Japanese car parts company Takata on Tuesday recalled another 2.7 million air bags that it previously thought were safe.

The recall affects certain Ford, Mazda and Nissan cars from the 2005 through 2012 model years.

Takata’s air bags are inflated by a chemical — ammonium nitrate — in emergency situations, but it can deteriorate in conditions of high humidity and heat. The company added a desiccant to stop the chemical inflators from degrading and thought they had then been made safe.

However, tests by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board showed that Takata air bags were still subject to inflating without warning, expanding with great force and sending metal parts flying. Previous problems with Takata air bags have killed at least 17 people and injured more than 180.

Takata, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, has already recalled 42 million cars to replace the defective inflators, the largest automobile-related recall in U.S. history. But the latest recall raised doubts about the safety of other Takata inflators. The company has agreed to recall all original equipment inflators without a drying agent in phases by the end of 2018. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave Takata until the end of 2019 to prove that inflators with the drying agents are safe, or they must be recalled as well.

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said federal regulators have to act faster to determine whether all Takata air bag inflators are safe.

“We certainly can’t afford to wait until the December 2019 deadline. … If even more are found to be defective, it will take us from being the biggest recall ever to something that could become mind-boggling,” Nelson said.
…

How do you explain the European Central Bank’s capital key in 140 characters? Or the U.S. Federal Reserve’s dot plot?

Difficult. But International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde wants the world’s policymakers to try.

At a conference in Croatia on Tuesday, Lagarde said convoluted fiscal and monetary policy proposals use terminology “hardly anybody understands” and often lose the public’s attention.

“We are in an era where some political leaders communicate almost exclusively using 140 characters,” Lagarde said, referring to the Twitter limit. “We too in the financial community… need to have in the back of our mind those 140 characters.”

Financial policymakers, and central bankers in particular, can be famously opaque, steering sophisticated investors by the mere dropping of a word. But this is a world far removed from ordinary people.

“Smart communication, funny communication, alternative, not fake communication, around what you are about to do is, in my view, critically important,” she said.

“Because that battle is going to be lost or won depending on how early you prepare and how efficiently you communicate in simple, easy to understand terms, with funny to ready, funny to listen to, media supported tools.”

She argued the lack of clarity risked getting the policy message hijacked, creating a self-defeating cycle.

So how about: Central banks want to stop pouring #money into improving world economy, but low inflation, hungry markets mean they can’t SAD As for the ECB’S capital key, the bank responded on Twitter:

“Ok: each EU national central bank owns part of ECB. How much?=capital key. Based on population and economy @Reuters”
…

Thailand’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved construction of the first phase of a $5.5-billion railway project to link the industrial eastern seaboard with southern China through landlocked Laos, as part of a regional infrastructure drive by Beijing.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who heads the Thai ruling junta, made use of an executive order last month to pave the way for the project, which has been beset by delays, including negotiations on loan terms.

The first phase encompasses six railway stations on a 250-km (155-mile) high-speed line linking the Thai capital of Bangkok and the northeastern province of Nakorn Ratchasima.

“This project is part of the development of a regional transport network, in particular China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative that will link Europe, Asia and Southeast Asia together,” Korbsak Pootrakool, vice-minister at the Prime Minister’s Office, told reporters.

The link forms part of Beijing’s regional infrastructure drive to connect Chinese cities with Southeast Asia, including Thailand’s industrial zones and its eastern deep sea port.

Some analysts see the project as a centerpiece of China-Thailand relations which appear to have deepened following a 2014 coup by the Thai army.

Thailand’s government has said Thai firms will be responsible for construction while China will be responsible for the railway technology, signal systems and technical training.

“The project will use Thai materials but Chinese technology will be used in the construction,” Prayuth said.

“We will send people to learn this so that we can operate the rail system ourselves in the future.”
…

On the day they were freed from slavery, the fishermen hugged, high-fived and sprinted through a stinging rain to line up so they wouldn’t be left behind. But even as they learned they were going home, some wept at the thought of returning empty-handed and becoming one more mouth to feed.

Two years have passed since an Associated Press investigation spurred that dramatic rescue, leading to the release of more than 2,000 men trapped on remote Indonesian islands. The euphoria they first felt during reunions with relatives has long faded. Occasional stories of happiness and opportunity have surfaced, but the men’s fight to start over has largely been narrated by shame and struggle.

Some of them are lucky to find odd jobs paying pennies an hour in cramped slums and rural villages in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Others must travel far from home for back-breaking labor.

Some suffer night terrors and trauma from the years or even decades of physical and mental abuse they endured on boats run by Thai captains. Others have fought their demons with drugs and alcohol.

At least one Cambodian tried to hang himself. Another Thai fisherman went back to work on a different boat at home, only to have his arm ripped off by a net. He says he was offered about $3 and a few packets of instant noodles as compensation.

The men left their impoverished homes years ago full of hope and headed to neighboring Thailand, promising to send money back from good-paying jobs. Instead, they were tricked, sold or even kidnapped and put onto boats that became floating prisons.

They then were trafficked thousands of miles away to the isolated Indonesian island village of Benjina, where the AP first found hundreds of captive fishermen, including some locked in a cage simply because they asked to go home. They were beaten and routinely forced to work up to 22 hours a day. The unluckiest ones ended up in the sea or buried in a company graveyard under fake names – their bodies will likely never be recovered.

The AP story prompted the Indonesian government to initiate a rescue. It also traced fish tainted by forced labor back to the supply chains of many major U.S. companies and pet food brands, including Wal-Mart, Sysco, Kroger, Fancy Feast and Iams.

“What happened in Benjina has opened everybody’s eyes,” says Indonesian fishing minister Susi Pudjiastuti, who oversaw the rescue and is pushing for improved human rights at sea globally.

Despite all the suffering following their homecomings, there are stories of inspiration.

Some of the men borrowed money, enrolled in trade school or found decent work, saving what little they could. Others are opening small businesses, or have married and started families.

A few have gone to court to challenge their former captains, receiving a small portion of the pay they were owed. In rare instances, some even helped send their traffickers to jail.

Many say time has helped soften the pain, but most remain angry about the money and years lost to Benjina. Still, they are thankful to be home, living as free men.

They are slaves no more.

Sick and unemployed

MON STATE, Myanmar – Myint Naing sits outside the flimsy thatch shack he shares with five other family members. He stares silently at a computer alongside his mother and sister, watching flickering images of their extraordinary reunion two years ago.

The memories are still raw of Myint collapsing into his wailing mother’s arms on the same dusty road just feet away from where they sit now in southern Myanmar. That day was tinged with both joy and sorrow for all the time lost – ending 22 years of separation after Myint was taken to Indonesia and nearly beaten to death by a captain who refused to let him go home.

His mother blots her eyes and briefly looks away from the screen. Myint’s younger sister sees herself embracing her brother and screaming, “We don’t need money! We just need family!”

She never realized just how much those words would be tested every day in the harsh reality of poverty.

Myint, now 42, desperately wants to work, but he’s simply not able. He tried doing construction and other manual labor, but the muscles on the right side of his body were weakened by a stroke-like attack in Indonesia. He can’t even steady a smartphone with one hand long enough to take a selfie.

He dreams of opening a little snack shop to contribute to the family’s income, but there is no money to start it.

“Half of my body is suffering, and it’s very challenging for me to get a job anywhere,” he says, as his nieces dance around him on a rickety porch. “I don’t really know how to keep going like this.”

He’s also stressed. He and his sister moved out of their mother’s house soon after he returned, partially because Myint didn’t get along with his new stepfather, who is about his age.

His sister, Mawli Than, and her husband together earn less than $5.50 a day to feed three children and three adults. But she has kept her promise to love and care for him no matter what.

She wishes she could afford to get Myint the long-term medical care he needs. Her voice cracks when she talks about not being able to give him a proper ceremony before he left to study as a Buddhist novice, a custom that every devout Burmese male tries to fulfill.

“I feel really sad and guilty that I wasn’t able to do that,” she says, sobbing, as he listens quietly in the doorway. “My brother is like a father to me.”

Myint’s freshly shaved head reveals two large scars he received during his years in Indonesia. One is from a motorbike helmet, the other from an iron rod – both blows from angry fishing captains.

He eventually escaped his captors and lived in the jungle for years, farming vegetables with help from sympathetic local families.

He insists life is better now that he is home. But his mind often drifts to the past. If his former Thai captains would just pay him what he’s owed for all the time he worked on the boats, he could buy his own house and help his sister instead of making her life harder.

“I’m very angry at them. I can’t even find words,” he says. “If I ever saw them again, I might kill them.”

Happy on land

PREK TATIENG, Cambodia – A gas-powered pump growls on Sriev Kry’s back as he walks barefoot, spraying a stream of pesticide on pink lotus blossoms that will soon be ready for harvest.

