Automakers are showcasing electric SUVs and sedans with more driving range and luxury features at the Shanghai auto show, trying to appeal to Chinese buyers in their biggest market as Beijing slashes subsidies that have propelled demand. 

Communist leaders wanting China to lead in electric vehicles have imposed sales targets. That requires brands to pour money into creating models to compete with gasoline-powered vehicles on price, looks and performance at a time when they are struggling with a Chinese sales slump. 

General Motors, Volkswagen, China’s Geely and other brands on Tuesday displayed dozens of models, from luxury SUVs to compacts priced under $10,000, at Auto Shanghai 2019. The show, the global industry’s biggest marketing event of the year, opens to the public Saturday following a preview for reporters.

On Monday, GM unveiled Buick’s first all-electric model for China. GM says the four-door Velite 6 can travel 301 kilometers (185 miles) before the battery needs charging. 

VW showed off a concept electric SUV, the whimsically named ID. ROOMZZ, designed to travel 450 kilometers (280 miles) on one charge. Features include seats that rotate 25 degrees to create a lounge-like atmosphere. 

Communist leaders have promoted “new energy vehicles” for 15 years with subsidies to developers and buyers. That, along with support including orders to state-owned utilities to blanket China with charging stations, is helping to transform the technology into a mainstream product. 

“People’s mindset and governmental policies are more encouraging toward e-cars than in any other country,” said VW CEO Herbert Diess. 

Electric vehicles play a key role in the ruling Communist Party’s plans for government-led development of Chinese global competitors in technologies from robotics to biotech. 

Those ambitions set off Beijing’s tariff war with President Donald Trump. Washington, Europe and other trading partners complain Chinese subsidies to technology developers and pressure on foreign companies to share know-how violate its market-opening commitments. 

Electric car subsidies end next year, replaced by sales quotas. Automakers that fall short can buy credits from competitors that exceed their targets or face possible fines. 

“Most of the traditional car makers are under huge pressure to launch NEVs,” said industry analyst John Zeng of LMC Automotive. 

Last year’s Chinese sales of pure-electric and hybrid sedans and SUVs soared 60% over 2017 to 1.3 million, or half the global total. At the same time, industry revenue was squeezed by a 4.1% fall in total Chinese auto sales to 23.7 million vehicles. 

That skid that worsened this year. First-quarter sales fell 13.7% from a year ago. 

Still, China is a top market for global automakers, giving them an incentive to go along with Beijing’s electric ambitions. Total annual sales are expected eventually to reach 30 million, nearly double last year’s U.S. level of 17 million. 

Under Beijing’s new rules, automakers must earn credits for sales of electrics equal to at least 10% of purchases this year and 12% in 2020. Longer-range vehicles can earn double credits. That means some brands can fill their quota if electrics make up as little as 5% of sales. 

Also Tuesday, Nissan Motor Co. and its Chinese partner displayed the Sylphy Zero Emission, an all-electric model designed for China. Based on Nissan’s Leaf, the lower-priced Sylphy went on sale in August.

Mercedes Benz displayed its first all-electric model in China, the EQC 400 SUV. The Germany automaker says it can travel 400 kilometers (280 miles) on one charge and can go from zero to 100 kph (62 mph) in 5.2 seconds. 

Mercedes plans to release 10 electrified models worldwide, with most built in China, according to Hubertus Troska, its board member for China. 

Some Chinese rivals have been selling low-priced electrics for a decade or more. 

China’s BYD Auto, the biggest global electric brand by sales volume, unveiled three new pure-electric models last month. All promise ranges of more than 400 kilometers (280 miles) on one charge. 

Last week, Geely Auto unveiled a sedan under its new electric brand, Geometry, with an advertised range of up to 500 kilometers (320 miles) on one charge. 

Geely’s parent, Geely Holding, launched a joint venture with Mercedes parent Daimler AG in March to develop electrics under the smart brand. Geely Holding is Daimler’s biggest shareholder and also owns Sweden’s Volvo Cars. 

Beijing wants to force automakers to speed up innovation and squeeze out producers that rely too heavily on subsidies. But the technology minister acknowledged in January that China faces a difficult transition as that spending is ending. 

Keeping development on track “will be a challenge,” said Miao Wei, according to a transcript on his ministry’s website. 

The shift creates an opportunity for fledgling Chinese automakers that lag global rivals in gasoline technology. They have just 10% of the global market for gasoline-powered vehicles but account for 50% of electric sales. 

The end of subsidies should lead to dramatic changes, said Zeng of LMC Automotive. He said longer-range, feature-rich models from global majors will replace small producers that cannot survive without subsidies. 

Electric vehicles “will be much more competitive,” said Zeng. 

As the cost of batteries and other components falls, industry analysts say electrics in China could match gasoline vehicles in price and become profitable for manufacturers in less than five years. 

EVs carry a higher sticker price in China than gasoline models. But industry analysts say owners who drive at least 16,000 kilometers (10,000 miles) a year save money in the long run, because maintenance and charging cost less. 
…

Hundreds of indigenous Karen people in Thailand face evictions from a national park that authorities wish to turn into a World Heritage Site, joining millions in a similarly precarious situation as authorities worldwide push tough conservation laws.

The Kaeng Krachan is Thailand’s biggest national park, sprawled over more than 2,900 square kilometers (1,120 square miles) on the border with neighboring Myanmar.

Renowned for its diverse wildlife, it is also home to about 30 communities of ethnic Karen people, who have traditionally lived and farmed there — and is on a tentative list of world heritage sites.

The United Nations’ cultural agency (UNESCO) had referred the submission back to the Thai government in 2016, asking it to address “rights and livelihood concerns” of the Karen communities, and get their support for the nomination.

The Thai government plans to respond later this year, according to campaigners.

“The communities have not been consulted or reassured on their access to the forest,” said Kittisak Rattanakrajangsri of advocacy group Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact.

“The communities are not opposed to the heritage status,” he told Reuters. “They are just asking that they not be evicted, and that their land rights are secure — because if the park gets heritage status without that, there will be a great many more evictions.”

A spokesman for the forest department did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office (OHCHR) in Bangkok said they had recently facilitated a meeting between a rights organization working with the Karen, and Thai officials.

Worldwide, more than 250,000 people were evicted from protected areas in 15 countries from 1990 to 2014, according to Washington D.C.-based advocacy group Rights and Resources Initiative.

In India, more than 1.9 million indigenous families face evictions after their forest rights claims were rejected.

‘No legal rights’

Since Kaeng Krachan was declared a national park in 1981, hundreds of Karen — a hill tribe people thought to number about 1 million in Thailand — have been evicted, according to activists.

Last year the country’s top court ruled that about 400 who had been evicted in 2011 had no legal right over the land.

“The security of indigenous people in Thailand is so tenuous because they have no legal rights, and no recognition of their dependence on forests,” said Worawuth Tamee, an indigenous rights lawyer.

“The laws have made them encroachers,” he said. 

A 2010 Cabinet resolution had called for recognizing the Karen people’s way of life and their right to earn a livelihood the traditional way. But this has not been implemented, said

Tamee.

After the military government took charge in 2014, it vowed to “take back the forest” and increase forest cover to about 40 percent of the total surface area from about a third.

This has resulted in hundreds of reclamations from farmers and forest dwellers, according to research organization Mekong Region Land Governance.

“It is the biggest challenge facing indigenous people,” said Tamee. “Parks are not just for the enjoyment of city people and tourists. They are also the home of poor, indigenous people who have nowhere else to go.”
…

Hundreds of indigenous Karen people in Thailand face evictions from a national park that authorities wish to turn into a World Heritage Site, joining millions in a similarly precarious situation as authorities worldwide push tough conservation laws.

The Kaeng Krachan is Thailand’s biggest national park, sprawled over more than 2,900 square kilometers (1,120 square miles) on the border with neighboring Myanmar.

Renowned for its diverse wildlife, it is also home to about 30 communities of ethnic Karen people, who have traditionally lived and farmed there — and is on a tentative list of world heritage sites.

The United Nations’ cultural agency (UNESCO) had referred the submission back to the Thai government in 2016, asking it to address “rights and livelihood concerns” of the Karen communities, and get their support for the nomination.

The Thai government plans to respond later this year, according to campaigners.

“The communities have not been consulted or reassured on their access to the forest,” said Kittisak Rattanakrajangsri of advocacy group Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact.

“The communities are not opposed to the heritage status,” he told Reuters. “They are just asking that they not be evicted, and that their land rights are secure — because if the park gets heritage status without that, there will be a great many more evictions.”

