Hiring tumbled in February, with U.S. employers adding just 20,000 jobs, the smallest monthly gain in nearly a year and a half. The slowdown in hiring, though, might have been depressed by harsh winter weather and the partial shutdown of the government.

Last month’s weak gain came after employers had added a blockbuster 311,000 jobs in January, the most in nearly a year. Over the past three months, job growth has averaged a solid 186,000, enough to lower the unemployment rate over time.

And despite the tepid pace of hiring in February, the government’s monthly jobs report Friday included some positive signs: Average hourly pay last month rose 3.4 percent from a year earlier _ the sharpest year-over-year increase in a decade. The unemployment rate also fell to 3.8 percent, near the lowest level in five decades, from 4 percent in January.

Unseasonably cold weather, which affects such industries as construction and restaurants, afflicted some areas of the country in February. And the 35-day government shutdown that ended in late January likely affected the calculation of job growth.

Still, the hiring pullback comes amid signs that growth is slowing because of a weaker global economy, a trade war between the United States and China and signs of caution among consumers. Those factors have led many economists to forecast weaker growth in the first three months of this year.

Sluggish hiring and job cuts in February were widespread across industries. Construction cut 31,000 jobs, the most in more than five years. Manufacturing added just 4,000 jobs. Retailers cut 6,100. Job growth in a category that includes mostly restaurants and hotels were unchanged last month after adding a huge 89,000 gain in January.

Most analysts expect businesses to keep hiring and growth to rebound in the April-June quarter. It will be harder than usual, though, to get a precise read on the economy because many data reports are still delayed by the partial shutdown of the government.

In the meantime, there are cautionary signs. Consumer confidence fell sharply in January, held back by the shutdown and by a steep fall in stock prices in December. And Americans spent less over the winter holidays, with consumer spending falling in December by the most in five years.

Home sales fell last year and price gains are slowing after the average rate on a 30-year mortgage reached nearly 5 percent last year. Sales of new homes also cratered late last year before picking up in December. And U.S. businesses have cut their orders for equipment and machinery for the past two months, a sign that they are uncertain about their customer demand.

The economy is forecast to be slowing to an annual growth rate of just 1 percent in the first three months of this year, down from 2.6 percent in the October-December quarter. Growth reached nearly 3 percent for all of last year, the strongest pace since 2015.

Still, economists expect a rebound in the April-June quarter, and there are already signs of one: Consumer confidence rose in February along with the stock market.

And more Americans signed contracts to buy homes in January, propelled by lower mortgage rates. Analysts have forecast that annual growth will top 2 percent next quarter.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will not sign a trade deal with China unless it is a “very good deal.”

Trump made the comments Friday as he left the White House to tour tornado damage in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. The United States and China have been battling over trade tariffs since last year.

The White House is planning a summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Florida later this year.

“If this isn’t a great deal, I won’t make a deal,” Trump said. Then he added: “We will do very well either way, with or without a deal.”

The trade dispute between the United States and China has begun to affect China’s economic growth.

China’s exports and imports fell significantly more than expected in the month of February, data published Friday by the country’s customs administration showed.

China’s trade surplus with the U.S. narrowed to $14.7 billion for the month, from $27.3 billion in January.

China’s February exports plummeted 20.7 percent from the same period a year prior, and imports dropped 5.2 percent from a year earlier, considerably more than expected. According to a Bloomberg News poll, the forecast was 5.0 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.   

China economist Chang Liu of Capital Economics in London told VOA that the drop in Chinese exports is due, at least in part, to the tariffs. Last year, he said, “firms were front-loading their shipments [shipped more goods in the first half of the year] to avoid further threat of further tariffs. So that dropped the exports in the second half of last year. … So, literally, that is a tariff effect.”

Recent economic data reveal the difficulties China faced in the fourth quarter of 2018 as its growth rate slowed to 6.4 percent.

In January, an import barometer of prices in the industrial sector neared contraction, while manufacturing activity in February marked the worst performance in three years.

