.

The Cairo criminal court also sentenced Souad el-Kholy, deputy governor of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, to a one-year suspended sentence for bribery, profiteering and squandering public funds on Wednesday. The court acquitted five local businessmen in the same case.

El-Kholy can appeal the verdict against her.

She became Alexandria’s deputy governor in 2015 and was arrested two years later, in October 2017, in a case linked to illegal seizures of state land, illegal construction and building violations. She is the most senior female official to be arrested on corruption charges.

Alexandria is notorious for illegal construction and demolition of historical buildings to make way for high-rise apartment towers.
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An Egyptian court has sentenced the deputy governor of the country’s second-largest city to 12 years in prison on corruption charges.

The Cairo criminal court also sentenced Souad el-Kholy, deputy governor of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, to a one-year suspended sentence for bribery, profiteering and squandering public funds on Wednesday. The court acquitted five local businessmen in the same case.

El-Kholy can appeal the verdict against her.

She became Alexandria’s deputy governor in 2015 and was arrested two years later, in October 2017, in a case linked to illegal seizures of state land, illegal construction and building violations. She is the most senior female official to be arrested on corruption charges.

Alexandria is notorious for illegal construction and demolition of historical buildings to make way for high-rise apartment towers.
…

Nissan’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn, in his first interview since his arrest in November, blamed fellow executives opposed to forging closer ties with the automaker’s French alliance partner Renault for scheming against him, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported Wednesday.

The financial daily said it spoke with Ghosn for 20 minutes earlier in the day at the Tokyo Detention Center, where the 64-year-old star executive has been held since Nov. 19.

Earlier, Ghosn only was allowed visits by his lawyers and embassy officials.

Prosecutors have charged Ghosn with falsifying financial reports in under-reporting his compensation. He has also been indicted on charges of breach of trust related to his handling of investment losses and to payments made to a Saudi businessman.

In the interview, Ghosn reiterated that he is innocent and said others in the company schemed to force him out with a “plot and treason.”

“People translated strong leadership to (mean) dictator, to distort reality,” he told the Nikkei. It was for the “purpose of getting rid of me,” he was quoted as saying.

Nissan Motor Co. defended itself, saying prosecutors took action following an internal investigation set off by whistleblowers in the company.

“The sole cause of this chain of events is the misconduct led by Ghosn and Kelly,” company spokesman Nicholas Maxfield said. He was referring to Greg Kelly, another executive who has been charged with collaborating with Ghosn in underreporting his compensation. Kelly was released on bail last month and remains in Tokyo.

French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux declined to comment when asked about Ghosn’s interview.

Authorities have rejected Ghosn’s requests for bail, saying he might tamper with evidence or possibly flee.

Ghosn told the Nikkei he had no intention of fleeing and wants to defend himself in court. But he questioned why he could not gain release on bail.

“I don’t understand why I am still being detained,” he was quoted as saying, adding he could not tamper with evidence because “All the evidence is with Nissan.”

The newspaper said Ghosn did not appear tired or flustered and when asked about his health, he said he was “doing fine.”

“In life there are ups and downs,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Renault SA owns 43 percent of Nissan. It sent Ghosn to Japan in 1999 to help lead the Japanese automaker’s turnaround from near bankruptcy. Ghosn said he had discussed a “plan to integrate” Nissan with Renault and their smaller alliance partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp. with Nissan’s CEO, Hiroto Saikawa, in September.

The plan was to bring Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors closer together and ensure they had “autonomy under one holding company,” he told the newspaper.

Nissan dismissed Ghosn as chairman shortly after his arrest. He was also dismissed as chairman of Mitsubishi. Earlier this month, he resigned as chairman and CEO of Renault and was replaced by Jean-Donimique Senard, the former chairman of Michelin.

Ghosn refuted various allegations against him, saying most of the alleged violations were approved by Nissan’s legal department or other senior executives.

He also denied any wrongdoing in buying expensive homes in Brazil and Lebanon, saying he needed a safe place to work and meet with people. The homes were no secret and if they had been a problem, he should have been consulted, Ghosn said.
…

Nissan’s former chairman Carlos Ghosn, in his first interview since his arrest in November, blamed fellow executives opposed to forging closer ties with the automaker’s French alliance partner Renault for scheming against him, the Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported Wednesday.

