Inside Baidu’s high tech headquarters in Beijing | CNBC Reports

Natasha Turak
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/05/egypt-can-handle-emerging-market-turmoil-to-a-limit-finance-minister.html">Egypt can handle the emerging markets downturn &#8216;up to a limit,&#8217; finance minister says</a>
<ul>
<li>Egypt is enjoying its highest economic growth in a decade, at 5.3 percent for the 2017-2018 fiscal year compared to 4.2 percent the previous year. </li>
<li>The country of 90 million has entered recovery mode more than seven years after its 2011 revolution and a series of terrorist attacks sent the economy spiraling. </li>
<li>But the austerity measures behind much of this growth have led to sharply increased living costs for ordinary Egyptians and deepening social discontent, and wider emerging market turmoil is &#8220;worrying,&#8221; the country&#8217;s finance minister told CNBC. </li>
</ul>
Amid a brewing storm for emerging markets, Egypt&#8217;s finance minister believes his country&#8217;s economy can weather what has thrown many others into crisis — as long as the underlying causes don&#8217;t get any worse.
Speaking to CNBC&#8217;s Hadley Gamble in Cairo, the recently-appointed Mohamed Maait discussed what the current market turmoil meant for the Middle Eastern country of 90 million.
&#8220;It is worrying; however, we are able until now to absorb these negative effects&#8230; Egypt&#8217;s economy has sources to address this. However, I have to be very honest — up to a limit,&#8221; Maait said. &#8220;So hopefully what is happening will be corrected and will move into a stable position, because yes we are absorbing all these shocks — oil prices, emerging market problems, increasing interest rates — but if they continue like that, it will be a problem for us.&#8221;
Investors have been 
stepping away from emerging markets 
 on the back of rising global interest rates and a strengthening dollar, which have made the record-high stock of dollar-denominated emerging market debt significantly more painful to pay off. Several major emerging economies, including Turkey Argentina and 
Indonesia, 
 are seeing their currencies hit record lows, while even India and 
China 
 are seeing asset values slip amid 
growing trade war fears. 
 The MSCI emerging markets index is down nearly 9 percent year-to-date.
Egypt&#8217;s long road to recovery
Maait&#8217;s comments come as Egypt enters a period of solid recovery more than seven years after its 2011 revolution and a series of terrorist attacks sent the economy spiraling. But the austerity measures behind some of this growth have led to sharply increased living costs for ordinary Egyptians and deepening social discontent.
Egypt reported its highest economic growth in a decade in July, at 5.3 percent for the 2017-2018 fiscal year compared to 4.2 percent the previous year. The government aims to hit 7 percent growth by 2022, an aspiration bolstered by the International Monetary Fund&#8217;s (IMF) forecast of 6 percent growth in the near-term — the highest in North Africa — and a reduction in inflation and unemployment of 7 percent by 2022.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/05090235/105076652-GettyImages-924339106.1910x1000.jpg" alt="" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Khaled Desouki | AFP | Getty Images"/>
The country&#8217;s lofty macro figures stem from a number of IMF-imposed structural reforms implemented by the Egyptian government since late 2016, alongside a $12 billion loan from the international lender. Egypt floated its currency, began reducing subsidies and raising taxes, and enacted a series of investment reforms — including lowering taxes and facilitating bureaucratic processes for international companies — boosting foreign investor confidence.
The private sector has already reaped benefits, with Egypt&#8217;s benchmark EGX 30 index up 38.5 percent since December 2016.
Skyrocketing living costs
But what&#8217;s been less touted is the cost of these austerity measures. Not long after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi&#8217;s election in 2014 and the subsequent IMF loan — unlocked after Egypt unpegged its currency, the pound, triggering its 50 percent crash against the dollar — basic costs for Egyptians skyrocketed.
