Workers and protesters throughout the world observed May Day Tuesday with rallies and strikes demanding their governments address better working conditions and other labor issues.

In addition to being an international day honoring workers or a traditional spring time festival, Tuesday is also International Worker’s Day in many countries.

Russia

In Moscow, about 120,000 people marched from Red Square to the main streets in a traditional May Day parade.

In St. Petersburg, Russia, several hundred citizens upset over the Kremlin’s efforts to restrict internet freedom, joined the official May Day celebration. They protested the ban of the messaging application Telegram, a move that triggered a rally in Moscow that was attended by 10,000 people.

Spain

Marches calling for gender equality, higher salaries and better pensions were held in more than 70 cities in Spain. Thousands of people turned out for the largest rally in Madrid, displaying a show of unity behind the slogan “Time to Win.”

General Union Workers’ Union of Spain leader Pepe Alvarez said meeting the demands of feminists, youths and workers are necessary to “redistribute wealth.”

Spain’s economy has been among the fastest growing in Europe in recent years.

United States

May Day Demonstrations for immigrant and labor rights were planned in California, New York, Florida and other U.S. cities.

“The Trump administration has made very clear that they’ve declared war on the immigrant community on all levels,” said Javier Valdez of the advocacy group Make the Road New York.

Immigration rights organizations have participated in May Day activities for over a decade to resist anti-immigration legislation. Now the advocates are focusing on voter turnout in the November mid-term elections.

South Korea

In downtown Seoul, South Korea, about 10,000 labor union members took to the streets to call for a higher minimum wage and to make other demands.

The rally, organized by the Korean Federation of Trade Unions, urged the government to approve a $9.34 minimum wage and convert non-regular workers to regular employees with equal pay.

Turkey

Dozens of demonstrators were detained during May Day events in Istanbul, most of whom tried to march toward the city’s main square in defiance of a government ban.

Citing security concerns, the Turkish government declared Taksim Square off-limits. Nevertheless, small groups of people chanting “Taskim cannot be off limits on May 1” tried to push their way into the square, resulting in scuffles and the detention of 45 demonstrators.

Taksim Square is symbolically significant to Turkey’s labor movement. Thirty-four people were killed there during a May Day event in 1977 when shots were fired into the crowd from a nearby building.

Indonesia

Some 10,000 workers rallied near the presidential palace in Jakarta, Indonesia, urging the government to raise wages and to refrain from outsourcing. They also called for a ban on foreign laborers in Indonesia, saying their presence reduces job opportunities for local workers.

Greece

Thousands of Greeks marched through central Athens in several May Day demonstrations.

Museums were closed and public transportation operated on a reduced schedule.

Police said at least 7,000 people attended one rally in Athens that was planned by the communist party-led union. They marched past parliament toward the United States Embassy.

Cambodia

Prime Minister Hun Sun observed May Day in Cambodia with about 5,000 garment workers just outside the capital of Phnom Penh.

About 2,000 other garment workers gathered at a park in Phnom Penh for a rally. They wanted to march to the National Assembly to convince lawmakers to assist them with labor issues, but the group was stopped by riot police.

Philippines

Some 5,000 people demonstrated near the presidential palace in Manila to protest Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s failure to fulfill a campaign promise to halt the practice of short-term employment.

They also demanded that the government provide higher wages and address joblessness and trade union repression.  

South Africa

Separate May Day marches organized by rival trade unions were held in the coastal South African city of Durban and in other parts of the country.

Riot police were deployed as members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Federation of Trade Unions marched through routes that were designed to put distance between the two unions.

On Monday, COSATU President S’dumo Diamini said at a news conference, “We call upon all workers to work together. Their enemy is one: Monopoly capital.”
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Київські школярі презентували проект зі створення багаторазового водонепроникного нотатника та металевого олівця, що не списується. Відео із результатами їхньої роботи опублікував у себе на сторінці прем’єр-міністр Володимир Гройсман.

«Київські школярі створили вічний блокнот і вічний олівець – Nuka. Свій стартап вони презентували у столиці на конференції iForum і вже планують продавати свій винахід за кордоном 11-класники Катя і Микита екстерном проходять шкільну програму, при цьому мають добрі оцінки і власну справу у 16 років», – зазначив він він.

Щороку в Малій академії наук (МАН) на конкурси наукової творчості надходить понад п’ятсот новацій від старшокласників. 
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Pakistan has formally reopened a major trade route with landlocked Afghanistan after nearly four years.

Authorities had closed the remote Ghulam Khan border crossing in North Waziristan in 2014 after launching a major army-led counter-militancy offensive in the tribal district, once condemned as the “epicenter” of international terrorism.

Military officials say the Waziristan region has since been almost completely secured and rehabilitation as well as reconstruction activities are currently under way there.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi traveled to the tribal region on Monday and inaugurated a newly constructed terminal to formally resume cross-border trading activities.