The work is hard and unforgiving. He doesn’t wear a mask or other protective gear, and there aren’t any trees in the surrounding rice paddy to shield him from the blistering sun. But this is Cambodian soil, and it belongs to him. It’s a freedom he says he never really understood until being trafficked and enslaved in Benjina.

The wiry rice farmer never wanted to be a fisherman because the ocean’s roiling waves had always sent him running to the side of the boat to vomit. So when a cousin asked if he was interested in leaving his rural Cambodian village to find higher-paying work in Thailand, he refused until he was promised a factory job or something else on land.

Unlike most migrant workers who cross the border illegally, Sriev Kry and two of his cousins waited to receive passports before leaving in 2014.

They were immediately taken to a boat and ordered to get on board after receiving $880 advances. They were told they wouldn’t be at sea long. But it was all a lie.

Just as their trawler reached the Malaysian border, Sriev Kry says he woke up to learn a Burmese fisherman was missing. They didn’t stop to search for him, and no calls were made for help. Instead, Sriev Kry says the Thai owner told the workers that “life on the boat doesn’t matter. No one cares about missing people.”

He says the men then watched as the crew member’s passport was tossed into the sea, destroying the only record of his existence.

“The other workers just saw that life is very cheap,” Sriev Kry recalls. “It is cheaper than the bodies of dogs.”

He tried not to cause problems and worked nonstop on the boat, sorting mountains of fish. He saw other crew beaten or scalded by water tossed on them when they were too sick to work.

“It’s like a slave’s life. It’s even worse than a slave. Slaves can sometimes complain or challenge the owner,” he says. “If we refused, if we complained, the Thai owner always asked: ‘You want to live? You want to have a life? Or do you want to die?'”

Sriev Kry was only able to contact his wife a few times from Benjina. He told her he wasn’t sure he’d ever make it back home to the emerald green rice paddies and lotus fields they tended together.

Two of their four children were studying in the capital, Phnom Penh, with one already in university. The baby was just a year old, and the family was struggling to survive because Sriev Kry never sent the money he was promised. But his wife, Khan Srin, encouraged him to hold on. To focus on staying alive.

When he was finally rescued, Sriev Kry was done being silent: He volunteered to testify against his captain. He saw it as his duty to speak out to prevent others from facing the same fate. He is still waiting for his day in court.

Today, at 44, he earns about $10 a day farming the field that rings a one-room shack perched on stilts overlooking the few acres of land he owns. He sleeps here sometimes, away from his nearby village, to stand watch over his crops. He also sells mangoes from his beat-up motorbike just across the border in Vietnam and harvests catfish from a lake – the only fishing he says he will ever do again.

It’s not much, but it’s enough to pay his debts and feed his family. His captain in Benjina swore more earnings would be sent, but Sriev Kry says nothing ever came.

He remains angry and is still haunted by the image of the dead crewman’s passport being thrown into the sea. But he’s happy to be home and vows he’ll never leave his family again.

“I was just rescued from hell,” he says, shaking his head. “Why would I go back to hell again?”

Still a fisherman

YANGON, Myanmar – Phyo Kyaw’s father wept when he heard his son was returning to Thailand to board another fishing boat. But there was nothing he could do.

After the 31-year-old was rescued from Benjina, he worked a few months on the gritty outskirts of Yangon driving a bus and a motorbike taxi, but the money wasn’t good and his bike soon was stolen.

Several of Phyo’s friends from Benjina already had gone back to Thailand to find better-paying work, and they encouraged him to get a passport and join them on another fishing boat. They had heard good stories about the company, and they all had legal working documents this time. They were convinced their papers would protect them from exploitation.

Phyo left Myanmar without telling his father. He went to the same port town where he was initially trafficked and got on a trawler with 13 other Burmese men.

After being beaten and spending more than two years on Benjina with no pay, he was scared of being trafficked again but decided to take a chance. As he prepared to leave, he met other fishermen who had just docked – they had been at sea for three years without touching land.

“I don’t think it’s fair, but it’s my choice to go,” Phyo says. “My father is the only financial provider here for the moment so at least if I go to Thailand, I can bring some money back.”

Phyo didn’t know where his boat was going or how long he would be gone. He also had no idea if he was fishing legally or poaching, a common but dangerous practice that can land an entire crew in a foreign jail.

The days were still long but, this time, he got a few more hours of sleep – four or five a night – and he wasn’t beaten.

After six months at sea, the trawler returned to Thailand. Phyo should have made nearly $1,600 for the trip, but was left with just $350 after deductions for fees, food and supplies.

He could have earned nearly double that amount driving the motorbike taxi back home. Still, he’s thinking about going out to sea again with another group of Benjina guys.

His father, an electrical engineer, can only shake his head with disappointment.

“As parents, you are always worried about your children,” Aye Kyaw, 67, says inside the family’s small, sweltering apartment.

But Phyo just shrugs. Fishing is what he knows.

“If I can get a better job here, I won’t go,” he says. “But if I don’t have anything, I will go on a fishing boat.”

Forgiveness as a monk

SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand – Wrapped in flowing saffron robes with a shaved head, Prasert Jakkawaro speaks calmly and softly as he looks back on his lost life.

He spent eight years fishing the Arafura Sea’s rich waters off Benjina. If he was lucky, his boat docked twice a year. He worked around the clock, but says he was never paid what was promised.

The memories still cut like razor blades, but he does not show it. His voice remains steady, his fingers laced loosely across his lap. The rage that once sent him searching for solace at the bottom of a bottle has died. He now finds comfort praying in a monastery as a Buddhist monk and helping others who have lost their way.

“I feel that I have to give forgiveness and kindness back,” he says, his robe concealing tattoos from his former life. “I have another chance. There’s no point in dwelling on the past. The anger will only follow me in this life and into the next.”

Finding peace wasn’t easy: He was first forced to confront all of the evil he saw.

Even though the captains were Thai like him, he says he was treated just as badly as his fellow fishermen from Myanmar and Cambodia. They rarely had vegetables or meat to eat – just fish and rice for every meal, and even that wasn’t guaranteed. Those who got sick were forced to work anyway, and he saw one crew member die due to a lack of medical attention. Sleep was a luxury.

“If you don’t get up, the metal rod will be used to bang on your door and beat on your legs,” says Prasert, 53. “The rule is that if you can eat, then you have to work.”

When he asked to go home after just one year on his trawler, he was told he first had to find a replacement, an impossible request on a remote island with hundreds of other enslaved men just as desperate to leave.

Once, after coming ashore, Prasert asked his captain for more money. As punishment, he says he was tossed into a tiny, muggy cell with about 20 other men.

The security guards then used the imprisoned fishermen for a twisted form of entertainment – forcing them to beat each other up.

“You would get hit so hard that you could see the handprints on your face,” Prasert says.

Over the years, he lost hope and rage festered inside him. He talked about attacking the captain, but the other fishermen always managed to calm him down.

After he was finally rescued and returned home to Thailand, he received a settlement of about $2,250 from the boat owner. It was far short of the nearly $9,000 he says he was owed, but he knows most of the other men received nothing.

The anger continued to swell, and he wallowed in alcohol and slept anywhere he could find, including on a bathroom floor. Staff at the local nonprofit Labor Rights Protection Network, which has long assisted trafficked fishermen, pushed him to seek help.

With encouragement from his sister, Prasert spent three months studying at a Buddhist temple.

Slowly, the hatred began to melt.

“When I attend ceremonies, people really look at me as if I can shine a light on their life, and it makes me feel that I am useful again,” he says. “I feel like I can have real happiness at last.”

* Information for this story came from interviews with nearly 15 former fishermen in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand along with nonprofits in Cambodia and Thailand.

 
…

Tanzanian President John Magufuli said on Monday he has signed into law new mining bills which require the government to own at least a 16 percent stake in mining projects.

The laws, which also increase royalties tax on gold and other minerals, were passed by parliament last week despite opposition from the mining industry body.

Magufuli reiterated on Monday that no new mining licenses would be issued until Tanzania “puts things in order” and that the government would review all existing mining licenses with foreign investors.

“We must benefit from our God-given minerals and that is why we must safeguard our natural resource wealth to ensure we do not end up with empty mining pits,” Magufuli told a rally in his home village in Chato district, northwestern Tanzania.

The president has sent shock-waves through the mining community with a series of actions since his election in 2015, which he says are aimed at distributing revenue to the Tanzanian people.

The new mining laws, which were fast-tracked through parliament, raise royalties tax for gold, copper, silver and platinum exports to six percent from four percent.

They also give the government the right to tear up and renegotiate contracts for natural resources like gas or minerals, and remove the right to international arbitration.

“I would like to thank parliament for making the legislative changes. I signed the bills into law the same day Parliament concluded its session on July 5,” Magufuli said.