A spokesman for the forest department did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesman for the U.N. human rights office (OHCHR) in Bangkok said they had recently facilitated a meeting between a rights organization working with the Karen, and Thai officials.

Worldwide, more than 250,000 people were evicted from protected areas in 15 countries from 1990 to 2014, according to Washington D.C.-based advocacy group Rights and Resources Initiative.

In India, more than 1.9 million indigenous families face evictions after their forest rights claims were rejected.

‘No legal rights’

Since Kaeng Krachan was declared a national park in 1981, hundreds of Karen — a hill tribe people thought to number about 1 million in Thailand — have been evicted, according to activists.

Last year the country’s top court ruled that about 400 who had been evicted in 2011 had no legal right over the land.

“The security of indigenous people in Thailand is so tenuous because they have no legal rights, and no recognition of their dependence on forests,” said Worawuth Tamee, an indigenous rights lawyer.

“The laws have made them encroachers,” he said. 

A 2010 Cabinet resolution had called for recognizing the Karen people’s way of life and their right to earn a livelihood the traditional way. But this has not been implemented, said

Tamee.

After the military government took charge in 2014, it vowed to “take back the forest” and increase forest cover to about 40 percent of the total surface area from about a third.

This has resulted in hundreds of reclamations from farmers and forest dwellers, according to research organization Mekong Region Land Governance.

“It is the biggest challenge facing indigenous people,” said Tamee. “Parks are not just for the enjoyment of city people and tourists. They are also the home of poor, indigenous people who have nowhere else to go.”
…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday he will create a “Robin Hood” institute to return to the people the ill-gotten wealth seized from corrupt politicians and gangsters.

His administration is drawing up a bill to create an independent “Robin Hood” institute “against the corrupt” that would put confiscated goods such as real estate, jewelry and cars into the public’s hands, the president told reporters.

“Let’s quickly return everything to the people that’s been stolen,” he said at his regular morning news conference.

For example, the institute could assign seized homes to municipalities for schools, hospitals or elderly care centers, he said. Assets seized by the government tend to have been ransacked or require expensive upkeep, he noted.

He did not estimate the value of the assets, or offer details on how they would be given back to the people.

Since taking office in December, veteran leftist Lopez Obrador has rolled out a string of welfare programs for the poor and the elderly, cut salaries for top civil servants and says he is saving public money by eliminating corruption.

Lopez Obrador has shunned the often luxurious trappings of Mexico’s wealthy elites, choosing to fly coach and drive through the capital in a white Volkswagen Jetta.

Immediately upon taking office, he turned over the presidential palace to the public and put his predecessor’s official plane up for sale.
…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Monday he will create a “Robin Hood” institute to return to the people the ill-gotten wealth seized from corrupt politicians and gangsters.

His administration is drawing up a bill to create an independent “Robin Hood” institute “against the corrupt” that would put confiscated goods such as real estate, jewelry and cars into the public’s hands, the president told reporters.

“Let’s quickly return everything to the people that’s been stolen,” he said at his regular morning news conference.

For example, the institute could assign seized homes to municipalities for schools, hospitals or elderly care centers, he said. Assets seized by the government tend to have been ransacked or require expensive upkeep, he noted.

He did not estimate the value of the assets, or offer details on how they would be given back to the people.

Since taking office in December, veteran leftist Lopez Obrador has rolled out a string of welfare programs for the poor and the elderly, cut salaries for top civil servants and says he is saving public money by eliminating corruption.

Lopez Obrador has shunned the often luxurious trappings of Mexico’s wealthy elites, choosing to fly coach and drive through the capital in a white Volkswagen Jetta.

Immediately upon taking office, he turned over the presidential palace to the public and put his predecessor’s official plane up for sale.
…

A U.S. government agency says it plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in businesses that empower women in Africa.

President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and the acting head of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), David Bohigian, announced the initiative Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where they are part of a U.S. government delegation.

A statement from OPIC says the “2X Africa” initiative aims to mobilize $1 billion and directly invest $350 million in companies and funds “owned by women, led by women,” or by “providing a good or service that intentionally empowers women on the continent.”

The statement said that on Sunday, Bohigian signed a “letter of interest” with an Ethiopian company called Muya to help support the company through OPIC financing. Muya, owned by fasion designer Sara Abera, produces household products and was the first Ethiopian company to obtain membership in the World Fair Trade Organization.

Ivanka Trump visited Muya on Sunday after she arrived in Addis Ababa for a summit on African women’s economic inclusion and empowerment.

She is in the East African country to promote a $50 million initiative enacted by her father in February that is aimed at encouraging women’s employment in developing countries.

“Fundamentally, we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business,” Trump said after sampling coffee at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony. “It’s also in our security interest, because women, when we’re empowered, foster peace and stability.”

Trump also laid a wreath at an Ethiopian Orthodox church to honor the victims of last month’s Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board.

It was not immediately clear if the controversy that surrounds the U.S. president will follow his daughter to Africa. The president has not been kind in his remarks about Africa and its migrants.

Ivanka Trump is also scheduled to meet with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed before going on to Ivory Coast, where she will attend a meeting on economic opportunities for women in West Africa.

She is also scheduled to make an appearance at a World Bank policy summit.

 
…

Elizabeth Warren is vowing to prohibit new fossil fuel leasing on public lands if she’s elected president, one of several new energy proposals she rolled out on Monday before a campaign swing in two Western states.

Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, already has launched more than a half-dozen new proposals since entering the Democratic primary , outpacing her many rivals in a calculated bid to lead 2020′s ideas race. Her latest addition to her policy agenda aims to reverse the significant climb in drilling on public lands under President Donald Trump while also fleshing out her approach to climate change, a key issue for her party’s liberal base.

Besides an executive order barring new fossil fuel leases on public lands on shore and offshore, Warren said Monday that she would work toward boosting U.S. electricity generation from renewable sources offshore or on public lands. Her plan also includes free entry to national parks, the reinstatement of Obama-era environmental policies Trump rolled back and the creation of a service program to help maintain public lands.

“Any serious effort to address climate change must include public lands — fossil fuel extraction in these areas is responsible for nearly a quarter of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,” Warren wrote in a Monday blog post announcing her proposals.

Warren is set to discuss the public lands policies this week during campaign stops in South Carolina, Colorado and Utah.

Her proposals, particularly the bid to end new fossil fuel leasing on public lands, are likely to draw plaudits from environmental groups while running afoul of the oil and gas industry, which has benefited from millions of acres of public land offered for lease since Trump took office. Advocacy groups had urged then-President Barack Obama to halt new leases on federal land without success.

However, the Trump administration’s plans for new offshore drilling have sparked legal challenges of their own, including one affecting tests on the Atlantic coast that’s backed by the Republican attorney general of South Carolina.

Warren’s bid for a dramatic increase in renewable electricity generation on public land and offshore is a major turnabout from current policy. She acknowledged in her blog post that her goal is “nearly ten times what we are currently generating” but billed it as achievable.

Among Warren’s other policy rollouts this year are proposals to tax the nation’s wealthiest people and tax corporations with profits greater than $100 million , a universal child care plan and proposals designed to decrease consolidation in the tech industry and the agriculture industry.
…

A dispute between Haiti and a U.S. energy trading firm is leading to long blackouts and fuel shortages in the Caribbean nation, feeding anger at President Jovenel Moise’s government following the collapse of a supply deal with Venezuela last year.

The capital Port-au-Prince’s fragile power grid was dealt a blow when Novum Energy Trading Corp suspended shipments in February, leaving residents without electricity for days and many gas stations with no fuel at the pumps.

Novum says the government owes it $40 million in overdue payments for fuel. Haitian officials did not reply to requests for comment.

The Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, Haiti long relied on fuel shipments from nearby OPEC member Venezuela, which offered cheap financing to several Caribbean nations to buy its gasoline, diesel and other products through a program called Petrocaribe.

But the scheme fell apart last year due to economic turmoil in Venezuela, forcing Haiti – a nation of 11 million people – to return to international markets.

Novum, which has supplied Haiti with fuel for more than four years, stepped up its shipments as the Petrocaribe deal unravelled. Novum said it supplied 80 percent of Haiti’s gasoline and diesel needs last year.

On Feb. 27, Novum anchored a vessel carrying 150,000 barrels of gasoline off Port-au-Prince until the payment dispute could be resolved. The cargo was equivalent to roughly half of Haiti’s monthly consumption of gasoline, according to industry experts.

After more than a month waiting, Novum on April 4 said the situation was “untenable” and sent the vessel to Jamaica to take on provisions.

