A bag of rice on a hungry family’s kitchen table could be the key to Nicolas Maduro retaining the support of poor Venezuelans in May’s presidential election.

For millions of Venezuelans suffering an unprecedented economic crisis, a monthly handout of a box of heavily-subsidized basic food supplies by Maduro’s unpopular government has offered a tenuous lifeline in their once-prosperous OPEC nation.

The 55-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez introduced the so-called CLAP boxes in 2016 in a signature policy of his rule, continuing the socialist government’s strategy of seeking public support with cash bonuses and other giveaways.

Now, running for re-election on May 20, Maduro says the CLAPs are his “most powerful weapon” to combat an “economic war” being waged by Washington, which brands him a “dictator” and has imposed sanctions.

Mariana, a single mother who lives in the poor hillside neighborhood of Petare in the capital Caracas, says the handouts will decide her vote.

“I and other women I know are going to vote for Maduro because he’s promising to keep giving CLAPs, which at least help fix some problems,” said the 30-year-old cook, who asked not to give her surname for fear of losing the benefit.

“When you earn minimum wage, which doesn’t cover exorbitant prices, the box helps.”

Maduro’s rule since 2013 has coincided with a deep recession caused by a plunge in global oil prices and failed state-led economic policies.

Yet the worse the economy gets, the more dependent some poor Venezuelans become on the state.

Life in the South American country’s poor ‘barrios’ revolves around the CLAP boxes. According to the government, six million families receive the benefit, from a population of around 30 million people.

Venezuelans, many of whom are undernourished, anxiously wait for their monthly delivery, and a thriving black market has sprung up to sell CLAP products.

The government sources almost all the CLAP goods from abroad, especially from Mexico, since Venezuela’s food production has shriveled and currency controls restrict private imports.

Critics, including Maduro’s main challenger for the May 20 vote, Henri Falcon, say the CLAPs are a cynical form of political patronage and are rife with corruption.

Erratic supply and control of distribution by government-affiliated groups have sown resentment among others.

“I can’t count on it. Sometimes it comes, sometimes not,” said Viviana Colmenares, 24, an unemployed mother of six struggling to get by in Petare.

“Instrument of the Revolution”

Stamped with the faces of Maduro and Chavez, the CLAP boxes usually contain rice, pasta, grains, cooking oil, powdered milk, canned tuna and other basic goods. Recipients pay 25,000 bolivars per box, or about $0.12 at the black market rate.

That is a godsend in a country where the minimum monthly wage is less than $2 at that rate – and would be swallowed up by two boxes of eggs or a small tin of powdered milk.

Inflation, at more than 4,000 percent annually according to opposition data, is pulverizing household income.

The administration of the CLAP — the Local Supply and Production Committees — does not hide its political motivation.

“The CLAPs are here to stay. They are an instrument of the revolution,” said Freddy Bernal, CLAP chief administrator.

“It has helped us stop a social explosion and enabled us to win elections and to keep winning them,” he told Reuters, referring to government victories in 2017 local polls.

Sometimes, though, the tactic backfires, as it did when promised free pork failed to arrive over Christmas, prompting street protests.

Maduro’s inability to halt rising hunger has jarred with the experience of many under Chavez, who won the presidency in 1998 and improved Venezuela’s social indicators with oil-fueled welfare policies.

Even though Maduro’s approval rating is only around 26 percent, according to one recent poll, his re-election looks likely as Venezuela’s opposition coalition is boycotting the vote on accusations it is rigged.

His most popular rivals are banned from standing and the election board favors the government.

Former state governor Falcon has broken with the coalition to stand. One survey by pollster Datanalisis in February showed that in a two-way race, he would defeat Maduro by 45.8 percent to 32.2 percent of likely voters.

Falcon’s critics counter that those numbers mean nothing in the face of electoral irregularities that could arbitrarily tip the balance in favor of Maduro.

Several other minor figures have registered for the single-round election, but have little chance of making an impact.

‘Can’t Depend on the Box’

Juan Luis Hernandez, a food specialist at the Central University of Venezuela, estimates the country generates just 44 percent of the basic food supplies it produced in 2008.

Meanwhile, food imports fell 67 percent between the start of 2016 and the end of 2017 as the crisis bit, he said.