Passage of the new legislation also followed months of  wrangling between the government and the country’s biggest gold miner, London-listed Acacia Mining Plc, over mining contracts after Magufuli decided in March to ban exports of gold and copper concentrates to push for the construction of a domestic mineral smelter.

Magufuli said on Monday that talks between Tanzania and Barrick Gold Corp., Acacia’s majority owner, would begin in two days to try to resolve allegations of tax evasion against Acacia.

Tanzania accused Acacia of tax evasion in 2016 in a case that is ongoing.

Acacia, which denies all allegations, said on July 4 it was seeking an adjudicator to resolve its dispute with the Tanzanian government.

Tanzania is also pushing for the mandatory listing of mining companies on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) by August as part of measures aimed at increasing transparency and spreading wealth from the country’s natural resources.

Other major foreign-owned mining companies in Tanzania include AngloGold Ashanti and Petra Diamonds.
…

Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted pictures of the first Model 3 sedan to roll off the assembly line.

Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis was the first to put down a $1,000 deposit on the Model 3 and gifted the car to Musk for his 46th birthday, Musk said in a tweet.

Musk has high hopes for the $35,000 Model 3, aimed at the mass market, and expects the rollout to help the company deliver five times its current annual sales volume.

Tesla’s shares have taken a beating in the last few weeks, as investors have become increasingly concerned that demand for the company’s existing Model S sedan is weakening.

Musk said in May that some “confused” Tesla buyers considered the new Model 3 as an upgrade to the Model S, hurting orders for the older car.

Registrations for Tesla’s vehicles in California, its largest market, fell 24 percent in April from a year ago, according to data from research firm IHS Markit.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that new registrations of Tesla cars fell to zero in Hong Kong after authorities slashed a tax break for electric vehicles in April.

Last week, Musk said production of the Model 3 would increase exponentially — from 100 cars in August, more than 1,500 in September to 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in December.
…

Severe food crises are growing in Kenya and Somalia, as the Horn of Africa continues to receive below-normal rainfall, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

The hunger-tracking group says 2.9 million people in Kenya and 3.2 million in Somalia are experiencing Phase 3 or higher on the network’s five-tier warning scale, with Phase 3 being the crisis stage and Phase 5 being a full-fledged famine.

The numbers represent a jump of 800,000 in Kenya and 300,000 in Somalia since FEWSNET’s last estimates, released in June.

The  need is urgent

Peter Thomas, FEWS NET decision support advisor, says Phase 3 indicates that households are in need of urgent humanitarian aid.

“This means that households are unable to meet their basic food needs for survival and facing gaps in their basic food needs,” he told VOA’s Horn of Africa Service.

Thomas says the new estimates were compiled just after the March to May rainy season, which FEWS NET said was “very poor” across southern Somalia and northern Kenya.  Some parts of Kenya received just 25 percent of the normal rainfall.

The rain was more plentiful across nearby Ethiopia, except in the south, where drought conditions continue and millions across the Somali and Oromia regions remain in need of assistance.

Somalia a concern

Aid agencies like the U.N. World Food Program have helped many Horn residents hold off starvation.  But Thomas warns that in Somalia, the situation could change.  In the past, militant group al-Shabab has periodically banned aid agencies from helping people in towns under the group’s control.

“In the worst case scenario, if the humanitarian assistance is cut off and access to humanitarian need by local communities are restricted, famine could be possible,” he said.

The last declared famine in Somalia, in 2011, killed an estimated 260,000 people.

On Saturday, the Trump Administration announced more than $630 million in aid to Somalia and three other countries where conflict has led to or contributed to widespread hunger; South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen.

 
…

For a farmer in Brazil’s Amazon, Manoel Freire Camurca was doing pretty well for himself until a local power broker burned down his house and took the surrounding fields he had poured his life into.

Camurca’s eviction eight months ago happened as officials were finalizing his claim to 500 hectares of land in southwestern Amazonas state where he had spent nearly three decades growing corn, sugar and beans.

“I lost everything,” 61-year-old Camurca told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, wiping away tears. “I went into town and when I came back everything was burned and destroyed.”

Half a dozen other small farmers in his village suffered the same fate after a large rancher said he was the rightful owner of the land.

Camurca’s story highlights an increasingly violent environment in parts of rural Brazil which government officials say is fueled by unclear property title deeds, local corruption and a system where competing state agencies work on land regularization.

‘Death in the Countryside’

At least 36 people died in land conflicts in the first five months of this year, according to the Brazil-based Pastoral Land Commission watchdog.

One government official said 2017 had so far been the most violent year for land fights this century.

“Land conflicts in the Amazon have gotten worse,” said Ronaldo Santos, an official with the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), a government body responsible for managing and demarcating rural land.

“Big farm operators have the power to dispense injustice,” Santos told the Thomson Reuters Foundation following a public meeting with hundreds of angry farmers embroiled in land conflicts in Amazonas in northwestern Brazil.  “We have assassinations and death in the countryside.”

Conflicting Titles

Recent violence has led officials from different government agencies and privately owned land registration agents known as cartorios to trade blame over who is responsible for the conflicts.

Across Brazil, land must be registered by cartorios. They maintain property records and transfer deeds in specific regions. There is no single, centralized system for checking who owns what nationwide.

Inherited from Portuguese colonialists, the cartorio system is confusing and widely abused by wealthy land owners, government officials told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

They said unclear property ownership makes it easier for large ranchers to displace small farmers like Camurca.

“The cartorios hold the biggest responsibility for legalizing grilagem [land grabs],” said Miguel Emile, a senior official with Terra Legal, a government program for regularizing small farmers’ land titles in the Amazon.

There are an estimated 5 million landless families in Brazil, according to a 2016 Canadian study. Government officials say they are working to speed-up property allocations for the rural poor who often live on land they do not formally own.

But even lands demarcated and distributed by government officials from INCRA and Terra Legal must be registered at private cartorios to be fully legal, Emile said.

Small farmers often cannot afford cartorio services, he said, and the system itself faces widespread abuse.

Wealthy ranchers can bribe cartorios to register someone else’s land, Emile told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A common scam involves elites legally buying a small piece of property and then having a cartorio register a far larger surrounding area in their name, he said.

As a result of this type of fraud in Para, a neighboring Amazon state, four times more land has been privately registered than the state’s total area, said Jeremy Campbell, an expert on land rights in Brazil at Roger Williams University in the United States.

Trading Blame

Cartorios, however, say they are not responsible for most of the problem, blaming government agencies for weak Amazon property rights and the resulting violence.

“Grilagem is not done by cartorios,” said one cartorio in Amazonas who spoke on condition of anonymity.

His office, which is responsible for maintaining local land records, is full of yellowed, time-worn books of property deeds, along with some digitized documents.

Corruption in government agencies, including INCRA, is a major driver of land scams, the cartorio said, as property owners can bribe officials to hand them swaths of state land.

The government is moving to geocode new property registrations so the land is digitally registered through satellite maps but this process has been slow, he added.

Proving Ownership

Forced evictions in Camurca’s village of Bom Lugar in Boca do Acre municipality exemplify the problems with Brazil’s rural property system.

INCRA had provided Camurca with a certification of possession, known locally as a “posse title.” But the farmer said he couldn’t register this as a formal title with a cartorio as the process of property demarcation had not been finalized.

This meant that despite a government agency granting Camurca rights to the land where he had lived since 1988 he still did not formally own it.

The rancher who Camurca says was behind the burning of his house could not be reached for comment.

The federal prosecutor for Amazonas state said he was investigating house burnings and displacement across Boca do Acre.

Amazonas senior security official, Sergio Fontes, said the violence affecting Camurca and thousands of others across Brazil’s largest state was due to poor management by officials.

“INCRA should resolve the farmers’ disputes with ranchers before distributing lands, otherwise all these problems happen,” Fontes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “[Officials] have to take responsibility for who was placed there.”

Travel support for this story was provided by the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ).
…

Top French company bosses who have for years lamented their country’s slow pace of reforms at an annual summer gathering in Provence offered glowing praise this year for the first steps taken by newly elected President Emmanuel Macron.

Sixty days after Macron became France’s youngest ever president, the CEOs gathered in the southern town of Aix-en-Provence said they had sensed a radical change in the country’s image abroad.

“The whole world admires France today. There is renewed confidence, optimism about the country,” Patrick Pouyanne, the head of oil major Total, France’s largest company, told reporters.

“What I expect from this government is that it maintains this confidence, this optimism so the French start spending more and companies start investing.”

Although Macron’s government has yet to pass any concrete measures, it outlined its action plan in policy speeches last week, and has begun talks with unions to pass an extensive reform of French labor regulations.

“I think this new president and his government are making an extremely positive start,” Isabelle Kocher of gas utility ENGIE told Reuters at the summit often referred to as a “mini-Davos”.