Gas prices have tripled in the past three years and electricity costs have more than quadrupled. Once heavily subsidized by the state, the price of basic staples such as bread, sugar and cooking oil have more than doubled.
And poverty is on the rise — it&#8217;s currently at nearly 28 percent, up from 25 percent in 2010, and in rural areas is as high as 60 percent, according to the World Bank. Forty percent of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day. Wages have not kept up with the rise in living costs, and the Bank cites high inflation and the erosion of real incomes as having &#8220;taken a toll on social and economic conditions.&#8221;
The finance minister held that these reforms, though exacting, are necessary.
&#8220;Our country is going through a very, very difficult situation. We had to make this painful reform, which affected it negatively,&#8221; Maait said. &#8220;However, the outcome of this reform&#8230; started to give positive signs.&#8221;
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/05090240/104806483-GettyImages-824331116.1910x1000.jpg" alt="" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Fayed El-Geziry | NurPhoto | Getty Images"/>
Indeed, ratings agency 
Moody&#8217;s recently upgraded Egypt 
 from stable to positive, ranked as &#8216;B3,&#8217; its best since 2011. Unemployment has also come down, and inflation eased to 13.5 percent in July, a major improvement from a record 34.2 percent just one year prior.
Still, most Egyptians have yet to feel the benefits of these improvements on their day-to-day lives. Crime, corruption and pollution, as well as inadequate social services provision, continue to plague the country&#8217;s surging population.
Debt crisis on the horizon?
Beneath the rosy growth numbers, some economists see a debt crisis in the making.
Egypt&#8217;s government debt stood at 36.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in June, up 11.6 percent year-on-year and higher than Turkey&#8217;s figure of 23 percent of GDP. Rising global interest rates and a stronger dollar have pushed up financing costs for Egypt and other emerging markets, just as the country is set to issue a raft of new euro and dollar bonds, worth around $30 million, between 2018 and 2021.
Nonetheless, Maait expressed confidence that the debt load would be reduced.
&#8220;We are recognizing that we have a high level of debt and we have to reduce it,&#8221; he said, adding that the government would introduce policies in the coming weeks designed to reduce the level of debt.
These are to include encouraging further structural reform, establishing internal and external borrowing targets, and continuing to pursue growth, Maait said. &#8220;We need our economy to grow, because with our economy growing, creating jobs, creating more revenue, that means our revenue growth is much faster than our expenditure growth which can also help us to reduce the level of borrowing.&#8221;
Security challenges remain
New sources of revenue, such as recently discovered gas reserves attracting the interest of multinationals like BP, Russia&#8217;s Rosneft and Italy&#8217;s ENI, should help in this direction, as will a recent rebound in Egypt&#8217;s tourism numbers. Devastated by a string of terrorist attacks — most notably the 2015 bomb blast on a Russian airliner departing Egypt&#8217;s Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh — tourism, a vital source of hard currency and local jobs, is now up 30 percent from last year.
But security remains fragile, as evidenced by an 
attempted bomb attack on Tuesday 
 outside the 
U.S. embassy in Cairo. 
 No casualties have been reported.
Western nations have been providing military training and equipment to the Sisi government to aid in its fight against Islamic militants in the restive Sinai peninsula, in what many rights groups describe as prioritizing security while turning a blind eye to the country&#8217;s poor human rights record.
In the past five years, more than 60,000 people have been arrested or charged by authorities — including numerous peaceful protesters and journalists — and the country has built 19 new prisons to house them, according to Human Rights Watch. General Sisi came to power after the military ousted Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi in 2013, the country&#8217;s first-ever democratically elected president.