Almost two-thirds of Venezuelans surveyed in a university study published in February said they had lost on average 11 kilograms (24 lbs) in body weight last year. Eighty-seven percent were assessed to live in poverty.

The same study found that seven out of 10 Venezuelans had received CLAPs.

“They (the government) don’t care about the food issue, just about getting people something to eat while they get through the elections,” said Susana Raffalli, a consultant with charity Caritas.

Some Venezuelans fear they would be found out should they vote against Maduro and be punished by no longer receiving food bags.

Already handouts are far from guaranteed.

A dozen recipients told Reuters that often they arrived half-full and would only come every few months. Outside of the capital Caracas, delivery was even more sporadic.

“I can’t depend on the box, otherwise I would die from hunger,” said Yuni Perez, a 48-year-old rubbish collector and mother of three.

Perez, who lives in a ramshackle house made from breeze blocks and corrugated steel at the top of Petare, said a CLAP box provided her family with food for a week. Often they would receive one every two months.

When her family is short of food, she hunts for leftovers dumped on the side of Petare’s winding streets. She said she had found several newborn babies discarded in the gutter, which she attributed to mothers unable to face providing food for another child.

Another Petare resident, mother-of-three Yaneidy Guzman said she dropped from 68kg to 48kg last year, despite receiving the CLAP.

“At least for 10 days you don’t have to think about finding food,” the 32-year-old said of the handouts, her cheekbones protruding from her face.
…

In one of the planet’s most northerly settlements, in a tiny Arctic town of about 2,000 people, Benjamin Vidmar’s domed greenhouse stands out like an alien structure in the snow-cloaked landscape.

This is where in summer the American chef grows tomatoes, onions, chilies and other vegetables, taking advantage of the season’s 24 hours of daily sunlight.

During winter’s four months of darkness, when temperatures can reach -30 Celsius (-22°F), Vidmar tends to microgreens – the leaves and shoots of young salad plants – and dozens of quails in two rooms beneath his home.

He is the sole supplier of locally-grown food in the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen in the Svalbard archipelago. The North Pole is about 1,050 kilometers (650 miles) to the north; mainland Norway is about as far south.

Growing food in such conditions can be “mission impossible” but it is necessary, Vidmar told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

He hopes to set an example for other remote towns in the region.

“We are so dependent on imports. Everything is by boat and plane,” said Vidmar, who comes from Cleveland, Ohio, and who has lived here for nearly a decade.

That makes the town vulnerable, he said. In 2010, stores in Longyearbyen stood empty after an Icelandic volcano erupted, bringing air transport to a halt. And the cost of imported food and its quality “is often disappointing.”

His company, Polar Permaculture, aims to produce enough food for the town and process all its organic and biological waste.

It sounds ambitious, but the firm, which received support from a government-funded body that helps startups, broke even last year, just two years in.

It was helped by the fact that he and his teenage son do not draw salaries, and Vidmar still cooks full-time at a school.

‘Crazy’ to Try

Vidmar’s produce now appears on many of Longyearbyen’s menus, including at Huset restaurant where intricate, multi-course Nordic tasting menus are served in stately surroundings.

Alongside reindeer steak and tartare of bearded seal is a delicate dish of quail egg with dill, red onions and anchovies on flatbread.

“We would not use quail eggs unless they were local so we designed a dish as soon as we got the opportunity to try them,” said Filip Gemzell, Huset’s head chef.

Vidmar first stepped foot in Svalbard in 2007 while working as a chef on a cruise ship. One of his first thoughts was, “How can people live here?,” but he was also intrigued.

“The sad part (in America) is you work so hard and you still have to worry about money. Then you come here and you have all this nature. No distraction, no huge shopping centers, no billboards saying, ‘buy, buy, buy.'”

A year later, he moved to the island and started working at restaurants and bars in Longyearbyen, a coal mining town turned tourist-and-research attraction.

He decided to grow his own food after becoming frustrated with the absence of fresh produce and the fact that a lack of treatment sites meant organic waste was dumped into the sea.

People thought he was “crazy” trying to grow food in the Arctic.

Initially he experimented with hydroponics – farming in water instead of soil – but that meant using fertilizer, which comes from the mainland. Eventually the city authorities gave him permission to bring in worms from Florida to do the job.