“They are changing France’s image abroad, I see it everywhere I go, it’s really striking and has happened very quickly,” she said.

“France went from being labeled the sick man of Europe to being seen as the savior of Europe,” a politician who sits on the board of several French companies told Reuters at one of the cafes lining the town’s sunny streets.

Tax cut debates

Even the government’s announcement earlier this week that some tax cuts would be delayed — including exemptions to a wealth tax and the introduction of a flat tax on capital income of 30 percent — did not draw much criticism.

“There are some debates about the government’s tax measures, if they’ll be done now or if it’ll wait because it has no money,” UBS’s head of French operations Jean-Frederic de Leusse told Reuters.

On Sunday, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire seemed to suggest the delays were still the subject of discussions in government.

But when pressed, French CEOs who had in previous gatherings complained loudly about a tax burden which was the EU’s heaviest last year, refused to blame the government.

“Let’s not start criticizing,” Total’s Pouyanne said. “Let’s give them a bit of time. If there were a magic potion, it would have been used a long time ago.”

The CEO of the country’s flagship airline, Air France-KLM, concurred.

“Like all decision-makers, the government has to deal with contradicting demands. Respecting a certain number of European rules, so that our partners can take us more seriously, is important,” Jean-Marc Janaillac told Reuters.

“If the price we have to pay is a slightly delayed timeframe, that doesn’t seem to be a major inconvenience for me compared to its advantages,” he added.

France’s top central bankers agreed the government was right to prioritize deficit reduction over tax cuts so that France can, for the first time in a decade, bring its deficit below the European Union’s 3 percent of GDP ceiling.

ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said France’s respect for the rules would help discussions the government hopes to launch about common budget measures in the euro zone.

“We’re all for tax cuts, but let’s not equate reform with immediate, unfunded tax cuts,” Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau told the conference on Sunday.

“We’ve already paid a heavy price for this kind of liability on the future.”

 
…

In 28 years in India’s pharmaceuticals sector, Rajiv Desai has never been busier.

Most of the last six months on his desk calendar is marked green, indicating visits to the 12 plants of Lupin, India’s No. 2 drugmaker, where Desai is a senior quality control executive. Only one day is red — a day off.

That’s what is needed these days to satisfy the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that standards are being met.

“In this sector, you’re only as good as your last inspection,” Desai said in his office in suburban Mumbai.

Often dubbed “the pharmacy of the world,” India is home to the most FDA-approved plants outside of the United States and supplies about 40 percent of the $70 billion worth of generic drugs sold in the country.

Damaged reputation

But sanctions and bans have badly damaged India’s reputation and slowed growth in the $16 billion sector. Drug exports fell in the fiscal year ending in March 2017.

More than 40 plants have been banned by the FDA for issues ranging from data fraud to hygiene since India’s then-largest drugmaker Ranbaxy was pulled up for serious violations in 2008.

Drug companies have spent millions of dollars on training, new equipment and foreign consultants. Yet the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance of the top 20 firms says its members still need at least five more years to get manufacturing standards and data reliability up to scratch.

The case of Lupin shows why.

In the next few months, the FDA is expected to clear Lupin’s Goa plant of problems found in 2015, Desai said.

However, the agency also published a notice last week citing issues with data storage at its plant in Pithampur, central India.

If companies want to continue to sell into the world’s biggest health care market, they must keep constant vigilance.

Asked about Lupin’s case, the FDA said in a statement it did not “comment on compliance matters,” but said generally: “India’s regulatory infrastructure must keep pace to ensure that relevant quality and safety standards are met.”

Form 483

India has its own standards body, the Central Drug Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), which maintains that its quality controls are stringent enough to ensure drugs are safe.

The FDA has taken matters into its own hands and gradually expanded in India to more than a dozen full-time staff.

Inspections are frequent and increasingly unannounced. If the agency finds problems, it issues a Form 483, a notice outlining the violations, which if not resolved can lead to a warning letter and in worst case, a ban.

Violations range from hygiene, such as rat traps and dirty laboratories, to inadequate controls on systems that store data, leaving it open to tampering.

None of the violations the FDA has cited in India have explicitly said the drugs are unsafe, and when companies are banned by the FDA they can sell into other markets, including in the developing world, until the bans are lifted.

There are also no studies showing that the drugs have harmed anyone in the world. But by definition, the notices are issued when the FDA finds conditions that might harm public health.

​Don’t tell anyone

Industry watchers say Lupin, which specializes in oral contraceptives and drugs for diabetes and hypertension, is doing better than most. So far none of its infractions have extended to a ban.

On a recent visit by Reuters to its Goa plant, blue-uniformed employees could be seen working on giant machines, then making notes in hardbound registers. These are being phased out as Lupin transitions to more secure e-files.

Employees are often videotaped to ensure they follow standard operating procedure. Manufacturers have cut back to focus on quality over quantity: five years ago, Lupin was making 1 billion pills a month at one of its Goa plants. Now it makes 450 million.

Both the company and employees needed to be willing to acknowledge errors, Desai said. The first impulse in the past was often “don’t tell anyone,” he said.

“We’re humans after all, not robots. We make mistakes,” said Amol Kolatkar, a production head at the Goa site.

As recently as three years ago, training was a formality, Desai said. Now, when an error is traced to an employee, the entire team undergoes fresh training.

“I have worked at a pharma company before, but this is the first time I went through such a training,” said another Lupin quality control officer, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The quality control role is key.

“They (Lupin) have had a practice where company quality heads report directly to Nilesh Gupta (the managing director),” said Amey Chalke, an analyst at HDFC Securities. “Some other companies have also started doing that now.”

The companies also have to be willing to spend big. Lachman, PwC and Boston Consulting conduct mock audits at the Goa plant every three to six months, at a cost of up to $400 an hour.

“These days the FDA is giving us 483 on small, small things,” a third quality control officer said. “So we are always auditing.”
…

Canadian lender Desjardins is considering no longer funding energy pipelines, a spokesman said Saturday, citing concerns about the impact such projects may have on the environment.

Desjardins, the largest association of credit unions in North America, Friday temporarily suspended lending for such projects and may make the decision permanent, spokesman Jacques Bouchard told Reuters by telephone.

He said the lender would make a final decision in September.

Following ING

Desjardins, a backer of Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd’s high-profile expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline, has been evaluating its policy for such lending for months, Bouchard said.

If it makes the decision permanent, that would likely mean Desjardins would not help finance other major Canadian pipelines projects, including TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL and Energy East and Enbridge Inc’s Line 3.

Such a move would follow that of Dutch lender ING Groep NV, which has a long-standing policy of not funding projects directly related to oil sands, and is the latest sign that pipelines could have a harder time getting funding as banks face increasing pressure to back away.

Patrick Bonin, a campaigner with the environmental group Greenpeace, praised Desjardins for temporarily halting pipeline funding, but called on the lender to make it permanent and reconsider its C$145 million ($113 million) commitment to Trans Mountain.

Indigenous, environmental groups

Desjardins is among 24 financial institutions that agreed to lend money to a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan Canada, majority owned by Kinder Morgan Inc of Houston, according to regulatory filings.

A coalition of more than 20 indigenous and environmental groups, including Greenpeace, in June called on 28 major banks to pull funding for Trans Mountain, citing the risk of pipeline spills and their potential contribution to climate change.

ING, which was targeted by the coalition, said it will not fund any of the major Canadian pipelines.

The same month, Sweden’s largest national pension fund, AP7, sold investments in six companies that it says violate the Paris climate agreement, including TransCanada, in a decision environmentalists believe is the first of its kind.
…

Argentina on Friday banned embattled Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht from bidding on public works projects in the country for 12 months due to investigations of bribes the company paid here and elsewhere.

The announcement published in the government’s official bulletin also cites corruption and money laundering cases in Brazil and other countries that have led to prison sentences, admission of guilt and clemency pleas by company executives.

The company said it was evaluating the decision and would make sure its rights are preserved.

“Odebrecht reiterates that it is committed to collaborating with authorities and that it is already adopting the necessary measures for an honest, ethical and transparent corporate behavior,” a company statement said.

Odebrecht is a key focus of the “Operation Car Wash” investigation into a mammoth kickback scheme at Brazil’s state-run oil company — the biggest corruption scandal in that country’s history. The initial investigation was launched in 2014 and has mushroomed into related probes abroad because companies like Odebrecht operated across Latin America.

Company executives acknowledged to U.S. prosecutors earlier this year that they paid more than $700 million bribes to officials in 10 Latin American and two African nations in exchange for multi-million-dollar contracts with local governments. About $35 million in bribes were paid in Argentina between 2007 and 2014.