Youri Chevry, mayor of Port-au-Prince, a sprawling city of more than 2.6 million people, said electricity and gasoline shortages had grown worse over the past month as Haiti waited for the shipment.

“It’s a very bad situation … It has a lot of repercussions,” he said.

Chris Scott, Novum’s chief financial officer, said the vessel would not dock until the government could pay. He said Novum had taken such measures “fairly regularly” since mid-2018 as Haiti started to fall behind on payments after the Petrocaribe program collapsed.

“They need to pay in order for us to be able to discharge,” Scott said.

A government official, who asked not to be identified, said fuel distribution companies in Haiti had not paid the government for gasoline and diesel it purchased on their behalf from Novum. That in turn meant the government could not pay the U.S. company for the fuel.

The official said other companies were still supplying Haiti with fuel. He did not provide details.

The scarcity of fuel and growing economic problems has put basic necessities increasingly out of reach for many Haitians, despite a $229 million loan program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reached last month.

“I’m barely surviving,” said 40-year-old Amos, one of scores of hawkers selling black market gasoline on a busy street in the capital. On bad day, he earns little more than 50 cents. “It’s going to be difficult to see change in this country.”

Protests

Protesters have for months agitated to remove Moise, a former businessman who took office in February 2017. They blame him for inflation running at around 17 percent, the depreciation of the gourde currency, and for not investigating alleged misuse of Petrocaribe funds by public officials.

Between Feb. 7 and Feb. 27, the protests claimed at least 26 lives and injured more than 77 people, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, though the situation has calmed since then.

Moise has refused to step aside, saying in February he would not hand power to the leaders of violent protests. He pledged his government would take steps to address people’s grievances.

Corruption is a perennial concern in Haiti. The nation ranked 166 from 183 countries in Transparency International’s global survey of perceptions of corruption last year – only Venezuela had a worse ranking in the Western Hemisphere.

International pressure has grown for an investigation. In a March 20 letter, 104 member of the U.S. Congress asked President Donald Trump’s government to support investigations into Petrocaribe in Haiti, pointing to the alleged misuse of $2 billion in low-interest loans under the scheme.

At the height of the Petrocaribe program, Venezuelan fuel covered nearly 70 percent of Haiti’s needs. Venezuela provided long-term financing for the oil on flexible terms, with a maximum 2 percent interest rate and a two-year grace period.

Petrocaribe included a fund for infrastructure and social projects in member countries.

By April 2018, Venezuela was no longer exporting fuel to Haiti, according to documents from Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA seen by Reuters.

After the program lapsed, Haitian energy companies lacked the hard U.S. currency to be able to buy fuel on international markets, said an executive at one firm, who asked not to be identified.

Andre Michel, an opposition leader looking into the alleged corruption surrounding Petrocaribe, said it was difficult to estimate how much was stolen but the signs of misused of funds appeared compelling.

“No serious projects have been completed: no hospitals, no campus for students, no roads, no housing projects,” he said.

An oft-heard lament on the streets of Port-au-Prince is that while politicians pilfer billions, Haitians go hungry. Roads in the city are potholed and the vestiges of a deadly 2010 earthquake can still be seen at practically every corner.

Destine Legagneur, a small business owner, whose shop is a stone’s throw from the presidential palace, said Haitians would be scarred by the Petrocaribe scheme for years to come.

“That money is going to have to be paid to Venezuela one way or another,” he said. “If it’s not me, it’s my kids that are going to have to pay.”
…

Ivanka Trump arrived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Sunday for a summit on African women’s economic inclusion and empowerment.

President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser visited a coffee shop and textile company in Addis Ababa. She is there to promote a $50 million initiative enacted by her father in February that is aimed at encouraging women’s employment in developing countries.

The Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative says it hopes to “reach 50 million women by 2025, through the work of the the United States Government and its partners.”

“Fundamentally, we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business,” Ivanka Trump said after sampling coffee at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony. “It’s also in our security interest, because women, when we’re empowered, foster peace and stability.”

It was not immediately clear if the controversy that surrounds the U.S. president will follow his daughter to Africa. The president has not been kind in his remarks about Africa and its migrants.

“I don’t think people will have a good feeling” Ethiopian journalist Sisay Woubshet said about the president’s daughter visit to the continent.

Marakle Tesfaye, an activist, said, however, “I think she’s coming genuinely to empower women and it’s good that she’s coming because she will push forward our agenda.”

Ivanka Trump will also meet with meet with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed before going on to Ivory Coast, where she will attend a meeting on economic opportunities for women in West Africa.

She is also scheduled to an make an appearance at a World Bank policy summit.
…

Ivanka Trump arrived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, Sunday for a summit on African women’s economic inclusion and empowerment.

President Donald Trump’s daughter and senior adviser visited a coffee shop and textile company in Addis Ababa. She is there to promote a $50 million initiative enacted by her father in February that is aimed at encouraging women’s employment in developing countries.

The Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative says it hopes to “reach 50 million women by 2025, through the work of the the United States Government and its partners.”

“Fundamentally, we believe that investing in women is a smart development policy and it is a smart business,” Ivanka Trump said after sampling coffee at a traditional Ethiopian ceremony. “It’s also in our security interest, because women, when we’re empowered, foster peace and stability.”

It was not immediately clear if the controversy that surrounds the U.S. president will follow his daughter to Africa. The president has not been kind in his remarks about Africa and its migrants.

“I don’t think people will have a good feeling” Ethiopian journalist Sisay Woubshet said about the president’s daughter visit to the continent.

Marakle Tesfaye, an activist, said, however, “I think she’s coming genuinely to empower women and it’s good that she’s coming because she will push forward our agenda.”

Ivanka Trump will also meet with meet with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed before going on to Ivory Coast, where she will attend a meeting on economic opportunities for women in West Africa.

She is also scheduled to an make an appearance at a World Bank policy summit.
…

Cryptocurrency exchanges are growing in the Philippines, despite a downturn last year in the value of the virtual currencies, due to growing popular demand and lenience among regulators.

Authorities in the developing Southeast Asian country have permitted at least 29 exchanges of cryptocurrency following three that the central bank said it approved this week, according to domestic media reports. 

That count, which is high for Asia, follows a total of 10 exchanges permitted by the central bank. The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority in the archipelago’s far north has issued 19 additional permits, the zone’s website said in October. 

These exchanges feed into the development of a fast-growing financial technology, or fintech, sector in the Philippines, said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.

“Fintech appears to be very advanced in the Philippines,” he said. Consumers, he said, “eventually look at the mobility of having it in mobile wallets, [which] gives them flexibility to use money.”

Uses for cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency, most notably its standard bearer Bitcoin, became an investment vehicle in much of the world about a decade ago. But a 70% drop in Bitcoin prices last year weakened enthusiasm for crypto overall. 

​Filipinos generally pick more traditional investments such as equities, Ravelas said, but young companies are eyeing cryptocurrency to raise capital, a process called initial coin offerings. Seven in 10 Filipinos have no bank account, he added, so virtual currency gives those consumers a new option for making payments.

That population would be able to jump on a currency source that’s open to anyone and transparent because of its online transaction ledger called the blockchain.

Government support

The central bank governor may see the cryptocurrency trade as part of his bigger plan to advance the country’s electronic payment systems, analysts say.

Cryptocurrency “probably goes toward those efforts at facilitating electronic payments. I think that’s the key point,” said Christian de Guzman, vice president and senior credit officer with Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group in Singapore.

The 2016 National Payment Systems Act, among others, “bolsters the central bank’s capacity to foster the efficiency of payment systems as pipelines of funds in the financial market,” the authority’s governor Benjamin Diokno said in a speech last month.

The central bank and Securities and Exchange Commission are “working towards regulating cryptocurrencies to protect the Filipino people,” domestic Bitcoin and blockchain news website Bitpinas said in November. “This is a positive step towards adoption as this move will give users security and confidence in dealing with it.”

Said de Guzman: “A certain segment of the population is certainly very technically sophisticated.” 

First mover advantage?

The Philippines, though later than much of East Asia in picking up cryptocurrency, would eventually stand out if regulators embrace rather than restrict it.

China and South Korea have placed curbs on certain types of crypto trade. Both banned initial coin offerings in 2017, and China ordered the closure of cryptocurrency exchanges as part of that move. South Korea has at least 21 exchanges.

​Japan is widely seen as Asia’s most liberal place for cryptocurrency. That country, which has let 17 exchanges fully register, overtook China in 2017 as the biggest Bitcoin market in the world with 58 percent of the global volume. Japan declared Bitcoin legal tender in 2017.