The financial daily said it spoke with Ghosn for 20 minutes earlier in the day at the Tokyo Detention Center, where the 64-year-old star executive has been held since Nov. 19.

Earlier, Ghosn only was allowed visits by his lawyers and embassy officials.

Prosecutors have charged Ghosn with falsifying financial reports in under-reporting his compensation. He has also been indicted on charges of breach of trust related to his handling of investment losses and to payments made to a Saudi businessman.

In the interview, Ghosn reiterated that he is innocent and said others in the company schemed to force him out with a “plot and treason.”

“People translated strong leadership to (mean) dictator, to distort reality,” he told the Nikkei. It was for the “purpose of getting rid of me,” he was quoted as saying.

Nissan Motor Co. defended itself, saying prosecutors took action following an internal investigation set off by whistleblowers in the company.

“The sole cause of this chain of events is the misconduct led by Ghosn and Kelly,” company spokesman Nicholas Maxfield said. He was referring to Greg Kelly, another executive who has been charged with collaborating with Ghosn in underreporting his compensation. Kelly was released on bail last month and remains in Tokyo.

French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux declined to comment when asked about Ghosn’s interview.

Authorities have rejected Ghosn’s requests for bail, saying he might tamper with evidence or possibly flee.

Ghosn told the Nikkei he had no intention of fleeing and wants to defend himself in court. But he questioned why he could not gain release on bail.

“I don’t understand why I am still being detained,” he was quoted as saying, adding he could not tamper with evidence because “All the evidence is with Nissan.”

The newspaper said Ghosn did not appear tired or flustered and when asked about his health, he said he was “doing fine.”

“In life there are ups and downs,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Renault SA owns 43 percent of Nissan. It sent Ghosn to Japan in 1999 to help lead the Japanese automaker’s turnaround from near bankruptcy. Ghosn said he had discussed a “plan to integrate” Nissan with Renault and their smaller alliance partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp. with Nissan’s CEO, Hiroto Saikawa, in September.

The plan was to bring Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi Motors closer together and ensure they had “autonomy under one holding company,” he told the newspaper.

Nissan dismissed Ghosn as chairman shortly after his arrest. He was also dismissed as chairman of Mitsubishi. Earlier this month, he resigned as chairman and CEO of Renault and was replaced by Jean-Donimique Senard, the former chairman of Michelin.

Ghosn refuted various allegations against him, saying most of the alleged violations were approved by Nissan’s legal department or other senior executives.

He also denied any wrongdoing in buying expensive homes in Brazil and Lebanon, saying he needed a safe place to work and meet with people. The homes were no secret and if they had been a problem, he should have been consulted, Ghosn said.
…

Negotiators from China and the United States are meeting in Washington Wednesday for a second round of negotiations aimed at resolving the ongoing trade war between the economic superpowers.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will lead their respective delegations in two days of discussions over Washington’s long-standing complaints that Beijing forces U.S. companies to transfer their technology advances to Chinese firms and that it limits access to China’s vast market.

But Monday’s indictment by U.S. prosecutors of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies, threatens to overshadow the new round of talks.

The indictment alleges Meng, Huawei and the company’s affiliates conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran and deceived financial institutions and the U.S. government of their activities. China is angered over Meng’s arrest in Vancouver by Canadian authorities on December 1

for extradition to the United States.

The trade talks are the result of an agreement last month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to stop the tit-for-tat tariff conflict between the two countries for 90 days starting on New Year’s Day.

The Trump administration has imposed punitive tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to compel Beijing to changes its trading practices, prompting Beijing to retaliate with its own tariff increases on $110 billion of U.S. exports.

If a deal is not reached by March 2, U.S tariffs will rise from 10 percent to 25 percent.
…

Negotiators from China and the United States are meeting in Washington Wednesday for a second round of negotiations aimed at resolving the ongoing trade war between the economic superpowers.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will lead their respective delegations in two days of discussions over Washington’s long-standing complaints that Beijing forces U.S. companies to transfer their technology advances to Chinese firms and that it limits access to China’s vast market.

