More than half of Cuba’s arable land remains fallow nearly a decade after a government pledge to cultivate it, and food production is sluggish, according to a government report.

Cuba has yet to publish an overall figure for last year’s agricultural output. But the report released over the weekend by the National Statistics Office indicated only minor improvement in 2016 over the previous year.

The state owns 80 percent of the land and leases most of that to farmers and cooperatives. The remainder is owned by private family farmers and their cooperatives.

Despite the leasing of small parcels of land to some 200,000 would-be-farmers over the last decade, the report said just 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres) out of the 6.2 million hectares (15.3 million acres) of arable land available were under cultivation.

The Cuban government often blames bad weather, a lack of labor and capital for poor land use and production, while critics charge it is due to a lack of private property and foreign investment, rickety infrastructure and the Soviet-style bureaucracy.

President Raul Castro made increased food production and reducing the Communist-run Caribbean island’s dependence on imports his top priority after taking office in 2008 from his then ailing and now deceased brother, Fidel.

Castro began leasing land, decentralizing decision-making and introducing market mechanisms into the sector. But most of the effort has faltered and the state has backtracked on market reforms, once more assigning resources, setting prices and controlling most distribution.

Cash-strapped Cuba imports more than 60 percent of the food it consumes at a cost of around $2 billion annually, mainly for bulk cereals and grains such as rice, corn, soy and beans, as well as other items such as powdered milk and chicken.

Last year, $232 million of the imports came from the United States under an exception to the trade embargo that allows agricultural sales for cash.

The country does not produce wheat or soybeans, though experiments are underway to produce the latter. Over the last decade the government has poured millions of dollars into corn, rice, beans, meat and milk production in hopes of reducing imports, but with little success.

Unprocessed rice production was 514,000 tons in 2016, up more than 20 percent from the previous year. But that figure, representing just a third of national consumption, barely surpassed the 436,000 tons reported in 2008 and was less than the 642,000 produced five years ago.

Beans weighed in at 137,000 tons, up more than 15 percent from the previous year and compared with 117,000 in 2012, but little changed from the 2008 figure of 127,000 tons.

Corn, at 404,000 tons last year, was up some 10 percent over 2015 and the 360,000 output of 5 and 10 years ago, but again just a third of national consumption.

Pork and beef production have increased, while milk, chicken and egg production have stagnated.

Export crops, from coffee and citrus to tobacco and sugar cane, have not increased significantly, and in some cases declined.

Tonnage for root and garden vegetables has improved some 15 percent over the decade and reached 5.3 million tons last year, an increase of 200,000 tons. Bananas and plantains increased some 15 percent to a million tons in 2016 compared with an average of around 850,000 tons over the decade.
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The American company which made cladding used London’s Grenfell Tower, where 79 people died after the building caught fire, has said it will stop global sales of the product.

U.S.-based Arconic cited “inconsistencies in building codes around the world” for stopping the sales. The company’s shares fell over 11 percent after it was linked to the blaze in London.

Hours after the announcement from Arconic, the Department for Communities and Local Government said that samples from 75 high-rises in England had failed fire safety tests.

The tests were initiated following the Grenfell Tower fire. Grenfell’s exterior insulation is thought to have been responsible for the rapid acceleration of the blaze, resulting in the deaths of at least 79 people, fire officials said.

Grenfell Tower and many of the buildings tested are all part of government-run, low-cost, public housing developments.
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The promotion of Saudi Arabia’s top economic reformer to crown prince has cheered business leaders who believe it will open up new opportunities. But they worry about officials’ ability to implement reforms and about geopolitical tensions in the region.

The Saudi stock market jumped 7 percent in the two days after Mohammed bin Salman, previously deputy crown prince, was appointed last week to be first in line for the throne.

Part of the market’s rise was due to a decision by index compiler MSCI to consider upgrading Riyadh to emerging market status. But much of the euphoria was political; shares in companies closely linked to Prince Mohammed’s reforms were the top performers.

National Commercial Bank, the biggest lender, which is expected to play a big role handling financial transactions related to the reforms, surged 15 percent.

Miner Ma’aden soared 20 percent; Prince Mohammed has labelled mining a key sector in his drive to cut Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil exports. Emaar the Economic City, builder of an industrial zone which the prince hopes

to develop as an export industry base, gained 16 percent.

