What a year it is in between the bankruptcy, devastation by the hurricane. It is far from over. People cannot even find 2d. Find food to eat. Megan it is a true humanitarian crisis. When it was just the debt crisis and the bankruptcy of puerto rico or the electrical grid or the bankruptcy of what was going to happen with this mass exodus, now people are without water and food and electricity. We are still having the kind of politicking we are seeing in the u. S. Over it. We are hopeful, both at business that by bloomberg, calling attention to it that hopefully, perhaps for once in recent times we would wade through the washington quagmire and get help down there. Julia you get a sense of the real devastation of the country. Think about that. Think about being in the dark. What you have medicine that is to be refrigerated . Your diabetes patient getting access to clean water in puerto rico. It is crazy. But we have is a country that was so badly affected by a next of this over the years by an exodus, they need to repay the debt they owe, which are massive. Looking at the pictures now, it is a long way away. Carol with the bankruptcy it was so much work to get anybody to take notice in terms of congress and washington to take care of the situation. I feel it is continuing even with the hurricane. Megan there is a shout out to antonio weiss, who made it his personal mission to secure a solution for puerto rico in congress that would enable them to go to try to create a stable plan. Now it has been knocked backwards so hard by Hurricane Maria and irma. Facing devastation on a scale you normally read about in third world country. This is a u. S. Territory. These are americans and we should be supporting them. These pictures tell all the story. Unless you have an urgent relief effort, it could get worse. Julia the cover story is steve bannon. We were questioning what he would do outside the white house. He has not gone quietly. Megan i think this week we have seen not a surprise in terms of alabama. We should set the scene for people, but this is a race where been supported a conservative bannon supported a conservative firebrand. Would rather step down to enforce a willing for legal gay marriage. He has won the Senate Runoff against Luther Strange to was supported by trump. This pitted trump versus bannon. It pitted the establishment wing of the Republican Party versus the antiestablishment wing. Roy moore won with a resounding victory. He will go into a challenge of the democratic opponent and he will likely win. You are still seeing a fundamental rupture in the Republican Party which is yet to play out. Mitch mcconnell and trump, the establishment continues to lose momentum. Carol he is now going after china. Im not going to give it all away. Enter the bannon. We have more on this story from the editor of the story, matthew phillips. Matthew the cover is looking at what influence he still has outside the white house and if he can be more effective working outside the structures of the government to push this nationalist, populist Economic Movement he is so keen on. And how he is training his focus on china. Carol based on his influence so far one month out of the white house, we look at the outcome of the alabama election. Safe to say he is still fairly influential. I am curious about panic conversations you are having with the white house specifically President Trump. Matt yes, he is influential. He is out on the stage with roy moore the other night in a born in alabama. He is flying to colorado. Josh green reports, to interview candidates he was to recruit to go after Establishment Republicans who are up in the 2018 and 2020 cycle. He is taking it upon himself to be the tip of the spear in finding candidates to go after establishment gop types. The is the cutting is pulling apart the gop for our eyes. Julia but he is not afraid to oppose donald trump. That is what we saw in alabama. They were straight out tackling donald trump and his decision. Matt it is strange, this balance he is having to strike. When you look at what bannon said in alabama, we are not here to criticize trump. We are here to honor him. Trump, if you listen to his words in a rambling stump speech for strange the other weekend, he did not give a full throated endorsement of Luther Strange. He did say to some affect if his opponent wins, i will support him too. He is outsideng the white house and going to defend donald trump and bring them back to this populist hasform he thinks trump been forced to abandon in the white house. Was is a case where trump clearly on the other side of the ticket and bannon won. Julia clearly we can suggest that china is somewhere where donald trump has used a lot of fiery rhetoric, but the action is not followed through on some of the promises and threats he made during the election. If he had to pinpoint one area where steve bannon would be frustrated with donald trump, it would be china. He has been talking to individuals and some rather interesting ones. Henry kissinger. Matt another interesting thing josh green gets into in the piece is how bannon has cultivated this group of old cold war years from the warriors to help them build this antichina narrative the with a builtin antisoviet narrative. In the vietnam war they felt america was