Monthly: February 2019

Kenya Ride-Hailing Company ‘Little Cab’ Expanding to Tanzania, Ghana

Kenya’s ride-hailing company ‘Little Cab’ is expanding to Tanzania and Ghana. The company will start offering rides in Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam next week and plans to launch in Accra by May. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Erdogan’s War on Rising Food Prices Leaves Casualties

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared war on inflation after food prices in the country soared by 30 percent after last year’s collapse of the Turkish currency. In a bid aimed at securing his political future, Erdogan is taking radical measures to curb price increases after accusing food sellers of excessively hiking food prices. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Taiwan Concerns Mean China Defense Budget Likely to Defy Slowing Economy

A slowing economy is unlikely to crimp China’s 2019 defense budget rise, as Beijing earmarks more spending for modernization and big-ticket items like stealth jets, and focuses on Taiwan after a stern new year’s speech from President Xi Jinping.

The defense spending figure is closely watched worldwide for clues to China’s strategic intentions as it develops new military capabilities, including aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

In 2018, China unveiled its largest defense spending increase in three years, setting an 8.1 percent growth target for the year, fueling an ambitious military upgrade program and making its neighbors nervous.

The 2019 number should be revealed at the March 5 opening of the annual session of China’s largely rubber-stamp parliament, although in 2017 it was initially not announced, prompting renewed concerns about transparency.

China plans to set a lower economic growth target of 6-6.5 percent in 2019 compared with last year’s target of around 6.5 percent, policy sources have told Reuters. The government will also announced the economic growth target on March 5. 

However, the defense budget increase could well surpass that.

Influential state-run tabloid the Global Times, which takes a strongly nationalistic line, this month cited an unidentified military expert as saying “a stable 8-9 percent increase from 2018 would be a reasonable prediction.”

China still has a long way to go to catch Western forces because the number of advanced weapons now in its arsenal, such as the J-20 stealth fighter, remain limited, the paper said.

Xie Yue, a professor of political science at Tongji University in Shanghai and a security expert, said with a weakening economy there would naturally be an expectation for a slower increase in military spending.

“It should go down, as the defense budget is connected to economic growth, but certainly factors will probably mean it will still go up, like the South China Sea and Taiwan issues,” Xie said.

Xi’s January speech threatening to attack Taiwan should it not accept Chinese rule has shot the issue back up the agenda for China’s military thinkers, especially as the island gears up for presidential elections next year.

“The Taiwan question can’t keep being put off, passed down through the generations,” retired Chinese Major General Luo Yuan, one of the country’s most prominent and widely read military commentators, wrote on his blog last month. “Our generation must complete our historic mission.”

‘Itching for a fight’

One source with ties to China’s military said the armed forces were itching for a fight over self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as its sacred territory, especially after Xi’s speech.

“Every day, they’re like ‘fight, fight, fight,'” said the source, who regularly meets senior officers.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has repeatedly warned of the threat from China, and vowed to defend the island and its democratic way of life. The United States has said it is closely watching Chinese intentions towards Taiwan.

“Even with just a broom, I would fight against China,” Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang told parliament last week. “You would pay a price if you want to annex Taiwan.”

The United States again sent two Navy ships through the Taiwan Strait on Monday as the U.S. military increased the frequency of movement through the strategic waterway despite opposition from China.

China’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on this year’s military budget. China routinely says spending is for defensive purposes only, comparatively small and that critics just want to keep the country down.

“What people are scared of is China getting strong,” said Xu Guangyu, a senior consultant at the China Arm Control and Disarmament Association and another former senior Chinese officer, dismissing concerns about defense spending.

U.S. President Donald Trump has backed plans to request $750 billion from Congress for defense spending in 2019. That compares with the 1.11 trillion yuan ($165.40 billion) China set for its military budget in 2018.

China provides no breakdown of its defense budget, leading neighbors and other military powers to complain that Beijing’s lack of transparency has added to regional tension. China says it is fully transparent and no threat.

Diplomats and many foreign experts say China’s defense numbers probably underestimate true military spending for the People’s Liberation Army, the world’s largest armed forces, which also runs the country’s space program.
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Afghanistan Begins Exports To India Through Iranian Port

Afghanistan has started shipping goods to India for the first time through a newly developed Iranian seaport in a bid to improve exports and reduce reliance on routes through its uneasy neighbor, Pakistan.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani traveled Sunday to the western border city of Zaranj to see off the inaugural convoy of 23 trucks loaded with 570 tons of cargo to the Chabahar port in neighboring Iran. The consignment is destined for the Indian port city of Mumbai. 