Argentine Justice Minister German Garavano recently traveled to Washington to meet with a prosecutor and share information that can advance the Odebrecht case. But Argentine prosecutors say Argentina lacks a legal mechanism that would allow companies to provide information in exchange for leniency deals like those that have been signed in other nations.
…

London is a hotspot of modern slavery, with workers in hotels, restaurants and on construction sites at particular risk of exploitation, said the head of the Metropolitan police’s anti-slavery unit.

Modern slavery cases surged in the first half of this year to about 820 by the end of June, compared to about 1,013 in the whole of 2016, Detective Inspector Phil Brewer told Reuters.

The growth in cases is partly due to increased awareness about slavery, and as police and local authorities are now more often considering whether those involved in potential slavery crimes are victims rather than suspects, said Brewer.

The Metropolitan police is working closely with charities and frontline workers to ensure victims are more easily identified and helped faster.

“Everyone realizes now we’re never going to police our way out of this,” Brewer said in an interview this week.

Government departments, local authorities and police are investigating whether people in the construction and hospitality industries are being held against their will, working under threat, for no pay or in dangerous conditions, Brewer said.

Some government departments already have systems in place — on health and safety rules and the enforcement of minimum wages, for example — to lead the battle against modern slavery in construction and hospitality, he added.

Britain passed tough anti-slavery legislation in 2015, introducing life sentences for traffickers and forcing companies to disclose what they are doing to make sure their supply chains are free from slavery.

There are an estimated 13,000 victims of forced labor, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude in Britain, according to government data.

Domestic servitude and slavery in supply chains are also major concerns for the Metropolitan police, said Brewer.

As paperwork is often only processed through embassies, police only hear about mistreatment if domestic workers come into contact with officers for other reasons, he said.

Domestic servitude is also fueled by cultural factors that might make it acceptable in some sections of London’s population to have a worker from a lower social group working as a domestic slave even though it is against the law.

“Labor exploitation in London is really misunderstood or not understood, it’s quite clear that it’s about what we don’t know rather than what we know,” Brewer said.

Victims, not suspects

One of the biggest challenges for the Metropolitan police is to make sure every officer in the force of 30,000 understands and reacts appropriately to modern slavery cases, said Brewer.

He said the police had faced criticism because officers had treated potential victims as suspects, so London’s police now “massively relies” on relationships with charities and advocacy organizations to ensure swift support for victims.

Under the “county lines” crime model, for example, young urban gang members are compelled and threatened to deal drugs in more rural areas. Some of these young people are now being referred as victims — a number that Brewer expects to grow.

Police also needed to have much more “grown-up conversations” with companies that find modern slavery in their supply chains, to calm their fears that reporting cases would result in them being prosecuted.

“There’s not really been any conversation about how companies can actually interact with policing. There’s probably some reassurance that we need to do, that if you come to us and say we found this, it won’t compromise your position,” he said.
…

No more mini-skirts and large earrings for female civil servants in Uganda. Male staff are now required to wear a jacket and tie. The Ugandan government instituted a new dress code for public workers this week, and it continues to anger some people.

Women activists in Uganda have criticized the new dress code as a distraction from the real issues in the country.

Perry Aritua, executive director of Women’s Democracy Network, was one of them.

“Is [a woman] saying that men do not have any type of self-control? When a girl is dressed a certain way, that doesn’t mean she’s calling for your attention. Let us focus on the real issues that Ugandans are grappling with – the theft of our public resources, the inefficiency in service delivery, the absenteeism in public service, the capacity needs that public service has,” Aritua said.

The Ministry of Public Service issued the directive on “decent dressing” Tuesday. It prohibits female staff from wearing tight clothing, open-toed shoes, and skirts or dresses above the knees. Bright-colored nail polish, hair extensions, “exaggerated make-up,” and chandelier earrings are also on the banned list.    

The directive didn’t spare men either. All male officers are required to dress in neat, dark trousers but not ones that are tight-fitting. And only closed-toe black and brown shoes should be worn to the office, along with a jacket and tie.

Adah Muwanga, the human resource manager at the Ministry of Public Service, defends the new measures.  

“People in Uganda have a perception of what a public officer should look like and this is the image we are trying to protect and preserve. We are saying not above the knee, and for one reason, ‘above the knee’ – you know what it means, it can also [be] tantamount to sexual harassment, because when you sit you are exposing your thighs, which is not generally accepted and it can distract others from work,” Muwanga said.

Rights groups say the previous 2010 public order requiring dress to be neat and practical for one’s job was sufficient.

Ugandans have penned opinion pieces in local media against the dress code with one lawyer writing that “rights aren’t taken away overnight. They are taken away in small bits.”

The state-owned newspaper published photos it said were taken Wednesday of three civil servants – a man and two women – not adhering to the new dress code.

VOA caught up with one public worker on the issue.

“Me I think, my bright nails cannot distract someone, so the government should not discuss about that,” said the woman, declining to give her name.

The penalties for disobeying the new dress code are unclear. The directive simply said cases would be referred to the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Service.
…

India-based Infosys, an information technology outsourcing firm, announced Thursday it will hire 2,000 workers over the next four years for a technology hub in North Carolina, the second of four planned hubs in the U.S.

Infosys executives were joined by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper at a news conference in which they said the hub will be developed in the state’s Research Triangle region. The company expects to hire the first 500 North Carolina workers within two years as part of an overall strategy leading to eventual creation of 10,000 job overall across the four sites. The first was announced for Indiana in May and the other two locations haven’t yet been announced.

Infosys already has more than 1,100 jobs in North Carolina and will begin hiring later this year, company President Ravi Kumar said in the appearance before reporters at North Carolina’s old Capitol Building with Cooper.

Kumar stressed that the jobs created as part of its U.S. expansion would go to American workers. While workers could come to North Carolina from all over the country, Kumar emphasized the company aimed to fill positions in part through recruiting local university graduates and training workers via a customized community college program.

“This was an easy one for us,” Kumar said. “That’s one of the key reasons why we chose North Carolina — there’s such an excellent ecosystem of colleges and schools.”

The jobs will be created in Wake County, which contains Raleigh and parts of the Research Triangle Park, with average salaries of $71,000. A state incentives panel earlier finalized an agreement whereby Infosys could receive more than $22 million in taxpayer-funded grants if they meet job creation, investment and wage thresholds. Another $3 million from the state would help create the community college training program.

Infosys said it will use the technology hubs to work with its clients on products such as artificial intelligence, big data analysis and shared computing.

Previously, Infosys announced its first hub as part of plans to hire 2,000 new workers by the end of 2021 in the Indianapolis area, home turf of Vice President Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor. President Donald Trump has blasted an American visa program that tech companies have heavily relied upon to temporarily bring in workers from other countries at lower wages.
…

The main points of market access in a trade deal between the South American Mercosur bloc and the European Union need to be concluded by December, Brazil’s chief negotiator said on Thursday.

The EU and Mercosur have committed to a series of negotiations until the end of the year in what both parties say is a last-ditch effort at sealing a deal that has suffered a series of setbacks since talks first began in 1999.

“You cannot have an announcement of an agreement if you do not have the big numbers on market access. I cannot say I have finished and not know what the market access for beef and ethanol will be like,” said Ronaldo Costa Filho, Brazil’s chief negotiator in the talks.

The EU and Japan on Thursday reached a “political agreement” on a free trade deal, and officials insisted the key snags have been overcome for the deal to go into effect early in 2019.

A deal with the EU would be Mercosur’s first large trade deal, though the bloc scheduled talks with other countries.

The EU has eyes on access to public contracts, with the market in Brazil alone worth nearly 150 billion euros ($170 billion), though in return Mercosur will want access to EU agricultural markets such as beef and sugar and derivatives such as ethanol.

“Ethanol is essential. I cannot go back home and say ‘tough luck,'” Costa-Filho told a press briefing in Brussels.

With Britain leaving the European Union and not benefiting from the deal, Costa-Filho added that Mercosur’s door was “wide open” for Britain to seek a separate deal with the South-American bloc.

($1 = 0.8759 euros)
…

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday signed an order to hold more lease sales and to speed up approving permits to explore for oil and gas on federal land, a process he said got bogged down under former President Barack Obama.

The order is the latest move by the administration of President Donald Trump to make it easier to drill and mine on federal land, which Zinke said is a source of income for the government.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is supposed to take 30 days to review applications for permits to drill, but Zinke said the average time for processing in 2016 was 257 days.

“I’m directing the BLM to conduct quarterly lease sales and address these permitting issues,” Zinke said in a statement. “We are also looking at opportunities to bring support to our front line offices who are facing the brunt of this workload.”

There were 2,802 permit applications pending as of January 31, with three-quarters of them filed in five field offices in Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota and New Mexico.

On a call with reporters, Zinke did not say how long this streamlining process would take.

“This is not going to be done overnight. What we don’t want is unintended consequences,” he said.

Environmental groups criticized the announcement and said that companies have already leased vast amounts of public lands but have held off on drilling because of record-low oil prices.