Egypt can handle the emerging markets downturn ‘up to a limit,’ finance minister says

Spriha Srivastava
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/04/emerging-market-crisis-.html">The emerging market crisis is back. And this time it&#8217;s serious</a> 
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/04140248/104237719-GettyImages-622173868.1910x1000.jpg" alt="An Indonesian man reads a newspaper featuring an article about US President-elect Donald Trump at a stall on November 10, 2016 in Medan, Indonesia. " height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Jefta Images | Barcroft Images | Barcroft Media | Getty Images"/>
Markets have a very short attention span. Like babies, they move on quickly from one toy, or in this case an event, to another.
For instance, markets seem to have moved on from the formation of the &#8220;Fragile Five,&#8221; a group of countries that suffered heavily when the U.S. Federal Reserve started to roll back its bond-buying program in 2013. Made up of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa, this group was marked by heavy currency depreciation, high current account deficits and political instability at home.
The slump in commodity prices and fears of a Chinese slowdown kept the pressure on these economies. However, they have started to see a comeback; in India and Indonesia, for example, a change in government has led to political and economic reforms. Investors started crowding this space and inflows into funds with exposure to these markets increased.
But markets are feeling a sense of deja vu. Blame it on a stronger dollar, escalating tensions since President Donald Trump came to power, worries over a full-fledged trade war with China or rising interest rates in the U.S., this time around the crisis seems to have entered a new phase.
The damage is far more widespread. The crisis has engulfed countries across the globe — from economies in South America, to Turkey, South Africa and some of the bigger economies in Asia, such as India and China. A number of these countries are seeing their currency fall to record levels, high inflation and unemployment, and in some cases, escalating tensions with the United States.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/04140256/105427588-1535740582483gettyimages-1025339758.1910x1000.jpeg" alt="Argentine Peso Tumbles Amid Deepening Economic Crisis" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Erica Canepa | Bloomberg | Getty Images"/>
Last week, Argentina approaching the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for an emergency loan came as a shocker for the markets. The country saw its 
currency 
 fall by more than 50 percent against the dollar and its interest rates go up by a whopping 60 percent. Meanwhile, the sell-off on the back of an ongoing spat between the U.S. and Turkey over the release of American pastor Andrew Brunson has not only seen the Turkish 
lira 
 hit record low levels, but has also spread to other global assets. The Turkish currency has lost 40 percent of its value this year, largely due to President Erdogan&#8217;s unfriendly policies.
Emerging markets are also heavily plagued by debt and a stronger dollar makes it tougher for them to pay this debt. The latest data from the Institute of International Finance shows that debt in emerging markets including China increased from $9 trillion in 2002 to $21 trillion in 2007 and finally to $63 trillion in 2017. The MSCI Emerging Markets index is down nearly 9 percent since the start of the year.
A constant dilemma for investors is whether to maintain their exposure in emerging economies or take a step back. Even though higher risks yield higher returns, the market fundamentals in the current scenario point to a simmering crisis. Meanwhile, rising interest rates in the U.S. and other major economies may see yield-hungry investors make their way back into developed markets.
It looks like the emerging market bubble is about to burst.

The emerging market crisis is back. And this time it’s serious

What is a bubble? | CNBC Explains

Alibaba’s Hema grocery stores are changing retail | CNBC Reports

Does profit still matter? | CNBC Explains

Holly Ellyatt
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/now-trump-is-having-a-twitter-spat-with-south-africa-over-land-reforms.html">Trump hypes fringe talking point about South African government &#8216;seizing land from white farmers&#8217;</a>
<ul>
<li>President Trump says he has instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to &#8220;closely study the South Africa land and farm seizure and large scale killing of farmers.&#8221; </li>
<li>In a tweet, he hypes a fringe talking point about Pretoria &#8220;seizing land from white farmers.&#8221;</li>
<li>His late night tweet about South African land reform prompts a sharp response from the government.</li>
</ul>
President Donald Trump says he has instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to &#8220;closely study the South Africa land and farm seizure and large scale killing of farmers,&#8221; hyping a fringe talking point about Pretoria &#8220;seizing land from white farmers.&#8221;
His tweet late Wednesday ET about South Africa land reform prompted a sharp response from the government.
He included the handle of Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson in his tweet. Carlson had discussed the issue on his show Wednesday, introducing the segment by saying, &#8221; 
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa 
 has just begun the process of seizing land from his own citizens, without compensation, because they&#8217;re the wrong skin color. That is literally the definition of racism.&#8221;
Carlson then went on to criticize &#8220;elites&#8221; that criticize Trump for racism while &#8220;paying no attention&#8221; to the &#8220;racist government of South Africa.&#8221; The segment seems to have prompted Trump to instruct Pompeo to look into the matter.
Tweet I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. &#8220;South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.&#8221; @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews
Trump&#8217;s comment on South Africa is the first time he has used the word &#8220;Africa&#8221; on the social media platform since becoming president.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/04200241/105373625-1533274925072gettyimages-898614786.1910x1000.jpg" alt="" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Gulshan Khan | AFP | Getty Images"/>
The South African government was quick to respond Thursday. &#8220;South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past,&#8221; the government said.
Tweet South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past. #landexpropriation @realDonaldTrump @PresidencyZA
 