Now, whenever he or his son deliver a tray of microgreens to restaurants, they collect the previous tray and feed the soil to the worms, which break it down to produce natural fertilizer for bigger plants.

His next aim is to heat the greenhouse during winter using a biodigester – which generates energy from organic material – so he can use it all-year-round.

Sustainability

Vidmar also helps fourth- and ninth-grade students at Longyearbyen school to learn farming and sustainability. That has led older students to query the island’s supply chain, said teacher Lisa Dymbe Djonne.

“They question the transportation of food from the mainland to here and how expensive that is,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

“They’re going to interview some of the leaders … to figure out how much it costs for the island and if it is possible to grow our own food,” she added. “It’s a question a lot of people up here have.”

Eivind Uleberg, a scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy Research in Tromso in northern Norway, said that fitted a pattern of rising interest in locally produced food and sustainability in agriculture.

In a phone interview, Uleberg said that, although he was unaware of Vidmar’s undertaking, efforts to produce food locally in Norway were positive.

A short growing season and low temperatures are the main barriers to producing food in such latitudes, he said, but higher temperatures caused by climate change could help.

“There is definitely the potential to produce more vegetables and berries,” he said.

But there are also challenges, Uleberg added, including more rain in the autumn during harvest, and changing conditions in winter that could kill grasses crucial for animal feed.

For Vidmar, such obstacles and the unique conditions are the reason he is determined to produce “the freshest food possible.”

“We’re on a mission … to make this town very sustainable. Because if we can do it here, then what’s everybody else’s excuse?”
…

On a patch of gravel that was once a nondescript bus stop in Kuala Lumpur’s old city, passersby can now find brightly-painted wooden pallets that double as seating and shelves stocked with free books for the taking. At least, for the time being.

The transformation is temporary, a monthlong demonstration to judge the public’s reaction to the idea of turning a slice of the sprawling Malaysian capital no bigger than a small hotel room into a permanent public space.

This try-it-before-you-buy-it approach is known as a pop-up.

Pop-ups have become popular in many cities, often the brainchild of local residents in an effort to improve their neighborhoods or turn derelict spaces into community hubs.

They include cycling activists who paint bike lanes without government approval to push for safer streets, retailers who launch temporary shops in repurposed shipping containers to revitalize flagging high streets or food trucks gathered in empty parking lots.

“We’ve found by working with cities sometimes they are a little bit wary about having to put a lot of investment into public spaces,” said Cecilia Anderson, who leads the public space program at UN-Habitat, the U.N.’s lead agency on urban issues.

“Sometimes it helps to do a small pop-up public space just to showcase on a temporary level what kinds of benefits it has for the city, the citizens, and that neighborhood.”

Public space has been shrinking in the world’s fast-growing cities, where almost 70 percent of the population is expected to live by 2050, compared to just over half today, according to U.N. estimates.

Experts say, however, it should be a paramount goal for city leaders as research shows inadequate, poorly designed or privatized public spaces generate exclusion and marginalization.

“Public space is really the backbone or the skeleton of the city,” Anderson told Reuters.

Highlighting its importance for social inclusion and well-being, public space was included as a target in the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, with the aim to provide universal access to “safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces” by 2030.

‘Ultimate irony’

In Kuala Lumpur’s bustling historic center, local urban regeneration agency Think City installed a pop-up plaza along Petaling Street and three small green spaces, known as parklets.

They form a cluster of benches, plants, and overhead canvas for shade taking up the size of a parking spot along the busy street, as well as a mock microhousing unit in an existing park.

It also spruced up a laneway next to the agency’s headquarters with a mural and a chalkboard inviting ideas on how else to improve the neglected alley.

For Think City director Neil Khor, the pop-ups are an attempt to reignite flagging interest in public space among residents in the city of 6.5 million people.

“This is the ultimate irony — when I was growing up, we had more public space,” said Khor, whose organization works on community-based urban regeneration.

“Some time in the 1980s, we had this mall culture from the United States. Suddenly the public space is exactly inside the mall.”

What people want

While Kuala Lumpur’s extravagant malls never seem to lack for visitors, the pop-ups garnered mixed reviews, if they were noticed at all.

On two recent visits to the temporary public spaces, some of the parklets were empty, though one equipped with mobile phone chargers proved popular with a quartet of teenagers.

