Daily Archives: April 5, 2017

By Richard N. Haass April 05, 2017

This weeks meeting in Mar-a-Lago between Chinese President Xi Jin-ping and PresidentDonald Trump is arguably the most important foreign policy gathering of the still-young Trump administration. The trajectory of the next four years will hinge in no small part on whether the two countries can avoid a trade or any other kind of war; in the longer run, it will be one sort of 21st century if the United States and China collaborate on regional and global challenges and a very different one if the two cannot work together or, worse, come to blows.

There is a school of thought that predicts this relationship will become adversarial. Named for the great historian of the Peloponnesian War, the Thucydides Trap holds that cold or hot war is all but inevitable between the United States, the existing great power of this era, and a rising China. But such a conclusion is unwarranted; unlike Russia, China has a broad-based economy and is integrated into the global economy. China has good reason not to act recklessly abroad lest it place its economic interests (and its internal political stability) at risk.

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Indeed, so far the two countries have proved the historical pessimists wrong. The two countries, sworn foes for the first two decades of the Cold War, shared an even greater dislike of the Soviet Union. It was the great power version of the adage that enemy of my enemy is my friend. Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger understood the depth of the Sino-Soviet split and made the difficult choices required for the United States and Mainland China to move closer together in a manner that weakened the strategic position of the Soviet Union.

Impressively, the US-China relationship survived the demise of that common enemy some 25 years ago. The relationship evolved from one of shared opposition to one of shared interests, above all economic. Trade and investment took off. China emerged as a major destination for American technology exports; America became a major market for every kind of Chinese manufacturing.

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In recent years, though, this relationship has shown signs of wearing thin. Economic ties have become as much a source of friction as ballast. Various American administrations have been frustrated with what is viewed as limited access to Chinas market for American exporters. Other concerns include allegations China has regularly stolen American intellectual property, that it has at times weakened its currency to advantage its exports, and that it is subsidizing Chinese firms on a scale that makes it difficult for private US companies to compete. China for its part denies these claims and is frustrated that the US government will not allow it to import a number of items with advanced technologies.

The Chinese ambassador, Cui Tiankai, has established a busy back channel to Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Geopolitical frustration is likewise increasing. The United State believes that China is not doing all it can and should to reign in North Koreas nuclear and missile programs. US officials are also unhappy with Chinas military buildup in the South China Sea, seeing it as threatening the right of transit. China meanwhile regularly voices its displeasure with continued US arms sales to Taiwan as well as with the deployment of a missile defense system in South Korea that many in China claim is aimed at their missiles more than those of North Korea.

A days worth of meetings in Mar-a-Lago will not resolve these issues. But there is potential for progress. Chinas leader comes to Florida focused on consolidating political power back home amid a slowing economy. He is not looking for a crisis with Chinas main economic partner. This could dovetail well with one of Trumps main priorities, which is to show progress on the trade front, both in terms of gaining enhanced US access to the Chinese market and greater Chinese investment in the United States.

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When it comes to North Korea, China will argue for a negotiation that seeks first to freeze North Korean nuclear and missile programs. The US side might be attracted to such an outcome, but only if it were comprehensive and verifiable. The real question is whether China will use some of the leverage it denies it has but surely possesses with North Korea. It might, if only because it is not in its interests to have a conflict on the peninsula that disrupted the regions economy and resulted in a unified Korea in the American strategic orbit. At Mar-a-Lago, though, the most that can be expected is a discussion of the issue in which each side comes away with a better understanding of what the other side is prepared to do along with a commitment to continue high-level talks on an accelerated basis.

All of which raises a larger point. This meeting should not be viewed as a traditional summit judged by how many specific agreements or deliverables emerge. Rather, it is an opportunity for the new US president and his team, none of whom has much if any first-hand knowledge of China, to come away with a deeper understanding of that country and its leaders. The Chinese are anxious to come away with a better appreciation of this president who differs in many ways from his predecessors. If they can do this, avoid a crisis over trade, and establish a mechanism to deal with North Korea, Mar-a-Lago should be viewed as a success.

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The potential for progress at the US-China meeting - The Boston Globe

Futures left fielder Taylor Trammel grounds out in the top of the sixth inning of the MLB exhibition game between the Reds Futures Team and the Cincinnati Reds at Fifth Third Field in downtown Dayton, Ohio, on Saturday, April 1, 2017. The Reds beat a team of its top prospects 5-1 in the second-ever Futures Game hosted by Single-A affiliate Dayton Dragons,(Photo: Sam Greene, The Enquirer)

The Blog Above Replacement a daily look at the Reds, their minor leagues and whatever else is on the mind of Enquirer Reds beat writers, C. Trent Rosecrans and Zach Buchanan. You can follow them on Twitter (@ctrent and @ZachENQ), Facebook (C. Trent Rosecrans and Zach Buchanan) and Instagram (ENQReds).