China’s government announced major tax cuts, fee reductions and a looser monetary policy to combat the economic growth slowdown.
…

Wall Street has rewarded its most patient investors handsomely over the past 10 years. Is there more to come?

The S&P 500, the U.S. market’s benchmark index, has gained about 309 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 points in March 2009 during the Great Recession, according to FactSet. The index is now 5.4 percent below its recent peak of 2,930.75 set on Sept. 20. 

This bull market’s lifespan, the longest on record, speaks to financial markets’ resiliency in the face of a variety of shocks, including a brutal fourth quarter of 2018.

Whether the bull keeps running hinges on whether companies can continue raking in profits, a key driver of the stock market, and whether the U.S. economy can avoid sliding into a recession. Bull markets tend to wither when fear of a recession kicks in. 

Profits are ‘oxygen’

“As long as corporate profits are growing, that’s usually the oxygen for further gains in the stock market,” said David Lefkowitz, senior Americas equity strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management.

Profit growth for the companies in the S&P 500 averaged 25.6 percent in the first three quarters of last year. That slipped to 13.4 percent in the fourth quarter, but still topped expectations.

But earnings are expected to decline slightly in the first quarter and grow in the mid-single digits for the full year, according to FactSet. And the U.S. economy has been showing signs of slowing and is expected to continue to do so this year. 

“The risk of recession grows,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA, noting that the U.S. economy’s current expansion will become the longest in history by the end of July.

“However, we currently see no quarterly GDP declines through the fourth quarter of 2020, let alone back-to-back declines, which have been a rule of thumb for recessions,” he said.  

Meanwhile, the wild card for the market — and the economy — might be the long-running, costly trade conflict between Washington and Beijing. While reportedly on track for a resolution as early as this month, the spat continues to weigh on investors’ nerves and many companies’ plans. 

Concerns in late 2018

The bull market has looked very vulnerable at times during its decade-long run, most recently at the end of last year. That’s when a bevy of concerns, including rising interest rates, the trade spat, slowing global economic growth and some tepid profit forecasts, sent the S&P 500 into a skid that resulted in the index’s worst December since the Great Depression.

That slide culminated on Dec. 24, when the S&P 500 closed 19.8 percent below its all-time high. A drop of 20 percent or more would have ushered in a bear market. 

“What we’ve seen and continue to see is doubts,” said Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL. “People have doubted it the whole way up.” 

And yet, the bull shrugged that off, too, and now the market is off to its best start to a year since 1991. 

“It was a good-sized correction that freaked everybody out,” Detrick said. “Then the realization comes that the economy is on good footing.” 

The Federal Reserve put investors at ease in January when it signaled a prolonged pause in further interest rate hikes. That calmed fears that the central bank would keep raising rates at a pace that could derail the economy. 

One of the key questions in gauging the longevity of the bull market is the outlook for inflation and what action the Fed will take to try to manage it. 

For now, inflation remains below the 2 percent target used by the Fed to determine whether annual price increases are growing too rapidly. It was up 1.7 percent in the 12 months ended in December.

As long as inflation remains at that level, the Fed has less incentive to raise rates. 

Slower growth

The U.S. economy turned in a solid performance in 2018, boosted in part by tax cuts and higher government spending. But economic growth slowed to 2.6 percent in the last three months of the year from 3.4 percent in the third quarter.

Most economists envision a weaker performance for the coming months and probably years. Some expect gross domestic product to drop to a growth rate of 2 percent or less in the current January-March period. 

Investors have grown cautious about business conditions going forward as signs of weakness in the global economy have emerged. Uncertainty over trade has also helped cloud the outlook for company profits this year. 

Still, even modest company earnings growth should keep the bull market rolling. 

“We think the bull market is still intact,” Lefkowitz said. “And at some point, we’re likely to see new all-time highs for the broad market gauges.” 
…

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called Venezuela one of the most “complex situations” it had ever seen. 

