Three former Credit Suisse Group AG bankers were arrested in London on Thursday on U.S. charges that they took part in a $2 billion fraud scheme involving state-owned companies in Mozambique, a spokesman for U.S. prosecutors said.

Andrew Pearse, Surjan Singh and Detelina Subeva were charged in an indictment in Brooklyn, New York federal court with conspiring to violate U.S. anti-bribery law and to commit money laundering and securities fraud, according to spokesman John Marzulli. They have been released on bail.

The arrests came five days after former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang was arrested in South Africa as part of the same criminal case, which was brought by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.

The prosecutors will seek to have all of the defendants extradited to the United States, according to Marzulli. Lawyers for the defendants could not immediately be reached for comment after business hours in New York and London.

“The indictment alleges that the former employees worked to defeat the bank’s internal controls, acted out of a motive of personal profit, and sought to hide these activities from the bank,” Credit Suisse said in a statement. It added that the bank will continue to cooperate with authorities.

Chang oversaw Mozambique’s finances when it failed to disclose government guarantees for $2 billion in international borrowing by state-owned firms. The disclosure of those loans in 2016 plunged the southern African country into a suffocating debt crisis it is still struggling to climb out of two years later.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

After studying a space rock some 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) from Earth, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft set off on a new hunt for moons in the solar system’s most distant edge, searching for clues on our solar family’s creation, scientists said on Thursday.

The piano-sized probe is traveling deep into the ring of celestial bodies known as the Kuiper Belt looking for small, icy moons that spun off the snowman-shaped Ultima Thule formation, a pair of icy space rocks that fused in orbit billions of years ago.

“If we’ve seen bodies one and two, the question is what about bodies three, four and five?” Mark Showalter, a New Horizons investigator, said during a news conference at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

New Horizons on New Year’s day came within 2,200 miles (3,500 km) of Ultima Thule, which represents a pristine time capsule dating to the birth of the solar system. The fly-by marked the farthest close encounter of an object within our solar system.

Since then, the probe has sent images revealing Ultima Thule to be a contact binary — two bodies that formed separately and then got stuck together. The formation, resembling a red-hued snowman — caused by irradiated ice — is just over 21 miles (34 km) long.

Scientists deduced that the conjoined bodies — one named Ultima and the other Thule — were once part of a cloud of smaller, rotating space rocks that eventually bound together into two larger bodies orbiting at a much slower speed.

Pluto and beyond

“We’re looking for the objects that put the brakes on these objects,” Showalter said. Finding the moons, which would orbit Ultima Thule up to 500 miles (800 km) from its surface, would also reveal details about the space rock’s mass and density.

The spacecraft, now 3 million miles (5 million km) beyond Ultima Thule, will ping back more detailed images and data in the coming weeks, NASA said.

Since its launch in 2006, New Horizons has traveled 4 billion miles (6.4 billion km) to the solar system’s edge to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its five moons and hundreds of icy Kuiper Belt objects.

Scientists had not discovered Ultima Thule when the probe was launched, according to NASA, making the mission unique in that respect. In 2014, astronomers found the rocky formation using the Hubble Space Telescope and the following year selected it for New Horizon’s extended mission.

While the mission marks the farthest inspection of an object in our solar system, NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2, a pair of

deep-space probes launched in 1977, have reached greater distances on a mission to survey extrasolar bodies. Both probes are still operational.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The government says 8.4 million Americans have signed up for coverage next year under the Obama health law, reflecting steady enrollment even as supporters of the law appeal a court ruling that declares it unconstitutional. 

Thursday’s numbers underscore the unexpected staying power of  “Obamacare,” which President Donald Trump failed to repeal after promising a better health insurance plan in its place. 

The numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reflect the 39 states served by the federal HealthCare.gov website. The final count will be higher, after major states like California and New York report. 

Also on Thursday, Democratic-led states announced they’re appealing a recent ruling by a conservative federal judge in Texas that declared the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. 

