Deficit
Page: 2
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump displays his signature after signing the $1.5 trillion tax overhaul plan along with a short-term government spending bill in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., December 22, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
April 23, 2019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A 2017 tax overhaul championed by President Donald Trump will cut household taxes more in Republican-leaning states than in states that lean Democratic, according to research published by the U.S. central bank on Tuesday.
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act, signed by Trump in December 2017, reduced tax rates for most Americans, boosting economic growth in 2018 while widening the federal budget deficit.
Trump has often cited the legislation one of his key achievements, although critics say the law mostly cuts taxes for high-income Americans and corporations. Many Americans are also getting smaller tax refunds or owed money than in the past.
The tax law’s long-term effects will include pushing after-tax incomes 1.6 percent higher in states that tend to vote for Trump’s Republican party, compared to a 1.3 percent gain in Democratic-leaning states, according to research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, one of 12 regional branches of the U.S. central bank.
Households in Democratic-leaning states get less help because the law makes it harder to deduct state and local tax bills from a household’s federal obligations. State and local taxes tend to be higher in states that lean Democratic.
The researchers, which included Atlanta Fed economist David Altig and University of California, Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach, considered states to be leaning Republican or Democratic if one party’s share of the vote averaged at least 5 percentage points higher than that of the other party in the last five presidential elections.
For their estimates, the researchers assumed the tax overhaul would be made permanent. Congress, which was Republican-controlled when the bill was passed, made many of the tax cuts expire after 10 years so that the legislation could pass without Democratic support.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Brazil’s Secretary of Social Security Rogerio Marinho is seen as he leaves the Ministry of Economy building in Brasilia, Brazil April 2, 2019. REUTERS/Adriano Machado/File Photo
April 23, 2019
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s Labor and Pensions Secretary Rogerio Marinho said on Tuesday negotiations over the government’s key pension reform bill were continuing in the hope that a congressional committee would still be able to vote on the legislation this afternoon.
President Jair Bolsonaro’s government made several minor concessions to the bill on Monday night, local newspapers reported, to ensure that the vote goes forward.
Marinho said the negotiations were going well so far.
Economists, investors and others consider pension reform essential to getting control of Brazil’s ever-growing fiscal deficit and balancing the budget. The measure was a key proposal of Bolsonaro’s election campaign.
The government says the pension changes would save roughly 1 trillion reais ($253.38 billion) in the decade after approval. The modifications agreed to on Monday should not affect the amount of money saved, O Globo newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The government, however, has lost momentum on the pension legislation in recent days, even as key economic indicators have worsened. Brazil’s real currency fell some 0.3 percent on Monday, as its Bovespa stock index rose almost 1.4 percent.
The Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee of Congress’ lower house is set to meet at 2:30 p.m. local time (1730 GMT).
(Reporting by Marcela Ayres; Writing by Marcelo Rochabrun; Editing by Paul Simao)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Eurogroup President Mario Centeno attends a news conference at the end of a eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium, December 4, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
April 23, 2019
By Axel Bugge and Sergio Goncalves
LISBON (Reuters) – The euro zone is worried about the heavily indebted Italian economy’s weak growth and needs Rome to implement its budget plans “with credibility”, the head of the currency bloc’s group of finance ministers said.
Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Mario Centeno, who leads the Eurogroup of 19 ministers, said it was essential that the euro zone’s third-largest economy returned to growth while meeting its budget targets.
“It is a challenge we should never be complacent about and that is why there is worry. That is where the big challenge of the Italian economy is — to grow,” he said.
Centeno was speaking late on Monday, on the eve of a Rome cabinet meeting to discuss stimulus measures. That meeting on Tuesday evening is expected to sign off on tax breaks, investment incentives and debt relief for local government.
Italy last year unveiled a big-spending budget for 2019, rattling the euro and other financial markets, but it has so far had little impact on growth. The economy slipped into technical recession at the end of 2018 and is now barely expanding.
The government, a fractious two-party coalition, downgraded its 2019 growth outlook this month to just 0.2 percent, from a December forecast of 1 percent. Its budget deficit is now set to climb to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product, above a goal of 2.04 percent previously agreed with the European Commission.
“Italy is facing some difficulties in this economic cycle,” Centeno said.
“The message is relatively simple: the government has a demanding budget to execute and it needs to be executed with credibility, and we need to gather all our efforts to reverse Italy’s growth tendency.”
Italy’s mix of high debt and low growth has shaken investors who have pushed relative yields on sovereign debt to high levels not only against German government bonds, considered the euro zone’s safest, but also above Spanish and Portuguese paper.