Ghulam Khan is the third-largest official crossing point on the nearly 2,600-kilometer, largely porous frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Torkham and Chaman are the other two crossings that Afghans use for bilateral trade and transit through Pakistani land and sea routes. Additionally, the two installations are used by visitors traveling in either direction.

The United States and NATO also rely heavily on Pakistan’s ground and air lines of communications for ferrying supplies and non-lethal military equipment to thousands of international troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan have deteriorated in recent years over mutual allegations of supporting militant attacks against each other.

Political tensions often have prompted Pakistani authorities to abruptly close the Torkham and Chaman border crossings, reducing bilateral trade to just over $1 billion from $2.6 billion about two years ago.

Officials and traders on both sides have welcomed resumption of trade through Ghulam Khan, hoping the move will help ease political tensions and increase bilateral trade.

Afghan and Pakistani traders have long urged their respective governments to “segregate” business and trade ties from political and security tensions for promoting mutual trust.

Lately, troubled relations have prompted Afghans to look for alternate routes and they have turned their attention to the India-funded Iranian port of Chabahar for transit trade, bypassing Pakistan.

The Pakistani port of Karachi, however, is still the most economical route for Afghan transit trade, say business leaders in both countries.
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U.S. President Donald Trump is extending tariff exemptions on aluminum and steel exports from the European Union, Canada, and Mexico for at least another month.

The temporary exemptions of the tariffs already imposed on such nations as China, Japan, and Russia, were to have expired Tuesday.

But the White House says it is giving negotiators 30 more days to work out a deal.

The European Commission criticized the temporary extension in a statement Tuesday, saying the European Union has been willing to discuss the issue and “will not negotiate under threat.”

“The U.S. decision prolongs market uncertainty, which is already affecting business decisions,” it said.  “The EU should be fully and permanently exempted from these measures, as they cannot be justified on the grounds of national security.”

Trump has called the tariffs a national security issue because overproduction by some countries makes U.S. exports more expensive and undesirable on the global markets.

WATCH: US trade and tariffs

​The White House also announced late Monday it reached a final deal on steel exports with South Korea, granting it a permanent exemption,  while reaching agreements in principle with Argentina, Australia, and Brazil.

“These agreements underscore the Trump administration’s successful strategy to reach fair outcomes with allies to protect our national security and address global challenges to the steel and aluminum industries,” a White House statement said.

Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum in March on China, Russia, Japan, and other exporters to for what he says is a remedy for unfair competition.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other senior U.S. officials head to China this week for trade talks, as reminded by Trump in a post on Twitter.

“Delegation heading to China to begin talks on the Massive Trade Deficit that has been created with our Country.  Very much like North Korea, this should have been fixed years ago, not now.  Same with other countries and NAFTA…but it will all get done.  Great Potential for USA!”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday imposing tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would be a major disruption because U.S. and Canadian industries – including U.S. car and fighter jet manufacturing – are closely integrated.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is warning of a possible trade war if the United States does not grant the European Union a permanent exemption.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has postponed a decision on imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, the European Union and Mexico until June 1, and has reached an agreement in principle with Argentina, Australia and Brazil, a source familiar with the decision said on Monday.

The decision came just hours before temporary exemptions were set to expire at 12:01 a.m. (0401 GMT) on Tuesday.

“The administration has reached agreements in principle with Argentina, Australia, and Brazil, details of which will be finalized in the next 30 days. The administration is also extending negotiations with Canada, Mexico, and the European Union for a final 30 days,” the source said.

Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum in March, but granted temporary exemptions to Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the European Union, Australia and Argentina. He also granted a permanent exemption on steel tariffs to South Korea.

Trump administration officials have said that in lieu of tariffs, steel and aluminum exporting countries would have to agree to quotas designed to achieve similar protections for U.S. producers. South Korea’s permanent exemption is in exchange for having agreed to cut its steel exports to the United States by about 30 percent.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday that any move by the United States to impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum would be a “very bad idea” guaranteed to disrupt trade between the two countries.

Canada is the largest source of steel imports into the United States, with a steel industry that is highly integrated with its southern neighbor.

Trump has invoked a 1962 trade law to erect protections for U.S. steel and aluminum producers on national security grounds, amid a worldwide glut of both metals that is largely blamed on excess production in China.

If the EU is subject to tariffs on the 6.4 billion euros ($7.7 billion) of the metals it exports annually to the United States, it has said it will set its own duties on 2.8 billion euros of U.S. exports of products ranging from makeup to motorcycles.
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The head of popular messaging service WhatsApp is planning to leave the company because of a reported disagreement over how parent company Facebook is using customers’ personal data. 

WhatsApp billionaire chief executive Jan Koum wrote in a Facebook post Monday, “It’s been almost a decade since (co-founder) Brian (Acton) and I started WhatsApp, and it’s been an amazing journey with some of the best people. But it is time for me to move on,” he said.

Koum did not give a date for his departure.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Koum is stepping down because of disagreements over Facebook’s attempts to use the personal data of WhatsApp customers, as well as efforts to weaken the app’s encryption. 