Solid political move

Business leaders said the promotion of Prince Mohammed, 31, removed political uncertainty by confirming a smooth shift of power from an older generation of Saudi leaders to a young generation represented by the prince.

“The political transition was very smooth — we expect the reforms to continue,” Muhammad Alagil, chairman of Jarir Marketing, a top retailing chain, told Reuters.

He said Jarir, which has 47 stores, some 39 of which are in Saudi, would open at least six this year and a similar number next year, mostly inside Saudi Arabia.

Fresh opportunity

To some in business, Prince Mohammed represents fresh opportunity in the form of a $200 billion privatization program and state investment to help kick start new industries such as shipbuilding, auto parts making and tourism.

Some executives predicted the progress of these plans, which are still largely on the drawing board a year after Prince Mohammed announced them, would accelerate after his promotion.

“I didn’t see a risk of the reforms stalling or being reversed before, given the political backing behind them. But now the reforms can go ahead with more strength,” said Hesham Abo Jamee, chief executive at Alistithmar Capital.

He added that social initiatives in the reforms would help the economy by stimulating consumer spending.

For example, developing an entertainment sector, in a conservative society which has so far shunned many forms of public entertainment, would create jobs. The government plans an entertainment zone south of Riyadh with sports, cultural and recreational facilities.

Increasing the role of women in the workforce would boost family incomes and could accelerate creation of small businesses such as restaurants, Abo Jamee said.

Repatriation

Prince Mohammed is also architect of a tough austerity policy, including spending cuts and tax rises, that aims to abolish by 2020 a budget gap which totaled $79 billion in 2016.

The austerity has slowed private sector growth almost to zero.

But many in business see austerity as inevitable in an era of low oil prices and are pleased by the prince’s willingness to moderate it to avoid a worse slowdown. To mark his promotion, Riyadh retroactively restored civil servants’ allowances at a cost it estimated at around $1.5 billion.

Privately, many executives expect Prince Mohammed to persuade or pressure wealthy Saudis to repatriate some of the billions of dollars which they are believed to have transferred overseas for safe-keeping.

Other issues

It is not clear what tools he would use — moral suasion, legal action or financial incentives — but his promotion may have given him the political capital for such a sensitive step. Businesses remain worried by two other issues, however.

One is the competence of the bureaucracy to carry out the complex reforms. The government talks of partnerships between the public and private sectors to finance projects, for example, but has not released legal frameworks for such deals.

“Many of the reforms are in name only — nothing has happened. They’re struggling with the details,” said a foreign economist who advises the Saudi government.

Military intervention

The other big worry is rising tensions around Saudi Arabia — tensions in which Prince Mohammed has been closely involved in his role as defense minister for two years.

In addition to its military intervention in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is locked in a diplomatic confrontation with Iran, its allies are struggling in Syria’s civil war, and early this month it cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar.

For some in business, these tensions are at best a distraction for the government at a time when it needs to focus on the economy, and at worst risk a more serious regional crisis that could deter foreign investment and endanger the reforms.

 
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Embattled Japanese auto parts manufacturer Takata said Monday it has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Takata also announced that rival Key Safety Systems is purchasing Takata for $1.5 billion. 

Takata has been overwhelmed with the costs of lawsuits and recalls related to defective airbags linked to the deaths of 16 people and scores of injuries worldwide.

The defective airbags led to a global recall of tens of millions of automobiles. The chemicals that power the airbags were found to deteriorate spontaneously with prolonged exposure to high humidity, causing the airbags to deploy far more forcefully than normal and sending metal and plastic shrapnel into drivers and passengers.

Takata has already agreed to pay a billion-dollar fine to settle with U.S. safety regulators.  Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has said that Takata engaged in a pattern of “delay, misdirection and refusal to acknowledge the truth.”

Jason Luo, president  and CEO of Key Safety Systems, said, “Although Takata has been impacted by the global airbag recall, the underlying strength of its skilled employee base, geographic reach, and exceptional steering wheels, seat belts and other safety products have not diminished.” 

The Tokyo Stock Exchange suspended trading of Takata shares Monday and said it would delist Takata stock Tuesday.
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The global economy has picked up and prospects for the next few months are the best in a long time.