A parklet adorned with a chessboard sat vacant while next door, Bangladeshi migrants conducted a vibrant trade in fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk, their produce truck blocking a freshly painted bike lane.

The plaza bedecked with bookshelves drew several curious onlookers, who were invited to leave comments on what they would like to see in the space, and whether it should be made permanent.

Visitors asked for more seating, a drinking fountain, shade and a playground for children. Most respondents declared their enthusiasm for a permanent plaza.

“It’s wonderful, it looks good, it makes the place beautiful and lively. No complaints,” said paralegal John Ng, who stopped by after work.

“There should be more public spaces instead of tall buildings and cars,” he said, standing in the middle of the plaza.

Retiree Emily Tan, taking a break from a shopping trip in Chinatown, preferred to sit on permanent benches next to the pop-up and take in the view.

“This one they should develop as a park,” she said. “More plants, flowers, and let people sit down.”

Universal design

While officially-sanctioned pop-up public spaces can be found in cities around the world, the trend started in the developed world.

A San Francisco design firm invented the parklet, and New York City became a model for carving out small plazas from unused odds and ends on the city’s streets.

“These temporary approaches in the global north were meant to bring informality to cities that didn’t have them,” said Ethan Kent from New York-based non-profit Project for Public Spaces. “These were solutions meant to bring back that life to the streets.”

But as the concept and the designs that go with them have become universal, critics question whether pop-ups can work just everywhere.

“On the one hand, it looks like a free street library, where you’re encouraged to take a book you like,” said Emily Silverman, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

“But the black base, cheerful colors, and especially the position in the middle of a street during an international conference, signal ‘don’t touch,'” said Silverman, referring to the World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur last month.

She said in Jerusalem, free street libraries worked well in secular and middle-class professional areas, but they got vandalized in ultra-Orthodox areas, for fear they would help distribute otherwise forbidden books.

“The [pop-up’s] lure of ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’ can encourage artificial importing, ignoring local context to just get stuff done,” she said.

Khor defended the overall initiative in Kuala Lumpur as a valuable social experiment.

He noted an impromptu badminton game in the alleyway, chess matches between migrants in the parklet, a tea shop that regularly waters the plants in the parklet, and crowds eager to explore a micro-housing prototype.

“I’m not saying these projects are perfect,” he said. “We wanted to show that urban regeneration is a process.”
…

Behind the U.S. move to block Singapore-based Broadcom’s hostile bid for U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm lies a new global struggle for influence over next-generation communications technology — and fears that whoever takes the lead could exploit that advantage for economic gain, theft and espionage.

In the Broadcom-Qualcomm deal, the focus is on so-called “5G” wireless technology, which promises data speeds that rival those of landline broadband now. Its proponents insist that 5G, the next step up from the “4G” networks that now serve most smartphones, will become a critical part of the infrastructure powering everything from self-driving cars to the connected home.

5G remains in the early stages of development. Companies including Qualcomm, based in San Diego, and China’s Huawei have been investing heavily to stake their claim in the underlying technology. Such beachheads can be enormously valuable; control over basic technologies and their patents can yield huge fortunes in computer chips, software and related equipment.

“These transitions come along almost every decade or so,” said Jon Erensen, research director for semiconductors at research firm Gartner. “The government is being very careful to ensure the U.S. keeps its leadership role developing these standards.”

President Donald Trump said late Monday that a takeover of Qualcomm would imperil national security, effectively ending Broadcom’s $117 billion buyout bid. Broadcom said that it is studying the order and that it doesn’t believe it poses any national security threat to the U.S.

Higher stakes

It’s the second recent U.S. warning shot across the bow of foreign telecom makers. At a Senate Intelligence Committee meeting in February, FBI Director Christopher Wray said any company “beholden to foreign governments that don’t share our values” should not be able to “gain positions of power” inside U.S. telecommunications networks.

“That provides the capacity to exert pressure or control over our telecommunications infrastructure, it provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information and it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage,” he said.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House introduced a bill on Jan. 9 that would prohibit government purchases of telecoms equipment from Huawei Technologies and smaller rival ZTE, citing their ties to the Chinese military and backing from the ruling Communist Party. A few years earlier, a congressional panel recommended phone carriers avoid doing business with Huawei or ZTE.