In a second tweet also directed at Trump, Pretoria said it would &#8220;speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation.&#8221;
Later Thursday, South Africa Foreign Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said it was regrettable that Trump&#8217;s tweet was &#8220;based on false information,&#8221; Reuters reported. Sisulu said she had instructed officials in her department to meet with the U.S. embassy in Pretoria to seek clarification on the matter, the news agency added.
&#8216;Black people want their land back&#8217;
Land reforms in South Africa are high on the government&#8217;s agenda and have stirred controversy.
At the start of August, Ramaphosa announced plans by the ruling African National Congress to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation.
The government sees these changes as a way to boost the country&#8217;s agricultural sector and economy. Opponents say it is a threat to food security and the economy.
The bulk of South Africa&#8217;s land 
is owned by its minority white population, a vestige of its colonial past, 
 thus they are likely to be most affected by the changes.
Despite the end of apartheid, South Africa&#8217;s institutionalized segregation of races, in the early 1990s and the first black president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, being elected in 1994, racial and economic divisions remain entrenched in the country a quarter of a century later.
Announcing the land reforms, Ramaphosa said the changes would &#8220;promote redress, advance economic development, increase agricultural production and food security.&#8221; The move alarmed investors and the rand fell to a one-week low against the dollar.
On Monday night, Ramaphosa went further, saying in a speech on land reforms that these were the only way to let a &#8220;festering wound&#8221; heal and that &#8220;black people want their land back,&#8221; national newspaper Business Day reported.
The notion that 
white farmers are persecuted in South Africa largely stems from a fringe group called AfriForum 
. Some far-right commentators and pundits have picked up on the idea, suggesting that there could be a &#8220;genocide&#8221; of white people in the country.
Trump&#8217;s wife, Melania, is planning to visit several African countries in October, without her husband, who has referred to immigrants from some African countries in 
disparaging language 
.

Trump hypes fringe talking point about South African government ‘seizing land from white farmers’

Holly Ellyatt
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/23/now-trump-is-having-a-twitter-spat-with-south-africa-over-land-reforms.html">Now Trump is having a Twitter spat with South Africa over land reforms</a>
<ul>
<li>President Donald Trump has fallen out with South Africa after taking to Twitter to criticize the government&#8217;s land reforms, prompting a sharp rebuke from Pretoria.</li>
<li>Posting on Twitter early Thursday morning, Trump said he had instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to &#8220;closely study the South Africa land and farm seizure and large scale killing of farmers.&#8221;</li>
</ul>
President Donald Trump has fallen out with South Africa after taking to Twitter to criticize the government&#8217;s land reforms, prompting a sharp rebuke from Pretoria.
Posting on Twitter early Thursday morning, Trump said he had instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to &#8220;closely study the South Africa land and farm seizure and large scale killing of farmers.&#8221;
Tweet:
He included the handle of Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson in his tweet. Carlson had discussed the issue on his show Wednesday, introducing the segment by saying, &#8221; 
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa 
 has just begun the process of seizing land from his own citizens, without compensation, because they&#8217;re the wrong skin color. That is literally the definition of racism.&#8221;
Carlson then went on to criticize &#8220;elites&#8221; that criticize Trump for racism while &#8220;paying no attention&#8221; to the &#8220;racist government of South Africa.&#8221;
The segment seems to have prompted Trump to instruct Pompeo to look into the matter.
Trump&#8217;s comment on South Africa is the first time he has used the word &#8220;Africa&#8221; on the social media platform since becoming president.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/04200241/105373625-1533274925072gettyimages-898614786.1910x1000.jpg" alt="" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Gulshan Khan | AFP | Getty Images"/>
The South African government was quick to respond Thursday. &#8220;South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past,&#8221; the government said.
Tweet:
In a second tweet also directed at Trump, Pretoria said it would &#8220;speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation.&#8221;
Later Thursday, South Africa&#8217;s Foreign Affairs Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said it was regrettable that Trump&#8217;s tweet was &#8220;based on false information,&#8221; Reuters reported. Sisulu said she had instructed officials in her department to meet with the U.S.embassy in Pretoria to seek clarification on the matter, the news agency added. 
&#8216;Black people want their land back&#8217;
Land reforms in South Africa are high on the government&#8217;s agenda, however, and have stirred controversy.
At the start of August, President Ramaphosa announced plans by the ruling African National Congress to change the constitution to allow the expropriation of land without compensation (EWC).
The government sees these changes as a way to boost the country&#8217;s agricultural sector and economy. Opponents say EWC is a threat to food security and the economy.
The bulk of South Africa&#8217;s land 
is owned by its minority white population, a vestige of its colonial past, 
 thus they are likely to be most affected by the changes.
Despite the era of apartheid – South Africa&#8217;s institutionalized segregation of races – ending in the early 1990s and the first black president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, being elected in 1994, racial and economic divisions remain entrenched in the country a quarter of a century later.
Announcing the land reforms, Ramaphosa said the changes would &#8220;promote redress, advance economic development, increase agricultural production and food security.&#8221; The move alarmed investors and the rand fell to a one-week low against the dollar.
On Monday night, Ramaphosa went further, saying in a speech on land reforms that these were the only way to let a &#8220;festering wound&#8221; heal and that &#8220;black people want their land back,&#8221; national newspaper Business Day reported.