kind of preoccupied for obvious reasons with ending the vietnam war. In a series of meetings with kissinger at his weekend house in connecticut, bannon has cultivated him and gotten him in with china. Kissinger elses career in and outside of government around china. He has been there 80 times. What is interesting is kissinger tends to fall on the opposite side of the platform when it comes to china. He is a globalist. He has not historically been on board with antiglobalism, antitrade rhetoric that bannon is keen to push. It is interesting to see how we are not sure where kissinger falls in this conversation. It seems clear he helped facilitate some of these meetings that bannon took in hong kong. Julia turning steve bannon into a global cover model was the job of rob vargas. Rob we worked with this young photographer or she uses color filters to alter the natural color of what she is shooting. She has a bit of a softer focus. Bannon, we are used to he has a distinctive appearance. We are used to seeing him a certain way which is a little harsh. We wanted to take a different approach and work with a photographer who could see him through a different filter than what we are used to seeing him. Carol how much time did you guys think about how we want to do this . Rob it is like bannons third phase. First, behindthescenes, than a white house operative, now his life beyond that. All the pasto photos taken of him. We knew we wanted Something Different every thought this photographer was the right person. Carol youve got some small writing that says where to next . People might be surprised for he is focusing and not on next. Rob its about where he is setting his sights, so yes. Carol next, the crisis in venezuela. Julia bloomberg businessweek. This is this is bloomberg businessweek. Carol welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Julia you can find us online at businessweek. Com. Ushoto essay thing takes deep inside the tragedy unfolding in venezuela. Carol we talked with David Papadopoulos about the pictures, the stories in the people behind them. David a good friend of mine who was that recently in the country said to me, i just cant believe people to see the physical difference took my breath away. It got us thinking. There has been a fair amount written about hunger and these issues in venezuela. This would be a very poignant and powerful way to show the world just what it is like when you see the difference. Carol four years into an economic crisis. These people in terms of access to food and basic necessities, it is just not happening. It is aou are case where it is a socialist economy run amok. The poorest venezuelans the middle class is an absolutely deeply precarious state. It is a photo essay, but with mini vignettes. It seeks to highlight in an up close and personal way what hunger looks like in a country that was very wealthy until just a couple of decades ago. Julia talk to us about juan cruz. He does not even recognize himself when he looks in the mirror given the amount of weight he has lost. Myself halfsider venezuelan. I am married to a venezuelan woman. A lot of it was hard to read. When the transcripts came in from the reporters on the ground, it is so raw. I will tell you that we identified any number of people to participate in this project. They said yes, yes, yes i will go. At the last moment one after another backed out. I think there are a number of reasons that was happening. It became clear to me as material came in is it is just too raw, too emotional. Many people broke down during the interviews. It is really hard to talk about these things, and about how you physically change. We wrote in the piece , when they see themselves, the new versions of themselves, it is a constant reminder of how their lives have fallen apart. Julia for us looking at those pictures, they look pretty healthy. But when you look at the before picture, the change in them. David there is gallows humor that calls the weight loss the maduro diet. Just think about it this way conceptually. If we were to randomly sample americans, half a dozen americans and we had gone to a similar crisis, it is true that if he grabbed an american from california, new york, kansas, also be, we would overweight. That is the nature of the population. It is possible they would also the after shots to them look ok. A couple of our people heard that on the ground. They say you look better. Julia that is the difference. Carol we were talking about cruz. Omingo 209precrisis weight was pounds. He is now 140 pounds. That is just talking about the amount of food not available to people. David he skips breakfast. Carol he bought cake on credit. David he decided to slurge and buy a couple of pieces of cake on credit. Carol the President Trump be able to rewrite the iran deal . This is bloomberg businessweek. Carol julia welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Carol you can listen to us on 106. 