But Monday’s indictment by U.S. prosecutors of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies, threatens to overshadow the new round of talks.

The indictment alleges Meng, Huawei and the company’s affiliates conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran and deceived financial institutions and the U.S. government of their activities. China is angered over Meng’s arrest in Vancouver by Canadian authorities on December 1

for extradition to the United States.

The trade talks are the result of an agreement last month between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to stop the tit-for-tat tariff conflict between the two countries for 90 days starting on New Year’s Day.

The Trump administration has imposed punitive tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to compel Beijing to changes its trading practices, prompting Beijing to retaliate with its own tariff increases on $110 billion of U.S. exports.

If a deal is not reached by March 2, U.S tariffs will rise from 10 percent to 25 percent.
…

The Philippines ranked among Asia’s 10 fastest growing economies in 2017. Consumer power, remittances from overseas workers and an influx of call centers had given it that status, raising hopes for easing rampant poverty. Then GDP expansion wobbled in 2018 because of rising prices and lack of new direct investment.

Now state spending on new infrastructure and local tourism are expected to decide whether the Philippines can get back on track this year.

The Philippine economy grew 6.2 percent last year, down from 6.7 percent in 2017 and 6.9 percent a year earlier. Inflation dented consumption in late 2018, while factory investors stayed away for lack of infrastructure compared to what’s available elsewhere in Asia. Storm damage to crops, another economic backbone, and the six-month shutdown of the tourist hotspot Boracay Island ate away further at growth.

“I think it’s a combination of factors,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “One would be inflation, because that would slow down consumption. Infrastructure is always a constraint. The economy is growing, but the bottlenecks are not yet fixed.”

Slumps in farming, consumption

A spike in consumer prices in the Philippines in late 2018 angered many, testing the popularity of President Rodrigo Duterte in his third year in office. August inflation set a nine-year record at 6.4 percent, then the highest in Southeast Asia.

World oil price hikes were felt at the pump, while reports of rice scarcity raised prices in some parts of the country. More than 70 percent of the $313 billion Philippine economy comes from consumption, and people – especially the poor – mind their spending when prices are up.

The GDP struggled to grow also after deadly typhoon Mangkhut caused $509 million in agricultural damage in September and three months later tropical storm Usman caused another $19 million in farm losses.

The Western Pacific archipelago gets typhoons every year but still lacks infrastructure to withstand them, said Song Seng Wun, regional economist with the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.

Tourism was robust overall last year, but the closure of Boracay Island hurt the country’s prime tourism spot. Duterte declared a state of calamity from April through October to clean up the island, which had brought in more than $1 billion in tourism receipts in 2017.

Quest for investors

But the lack of capital investment weighs particularly hard on economic policymakers this year. The country, known for cheap, skilled labor, is still missing the ports, railways and power generation capacity that business people expect before opening shop. Investment would create jobs, in turn easing poverty.

“In terms of the whole ease of doing business, the Philippines ranks very low, but one of those reasons is poor infrastructure,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit.

To attract more capital, the government is building $171 billion worth of infrastructure by 2022, one of Duterte’s priorities in office. By the same year, the government aims to cut poverty from 22 percent to 14 percent of the population.

Officials are sighting for this year new roads and a railway system on the impoverished island of Mindanao, flood control work around Manila and the first phase of a Metro Manila subway project, Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on his department’s website.

Progress on infrastructure would also show that the Philippines can overcome political fights that include open spats between Duterte and his detractors in Congress or the mass media, economists believe.

“Investors like clarity,” Song said. “So when you have leaders or opinion makers who can be very abrasive as well, would you want to be putting in millions of millions of investments given that environment?”

The budget department flagged manufacturing growth as an “area of concern.” In a statement on the 2018 economy, the department urged more transport infrastructure and asked Congress to amend the Foreign Investments Act, which deters foreign investors by limiting how much they can invest in certain local industries.