The Philippines in its current groove should take a “first mover advantage,” said Kenneth Ameduri, financial analyst and CEO of the crypto-specialized news website Crush the Street in the United States.

“I think the Philippines understand that it’s going to be a very big deal to be involved with cryptocurrency, because it’s going to happen no matter what, and if they’re the ones to treat this capital best, the capital is going to flow there and the other jurisdictions are just going to completely miss out,” Ameduri said.

The Philippines might eventually look harder at the role of cryptocurrency in falsifying tax payments and paying for illegal drugs, de Guzman said. Taxation and drugs are already sticky issues without crypto.

Exchanges contacted for this report declined comment.
…

In a twist, China has announced that it has persuaded Malaysia to resume a canceled rail project worth $10.7 billion. The sudden about-face by Kuala Lumpur, which had earlier rejected the Chinese-funded project, will be a big boost for China ahead of a Belt and Road Forum in Beijing later this month, say analysts.

China is hosting its second annual Belt and Road Forum from April 25 to 27 in Beijing. The event is likely to include the heads of state and governments of 40 different countries and officials from 60 others as Beijing tries to win more support for the trillion-dollar infrastructure and investment plan known as the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI.

In recent months, the initiative has faced tough challenges as Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Malaysia canceled or reduced the size of previously negotiated deals. Although Malaysia is back on board, it has forced China to accept a 30 percent reduction in the price of the project.

The reworked deal with Malaysia highlights how China is trying to face up to widespread criticism about the financing costs of its projects and concerns expressed by experts and government leaders around the world that the projects are nothing but diplomacy debt traps.

“I think China is trying to make changes. But it is trying to do too much too quickly and with too much skepticism facing it. No wonder it’s having a torrid time,” said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College London.

Analysts said it is likely that the forum will be mostly about optics, but some real deals could be finalized. Given the heavy criticism about the projects, there will be high expectations from participants, which Beijing has said will include 40 heads of states and governments.  

“They will presumably want something more than mere protocol. Even the promise of deals is better than none at all,” Brown said.

Analysts add that, despite the criticism of the plan, which has been loud at times, the BRI has been able to attract dozens of foreign governments and has been backed by institutions like the World Bank because it is offering to build much-needed infrastructure and help foot the cost.

“The reason so many countries are interested in BRI is because China is offering something no one else is and there is genuine demand for what BRI represents,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

Still, it has not been easy for Chinese leaders to wade through the skepticism and sometimes strong opposition to the program from the United States’ and China’s neighbor, India. Critics see BRI as China’s attempt to impose financial imperialism on economically weak but strategically located countries. Many have also raised questions because of the lack of transparency surrounding the projects.

Recently however, there have been signs China is modifying the program to suit the needs of its customers, particularly those like Malaysia and Italy, which are not as desperately in need of Beijing’s financial largesse and deep pockets. Italy recently joined the BRI bandwagon after visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping provided the kind of assurances Rome sought.

“Chinese regulators realize they need to be pragmatic if these projects are to be successful, especially where there is local pushback on political and societal levels,” said Andrew Polk, partner at Beijing-based consultancy firm Trivium China.

There are still serious questions about the kind of changes that Beijing is ready to make. Some analysts believe that China might offer better financial terms and stop its practice of flooding foreign projects with Chinese workers; however, they say Beijing is unlikely to make changes in crucial areas like the transparency of deals and Chinese companies involved in overseas projects.

“Beijing could make the terms of deals public, which would be a major signal of change, but no indications of that happening soon,” said Jonathan Hillman, director of the Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“Greater transparency would constrain Beijing’s ability to funnel cash through BRI projects to its friends in high places,” he said.

There have been problems even in places where Chinese projects have proven to be successful in terms of implementation. For instance, Chinese companies have ensured the commercial success of the Greek port city of Piraeus. “But its political impact is mixed. Greeks might welcome Chinese investment, but they don’t want China’s environmental or labor practices,” Hillman said.

The U.S. recently described BRI as a “vanity project” and announced it would not send a high-level delegation to the forum. Analysts are wondering if the U.S. will stay away from the meeting altogether.

“The U.S. has made its position clear. It opposes the BRI. Attendance under the current circumstances with the trade war unresolved would be odd,” Brown said.

Haenle said he believes the U.S. should engage with the BRI along with its friends and partners.

“The U.S. is right to point out the flaws in the Belt and Road Initiative, but if it wishes to see them corrected, it must also put forward its own alternatives and refrain from knee-jerk reactions,” he said.
…

The latest power outage started another tough week for factory owner Antonello Lorusso in the city of Valencia, once Venezuela’s industrial powerhouse.

For the past month, unprecedented nationwide blackouts paralyzed the factory and the rest of the country, cutting off power, water and cell service to millions of Venezuelans.

Lorusso’s packaging plant, Distribuidora Marina, had already struggled through years of hyperinflation, vanishing client orders, and a flight of employees. Now the situation was worse.

For the whole month of March, Lorusso said, his company produced only its single daily capacity: 100 tonnes of packaged sugar and grains. When Reuters visited on April 8, he was using a generator to keep one of his dozen packaging machines working to fulfill the single order he had received. Power had been on for a few hours, but was too weak to run the machines.

“There is no information, we don’t know if the blackouts will continue or not,” said Lorusso, who has owned the factory for over 30 years. He said the plant had just a day’s worth of power over the previous week.

Power has been intermittent since early March, when the first major blackout plunged Venezuela into a week of darkness.

Electricity experts and the opposition have called the government incompetent at maintaining the national grid. President Nicolas Maduro has accused the opposition and the U.S. government of sabotage.

Venezuela’s industry has collapsed during six years of recession that have halved the size of the economy. What is left is largely outside of the capital Caracas, the only big city that Maduro’s government has excluded from a power rationing plan intended to restrict the load on the system.

In Valencia, a few multinational companies like Nestle and Ford Motor Co cling on. But the number of companies based there has fallen to a tenth of the 5,000 there were two decades ago, when Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez became president, according to the regional business association.

‘The game is over’

The government said on April 4 that the power rationing plan meant Valencia would spend at most 3 hours a day without electricity, but a dozen executives and workers there said outages were still lasting over 10 hours. Generators are costly and can only power a fraction of a business’s operations, they said. Many factories have shut down.

“The game is over. Companies are entering a state of despair due to their inviability,” said an executive of a food company with factories in Valencia, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Industrial companies this year are operating below 25 percent of capacity, according to industry group Conindustria. It estimated companies lost about $220 million during the days in March without power, and would lose $100 million more in April.

Nestle’s factory, which produces baby food, halted during the first blackout in early March and operations again froze two weeks later, with employees sent home until May, according to Rafael Garcia, a union leader at the plant. He blamed the most recent stoppage on very low sales of baby food which cost almost a dollar per package, or about what a person on minimum wage earns in a week.

“My greatest worry is the closure of the factory,” said Garcia, as he sat at a bus stop on Valencia’s Henry Ford avenue, in the city’s industrial outskirts where warehouses sit empty and streets are covered in weeds.

Nestle did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Ford’s plant along the avenue was working at a bare minimum for several months, union leaders said. In December, the carmaker began offering buyouts to staff after it received no orders for 2019, they said. Ford, in December, said it had “no plans to leave the country.”

The outages have idled more than just factories. In the countryside, lack of power has prevented farmers from pumping water to irrigate fields.

Since January, farmers have sown 17,500 hectares of crops, a third of the area seeded last year, and they fear losing the harvest due to the lack of water, according to agricultural associations. In the central state of Cojedes, several rice growers have already lost their crops, farmers said.

“In the rural areas, the blackouts last longer,” said Jose Luis Perez, spokesman for a rice producers federation. Producers of cheese, beef, cured meats and lettuce told Reuters orders had dropped by half in March as buyers worried the food would perish once their freezers lost power in the next blackout.

Back in Valencia, Lorusso was preparing his factory for the new era of scarce power. He has converted one unused truck in his parking lot into a water tank. He plans to sell another to buy a second generator.

“We’ve spent years getting used to things. Then we were dealt this hard blow, and now we’re trying to find ways to cope,” he said.
…

Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos on Thursday challenged retailers to hike their minimum wages to $16 an hour, prompting a comeback from Walmart Inc which asked its rivals to pay taxes.

“Today I challenge our top retail competitors (you know who you are!) to match our employee benefits and our $15 minimum wage,” the billionaire entrepreneur said in a letter to shareholders. “Do it! Better yet, go to $16 and throw the gauntlet back at us.”