For decades, landlocked Afghanistan has mostly relied on Pakistani land and seaports for international trade. But mutual tensions have in recent years significantly reduced Afghan trade and transit activities through Pakistan. 

Addressing the nationally televised ceremony, Ghani credited a “healthy cooperation between India, Iran and Afghanistan” for achieving the milestone. He said the new export route will help improve economic growth in his war-shattered country, saying “Afghanistan is not landlocked anymore.”

New Delhi has financed and developed Iran’s Chabahar Port to enable Kabul get direct and easy sea trade access.

India took operational control of a portion of the Iranian port late last year for 18 months and plans to send cargo ships from its ports of Mumbai, Kandla and Mundra every two weeks, according Indian media reports. 

The United States last year waived certain anti-Iran sanctions to allow development of Chabahar to support efforts aimed at stabilizing Afghanistan. The waiver has enable India, Iran and Afghanistan to continue their work to establish a new transit and transport corridor linking the three countries to help improve Afghan economy and allow the war-ravaged country to import food and medicines.

India successfully shipped 1.1 million tons of wheat to Afghanistan through Chabahar Port in 2017. That year, New Delhi also launched an air corridor with Kabul for bilateral trade. 

Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, Vinay Kumar, while addressing Sunday’s ceremony in Zaranj said the air corridor has since helped increased Afghan exports to his country by 40 percent. 

China also opened an air corridor with Afghanistan in November and has since imported thousands of tons of Afghan pine nuts, bringing much-need foreign exchange to Kabul. Afghanistan is the largest producer of pine nuts in the world, with an annual output of about 23,000 tons. The increase in exports to China has led to an unusual rise in in prices of pine nuts in Afghanistan, say local traders and consumers.

Pakistan allows Afghanistan to use its seaports for international trade under a bilateral trade and transit agreement. It also allows use of overland routes for Afghan exports to India. However, Islamabad wants improvement in ties with New Delhi before it will allow Indian exports via the same routes back to Afghanistan. 
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Trump Postpones New Trade Tariffs on China

Trump Postpones New Trade Tariffs on China
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US-China Trade Talks Extended as March Deadline Approaches

The United States and China are discussing a meeting between their two leaders soon to finalize a trade agreement. To move things forward, the latest round of trade talks between senior officials is being extended into the weekend. As Nike Ching reports, experts say world’s two largest economies must bridge wide gaps as they seek common ground before new U.S. tariffs are set to start.
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US-China Trade Hopes Lift Stocks

Stocks rose in major markets around the world Friday on bets of progress in trade talks between China and the United States, while crude futures hit their highest level in more than three months supported by ongoing supply cuts. 

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that there was a very good chance the United States would strike a deal with China to end their trade war and that he was inclined to extend his March 1 deadline to reach an agreement. 

U.S. and Chinese negotiators meeting in Washington made progress and will extend this week’s round of negotiations by two days, he said.  

Main stock indexes on Wall Street rose as the optimistic trade talk more than offset signs of slower growth in both U.S. earnings and the economy, with the S&P 500 posting a fourth consecutive week of gains. 

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 181.18 points, or 0.7 percent, to 26,031.81; the S&P 500 gained 17.79 points, or 0.64 percent, to 2,792.67; and the Nasdaq Composite added 67.84 points, or 0.91 percent, to 7,527.55. The Dow rose for the ninth consecutive week.

Overnight, shares in Asia were buoyed by a late rally in Chinese shares, with the main blue-chip index rising more than 2 percent to a near seven-month high. 

Emerging market stocks rose 0.73 percent after touching the highest level since August. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.7 percent higher, while Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.18 percent. 

Trade talks and a growing number of policy U-turns by global central banks have propped up equities in recent weeks, although this week saw the first outflows from emerging market debt and equity funds since October 2018, Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists said, citing EPFR data. 

Crude rising 

Oil prices touched their highest level in more than three months, supported by OPEC supply cuts as well as the trade developments. New record U.S. oil supply, however, limited gains in post-settle trade. 

U.S. crude rose 0.37 percent to $57.17 per barrel and Brent was last at $67.00, down 0.1 percent on the day. 