Centeno is also the finance minister of Portugal, which is often praised as an example in Europe for its combination of budget discipline with economic growth over the past few years.
Italy, the euro zone’s second-most indebted nation after Greece, had public debts equaling 132.2 percent of GDP in 2018, up from 131.4 percent in 2017. This year, its economy is again expected to expand less than all its euro-zone peers.
EURO ZONE REFORM
Despite the challenges of Italy and broadly slower growth across Europe, Centeno stressed that the euro zone had experienced a record 22 quarters of uninterrupted growth.
The budget positions of the euro zone’s 19 members are closer than at any time since 1995, thanks to reforms carried out during the debt crisis, he said.
That has resulted in the creation of about 10 million jobs in the euro area since 2013 and brought investment levels close to where they were before the 2009-14 euro debt crisis, he said.
“Europe reformed, today the euro zone is more robust and credible than it was five, six years ago,” he said.
To further reform the euro area and boost competitiveness, Centeno said a common budgetary instrument would go into effect in 2021 when the EU’s next multi-year budget began.
The new tool would set aside existing European funds to support reforms and convergence between economies and to help investments in countries facing temporary economic shocks.
A final decision on funding it is likely to be made in October.
Centeno has pushed hard for the creation of a common budget for the euro, calling it a longer-term project that would “make the euro area more robust and resilient”.
(Editing by Mark Bendeich and Andrei Khalip)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past a “debt clock” screen, installed by Bruno Leoni Institute’s analysts, displaying Italy’s public debt at the Termini central station in Rome, Italy February 15, 2018. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi/File Photo
April 23, 2019
By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Public debt in Greece and Italy, the two most indebted countries in the euro zone, grew last year while the bloc as a whole saw its liabilities decrease, the European Union statistics office said on Tuesday.
Rome’s growing debt, which is also higher than Brussels had predicted, is seen as further stretching EU fiscal rules that require countries with high debts to gradually bring them down.
Italy, whose eurosceptic government adopted free-spending policies last year that have so far had little impact on growth, had debt equivalent to 132.2 percent of national output in 2018, or 2.3 trillion euros ($2.5 trillion), up from 131.4 percent in the previous year, Eurostat said.
Up to 0.2 percent of the Italian debt was due to derivative contracts, which are usually used to hedge against risks but triggered losses for 4.7 billion euros in 2018, Eurostat data show. Other euro zone countries have reduced their debt thanks to derivatives.
Although Rome has decreased its losses on derivatives from the 5.4 billion euros posted in 2017, the negative impact over the country’s debt has exceeded 25 billion since 2015, data show.
The European Commission, which monitors euro zone states’ budgets, refrained in December from starting disciplinary steps against Italy over its growing debt.
It predicted then that Italian debt would be 131.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2018 — lower than Tuesday’s data showed.
The Commission has said it will reassess Rome’s compliance with EU fiscal rules, including the requirement to cut debt, in June, taking into account the final debt data from Eurostat.
A spokeswoman for the EU executive declined to comment on the new figures released by Eurostat.
She said Brussels’ new evaluation of Italy’s position will also be based on new forecasts due in May of debt developments, and on Italy’s report on its fiscal plans for the next three years which Rome had just submitted.
Italy’s 10-year government bond yield jumped to its highest in seven weeks on Tuesday, pushed up mostly by unease over government infighting and an upcoming ratings review.
BUCKING THE TREND
Italy bucked the euro zone trend, as overall debt in the 19-country currency bloc fell to 85.1 percent of GDP last year from 87.1 percent in 2017, Eurostat said.
The bloc’s aggregated budget deficit also dropped to 0.5 percent of GDP from 1.0 percent in 2017.
The fall coincided with Germany’s reduction of its debt to 60.9 percent of GDP, from 64.5 percent in 2017. The bloc’s largest economy also widened its public surplus to 1.7 percent of output from 1.0 percent in 2017.
In Greece, debt climbed to 181.1 percent of GDP in 2018, the largest ratio in the euro zone.
The increase from 176.2 percent in 2017 was mostly due to the last installment of euro zone creditors’ loans as part of the country’s third bailout program which ended last summer.
The recent exit from the bailout program exempts Greece from the normal application of EU rules that require countries with public debt above the 60 percent of GDP threshold allowed by EU law to cut the excess by 5 percent a year.
Cyprus, another of the bloc’s most indebted countries, saw its debt rise to 102.5 percent of GDP from 95.8 percent.