Now Trump is having a Twitter spat with South Africa over land reforms

Inside the world’s largest, fanciest Starbucks | CNBC Reports

Living the American dream abroad | CNBC Profiles

The world’s first carbon-neutral football club | CNBC Sports

How do tariffs work? | CNBC Explains

Yen Nee Lee
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/lira-crisis-impact-emerging-markets-us-dollar-turkey-eu-relations.html">Winners and losers from the Turkey crisis</a>
<ul>
<li>Turkey accounts for less than 1 percent of the world economy and global exposure to the Turkish banking sector is also small, but the recent dramatic decline in the Turkish lira still rattled markets worldwide.</li>
<li>Investors, fearing that other emerging markets could follow in Turkey&#8217;s footsteps, have pulled their money out of countries such as India and Argentina.</li>
<li>But the ongoing crisis in Turkey is an opportunity for the country to improve ties with the European Union, consultancy The Eurasia Group said.</li>
</ul>
The dramatic fall in the 
Turkish lira 
 over the last few days has rattled global markets, even though experts don&#8217;t expect the troubles facing Turkey to trigger the next financial crisis.
Turkey accounts for less than 1 percent of the world economy and global exposure to the Turkish banking sector is also small, experts said.

Spain banks are the most exposed to the Turkish financial system, but they constitute just 4.5 percent of overall assets, according to data by the Bank for International Settlements and J.P. Morgan Asset Management.
&#8220;The numbers there don&#8217;t really worry me. I think it&#8217;s more about sentiment,&#8221; Sat Duhra, a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson Investors, told CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box&#8221; on Wednesday.
He added that developments in Turkey have added &#8220;more fuel to the fire&#8221; at a time when investors are increasingly jittery over escalating trade disputes, rising interest rates in the United States and China softer economic outlook.
Losers: Emerging markets and banks
Against that backdrop, emerging markets — which Turkey is part of — have become the biggest casualty in the recent market rout.
The iShares MSCI Emerging MarketsEEM exchange-traded fund, a passive investment product that tracks the index, has fallen by more than 1 percent this week even though Turkey makes up only 0.6 percent of the underlying assets.
Investors have been pulling money out of the broader emerging markets for fear that other countries, especially those with poor financial positions, will follow in Turkey&#8217;s footsteps. Such withdrawals have hurt other currencies: The 
Indian rupee 
 and 
Argentine peso 
 touched their weakest levels against the U.S. dollar earlier this week.
But such fears may be unfounded, experts said.
&#8220;Turkey&#8217;s crisis raises concerns about more fragile emerging-market countries that similarly carry larger current account deficits like Brazil, South Africa, and Argentina,&#8221; Wells Fargo Investment Institute said in a Tuesday report.
&#8220;It is important to remember that emerging-market countries, on the whole, have much stronger financial positions than they did 20 years ago,&#8221; it added.

<img decoding="async" src="https://d16akly8855cs7.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/16040218/Turkey-bank-exposure.1534315942559.png" class="inlineChart"/>