In currencies, the U.S. dollar was little changed against a basket of peers. The dollar index fell 0.05 percent, with the euro down 0.03 percent to $1.1331. The Japanese yen strengthened 0.03 percent versus the greenback at 110.68 per dollar. Sterling was last trading at $1.3053, up 0.03 percent on the day. 

The Australian dollar recovered a day after falling more than 1 percent after Reuters reported the Chinese port of Dalian had barred imports of Australian coal indefinitely. China said Friday that imports would continue, but customs has stepped up checks on foreign cargoes. 

Separate comments by Reserve Bank of Australia Gov. Philip Lowe that a rate increase may be appropriate next year also helped to boost the Aussie dollar. 

The Aussie dollar recently gained 0.56 percent versus the greenback at 0.7128. 

Despite gains on risky assets, safe-haven U.S. Treasuries also gained in price. Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 10/32 in price to yield 2.6536 percent, from 2.688 percent late on Thursday. 

The 30-year bond last rose 18/32 in price to yield 3.0159 percent, from 3.045 percent late Thursday. 

Spot gold added 0.4 percent to $1,328.20 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 0.21 percent to $1,330.60 an ounce. 

Copper rose 1.52 percent to $6,477.00 a metric ton. 
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Trump Administration Denying, Delaying More Foreign Skilled-worker Requests

The Trump administration is denying and delaying more skilled-worker visa petitions than at any time since at least 2015, in keeping with its promise to increase scrutiny of foreign workers, according to data the government released on Friday.

U.S. officials say they have made reforms that prioritize American workers, cut down on fraud and streamline the immigration process. But lawyers who help employers apply for the visas say the agency is rejecting legitimate applications and tying up requests in bureaucratic red tape.

The data provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that adjudicates the visas, extends to the 2015 fiscal year, encompassing the last two years of the Obama administration and the first two years of the Trump administration.

New policies for H-1B visas

Republican President Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 on restricting immigration, and early in his presidency issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, to tighten its policies on H-1B visas. The visas are intended for foreign workers who generally have bachelor’s degrees or higher to work in the United States, often in the technology, healthcare and education sectors.

In the 2018 fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, the government issued “initial denials” to over 61,000 H-1B applications. In that time, the government issued decisions on over 396,000 applications.

That is more than double the number of such denials over the prior year, even as the total number of applications the government completed dropped by about 2 percent between 2017 and 2018.

And denials look set to increase even further this year. In the first quarter of the 2019 fiscal year, the government issued initial denials to nearly 25,000 H-1B applications, a 50 percent increase over the same period last year.

Approval rate drops

The majority of petitions are still being approved, but the approval rate is dropping. In 2015, the approval rate was 96 percent, compared with 85 percent last year.

“USCIS has made a series of reforms designed to protect U.S. workers, increase our confidence in the eligibility of those who receive benefits, cut down on frivolous petitions, and improve the integrity and efficiency of the immigration petition process,” said Jessica Collins, a USCIS spokeswoman.

The government data also show that the administration is issuing far more “requests for evidence” in response to H-1B applications. Such requests, or RFEs as they are known, often challenge the basis of the original petitions and require employers and attorneys to submit additional paperwork.

Receiving an RFE from the government can add several months and thousands of dollars in legal fees to the cost of applying for a visa, attorneys say.

Screening questioned

The number of completed H-1B petitions that drew an RFE reached over 150,000 last year, compared with 86,000 in 2017, a 75 percent increase.

Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University and critic of the H-1B program, said the data suggests USCIS is giving employers a fair opportunity to justify their petitions through the RFE process.

“It also makes one question whether the Obama administration was doing an adequate job in ensuring the integrity and accountability of the H-1B program,” Hira wrote in an email. He also noted that large tech companies, such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc, enjoyed H-1B approval rates last year of 98 percent or 99 percent, according to USCIS, while firms that have been criticized for using H-1B workers to replace Americans saw their petitions approved at far lower rates.

But immigration attorneys say many of the denials and RFEs are violating the laws and regulations governing the program. Some companies are successfully challenging the denials in federal court. Entegris Professional Solutions, a Minnesota company, sued USCIS in December over the rejection of an H-1B application for one of its employees.

This month, USCIS reopened the case and granted the petition, said Matthew Webster, one of Entegris’ attorneys on the case.
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