Bright spots

Some analysts already point to bright spots in the 2019 economy. Tourism on the heavily populated island Cebu stands to help real estate there, Biswas said, while tourism and investment are booming near the former U.S. airbase at Clark Field.

The Asian Development Bank expects 6.7 percent growth this year.

“If you look at it from a perspective that the Philippines is actually working on its infrastructure to attract investors, you have a government commitment to keep on spending, and you have a country whose growth is actually moving away from the key cities but into other areas, that will support above 6 percent growth,” said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.
…

The Philippines ranked among Asia’s 10 fastest growing economies in 2017. Consumer power, remittances from overseas workers and an influx of call centers had given it that status, raising hopes for easing rampant poverty. Then GDP expansion wobbled in 2018 because of rising prices and lack of new direct investment.

Now state spending on new infrastructure and local tourism are expected to decide whether the Philippines can get back on track this year.

The Philippine economy grew 6.2 percent last year, down from 6.7 percent in 2017 and 6.9 percent a year earlier. Inflation dented consumption in late 2018, while factory investors stayed away for lack of infrastructure compared to what’s available elsewhere in Asia. Storm damage to crops, another economic backbone, and the six-month shutdown of the tourist hotspot Boracay Island ate away further at growth.

“I think it’s a combination of factors,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school. “One would be inflation, because that would slow down consumption. Infrastructure is always a constraint. The economy is growing, but the bottlenecks are not yet fixed.”

Slumps in farming, consumption

A spike in consumer prices in the Philippines in late 2018 angered many, testing the popularity of President Rodrigo Duterte in his third year in office. August inflation set a nine-year record at 6.4 percent, then the highest in Southeast Asia.

World oil price hikes were felt at the pump, while reports of rice scarcity raised prices in some parts of the country. More than 70 percent of the $313 billion Philippine economy comes from consumption, and people – especially the poor – mind their spending when prices are up.

The GDP struggled to grow also after deadly typhoon Mangkhut caused $509 million in agricultural damage in September and three months later tropical storm Usman caused another $19 million in farm losses.

The Western Pacific archipelago gets typhoons every year but still lacks infrastructure to withstand them, said Song Seng Wun, regional economist with the private banking unit of CIMB in Singapore.

Tourism was robust overall last year, but the closure of Boracay Island hurt the country’s prime tourism spot. Duterte declared a state of calamity from April through October to clean up the island, which had brought in more than $1 billion in tourism receipts in 2017.

Quest for investors

But the lack of capital investment weighs particularly hard on economic policymakers this year. The country, known for cheap, skilled labor, is still missing the ports, railways and power generation capacity that business people expect before opening shop. Investment would create jobs, in turn easing poverty.

“In terms of the whole ease of doing business, the Philippines ranks very low, but one of those reasons is poor infrastructure,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit.

To attract more capital, the government is building $171 billion worth of infrastructure by 2022, one of Duterte’s priorities in office. By the same year, the government aims to cut poverty from 22 percent to 14 percent of the population.

Officials are sighting for this year new roads and a railway system on the impoverished island of Mindanao, flood control work around Manila and the first phase of a Metro Manila subway project, Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said on his department’s website.

Progress on infrastructure would also show that the Philippines can overcome political fights that include open spats between Duterte and his detractors in Congress or the mass media, economists believe.

“Investors like clarity,” Song said. “So when you have leaders or opinion makers who can be very abrasive as well, would you want to be putting in millions of millions of investments given that environment?”

The budget department flagged manufacturing growth as an “area of concern.” In a statement on the 2018 economy, the department urged more transport infrastructure and asked Congress to amend the Foreign Investments Act, which deters foreign investors by limiting how much they can invest in certain local industries.

Bright spots

Some analysts already point to bright spots in the 2019 economy. Tourism on the heavily populated island Cebu stands to help real estate there, Biswas said, while tourism and investment are booming near the former U.S. airbase at Clark Field.

The Asian Development Bank expects 6.7 percent growth this year.

“If you look at it from a perspective that the Philippines is actually working on its infrastructure to attract investors, you have a government commitment to keep on spending, and you have a country whose growth is actually moving away from the key cities but into other areas, that will support above 6 percent growth,” said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.
…