Despite the limited exposure to Turkey&#8217;s financial system, bank stocks in the U.S., Europe and Japan were also hit.
European banks such as Spain&#8217;s BBVABBVA-ES and Italy&#8217;s UniCreditUCG-IT, which have units in Turkey, this week saw their shares fall by 3.3 percent and 4.6 percent respectively.
Turkish banks are vulnerable in the current situation because companies have accumulated a high level of debt in foreign currencies, which they may find increasingly difficult to pay back given the weak lira. The country&#8217;s total borrowing denominated in currencies other than the lira has grown to more than 50 percent of its gross domestic product — and much of that debt is held by companies.
Investors are concerned that weakness within Turkish banks may spill over to foreign lenders that have assets in the country.
&#8220;The weak spot in this whole set up is the banking system. I think right now, we&#8217;re still in an okay place. If we&#8217;re still in the same situation in nine to 12 months, I think the banks here are the weakest link,&#8221; Nafez Zouk, lead emerging markets economist at Oxford Economics, told CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Capital Connection&#8221; on Wednesday.
Winners: US dollar and EU-Turkey relations
As investors look for a safe haven to park their money, U.S. assets have emerged as their favorite on the back of a stronger American economy and higher interest rates.
Problems in Turkey coincided with the 
Federal Reserve 
 selling a record number of U.S. Treasurys. Such demand from investors has helped lift the 
U.S. dollar index 
 — which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies — by more than 4 percent this year.
The strengthening U.S. dollar will only add to the troubles facing Turkey and other emerging markets, said David Dietze, founder, president and chief investment strategist of Point View Wealth Management.
&#8220;Rising U.S. interest rates do two things: One is, it makes the dollar-denominated debt of these emerging market countries harder to service; and on top of that, it has the effect of people rushing to take advantage of U.S. rates, lifting the U.S. dollar and also making it that much more harder to repay U.S. dollar debt,&#8221; Dietze told CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;The Rundown&#8221; on Wednesday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump have clashed over tariffs and the detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson. That presents an opportunity for warming ties between Turkey and countries in the 
European Union 
, according to a Tuesday report by political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
The EU and Ankara have had &#8220;longstanding issues&#8221; over the rule of law and press freedom, but the economic bloc has always been careful in its dealings with Erdogan unlike Trump&#8217;s &#8220;volatile and erratic stance,&#8221; Eurasia said.
&#8220;Trump&#8217;s unpopularity in Europe makes it highly unlikely EU leaders are going to rally behind his approach. If anything, senior EU officials point to the &#8216;commonalities&#8217; that the EU and Turkey now both face vis-a-vis the US — on tariffs, threats and much besides,&#8221; the political risk consultancy said.
Berat Albayrak on Twitter: I appreciate Mr. @peteraltmaier&#8217;s remarks on the most recent U.S. actions against Turkey. Politicians who act in good faith and advocate diplomacy, will strengthen the Turkish people&#8217;s confidence in our relations with Germany and the EU.
Turkey is already seen supporting the EU in its criticisms of the U.S. 
Turkish treasury and finance minister Berat Albayrak posted &#8220;a very positive response&#8221; on Twitter to a report that German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier&#8217;s had criticized Trump&#8217;s new tariffs on Turkey.
&#8220;This suggests EU-Turkey relations are likely to continue to thaw,&#8221; said Eurasia.

Winners and losers from the Turkey crisis

Ashley Turner
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/12/elon-musk-family-tree-tosca-kimbal-maye-entrepreneurs-spacex-tesla.html">Elon Musk comes from a family of entrepreneurs &#8211; here&#8217;s who they are</a>
Billionaire Elon Musk, the CEO of pioneering tech firms including TeslaTSLA and 
SpaceX 
, isn&#8217;t his family&#8217;s only success story. In fact, the Musk family includes nine entrepreneurs who are disrupting different industries.
Whether in tech, entertainment or food, the Musks have made a name for themselves for over a hundred years.
Maye Musk made history in 2017 as the 
oldest woman to ever star in a CoverGirl campaign 
. She once 
worked five jobs 
 to support her children, Elon, Kimbal and Tosca, after divorcing their father, Errol Musk, a wealthy engineer.
Speaking of her children, Maye told Vanity Fair in 2015, &#8220;They grow up knowing you work hard, and the harder you work, the better you do and the luckier you get. They also had to be responsible for themselves, because they had to help me.&#8221;
All three of Maye&#8217;s children started their own businesses. Kimbal Musk founded The Kitchen Restaurant Group and the non-profit Big Green after working with Elon to create Zip2 and 
PayPal 
. He also sits on the boards of Tesla, SpaceX and Chipotle.CMG 
Tosca Musk is a director and producer, and the co-founder and CEO of Passionflix, a streaming service for romance films.
Russ, Peter and Lyndon Rive, first cousins of the Musk clan, also worked in the tech industry. They founded software company Evergreen in 1999 and sold it to Dell for $120 million in 2007. Russ is now the CEO and co-founder of SuperUber, an art and technical production company. Lyndon and Peter co-founded SolarCity, which Tesla acquired in 2016 for $2.6 billion&#8211; a polarizing deal at the time.