“With historically low gas prices, these companies aren’t using millions of acres of leases they already have, so there’s no reason to hand over even more,” said Chris Saeger, executive director of the Western Values Project.

The group pointed to Interior Department data that showed that production on federal land increased by 77 percent between 2008 and 2015.

The Independent Petroleum Association of America, a lobbying group for independent drillers, welcomed the announcement, which came a week after Zinke met with its president, Barry Russell.

“Reinstating quarterly lease sales is vital as independent producers consider future American energy opportunities on federal lands,” said Dan Naatz, the group’s head of government relations.
…

U.S. federal prosecutors say arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has agreed to turn over thousands of ancient artifacts from the Middle East after the company illegally smuggled them into the country.

In a civil complaint filed Wednesday, the prosecutors said in 2010 Hobby Lobby paid $1.6 million for 5,500 tablets and bricks featuring cuneiform, one of the earliest systems of writing, as well as other objects.

Those artifacts, and others purchased a year later, were sent to Hobby Lobby retail and corporate locations in shipments that falsely identified the contents as coming from Turkey and Israel.  The shipping labels also said the packages contained “ceramic tiles” or “clay tiles.”

Prosecutors said an expert warned the company that acquiring cultural property likely from Iraq brought the risk that the items were looted from archaeological sites.

“The protection of cultural heritage is a mission that [Homeland Security Investigations] and its partner U.S. Customs and Border Protection take very seriously as we recognize that while some may put a price on these artifacts, the people of Iraq consider them priceless,” said HSI Special Agent-In-Charge Angel Melendez.

In addition to forfeiting the objects, Hobby Lobby also agreed to pay a $3 million fine.

Hobby Lobby President Steve Green said the company cooperated with the government and should have “more carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled.”

“At no time did Hobby Lobby ever purchase items from dealers in Iraq or from anyone who indicated that they acquired items from that country,” Green said in a statement.  “Hobby Lobby condemns such conduct and has always acted with the intent to protect ancient items of cultural and historical importance.”

The company agreed to adopt new practices on buying cultural property, and to submit regular reports to the government about such purchases for 18 months.

Hobby Lobby began assembling a collection of historical Bibles and other artifacts in 2009. 

Green is the founder and chairman of a Bible museum under construction in Washington.

Hobby Lobby also won a prominent U.S. Supreme Court case in 2014 involving a government rule that company health plans were required to cover contraceptives.  Hobby Lobby said such a rule went against the closely held religious beliefs of its ownership, and the court agreed in a narrow decision that under a religious freedom law the company should not be forced to provide the coverage.
…

Britain will lose its status as Europe’s top financial center unless it keeps borders open to specialist staff, improves infrastructure and expands links with emerging economies, TheCityUK said in a report published Thursday.

The report from Britain’s most powerful financial lobby group said continental Europe might eventually become the preferred destination for banks, insurers and asset managers as they relocate business there to retain access to the EU single market.

Although companies may begin by initially shifting a small number of jobs to Europe, this may accelerate when property leases expire, they carry out business reviews, or the cost of capital becomes uneconomical.

“Shifts out of the U.K. may gradually erode the ‘cluster effect’ of the financial ecosystem, with the threat of a tipping point in the ecosystem being reached,” the group said in an 83-page document outlining how the industry can thrive over the next decade.

Securing a favorable deal for financial services from the Brexit negotiations is one of the biggest challenges for the British government because it is its largest export sector and biggest source of corporate tax.

Britain’s finance industry could lose up to 38 billion pounds ($49 billion) in revenue in a so-called “hard Brexit” that would restrict its access to the EU single market, according to some estimates.

The report said the government must ensure businesses can recruit people to fill skill gaps and must simplify the process of getting a visa.

Brexit has already made it harder to attract people to Britain, and the government is introducing policies making immigration more restrictive and expensive, the report said.

It said the cost of hiring an employee on a five-year visa has risen by 250 percent to 7,000 pounds over the last year and the minimum salary a business may recruit staff for a visa has risen by almost half since 2015.

Aside from Brexit, the report also looks at broader issues that threaten the competitiveness of the city of London as financial services hub, including a need to invest in transport networks and technology.

It calls for government and financial services to work together closely to develop international trade policies and to improve the country’s digital and physical infrastructure, including speeding up travel times between airports and different financial centers around Britain.

One financial services industry veteran who had independent access to the report said it lacked urgency and there was too little on the impact of Britain leaving the EU given that “Brexit is a catastrophe for the city.”

Mark Hoban, a former financial services minister who chaired the report, said that Brexit was only one of several challenges facing financial services.

“The challenges facing financial services are much more than just about Brexit. It is about emerging financial centers and also, to a degree, about unmet needs in the U.K. as well,” Hoban told Reuters. “There is a very clear appetite to tackle these issues at various levels of government.”
…

Bolstering flood defenses and moving families away from risky areas are high on the agenda for Argentina’s Santa Fe as the river port city looks to grow its economy and improve its infrastructure under a new urban plan.

The inland city of around 400,000 in Argentina’s Pampas region also aims to cut violent crime, boost social inclusion and kick-start projects including a new airport, as it tries to create jobs and become better connected, said Santa Fe’s chief resilience officer, Andrea Valsagna.

Like many Latin American cities, as Santa Fe has expanded, new residents have settled in low-lying areas, she noted.

“The challenge is to organize the growth of the city in a way that reduces the risk of floods,” said Valsagna by telephone from Santa Fe in northeast Argentina.

The new resilience strategy will help position the city to “deal with the problems climate change is generating in the region,” she said, adding that heavy rains and flooding are likely to increase.

Santa Fe lies near the junction of two major waterways — the Parana and Salado rivers — and suffered serious floods in 2003 and 2007, which forced mass evacuations.

The city now has early warning systems in place, and relies on costly infrastructure made up of 40 miles (64 km) of defenses and pumps that help minimize flood risk from the rivers.

The new strategy — released under the 100 Resilient Cities initiative, a global network of cities working to tackle modern-day shocks and stresses — said Santa Fe had taken steps to reduce its vulnerability, but work was needed to bolster flood defenses, drainage systems and other critical infrastructure.

Santa Fe is one of Argentina’s oldest cities, with over 70 percent of its territory made up of rivers, lakes and marshes.

An effort to relocate nearly 4,000 people living in 1,500 homes situated in flood-prone areas and curb informal settlement must consider how to integrate communities, and provide education and job opportunities, said Valsagna.

“The problem of families in low-lying or informal settlements is multi-dimensional, and you can’t just think about the housing problem,” she said of the city which suffers from a shortage of accommodation.

“It’s very difficult to generate alternatives for many of these families — they have a history in these places … they have their links with work, schools, health,” she said.

Crime and waste

Major infrastructure projects, such as the proposed new airport for the regional capital and relocation of its river port, would broaden opportunities for economic growth and jobs, besides improving transport links, said Valsagna.

Santa Fe is expected to funnel 10 percent of its municipal budget into ways of making the city more resilient. City authorities are also talking to regional development banks, the private sector and the national government about funding the port and the airport, she said.

Reducing crime is another big challenge for Santa Fe, where homicides reached 22 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2014. Young men from poor, underserved neighborhoods are most at risk, while police corruption and a weak justice system compound the issue.

Valsagna said a new observatory would analyze crime in the city, which is seeking ways to bring more jobs and services to inhabitants of its poorest areas.

Other goals are to improve drainage and waste services in the city where more than 600 families, including children, make a living out of informal rubbish collection and are exposed to health risks and poor sanitation, said the report.

Santa Fe wants to halve their number within the next five years by offering alternative sources of income.

Santa Fe Mayor Jose Manuel Corral noted in the report that cities around the world are facing complex challenges.

“We believe that a resilience approach will allow us to tackle this complexity, putting the focus on the capacity of communities to face crises, prepare themselves for acute impacts but also to deal with and overcome chronic stresses,” he wrote.
…

A new report finds flourishing tourism in Africa is putting millions of people to work and adding billions of dollars to national economies. The UN Conference on Trade and Development’s annual Economic Development in Africa Report projects continued robust growth in tourism in the coming years.

Growth figures in Africa’s tourism sector are impressive. The World Travel and Tourism Council projects the total contribution of tourism to Africa’s Gross Domestic Product will amount to $296 billion by 2026.

This is a phenomenal increase considering that tourism’s direct contribution to Africa’s GDP was $30 billion between 1995 and 1998. The Tourism Council also expects the sector to generate nearly 29 million jobs in 2026 up from 21 million in 2016.

UNCTAD secretary-general, Mukhisa Kituyi says intra-African tourism, which now exceeds visitors from Europe, the United States and Asia is behind the fast growth in the industry.