But the recovery is maturing and faces risks from populist rejection of free trade and from high debt that could burden consumers and companies as interest rates rise.

Those were key takeaways from a review of the global economy released Sunday by the Bank for International Settlements, an international organization for central banks based in Basel, Switzerland.

The report said that “the global economy’s performance has improved considerably and that its near-term prospects appear the best in a long time.” Global growth should reach 3.5 percent this year, according to a summary of forecasts, not quite what it was before the Great Recession but in line with long-term averages. Meanwhile, financial markets for stocks and bonds have been unusually buoyant and steady.

On top of that, forecasts by governments and international organizations as well as by private analysts point to “further gradual improvement” in coming months.

Key risks include a possible weakening of consumer spending across different economies. So far, the recovery has been largely fueled by people being willing and able to spend more. But that trend could fall victim to higher levels of debt as interest rates rise in some countries and as the amount people need to spend to service their debts takes a bigger chunk of income.

Countries that were slammed by collapsing real estate markets during the Great Recession seem less vulnerable now, such as the United States, the U.K., and Spain. But debt burdens are more worrisome in a range of other countries mentioned in the report, including China, Australia and Norway.

Another risk comes from weak business investment, typically the second stage of recovery after consumers start spending more; yet that kind of spending has lagged its pre-recession levels for reasons that aren’t always clear to economists.

The BIS urged governments around the world to take advantage of the economic recovery as an opportunity to make growth more resistant to trouble by implementing pro-business and pro-growth measures.

In particular, the report warned against a backlash against globalization, saying that trade and interconnected financial markets had led to higher standards of living and lifted large parts of the world’s population out of poverty. It called for domestic policies to address inequality and lost jobs, saying that changing technology was often to blame, not free trade. “Attempts to roll back globalization would be the wrong response to these challenges,” it said.

 
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A second U-turn this year by Ford Motor Co. in Mexico has raised the specter of Chinese competition for local carmaking, adding to pressure on the industry after repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to saddle it with punitive tariffs.

Ford announced on Tuesday it would move some production of its Focus small car to China instead of Mexico, a step that follows the U.S. automaker’s January cancellation of a planned $1.8 billion plant in the central state of San Luis Potosi.

The scrapping of the Ford plant was a bitter blow, coming after U.S. President Donald Trump had blamed the country for hollowing out U.S manufacturing on the campaign trail, and threatened to impose hefty tariffs on cars made in Mexico.

Since then, rhetoric from the Trump administration has become more conciliatory, and Mexico and the United States have expressed confidence that the renegotiation of the NAFTA trade deal, expected to begin in August, could benefit both nations.

But the loss of the Focus business is an unwelcome reminder of competition Mexico faces from Asia at a time China’s auto exports and the quality of its cars are rising.

“For a long time, the quality of vehicles coming out of China was not to global standards. There was a gap in quality that [favored] Mexico – but that is closing,” said Philippe Houchois, an analyst covering the auto industry at investment bank Jefferies. “That is probably a threat to Mexico.”

In the past decade, global automakers have invested heavily in Chinese factories to make them capable of building cars at quality levels that make the grade in developed markets.

Ford’s decision to shift Focus production for the United States market to China from Mexico shows automakers have increasing flexibility to choose between the two countries to supply niche vehicles to American consumers or other markets.

‘Very Troubling’

Demand for small cars in the United States is waning and General Motors Co. faces a similar situation to Ford’s with its Chevrolet Cruze compact.

Were GM to go down the same path with the Cruze and shift its production out of U.S. factories, it could give more work to its Mexican plants – but might also bring its Chinese operations in Shenyang or Yantai into play.

GM did not immediately reply to a request for comment on its plans for the Cruze.

Studies show Mexican manufacturing is competitive, and business leaders believe that NAFTA talks between Mexico, the United States and Canada could ultimately yield tougher regional content rules for the region that benefit local investment.

Ford said its decision balanced cheaper Chinese labor rates against pricier shipping, but that in the end an already-planned refit of its Chinese factory saved it some $500 million over retooling both that facility and its Hermosillo plant in Mexico.

The volatile state of U.S.-Mexican trade relations also carries big risks if Trump renews his threats to impose 35-percent tariffs on cars made in Mexico.