The law remains in place while the lawsuit continues.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Behind Apple’s disconcerting news of weak iPhone sales lies a more sobering truth: The tech industry has hit Peak Smartphone, a tipping point when everyone who can afford one already owns one and no breakthroughs are compelling them to upgrade as frequently as they once did.

Some manufacturers have boosted prices to keep up profit, but Apple’s shortfall highlights the limits of that strategy. The company said demand for iPhones is waning and revenue for the last quarter of 2018 will fall well below projections, a decrease traced mainly to China.

Apple’s shares dropped 10 percent Thursday on the news — its worst loss since 2013. The company shed $74.6 billion in market value, amid a broader sell-off among technology companies, which suffered their worst loss in seven years.

Apple’s news is a “wake-up call for the industry,” said analyst Dan Ives of research firm Wedbush Securities.

And it’s not just Apple. Demand has been lackluster across the board, Ives said. Samsung, long the leading seller of smartphones, has been hit even harder, as its phone shipments dropped 8 percent during the 12 months ending in September.

“The smartphone industry is going through significant headwinds,” Ives said. “Smartphone makers used to be like teenagers, and the industry was on fire. Now it feels like they’re more like senior citizens in terms of maturity.”

Victim of its own success

Tech innovations in phones grew in leaps and bounds earlier in the 2010s, with dramatic improvements in screen size, screen resolution, battery life, cameras and processor speed every year.

But the industry is a victim of its own success. Innovation began to slow down around 2014, once Apple boosted the screen size with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models. While phones kept improving, new features tended to be incremental, such as a new flash technique to already excellent phone cameras. It’s the stuff consumers won’t typically notice — or want to shell out for.

“Since the iPhone 6 you’ve seen it has been tough to innovate to continue to raise the bar,” Ives said.

Apple customers now upgrade every 33 months on average, longer than the 24 or 25 months three years ago, he said.

Apple’s diminished growth projections, fueled by plummeting sales in China, have reinforced fears the world’s second-largest economy is losing steam. Its $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to Chinese consumers unnerved by an economic slump and the trade war with the U.S. They also have a slew of cheaper smartphones from homegrown competitors such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo to choose from.

The fact that even Apple’s iPhone juggernaut is suffering cements a larger trend for all major smartphone makers. After a steady rise for a decade, worldwide smartphone shipments fell 3 percent to 1.42 billion in 2018, the first annual drop, according to International Data Corp., which tracks such movements. IDC estimates that shipments will rebound 3 percent in 2019 to 1.46 billion, but that still falls short of 2017 levels.

No ‘silver bullet’

It doesn’t help that top phones come with four-digit price tags — $1,100 for the iPhone XS Max and $1,000 for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9. The top-end Max model sells for $1,450 in the U.S.

“They’re getting more and more expensive while offering fewer and fewer new, innovative features that I’ll actually use,” said Zachary Pardes, a tech-savvy 31-year-old in Fairfield, Connecticut. “I’ll upgrade when the battery stops working. When I’m forced to buy a new phone, I’ll buy a new phone.”

Vivian Yang, a manager at a Beijing technology company, also balked at the price. “Nobody needs such a phone,” she said.

IDC analyst Ramon Llamas said the cycle might bottom out and start growing again in 2021 or 2022, when people’s current phones start reaching the end of their useful life. “People will still replace their phones. It’s going to happen eventually,” he said.

But there’s no “silver bullet” that will spur growth to levels seen in the past when the industry was less mature.

Foldable smartphones, with screens that unfold like a wallet to increase display size, are one thing that could spur excitement, but they’re expensive and not due out until at least the end of the year.

Another thing that might spur growth: 5G, the next-generation that telecom companies are currently in the process of building, expected to be faster and more reliable than the current 4G network. The first 5G compatible phones are due out this year.

“There’s more pressure on 5G as the next-wave smartphone,” since sales are so lackluster, said Ives. “There will be a battle royale for 5G phones.”