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice described Venezuela and its economy as a combination of “food and nutrition crises, hyperinflation, a destabilized exchange rate, debilitating human capital and physical productive capacity, and a very complicated debt situation.” 

Rice said tackling this challenge would take “strong resolve” and “broad international support” from all 189 IMF members. 

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told The Economist Radio, a podcast, that the fund would help “as soon as we are asked by the legitimate authorities of that country.” 

“We will open our wallet, we will put our brain to it, and we will make sure our heart is in the right place to help the poorest and most exposed people,” she added, calling the task it faced in Venezuela  “monumental.” 

Rice said Thursday that the IMF had yet to determine whom to recognize as the leader of Venezuela — President Nicolas Maduro or opposition leader Juan Guaido, the self-declared interim president.
…

Національний банк України 7 березня відзначив, що «курс гривні під впливом ринкових факторів зміцнюється упродовж останніх тижнів», і назвав причини такої тенденції.

За даними регулятора, це

– сприятлива зовнішня цінова кон’юнктура для товарів українського експорту, зокрема аграрної і металургійної продукції, і стабільні надходження експортної виручки;

– наближення строків сплати річних податків до державного бюджету, що стимулює бізнес активніше продавати іноземну валюту;

– слабке зростання імпорту товарів і низькі обсяги репатріації дивідендів в інвалюті за кордон;

– чистий продаж валюти населенням.

«Від початку року станом на 7 березня офіційний курс гривні зміцнився на 4,4% до 26,48 гривень за долар США. Зокрема, лише з початку березня – на 1,4%», – констатує НБУ.

«Національний банк… не спрямовує свої операції на підтримку певного рівня курсу. Щоб запобігти надмірним коливанням курсу в період суттєвих погойдувань у бік знецінення, викликаних ситуативними чинниками, Національний банк продає валюту, а за наявності надлишкової пропозиції, яка спричиняє коливання в бік зміцнення, – викуповує її в незначних обсягах для поповнення міжнародних резервів», – повідомляє регулятор.

«Поточна сприятлива ситуація на валютному ринку дає можливість Національному банку поповнювати міжнародні резерви без впливу на напрямок руху курсу гривні. Від початку року станом на 7 березня чиста купівля валюти Національним банком становить близько 700 мільйонів доларів США, із них більше 200 мільйонів доларів США – за перший тиждень березня», – проінформував НБУ.

За результатами торгів 7 березня Нацбанк зміцнив гривню ще на 9 копійок. Офіційний курс, встановлений на перший робочий день наступного тижня, 11 березня, становить 26 гривень 38,91 копійки за долар.
…

Chinese tech giant Huawei has sued the U.S. government, arguing that legislation Congress passed last year restricting its business in the United States is “unconstitutional.” 

The case, which analysts see more as a public relations move, is the latest in an intensifying effort by the telecommunications company to fight U.S. security concerns that Huawei argues are unfair and unfounded.

In its lawsuit, Huawei argues that Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act violates the constitutional principles of separation of powers and due process. By singling out the company and punishing it without a trial, the company also argues that the law violates the Constitution’s the bill of attainder clause.

Section 889 bans federal agencies and their contractors from purchasing equipment and services from Huawei as well as another Chinese telecom company ZTE. President Donald Trump signed it into law last year.

“This ban is not only unlawful but also harms both Huawei and U.S. consumers,” Huawei’s rotating chairman, Guo Ping, told reporters Thursday in Shenzhen. “This section strips Huawei of its due process, violating the separation of powers principles, breaks U.S. legal traditions, and goes against the very nature of the constitution.”

Guo said that Huawei was left with no choice but to take legal action, noting that neither lawmakers nor the government had shown any proof to date to back up concerns the company is a security concern.

On Thursday, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Palladino declined to comment on the pending lawsuit, but said the government needs to be vigilant when making procurement decisions. 

“The United States advocates for secure telecom networks and supply chains that are free from suppliers subject to foreign government control or undue influence, which would pose risks of unauthorized access and malicious cyber activity,” said Palladino in response to questions posed by VOA during a briefing. 