“Also, importantly documented in this report is the fact that intra-African tourism is 12 months a year,” he said. “It does not wait for the north in winter and that way it underpins more continuing livelihoods than the seasonal tourism associated with the traditional South markets.”

But, Kituyi says African governments must liberalize air transport to realize the potential of intraregional tourism for the continent’s economic growth. Currently, he says four countries, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and Kenya, account for more than 90 percent of air traffic.

“Many countries that do not have a viable national airline, do not see the reason of giving concession for low-cost landing when there is no such benefit for their own airlines,” he said. “And, what it means is that you start finding abnormally high landing costs for airlines from other African countries.”

Kituyi says this short-sighted policy results in abnormally high costs for intra-African flying. This, he says, holds back greater potential revenue through the greater movement of persons across the continent.

 
…

Renewables are a fast-growing part of the energy that powers the United States, but a government report shows fossil fuels still provide energy for most of the economy.

The Energy Information Administration says petroleum, natural gas, and coal provided 81 percent of the energy for the world’s largest economy in 2016.

That is lowest rate of U.S. fossil fuel use in a century, and the change is partly due to a major fall in coal usage to generate electricity. In many cases, coal has been replaced by less-polluting natural gas or zero-emission technologies like solar and wind generation.

An earlier EIA report says renewable energy sources account for most of the new electric generating capacity, with perhaps 24 gigawatts added in the United States during 2016.

In the meantime, markets are pondering efforts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to limit output and boost prices. The oil price is down around 14 percent this year due to output from the United States, Nigeria, Libya and some other nations.

 
…

Feted by some British newspapers as proof of a Brexit vote windfall, Britain’s recent export recovery ranks as the worst among Europe’s major economies, according to one closely-watched measure.

Surveys of manufacturers across Europe published by data firm IHS Markit on Monday underlined Britain’s challenge as it tries to become an export-led dynamo outside the European Union.

The export orders gauge of the UK Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index slid to a five-month low in June.

While still indicating growth in exports, it left Britain as the weakest performer in terms of foreign orders, barring Greece, among big western European economies for a fourth month running.

That’s a poor return for the pound’s 12 percent fall against a range of currencies since the Brexit vote a year ago.

It also casts doubt over the belief among some Bank of England officials that strong exports will help make up for a slowdown in consumer spending, suggesting the British economy could cope with a first interest rate hike in a decade.

“Sterling’s depreciation has been the least successful in Britain’s post-war history,” said Samuel Tombs, economist at consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics consultancy.

Since sterling began to fall at the end of 2015, net trade has dragged on the economy, unlike after earlier sharp falls in the exchange rate in 1967, 1975, 1992 and 2007/08, Tombs said.

Some indicators have suggested exporters are doing well.

The Confederation of British Industry’s gauge of manufacturing exports, which is based on a different methodology to the PMIs, hit a 22-year high in June.

But the official data is more muted: goods trade export volumes rose at an annual rate of 5.3 percent in the three months to April, the best showing since January 2016 but still below rates seen through most of 2015.

As well as putting Britain’s export recovery into context, the latest figures suggest Britain’s plan to become an export-led “champion of free trade” — as trade minister Liam Fox put it — is not entirely in its own hands.

Its success will hinge just as much on how well its competitors fare in winning business in the same markets and, on that score, the euro zone is showing its muscle.

“I think that is a reflection of the euro area, in terms of them winning global trade gains due to the weak euro,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said.

The euro is 17 percent weaker against the U.S. dollar than at the end of 2014, despite a recent rally.

Part of the underperformance of British exporters in relation to the euro zone may reflect the fact that they have hiked selling prices faster, to help recoup rising energy and imported material costs exacerbated by the weak pound.

While the euro zone’s export price index rose 2.7 percent between the third quarter of last year and the first quarter of 2017, Britain’s increased more than 8 percent.

Increased volatility in sterling, which historically has been more stable than the euro against the dollar, might also be weighing on potential buyers of British goods.

“It’s not so much that the UK is doing badly, it’s just that the euro zone is doing very well at the same time,” said Williamson.
…

A global Danish transport and logistics company says it has restored most of its information technology systems after experiencing a major cyberattack last week that affected companies and government agencies in more than 60 countries.

A.P. Moller-Maersk says it resumed container deliveries at its major ports Monday, but said it may take another week to restore all computer functions.

The cyberattack that hit the world’s biggest container shipping line also affected U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck, FedEx subsidiary TNT, London based international law firm DLA Piper, and Kyiv’s Oschadbank,

Ukrainian authorities have blamed Russia for masterminding the attack.  Russia denies the charge.

Ukraine has repeatedly come under fire from high-powered cyberattacks tied to Moscow, but several independent experts say it is too early, based on what is publicly known, to come to a firm conclusion about who is responsible for this attack.

The hackers encrypted data on infected machines and demanded a ransom to give it back to its owner.  Some researchers question the motivation behind the attack, saying it may not have been designed to collect a ransom, but instead to simply destroy data.

Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab says the code used in the hacking software would not have allowed its authors to decrypt the stolen data even after a ransom had been paid.

The computer virus used in the attack includes code known as “Eternal Blue”, a tool developed by the U.S. National Security Agency that exploited Microsoft’s Windows operating system, and which was published on the internet in April by a group called Shadowbrokers.  Microsoft released a patch in March to protect systems from that vulnerability.

The attack bore resemblance to the previous “WannaCry” hack, that sent a wave of crippling ransomware to hospitals across Britain in May, causing the hospitals to divert ambulances and cancel surgeries.  The program demanded a ransom to unlock access to files stored on infected machines.

Researchers eventually found a way to thwart the hack, but only after about 300 people had paid the ransom.

Last week, Tim Rawlins, the director of the Britain-based cybersecurity consulting firm NCC Group, told VOA the attacks continue to happen because people have not been keeping up with effectively patching their computers.

“This is a repeat WannaCry type of outbreak and it really comes down to the fact that people are not focusing on what they should be focusing on, the very simple premise of patching your systems,” Rawlins said.

 
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Qatar’s stock market fell sharply Sunday as a deadline for Doha to accept a series of political demands by four Arab states was expected to expire later in the day with no sign of a resolution.

The Qatari stock index sank as much as 3.1 percent in thin trading, bringing its losses to 11.9 percent since June 5, when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and trade ties, accusing Doha of backing militants.

Stocks tumbled across the board Sunday, with 41 lower and only one higher. Qatar National Bank, the largest listed lender in the Gulf, lost 3.1 percent.
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Samsung Electronics said Sunday its recalled Galaxy Note 7 phones will be recycled and sold starting this week in South Korea. 

The Galaxy Note FE phone, using unused parts in the recalled Note 7 smartphones, will go on sale in South Korea Friday at 700,000 won ($611), about three quarters of its original price. 

The company said the supply will be limited to 400,000 units. Overseas sales plans will be determined later, it said in a statement. 

Samsung said the Note FE has “perfect safety.”

Black eye for Samsung

The original Note 7 was one of the biggest black eyes in Samsung’s history. When it was launched in August 2016, the Note 7 was Samsung’s answer to Apple’s upcoming iPhone. It was also one of the most expensive Samsung phones with the price starting at $850. 

But after reports emerged that its batteries were prone to overheat and catch fire, Samsung recalled the phone in less than a month of its launch and released another one with replaced batteries. But the second batch also tended to overheat, prompting Samsung to discontinue the Note 7. 

The debacle dealt a blow to Samsung’s corporate image. Aviation authorities around the world banned the pricy phone on flights and photos of scorched Note 7s circulated on social media. Samsung spent billions of dollars to recall the Note 7 and fix its damaged brand. 

Earlier this year, the company released the investigation results and blamed flaws in design and production of batteries supplied by two battery makers.

Environmentalists urged reuse of parts

After Samsung recalled millions of Note 7 phones, environmental activists have pressured the South Korean tech giant to reuse the electronics parts to reduce waste. Samsung said the Note FE is part of its efforts to minimize waste.

The Note FE, short for “Fan Edition,” features the screen measuring 5.7 inches (14.48 centimeters) diagonally and the stylus pen.
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One of Dakar Fashion Week’s biggest events is free — a fashion show in working class neighborhood, Niary Tally. The event’s founder, Senegalese designer Adama Paris, says the so-called “Street Show” is her favorite event of the week because she gets to take fashion back to the streets where it originates. Ricci Shryock has more from Dakar.
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The U.S government warned industrial firms this week about a hacking campaign targeting the nuclear and energy sectors, the latest event to highlight the power industry’s vulnerability to cyberattacks.

Since at least May, hackers used tainted “phishing” emails to “harvest credentials” so they could gain access to networks of their targets, according to a joint report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The report provided to the industrial firms was reviewed by Reuters Friday. While disclosing attacks, and warning that in some cases hackers succeeded in compromising the networks of their targets, it did not identify any specific victims.