Welcome back to the Blog Above Replacement, our daily look at the Reds, baseball and beyond. Zach and I will do this every weekday during the season, taking a look not just at the Reds, but also their minor-league results, something thats more important than ever as the team continues its rebuild.

The Enquirers exhaustive Reds coverage includes not just news, notes and results from the games at Great American Ball Park and other ballparks across the country, but also our weekly Reds Beat Podcast. If youre a daily BAR reader and not a podcast listener, we invite you to continue the discussion there. Or, well, listen to our discussion. You can also email, tweet or whatever to let us know what you want to hear about. Well include guests (like GM Dick Williams last week) and also talk amongst ourselves.

This week, we had Philadelphia Inquirer Phillies beat writer Matt Gelb in to discuss the dueling rebuilds in Cincinnati and Philadelphia. Last year Gelb joined us for the C. Dot Show Opening Day Eve Extravaganza (R.I.P.) and he said he thought the Phillies were a year ahead of the Reds. Now he thinks it looks more like two years ahead. We discuss that and more.

So, if youre new to podcasts, think about it as an old-fashioned radio show that you can listen to any time and any place. Zach and I aim to record the podcast every Tuesday and post it early Wednesday morning, so its up for your morning consumption since theres no local sports radio here in Cincinnati, think of this as your companion at least once a week on your drive, morning walk or whatever.

New to podcasts? Heres a good intro from Ira Glass of This American Life.

Our podcast can be found thusly:

In the podcast section of the Cincinnati.com Reds app, available on iTunes and Google Play

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MINOR LEAGUE ROUNDUP

Games begin on Thursday, but the rosters have been announced. Ill link the rosters and highlight a few players to watch at each level:

Triple-A: Louisville Bats

RHPs Sal Romano and Jackson Stephens are starters that could find their way to Cincinnati this season.

2B Dilson Herrera was acquired in the Jay Bruce deal. The outfield of Jesse Winker, Phillip Ervin, Sebastian Elizalde and Beau Amaral should be worth watching.

Double-A: Pensacola Blue Wahoos

Of the pitchers, RHP Luis Castillo throws 100 and was the main piece acquired in the Dan Straily trade. RHP Tyler Mahle doesnt quite throw that hard, but he has very good command and control.

Aristides Aquino may have the highest ceiling of any Reds prospect, with tools that could make him special, including power and a cannon of an arm. Gabby Guerrero resembles his uncle, Vladimir, in several ways, including his choice to eschew batting gloves.

High-A: Daytona Tortugas

The infield has a chance to be pretty interesting, headlined by 3B Nick Senzell, the No. 2 overall pick in last years draft. Alfredo Rodriguez, a high-priced Cuban import, is the shortstop and sleeper prospect pick Shed Long (youll hear much, much more about Shed this year) is at second base. Gavin LaValley is the first baseman. Not only that, but catcher Chris Okey was the teams second-round pick last year.

The Reds other big-ticket Cuban from last year, RHP Vladimir Gutierrez, is also slated to begin the season in Daytona.

Low-A: Dayton Dragons

OF Taylor Trammell, the No. 35 overall pick last year, will start the season in Dayton, as will fellow Georgian and first-round pick, C Tyler Stephenson.

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BAR: Measuring Reds, Phillies rebuild progress - Cincinnati.com

By Harry McCracken 04.05.17 | 1:00 pm

Back in late February, YouTube unveiled YouTube TV, a new streaming service featuring the same big-name TV networks that most people get via cable or satellite. The company said that it planned to launch the servicewhich competes with AT&Ts DirecTV Now, Sonys PlayStation Vue, and Dishs Sling TVin the coming months.

A little over a month later, YouTube TV is here, in limited fashion. The service is debuting today in five marketsChicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Areawhere it offers local stations as well as big cable channels, with more cities to come. Ten of its 50+ networks, including AMC, ESPN 3, Sundance TV, Telemundo, and The Weather Channels Local Now, are coming soon. (The fact that AMC and sister channels such as Sundance will be part of YouTube TV at all is news.) YouTube is offering an unusually lengthy 30-day free trial, and will give a free Chromecast TV streaming gizmo to subscribers after their first paid month.

Ive had a couple of days of hands-on time with the service, on a Pixel phone that YouTube provided, preloaded with the YouTube TV app. What Ive seen represents only a slice of the YouTube TV experience, which will be available on Android phones and tablets, iPhones and iPads, and the web. Among other things, I couldnt try one of its most intriguing aspects: For $35 a month, the service will offer six accounts and up to three simultaneous streams, allowing individual family members to watch and record their own shows without it all getting tangled into one giant hairball of content.