Though the family&#8217;s recent achievements in business are more widely known, their innovative attitude stems back to Elon&#8217;s great-grandmother. Dr. Almeda Haldeman-Wilson who was Canada&#8217;s first ever chiropractor. Her son, Joshua Haldeman, followed in her footsteps and studied chiropractic medicine, and was a politician and famed explorer. Haldeman was best-known for flying his plane around Africa, where he moved his family in 1950.

Elon Musk comes from a family of entrepreneurs – here’s who they are

Justina Crabtree
Source: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/10/facebook-committed-to-uganda-despite-social-media-tax.html">Facebook says it is committed to Uganda despite social media tax to quash &#8216;gossip&#8217;</a>
<ul>
<li>Facebook has told CNBC that it is committed to its connectivity work in Uganda despite a recently imposed tax on social media use in the country.</li>
<li>A report surfaced earlier this week saying that the social media giant was to withhold investment in Uganda in response to the new levy. According to Facebook, the comment from one of its officials that led to the story was taken out of context.</li>
<li>Ugandans must be 5 cents per day to use Facebook, SnapChat, WhatsApp, YouTube and other platforms.</li>
<li>Protests have ensued since the tax was put in place on July 1, with critics claiming that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is attempting to stifle political dissent.</li>
</ul>
FacebookFB has confirmed its commitment to Uganda as a row rumbles on over a recently imposed tax on social media use in the East African country.
&#8220;Facebook is committed to Africa and our current connectivity work in Uganda,&#8221; a spokesperson for the social media giant told CNBC via email Wednesday. &#8220;We continue to maintain open and active lines of communication with the Ugandan government, the private sector and members of civil society.&#8221;
It was reported this week that Facebook was withholding intended investment in Uganda after a user levy on social media was introduced in the country earlier this year. The state-run Ugandan Communications Commission later tweeted that the news was fake. But, the body did acknowledge that it had met with Facebook and that &#8220;issues of taxation were discussed at some point.&#8221;
Facebook told CNBC that the comment from one of its officials that led to the original story was taken out of context.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cdn.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/11140237/105390037-1533910062096gettyimages-996233210.1910x1000.jpeg" alt="UGANDA-INTERNET-TAXATION" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Sumy Sadurni | AFP | Getty Images"/>
The Ugandan government imposed a user tax on social media access on July 1. Citizens pay 200 Ugandan shillings per day (5 cents) to access Facebook, SnapchatSNAP, TwitterTWTR, WhatsApp and YouTube — among others — that are classified as over the top (OTT) services.
Payment is made via telecommunications firms&#8217; mobile payment services. Some Ugandan users have been using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to get around the tax.
Uganda&#8217;s government has said that it has implemented the tax to fund public services, although critics consider the move oppressive and aims to stifle political dissent. Violent protests ensued following the tax&#8217;s introduction, and the government has said that the tax is being reviewed.
Social media for the &#8216;malicious&#8217;
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has repeatedly employed biting rhetoric against social media use. He is reported to have initially described the tax as one aimed at curbing &#8220;olugambo,&#8221; a local word for &#8220;gossip.&#8221;
&#8220;Social media chatting is a luxury by those who are enjoying themselves or those who are malicious,&#8221; he wrote in a statement dated July 4.
Social media use is depriving Uganda of U.S. dollars, he added. Users are &#8220;endlessly donating money to foreign telephone companies through chatting or even lying&#8221; and are &#8220;allergic to even a modest contribution to their country whose collective wealth they are misusing,&#8221; he said.
Uganda&#8217;s two biggest telecom firms are owned by South Africa&#8217;s MTN Group and India&#8217;s Bharti Airtel, Reuters reported.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cdn.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/11140242/105390031-1533909795046gettyimages-996145628.1910x1000.jpeg" alt="UGANDA-INTERNET-TAXATION" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Isaac Kasamani | AFP | Getty Images"/>
The country &#8220;struggles with domestic revenue collection as a result of a combination of generous tax incentives for foreign companies, high levels of tax evasion, and a large informal and untaxed sector,&#8221; Patricia Rodrigues, East Africa analyst at consultancy Control Risks, told CNBC via email.
According to the World Bank in May, the shortcomings of Uganda&#8217;s tax system result in up to 40 percent of revenue being lost.
Facebook in Africa
Facebook, working with local partners, has recently completed a 770 kilometer fiber build in northwest Uganda to provide more than 3 million Ugandans with connectivity infrastructure. The social network says that this could also lead to cross-border connectivity to neighboring countries.
The social network operates its Free Basics program in 26 African countries including the continent&#8217;s two major economies, Nigeria and South Africa. Free Basics offers a skeleton of popular internet services to users in less economically developed countries.
Facebook owns social media platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, among others.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cdn.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/11140246/105387419-1533827945473gettyimages-968495580.1910x1000.jpeg" alt="UGANDA-POLITICS" height="1000" width="1910" data-licensor-name="Nicholas Bamulanzeki | AFP | Getty Images"/>
Uganda has about 23.6 million mobile phone subscribers, 17 million of whom use the internet, Reuters reported, citing the Uganda Communications Commission.
&#8220;Facebook may well be reconsidering its investment plans, and will probably weigh the cost of additional taxes on its investment decisions,&#8221; Trupti Agrawal, Uganda analyst at Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC via email.
&#8220;For companies in the technology and telecommunications sectors, working with a government that is perceived to be unfairly targeting lower-income individuals or opposition and civil society groups also raises reputational risks. These concerns could prompt other companies in to re-evaluate their planned investments in the country.&#8221; Rodrigues said.
She added that the social media tax could limit innovation in Uganda&#8217;s e-commerce sector.
Museveni, 73, has been in power in Uganda since 1986. Ultimately for Agrawal, the social media tax is linked to the president&#8217;s ability to maintain his hold over the country.
&#8220;The president&#8217;s statement indicates his annoyance with increased political activism on social media, which he wants to curtail particularly ahead on the next presidential elections in 2021.&#8221;