1 fm in9 and bay area. 960 in the julia candid asia on the Bloomberg Radio plus app. Carol President Trump has left his allies and staff guessing about the iran nuclear deal. Nick you have this extraordinary situation where the iranian president basically called President Trump a rogue newcomer. What you saw out of the uns General Assembly was essentially the United States looking isolated against the rest of the world. The nuclear deal that was put in effect in 2015 really has such broad support among the international community. Now President Trump wants to blow that up. He is really on his own. There is a closing of ranks iran european leaders with saying this is not something we are willing to except. Carol by reopening the deal, what is it the United States wants . Nick it is just one piece of a bigger picture. If you look at the totality of behavior, supporting the regime of the siri and president assad, funding terror in the region. Maybe you guys took care of the Nuclear Element in 2015, but that doesnt account for all these other things. Wethe nuclear deal dont like that deal because some of its provisions expire in 2025. Iran will be able to continue to develop nuclear weapons. We need to address everything iran is doing and not let it get away with any of these things. Julia what is the incentive for iran to comply and President Trump does open up the deal and say, fine, we will add other things into it. The Ballistic Missile development. What is the incentive to comply . Nick that is the question everyone is asking. For weeks we have been trying to answer it. There really is no incentive. One we have gone to the administration to talk, they say what we want to do is reestablish a sanctions regime that was lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear deal. By doing that and putting in this really comprehensive battery of sanctions against iran, you would force it to comply. We are going back to what things mid2000sn the before the deal was put in place where iran was cut off from the global economy. Flow, ifu want oil to you want to do business with banks and companies in the u. S. And europe, you have to do these things. You have to stop developing Ballistic Missiles and supporting care. It is more of a stick approach than a carrot approach. The question is whether iran will see it that way. Julia on the eve of the german elections, american political operatives helped the far right party gain traction. Carol google and facebook played leading roles. in austin, texasbased Consulting Firm does a lot of election work for conservative politicians and campaigns around the world. On the day before the election, they went and sat down in berlin for the guys from running the outside consultants. The digital operation of this far right german party. They opened up to us about how they had done it. Carol a lot of it involves search result advertising, which i think i knew about. Tell us about what it is and how they used it in this election. Most users of facebook or google have some basic idea of what they are doing is part of an advertising business. One of the things is they paid google for the rights to use the term angela merkel. The add above the top search result. They had some trouble with getting the ad approved at first. Leading up to the election anyone that googled their name was they saw a link that led to an attack website they set up. It appears maybe that it works. Julia they were calling her oathbreaker. The fact she had allowed on these refugees to come into the country and the impact that has had linked to terrorism. As you hinted, google pushed back. Vernon how the role became public is when they tried to do the search result and display ads on youtube, which is also a google company. They got rejected by google for technical reasons and then for a couple of other different reasons. What they did was decided we dont need to many more google if you dont let us play the way we want to play. We will take our money to facebook. They made a public thing about it in german newspapers saying they would ever advertising e uros to facebook instead. Julia they looked at likes. Afdle who like posts from and then find other potential supporters for afd. Describe this. They got a lot of people, access to a lot of people. Vernon what is interesting is this party already had a really Strong Social media presence, twitter, facebook. These americans they came in and took a 300,000 followers of the party on facebook and is a very basic moves on the Facebook Advertising interface to develop another 300,000 people who match those profiles. People who liked a lot of the same things that the Party Supporters like had not clicked like on the party itself. They were able to get really high Response Rates from this other 1 of the german population. Then they did it again. It was sort of like a clone group. That was one of seven different groupings they created on facebook. Another one was mothers. Another was is this owners. Another was another was business owners, and another worse people that belonged to unions. They were able to push the partys message, which included antiimmigrant and antimuslim themes. Carol why it may be impossible to get a job at facebook data centers. Julia and the lawyer that will that stop suing fox news. Carol this is bloomberg businessweek. Julia welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Carol why some talents may be regretting their bets on Silicon Valley server farms. Julia the lawyer behind sexualharassment cases filed against fox. On a the moms taking fire under st. Louis. Julia that is ahead on bloomberg businessweek. Julia were