The stakes are even higher in the 5G race. “Qualcomm/Broadcom is like the Fort Sumter of this technology battle,” said GBH Insights analyst Dan Ives, referring to the battle that kicked off the Civil War.

Although its name isn’t widely known outside the technology industry, San Diego-based Qualcomm is one of the world’s leading makers of the processors that power many smartphones and other mobile devices. Qualcomm also owns patents on key pieces of mobile technology that Apple and other manufacturers use in their products.

Compared to earlier generations of wireless technology, “we’re seeing China emerge and start to play a bigger role in the standards developing process,” Erensen said. Given a wave of consolidation in the telecom-equipment industry, fewer companies are involved “and the stakes are bigger,” he said.

National security

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in U.S. companies, cited concerns about Broadcom’s penchant for cutting costs such as research spending. That could lead to Qualcomm losing its leadership in telecom standards, the committee wrote in a letter earlier in March.

Should that happen, Chinese companies such as Huawei, which the CFIUS has previously expressed concerns about, could take a larger, or even a dominant, role in setting 5G technology and standards and practices. That’s where national security concerns come in.

“Over time, that would mean U.S. government and U.S. technology companies could lose a trusted U.S. supplier that does not present the same national security counterintelligence risk that a Chinese supplier does,” said Brian Fleming, an attorney at Miller & Chevalier and former counsel at the Justice Department’s national security division.

Blocking the deal doesn’t eliminate Chinese influence on 5G development, of course. But it might slow it down, Fleming said: “They honestly believe they are helping to protect national security by doing this.”
…

Sao Paulo investment firm SouthRock Capital has signed an agreement with Starbucks that gives it the right to develop and operate branches of the Seattle-based chain in Brazil, the companies said late on Monday.

With the agreement, whose value was not disclosed, all of Starbucks’ retail operations in Latin America are now wholly licensed rather than directly managed, the companies said.

SouthRock founder Ken Pope said in a statement the fund would eye expansion opportunities in new and existing markets.

Starbucks now has 113 stores across the populous states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

“With Starbucks, we see continued opportunities for growth in existing markets … as well as new markets like Brasilia and the South,” he said.

SouthRock, founded in 2015, also owns Brazil Airport Restaurants, which operates in the country’s biggest airports.

Shares in Starbucks opened up 0.5 percent but closed down 0.58 percent. The S&P 500 Index fell 0.64 percent.
…

European Union finance ministers agreed new measures on Tuesday to force accountants and banks to report aggressive tax schemes that help companies shift profits to low-tax countries.

Ministers also added the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Saint Kitts and Nevis to a blacklist of tax havens, while Bahrain, the Marshall Islands and Saint Lucia were delisted, confirming earlier Reuters reports.

Under the rules, proposed by the European Commission in June, accountants, banks and lawyers would be required to inform authorities about “potentially aggressive tax planning arrangements” set up for their clients. The 28 EU states will also share information on harmful tax planning in a bid to discourage the most aggressive tax avoidance schemes.

“It is a new progress for tax justice in the European Union,” EU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici told ministers after they agreed the overhaul.

Once the new rules are finalized and approved by the European Parliament, tax advisers in the EU will risk fines if they do not report potentially harmful cross-border tax schemes.

Penalties should be “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” but EU states will maintain discretion in setting sanctions or fines at national level.

If there is no intermediary, or the tax adviser is located outside the EU, the company or individual using the arrangement will be obliged to disclose it.

EU governments agreed on a compromise text put forward by the Bulgarian presidency of the EU, which slightly softened the Commission’s original proposal. Tax reforms require unanimity among the 28 member states.

Cross-border tax arrangements set up with jurisdictions that have a zero or “almost zero” corporate rate – such as the Channel Islands, Bahamas, Bahrain and the Cayman Islands – must be reported, despite initial opposition from some governments.

But ministers scrapped a requirement to report tax schemes with jurisdictions whose corporate rate is lower than 35 percent of the statutory average within the EU – which could have forced reporting for schemes involving countries with a tax rate

of around 7 percent.

Some states had argued such a requirement “would cause an administrative burden disproportionate to the objectives” of the new rules, a working document prepared by Bulgarian officials showed.