Portugal, which was also bailed out during the euro zone’s debt crisis, saw its debt fall to 121.5 percent of output from 124.8 percent, while Belgium’s debt declined to 102.0 percent of GDP last year from 103.4 percent in 2017.
French public debt was stable at 98.4 percent of output, while the country’s budget deficit dropped to 2.5 percent of GDP from 2.8 percent in 2017.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; additional reporting by Lefteris Papadimas in Athens and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A container ship is shown at port in Long Beach, California, U.S. July 16, 2018. REUTERS/Mike Blake
April 23, 2019
By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN (Reuters) – A temporary government shutdown with no end in sight, rising trade conflicts and a global growth slowdown: the first quarter outlook for the U.S. economy did not look promising at the turn of the year.
But Friday’s gross domestic product data for the first three months of 2019 could strengthen the case that while the current period of global expansion is in its late stages, some of the biggest contributors have yet to run out of steam.
After China’s economy defied expectations that it would slow further in January-March, U.S. growth is expected to be 2.1 percent in the same period, although the range of analysts’ estimates was wider than usual at 1.0 to 2.9 percent.
If the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow model, based on data already released, is to be believed, growth will come in almost at the top of that range and bang in between the 2.2 percent pace seen in Q4 2018 and July-September’s brisk 3.4 percent.
“Despite all the prophecies of doom, the U.S. economy did not collapse in the first quarter,” said Commerzbank economist Christoph Balz.
“On the contrary, next week’s GDP figures are likely to show decent growth. In addition, companies have boosted investment, which argues against an imminent recession.”
The Atlanta Fed raised its expectations after data last week showed domestic retail sales grew at their strongest pace in 1-1/2 years in March, the latest indication that growth in the quarter bounced back quickly after the longest shuttering of federal agencies in U.S. history ended on Jan. 25.
While a surprise narrowing in February’s U.S. trade deficit also implied a much stronger pace of growth, weak manufacturing output — which resulted in the first quarterly drop in production since President Donald Trump’s election — may explain the wide range in estimates.
The main wild card for Friday’s release could be private inventories, according to a number of analysts, including Unicredit, whose 1.3 percent GDP forecast sits at the more pessimistic end of the range.
“After pronounced stockpiling in the second half of the year, our forecast assumes that inventories were a significant drag in Q1. The latest numbers suggest that the drag may occur only later,” Unicredit analysts wrote in a note.
“CAUSE FOR HOPE”
The other key piece of data in a relatively quiet week is Germany’s Ifo business climate index, the main sentiment reading for Europe’s biggest economy, where the growth outlook has drifted in the opposite direction.
The German government cut its 2019 growth forecast for the second time in three months last week and now sees the economy growing just 0.5 percent as exporters struggle with weaker demand from abroad, trade tensions and uncertainty over Brexit.
Subsequent business surveys showed that while German manufacturing contracted for the fourth month in a row in April, buoyant services activity compensated. Wednesday’s Ifo print may offer some slight additional relief.
After a surprise rise in the March index to 99.6, analysts polled by Reuters see a further marginal improvement to 99.9, matching a brighter mood among German investors after last week’s ZEW survey improved for a sixth month.
“We believe the ZEW survey revealed that Germany’s economy is not out of the woods yet considering its most recent bout of weakness, but there is recent cause for hope again,” said Elmar Voelker, senior fixed income analyst at LBBW.
“Transferring the findings to the Ifo Business Climate Index, we would predict that Germany’s most important leading economic indicator will show its second successive rise in April, but the jump will be less significant than in the previous month.”
(Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Catherine Evans)
Source: OANN
A security personnel observes three minutes of silence as a tribute to victims, two days after a string of suicide bomb attacks on churches and luxury hotels across the island on Easter Sunday, near St Anthony Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte
April 23, 2019
By Marius Zaharia and Vidya Ranganathan
HONG KONG/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Sri Lanka faces a likely collapse in tourism following Easter Sunday bomb attacks on churches and hotels, which would deal a severe blow to the island’s economy and financial markets, and potentially force it to seek further IMF assistance.
The International Monetary Fund extended last month a $1.5 billion loan for an extra year into 2020, a key step in keeping foreign investors involved in what so far this year has been a top-performing frontier debt market.
But with growth, and therefore state revenues, now likely to slow significantly, the budget targets agreed with the IMF may have to be reviewed, and the government is expected to resist pressure for any spending cuts before elections expected later this year.
There is even a possibility that more IMF money may be needed if foreign investment falls, adding to the hard currency gap left by plunging tourism receipts.