back with megan murphy. In the Technology Section we are talking about this company. Facebook. We are focusing on data centers and the Tax Advantages they get around the country. Megan it is also about a larger issue. That is really something we spent a lot of time on talking about, how companies have fundamentally disrupted the labor force. We are seeing these tradeoffs like in this one. Facebook has gotten huge tax incentives to open data centers which they need to run their massive servers and rural, disadvantaged communities. We talk about one in north carolina, one in iowa and one in oregon. They have gotten tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives with promises of job creation and training. The actual jobs created are pretty minimal. One of the most fascinating things about this story in particular is part of this data center and not carolina, facebook agreed to sponsor a college forced to train people. This is a fundamental problem in this country. Scalebor forces need to up. No one has really taken it. That is the issue we face. It is not facebooks issue that they need to data centers, but if they create jobs as they automate them. Carol the other part that i thought was fascinating is you companies that are ultimately trying to reduce the number of workers they need to run these data centers longerterm. They are getting tax breaks to do this. Megan this is the whole issue. These communities i know you spend time going down to altoona, iowa. They dont have any other options. Big manufacturing went out of town a long time ago. They are desperate for new kinds of jobs to give their workforce. They will take anything to skill up their workforces. The problem is they come at a cost. Companies are in demand. We have amazon building a new headquarters and the race for that is unbelievable. To deale find a way with this automation we are facing into really retool the workforce and figure out a way forward, you will have communities continuing to struggle. You can throw in as much money as you want, but whether you have a sustainable Economic Future is unclear. Who knew this man was bringing so many cases against 21st century fox . Megan this is a very prominent attorney. He has led the charge against fox. They have suffered from a series of claims about Sexual Harassment and racial harassment. He has been involved in so many other big cases. Charles oakley. The interesting thing about him is he is a Republican Trump supporting white guy from new jersey leaving all these cases and what is traditional a left field. Julia this is not some liberal attempt to discredit a right wing news agency. This is my story of the week. We spoke to the reporter on this, felix gillette. Felix he is a new york employment lawyer. He has come to prominence as the goto lawyer in all these Sexual Harassment and Racial Discrimination cases involving fox news. Carol how did that happen . Felix it is in a flurry of lawsuits surrounding behavior at this company that goes back decades. Already julia why him . Felix he has emerged as one of advancing best that this strategy against fox news. He has more than 20 clients. What is fascinating it is not 20 clients in one suit. He has 20 clients spread across he has seven active suits against fox news. He keeps filing new lawsuits over time. Just when the whole thing has died down or subsided, boom. Another big lawsuit comes out. Tois part of the strategy, put an immense amount of Public Relations pressure on fox news. Julia he is colorful. It is not just about being media savvy. Kind of felix basically when he filed complaints, they make the most colorful as possible. Some of them involve all of these they are usually 20 or 30 pages long. All sorts of crazy stories about that behavior at the network and manufacturing of news stories. Some of it seems completely tangential. As he says, the companies have multimillion dollar marketing departments. They spend a lot of money publicly brandishing their own images. This is one way to combat the Public Perception about this company. Julia a group of suburban mothers fighting an underground landfill fire. You heard that right. Carol plus, how china is raising incomes in rural parts of the country. Julia this is bloomberg businessweek. Julia welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Carol find us online at businessweek. Com. Louis a group st. Of mothers find themselves tackling a monster problem. Julia an underground until fire with the threat of becoming radioactive. Here susan bro field. Burfield. Susan susan they moved for all the reasons anybody moved to the suburbs. Good schools, parks, not too far or too close to her parents. About seven years after they moved a terrible stench overcame the neighborhood. Dawn called a local agency to find out what was going on. Carol with suburb . Susan a suburb of st. Louis. Shee was a terrible stench describes as being like kerosene, chemically. People were gagging. People were getting headaches, nosebleeds, asthma. What she learned is that the smell itself was coming from a landfill. Most people knew there was a landfill. Underground ine the landfill. That was overwhelming the infrastructure of the landfill. It was allowing terrible odors. Pretty close by was another landfill called westlake