Thats not counting the gaps in YouTube TV that we already knew aboutmost notably the fact that it doesnt include any channels owned by Time Warner or Viacom (such as CNN, HBO, MTV, and Comedy Central), and only lets you watch on a TV by beaming content from your device to a Chromecast. (I did so using the Pixel, and it worked fine.) YouTube hasnt said anything about availability on other TV-streaming devices such as Roku boxes, but the service will need to be in lots of places to be competitive.

With all this in mind, I wasnt able to fully test the service as it will arrive today in its first five markets, let alone judge where it might be going. But I was able to form some first impressions, and they were largely favorable, with a few caveats.

Its about what you might expect from YouTubeclean and straightforward. Each show and network has a page of its own that bundles up a schedule for upcoming live airing with any on-demand episodes that are available. I did find it odd that theres no easily-available-anywhere way to return to the home screen, which is how you get to stuff youve recorded using the DVR feature; it sometimes takes a lot of presses on the Back button to get there. (YouTube says this design is specific to Android and doesnt affect the iOS version.)

In my time with YouTube TV, the quality of the video streams has been buttery smooth, and I havent noticed any of the technical glitches that plagued DirecTV Now after its launch. The fact that YouTube already knows as much about delivering video over the internet as any company on the planet presumably helps.

All of YouTube TVs competitors have search features, but calling them rudimentary might be erring on the side of politeness. DirecTV Now, for instance, responds to a search for Jerry Seinfeld with Jerry Maguire; Sling TV, meanwhile, doesnt seem to be aware that the man was a regular on Seinfeld.

YouTube TVs search, by contrast, feels like its creators actually expect it to be a primary form of navigation. You can enter TV shows, episode titles, movie names, people, and channels. More impressively, you can also search for concepts such as comic books, which pulls up Arrow, Gotham, Supergirl, and other programs. Its a better solution to the challenge of wrangling vast amounts of stuff on a tiny screen than Ive seen elsewhere.

In one form or another, Google has been trying to make it easy to hunt down TV content via a search field for many years. Its come a long way since the era of Google TV, but the more you play with YouTube TV search, the more youll realize that it still isnt anywhere near as smart as the search in YouTubes main app or Google search. For example, Donald Trump may be omnipresent on TV, but YouTube TV doesnt understand that: When I searched for his name, I got only three results. (Presumably thats because YouTube TV doesnt really know much about the subjects of individual episodes of shows, other than their titlesand news shows dont have titles.)

The search feature wasnt aware that John Dickerson is on Meet the Press, even though his name is mentioned in the description on the page for that program. And when I searched for Simpsons monorailhoping to find my favorite Simpsons episode of all timethe app told me that it didnt have The Simpsons at all. (It has the show in profusion in on-demand formbut not season four, which is when Marge vs. the Monorail aired.)

One of YouTube TVs major distinctions is its cloud-based DVR, which lets record as much live TV as you like and only erases your saved shows after nine months. (PlayStation Vue has a more limited DVR feature; Slings DVR is still in beta; DirecTV Now doesnt have one.) Use YouTube TVs DVR to record your favorite series and movies, and you might end up being able to treat it like an on-demand video service rather than one that makes you keep track of TV schedules.

Its a feast. But when I tried to record individual episodes of shows, I discovered that I couldnt. With YouTube TVs unlimited DVR storage, it assumes that youre going to want every episode of a program. Maybe my brain has been trained by using a TiVo for years, but there are instances when Id like to record a single episode of a show rather than wallow in it.

The fact that YouTube decided to build a separate YouTube TV app rather than cram live TV into its main app is an acknowledgement that the new service has a different set of design needs than YouTube in its classic form. And while the company did incorporate some standard YouTube offerings into YouTube TV, they feel more like a garnish than an entre. YouTube Originals, such as the Gigi Gorgeous documentary This Is Everything, otherwise available only on YouTube Red, are here. So are Related on YouTube videos on the pages for specific shows. But when you do a search, you often get only a smattering of YouTube results even if the service has gajillions of videos that match the queryand if you choose to watch any of them, you get booted out to the main YouTube app.

YouTubes approach to advertising on its main service is innovative and consumer-friendly, with ads that are brief and/or skippable. By contrast, YouTube TVs ads reminded me more of those on other services such as Hulu. Theyre higher in volume and lower in variety than you might prefer. For example, I kept seeing the same Starbucks spot about a nice old retired man. And when I sneakily tried to fast-forward deep into The Tonight Show, I had to watch five commercials in a row.

In the end, this whole category of services is a bit of a puzzlement: The contenders seem like commodities on the surface, but each is a subtle blend of pros and cons, and theres no runaway winner. The fact that YouTube TV doesnt have Time Warner and Viacom deals leaves its lineup incompleteat least if youre thinking of it as a full-blown cable substituteand it could use more ways to watch it on a TV beyond using a Chromecast. But whats there shows plenty of potential. Maybe by the time YouTube rolls it out across the country, itll have filled in some of the holes and worked out some of the kinks.