“If growth slows a lot more and the budget deficit assumptions need to be reassessed, then they’ll have to sit down and negotiate something more feasible,” said Alex Holmes, Asia economist at Capital Economics.
The Sri Lankan stock index dived 2.6 percent on Tuesday in its first day of trading after the attacks that killed more than 300 people, while the heavily-managed rupee held steady.
Tourism is Sri Lanka’s third-largest and fastest growing source of foreign currency, after remittances and garment exports, accounting for almost $4.4 billion or 4.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018.
A fall in tourism receipts is bound to weaken the rupee over time. The central bank, whose coffers are too light to defend the currency through interventions, is likely to have to raise interest rates.
This, in turn, would choke lending, hurting consumers and the investment plans of local businesses, while also making it more costly for the government to seek funding from foreign investors via bond markets.
“The central bank may be forced to hike rates again this year,” said Win Thin, global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH).
“With foreign reserves very low right now, the central bank cannot actively support the rupee.”
After falling 16 percent against the U.S. dollar last year to record lows, the rupee had gained 4.6 percent this year as of last week.
Sri Lankan bonds have been among the best performing globally, only bettered by Argentina and Chile. But the main stock index has lost about 10 percent.
WEAK FINANCES
Sri Lanka’s external position was already precarious.
To help fund a record $5.9 billion in foreign loans this year, the country successfully sold $2.4 billion in five-year and 10-year U.S. dollar bonds last month, but that was right after the IMF extension and amid bets of looser monetary policy.
(GRAPHIC: Sri Lanka’s precarious balance of payments – https://tmsnrt.rs/2IAqHKj)
In January, Sri Lanka used its reserves to repay debt worth $1 billion. It had about $5 billion left in February, the least since April 2017, and only enough to cover two months of imports and about two-thirds of its short-term external debt, according to BBH calculations.
Colombo also needs to finance a current account deficit of about 3 percent of GDP.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is already facing heavy criticism domestically for higher taxes, and tight monetary and fiscal policies that have crimped growth to a 17-year low.
Having emerged from a 51-day political crisis in which President Maithripala Sirisena sacked and replaced him with pro-China former president Mahinda Rajapaksa – a decision which was later reversed – Wickremesinghe set an ambitious fiscal deficit goal of 4.4 percent of GDP, compared with 5.3 percent in 2018.
But he also boosted spending on state employees, pensioners and the armed forces and promised more funds for rural infrastructure, leading economists to doubt the targets. A presidential vote is expected later this year followed by a general election in 2020.
“Given the fact they have repayments coming up for sovereign bonds, it could lead to more pressure on foreign currency reserves. So, it’s a near term negative for the tourism sector and also market sentiment as well,” said Ruchir Desai, fund manager at Asia Frontier Capital, who co-manages the $16 million AFC Asia Frontier Fund.
“Valuations are cheap, no doubt… but until they get some kind of political unity which can result in stable policy-making, we will probably remain underweight (equities) until the elections.”
(Reporting by Marius Zaharia in HONG KONG, Vidya Ranganathan in SINGAPORE and Daniel Leussink in TOKYO; Writing by Marius Zaharia; Editing by Kim Coghill)
Source: OANN
Apr 22, 2019; New York City, NY, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Steven Matz (32) pitches against the Philadelphia Phillies during the first inning at Citi Field. Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports
April 23, 2019
Jeff McNeil had two hits, including a solo home run, to lift the host New York Mets past the Philadelphia Phillies 5-1 on Monday in a game that saw Phillies right fielder Bryce Harper get ejected while arguing from the dugout.
Mets starter Steven Matz (2-1) was effective, allowing three hits and one run in six innings. He struck out six and walked two. It was a completely different outcome from his last start against the Phillies in which he faced eight batters and failed to record an out on April 16.
Rhys Hoskins ripped a solo homer for the Phillies. Cesar Hernandez had Philadelphia’s only other two hits in the game, as the Phillies failed to support starter Jake Arrieta (3-2). The right-hander threw six-plus innings and gave up seven hits and four runs (three earned). He fanned seven and walked one.
In a bizarre circumstance, Harper was tossed with two outs in the fourth. After a questionable called strike to Hernandez, plate umpire Mark Carlson motioned to the dugout and ejected Harper for arguing balls and strikes. Harper had reached base in all of his previous 21 games with the Phillies before going 0-for-2 with two strikeouts and being ejected.
