YCLOAK

The savannah scrubland where Chief João Ponce once hunted deer and wild boar in Brazil has given way to neat rows of soy and corn that a tractor sprays with herbicide. In the next field, silver grain silos shimmer in the hot sun.

Ponce is head of the Uirapuru indigenous community which has allowed local farmers to produce crops on one-third of its 44,500-acre (18,000-hectare) reservation in southwestern Mato Grosso state.

The one-tenth or less share of the harvests has helped the Pareci natives to buy cars and smartphones, replace hammocks with beds and equip their thatched huts with widescreen TVs, freezers and broadband Internet antennas.

“We’re surrounded by farmers. We can’t live off hunting anymore. The animals are gone,” he said, sitting in a hammock in his thatched hut.

But the partnership with non-native farmers, fueled by an insatiable demand for Brazilian soy in China and other markets, is illegal and has alarmed environmentalists.

Brazil’s environmental regulator Ibama last week fined six native communities and a dozen farmers on reservation land for using genetically modified crops (GMO) and engaging in large-scale mechanized agriculture. Both are banned on reservation land.

The unprecedented fines totaling 129 million reais ($33 million) mark an unexpected escalation in a dispute between rival federal agencies, environmentalists, farmers and native advocacy groups over Indian tribes getting into commercial agriculture in Brazil’s rapidly expanding farm belt.

“We are not targeting the Indian. He has been besieged, co-opted. He’s a victim, and the environment of the reservations is being hurt by this pressure for land,” said René de Oliveira, the agency’s main enforcer.

He said the use of GMO soy was the worst crime because nobody knows the environmental impact such crops can have on the biodiversity of protected areas like reservations.

The crackdown could mean trouble for major grain trading firms such as ADM, Cargill and Bunge if they are caught buying soy grown on native land.

“The companies can be fined, because the Indians are not allowed to grow GMO crops and traders are not allowed to buy from reservations,” Oliveira said.

Cargill said in an emailed statement that it only bought products originating from properties in compliance with Brazilian law and verified their status before any commercial transaction. ADM did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bunge directed a request to soy processor association Abiove.

Five grain trading houses, including Cargill and Bunge, were recently fined 24.6 million reais for buying crops grown on illegally deforested land in the Amazon.

Local farmers said it was very hard to trace the origin of grains because traders only need to ask for the seller’s tax ID and not the location or size of the plantation.

That has made it easier for tribes looking to cash in on an agribusiness boom, turning their coveted savannah into fertile farmland with the know-how of white farmers.

Ibama fined communities of the Pareci, Nambikwara and Manoki tribes and embargoed 40,000 acres of their land that were being used for large-scale GMO plantations in the municipalities of Campo Novo do Parecis and Conquista do Oeste, or “Conquest of the West,” near the border with Bolivia.

The tribes are pressing to change environmental and Indian laws so that they can keep their plantations and sell their harvests legally. The issue has put Ibama at odds with the Indian affairs agency Funai, which wants to allow the tribes to become farmers.

“We want to be able to sell to Bunge, Amaggi, Cargill, Dreyfus, so we can buy our own machinery. But without licensing that shows the origin, our soy has to go out clandestinely,” said Arnaldo Zunizakae, who manages farming on the vast Pareci reservation of 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares).

Demand for Land

China’s appetite for Brazilian soybeans has driven up land values in Mato Grosso, the country’s biggest soy state. Eager for more access to reservation lands, farm and mining lobbies in Brasilia are exploiting divisions between Ibama and Funai.

Fault lines have also opened within the tribes between traditionalists and opportunists at odds over how to manage ancestral lands and preserve native customs and culture.

Brazilian law prohibits the arrangement under which the tribes have allowed farmers to develop industrial-scale production of commodity crops in return for a share of the harvest. The farmers cover the costs and hire crop dusters to spray fields with herbicide for GMO crops.

Funai said in an email that it was seeking a formula that allowed native peoples to choose their own development path. But federal prosecutors dealing with native issues said GMO crops or partnerships with non-natives would not be permitted.

“We won’t be able to sow this year’s crop. Conventional crops are more costly to store and harder to sell. We’d be pushed back into primitive 20th century agriculture,” said Zunizakae, climbing combine harvester bought by his tribe.

Unexpected Allies

The neighboring Nambikwara tribe has taken to blocking the road through its reservation to press for the right to engage in commercial agriculture. With their faces painted, Nambikwaras have demanded a toll from truck drivers moving soy for export.

The grains are trucked to barges on the Madeira river and loaded onto ships in the Amazon for China and other countries.

Brazil’s powerful farm lobby, a traditional foe of native communities in disputes over their ancestral lands, seized on the cause of the Indians involved in commercial agriculture.

“I totally support the Indian’s right to employ his free initiative to overcome poverty and not depend on handouts from the government,” said Nilson Leitão, a congressman from Mato Grosso and leaders of the farm states caucus.

The prospect of allowing commercial farming on reservations galls environmentalists and anthropologists who warn it will destroy native cultures and lead to exploittion of the Indians.

Not so, say Pareci elders, who point to advances made by their 1,800-strong tribe due to agricultural income, including better schools, health care and university grants for Parecis.

“If it were not for this, we would be dying,” said Chief Narciso Kazoizax, wearing a jaguar skin over his shoulders and a headdress of red and blue macaw feathers. Eighty percent of his tribe speak their native Aruak language, a sure sign of a strong culture, he said.

Infant mortality among the Parecis has fallen dramatically from 24 deaths in 2015 to only one last year and the community has been able to afford expensive surgeries that Funai’s medical service can no longer provide.