“We believe that these risks posed by vendors subject to extrajudicial or unchecked compulsion by foreign states that do not share our values need to be weighed rigorously before making procurement decisions on these technologies,” he added.

Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, said the company has no choice but to defend itself and try to clear its name.

“Section 889 is based on numerous false, unproven, and untested propositions. Contrary to the statutes’ premise, Huawei is not owned, controlled, or influenced by the Chinese government,” Song said.

That, however, is a central point of the debate over Huawei: how much a security threat the company is? And is it really independent from China’s authoritarian government?

That debate is heating up at a crucial time as countries across the globe are preparing to roll out next generation mobile communications networks or 5G, an area where Huawei is a global leader.

At the press conference, Huawei officials argued repeatedly that the ban would cut off Americans from its advanced technology. They also gave assurances again that the company would never install backdoors into their equipment and that it puts the security concerns of its customers first.

Some countries, including the United States, Australia, and New Zealand believe Huawei is a security threat and have already banned the company from their roll outs of next generation mobile communications networks.

Others, including Britain, Canada, and Germany, are still weighing a decision. At the same time, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou is in Canadian custody and is facing extradition to the United States to face charges of alleged violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

With Huawei fighting a battle on multiple fronts, the lawsuit is as much about public relations as it is an effort to clear itself of accusations that it is a security threat.

Legal analysts said it is unlikely the case will even go to trial.

“As a PR matter, this is brilliant, the fact that we are just talking about this now, tells you this is a great PR move, as a legal matter, this is a reach, to put it charitably,” said law professor David Law      of Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Hong Kong. “I just can’t see how a federal district judge in Texas is going to let this go to trial much less hand Huawei a win.”

The case could put more pressure on the U.S. government to disclose more evidence to support its claims about the alleged security threat the company poses, according to some legal analysts. That could help Huawei in the process, said the Taiwan Bar Association’s Calvin Yang.

“I think this is a move that carries more political weight than any litigation significance,” Yang said, adding that the company’s case was more about challenging the legitimacy of U.S. accusations. “It’s using judicial procedure to force the federal government to provide more evidence to support its allegations of so-called backdoors in Huawei’s equipment.”

Some legal analysts have noted that Huawei’s case is similar to the legal battle Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky lost late last year. Kaspersky challenged a ban on the use of its software on U.S. government networks. A U.S. federal appeals court ruled in the government’s favor in November.

Whether that will figure into the Huawei case if it goes to trial is too early to tell, legal analysts note.

When it comes to national security concerns, they add that courts are unlikely to probe too deeply into those questions.

VOA State Department Correspondent Nike Ching and Kenneth Schwartz contributed to this report.
…

На українському міжбанківському валютному ринку триває стрімке посилення національної валюти. Національний банк України викуповує частину надлишкової пропозиції долара, але це лише призупиняє процес.

За інформацією профільного сайту «Мінфін», який відстежує перебіг торгів, регулятор купляв американську валюту за 26 гривень 38-40 копійок.

Станом на 14:00 «торги почали знижувати активність». «Відбуваються угоди по лотах до 200 – 250 тисяч доларів за хиткої рівноваги попиту і пропозиції», – ідеться в повідомленні.

Довідкове значення курсу, яке НБУ щобуднього дня оголошує о 12:00, 7 березня становить 26 гривень 39 копійок.

Національний банк України за результатами торгів 6 березня встановив на 7 березня офіційний курс 26 гривень 48 копійок за долар. Це на 28 копійок менше, ніж попереднього дня.

Зараз гривня щодо долара перебуває на рівні липня 2018 року. Свого пікового значення 28 гривень 39 копійок впродовж останнього року долар сягнув 30 листопада 2018 року.