Rockies 7, Nationals 5
Nolan Arenado homered and finished with three hits — including the 1,000th of his career — while Mark Reynolds and Raimel Tapia also went deep to lead Colorado past Washington in Denver.
Trevor Story had two hits and Seunghwan Oh (1-0) pitched an inning of relief for the victory. Colorado has won seven of its past eight following an eight-game losing streak. Wade Davis pitched the ninth inning for his second save.
Arenado’s milestone hit came leading off the seventh inning, when he hit his fourth home run of the season off reliever Wander Suero (1-2) to make it 6-5. Brian Dozier homered, and Howie Kendrick drove in two for the Nationals.
Cardinals 13, Brewers 5
Dexter Fowler matched his career high with four hits, drove in four runs and scored three to help St. Louis throttle visiting Milwaukee in the opener of the three-game series.
Paul Goldschmidt had three hits and three RBIs, and Jose Martinez, Paul DeJong and Matt Carpenter contributed two hits each for St. Louis, which blew the game open with seven runs in the seventh inning.
Cardinals right-hander Jack Flaherty (2-1) made his third start of the season against the Brewers and delivered his longest outing, going six innings and giving up four runs and three hits, all homers. He struck out a season-high 10 and walked one. Milwaukee’s Adrian Houser (0-1), making his first major league start, went four-plus innings and gave up five runs on nine hits.
Twins 9, Astros 5
Jorge Polanco recorded his second four-hit game of the season, and he belted a two-run, two-out homer in the eighth inning to carry Minnesota to victory in the opener of a three-game series in Houston.
The Twins, winners of five of their past six, scored two in the first and another run in the second — Jason Castro’s first home run of the season leading off the frame — off Brad Peacock (2-1). Minnesota’s Jake Odorizzi (2-2) limited the Astros to two runs on eight hits over 5 2/3 innings, striking out two without walking a batter.
Houston trailed 7-1 before getting a solo homer from Michael Brantley in the sixth inning and a three-run blast from Carlos Correa in the seventh, but like Sunday night (when Houston rallied from a nine-run deficit and loaded the bases with two outs in the ninth inning before falling 11-10), the Astros couldn’t complete the comeback.
Rays 6, Royals 3
Tampa Bay hit for the cycle in the bottom of the seventh, scoring three runs to emerge with a win over visiting Kansas City. Mike Zunino hit a 425-foot, two-run home run to dead center for the key hit in the inning.
Wilmer Font (1-0) recorded the final out of the seventh and picked up the victory for the Rays, who snapped a four-game losing streak. Emilio Pagan pitched the ninth to record up his first major league save.
Brad Keller (2-2) took the loss for the Royals, who dropped their fourth in a row. He had not surrendered more than three earned runs in any of his first five starts, but he gave up five runs on seven hits in 6 1/3 innings.
Diamondbacks 12, Pirates 4
David Peralta smacked a three-run triple and Christian Walker added a two-run homer during a seven-run seventh inning as Arizona clobbered host Pittsburgh.
Pirates starter Joe Musgrove, who had allowed two earned runs this season, was charged with three runs and five hits in six-plus innings. He struck out five and walked two. Kyle Crick (0-1) took the loss after giving up four runs in two-thirds of an inning.
Eduardo Escobar homered and drove in three runs, and John Ryan Murphy added three hits for Arizona, which has won six of its past eight games. Diamondbacks starter Zack Godley gave up four runs and seven hits in four innings, but Matt Andriese (3-1) got the win with two scoreless innings of relief.
White Sox 12, Orioles 2
Jose Abreu hit his 150th career home run and drove in five runs while James McCann hit a homer and had four RBIs as Chicago scored a season high in runs to win at Baltimore.
Orioles starter David Hess (1-4) kept the White Sox quiet in the first four innings, but homers have troubled him this season, and it happened again in this game. With the game scoreless, Tim Anderson started the fifth with a double and Nicky Delmonico walked. McCann then crushed a three-run shot to left-center — the eighth surrendered by Hess.
Manny Banuelos made his first start this season for Chicago — his first major league start since September 2015 — and scattered five hits in four shutout innings. Jace Fry (1-0) got the victory in relief.
Tigers at Red Sox, ppd.
Detroit’s scheduled game at Boston was rained out and will be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader Tuesday.
–Field Level Media
Source: OANN
An illustration photo shows the Facebook page displayed on a mobile phone internet browser held in front of a computer screen at a cyber-cafe in downtown Nairobi, Kenya April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer
April 23, 2019
By Maggie Fick and Paresh Dave
NAIROBI/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s struggles with hate speech and other types of problematic content are being hampered by the company’s inability to keep up with a flood of new languages as mobile phones bring social media to every corner of the globe.