“We do have a better life thanks to the plantations,” said Zeferino, a shaman who sat weaving a basket as he watched Liverpool defeat Roma in the European soccer Champions League.

“We don’t want to become rich like white men. We just want to survive better,” he said with a smile, revealing perfect dentures.
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A campaign by Colombia to eradicate child labor discovered nearly 5,000 children working in the past three months, including hundreds from economically stricken Venezuela, the government said on Tuesday.

While child labor rates have fallen in recent years, overall about 850,000 children aged 5 to 17 are estimated to be working and not attending school full-time or at all, government figures show.

Of the 5,000 cases of child labor found, more than a third were uncovered by government mobile units on farms and streets, while under half were reported through a free telephone hotline, according to Colombia’s child protection agency (ICBF).

Under Colombian law, children under 15 are not allowed to work and no child can be employed in a hazardous job that poses a risk to health or life.

“We have found children working in markets, in public spaces, at the traffic lights, in rural areas,” Karen Abudinen head of ICBF, told media on Tuesday.

The ICBF has identified 350 Venezuelan children who were victims of child labour in Colombia since March, particularly in those provinces sharing a border with Venezuela, Abudinen said.

In Colombia’s northern border city of Cucuta, Venezuelan teenagers can be seen working as street vendors, and young children beg with their parents on sidewalks.

About 672,000 Venezuelans have crossed into Colombia, legally and illegally, since 2015, according to Colombian authorities, fleeing economic turmoil and severe shortages of food and medicine.

Those migrating to Colombia without passports and work visas are vulnerable to labor exploitation, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in Colombia has said.

Along with poverty, driving child labor rates are local cultural attitudes. Work is seen as building character, as a normal part of development and as a responsibility children have to contribute to the home. Abudinen called it “a cultural problem that we can’t ignore.”

The concerted public awareness campaign against child labor began in February, which also aims to encourage people to come forward and report cases of children working.

“Child labor is a factory of inequality because a child who works does not have the same opportunities as those who are studying,” Abudinen said in a statement.

Globally, 152 million children aged 5 to 17 are victims of forced labor, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Children toil in homes, mines, fields and factories, carrying heavy loads, working long hours and suffering exposure to pesticides and other toxic substances, it said.

“Their very lives can be at risk,” the ILO said in a statement on Tuesday.

The ILO said latest figures show from 2012 through 2016 that almost no progress was made on reducing child labor among the youngest aged 5 to 11, and the number of young children in hazardous work has increased.
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Ivan Duque, the frontrunner to win Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday, said tax cuts he is proposing would bolster investment in the Andean nation by a third over the next four years and help stimulate sluggish economic growth.

The right-wing 41-year-old lawyer and former senator, running almost 20 points ahead of leftist rival Gustavo Petro in polls, told Reuters in an interview late on Monday that he hopes to attract fresh investment to help lift economic growth to as much as 5 percent from 1.8 percent last year.

Petro, a former mayor of Bogota and one-time rebel from the now-defunct M19 insurgency, has spooked investors with plans to overhaul Colombia’s market-oriented economic model and gradually abandon dependence on the production of oil and coal.

Business-friendly Duque, on the other hand, has pledged to maintain crude and coal production, reduce taxes on businesses and raise government finances by cutting tax evasion.

“First of all, I want growth triggered by a high rate of investment, more than 30 percent of gross domestic product,” Duque said at his campaign headquarters.

“I know it’s ambitious, but that has to be a goal we set, domestic investment and foreign investment.”

Total investment reached 23.1 percent of GDP last year, up 0.6 percent from the previous year, according to the DANE statistics department.

Duque, who is backed by powerful former president Alvaro Uribe, said he would seek investment from infrastructure, agriculture, the service industry and tourism.

“Investors can have absolute clarity that my goal is for them to come to the country and that their investments translate into an improvement in the living conditions of Colombians,” he said, adding that he would guarantee the rule of law and clear investment rules.

The additional investment and a crackdown on tax evasion would help compensate for cuts in business duties, Duque said.

He also plans to reduce government spending and make it more efficient.

He said he believed his administration could cut value added tax and income tax evasion by 50 percent, allowing overall tax rates to come down and in turn attract more investment.

Duque, who worked at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington until 2014, said he would abide by the so-called fiscal rule, which obliges the government to reduce the fiscal deficit, as well as cut debt levels in the $320 billion economy, Latin America’s fourth largest.

Colombia registered a fiscal deficit of 3.6 percent of GDP in 2017 and is expected to see it fall to 3.1 percent this year.
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Tourists reached out to feel the heat from the still-smoldering lava, tossed sticks to see them burst into flames or watched a guide toast marshmallows on hot rocks as they hiked on Guatemala’s Pacaya volcano, which days earlier had spewed lava.  

From the peak of Pacaya they had a clear view of the nearby Volcano of Fire, which erupted June 3, emitting a fast-moving avalanche of super-heated muck that killed at least 110 people and left about 200 missing.

“I would encourage people to come and see the beauty of the place; there’s nothing necessarily to fear,” said Maximilian Penn, a chef from New York gazing at the breathtaking view. “It’s just important to have an understanding of what’s going on here. It’s a dangerous place, so you should have respect.” 

Volcano tourism is the life blood of villages like San Francisco de Sales, perched near Pacaya’s peak, and for locals it is a question of learning to live with a generous monster. Pacaya is the main tourist draw as it is more accessible while also offering a clear view of the Volcano of Fire. 

Silvia Sazo, one of the few female tour guides at Pacaya, saw her own home destroyed by a 2010 eruption. Her family rebuilt in the same place, and there are still spots on the ground near her house where vapor and heat stream from the ground. 