The online retailer raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour for U.S. employees from November, giving in to critics of poor pay and working conditions at the company.

Some critics have said the hike was insufficient and note that Amazon paid zero U.S. federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits before taxes in 2018, and received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government.

Walmart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett, responded to Bezos by tweeting, “Hey retail competitors out there (you know who you are) how about paying your taxes?”

Walmart, which has raised its minimum wage twice since 2015, pays an entry wage of $11 per hour. CEO Doug McMillon has said Walmart’s average U.S. hourly wage is $17.50 including bonuses based on store performance, and excluding health care benefits.

The two retailers, which are fierce rivals, rarely go after one another other publicly.

Amazon’s wage hike came as U.S. unemployment was at a near two-decade low, with retailers and shippers competing for hundreds of thousands of workers for the all-important holiday shopping season.

Bezos said in his letter that the wage hike has benefited more than 250,000 Amazon employees and over 100,000 seasonal employees who worked during the last holiday season at Amazon sites in the United States.

Amazon’s third-party sales in 2018 accounted for 58 percent of total sales, up from 56 percent in 2017, Bezos said.

Amazon has said that it pays all the required taxes in every country where it operates, including $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years.

“Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and our profits remain modest given retail is a highly competitive, low-margin business,” according to recent Amazon statements.

 
…

Walt Disney Co on Thursday said its new family-friendly streaming service will cost $7 monthly or $70 annually with a slate of exclusive TV shows and movies from some of the world’s most popular entertainment franchises in a bid to challenge the digital dominance of Netflix.

The ad-free monthly subscription called Disney+ is set to launch on Nov. 12 and in every major global market over time, the company said. In addition to Disney films and TV shows, it will feature programming from the Marvel superhero universe, the “Star Wars” galaxy, “Toy Story” creator Pixar animation and the National Geographic channel.

The company said it has struck deals with Roku Inc and Sony Corp to distribute Disney+ on streaming devices and console gaming systems and expects it to be widely available on smart televisions, tablets, and other outlets by launch.

Disney kicked off its presentation to Wall Street analysts at its Burbank, California, headquarters on Thursday with a video that demonstrated the breadth of its portfolio, showing clips from dozens of classic TV shows and movies from “Frozen” and “The Lion King” to “Avatar” and “The Sound of Music.”

Executives said they see opportunities to take its ESPN+ sport streaming video service to Latin America and are looking into international expansion of its Hulu streaming video business, which offers movies and shows targeted to adults.

The entertainment giant is trying to transform itself from a cable television powerhouse into a leader of streaming media. Chief Executive Bob Iger in February called streaming the company’s “No. 1 priority.”

Wall Street has pinned high hopes on the new service, which analysts expect would cost about $7.50 monthly and lure about 7.2 million U.S. subscribers in 2020 and 13.66 million by 2021, according to a poll of analysts conducted by Reuters.

The digital push is Disney’s response to cord-cutting, the dropping of cable service that has hit its ESPN sports network and other channels, and the rise of Netflix Inc. The Silicon Valley upstart has amassed 139 million customers worldwide since it began streaming 12 years ago.

The Mouse House, as Disney is known, will join the market at a time when audiences are facing a host of choices, and monthly bills, for digital entertainment. Apple Inc, AT&T Inc’s WarnerMedia and others plan new streaming services. To bolster its potential digital portfolio, Disney recently purchased film and TV assets from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox and gained prized properties such as “Avatar.”

In a January regulatory filing, Disney reported losses of more than $1 billion for streaming-related investments in Hulu and technology company BAMtech.

Disney had been supplying new movies such as “Black Panther” and “Beauty and the Beast” to Netflix after their runs in theaters but ended that arrangement this year to feed its own streaming ambitions. The company estimated it is foregoing $150 million in licensing revenue this fiscal year by saving programming for its own platforms.

The Disney+ programming will draw in part from Disney’s deep library of classic family films. It also will include exclusive original content such as a live-action “Star Wars” series called “The Mandalorian,” a show focused on Marvel movie villain Loki, and animated “Monsters at Work,” inspired by hit Pixar movie “Monsters Inc.”

Some new Disney movies, such as a “Lady and the Tramp” remake, will go directly to the Disney+ app. Other new releases will appear on Disney+ after their run in theaters and after the cycle out of the home video sales window, executives have said.
…

Uber Technologies Inc. has 91 million users, but growth is slowing and it may never make a profit, the ride-hailing company said Thursday in its initial public offering filing. 

The document gave the first comprehensive financial picture of the company, which was started in 2009 after its founders struggled to get a cab on a snowy night. 

The filing underscores the rapid growth of Uber’s business in the last three years but also how a string of public scandals and increased competition from rivals have weighed on its plans to attract and retain riders. 

$3B loss from operations

The disclosure also highlighted how far Uber remains from turning a profit, with the company cautioning it expects operating expenses to “increase significantly in the foreseeable future” and it “may not achieve profitability.” Uber lost $3.03 billion in 2018 from operations, excluding one-off gains. 

The S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed Uber had 91 million average monthly active users on its platforms, which include ride-hailing and Uber Eats, at the end of 2018. This was up 33.8 percent from 2017, but growth slowed from 51 percent a year earlier. 

Uber in 2018 had revenue of $11.3 billion, up around 42 percent over 2017, again below the 106 percent growth in the prior year. 

Uber set a placeholder amount of $1 billion but did not specify the size of the IPO. Reuters reported this week that Uber plans to sell around $10 billion worth of stock at a valuation of between $90 billion and $100 billion.

Investment bankers had previously told Uber it could be worth as much as $120 billion. 

Uber will follow Lyft Inc. in going public. Shares in its smaller rival closed at $61.01 on Thursday, 15 percent below its IPO price set late last month, a development that has sent chilling signals to other tech startups looking to go public. 

Adverse events

After making the public filing, Uber will begin a series of investor presentations, called a road show, which Reuters has reported will start the week of April 29. The company is on track to price its IPO and begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange in early May.

Uber faces questions about how it will navigate any transition toward self-driving vehicles, a technology seen as potentially dramatically lowering costs but also as possibly disrupting its business model.

One advantage Uber will likely seek to play up to investors is that it is the largest player in many of the markets in which it operates. Analysts consider building scale crucial for Uber’s business model to become profitable.

In addition to answering questions about the company’s finances, Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi will be tasked with convincing investors that he has successfully changed the culture and business practices after a series of embarrassing scandals over the last two years.

Those have included sexual harassment allegations, a massive data breach that was concealed from regulators, use of illicit software to evade authorities and allegations of bribery overseas. Khosrowshahi joined Uber in 2017 from Expedia Inc. to replace company co-founder Travis Kalanick, who was ousted as CEO. 

Uber said in its filing its ridesharing position in the United States and Canada was “significantly impacted by adverse publicity events” and that its position in many markets has been threatened by discounts from other ride-hailing companies. 

A #DeleteUber campaign surged on social media in 2017 after a public relations crisis, which Uber said in its filing meant hundreds of thousands of consumers stopped using its platform within days. 
…

U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in 14 months in March, but the underlying inflation trend remained benign amid slowing domestic and global economic growth.

The mixed report from the Labor Department on Wednesday was broadly supportive of the Federal Reserve’s decision last month to suspended its three-year campaign to raise interest rates.

The U.S. central bank dropped projections for any rate hikes this year after lifting borrowing costs four times in 2018.

Minutes of the Fed’s March 19-20 meeting, published on Wednesday, showed most policymakers viewed price pressures as “muted,” but expected inflation to rise to or near the central bank’s 2 percent target. The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy is currently at 1.8 percent.

“For the most part, inflation remains tame,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “The Fed effectively went on vacation and is likely to stay there for quite a few more months.”

The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent, boosted by increases in the costs of food, gasoline and rents. That was the biggest advance since January 2018 and followed a 0.2 percent gain in February.

In the 12 months through March, the CPI increased 1.9 percent. The CPI gained 1.5 percent in February, which was the smallest rise since September 2016. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI climbing 0.3 percent in March and accelerating 1.8 percent year-on-year.

Stripping out the volatile food and energy components, the CPI nudged up 0.1 percent, matching February’s gain. The so-called core CPI was held down by a 1.9 percent plunge in apparel prices, the largest drop since January 1949.

The government last month introduced a new method and data to calculate apparel prices. Apparel prices, which had increased for two straight months, trimmed the core CPI by 0.07 percentage point in March. Many economists expected a reversal in April.