landfill. Radioactive waste that in dont in the 1970s without government inmission had been dumped the 1970s without permission. It had been sitting there for years. It was part of a superfund site. Epa said it was a superfund site in 1990. This was 2012 and they were still trying to figure out what to do with it. Dawn and many other people in the surrounding neighborhoods new about the regular landfill, but were kind of unaware there was a superfund site. Julia how close to the site, when you are talking about the landfill site being effectively on fire . Susan that is the tricky part. On, the firewent slowly moved. There are two areas that have radiation. One is very close to the landfill. The fire itself is still several hundred, more than 1000 feet away. For a couple of years it was moving in the wrong direction, moving towards the radioactive waste. Carol lets talk about the company, republic services. What did they say and have they done . They have committed money and efforts in people to dealing with this. Susan they bought the two landfills knowing it was a superfund site as part of a big merger in 2008. Epa hadexact moment the already suggested a remedy for the radioactive waste. To cover it with dirt in soil, concrete, keep it all their pages cover it contained from the top. There was an estimate for how much that would cost. It was not too bad, about 45 million. There are other people responsible for paying that. The public figured they will pay about one third of that, we can handle that. They took the site and every thing else. Epa selected the this remedy, environmental groups brought up the fact that thedioactivity would elements become more radioactive overtime, not less. This landfill was just completely inappropriate to even try to contain it. Not only is it in a now developed area, it is in a floodplain to the missouri river. The epa review board said we dont think this is the right decision. We need to do more studies. Carol this are my three so much of aaron brockovich. Brockovich. Are there enough people sick . Enough fingers the point of the government . Where are we on this . Susan in the midst of all of this, scott pruitt, the new administrator of the epa carol appointed by President Trump. He wants the epa to focus on superfund sites. Westlake has become a real priority for the administration. They have promised the speed of a review of the remedy for the site. That has prompted some concern with some of the it is also encouraging republic to step up its efforts to push for a single remedy, which is keep it there. The moms one most of it out of their community. The Health Effects are difficult saysasure because the epa all the radiation has more or less stayed on the site. There seems to me some anecdotal evidence that it has spread, but it is low level, chronic. There is not a good way to study that. The community has concerns about their health going forward. Carol speaking of land rights julia beijing is allowing farmers to turn profits. Many of them are shackled to the land. China does not have a system of private land ownership. That is one thing keeping people in the villages. They have been piloting for years now different programs in different parts of the country to get around this without instituting private land ownership. We went to a place to see how one of these programs is working. It was interesting to see. Julia just a reiterate the point, it is a communist country. He cannot own land but you can farmland. Arm land. What difference does it make to some of these farmers . Themina it has allowed to do with a higher weight occupations. Farming is still a lowwage. We interviewed people, one who had become a roofing contractor. Another guy who actually moved into a town. He used his land as collateral for a loan, which is another thing you can do. He opened a supermarket they cater to all these other people, the farmers who it moved into a nearby town. Julia are there restrictions on the land and who is taking over the small plots of land . There is a point in the story about how small these forms are compared to farms in the United States or australia. How are they grouped . Cristina we are talking subsistence farming. The average 1. 5 acres for a farm worker in the u. S. Is like 180. High. Are not very cooperatives are coming in. They are going to farmers and saying let us lease the land and pulling it all together. We talked to people who are doing something in a town like that. They have been able to really push up the yields on the land, partly by changing the they are planting. They are moving away from commodity crops to more organic things. Carol luxury resorts in the heart of africa. Julia and las vegas, the city of sin, sex, and hockey. Carol this is bloomberg businessweek. Carol welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Julia you can listen to us on the radio on sirius xm 119. Boston. In bay. Areathe carol and it asia on the radio bloomberg plus app. Alia rwanda is making itself destination for luxury travelers. Carol we talked about the new fivestar hotels and tourism boom. She learned all about the influx of luxury tourism to the area. When you think rwanda you dont necessarily think superhigh and travel high end travel. They have been attracting High End Hotels and visitors with means. Tourism has increased about 30 in the past two years. It is very safe, revitalized, and there is a lot of stuff to see. Carol it really was kind of higher end. Emma she went to a large owned by wilderness safaris. They own about 40 such lodges throughout africa. Very highend. 