Action left the company last fall and since then has become a vocal critic of Facebook, recently endorsing a #DeleteFacebook social media campaign.

The Post, citing people familiar with internal WhatsApp discussions, said Koum was worn down by the differences in approach to privacy and security between WhatsApp and Facebook.

When WhatsApp agreed to the company’s sale to Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion, it said WhatsApp would remain an independent service and would not share its data with Facebook. 

However, 18 months later, Facebook pushed WhatsApp to change its terms of service to give the social network access to the personal data of WhatsApp users. 

WhatsApp is the largest messaging service in the world with 1.5 billion monthly users. However, Facebook has been struggling to find ways to make enough money from the app to prove its investment was worth the cost. 

Facebook has faced intense criticism since March when news broke that the personal data of millions of Facebook users had been harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling company that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress earlier this month and apologized for inadequately protecting the data of millions of social media platform users. 

Facebook also recently announced it would allow all its users to shut off third-party access to their apps and said it would set up “firewalls” to ensure users’ data was not unwittingly transmitted by others in their social network.

Some members of Congress said Facebook’s actions to rectify the situation did not go far enough and have called for greater regulation of the internet and social media.
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U.S. consumer prices accelerated in the year to March, with a measure of underlying inflation surging to near the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target as weak readings from last year dropped out of the calculation.

The rise in the annual inflation gauges reported by the Commerce Department on Monday was anticipated by economists and Fed officials and is not expected to alter the U.S. central bank’s gradual pace of interest rate increases.

Annual inflation readings in March of last year were held down by large declines in the price of cell phone service plans, and decelerated through much of 2017.

“The Fed has been talking about today’s inflation increase since last March,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. “There is no reason to think the Fed will accelerate the pace of rate hikes as a result.”

Price index jumps

Consumer prices as measured by the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index jumped 2.0 percent on a year-on-year basis last month. That was the biggest gain since February 2017 and followed a 1.7 percent rise in February. The PCE price index was unchanged on a monthly basis largely because of cheaper gasoline after advancing 0.2 percent in February. 

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the PCE price index soared 1.9 percent in the 12 months through March, also the biggest increase since February 2017, after increasing 1.6 percent in February.

The so-called core PCE price index rose 0.2 percent on a month-on-month basis in March after a similar gain in February.

The core PCE index is the Fed’s preferred inflation measure.Last month’s increase was in line with economists’ expectations.

Minutes of the Fed’s March 20-21 policy meeting published this month showed officials expected the annual PCE price indexes to accelerate in March partly because of “the arithmetic effect of the soft readings on inflation in early 2017 dropping out of the calculation.”

Two additional rate hikes expected

The minutes also noted that the rise in inflation emanating from the so-called base effects “by itself, would not justify a change in the projected path” for the central bank’s benchmark overnight interest rate.

Fed officials are scheduled to convene on Tuesday and Wednesday for a regular policy meeting. The Fed raised rates last month and forecast at least two more rate hikes for 2018.

The dollar rose to near a three-month high against the euro on Monday on the back of weaker-than-expected German data.

Prices for longer-dated U.S. Treasuries rose marginally while U.S. stocks were mixed.

Tightening labor market

Economists expect the core PCE price index to hit 2.0 percent in May because of favorable base effects. Inflation is also rising as the labor market tightens. The government reported last Friday that wages and salaries recorded their biggest increase in 11 years in the first quarter.

In addition, regional factory surveys have shown increases in prices paid and received by manufacturers. Inflation is also likely to be fanned by an anticipated pickup in economic growth, driven by a $1.5 trillion tax cut package and increased government spending.

“We think that will convince the Fed to raise rates a total of four times this year, with the next hike coming in June,” said Michael Pearce, a senior economist at Capital Economics in New York.

Small increase for consumer spending

The Commerce Department’s report on Monday also showed consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased 0.4 percent in March after being unchanged in February.

The data was included in last Friday’s advance first-quarter gross domestic product report, which showed the economy growing at a 2.3 percent annualized rate during that period.

When adjusted for inflation, consumer spending increased 0.4 percent in March. The so-called real consumer spending fell 0.2 percent in February. The rebound in real consumer spending last month supports expectations that consumption was held back by temporary factors in the January-March period and will gain momentum in the second quarter.

Personal income rose 0.3 percent in March after increasing by the same margin in February. With spending outpacing income, savings fell to $460.6 billion last month from $483.1 billion in February.

Manufacturing data on Monday also offered an upbeat assessment of the economy. The MNI Chicago Business Barometer rose 0.2 points to a reading of 57.6 in April, ending three straight monthly declines.

Factory activity in Texas accelerated sharply in April, with the Dallas Fed Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey’s production index surging 11 points to a reading of 25.3.

But the housing market continues to be hobbled by an inventory squeeze that is restraining sales growth. The National Association of Realtors said contracts to buy previously owned homes rose 0.4 percent in March, slowing from February’s 2.8 percent increase.
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