“You can put eggs, corn and chayotes in the ground, and they cook,” she said. “We don’t have anywhere else to live. … This is our way of life.”

The Pacaya volcano began having effusive eruptions in 2006 while the deadly blast of ash and rock from the Volcano of Fire was an explosive eruption. 

Although locals don’t use the scientific terms, they know the difference: Explosive eruptions of ash, gas and rock can easily kill, while effusive eruptions — lava flows — can be interesting for tourists to look at. Some volcanos have both types, and Pacaya had an explosive blast in 2010 that killed a reporter and two locals. 

But there is always danger with both types, including the emission of toxic gases, notes John Stix, a professor at the earth and planetary sciences department at McGill University in Canada.

“I think anyone who visits an active volcano needs to appreciate that there is some risk involved, and the risk increases as one gets closer to the active vent or crater,” Stix wrote.

Which, in far less scientific terms, is what locals say.

“We don’t worry about the lava, we worry about the crater” from which explosive eruptions come, said Sazo.

Residents who depend on Pacaya for their livelihood have learned to respect and read the volcano, like park maintenance worker Juan Francisco Alfaro, who lives in the nearby hamlet of Patrocinio. 

“We are always alert. You don’t wait, you go if there is an explosive eruption,” Alfaro said. 

Many carefully watch the color of the plumes coming from the crater: White is OK, but black means danger. 

“We have a lot of respect for it,” Alfaro said. “One sees what happened to San Miguel Los Lotes,” which was destroyed by the Volcano of Fire eruption.

Jose Quezada, who has guided tours for 18 years, estimates half the people in San Francisco de Sales earn a living from volcano tourism. 

“Over time, we have learned to live with the volcano,” he said. “You don’t fool around with the volcano.”

Each day, Quezada gets reports from residents who have hiked up the mountain earlier in the day about where it is safe to take tour groups. Going to the summit and peering into the crater is no longer allowed. 

“If there is a change in the volcano, a change in its activity, we return immediately,” he said. 

Tourists come to Pacaya for the altitude, cool weather, stunning views and singular experience of seeing the force of nature. 

The altitude — the volcanos are the only geographic features rising off the steamy plains — is one reason why many people live in villages like San Francisco de Sales. It is perfect for growing coffee, but after a plant disease wiped out coffee trees, people recently began planting avocados. 

“Coffee is no longer profitable after we got coffee rust,” said farmer Roberto Mijango. “We’re only getting paid $18 for a 100-pound (46-kilogram) sack of coffee berries. The fertilizer costs more than that.”

But the 3- and 4-year-old avocado trees won’t bear enough fruit to support the farmers for another few years. So without the tourism income, the villages around Pacaya would be impoverished.  

Samuel Dandoy, a tourist from a town in Belgium near the French border, stood near the top of Pacaya on Friday looking at the lava flow. 

“I really came for the volcanos in Guatemala,” said Dandoy. “I feel amazed. It’s really impressive.”

Dandoy and his traveling companion, Camille Bourbeau of Montreal, lived through the ash that fell on Antigua from the Volcano of Fire. 

The two joined relief efforts, making sandwiches and distributing them to victims and rescuers. 

“I couldn’t just sit there, I had to do something,” said Bourbeau. “I volunteered a bit. I made sandwiches for them. I went to give the supplies that were donated, so I felt I tried to help.”
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The European Central Bank will on Thursday weigh when and how to end its bond-buying stimulus program — an exit that will have far-reaching consequences across the economy, from long-suffering savers to Europe’s indebted governments.

 

The bank, which sets monetary policy for the 19 countries that use the euro, has been buying 30 billion euros ($35.5 billion) a month in government and corporate bonds from banks. The purchases are slated to run at least through September, and longer if necessary.

 

Analysts say that decisions on the exit path, which could include several intermediate steps, might come Thursday or at the July 26 meeting. Scenarios include reducing the purchases past September, and then stopping them at the end of the year.

 

An end to the stimulus would be part of a major shift in the global economy. The ECB would be joining the U.S. Federal Reserve in withdrawing the massive monetary stimulus deployed to combat the Great Recession and its aftermath. The Fed is expected to raise rates at its meeting Wednesday.

 

The ECB’s bond purchases, which started in March 2015, pump newly printed money into the economy, which in theory should help raise inflation toward the bank’s goal of just under 2 percent. Inflation was an annual 1.9 percent in May, but the bank needs to be able to say that inflation will stay in line with its target even after the stimulus is withdrawn.

 

Market participants pricked up their ears last week when top ECB official Peter Praet said Thursday’s meeting would be an occasion to consider when to wind down the program. Praet supervises economics at the ECB as a member of its six-member executive board and in that capacity proposes monetary policy moves for debate and decision by the 25-member governing council. That gives his words extra weight.

 

The impact of the ECB’s bond-buying stimulus has been felt across the economy.

 

It has pushed up the prices of assets like stocks, bonds and real estate but also lowered returns for savers. It has helped keep borrowing costs low for European governments as the ECB purchases have driven bond prices up and yields down. Yields and prices move in opposite directions.

 

For example, the Italian government, which is burdened with the second-highest debt load in the eurozone after Greece at 132 percent of gross domestic product, pays only 2.79 percent annually to borrow for 10 years. That’s less than the 2.96 percent yield on 10-year U.S. Treasurys.

 

The ECB meeting will be held in Riga, Latvia, as one of the ECB’s occasional road meetings away from its Frankfurt headquarters to underline its role as a pan-European institution. A bribery investigation is expected to keep the head of the host central bank, Ilmars Rimsevics, from attending the meeting and news conference with ECB President Mario Draghi.