To be sure, Trump has also threatened to levy 45-percent tariffs on Chinese goods and his Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he found Ford’s China move “very troubling.”

Trump’s threats have battered the peso, ironically making Mexico’s goods cheaper. Uncertainty over the future of NAFTA pushed the currency to a record low in January, although it has since rebounded.

That same month, the Boston Consulting Group published an assessment of manufacturing competitiveness that gave Mexico an 11-percent lead over China.

That advantage has prompted global firms to plow billions of dollars into the Mexican auto industry, pushing output to record highs. Some officials in the automotive sector painted Ford’s move as a one-off decision.

“There’s still very dynamic investment and growth in plants,” said Alfredo Arzola, director of the automotive cluster in Guanajuato state, one of Mexico’s top carmaking hubs.

Still, there have been “significant quality improvements” in Chinese cars, consultancy J.D. Power said in a 2016 study.

Chinese car manufacturing could catch up with international standards in China by 2018 or 2019, said Jacob George, general manager of J.D. Power’s Asia Pacific Operations, citing the consultancy’s gauge of “hard quality”, or failures.

However, when measured in terms of “perceptual” quality, China was probably still some 4 to 6 years behind, he added.
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After starting work in a hotel kitchen, Zhai Meiqin began selling furniture and built a billion-dollar conglomerate, but she took great pride in being recognized this week for driving a new phenomenon in China: philanthropy.

Zhai, one of China’s richest women and president of the privately owned HeungKong Group Ltd., said she never forgot her humble upbringing in Guangzhou in southern China, where her father was an architect and her mother worked in a store.

This made her determined to help others, and she started donating to charity shortly after setting up the business with her husband in 1990.

As their business grew, taking in real estate, financial investment and health care, Zhai broke new ground in 2005 by establishing China’s first nonprofit charitable foundation.

Since then, the HeungKong Charitable Foundation has helped an estimated 2 million people, by funding 1,500 libraries, providing loans for women to start businesses, and funding orphans, single mothers, handicapped children and the elderly.

“I realized there were a lot of poor people in China and this drove me to earn more money so I could help them,” said Zhai, 53, who was one of nine philanthropists named Thursday as winners of the 2017 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.

Zhai and her husband, Liu Zhiqiang, whose HeungKong Group with 20,000 staffers has made them worth about $1.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine, are known for being leaders of the culture of philanthropy in China.

Their foundation was listed as number 001 by the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Zhai said at the end of 2015 there were 3,300 registered nonprofit charitable foundations in China.

Next generation

“By setting up the foundation, I wanted to encourage other people, other entrepreneurs, to also donate to charity,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview from Guangzhou translated by her daughter.

“Now I want to make sure that the next generation continues this culture of philanthropy in China,” she added, with two of her four children taking an active role in her foundation.

The other philanthropists to win the Carnegie Medal — which was established in 2001 and is awarded every two years — came from around  the globe.

The list included India’s education-focused Azim Premji, Canadian-born social enterprise pioneer Jeff Skoll and American-Australian lawyer and former World Bank Group President James Wolfensohn.

The winners were chosen by a committee made up of seven people representing some of the 22 Carnegie institutions in the United States and Europe.
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Cambodian activists fighting plans to transform Phnom Penh’s largest lake into a luxury development made a tactical decision when they took to the streets: put women on the frontline to show a “gentle” face and prevent violence.

But it was wishful thinking.

The women of Boeung Kak Lake, once home to a thriving community, have been kicked, manhandled, threatened and jailed, one of many land battles globally where women are bearing the brunt of the crackdown on protesters.

“We are mostly women because we are more gentle so we face less violence. This is our strategy,” said Im Srey Touch, a 42-year-old activist from Boeung Kak Lake.

“If we let men participate in our protests, we let them stand behind us or outside, and we stand in the front to reduce the likelihood of violence.”

​Evictions began in 2007

In fact, as the number of people killed in land conflicts around the world soars, more than half of the dead have been women, rights watchdogs say.

In Phnom Penh the conflict began in 2007 when nearly 4,000 families were stripped of their housing rights after the Cambodian government leased the Boeung Kak Lake area in the nation’s capital to make way for an upmarket mini city.