Smaller EU members like Luxembourg and Malta have in the past opposed stricter rules to prevent tax avoidance, fearing they could harm competitiveness. But their finance ministers gave the green light to the Bulgarian compromise. Some members, including Britain, Ireland and Portugal, have already introduced penalties at a national level for intermediaries helping set up aggressive tax schemes.

EU governments also added Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda to a “grey list,” which now includes 62 jurisdictions that do not respect EU anti-tax avoidance standards but have committed to change their practices.

Bulgarian Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov told a news conference after the meeting that commitments made by grey list countries will be made public, a move welcomed by anti-corruption groups because it will increase transparency.

Ministers agreed to move Bahrain, the Marshall Islands and Saint Lucia from the black to the grey list, after they committed to change their tax practices.

American Samoa, Guam, Namibia, Palau, Samoa, and Trinidad and Tobago were already on the blacklist set up in December.

Blacklisted jurisdictions could face reputational damage and stricter controls on their financial transactions with the EU, although no sanctions have been agreed by EU states yet.

 
…

Thailand’s cabinet has agreed to draft a law to regulate cryptocurrency trading, seeking to tax the largely unregulated market.

Government spokesman Nathporn Chatusripitak said Tuesday the Ministry of Finance also proposed the new regulations to help prevent use of digital currencies in money laundering and fraud.

He said details of the proposed regulations would be announced later in the month.

In February, Thailand’s central bank issued a circular asking financial institutions to not handle transactions involving cryptocurrencies.
…

Cambodia is pushing ahead with new legislation in a bid to lure foreign investors to its vibrant casino and gaming industry, promoting the Kingdom as a key gaming center in South East Asia.

The proposed legislation, expected to be passed after general elections this year, has been three years in the making and will oversee an industry currently netting the government almost $50 million in tax revenues.

Cambodian officials said the government was looking to set a tax rate for casino games at between 4 and 5 percent to match regional casinos such as Singapore.

Cambodia’s casino business, with its sense of the “Wild West”, has grown rapidly since the late 1990s, with 65 licensed casinos and the sector dominated by the Hong Kong listed Naga World Hotel and Entertainment complex in Phnom Penh.

Gambling a booming business

Ben Reichel, executive director of the Sydney-listed Donaco International, says across South East Asia there is significant demand underpinning the potential growth in the gaming industry.

“There’s a lot of unsatisfied demand in the region as a whole. If you look at the number of tables compared to somewhere like the USA, it’s actually a very low number of gaming tables available – which is why there is so much illegal competition going on,” Reichel said.

Cambodia has benefited from restrictions or outright bans on legal casinos — such as in Thailand — or where local gamblers are prevented from entry to existing casinos.

Outside Phnom Penh, where Naga World enjoys a monopoly, other key clusters of casinos are in the border town of Poipet, near Thailand, the seaport of Sihanoukville, and to the east along the border with Vietnam.

But a decision by Vietnam’s authorities to allow local gamblers to use Vietnam based casinos was seen as a threat to those casinos near Vietnam’s border.

‘Junket agents’

A major driving force in the growth of the casino business generally lies in operators, known as VIP junket agents. These operators’ role is to act as facilitators, guaranteeing an amount of revenue, with offers of free accommodation, travel and other benefits to the gamblers.

And the impact of such VIP junket operators is significant. Cambodia’s premier casino, NagaWorld, recently reported a 140 per cent growth in VIP rolling turnover to $21.1 billion for 2017 up from $8.71 billion a year earlier, according Naga Corp’s Hong Kong stock exchange released financial results of February 28.

NagaWorld revenues amounted to $625.33 million in 2017 up from $225.66 million the previous year. Its net profit rose 39 percent to $255.2 million.

Reeling in Chinese gamblers

The boon to the Cambodian market also came with an easing of visa rules for Chinese visitors. In 2017 arrivals from China rose more than 40 per cent to 1.2 million, surpassing Vietnam to become the largest source of tourists in Cambodia.

“The government has said they want to make China one of their top three — if not number one source of tourism going forward,” said Donaco’s Reichel.

In comments emailed to VOA, executives of Macau-based VIP junket operator Suncity Group said; “Chinese gamers will definitely be the main course for the VIP market in Cambodia”.