The ECB is continuing its slow progress toward withdrawing the stimulus despite turbulence in Italy, where the new populist government has questioned the spending and debt restrictions required of euro members. Concerns over Italian politics caused big swings in the country’s financial markets for several days last month, before easing.

 

Analysts Joerg Kraemer and Michael Schubert at Commerzbank said that the ECB may soon have to end its stimulus program anyway as it risks running out of bonds that are eligible for purchase. The ECB has limited itself to no more than one-third of any member country’s outstanding bonds to avoid becoming the dominant creditor of member states.

 

With the purchases widely expected to be stopped at the end of this year, they said, attention would now turn to how long the bank would wait after the bond-purchase exit before starting to raise its interest rate benchmarks.

 

“The ECB probably wants to ensure that the end of bond purchases does not unleash speculation about interest rate hikes,” they wrote in a research note. “The ECB Council… might declare that rates will not be increased for ‘at least’ six months after the end of purchases.”

 

Currently the short-term interest rate benchmark is zero, and the rate on deposits left by commercial banks at the ECB is negative 0.4 percent. The negative rate is a penalty aimed at pushing banks to lend that money instead of hoard it.

 

 
…

The separatist campaign in Indian-administered Kashmir broke out into major violence in 1989. More than 60,000 people are estimated to have died and 10,000 to have disappeared in the disputed Himalayan region. That has pushed their families into poverty. For the region’s youth, earning a living has been a challenge, especially educated young women. However, one group of young entrepreneurs is taking matters into their own hands. Yusuf Jameel has more, in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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The new generation of global entrepreneurs is going into business motivated by purpose rather than just profit, according to research by the HSBC banking group released on Tuesday.

One in four entrepreneurs aged under 35 said they were more motivated by social impact than by moneymaking, compared to just over one in 10 of those aged over 55, according the results of the HSBC survey.

“Our research suggests this is a generational shift,” Stuart Parkinson, global chief investment officer of HSBC, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Younger entrepreneurs are focused on environmental and social concerns and that’s because they see these values as being their own.”

The bank surveyed 3,700 entrepreneurs in 11 countries. One in five said their priority as a business owner was to deliver solutions to environmental and social challenges.

Parkinson said social media had brought greater scrutiny of businesses, while awareness of the social and environmental impacts of business practices had also increased.

“Social enterprise has taken off as this new formula for success, which is this combination of capitalism and doing good, and younger entrepreneurs are clearly leading this,” he said.

Social enterprises are businesses with a mission to benefit society or the environment as well as turn a profit and Britain is seen as a global leader in the innovative sector.

Last year it had about 70,000 employing nearly 1 million people last year, according to membership organization Social Enterprise UK, up from 55,000 businesses in 2007.

Zakia Moulaoui runs the social enterprise Invisible Cities, which employs homeless people as city guides in Edinburgh, and plans to expand the business to Manchester and Glasgow by the end of the year.

The 31-year-old said there was a greater awareness amongst her generation that being able to address social issues and earn an income was possible.

“People who thought they couldn’t do that because they needed to make a living for themselves might have just worked in a regular business and volunteered at the weekend, but now people know they can reconcile the two,” Moulaoui said.

Britain’s Confederation of British Industry (CBI), an employers’ group, has found that two thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds think companies should put society’s interest first.

“This is a view shared by employees, customers and communities. CEOs of firms of all sizes are clearer than ever before — purpose and profit go hand in hand,” said Josh Hardie, deputy director-general of the CBI.
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Financial disclosure forms released late Monday show that White House special adviser — and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law — Jared Kushner’s wealth and debt both appear to have risen over the year, an indication of the complex state of his finances and the potential conflicts that confront some of his investments.

 

Disclosures issued by the White House for Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, showed that Kushner held assets totaling at least $181 million. His previous 2017 disclosure had showed assets in at least the $140 million range. Kushner and Ivanka Trump, jointly held at least $240 million in assets last year.

 

The financial disclosures released by the White House and filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics routinely show both assets and debts compiled in broad ranges between low and high estimates, making it difficult to precisely chart the rise and fall of the financial portfolios of federal government officials.

 

The White House released the disclosures for Kushner and Ivanka Trump on a heavy news day, while the world’s media lavished attention on President Trump’s preparations to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for talks over nuclear weapons. The White House had released the president’s own financial report last month.

 

A spokesman for the couple said Monday that the couple’s disclosure portrayed both assets and debts that have not changed much over the past year — and stressed that Kushner and Ivanka Trump have both complied with all federal ethics rules.

 

“Since joining the administration, Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump have complied with the rules and restrictions as set out by the Office of Government Ethics,” said Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for the couple’s ethics lawyer, Abbe Lowell. “As to the current filing which OGE also reviews, their net worth remains largely the same, with changes reflecting more the way the form requires disclosure than any substantial difference in assets or liabilities.”

 

One of Kushner’s biggest holdings, a real estate tech startup called Cadre that he co-founded with his brother, Joshua, rose sharply in value. The latest disclosure shows it was worth at least $25 million at the end of last year, up from a minimum value of $5 million in his previous disclosure.

 

The bulk of Ivanka Trump’s assets — more than $50 million worth — was contained in a trust that holds her business and corporations. That trust generated over $5 million in revenue last year.

 

She reported a stake in the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., worth between $5 million and $25 million. The hotel has been a focus of lawsuits against the president and ethics watchdogs who say Trump is violating the Constitution by profiting from his office as diplomats spend big money there.

 

The disclosure also showed that Kushner has assumed growing debt over the past year, both expanding his use of revolving lines of credit and taking on additional debt of between $5 million and $25 million as part of his family company’s purchase last year of a New Jersey apartment complex.