Since then, the lake has been filled with sand and most of the 4,000 families evicted, with little to no compensation, amid complaints about the social and environmental impact.

Over the years, more than a dozen activists protesting the evictions have been arrested, most of them women through whom land is passed down in many parts of Cambodia.

Whose courts?

In February, a court sentenced Tep Vanny, the most high-profile lake activist, to two and a half years in jail for inciting violence and assaulting security guards.

Rights observers say the government is using the courts and jails to muzzle activists, including those defending their land rights against government officials and their business cronies.

“It is a signal to civil society that ‘We can come after you whenever we want. The courts are ours. We can make anything we say about you stick,’“ said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Asia for New York-based nonprofit Human Rights Watch.

The government of Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) rejects such criticism and says it respects due process.

“The court makes decisions based on the constitution and, like every open society, the court provides justice to everyone no matter who they are,” said government spokesman Phay Siphan.

​Long history of land disputes

Amnesty International has criticized the Cambodian government for “bending the law to their will” to crack down on dissent. It said 42 criminal cases have been brought against the Boeung Kak Lake activists since 2011.

“Nobody believes Tep Vanny was assaulting these security guards,” said Robertson, who accused the judges of being “stooges” of the CPP.

Home to 15 million people, impoverished Cambodia has a long history of disputes over land rights, many dating back to the 1970s when the communist Khmer Rouge regime destroyed property records, and all housing and land became state property.

Cambodia began to privatize land after 1989, when Hun Sen’s CPP-led government shed its communist past and courted foreign investment, paving the way for economic land concessions.

“After privatization, land prices started going up, and people were at risk of land grabbing by companies, the state and well-connected individuals,” said Naly Pilorge, director of the nonprofit Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO).

LICADHO says the lack of a publicly available land register detailing boundaries means authorities could confiscate land, claiming that affected families were living on state property.

Between 2000 and 2014, about 770,000 Cambodians were affected by land conflicts, according to charges presented by lawyers at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

“Because Cambodia is lawless … with close ties between companies, government, the military and police, it’s a recipe for violence,” Pilorge said by phone from Phnom Penh.

A broken family

Despite the court cases and jail time, the Boeung Kak Lake women persist. They protest loudly and lie on the ground when ringed and roughed up by authorities. They are arrested in groups, sometimes just two, and, once, 13 of them.

Pilorge says authorities now appear to be trying a new tack, turning their energies onto Vanny on whom it is taking its toll.

During a brief recess before her guilty verdict Feb. 23, the 37-year-old divorcee who was arrested last August described the impact of her detention on her son, 11, and daughter, 13.

“I lost my role as a mother. I have a broken family. My child is sick,” she said, adding that she could not be there for her daughter’s surgery to remove her appendix.

“During the last hearing, my daughter cried until she fainted … I am a mother but I’m in prison. I can’t take care of her,” she said.

Activists suspect authorities are using her in a bid to silence other activists ahead of local elections this month and next year’s national vote.

A lake activist who was arrested with Vanny last year, Sophea Bov, was convicted for insulting authorities and fined $20. So far Bov has refused to pay the fine, Pilorge said, but no one has come for yet although the judge could imprison her.

“She was hoping that if she refused to pay the fine, she could go to prison to be with Vanny. Imagine where they are now, to think like that,” Pilorge said. “As human beings, we grow and we become stronger with challenges … these women have been tested, and they’ve overcome a lot of obstacles.”

 
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Soaring temperatures and a lack of rainfall across Italy have cost farmers 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) so far this year, the national agricultural association said on Friday.

The government declared a state of emergency in the gastronomic heartland around the northern cities of Parma and Piacenza, a usually lush valley that produces tomatoes, cheese, and high-quality ham.

Wine grapes growing near Venice will be harvested early, mozzarella makers near Naples have been thrown into crisis, and Sardinian shepherds have taken tractors onto main roads to call for help to save their livelihoods, the Coldiretti group said.

The group’s chairman, Roberto Moncalvo, said the climate was becoming “tropical.”

“If we want to maintain high quality in agriculture we need to organize ourselves to collect water during rainy periods, doing structural work that cannot be put off any longer,” Moncalvo said.

($1 = 0.8935 euros)
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