Національний банк пояснює тренд на зміцнення гривні, зокрема, стабільними надходженнями експортної виручки. Нині регулятор майже щодня викуповує певні обсяги валюти, щоб не допустити надмірних коливань на ринку.
…

Національний банк України встановив на 7 березня курс 26 гривень 48 копійок за долар. Це на 28 копійок менше, ніж попереднього дня.

Зараз гривня щодо долара перебуває на рівні липня 2018 року. Свого пікового значення 28 гривень 39 копійок впродовж останнього року долар сягнув 30 листопада 2018 року.

Національний банк пояснює тренд на зміцнення гривні, зокрема, стабільними надходженнями експортної виручки. Нині регулятор майже щодня викуповує певні обсяги валюти, щоб не допустити надмірних коливань на ринку.
…

Marin Mendez leaned a shoulder into his rusty Chevy Malibu rolling it forward each time the line of cars inched closer to the pump. Waiting hours to fill up, he says, is the high cost he pays for gasoline that’s nearly free in socialist Venezuela.

“You line up to get your pension, line up to buy food, line up to pump your gas,” an exasperated Mendez said after 40 minutes of waiting in the sweltering heat in Maracaibo — ironically the center of the country’s oil industry — and expecting to be there hours or days more. “I’ve had enough!”

Lines stretching a mile (1.6 kilometers) or more to fuel up have plagued this western region of Venezuela for years — despite the country’s status as holder of the world’s largest oil reserves. Now, shortages threaten to spread countrywide as supplies of petrol become even scarcer amid a raging struggle over political control of Venezuela. 

The Trump administration hit Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA with sanctions in late January in a sweeping strategy aimed at forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido. 

Doomsday predictions immediately followed — mostly fueled by Maduro’s opponents and U.S. officials — that Venezuela’s domestic gasoline supplies would last no more than a week or so. That hasn’t happened yet, but more misery is feared as expected shortages have economic implications far beyond longer gas lines, turning Venezuela’s crisis to a catastrophe.

“Crucially, it will lead to more shortages of food and basic goods,” said Diego Moya-Ocampos, a Venezuela analyst with the London-based consulting firm IHS Global Insight. 

That’s because the vast oil reserves that once made Venezuela Latin America’s wealthiest country provide the primary source of the hard currency it needs to import food and other goods. Today, its basic infrastructure — roads, power grid, water lines and oil refineries — is crumbling. Food and medicine, nearly all of it imported, are scarce and expensive as Venezuela endures the world’s highest inflation. 

Critics blame Venezuela’s collapse on the government’s two decades of self-proclaimed “socialist revolution,” which has been marred by corruption and mismanagement, first under the late Hugo Chavez and now under Maduro’s rule. 

The U.S. sanctions essentially cut PDVSA off from its Houston-based subsidiary Citgo, depriving it of $11 billion in hard currency from exports this year that U.S. officials say bankrolled Maduro’s “dictatorship.” U.S. officials have turned control of Citgo over to Guaido’s interim government, essentially expropriating the company, a strategy Venezuela’s socialist government employed for years by seizing private companies. 

Opposition leaders bent on ousting Maduro say they recognize the U.S. crackdown on the oil sector will be painful for their people, but add that the measures are necessary to keep Maduro’s government from further looting Venezuelan resources. 

Meanwhile, a defiant Maduro says the economic war led by the White House is a precursor to a military invasion to oust him from power and seize Venezuela’s vast oil wealth. Maduro tweeted a warning on Wednesday that nobody should be fooled by apparent gestures of assistance, alluding to tons of U.S. humanitarian aid he recently blocked from entering.

“The Venezuelan opposition and the U.S. government don’t want to help the country,” Maduro said. “Just the opposite. They crave our natural resources. They want to unleash ‘The Oil War’ to invade and dominate our homeland.”

Despite years of economic decline leading to Venezuela’s current crisis, residents enjoy some of the world’s cheapest gasoline — filling up a tank for less than a penny. But gas is already hard to get in Maracaibo and other cities along the Colombian border, where smugglers sneak Venezuela’s dirt-cheap fuel into the neighboring country, selling it at international prices for a quick profit. 