 

A series of interim financial reports last year showed that Kushner had increased lines of credit with Bank of America, New York Community Bank and Signature Bank, each from at least $1 million to $5 million. Such moves do not mean that Kushner has yet accumulated that debt, but has the ability to do so.

 

The new disclosure shows that Kushner did take on a new debt last year with Bank of America worth between $5 million and $25 million — but jointly with other investors in Quail Ridge LLC, a company used for his family firm’s purchase of Quail Ridge, a 1,032-unit apartment community in Plainsboro, N.J., near Princeton. The disclosures also showed that Ivanka Trump owns an interest in that purchase through a family trust.

 

The disclosure showed that Kushner reported making at least $5 million in income from the development since Kushner Companies bought the complex in September. The family business has made a splash with high-profile deals for buildings in New York City in the past decade, but lately has been returning to its roots by buying garden apartments in the suburbs.

 

Under an ethics agreement he signed when he joined the administration in early 2017, Kushner withdrew from his position as CEO of Kushner Companies. But even as a passive investor, he retains many lucrative investments — which ethics critics have warned could raise conflicts of interest.
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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is campaigning for re-election, seized on the latest Turkish growth figures as a vindication of his economic policies in the face of skepticism from not only voters but international investors of the country’s economic strength.

The economy grew by 7.4 percent in the first quarter, beating expectations. “We continue to be one of the fastest-rowing countries in the world,” Erdogan said at an electoral rally in Istanbul. He also claimed victory against what he called “conspirators” whom he blamed for last month’s heavy falls of the Turkish lira.

In May, the currency fell more than 10 percent as international investors fled the Turkish market over concerns about double-digit inflation and a growing current account deficit. Financial order was only restored by a steep emergency increase in interest rates, which saw the lira recoup some its losses.

Fueling concerns

But analysts warn the strong growth figures will only fuel concerns that the government policy of priming growth by massive public expenditures is unsustainable.

“The current account deficit is more than 6 percent of GDP and inflation above 12 percent, the starting point for the rebalancing process is bad, and a prolonged commitment to a tighter policy mix after the elections will be necessary to avoid further market pressure,” economist Inan Demir of Nomura Holding wrote Monday.

Tighter economic policy usually means reduced government expenditure and higher interest rates.

Turkey’s robust economy has been the bedrock of Erdogan and his ruling AK Party’s 16 years of electoral success. But despite more than a year of sustained strong growth, opinion polls have recorded voter dissatisfaction over the government’s handling of the economy.

Fifty-one percent of voters polled cited the economy as a primary concern, according to the Metropoll polling firm. Last year, security worries topped voter worries. Other polls found that a majority of voters blamed the government for their economic concerns.

“It’s a tremendous liability for Erdogan,” analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners said. “This is an economy that grows, but not in labor-intensive way. Employment has decreased in the second quarter (2019), and things have become more expensive, and nobody is investing into new factories because loans have increased in excess of 22 percent.

“And clearly the wealth is not trickling down, whatever wealth has been created is not be felt by people on the streets, so there is a lot of public discontent,” Yesilada added.

The unemployment rate remains about 10 percent, according to recent Turkish Statistical Institute data.

Payments ahead of elections

In May, Erdogan announced two payments of over $200 for pensioners to coincide with religious holidays. The first installment is due this week, and is part of a multibillion-dollar giveaway to voters ahead of elections.

But analyst Yesilada warned the benefits of the payments are being overshadowed by the financial pain of this month’s increase in interest rates.

“We all use loans, the middle class use loans to buy houses; businesses use loans to expand. Even before the latest (interest) hikes, they were already at a 10-year high. Banks have nearly stopped making new loans; we are going into a credit crunch. For me, the recession is inevitable,” Yesilada said.

The president’s challengers are focusing on economic fears.

“Erdogan can’t survive this economic crisis,” CHP Party candidate Muharrem İnce said during a rally in Istanbul Monday. “Turkey is heading to dark days. Don’t be surprised if the Turkish lira hits 8 or 10 to the (U.S.) dollar. When troubled days have come to countries around the world, they couldn’t get through them unless they changed leaders.”

In May, at the start of the presidential and parliamentary elections, the lira was less than four against the U.S. dollar. It now stands at over 4.5, peaking at nearly 5 against the U.S. dollar.

Erdogan’s public construction boom, including building one of the world’s biggest airports as well as some of the longest bridges and tunnels, is also now an electoral target.

“Turkey has resources, but they are in the pockets of thieves. (The government) ran up $453 billion in debt. They collected $2 trillion from your pockets. What happened in return? Did your son find a job?” İYİ (Good) Party presidential candidate Meral Aksener asked.

Critical elections

Analysts predict the two-pronged attack by Erdogan’s challengers over the economy is likely to intensify, as economic concerns are expected to continue to dominate the critical elections.

“This election cycle is happening against a background of a volatile economic environment with a lot of stress on the currency with uncertainty where the economy is heading. This is turning the election campaign into a less certain outcome,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Istanbul-based Edam think tank.

Opponents accuse the president of calling elections 18 months early in a bid to take advantage of the country’s strong growth. But many opinion polls now indicate Erdogan’s lead narrowing and being forced into an electoral runoff. Analysts warn the economy that was once the president’s most significant asset could ultimately be what ousts him from power.
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President Donald Trump tweeted out more criticism of U.S. trade partners Monday, including allies in Europe and Canada, adding to his declarations that the United States will no longer tolerate what he has called “trade abuse.”

That was part of a string of messages in which the president asserted the United States “pays close to the entire cost of NATO” while other member countries take advantage of the U.S. on trade.