The company offers its 2.3 billion users features such as menus and prompts in 111 different languages, deemed to be officially supported. Reuters has found another 31 widely spoken languages on Facebook that do not have official support.
Detailed rules known as “community standards,” which bar users from posting offensive material including hate speech and celebrations of violence, were translated in only 41 languages out of the 111 supported as of early March, Reuters found.
Facebook’s 15,000-strong content moderation workforce speaks about 50 tongues, though the company said it hires professional translators when needed. Automated tools for identifying hate speech work in about 30.
The language deficit complicates Facebook’s battle to rein in harmful content and the damage it can cause, including to the company itself. Countries including Australia, Singapore and the UK are now threatening harsh new regulations, punishable by steep fines or jail time for executives, if it fails to promptly remove objectionable posts.
The community standards are updated monthly and run to about 9,400 words in English.
Monika Bickert, the Facebook vice president in charge of the standards, has previously told Reuters that they were “a heavy lift to translate into all those different languages.”
A Facebook spokeswoman said this week the rules are translated case by case depending on whether a language has a critical mass of usage and whether Facebook is a primary information source for speakers. The spokeswoman said there was no specific number for critical mass.
She said among priorities for translations are Khmer, the official language in Cambodia, and Sinhala, the dominant language in Sri Lanka, where the government blocked Facebook this week to stem rumors about devastating Easter Sunday bombings.
A Reuters report found last year that hate speech on Facebook that helped foster ethnic cleansing in Myanmar went unchecked in part because the company was slow to add moderation tools and staff for the local language.
Facebook says it now offers the rules in Burmese and has more than 100 speakers of the language among its workforce.
The spokeswoman said Facebook’s efforts to protect people from harmful content had “a level of language investment that surpasses most any technology company.”
But human rights officials say Facebook is in jeopardy of a repeat of the Myanmar problems in other strife-torn nations where its language capabilities have not kept up with the impact of social media.
“These are supposed to be the rules of the road and both customers and regulators should insist social media platforms make the rules known and effectively police them,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “Failure to do so opens the door to serious abuses.”
ABUSE IN FIJIAN
Mohammed Saneem, the supervisor of elections in Fiji, said he felt the impact of the language gap during elections in the South Pacific nation in November last year. Racist comments proliferated on Facebook in Fijian, which the social network does not support. Saneem said he dedicated a staffer to emailing posts and translations to a Facebook employee in Singapore to seek removals.
Facebook said it did not request translations, and it gave Reuters a post-election letter from Saneem praising its “timely and effective assistance.”
Saneem told Reuters that he valued the help but had expected pro-active measures from Facebook.
“If they are allowing users to post in their language, there should be guidelines available in the same language,” he said.
Similar issues abound in African nations such as Ethiopia, where deadly ethnic clashes among a population of 107 million have been accompanied by ugly Facebook content. Much of it is in Amharic, a language supported by Facebook. But Amharic users looking up rules get them in English.
At least 652 million people worldwide speak languages supported by Facebook but where rules are not translated, according to data from language encyclopedia Ethnologue. Another 230 million or more speak one of the 31 languages that do not have official support.
Facebook uses automated software as a key defense against prohibited content. Developed using a type of artificial intelligence known as machine learning, these tools identify hate speech in about 30 languages and “terrorist propaganda” in 19, the company said.
Machine learning requires massive volumes of data to train computers, and a scarcity of text in other languages presents a challenge in rapidly growing the tools, Guy Rosen, the Facebook vice president who oversees automated policy enforcement, has told Reuters.
GROWTH REGIONS
Beyond the automation and a few official fact-checkers, Facebook relies on users to report problematic content. That creates a major issue where community standards are not understood or even known to exist.
Ebele Okobi, Facebook’s director of public policy for Africa, told Reuters in March that the continent had the world’s lowest rates of user reporting.
“A lot of people don’t even know that there are community standards,” Okobi said.
Facebook has bought radio advertisements in Nigeria and worked with local organizations to change that, she said. It also has held talks with African education officials to introduce social media etiquette into the curriculum, she said.
Simultaneously, Facebook is partnering with wireless carriers and other groups to expand internet access in countries including Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo where it has yet to officially support widely-used languages such as Luganda and Kituba. Asked this week about the expansions without language support, Facebook declined to comment.