But 5G will take years for broad, nationwide deployment, so the new 5G smartphones coming out this year are not likely to make much of a splash immediately either.

Analysts say smartphone makers need to push into under-saturated areas like Africa and elsewhere, and also sell more services like cloud storage, streaming music and phone software. But the glory days of untrammeled growth appear to be over.

“It’s going to be a slow slog,” Llamas said. “By no means is this the end of the smartphone market. But this is an indication that the smartphone market can be a victim of its own success.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Stock markets around the globe dropped Thursday after tech giant Apple said that sales of its devices had fallen sharply in China last month, perhaps signaling a broader slowing in the world economy.

The widely watched Dow Jones industrial average of 30 prominent U.S. stocks plunged 2.8 percent — more than 660 points — by the close of trading, after stock indexes in Europe and Asia closed with smaller losses. Apple’s stock was down nearly 9 percent.

The stock declines came after Apple announced late Wednesday that its holiday sales were lower than it had expected, especially in China, the world’s second-biggest economy after the United States. In addition, a key gauge of U.S. manufacturing unexpectedly hit a two-year low in December, indicating weak demand and exports.

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook blamed the company’s sales shortfall on the trade battle President Donald Trump is waging against China. 

“While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in greater China,” Cook wrote. “In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.” 

​More to come

Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the contentious U.S.-China relations would force other U.S. companies to cut their sales estimates in China. 

“It’s not going to be just Apple,” Hassett told CNN. “There are a heck of a lot of U.S. companies that have sales in China that are going to be watching their earnings being downgraded next year until we get a deal with China.”

He said slowing consumer demand in China would give Trump an edge in trade negotiations. 

“That puts a lot of pressure on China to make a deal,” he said. “If we have a successful negotiation with China, then Apple’s sales and everybody else’s sales will recover.”

The U.S. economy remains strong, with the country’s 3.7 percent jobless rate at a nearly five-decade low. But economists say the U.S. economy could be slowing, and uncertainty in global economic fortunes has led to volatile daily swings in stock indexes in recent weeks.

In 2018, U.S. stock indexes suffered their worst year in a decade, with most of the losses recorded in December. The Dow was off 5.6 percent for the year, with the broader Standard & Poor’s index of 500 stocks down 6.2 percent.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The year 2018 was one of box office successes and awards of artistic recognition for black films, from Marvel Comic’s action flick Black Panther to the fact-based drama Blackkklansman.

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, about a fictional African king with superhero powers and his technologically advanced country, Wakanda, has received dozens of awards, including three Golden Globe nominations. The American Film Institute recognized it as one of the year’s ten best movies for its social and artistic significance celebrating African and African-American cultures.

Musing about the film’s power, producer Nate Moore told VOA, “I think that for African-American audiences there is a lot to pull from. And hopefully there is some inspiration again learning about the roots where African-Americans came from.”

Black Panther, with the first black Superhero lead actor, grossed over a billion dollars domestically and internationally, making it the third highest grossing film ever in the U.S. It has been projected as an Oscar winner. But does its critical and financial success mean that Black films are becoming a Hollywood staple?

A turning point for black films?

It may be too soon to tell, says media expert Richard Craig, an associate professor of communication at George Mason University. “I think Hollywood is processing that as the way that Hollywood processes most things, and that’s looking at the bottom line, the profit margin. If a film does well in the box office and beyond the box office — because we have the opportunity of the merchandise, spinoffs in terms of shows, field games etc. Hollywood is going to say, ‘you know what? Maybe we can do another one, maybe we can do another two.’”

As long as audiences pay to see films with minorities as leads, Hollywood will keep on making them, Craig says, but adds that the industry still has a long way to go before it is willing to invest in high-budget film franchises such as James Bond or Spiderman with black actors as leads.

He points to the newly-released animated Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, which includes a black Spiderman. He said while he and his 12-year-old daughter enjoyed this new rendition of Spiderman, he felt a bit ambivalent about its animated form. “You are given this cartoon version of Spiderman to accept this black face as Spiderman as opposed to having a real time, real place actor.”