“We protect Europe [which is good] at great financial loss, and then get unfairly clobbered on Trade,” he said.”Change is coming!”

NATO members, in general, make direct financial contributions based on their economic output, and as a result of being the world’s biggest economy the United States does contribute a larger amount than other nations.Indirectly, NATO members contribute to the alliance through the size of their military budgets, and the United States also spends more on defense than any other nation.

Trump tweeted from Singapore where he traveled for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after attending a meeting of G-7 leaders in Canada.

After Trump left, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Trump’s decision to invoke national security grounds to impose new tariffs on aluminum and steel “insulting” because of the long history of Canadian troops supporting the United States in conflicts.

Trudeau also pledged to respond with equivalent tariffs on U.S. goods beginning July 1.

The European Union rebuked Trump Monday and defended Trudeau, saying it “stands fully behind” the joint statement on economic goals and other issues leaders from six other countries signed even as Trump ordered U.S. officials to not sign it.

“The European Union will continue to stand up for an international, rules-based, multilateral system,” an EU spokeswoman said, while also praising Trudeau’s “excellent preparation and chairing of this challenging summit.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May told parliament the Canadian meeting was “a difficult summit with, at times, some very candid discussions.”

But she rejected Trump’s go-it-alone plan for tariffs against allies to protect American workers.

“It cannot be done by taking unilateral action against your partners,” she said. “So at this summit, we expressed deep disappointment at the unjustified decision of the United States.”

While airborne after leaving the summit early, Trump ordered U.S. officials to refuse to sign the traditional end-of-summit communique and tweeted criticism of what he said were Trudeau’s “false statements at his news conference.”

Two key Trump aides, economic adviser Larry Kudlow and trade adviser Peter Navarro, assailed Trudeau on Sunday news talk shows.

Navarro said, “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door … that’s what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that stunt press conference.”

Trump followed Monday with another tweet.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo downplayed any rift in G-7 relations during a news conference Monday in Singapore.

“There are always irritants in relationships.I am very confident that relationships between our countries, the United States and those G-7 countries, will continue to move forward on a strong basis,” he said.

Trudeau did not respond to Trump’s attacks, instead declaring the summit a success.

“The historic and important agreement we all reached” at the summit “will help make our economies stronger and people more prosperous, protect our democracies, safeguard our environment, and protect women and girls’ rights around the world. That’s what matters,” Trudeau said.

The G-7 summit communique called for working together to stimulate economic growth “that benefits everyone,” and highlighted a commitment to a “rules-based international trading system” and “fight protectionism.”The document also supports strong health systems, advancing gender equality, ending sexual and gender-based violence, as well as efforts to create a more peaceful world and combat climate change.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told ARD television that Trump’s withdrawal from the communique through a tweet is “sobering and a bit depressing.”

French President Emmanuel Macron attacked Trump’s stance, saying, “International cooperation cannot be dictated by fits of anger and throwaway remarks.”He called Trump’s refusal to sign the communique a display of “incoherence and inconsistency.”
…

A radical plan to transform Switzerland’s financial landscape by barring commercial banks from electronically creating money when they lend was resoundingly rejected by Swiss voters on Sunday.

More than three quarters rejected the so-called Sovereign Money initiative, according to the official result released from the Swiss government.

All of the country’s self-governing cantons also voted against in the poll, which needed a majority from Switzerland’s 26 cantons as well as a simple majority of voters to succeed. Concerns about the potential risks to the Swiss economy by introducing a “vollgeld” or “real money” system appear to have convinced voters to reject the proposals.

The Swiss government, which had opposed the plan because of the uncertainties it would unleash, said it was pleased with the result.

“Implementing such a scheme, which would have raised so many questions, would have been hardly possible without years of trouble,” Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said.

“Swiss people in general don’t like taking risks, and …the people have seen no benefit from these proposals. You can also see that our banking system functions…The suspicions against the banks have been largely eliminated.”

The vote, called under Switzerland’s system of direct democracy after gathering more than 100,000 signatures, wanted to make the Swiss National Bank (SNB) the only body authorized to create money in the country.

Contrary to common belief, most money in the world is not produced by central banks but is instead created electronically by commercial lenders when they lend beyond the deposits they hold for savers.

This arrangement, underpinned by the belief that most debts will be repaid, has been a cornerstone of the global capitalist system but opponents say it is unstable because the new money created could exceed the rate of economic growth, which could lead to inflationary asset bubbles.

If approved, Switzerland, famed for its banking industry, would have been the first country in the world to introduce such a scheme, leading opponents to brand the plan a dangerous experiment which would damage the economy.

The plan could have had repercussions beyond Switzerland’s borders by removing a practice which underpins most of the world’s bank lending.

Support for reform had grown in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis, with campaigners saying their ideas would make the financial system more secure and protect people’s savings from bank runs.

As well as the Swiss government, opposition came from the Swiss National Bank and business groups.

“We are pleased, this would have been an extremely damaging initiative,” said Heinz Karrer, president of business lobby Economiesuisse.

The SNB acknowledged the result, saying adoption of the initiative would have made it much harder to control inflation in Switzerland.

“With conditions now remaining unchanged, the SNB will be able to maintain its monetary policy focus on ensuring price stability, which makes an important contribution to our country’s prosperity,” it said in a statement.

Campaigners – a group of academics, former bankers and scientists – said they would continue to work on raising their concerns.

“The discussion is only just getting started,” said campaign spokesman Raffael Wuethrich. “Our goal is that money should be in the service of the people and not the other way around and we will continue to work on it.” 
…

Italy’s new coalition government has no intention of leaving the euro and plans to focus on cutting debt levels, Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said on Sunday, looking to reassure nervous financial markets.