Ixchel Castro, a Mexico City-based analyst at the Wood Mackenzie energy research firm, said Venezuela’s domestic gasoline supply has been down by as much as 15 percent in recent years as the country’s refineries and infrastructure fail — a trend that is expected to accelerate.

PDVSA provided 160,000 barrels a day for domestic use last year, but with the U.S. sanctions and ongoing infrastructure challenges, that supply can be expected to fall to 60,000 barrels a day, she said, meeting just 38 percent of the country’s needs.

Exacerbating the problem are shortages of diluent, a critical product needed to thin Venezuela’s tar-like heavy crude so it can be piped over 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the field to be turned into gasoline. Russia has stepped in, sending two tankers of the thinner, but these supplies will last just five to 10 days, said Russ Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital, a brokerage company.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s a drop in the bucket of what they need.”

Gasoline won’t completely dry up in Venezuela, which still has access to waning domestic production, as well as fuel in storage and shipments from India and European countries that aren’t subject to sanctions. But the fuel quality will suffer and there will be shortages, Castro said.

These are already being felt in San Cristobal near the Colombian border, where 55-year-old mechanic Gerardo Marquez said he got in line one recent Monday afternoon. On Tuesday the gas truck didn’t show up as promised, and on Wednesday he was still there after spending two nights with his car. 

Relatives did bring him food, water and a pillow, and gave him a chance to get away for bathroom breaks, he said. But he barely napped. “We’re all on guard so they don’t rob us,” he said. 

In Maracaibo, once known as the Saudi Arabia of Venezuela as a center of the country’s oil boom, residents have endured shortages for at least three years. Trucks to deliver the fuel are too few and daily power failures compound the problem, leaving gas pumps idle. Just two of Maracaibo’s 150 gas stations have generators to provide gas during rampant blackouts.

Fed up with waiting in lines, the 62-year-old Marin said he plans to start hoarding gas at home, despite the danger the explosive fuel poses to his wife, children and grandchildren. He relies on his car for his part-time job ferrying paying customers to supplement his modest $6-a-month pension checks. 

“My grandchildren don’t know what it’s like to eat a piece of meat or bit of chicken,” he said.

In the capital, Caracas, residents brace for shortages like these to finally hit them. The metropolitan area of 7 million people has so far been immune to frustrating gas lines. 

But an attendant at a PDVSA station sees them coming, recounting how a customer filled up his car then returned a few minutes later with an empty tank. He’d siphoned his tank to get around a government ban on filling up gas cans to crack down on smugglers. 

“Most Venezuelans have no idea of the magnitude of what is coming,” said Caracas taxi driver Jhaims Bastidas, waiting to fill up. “I imagine it’ll go beyond gasoline shortages to food and medicine — even worse than we have it now.”
…

Кабінет міністрів України ухвалив рішення про відмову від «книги відгуків і пропозицій» на підприємствах роздрібної торгівлі та у закладах ресторанного господарства, повідомив на сторінці у Facebook перший заступник міністра економічного розвитку і торгівлі Максим Нефьодов.

«Пішла в минуле книга відгуків і пропозицій, яку підприємці в ХХІ сторіччі все ще були зобов’язані купувати, вести журнал обліку цих книг і платити штрафи за неправильно прошиті сторінки», – повідомив Нефьодов.

За його словами, це зменшить на 125 мільйонів гривень щорічно витрати всіх суб’єктів у сфері торговельної діяльності.

Очікується, що «книгу відгуків і пропозицій» замінять call-центри і засоби електронного зв’язку.

Досі, за законодавством, всі підприємства роздрібної торгівлі та заклади ресторанного господарства, незалежно від форм власності, зобов’язувалися вести «книгу відгуків і пропозицій», в яку споживачі могли записувати скарги, пропозиції, відгуки та зауваження щодо якості обслуговування. Така книжка розміщувалася на видному місці в «куточку споживача».
…

Celebrity chef Mario Batali on Wednesday said he had cut ties with his U.S. restaurants after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Batali has sold his shares in the 16-restaurant operation, including Babbo and Del Posto in New York, to former partners Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her brother, Joe Bastianich, he said.