However, Craig says, smaller, independent black movies with a political or cultural message that feature real-live actors have a greater chance of making it to production.

Two such films this year are Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman, a dark satire based on a true story about an African-American cop infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and If Beale Street Could Talk, a romantic drama about social injustice against blacks and incarceration of African-American men in 1970s America, by Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins.  Both films have been mentioned as Oscar contenders and share the spotlight in AFI’s list of best films of the year.

Room for smaller films

But small black films by lesser-known filmmakers get little promotion and financial backing. Just a few years after the beginning of the #BlackLivesMatter, musician and activist Boots Riley released his first film, Sorry to Bother You. It advocates activism against the economic exploitation of “Corporate America.”

“When art and organizing are married, then the art becomes a way for people to ruminate on what they can do and then they have a place to plug in,” Riley told VOA. “And then I think what happens is more artists are created from those movements.” He says he doubts his film would have made it to production if he relied on Hollywood to get it funded.  “Making your art is one thing and trying to get a job in what “they” [the Hollywood Industry] want to happen is another. The reason I was able to make a film like I made was because I wasn’t trying to get a job.”

He advises young filmmakers without financial backing to use digital platforms to get their films out.

It took Boots Riley four years to get his film made. But Sorry to Bother You is a success story. The film cost a little bit over three million dollars to make and has grossed over twenty million dollars.

The Hate U Give, by filmmaker George Tillman, about a police shooting of an African-American teen in a black community, also went viral, despite the fact that it had gotten little promotion. Tillman said that was because the film offered an authentic depiction of African-Americans killed by police and its message of standing up for justice resonated with audiences all over the country.

Boots Riley agrees that the overwhelmingly positive audience response towards thought-provoking African-American movies signals that black filmmakers can take charge of their narrative and film production.

“We have things to bring to the world that are not just changing the actors or changing the director,” he says, “and I think that black film can really start having its own stories.”

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

2018 was a year of box office successes and awards of artistic recognition for black films. Marvel’s action flick “Black Panther” introduced the first black superhero lead actor and grossed over a billion dollars domestically and internationally. Other films with black leading characters also did well with audiences and critics. Do these distinctions signal that black films are finally part of the Hollywood mainstream? VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Digital developments that have upended businesses throughout the global economy, from music to manufacturing, are also changing what the world trades and how manufacturers and merchants move and sell their goods. Experts tell VOA’s Jim Randle, the digital revolution presents significant opportunities, but also serious problems, for countries.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The Rose Parade has been a New Year’s Day tradition since 1890.  Every inch of every float is covered with flowers or other natural materials, such as leaves, seeds or bark. The most delicate flowers, including roses, are placed in individual vials of water, which are set into the float one by one. The parade of dozens of floats, marching bands and equestrian units is watched by thousands along the 9 kilometer route through Pasadena, California, and by millions more on TV around the world. The colorful spectacle kicks off the “Rose Bowl” – an American college football final that is also a New Year tradition. Mike O’Sullivan reports, volunteers have been working day and night on displays to prepare for the parade early Tuesday.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Just 33 minutes into the New Year, NASA’s New Horizons probe will make space exploration history, flying by the most distant body ever explored.

The probe, launched in January 2006, will fly within 3,540 kilometers of 2014 MU69, dubbed Ultima Thule, a Latin phrase meaning beyond the known world.

In 2015, New Horizons flew by Pluto, then the farthest object visited by a spacecraft from Earth. This time the encounter will take place 1.6 billion kilometers past Pluto, some 6.5 billion kilometers from Earth.

“Today is the day we explore worlds farther than ever in history!! EVER,” tweeted the project’s lead scientist, Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute.

He called it an auspicious beginning to 2019, which will mark the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s footsteps on the moon in July 1969.

Ultima Thule was discovered in June 2014 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which was trying to find new targets for New Horizons in the Kuiper Belt, the third region of the solar system.