Italian government bonds have come under concerted selling pressure on fears the government will embark on a spending splurge that Italy can ill-afford and markets are wary that euro-skeptics within the coalition might try to push Italy out of the eurozone.

In his first interview since taking office a week ago, Tria told Corriere della Sera newspaper that the coalition wanted to boost growth through investment and structural reforms.

“Our goal is [to lift] growth and employment. But we do not plan on reviving growth through deficit spending,” Tria said, adding that he would present new economic forecasts and government goals in September.

“These will be fully coherent with the objective of continuing on the path of lowering the debt/GDP ratio,” he said.

The government, comprising the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and far-right League, initially named as economy minister a man who had called the euro an “historic error”.

He was eventually handed a less important portfolio after the head of state refused to accept his nomination.

Tria, a little-known economics professor who is not affiliated to any party, said the coalition was committed to remaining within the single currency.

“The position of the government is clear and unanimous. There is no question of leaving the euro,” he said.

“The government is determined to prevent in any way the market conditions that would lead to an exit materializing. It’s not just that we do not want to leave, we will act in such a way that the conditions do not get anywhere near to a position where they might challenge our presence in the euro.”

Tria said he had spoken to his German counterpart and was looking for “fruitful dialogue” with the Europe Union, adding that Italian interests chimed with those of Europe.

“Basic choices”

The new government has promised to roll back pension reform, cut taxes and boost welfare spending, measures that are expected to cost tens of billions of euros. It also needs to find an estimated 12.5 billion euros ($14.8 billion) to stave off the threat of an automatic increase in sales taxes because of previously missed deficit targets.

Tria declined to say whether the coalition would hike the deficit target, but said he aimed to meet existing 2018 and 2019 debt reduction goals.

The previous center-left government had forecast a fall in debt to 130.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year and 128 percent next year against 131.8 percent in 2017.

Tria urged investors to look not just at the hard figures, but also study the content of the forthcoming 2019 budget.

“As part of the debt reduction and deficit reduction goals, the budget will reflect the basic choices on how and when to implement the [government] program,” he said.

“We have a program that focuses on structural reforms and we want it to also act on the supply side, creating more favorable conditions for investment and employment.”

The government has also promised to review a recent shake-up of mutual and co-operative banks, saying the changes risked penalizing domestic lenders. However Tria said the issue “is not the first problem we have to tackle”.

He also distanced himself from calls within the coalition for the government to issue securities to pay off individuals and companies owed money by the state.

“Stop-gap solutions solve nothing,” he said.
…

The International Labor Organization reports 152 million children are victims of child labor, with nearly half forced to work in hazardous, unhealthy conditions that can result in death and injury.

Twenty years ago, hundreds of people, including children, participated in the Global March against Child Labor. They came to the International Labor Conference in Geneva demanding a Convention on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor.

Basu Rai from Nepal was the youngest of the marchers. Now, a grown man he recalls clambering on table tops chanting slogans.

“Go, Go Global March. Stop, Stop Child Labor. We want education. No more tools in tiny hands. We want books and we want toys,” he said.

Rai was orphaned at age four. Homeless and without anyone to look after him, he became a street gangster, a rag picker, a delivery boy. He did anything to survive. Now, as an adult, he has become a Child Rights Activist.

“But, still I am afraid because I am a father to a two-month old daughter and then because the world is not safe for the children. So, this is our collective responsibility to work together for the sake of the childhood…But, still there are 152 million children who are languishing in a kind of slavery,” said Rai.

Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist and Nobel peace prize laureate, led the 1998 Global March of enslaved and trafficked children. He said progress has been made since then, but much remains to be done.

“If the children are still trapped into the supply chain, if the children are still enslaved, if the children are still sold and bought like animals and sometimes for less than the price of animals to work in fields and farms, and shops and factories, or for household work as domestic help, this is a blot on humanity,” said Satyarthi.

The ILO reports nearly half of the child laborers are found in Africa and in the Asia and Pacific regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has the largest proportion with one in five children working.

It notes children typically enter the work force at the age of six or seven, getting involved in hazardous work as they get older. About 70 percent of hazardous work is concentrated in agriculture. Other forms include mining, construction, and domestic service.

ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, said the world is facing an epidemic of occupational accidents and disease.

“Honestly, the annual toll is appalling — 2.78 million work-related deaths, 374 million injuries and illnesses. If these were the victims of a war, we would be talking a lot about it. Children and young workers are at greater risk and suffer disproportionately and with longer lasting consequences,” he said.

Ryder says legislation, labor inspection, and workplace labor relations and practices must be strengthened to stop this carnage.

 

Most child laborers are in the developing world. But, this shameful practice also occurs in some of the world’s richest countries. Zulema Lopez, a Child Rights Activist and Labor Relations student in the United States recalls her life as a child.

“At the age of seven, it was normal for me to wake up at five o’clock in the morning, put on my shoes, put on a T-shirt and go work in the hot sun, burning — my back was aching, 20-30 pounds of buckets of cucumbers next to me, trying to make ends meet,” said Lopez.

Lopez said people do not realize what is happening in their own backyard. She calls the exploitative work that robs children of their childhood unacceptable and said it must stop. She said children are the future and if people fail to protect the world’s children, then there is little hope for the future.
…

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)is holding its first summit since India and Pakistan joined the bloc which is widely seem by observers as a means for blocking American influence in Central Asia. 

The founding members of the alliance are China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. 

The summit is being held in the eastern Chinese coastal city of Qingdao. 

Chinese President Xi Jingping told the group in opening remarks Sunday, “We should reject selfish, short-sighted, narrow and closed-off policies.We must maintain the rules of the World Trade Organization, support the multilateral trade system and build an open global economy.”