“The new price collection methodology for apparel incorporates corporate data from one unidentified department store to complement prior survey-based collection,” said Kathy

Bostjancic, head of U.S. Macro Investor Services at Oxford Economics in New York. “The new methodology appears more likely to show large monthly declines due to the lifecycle of apparel.”

Low inflation expectations

In the 12 months through March, the core CPI increased 2.0 percent, the smallest advance since February 2018. The core CPI rose 2.1 percent year-on-year in February.

The dollar was trading slightly lower against a basket of currencies, while U.S. Treasury prices rose. Stocks on Wall Street were mostly higher.

Inflation has remained muted, with wage growth increasing moderately despite tightening labor market conditions. Minutes of the March policy meeting showed some Fed officials believed the benign price pressures could be the result of low inflation expectations and also an indication the labor market was likely not as tight as implied by measures of resource utilization.

“The minutes reinforce our view that rates are on hold for the foreseeable future, though this could shift if the economy and or inflation surprise to the up or down sides,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.

A 3.5 percent jump in energy prices in March accounted for about 60 percent of the increase in the CPI last month. Gasoline prices surged 6.5 percent, the biggest gain since September 2017, after rising 1.5 percent in February.

Food prices gained 0.3 percent after accelerating 0.4 percent in February.

Food consumed at home increased 0.4 percent. Consumers also paid more for rent. Owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence, which is what a homeowner would pay to rent or receive from renting a home, increased 0.3 percent in March after a similar gain in February.

Healthcare costs rebounded 0.3 percent after slipping 0.2 percent in February. There were increases in the costs of prescription medication and hospital services.

The cost of new vehicles rebounded 0.4 percent after declining 0.2 percent in February. But there were decreases in the prices of used motor vehicles and trucks, airline fares and motor vehicle insurance.
…

U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in 14 months in March, but the underlying inflation trend remained benign amid slowing domestic and global economic growth.

The mixed report from the Labor Department on Wednesday was broadly supportive of the Federal Reserve’s decision last month to suspended its three-year campaign to raise interest rates.

The U.S. central bank dropped projections for any rate hikes this year after lifting borrowing costs four times in 2018.

Minutes of the Fed’s March 19-20 meeting, published on Wednesday, showed most policymakers viewed price pressures as “muted,” but expected inflation to rise to or near the central bank’s 2 percent target. The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy is currently at 1.8 percent.

“For the most part, inflation remains tame,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “The Fed effectively went on vacation and is likely to stay there for quite a few more months.”

The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent, boosted by increases in the costs of food, gasoline and rents. That was the biggest advance since January 2018 and followed a 0.2 percent gain in February.

In the 12 months through March, the CPI increased 1.9 percent. The CPI gained 1.5 percent in February, which was the smallest rise since September 2016. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI climbing 0.3 percent in March and accelerating 1.8 percent year-on-year.

Stripping out the volatile food and energy components, the CPI nudged up 0.1 percent, matching February’s gain. The so-called core CPI was held down by a 1.9 percent plunge in apparel prices, the largest drop since January 1949.

The government last month introduced a new method and data to calculate apparel prices. Apparel prices, which had increased for two straight months, trimmed the core CPI by 0.07 percentage point in March. Many economists expected a reversal in April.

“The new price collection methodology for apparel incorporates corporate data from one unidentified department store to complement prior survey-based collection,” said Kathy

Bostjancic, head of U.S. Macro Investor Services at Oxford Economics in New York. “The new methodology appears more likely to show large monthly declines due to the lifecycle of apparel.”

Low inflation expectations

In the 12 months through March, the core CPI increased 2.0 percent, the smallest advance since February 2018. The core CPI rose 2.1 percent year-on-year in February.

The dollar was trading slightly lower against a basket of currencies, while U.S. Treasury prices rose. Stocks on Wall Street were mostly higher.

Inflation has remained muted, with wage growth increasing moderately despite tightening labor market conditions. Minutes of the March policy meeting showed some Fed officials believed the benign price pressures could be the result of low inflation expectations and also an indication the labor market was likely not as tight as implied by measures of resource utilization.

“The minutes reinforce our view that rates are on hold for the foreseeable future, though this could shift if the economy and or inflation surprise to the up or down sides,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.

A 3.5 percent jump in energy prices in March accounted for about 60 percent of the increase in the CPI last month. Gasoline prices surged 6.5 percent, the biggest gain since September 2017, after rising 1.5 percent in February.

Food prices gained 0.3 percent after accelerating 0.4 percent in February.

Food consumed at home increased 0.4 percent. Consumers also paid more for rent. Owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence, which is what a homeowner would pay to rent or receive from renting a home, increased 0.3 percent in March after a similar gain in February.

Healthcare costs rebounded 0.3 percent after slipping 0.2 percent in February. There were increases in the costs of prescription medication and hospital services.

The cost of new vehicles rebounded 0.4 percent after declining 0.2 percent in February. But there were decreases in the prices of used motor vehicles and trucks, airline fares and motor vehicle insurance.
…

Mexico’s foreign minister on Wednesday criticized hold-ups in the flow of goods and people at the U.S-Mexico border, and said he planned to discuss the matter with U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials later in the day.

After days of traffic delays at sections of the border that have alarmed businesses, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the disruptions were raising costs for supply chains in both countries.

“Slowing down the flow of people and goods at the northern border is a very bad idea,” Ebrard said in a post on Twitter, using unusually frank language on an issue that has caused constant friction between Mexico and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ebrard said his ministry would get in contact on Wednesday with the new leaders of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The department’s former secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who had overseen Trump’s bitterly contested immigration policies during her tenure, stepped down at the weekend.

The border slowdowns have occurred after Trump late last month threatened to close the frontier if Mexico did not halt a surge in undocumented migrants reaching the United States.

On Monday, a judge in San Francisco said the Trump administration’s policy of sending some asylum seekers to Mexico while their claims worked through a backlogged immigration court system was not authorized by U.S. law.

The White House said on Tuesday it would appeal the ruling and that its policy was part of a “cooperative program extensively negotiated with the government of Mexico.”

However, in a sign of ongoing tensions over the issue, Mexico’s foreign ministry noted afterwards that the return of the migrants was a “unilateral” measure with which it did not agree but was allowing on a “temporary” basis.

On Wednesday morning, only one of six lanes for commercial vehicles was open at the Bridge of the Americas border crossing between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, according to online data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 
…

Mexico’s foreign minister on Wednesday criticized hold-ups in the flow of goods and people at the U.S-Mexico border, and said he planned to discuss the matter with U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials later in the day.

After days of traffic delays at sections of the border that have alarmed businesses, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the disruptions were raising costs for supply chains in both countries.

“Slowing down the flow of people and goods at the northern border is a very bad idea,” Ebrard said in a post on Twitter, using unusually frank language on an issue that has caused constant friction between Mexico and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ebrard said his ministry would get in contact on Wednesday with the new leaders of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The department’s former secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who had overseen Trump’s bitterly contested immigration policies during her tenure, stepped down at the weekend.

The border slowdowns have occurred after Trump late last month threatened to close the frontier if Mexico did not halt a surge in undocumented migrants reaching the United States.

On Monday, a judge in San Francisco said the Trump administration’s policy of sending some asylum seekers to Mexico while their claims worked through a backlogged immigration court system was not authorized by U.S. law.

The White House said on Tuesday it would appeal the ruling and that its policy was part of a “cooperative program extensively negotiated with the government of Mexico.”

However, in a sign of ongoing tensions over the issue, Mexico’s foreign ministry noted afterwards that the return of the migrants was a “unilateral” measure with which it did not agree but was allowing on a “temporary” basis.

On Wednesday morning, only one of six lanes for commercial vehicles was open at the Bridge of the Americas border crossing between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, according to online data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 
…

Cloaked in black and carrying white buckets filled with artificial blood, the group filed in silence to the entrance of London’s Downing Street, behind a troupe of child and teen activists.

Ringing a bell as they walked, the 45 adults — all participants in Extinction Rebellion, a protest movement seeking rapid action to curb global warming — formed an arc facing the British prime minister’s residence and poured out their buckets, turning the surrounding road into a sea of red.

The liquid, they said, symbolized “the blood of our children,” on the hands of politicians who have failed to act on climate change and stem its impacts, from worsening floods and droughts to growing poverty and water and food shortages.

Among those at the protest in March were three members of Christian Climate Action, a small group of retirees and students who say their religious faith is compelling them to take an increasingly active role in trying to stop climate change.

