Fitch Ratings has upgraded Greece’s credit rating from CCC to B-, a one-notch improvement that still leaves the bonds issued by the crisis-battered country well below investment grade. The ratings agency said Friday that the outlook of the Greek economy was positive and that it expected talks with the country’s …
More public backing for innovation, more idea exchanges to nurture global trade and more stability. That’s what two transnational entrepreneurs hope will result from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s travels this week to Latin America, where he has promoted prosperity, security and democracy for the Americas. Liliana “Lili” Gil Valletta, …
A group of Cambodian girls who recently traveled to California to compete in a mobile app competition offered inspiration for other girls worldwide to consider careers in technology. Their pitch in Silicon Valley wasn’t a bid to be the next billion-dollar company. Instead, they want to help their country with …
A group of young Cambodian girls recently took part in a mobile app competition for girl coders in California. Traveling from their home country to participate in the global competition, their story offers inspiration for other girls around the world to consider a career in tech. VOA’s Sophat Soeung reports …
Like all North Korean adults, Song Un Pyol wears the faces of leader Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather pinned neatly to her left lapel, above her heart. But on her right glitters a diamond-and-gold brooch. Song is what a success story in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea is …
Steps away from this week’s NAFTA trade negotiations, business unified in hopes of sending a singular message: do no harm. Representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico convened behind closed doors at a Washington hotel in an effort to strike a new North American Free Trade Agreement. And not …
They are being booted off or locked out of their websites. Some can no longer blog. Their electronic payment systems are being canceled. Even their music can’t be heard. For some white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, operating online has become much harder in the wake of last week’s “Unite the …
Auto industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States are pushing back against the Trump administration’s demand for higher U.S. automotive content in a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement. At talks underway this week in Washington, automaker and parts groups from all three countries were urging negotiators against …
A U.S. researcher says she has developed automated ways to identify links between online sex trafficking ads and the digital currency Bitcoin, techniques that may help locate children being sold for sex. Law enforcement and anti-trafficking groups could use the methods to investigate Backpage.com, an online classified advertising site where …
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday that Washington wants more trade and investment with Latin America, pushing back against perceptions in the region that the Trump administration has an isolationist agenda. Speaking during a visit to the Panama Canal at the end of a Latin American tour, Pence …
From the sky over occupied Europe to an elephants stable in India and to its final resting place in an air museum in England, this was the 100-year journey for one of the world’s first strategic bombers. And the last part was the most astonishing because the planes’ remains, found …
Silicon Valley joined a swelling backlash against neo-Nazi groups in the United States on Wednesday as more technology companies removed white supremacists from their services in response to weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Social media networks Twitter and LinkedIn, music service Spotify and security firm CloudFlare were among the companies …
After many false starts, plans to resurrect a railway in Pakistan’s teeming metropolis of Karachi are moving ahead with the help of Chinese cash. Not everyone is happy. The Chinese-funded $2 billion project to revive Karachi Circular Railways (KRC), nearly two decades since it was shut down, has been touted …
Brazilian prosecutors plan to investigate last year’s controversial sale of the Argentine subsidiary of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, a lawyer representing some Petrobras shareholders said on Wednesday. Petrobras, formally known as Petroleo Brasileiro SA , sold its 67.2 percent stake in Petrobras Argentina SA for $892 million to Pampa …
Scorched by a 10-month drought that has killed crops and reduced residents to buying trucked-in water, Adigama’s young people are voting with their feet. At least 150 youth have left this agricultural village 170 kilometers northwest of Sri Lanka’s capital since the drought began, looking for jobs in the country’s …
Thousands upon thousands of cans are filled with beer, capped and washed, wrapped into six-packs, and boxed at dizzying speeds — 1,500 a minute, to be exact — on humming conveyor belts that zip and wind in a sprawling factory near Tokyo. Nary a soul is in sight in this …
Ireland’s finance minister rejected the European Commission’s demand that it retroactively collect 13 billion euros in taxes from Apple, saying this was not Dublin’s job in an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper. In the interview, extracts from which the FAZ published on Wednesday, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said …
Canadian financial regulators have approved the public sale of a new digital currency in the country’s first official endorsement of money created independently of the government or central banks, company officials said on Wednesday. Produced with digital encryption techniques, cryptocurrencies like Montreal-based impak Coin allow users to create their own …
U.S. President Donald Trump’s top trade official laid down a hard negotiating line for revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement on Wednesday, saying that major changes were needed to slash U.S. trade deficits and boost U.S. content in autos. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said NAFTA had “failed many, …
President Donald Trump is renewing his attacks on e-commerce giant Amazon, and he says the company is “doing great damage to tax paying retailers.” Trump tweets that “towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!” The president has often criticized the company …
Brazilian lawmakers facing a dearth of financing for their re-election campaigns next year proposed on Tuesday creating a fund of 3.6 billion reais ($1.1 billion) in taxpayer money to help their parties foot the bills. The Supreme Court banned corporate donations to campaigns in 2015, drastically reducing political fund-raising. On …
U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order to speed approvals of permits for highways, bridges and other major building efforts as part of his proposal to spend $1 trillion to fix aging U.S. infrastructure. The text of Trump’s executive order was not immediately available. Earlier, sources said …
Technology companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems, have ramped up lobbying ahead of talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, looking to avoid any future restrictions on cloud storage and to promote an international pact to eliminate technology goods tariffs. U.S., Mexican and Canadian negotiators are due …
Drones, small flying machines with cameras mounted on them, have become easily accessible to consumers. Scientists, police and businesses have found often lifesaving uses for drones, but these relatively low-cost machines can also be weaponized. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from a recent Chemical Sector Security Summit in Houston on the …
The first round of negotiations between the US, Canada and Mexico begins this week on what President Donald Trump has called “the worst trade deal ever.” He blames the 2-decades-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the US. Trump has vowed …
A decision by the United States to investigate China’s trade practices is a unilateralist “baring of fangs” that will hurt both sides, China’s state news agency Xinhua said Tuesday. U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday authorized an inquiry into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property that administration officials said could …