Cambodia also offers Chinese gamblers an alternative to Macau where in recent years VIP junket numbers have fallen against the backdrop of President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption.

Another ‘hot’ Cambodian gambling area

Poipet, Cambodia’s main border crossing with Thailand, is located between Siem Reap and Battambang. The Cambodian government is looking to further develop the Poipet region as an industrial zone.

Donaco’s Reichel, whose company oversees the Star Vegas casino in Poipet, says most costumers are from Thailand, but there is also a presence of gamblers from Indonesia, Malaysia, and expatriates living in Thailand.

“It really is growing rapidly and with the casino industry there you can cross the border [from Thailand] and you don’t have to change currency. The whole town operates using Thai baht — it’s like a little piece of Thailand on Cambodian soil,” he said.

But some operators are also cautious. Macau-based gaming investor, Amax International, with links to Cambodia, says the VIP market especially can be volatile.

The gaming business, it said, is sensitive to economic downturns, uncertainties, and factors affecting tourism. Amax added that countries, such as China, “may impose or adjust government restrictions on currency conversion or their ability to export currency.”
…

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called himself “a proud feminist” Monday and said all men should support women’s rights and gender equality.

His statement was loudly applauded by hundreds of women and a sprinkling of men at the opening of the annual two-week meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women, a U.N. body that Guterres called “vital to end the stereotypes and discrimination that limit women’s and girls’ opportunities.”

The U.N. chief said changing “the unequal power dynamics” that underpin discrimination and violence against women is “the greatest human rights challenge of our time” – and a goal that is “in everyone’s interests.”

“Discrimination against women damages communities, organizations, companies, economies and societies,” he said. “That is why all men should support women’s rights and gender equality. And that is why I consider myself a proud feminist.”

Guterres added that this is “a pivotal moment for the rights of women and girls,” with the issue being discussed around the globe in the (hash)MeToo and (hash)Time’sUp movements.

As examples of the male-dominated world and male-dominated culture that needs changing, he said, “Women are pioneering scientists and mathematicians – but they occupy less than 30 percent of research and development jobs worldwide.”

And despite women being accomplished artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers, this year 33 men took home Oscars at the Academy Awards, but only six women did, he said.

The theme of this year’s U.N. meeting, which ends March 23, is “Empowering Rural Women and Girls.” Guterres called such women “particularly marginalized.”

According to UN Women, rural women do much of the work but fare worse than rural men or urban women.

“Less than 13 percent of landholders worldwide are women, and while the global pay gap between men and women stands at 23 percent, in rural areas, it can be as high as 40 percent,” UN Women says.

Ireland’s U.N. ambassador, Geraldine Byrne Nason, the commission chair, said its work will focus on these women “who are furthest behind” and are “disproportionately affected by violence, poverty, climate change and hunger.”

“Often their predicament quite simply shames us,” she said. 

“We want to make a difference. We have had enough rhetoric. Time is up for the debates that are long on promises and short on delivery,” Byrne Nason said. “We are on the move to bring a tangible result – one that will impact on the lives of women and girls in rural areas.”

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told the opening session that almost one-third of employed women worldwide work in agriculture and there are 400 million women who are farm workers.

“Half of rural poor women in developing countries have no basic literacy, and 15 million girls of primary school age will never, never get the chance to learn to read or write in primary school,” she said. 

A rural girl is “twice as likely to be married as a child” compared to an urban girl, she added.

Mlambo-Ngcuka warned that progress toward gender equality is slowing and some gains are even reversing.

She pointed to the World Economic Forum’s 2017 “Global Gender Gap Report,” which found the gap between women and men widening in health, education, politics and the workplace for the first time since the forum’s research started in 2006.

“It predicts that it will take – and listen to this – 217 years before we achieve gender parity,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said, stressing that this can’t be allowed to happen. 

“It has never been so urgent to hold ourselves and leaders accountable for the promises to accelerate progress,” she said. “The ‘Me Too’ movement and ‘Time’s Up’ has also showed us change can happen fast – and that women must be believed. This is a moment that we intend to sustain for all.”
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The daily commute from Mexico to California farms is the same as it was before Donald Trump became president. Hundreds of Mexicans cross the border and line the sidewalks of Calexico’s tiny downtown by 4 a.m., napping on cardboard sheets and blankets or sipping coffee from a 24-hour doughnut shop until buses leave for the fields.