Climate change “is leading to a social collapse. We need to respond in more caring and collective ways,” said Phil Kingston, 83, a Catholic church member from Bristol who took a train to London to participate in the Downing Street demonstration.

As climate change protests pick up in London and around the world, they are drawing an increasingly broad range of protesters, from students following in the footsteps of 16-year-old Swedish “school strike” leader Greta Thunberg to grandparents concerned about the growing risks their grandchildren face.

Religious groups — from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and other faiths — are among those joining the protests, out of concern, in some cases, about the moral and spiritual implications of human-driven climate change.

Christian Climate Action took shape about six years ago, initially with just a handful of active members from a range of Christian denominations, said Ruth Jarman, 55, one of the group’s original members.

But as it has become involved with Extinction Rebellion — an emerging movement that uses nonviolent protest to demand action on climate change — interest in the Christian action group is growing, especially among younger generations, members say.

“Finding Extinction Rebellion really fitted in with our values so well. It’s very clear on using nonviolence, being motivated by values of love and care rather than anger,” said Jarman, who lives in Hartley Wintney in Hampshire.

Since November, Christian Climate Action activists have disrupted traffic, spray-painted government buildings with political messages and the Extinction Rebellion hourglass symbol, blockaded entrances — and prayed for action, Jarman said.

An Anglican parishioner, she has been arrested five times for those protests — a risk not all Christians are willing to take, she admitted.

But “for me, it’s the first verse of the Bible that hits home: If God created all that is, what does it mean for us to be destroying it?” she asked. “For us to be participating in its destruction is sacrilegious — not something believing Christians should be doing.”

Faith in action

Faith groups, in Britain and around the world, have taken a growing role in pushing action on climate change, with some churches, mosques and temples pulling their investments out of fossil fuels, championing efforts to cut food waste and raising awareness about climate risks.

Last July, the Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, voted to disinvest by 2023 from fossil fuel companies that fail to meet the aims of the Paris climate agreement.

Under that 2015 deal, world governments agreed to hold global average temperature hikes to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.

Because faith groups around the world control trillions of dollars in assets, such pledges can help drive action in companies that fear losing investment, or push much-needed cash to greener investments.

Experts say religions, which connect with people’s emotions and personal lives, could help mobilize them in the fight against climate change where facts and politics have failed.

Kingston, of Christian Climate Action, points to Laudato Si – Pope Francis’ 2015 papal encyclical that called on the world to unite against climate change impacts, particularly on the poor and powerless – as one of his motivations for taking action.

Most members of Christian Climate Action have a history of campaigning against climate change by writing letters to politicians, doing charity work or walking in marches, Jarman said.

But over time, they saw their efforts produce little action — one reason the group has stepped up its tactics, she said.

“As Christians, we should be prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to serve and protect God’s creation,” Jarman said.

Father Martin Newell, 51, a Catholic priest who works with the Congregation of the Passion, a religious order devoted to serving vulnerable communities, has been committed to activist causes for decades, having previously advocated against nuclear arms and weapons trading.

These days, however, Newell — who lives at Birmingham’s Austin Smith House, a shelter for refugees and asylum seekers — is also working with the Christian Climate Action.

“I realized when someone asked what keeps me up at night [that] I was having nightmares about climate change,” he said.

When the group asked Newell, who has been arrested many times as part of protests, how to get started taking a more active role in climate campaigning, “I thought this is maybe an answer to my prayer,” he said.

The priest has since educated members of the group on how to effectively use civil disobedience tactics and has become an active member of the group.

In late February, Christian Climate Action held a training session in London that featured everything from prayer and discussions about what the Bible says about non-violent action to practice with protest tactics, according to a flier for the event.

At such events, 83-year-old Kingston said he has “gained much clarity about the nuances of non-violent direct action,” including how to best interact with the police and other authorities.

“Being respectful in word and deed to all persons is the essential component,” he said.

Disapproval

Not all of the Christian Climate Action protesters have had the support of their churches, and some say they have faced strong disapproval.

Kingston’s priest, for instance, was “rather horrified” when the parishioner was sent to court in 2016 for criminal damage, stemming from a protest during which Jarman and Newell were also arrested and fined, Kingston said.

The activists had targeted the Department of Energy and Climate Change building in London, to point out that the U.K. government’s action at home on climate change didn’t match its rhetoric at talks leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“We painted whitewash — it’s from the Bible, it comes from Jesus talking about hypocrisy — on the building, and we painted in black paint, ‘Department for Extreme Climate Change,'” Jarman said.

“Then we kneeled down on the pavement and prayed, and got arrested.”

Kingston subsequently was banned him “from any kind of public face with the parish” by his priest at the time, the activist said.

But he has pushed ahead, contacting other parishioners through his private email and becoming increasingly public with his views.

“I don’t care — the stakes are too high. The church should be much more upfront and brave,” he said.

The protester said he began seeing climate change as a serious threat when his first grandchild was born nearly two decades ago.

He realized that “my grandchildren and all their generations in front of them … are voiceless” despite being likely to face climate change’s worst impacts, he said.

“It’s a justice issue. The upcoming generations need life, and we are creating tremendous suffering” by destabilizing the planet’s climate, he said.

He said having older protesters working alongside young activists in the Extinction Rebellion protests has its particular benefits.

“What we’ve realised is neither the corporations nor the government want to arrest us,” he said. “We are a liability in terms of health.”

The activists say their protests aim to achieve a few things in particular: big cuts in Britain’s climate-changing emissions, more honesty from politicians about climate threats, and the creation of a formal parliamentary “Citizen’s Assembly” to discuss needed changes to climate policy and advise the government.

The assembly is crucial in order to “do what is right rather than what is politically acceptable,” Jarman said.

But the protest movement is having a secondary effect as well, Jarman said, in bringing together people who might not otherwise have met and joined forces.

Mothiur Rahman, a legal strategist who works with Extinction Rebellion, for instance, said protesters who are members of faith groups have asked their churches to house out-of-town participants arriving to take part in a new round of protests set to begin April 15.

“One church has given their support and will have their doors open for us to sleep over in, and I am speaking to a mosque as well,” Rahman added.

Newell said he thinks faith-based protesters have found a solid welcome among more traditional environmental activists, and have a role to play as climate protests grow.

“The people who started Extinction Rebellion, and environmentalists, tend to be more secular. But they understand faith and trusting God and are open to people joining them,” the priest said.

“We appreciate them and they appreciate us,” he said.

 
…

After generations of trawling the same waters, the fishermen on the coast of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India know where to cast a net or park a boat without resorting to signs or GPS maps.

But their customary rights over this common space – a right won by families who have fished it for centuries – are under threat as the demands of modern life threaten age-old livelihoods and their once fertile habitat.

First, families’ land and precious sea access was usurped by factories and ports. Now, their rights are under fresh attack by a newly amended Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) law.

“Governments have treated the coastline as an empty space that economic actors can take over, forgetting that it is common property of coastal villages, towns and cities,” said Kanchi Kohli, a researcher at think tank Center for Policy Research.

“The changes to the law negate the socio-ecological uniqueness of this space and opens it up to mindless real estate development, mass-scale tourism and industry,” she said.

R.L. Srinivasan, who lives in Kaatukuppam – one of half a dozen villages by Ennore Creek near the city of Chennai – is typical of the fishermen under threat.

The Ennore Creek is drained by two seasonal rivers that empty into the Bay of Bengal through a network of canals, wetlands, salt marshes and mangroves, where villagers once harvested salt, caught crabs and filled their nets with fish.

Home to about 300,000 people, the area was protected by state and federal coastal zone laws, which banned construction, reclamation or alteration of the course of the water bodies.

But as Chennai expanded and industries fled the city, the state greenlighted ports, coal-powered thermal plants, and petroleum and chemicals factories, which destroyed the salt pans, polluted the water and killed the fish and the crabs.

“The Creek has been our life, our livelihood for generations,” said Srinivasan.

“Yet for the government, it is just land that can be used as an industrial zone and a dumping ground. The lives and livelihoods of the fishers do not matter,” he said.

Millions at risk

It is a scene playing out in thousands of coastal settlements dotting India’s 7,500-kilometer- (4,660 mile-) shoreline, from remote rural hamlets to bustling urban colonies.

With reduced no-development zones, and laxer rules for real estate and commercial projects, the new CRZ opens up common-use spaces such as beaches, salt marshes, and boat parking areas for tourism and industry, according to analysts.

More than 4 million people in India are estimated to make a living from fishing and related activities. They are often among the nation’s earliest inhabitants, yet have few formal rights over the land or the water on which they depend.