Harry McCracken is the technology editor for Fast Company, based in San Francisco. In past lives, he was editor at large for Time magazine, founder and editor of Technologizer, and editor of PC World.

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YouTube TV Arrives TodayPromising, But A Work In Progress - Fast Company

BERN Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber said on Wednesday that his money laundering investigation into Malaysian fund 1MDB was making progress despite Malaysian authorities' refusal to cooperate.

Combing through money laundering reports and bank documents with help from Singapore, Luxembourg and the United States was bearing fruit for his office, the OAG, he said.

"It's not hopeless, in fact it's the opposite," Lauber said.

"We're still confident we can successfully conclude the process ... in particular the open cases against the two banks," he said at a news conference, referring to Swiss private banks BSI and Falcon which have already had to pay out in the case.

1MDB, once a pet project of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, is under investigation in at least six countries over billions of dollars of suspected misappropriations.

Presenting his 2016 annual report, Lauber outlined OAG activities including its investigation of bribery linked to Brazil's oil firm Petrobras, investigations into world soccer body FIFA personnel, and tracking terrorist financing.

"This place (Switzerland) is not a safe harbor, not for terrorists, not for money launderers, not for international corruption," he said. "We don't tolerate things like 1MDB, we don't tolerate things like Petrobras, we don't tolerate things like the whole FIFA soccer complex."

In the Petrobras case, the OAG said it has confiscated $1.1 billion in assets linked to the Brazilian oil group, up from $800 million in 2015. More than 1,000 Swiss accounts have been examined, including from Brazil's former speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who was jailed last month.

Investigations into Sepp Blatter, ex-president of FIFA, on corruption charges and into Franz Beckenbauer for his role in Germany's bid for the 2006 World Cup were continuing, it said.

Lauber said he was also in touch with Dutch authorities over an international investigation made public on Thursday into suspected tax evasion and money laundering via Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) accounts.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

HOUSTON Nearly a century after Chevron Corp amassed the No. 2 stake in America's largest oilfield, Chief Executive John Watson is hitting the accelerator on developing the company's vast Permian Basin holdings.

SANTIAGO The copper business will recover from crisis mode after plummeting prices for the metal resulted in output cuts, industry executives said at a meeting in world top copper producer Chile this week, but they expect that incipient recovery will be slow.

WINTERSET, IOWA A U.S. government program designed to convert farmland to wildlife habitat has triggered the spread of a fast-growing weed that threatens to strangle crops in America's rural heartland.

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Swiss making progress in 1MDB case despite Malaysia's silence: top prosecutor - Reuters

NEW YORK -- Chicago Bulls guard Dwyane Wade is "making progress" in his rehab of a fractured right elbow.

Wade, who was ruled out for the regular season after suffering the injury in a March 15 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, has started working out a little harder in recent days as he tries to make his way back to the floor.

"He's doing a lot," Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg said after shootaround Tuesday. "As far as shooting, there's no restrictions right now getting out there. Still not doing much contact. But he is ramping up activity, doing more and more every day. The biggest thing right now is to keep his conditioning and keep his wind, and if he is able to come back at some point this season he's not skipping a beat there."

Wade politely declined comment after getting his workout in on Tuesday, but the Bulls seem optimistic about his potential return. Bulls All-Star swingman Jimmy Butler has no doubts that Wade won't need an adjustment period if and when he does return.

"That's what great players, Hall of Fame players, do," Butler said. "They come in, pick up right where they left off. I know he's going to do that. I'm constantly in his ear, he's constantly in mine, about what he sees, what I see. Because it's different when you're out there playing, and then whenever you're not playing and you're watching. So there's a lot of things that we could still be better at."

The Bulls have gone 6-3 since Wade's injury and come into Tuesday's game against the New York Knicks seventh in the Eastern Conference standings. For his part, Hoiberg still doesn't want to publicly commit to a potential Wade return date.

"We're not there yet," Hoiberg said. "It's just kind of a day by day thing with Dwyane right now. He is feeling better, but obviously there's a lot of work to do as far as getting the strength back in his arm. Making sure mentally, he's right. He still has a little bit of pain in that elbow, especially when he's done working out. But the important thing is he's making progress and hopefully he continues to take steps in the right direction and we'll get him back some point this season."

If Wade sits out the rest of the regular season as expected, he will have missed 25 games this season because of rest and various injuries. Still, Butler hopes his good friend can return soon.

"We definitely need that guy, as everybody knows," Butler said. "We want him to come back to where he's not protecting anything, he's hooping, he's playing 110 percent and doing what he's been doing."

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Dwyane Wade making progress in rehab from elbow fracture - ESPN