For decades, cross-border commuters have picked lettuce, carrots, broccoli, onions, cauliflower and other vegetables that make California’s Imperial Valley “America’s Salad Bowl” from December through March. As Trump visits the border Tuesday, the harvest is a reminder of how little has changed despite heated immigration rhetoric in Washington.

Trump will inspect eight prototypes for a future 30-foot border wall that were built in San Diego last fall. He made a “big, beautiful wall” a centerpiece of his campaign and said Mexico would pay for it.

But border barriers extend the same 654 miles (1,046 kilometers) they did under President Barack Obama and so far Trump hasn’t gotten Mexico or Congress to pay for a new wall.

Trump also pledged to expand the Border Patrol by 5,000 agents, but staffing fell during his first year in office farther below a congressional mandate because the government has been unable to keep pace with attrition and retirements. There were 19,437 agents at the end of September, down from 19,828 a year earlier.

In Tijuana, tens of thousands of commuters still line up weekday mornings for San Diego at the nation’s busiest border crossing, some for jobs in landscaping, housekeeping, hotel maids and shipyard maintenance. The vast majority are U.S. citizens and legal residents or holders of “border crossing cards” that are given to millions of Mexicans in border areas for short visits. The border crossing cards do not include work authorization but some break the rules.

Even concern about Trump’s threat to end the North American Free Trade Agreement is tempered by awareness that border economies have been integrated for decades. Mexican “maquiladora” plants, which assemble duty-free raw materials for export to the U.S., have made televisions, medical supplies and other goods since the 1960s.

“How do you separate twins that are joined at the hip?” said Paola Avila, chairwoman of the Border Trade Alliance, a group that includes local governments and business chambers. “Our business relationships will continue to grow regardless of what happens with NAFTA.”

Workers in the Mexicali area rise about 1 a.m., carpool to the border crossing and wait about an hour to reach Calexico’s portico-covered sidewalks by 4 a.m. Some beat the border bottleneck by crossing at midnight to sleep in their cars in Calexico, a city of 40,000 about 120 miles (192 kilometers) east of San Diego. 

Fewer workers make the trek now than 20 and 30 years ago. But not because of Trump. 

Steve Scaroni, one of Imperial Valley’s largest labor contractors, blames the drop on lack of interest among younger Mexicans, which has forced him to rely increasingly on short-term farmworker visas known as H-2As. 

“We have a saying that no one is raising their kids to be farmworkers,” said Scaroni, 55, a third-generation grower and one of Imperial Valley’s largest labor contractors. Last week, he had two or three buses of workers leaving Calexico before dawn, compared to 15 to 20 buses during the 1980s and 1990s.

Crop pickers at Scaroni’s Fresh Harvest Inc. make $13.18 an hour but H-2As bring his cost to $20 to $30 an hour because he must pay for round-trip transportation, sometimes to southern Mexico, and housing. The daily border commuters from Mexicali cost only $16 to $18 after overhead.

Scaroni’s main objective is to expand the H-2A visa program, which covered about 165,000 workers in 2016. On his annual visit to Washington in February to meet members of Congress and other officials, he decided within two hours that nothing changed under Trump. 

“Washington is not going to fix anything,” he said. “You’ve got too many people – lobbyists, politicians, attorneys – who make money off the dysfunction. They make money off of not solving problems. They just keep talking about it.”

Jose Angel Valenzuela, who owns a house in Mexicali and is working his second harvest in Imperial Valley, earns more picking cabbage in an hour than he did in a day at a factory in Mexico. He doesn’t pay much attention to news and isn’t following developments on the border wall.

“We’re doing very well,” he said as workers passed around beef tacos during a break. “We haven’t seen any noticeable change.”

Jack Vessey, whose family farms about 10,000 acres in Imperial Valley, relies on border commuters for about half of his workforce. Imperial has only 175,000 people and Mexicali has about 1 million, making Mexico an obvious labor pool.

Vessey, 42, said he has seen no change on the border and doesn’t expect much. He figures 10 percent of Congress embraces open immigration policies, another 10 percent oppose them and the other 80 percent don’t want to touch it because their voters are too divided.

“It’s like banging your head against the wall,” he said. 
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