“I have reached an agreement with Joe and no longer have any stake in the restaurants we built together. I wish him the best of luck in the future,” Batali said in a statement from his representative, Risa Heller.

He is also selling his stake in the Eataly market and restaurant complex, according to a report in The New York Times, citing Eataly spokesman Chris Giglio.

Representatives for Eataly did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The New York Police Department last year opened a criminal investigation into an accusation that Batali drugged and sexually assaulted an employee in 2005, following a CBS “60 Minutes” report on the allegations that aired in May 2018.

Batali at the time denied the report, and the NYPD closed its investigation in January without charges, according to local news media.

Batali’s charisma and culinary flair turned him into a restaurant executive, television star, author and one of the world’s most recognizable chefs. He premiered on Food Network in 1997 on the show “Molto Mario” and in 2011 helped launch “The Chew” on ABC.

He is among dozens of high-profile men who have been fired or resigned from their jobs in politics, entertainment and business after facing allegations of sexually harassing or assaulting women and men.

Before the “60 Minutes” report, online food trade publication Eater New York reported that four women, who were not identified, said the chef had touched them inappropriately in a pattern of behavior that spanned at least two decades. Three worked for the chef.

Following those allegations, ABC Television Network fired Batali in December from “The Chew.” The Food Network also canceled plans to relaunch “Molto Mario.”

In a previous statement, Batali admitted to those allegations, stating that the claims “match up with ways I have acted.” He apologized and had stepped away from the restaurant company B&B Hospitality Group, which the Bastianich family owns.

Representatives of the Bastianich family did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
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U.S. officials have warned at an energy conference in Brussels that the Trump administration will take punitive action against European companies that are building the Kremlin-favored Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which will deliver energy from Russia to Germany while bypassing Ukraine.

Nord Stream 2 (NS2) will largely replace an older pipeline running through Ukraine and Poland that has the backing of the German government. But it is prompting the alarm of Central European governments, increasingly infuriated with Berlin’s dismissal of their concerns.

They object to Nord Stream 2 — which will run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany, and snake under the Baltic Sea — not only because they’ll lose lucrative transit fees from the older pipeline, but because they fear the Kremlin wants to develop NS2 largely for political reasons, not commercial ones.

Speaking at the energy conference in the Belgian capital, Nicole Gibson, deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s office for Europe, warned that if European companies resume laying pipe later this year they “risk significant sanctions.”

Declining to go into any details about the threatened sanctions, Gibson said Washington doesn’t accept that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal. “Some people say it is a fait accompli that Nord Stream 2 will be done. We don’t see it that way… We call on European leaders to make sure Nord Stream 2 is not implemented,” she said.

Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko has warned that NS2 would allow the Kremlin to switch off gas to Ukraine and Central Europe when it wants to blackmail its nearer neighbors without disrupting supplies to Western Europe, lessening likely push back from the more powerful European countries while it toys with weaker ones.

Her high-profile warning, upping the political stakes, comes two months after Richard Grenell, the U.S. envoy to Germany, sent letters to dozens of European construction and energy companies saying they face sanctions if they resume in the spring the laying of NS2’s concrete-coated steel pipes. Construction work was suspended in December because of winter weather.

Washington’s opposition to Nord Stream 2 has been consistent — the Obama administration also was critical.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s opposition has a harder edge, however, with officials seeing a dark political menace behind the new pipeline. They argue NS2 will undermine European security, deepen Western Europe’s dependence on Russian energy and give the Kremlin a greater opportunity to use natural-gas supplies to exert political influence and blackmail Western European governments.