The company announced in February it would soon have its first 100 sub-Saharan Africa-based content moderators at an outsourcing facility in Nairobi. They will join existing teams in reviewing content in Somali, Oromo and other languages.
But the community standards are not translated into Somali or Oromo. Posts in Somali from last year celebrating the al-Shabaab militant group remained on Facebook for months despite a ban on glorifying organizations or acts that Facebook designates as terrorist.
“Disbelievers and apostates, die with your anger,” read one post seen by Reuters this month that praised the killing of a Sufi cleric.
After Reuters inquired about the post, Facebook said it took down the author’s account because it violated policies.
ABILITY TO DERAIL
Posts in Amharic reviewed by Reuters this month attacked the Oromo and Tigray ethnic populations in vicious terms that clearly violated Facebook’s ban on discussing ethnic groups using “violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion.”
Facebook removed the two posts Reuters inquired about. The company added that it had erred in allowing one of them, from December 2017, to remain online following an earlier user report.
For officials such as Saneem in Fiji, Facebook’s efforts to improve content moderation and language support are painfully slow. Saneem said he warned Facebook months in advance of the election in the archipelago of 900,000 people. Most of them use Facebook, with half writing in English and half in Fijian, he estimated.
“Social media has the ability to completely derail an election,” Saneem said.
Other social media companies face the same problem to varying degrees.
(GRAPHIC: Social media and the language gap – https://tmsnrt.rs/2VHjwTu)
Facebook-owned Instagram said its 1,179-word community guidelines are in 30 out of 51 languages offered to users. WhatsApp, owned by Facebook as well, has terms in nine of 58 supported languages, Reuters found.
Alphabet Inc’s YouTube presents community guidelines in 40 of 80 available languages, Reuters found. Twitter Inc’s rules are in 37 of 47 supported languages, and Snap Inc’s in 13 out of 21.
“A lot of misinformation gets spread around and the problem with the content publishers is the reluctance to deal with it,” Saneem said. “They do owe a duty of care. “
(Reporting by Maggie Fick in Nairobi and Paresh Dave in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Alister Doyle in Fiji and Omar Mohammed in Nairobi; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Source: OANN
Argentine unions, small firms and activists gather outside Argentina’s Congress to demand changes in President Mauricio Macri’s economic policies, in Buenos Aires, Argentina April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Agustin Marcarian/File Photo
April 22, 2019
By Maximilian Heath
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine President Mauricio Macri rode to power in 2015 promising to bolster the farming sector and cut back taxes that had stymied exports. The country’s backbone industry welcomed him with open arms after years of export controls aimed at keeping domestic prices low.
The powerful sector is now cooling on the center-right president, frustrated by revived export tariffs and sky-high borrowing rates that have bruised smaller farmers, a concern for Macri ahead of national elections later in the year.
Argentina’s farming sector, which brings in more than half of the export dollars in South America’s second-biggest economy, is a key barometer for Macri, who has sold himself as a champion of business and industry, none more so than the country’s huge soy, wheat and corn farms.
“We publicly supported the administration in the last elections (mid-terms in 2017) as we believed they were managing the policies farmers needed,” said Carlos Iannizzotto, president of the Confederación Intercooperativa Agropecuaria, one of the country’s four major farming bodies.
“Today we cannot do the same.”
Reuters spoke to the leaders at all four associations, who collectively make up the influential “Mesa de Enlace” or liaison committee. They cited Macri’s backtracking on cutting taxes on exports and the high cost of credit with interest rates above 60 percent.
The farm lobbies do not directly sway the votes of a huge proportion of voters, analysts and pollsters cautioned, but said that their weakening support was a sharp warning sign for Macri ahead of the October election, which is expected to be closely fought.
Dardo Chiesa, president of a second lobby, the Confederaciones Rurales Argentinas, said farmers had become “disappointed” with Macri’s performance on the economy, with a tumbling peso and inflation running at over 50 percent.
“The first issue in terms of voting this year is the economy, and the reality is that the government’s economic management has not satisfied the sector,” he told Reuters.
‘I WANTED CHANGE’
Everything had started so well.
After Macri’s election in 2015 he eliminated export taxes on corn and wheat and lowered those for soy; he also got rid of limits on corn and wheat exports – gaining cheers from farmers.
However, an acute financial crisis last year forced Macri to take a $56.3 billion lifeline from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in return pledging to balance the country’s deficit – including restarting taxes on exports.
In addition, to deal with inflation and protect the peso currency, the government has hiked interest rates to almost 70 percent, choking off the ability of farmers and other small businesses to obtain funds to expand and buy equipment.