1000 a night experience. It was right at the base of the mountains of the mountain gorillas live. There are about 300 and the world. This is one of the only places you can go see them. They have strict rules of how you can observe them. She did it and it is one of those bucket list experiences. Julia she described one touching her jeans. It is also are inclusive for the local community, not just isolated projects. Is a Regeneration Project as well. Emma it is part of wilderness. Theirness safaris, mission is to revitalize communities and work with local communities to build their lodges and grow their company. They went to this town and they said, what can we do for you . Calculate help you in this process . They said give us jobs and we will help you. Most of the resort is staffed with locals and was built by locals. It has brought a lot of industry to the neighboring town and given opportunities to people that might not have them. Carol give brought a lot of tourism. It has grown dramatically. In terms of exports or fueling the economy, it has driven them. Coffee as surpassed the number one foreignexchange earner and will continue to grow. There are some luxury Hotel Companies about the open. Ask, how much to does it cost . Lodge is about 1000 a night. That rivals any fivestar Hotel Experience in the world. Carol and you get gorillas. Vegas has a new game. Julia the knights take to the ice next month. They are in nhl National Hockey league team. The 31st team to join the nhl and the first in 17 years. Julia the first of the four major leagues to make las vegas their home. Shortly after the nhl announced the team in las vegas, the nfl owners voted to allow the Oakland Raiders to the las vegas. That has kind of upstaged the hockey team, understandably, but there is a lot of pride for that reason. We are here first. We are an expansion team, not a popular teen living moving from another city so we can get a better stadium. This is for the people of las vegas who have never had a professional team. Adopt us. That is the message they are really sending. Carol you off the strip. Theres you walk the strip. You can go gamble, see a great show. Will hockey make it in vegas . Paul thats one of the reasons it is such an interesting market. There is not a track record. The nhl is also in phoenix, arizona and tampa, florida. It is professional sports. The thing that cures everything is winning. If it is a winning team, yes, it will do well. The market is big enough to support a winning team. They are saying its not about the tourists. Julia you go to vegas. Im not sure you necessarily go there for sports. You can go for gambling, the vice elements. How to they bring the sex appeal of vegas this something that is not seen as one of the most sexy sports in the United States . Paul i think this is touching on a larger transition and problem in las vegas. I was shocked at the revenues the Hotel Casinos get. They are not majority from gambling anymore. There is this millennial shift. They will not sit at the they will not stand at the craps table for hours on end. Younot do a zipline can now do a zipline in the downtown area. Extreme sports, golf. I think in terms of the tourism they are counting on two things. One, people from cold weather places in north america who are hockey fans and also go to vegas once or twice a year will say our team, the edmonton oilers, the boston bruins, they will be in vegas december 10. 9y dont we go december 8, and 10 . The other thing is sports tourism. People from other countries this is a growing sector of the travel industry. You kind of organize a trip around seeing an american professional team. Bloomberg businessweek is on newsstands now. Areas of the world that are crisis. It is told with the help of pictures. One is puerto rico. Devastation they are dealing with, struggling to get water and food. The bankruptcy earlier this year, now the hurricane. It is an area of the world we need to keep reminding people of. The other story is venezuela also told in pictures. They are struggling. Access to food. We need to stay on top of them. Your favorite . Julia the trump supporting lawyer tackling fox news. Super interesting story. He makes his case is incredibly withful, but gets involved sky news in the u. K. Regulators are not sure what they are getting into here. A fascinating character. Carol and he has more lawsuits he is pursuing. More Bloomberg Television starts right now. Yvonne coming up on bloomberg best, the stories that have shaped the week in business around the world. Politics dominated the headlines, from berlin to paris, to tokyo, to washington, d c this is a now or never a moment. We are creating a tax plan that encourages you to invest in our country and the future of our country. Mergers in europe. Will they get the right to drive in saudi arabia . And janet yellen speaks and caution is the message. She said this is a controversial topic. We do not understand it all and we may have made mistakes. Italys finance minister spea