Nord Stream 2, which will be owned by the Kremlin-directed energy giant Gazprom, would double the capacity of Russian gas delivered to Germany, the European Union’s most powerful economy. NS2 will cost billions of dollars to build. Russia currently supplies more than one-third of the natural gas Europe uses, though with demand increasing, that could reach closer to 50 percent next decade, forecast energy industry experts.

Last July, during his visit to the annual summit of NATO allies in Brussels, President Trump expressed his frustration with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the Russia-to-Germany undersea pipeline, saying, “We’re supposed to protect you from Russia, but Germany is making pipeline deals with Russia. You tell me if that’s appropriate. Explain that.”

But Merkel has dug in amid pressure from Germany businesses, which say NS2 will slash their energy costs. The German Chancellor also appears to be distancing herself from a promise she made last year to Central European leaders when she acknowledged for the first time allies’ geopolitical concerns, saying NS2 could proceed only if Ukraine’s role as a transit country for Russian gas also was protected.

Germany, along with NS2 transit countries Finland, Sweden and Denmark, counter-argue the pipeline will increase Europe’s energy security by avoiding potential cutoffs from the more politically volatile Ukrainian route. Washington believes the pipeline also is a Russian bid to hurt Ukraine economically by stripping it of gas transit fees.

Ukrainian officials estimate their losses from Nord Stream 2 will be high, running at about $2.5 billion a year.

“When Nord Stream 2 is finished this year, there will be no need to use the Ukrainian gas transit system,” Yuriy Vitrenko, managing director of Ukraine’s Naftogaz, a state-owned oil and gas company, told the Brussels conference. “Ukraine will lose approximately 4 percent of GDP,” he added.

Kremlin officials say Washington wants to stop NS2 because U.S. energy giants are hoping to export surplus shale gas to Europe as liquified natural gas (LNG). U.S. officials have made no secret of their hopes that American energy firms will be able to profit from a halt to NS2, but say that isn’t the major reason for their objections to the pipeline.

U.S. officials’ alarm about NS2 is echoed by European security officials. NATO’s former head, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has described Nord Stream 2 as a “geopolitical mistake” for the EU, saying it would make a mockery of EU sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
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When it comes to getting a job, women lag far behind men.  The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports the work and pay gender gap remains wide, and only strong policies and laws that are implemented will change this situation for the better.  

The ILO has reached the conclusion in a new report – A Quantum Leap for Gender Equality: For a Better Future of Work for All – it is releasing in advance of International Women’s Day on March 8.

The ILO finds the needle on this has hardly moved over the past 27 years. It says 26 percent fewer women than men are likely to be employed.

It says this also extends to women in top jobs. ILO data show globally that just one-quarter of managers or leaders are women. It says women who make it to the top tend to be one year younger and better educated than their male counterparts.

Despite these qualifications, authors of the study say women do not draw the same salary for the same top job done by men. Globally, the study finds the gender wage gap remains at an average of 20 percent.  

Shauna Olney, chief of the ILO Gender, Equality and Diversity branch, says mothers of young children up to age 6 have the lowest chance of being employed.

“The motherhood employment penalty has increased over the past 10 years by 38 percent. So, again, something is not going right.  This is going in the wrong direction. There is also a motherhood leadership penalty as only 25 percent of managers with young children are women, and women’s share in managerial positions rises to 31 percent when they do not have children,” she said.

Olney told VOA the work done by women in leadership roles tends to be underrated. When it comes to job performance, she said women tend to be praised for their so-called soft skills, for their ability to communicate and relate well with people.

“I think the fact that we call them soft shows they are undervalued. They are not the hard skills, they are not the serious stuff. They are soft. So, why should we pay for them? Why should we give them any value? So I think there are a lot of biases and the evidence is very clear there in terms of how we evaluate what women and men do,” Olney said.

The report advocates certain measures to accelerate the pace of change in achieving gender parity. It calls for strong laws and policies that prohibit discrimination in the workplace and promote equality of treatment, opportunity and outcome. It recommends supporting women through work transitions and giving them a greater voice and representation in regard to labor matters.  

 
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