Sales of combine harvesters, tractors and seeding machines plummeted last year, government data showed.
“I voted for Macri because I wanted a change, but Macri has really let us down,” Carlos Boffini, who runs a 400-hectare farm in Colón in the province of Buenos Aires, told Reuters.
“(Macri) spoke about how the export taxes were unfair. Yet here they are again. He was going to get rid of a lot of things and he did not get rid of anything.”
To be sure, not all farmers are turning away from Macri, who is still viewed by many as the most business-friendly candidate.
Daniel Pelegrina, head of Sociedad Rural Argentina, which generally represents larger farming groups, stopped short of giving his direct support for the president but said the government’s policies were roughly in the right direction.
“Argentina needs to be reintegrated and active globally, it needs to have an export-oriented economy,” he said, adding that there is, however, a need to review the high taxes.
IF NOT MACRI, THEN WHO?
Macri is facing a split field in the elections that start in October before a potential run-off if there is no clear winner.
Likely rivals include ex-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, whose populist and interventionist policies made her deeply unpopular with farmers. More moderate members of the Peronist opposition include former economy minister Roberto Lavagna and former congressman Sergio Massa.
Carlos Achetone, president of the Federación Agraria Argentina (FAA), the last of the four main agricultural bodies, said many farmers were looking beyond Macri if there was a “third alternative with substance.”
Analysts and farmers, however, said if the election ended up being between Macri and Fernandez – as many polls expect if she runs – then farmers would have little choice about how to vote.
“There is a consensus of not returning to populism. Argentina cannot return to populism,” said Chiesa, referring to Fernandez’s administration which had introduced export quotas on grains and meat to keep domestic prices low for consumers.
Farmer Boffini agreed, adding the sector’s general dislike of the former leader could well be Macri’s saving grace.
“Do you know what Macri’s advantage is? It’s that we don’t like Cristina and so if Cristina shows up and there are no other options, we will simply vote for Macri so that Cristina does not get in,” he said.
(Reporting by Maximilian Heath in Buenos Aires; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Matthew Lewis)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Visitors leave Bank Indonesia headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Willy Kurniawan
April 22, 2019
JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s central bank will keep interest rates on hold on Thursday, a Reuters poll showed, though some economists say a rate cut to bolster economic growth is coming – and one sees a possible trim next month.
All 23 analysts in the poll predicted Bank Indonesia (BI) will hold its 7-day reverse repurchase rate at 6.00 percent, where it has been since hikes of 175 basis points (bp) between May and November 2018 to defend the then-ailing rupiah.
A slowing global economy and halt of U.S. Federal Reserve policy tightening have shifted rate cut expectations in much of Asia to probable from possible.
Indonesian central bank officials have noted that a steady rupiah, backed by strong capital inflows and benign inflation, support policy easing, but say a narrower current account deficit is needed before rate cuts.
Surprise trade surpluses in February and March have made some economists anticipate a loosening cycle.
Six of the seven analysts in the poll who gave views on the year-end expected lower rates then.
ANZ’s Krystal Tan has penciled in two 25-bp cuts.
“The conditions for BI to unwind its earlier rate hikes are finally starting to come together,” Tan said.
“Any signs of a dovish pivot in BI’s policy messaging should open the door for a move as soon as May, followed by another in August,” she added.
MINI-EASING CYCLE?
Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Mohamed Faiz Nagutha expects BI to “commence a mini easing cycle and cut policy rates by 75 bps over June-August”.
Citi economist Helmi Arman brought forward his forecast of a 25 bps rate cut to the third quarter, from the fourth, during which he expects another 50 bps in reductions.
But Antonius Permana of Bank Negara Indonesia cautioned that the current account gap may widen again in April-June, which could delay a BI cut.
However, Permana also noted that capital inflows may swell to comfortably cover any size of current account deficits, after unofficial quick counts for the April 17 election showed President Joko Widodo securing a second five-year term.
“Foreign capital inflows have the potential to grow bigger because the political uncertainty has subsided,” he said.
Financial markets in Southeast Asia’s largest economy surged when they opened a day after elections last week, buoyed by news of Widodo’s victory, though gains were pared in the afternoon. Markets were down on Monday.
Bucking the consensus, Fitch Solutions – a research affiliate of Fitch Ratings – said in an April 10 note BI could raise rates by 25 bps by end-2019, based on a prediction of higher inflation as a post-election rollback of subsidies.
(Polling by Tabita Diela and Maikel Jefriando; Writing by Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Source: OANN
MAGA One Radio