Amid urbanization and industrialization, India’s coasts have become dumping grounds for sewage, garbage and factory waste, even as they fight the rising threat of erosion and flooding.

The Congress party-led government sought to protect the fishing community and preserve their ecology by enacting the CRZ law in 2011.

But several states diluted it, so as to promote tourism and industry and generate jobs. In 2014, a new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a review of the CRZ.

Despite protests from coast dwellers and environmentalists, a cut in the no-development zones was announced in January, allowing eco-tourism and waste treatment in sensitive areas.

The government says the law was amended to “conserve and protect the unique environment of coastal stretches and marine areas, besides livelihood security to the fisher communities and other local communities in coastal areas.”

But life is about to get much harder for Srinivasan and his fellow anglers, said Pooja Kumar at the advocacy Coastal Resource Center in Chennai.

“Coastal communities are hanging by a thread,” she said. “The communities have fished and lived in these areas for generations, but with no record of their common spaces, their fishing grounds, they are extremely vulnerable.”

Mapping

Their one hope may be the modern mapping methods they once shunned.

The Coastal Resource Center began mapping coastal villages in Tamil Nadu about five years ago, using handheld GPS devices to mark common spaces – including where fishermen parked their boats and dried the catch – then plotting the spots on a map.

These maps are then sent to district and state officials for their approval, so they can be integrated into official maps under the coastal zone management plan.

Kumar and her colleagues have mapped about 75 of Tamil Nadu’s 650 coastal villages so far.

Not all their maps have been integrated with official survey maps, but they have been used to resolve disputes between fishing communities, and helped stop the construction of a road that would have passed through a coastal settlement, she said.

“The mapping gives the community a sense of confidence and security. They are seen as people with rights, rather than as encroachers,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “There is an urgent need to map the coastal commons. It is the most effective tool for assertion of the community rights.”

Of some 677 ongoing Indian land conflicts documented by research organization Land Conflict Watch, nearly a third involve commons, including forests, grazing lands and coasts.

But with no legal protection for the coastal commons, mapping them and having the states recognize them will still not protect them under the new CRZ notification, said Kohli.

The Congress party, in a manifesto released ahead of a general election starting on April 11, has vowed to reverse the dilutions of the CRZ, and preserve the coasts without affecting the livelihoods of fishing communities.

That may be Kaatukuppam’s only hope, after the state in 2017 released a map that did not show most of Ennore Creek. In its place stood land earmarked for a petrochemical park.

“We have seen the crabs disappear, the fish disappear. We had never seen a river disappear,” Srinivasan said. “But it is not just us who are suffering; people should realize this sort of development hurts everyone.”
…

After generations of trawling the same waters, the fishermen on the coast of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India know where to cast a net or park a boat without resorting to signs or GPS maps.

But their customary rights over this common space – a right won by families who have fished it for centuries – are under threat as the demands of modern life threaten age-old livelihoods and their once fertile habitat.

First, families’ land and precious sea access was usurped by factories and ports. Now, their rights are under fresh attack by a newly amended Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) law.

“Governments have treated the coastline as an empty space that economic actors can take over, forgetting that it is common property of coastal villages, towns and cities,” said Kanchi Kohli, a researcher at think tank Center for Policy Research.

“The changes to the law negate the socio-ecological uniqueness of this space and opens it up to mindless real estate development, mass-scale tourism and industry,” she said.

R.L. Srinivasan, who lives in Kaatukuppam – one of half a dozen villages by Ennore Creek near the city of Chennai – is typical of the fishermen under threat.

The Ennore Creek is drained by two seasonal rivers that empty into the Bay of Bengal through a network of canals, wetlands, salt marshes and mangroves, where villagers once harvested salt, caught crabs and filled their nets with fish.

Home to about 300,000 people, the area was protected by state and federal coastal zone laws, which banned construction, reclamation or alteration of the course of the water bodies.

But as Chennai expanded and industries fled the city, the state greenlighted ports, coal-powered thermal plants, and petroleum and chemicals factories, which destroyed the salt pans, polluted the water and killed the fish and the crabs.

“The Creek has been our life, our livelihood for generations,” said Srinivasan.

“Yet for the government, it is just land that can be used as an industrial zone and a dumping ground. The lives and livelihoods of the fishers do not matter,” he said.

Millions at risk

It is a scene playing out in thousands of coastal settlements dotting India’s 7,500-kilometer- (4,660 mile-) shoreline, from remote rural hamlets to bustling urban colonies.

With reduced no-development zones, and laxer rules for real estate and commercial projects, the new CRZ opens up common-use spaces such as beaches, salt marshes, and boat parking areas for tourism and industry, according to analysts.

More than 4 million people in India are estimated to make a living from fishing and related activities. They are often among the nation’s earliest inhabitants, yet have few formal rights over the land or the water on which they depend.

Amid urbanization and industrialization, India’s coasts have become dumping grounds for sewage, garbage and factory waste, even as they fight the rising threat of erosion and flooding.

The Congress party-led government sought to protect the fishing community and preserve their ecology by enacting the CRZ law in 2011.

But several states diluted it, so as to promote tourism and industry and generate jobs. In 2014, a new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a review of the CRZ.

Despite protests from coast dwellers and environmentalists, a cut in the no-development zones was announced in January, allowing eco-tourism and waste treatment in sensitive areas.

The government says the law was amended to “conserve and protect the unique environment of coastal stretches and marine areas, besides livelihood security to the fisher communities and other local communities in coastal areas.”

But life is about to get much harder for Srinivasan and his fellow anglers, said Pooja Kumar at the advocacy Coastal Resource Center in Chennai.

“Coastal communities are hanging by a thread,” she said. “The communities have fished and lived in these areas for generations, but with no record of their common spaces, their fishing grounds, they are extremely vulnerable.”

Mapping

Their one hope may be the modern mapping methods they once shunned.

The Coastal Resource Center began mapping coastal villages in Tamil Nadu about five years ago, using handheld GPS devices to mark common spaces – including where fishermen parked their boats and dried the catch – then plotting the spots on a map.

These maps are then sent to district and state officials for their approval, so they can be integrated into official maps under the coastal zone management plan.

Kumar and her colleagues have mapped about 75 of Tamil Nadu’s 650 coastal villages so far.

Not all their maps have been integrated with official survey maps, but they have been used to resolve disputes between fishing communities, and helped stop the construction of a road that would have passed through a coastal settlement, she said.

“The mapping gives the community a sense of confidence and security. They are seen as people with rights, rather than as encroachers,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “There is an urgent need to map the coastal commons. It is the most effective tool for assertion of the community rights.”

Of some 677 ongoing Indian land conflicts documented by research organization Land Conflict Watch, nearly a third involve commons, including forests, grazing lands and coasts.

But with no legal protection for the coastal commons, mapping them and having the states recognize them will still not protect them under the new CRZ notification, said Kohli.

The Congress party, in a manifesto released ahead of a general election starting on April 11, has vowed to reverse the dilutions of the CRZ, and preserve the coasts without affecting the livelihoods of fishing communities.

That may be Kaatukuppam’s only hope, after the state in 2017 released a map that did not show most of Ennore Creek. In its place stood land earmarked for a petrochemical park.

“We have seen the crabs disappear, the fish disappear. We had never seen a river disappear,” Srinivasan said. “But it is not just us who are suffering; people should realize this sort of development hurts everyone.”
…

U.S. federal agents have smashed a worldwide medical care scheme that defrauded U.S. taxpayers of more than $1 billion.

The Justice Department said Tuesday 24 people have been charged, including doctors, telemarketers and the heads of companies that provide back, wrist and knee braces.

“This Department of Justice will not tolerate medical professionals and executives who look to line their pockets by cheating our health care programs,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said Tuesday.

The extensive and complex scheme stretched from the U.S. to call centers in the Philippines and across Latin America.

Telemarketers would phone patients offering them free medical braces. When call centers verified that the patients were covered by Medicare, they were transferred to telemedicine companies, where doctors — who never examined the patients — would prescribe the braces even if there was no medical reason to have one.

The medical equipment companies would bill the government and kickback a portion of the funds to the others in the scam.

The fraud was detected last year when a number of Medicare beneficiaries smelled what sounded like a scam and called a government hotline.

The FBI, Health and Human Services, and Internal Revenue Service investigated.

“The breadth of this nationwide conspiracy should be frightening to all who rely on some form of health care,” IRS investigations chief Don Fort said. “The conspiracy … details broad corruption, massive amounts of greed and systemic flaws in our health care system that were exploited by the defendants.”
…