Facebook says it is committed to Uganda despite social media tax to quash ‘gossip’

What is Saudi Aramco? | CNBC Explains

CNBC

Inside Baidu’s high tech headquarters in Beijing | CNBC Reports

Egypt can handle the emerging markets downturn ‘up to a limit,’ finance minister says

The emerging market crisis is back. And this time it’s serious

What is a bubble? | CNBC Explains

Alibaba’s Hema grocery stores are changing retail | CNBC Reports

Does profit still matter? | CNBC Explains

Trump hypes fringe talking point about South African government ‘seizing land from white farmers’

Now Trump is having a Twitter spat with South Africa over land reforms

Inside the world’s largest, fanciest Starbucks | CNBC Reports

Living the American dream abroad | CNBC Profiles

The world’s first carbon-neutral football club | CNBC Sports

How do tariffs work? | CNBC Explains

Winners and losers from the Turkey crisis

Elon Musk comes from a family of entrepreneurs – here’s who they are

Facebook says it is committed to Uganda despite social media tax to quash ‘gossip’

What is Saudi Aramco? | CNBC Explains

Inside Singapore’s cutting-edge urban jungle | CNBC Reports

News Tips

Advertise With Us

CNBC

Inside Baidu’s high tech headquarters in Beijing | CNBC Reports

Egypt can handle the emerging markets downturn ‘up to a limit,’ finance minister says

The emerging market crisis is back. And this time it’s serious

What is a bubble? | CNBC Explains

Alibaba’s Hema grocery stores are changing retail | CNBC Reports

Does profit still matter? | CNBC Explains

Trump hypes fringe talking point about South African government ‘seizing land from white farmers’

Now Trump is having a Twitter spat with South Africa over land reforms

Inside the world’s largest, fanciest Starbucks | CNBC Reports

Living the American dream abroad | CNBC Profiles

The world’s first carbon-neutral football club | CNBC Sports

How do tariffs work? | CNBC Explains

Winners and losers from the Turkey crisis

Elon Musk comes from a family of entrepreneurs – here’s who they are

Facebook says it is committed to Uganda despite social media tax to quash ‘gossip’

What is Saudi Aramco? | CNBC Explains

Inside Singapore’s cutting-edge urban jungle | CNBC Reports

News Tips

Advertise With Us

Newsletters