New Horizons, which is the size of a baby grand piano and part of an $800 million mission, will collect data for four hours after the flyby. After that the probe will return toward Earth to transmit a signal announcing its progress.

“I can’t promise you success. We are straining the capabilities of this spacecraft,” Stern said at a news conference Monday. “By tomorrow, we’ll know how we did. So stay tuned. There are no second chances for New Horizons.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

China’s factory activity shrank in December for the first time in more than two years, an official survey showed Monday, intensifying pressure on Beijing to reverse an economic slowdown as it enters trade talks with the Trump administration.

The purchasing managers’ index of the National Bureau of Statistics and an industry group, the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing, fell to 49.4 from November’s 50.0 on a 100-point scale. Any reading below 50 shows that activity is contracting. The December figure was the lowest since February 2016 and the first drop since July 2016.

In the quarter that ended in September, China’s economic growth sank to a post-global crisis low of 6.5 percent compared with a year earlier. The slowdown occurred despite government efforts to stem the downturn by ordering banks to lend more and by boosting spending on public works construction.

Forecasters expect annual growth of about 6.5 percent, down slightly from 2017’s 6.7 percent. But some industry segments, including auto and real estate sales, have suffered more serious declines.

“Downward pressure on the economy is still large,” economist Zhang Liqun said in a statement issued with the PMI.

Overall orders and exports both contracted, indicating that Chinese factories are suffering from weak demand at home and abroad. Exports to the United States kept growing at double-digit monthly rates through late 2018 despite President Donald Trump’s punitive tariffs. But growth in exports to the rest of the world fell sharply in November and forecasters expect American demand to weaken in early 2019.

That adds to complications for Chinese leaders who are trying to reverse a broad economic slowdown and avert politically dangerous job losses.

Chinese and U.S. envoys are due to meet in early January for negotiations that are intended to resolve their economically threatening trade war. Over the weekend, Trump sounded an optimistic note, tweeting that he had spoken with President Xi Jinping by phone.

“Deal is moving along very well,” Trump tweeted. “If made, it will be very comprehensive, covering all subjects, areas and points of dispute. Big progress being made!”

But economists say the 90-day moratorium on new penalties that was agreed to by Trump and Xi on Dec. 1 is likely too little time to resolve their sprawling dispute.

Chinese economic activity already was weakening after Beijing tightened controls on bank lending in late 2017 to cool a debt boom. The downturn was more abrupt than expected, which prompted regulators to shift course and ease credit controls. But they moved gradually to avoid reigniting a rise in debt. Their measures have yet to put a floor under declining growth.

Chinese leaders promised at an annual economic planning meeting in mid-December to shore up growth with tax cuts, easier lending for entrepreneurs and other steps.

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Kenya’s economy expanded faster in the third quarter of this year than in the same period last year due to strong performance in the agriculture and construction sectors, the statistics office said on Monday.

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said the economy grew 6 percent in the third quarter of 2018, compared with 4.7 percent in the same period in 2017.

It said the agriculture sector expanded by 5.2 percent compared with 3.7 percent in the third quarter of 2017, helped by better weather.

“Prices of key food crops remained low during the quarter compared to the corresponding quarter of 2017, an indication of relative stability in supply,” KNBS said.

Manufacturing grew by 3.2 percent from a 0.1 percent contraction in the third quarter of 2017, KNBS said.

It said that the electricity and water supply sector grew by 8.5 percent from 4.5 percent in the third quarter of 2017, mainly due to a big increase in the generation of electricity from hydro and geothermal sources.

Gross foreign reserves increased to 1,222.5 billion from 1,085.6 billion in the same period of last year.

The current account deficit narrowed by 23 percent to 116 billion Kenyan shillings ($1.14 billion), it said.

This was mainly due to lower imports of food and higher value of exports of goods and services.

The government forecasts that the economy will expand by 6.2 percent in 2019, up from a forecast 6.0 percent this year.
…

From: MeNeedIt