Industry looking into intrusions

“Historically, cyber actors have strategically targeted the energy sector with various goals ranging from cyber espionage to the ability to disrupt energy systems in the event of a hostile conflict,” the report said.

Homeland Security and FBI officials could not be reached for comment on the report, which was dated June 28. The report was released during a week of heavy hacking activity.

A virus dubbed “NotPetya” attacked Tuesday, spreading from initial infections in Ukraine to businesses around the globe. It encrypted data on infected machines, rendering them inoperable and disrupting activity at ports, law firms and factories.

On Tuesday the energy-industry news site E&E News reported that U.S. investigators were looking into cyber intrusions this year at multiple nuclear power generators.

Reuters has not confirmed details of the E&E News report, which said there was no evidence safety systems had been compromised at affected plants.

Worry since 2016

Industrial firms, including power providers and other utilities, have been particularly worried about the potential for destructive cyber attacks since December 2016, when hackers cut electricity in Ukraine.

U.S. nuclear power generators PSEG, SCANA Corp and Entergy Corp said they were not affected by the recent cyberattacks. SCANA’s V.C. Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina shut down Thursday because of a problem with a valve in the non-nuclear portion of the plant, a spokesman said.

Another nuclear power generator, Dominion Energy, said it does not comment on cyber security.

Two cyber security firms said June 12 that they had identified the malicious software used in the Ukraine attack, which they dubbed Industroyer, warning that it could be easily modified to attack utilities in the United States and Europe.

Industroyer is the second piece of malware uncovered to date that is capable of disrupting industrial processes without the need for hackers to manually intervene.

The first, Stuxnet, was discovered in 2010 and is widely believed by security researchers to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

The U.S. government report said attackers conducted reconnaissance to gain information about the individuals whose computers they sought to infect so that they create “decoy documents” on topics of interest to their targets.

In an analysis, it described 11 files used in the attacks, including malware downloaders and tools that allow the hackers to take remote control of victims’ computers and travel across their networks.

Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips, the three largest U.S. oil producers, declined to comment on their network security.
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India early on Saturday introduced its biggest tax reform in the 70 years since independence from British colonial rule.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) replaces more than a dozen federal and state levies and unifying a $2 trillion economy and 1.3 billion people into one of the world’s biggest common markets.

The measure is expected to make it easier to do business by simplifying the tax structure and ensuring greater compliance, boosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic credentials before a planned re-election bid in 2019.

At a midnight ceremony in parliament’s central hall Modi and President Pranab Mukherjee together launched the new tax by pressing a button.

“With GST, the dream of ‘One India, Great India’ will come true,” Modi said.

For the first midnight ceremony in the central hall in two decades, Modi was joined by his cabinet colleagues, India’s central bank chief, a former prime minister and major company executives including Ratan Tata.

The launch, however, was boycotted by several opposition parties including the Congress Party, which first proposed the tax reform before it fell from power three years ago.

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – the architect of India’s economic reforms – also gave it a miss.

Complex Structure

It has taken 14 years for the new sales tax to come into being. But horse trading to get recalcitrant Indian states on board has left Asia’s third-largest economy with a complex tax structure.

In contrast to simpler sales taxes in other countries, India’s GST has four rates and numerous exemptions.

The official schedule of rates runs to 213 pages and has undergone repeated changes, some taking place as late as on Friday evening.

Many businesses are nervous about how the changes will unfold, with smaller ones saying they will get hit by higher tax rates.

Adding to the complexity, businesses with pan-India operations face filing over 1,000 digital returns a year.

While higher tax rates for services and non-food items are expected to fuel price pressures, compliance is feared to be a major challenge in a country where many entrepreneurs are not computer literate and rely on handwritten ledgers.

“We have jumped into a river but don’t know its depth,” said A. Subba Rao, an executive director at power firm CLP India.

‘One Tax, One Market, One Nation’

Poor implementation would deal a blow to an economy that is still recovering from Modi’s decision late last year to outlaw 86 percent of the currency in circulation.

In a bid to mitigate the impact on the farm sector, the GST rates for tractors and fertilizer were slashed on Friday to 18 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

HSBC estimates the reform, despite its flaws, could add 0.4 percentage points to economic growth.

An end of tax arbitrage under the GST is estimated to save companies $14 billion in reduced logistics costs and efficiency gains.

As the GST is a value added tax, firms will have an incentive to comply in order to avail credit for taxes already paid. This should widen the tax net, shoring up public finances.

“The old India was economically fragmented,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. “The new India will create one tax, one market for one nation.”
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Many businesses still struggled Friday to recover hopelessly scrambled computer networks, collateral damage from a massive cyberattack that targeted Ukraine three days ago.

The Heritage Valley Health System couldn’t offer lab and diagnostic imaging services at 14 community and neighborhood offices in western Pennsylvania. DLA Piper, a London-based law firm with offices in 40 countries, said on its website that email systems were down; a receptionist said email hadn’t been restored by the close of business day.

Dave Kennedy, a former Marine cyberwarrior who is now CEO of the security company TrustedSec, said one U.S. company he is helping is rebuilding its entire network of more than 5,000 computers.

“It hit everything, their backups, servers, their workstations, everything,” he said. “Everything was just nuked and wiped.”

Kennedy added, “Some of these companies are actually using pieces of paper to write down credit card numbers. It’s crazy.”

Some attacks are unreported

The cyber attack that began Tuesday brought even some Fortune 1000 companies to their knees, experts say. Kennedy said a lot more “isn’t being reported by companies who don’t want to say that they are hit.”

The malware, which security experts are calling NotPetya, was unleashed through Ukraine tax software, called MeDoc. Customers’ networks became infected downloading automatic updates from its maker’s website. Many customers are multinationals with offices in the eastern European nation.

The malware spread so quickly, worming its way automatically through interconnected private networks, as to be nearly unstoppable. What saved the world from digital mayhem, experts say, was its limited business-to-business connectivity with Ukrainian enterprises, the intended target.

Had those direct connections been extensive — on the level of a major industrial nation — “you are talking about a catastrophic failure of all of our systems and environments across the globe. I mean it could have been absolutely terrifying,” Kennedy said.

Microsoft said NotPetya hit companies in at least 64 nations, including Russia, Germany and the United States. Victims include drug giant Merck & Co. and the shipping company FedEx’s TNT subsidiary. Trade in FedEx stock was temporarily halted Wednesday.

Danish shipping giant still struggling

One major victim, Danish shipping giant A.P. Maersk-Moller, said Friday that its cargo terminals and port operations were “now running close to normal again.” It said operations had been restored in Spain, Morocco, India, Brazil, Argentina and Lima, Peru, but problems lingered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Elizabeth, New Jersey; and Los Angeles.

An employee at an international transit company at Lima’s port of Callao told The Associated Press that Maersk employees’ telephone system and email had been knocked out by the virus — so they were “stuck using their personal cellphones.” The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak to reporters.

Back in Ukraine, the pain continued. Officials assured the public that the outbreak was under control, and service has been restored to cash machines and at the airport.

But some bank branches remain closed as information-technology professionals scrambled to rebuild networks from scratch. One government employee told the AP she was still relying on her iPhone because her office’s computers were “collapsed.” She, too, was not authorized to talk to journalists.

 Security researchers now concur that while NotPetya was wrapped in the guise of extortionate “ransomware” — which encrypts files and demands payment — it was really designed to exact maximum destruction and disruption, with Ukraine the clear target.

FBI joins investigation

Computers were disabled there at banks, government agencies, energy companies, supermarkets, railways and telecommunications providers.

Ukraine’s government said Thursday that the FBI and Britain’s National Crime Agency were assisting in its investigation of the malware.

Suspicion for the attack immediately fell on hackers affiliated with Russia, though there is no evidence tying Vladimir Putin’s government to the attack.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been tense since Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. Pro-Russian fighters still battle the government in eastern Ukraine.

U.S. intelligence agencies declined to comment about who might be responsible for the attack. The White House did not immediately respond to questions seeking its reaction to the attack.

Russian hackers blamed before

Experts have blamed pro-Russian hackers for major cyberattacks on the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2016, assaults that have turned the eastern European nation into the world’s leading cyber warfare testing ground.

A disruptive attack on the nation’s voting system ahead of 2014 national elections is also attributed to Russia.

Robert M. Lee, CEO of Dragos Inc. and an expert on cyberattacks on infrastructure including Ukraine’s power grid, said the rules of cyber espionage appear to be changing, with sophisticated actors — state-sponsored or not — violating what had been established norms of avoiding collateral damage.

Besides NotPetya, he pointed to the May ransomware dubbed “WannaCry,” a major cyberassault that some experts have blamed on North Korea.

“I think it’s absolutely reprehensive if we do not have national-level leaders come out and make very clear statements,”  he said, “that this is not activity that can be condoned.”

                 
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