Political analysts see the Chinese leader’s remarks as a thinly veiled reference to the chaos at the recent G-7 summit in Canada where the U.S. and its allies were divided by escalating trade tensions. 

After leaving the G-7 meeting, U.S. President Donald Trump described Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “meek and mild” and “dishonest & weak.”

Trump also withdrew his endorsement of the G-7 summit’s communique.
…

Prime Minister Theresa May will gather together squabbling British ministers at her country residence after this month’s European Union summit

to settle on details of a much-anticipated Brexit policy paper.

May has yet to agree on some of the fundamental details of what type of trading relationship she wants to have with the European Union after Britain leaves next March. As a result, talks with the EU have all but ground to a halt, raising fears among businesses and in Brussels that Britain could end up crashing out of the bloc without an agreed-upon deal.

“There’s going to be a lot happening over the next few weeks. You know, people want us to get on with it, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” May told reporters on her way to a G-7 summit in Canada.

May will look to the June 28-29 EU summit as a chance to pin down some of the most troublesome details of Britain’s exit agreement and pave the way for more intensive talks on the all-important future economic partnership between the world’s fifth-largest economy and the world’s biggest trading bloc.

But senior ministers are still at odds about what type of post-Brexit customs arrangement will be best for Britain, meaning talks on the future are unlikely to move far in June.

Before leaving for Canada, May was forced into crisis talks with her Brexit minister who had challenged her so-called backstop plan to ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland.

Then her foreign minister, Boris Johnson, was recorded saying there could be a Brexit meltdown.

‘Away day’

With that in mind, May said she was planning to summon ministers to Chequers, her country residence, for an “away day” aimed at ending months of squabbling and agreeing upon the contents of a so-called “white paper” policy document.

The white paper is expected to set out in more detail what Britain wants from its long-term relationship with the EU. May did not give a firm date for when it would be published.

Ministers had said it would be published before the June EU summit, suggesting rows had helped delay the paper.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labor Party, criticized the delay. “The government promised a ‘detailed, ambitious and precise’ Brexit white paper this month setting out their negotiating priorities. Once again it’s been postponed. The Tories are botching Brexit and risking jobs and our economy in the process,” he said in an emailed statement.

May said her government and the EU were still working toward an October deadline in talks to secure an agreement on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal and an outline of the future partnership.

“We’re all, both we and the European Union, working to that timetable of October,” May said. “From my point of view, what we’re doing is working to develop that future relationship, because there’s a big prize for the U.K. here at the end of this.”
…

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he had instructed his representatives not to sign a communique by all seven leaders attending the G-7 summit in Canada, citing statements by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made after he left.

“Very dishonest and & weak,” Trump tweeted in response to Trudeau’s remark that the new U.S. tariffs on aluminum and steel were “insulting.”

“Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers, and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!” Trump added.

Retaliatory measures

Trudeau closed the summit Saturday by refusing to budge on positions that place him at odds with Trump, particularly new tariffs on steel and aluminum that have irritated Canada and the European Union.

He said in closing remarks that Canada would proceed with retaliatory measures on U.S. goods as early as July 1.

“I highlighted directly to the president that Canadians did not take it lightly that the United States has moved forward with significant tariffs,” Trudeau said in the news conference following the two-day summit. “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we will also not be pushed around.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May echoed Trudeau, pledging to retaliate for tariffs on EU goods. “The loss of trade through tariffs undermines competition, reduces productivity, removes the incentive to innovate and ultimately makes everyone poorer,” she said. “And in response, the EU will impose countermeasures.”

Trudeau and May also bucked Trump on another high-profile issue: Russia. Trump wants to have Russia — which was pushed out in 2014 over its aggression in eastern Ukraine — rejoin the group. Trudeau said he was “not remotely interested” in having Russia return to the group, made up of the world’s seven most advanced economies.

May added that she also welcomed the G-7’s recognition of the need to continue sanctions on Russia, given “Russia’s failure to fully implement the Minsk agreements” of 2014 that were meant to end the war in Ukraine. “We have agreed to stand ready to take further restrictive measures against Russia if necessary,” she said.

​’Fair and reciprocal’ trade

Before leaving the summit Saturday, Trump said there must be “fair and reciprocal” trade between the U.S. and other countries.

“The United States has been taken advantage of for decades and decades and we can’t do that anymore,” he told reporters shortly before leaving the summit for Singapore, where he will meet next week with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

WATCH: President Trump on Trade

Trump said many “unfair foreign trading practices” are getting “straightened out slowly but surely.”

He blamed past U.S. leaders for the current global trade landscape and congratulated other world leaders for “so crazily being able to make these trade deals that were so good for countries and so bad for the United States.”

Trump declared “those days are over” and said that talks this weekend with G-7 leaders convinced him they are “committed to a much more fair-trade situation for the United States.”

At a bilateral meeting Friday with Trudeau, the U.S. president joked that the Canadian prime minister had agreed to “cut all tariffs.”

Despite the two leaders exchanging criticism of each other’s trade policies the previous day, Trump described the cross-border relationship as very good, stating “we’re actually working on cutting tariffs and making it all very fair for both countries. And we’ve made a lot of progress today. We’ll see how it all works out.”

In a subsequent sit-down meeting with Emmanuel Macron, Trump said the French president had been “very helpful” in efforts to address trade deficits with the European Union.

Macron responded that he had a “very direct and open discussion” with Trump, and “there is a critical path that is a way to progress all together.”

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, confirmed she met Friday with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to discuss the tariffs and the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). She said Canada, however, would not change its mind about the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, which she termed “illegal.”

Trump imposed the tariffs on the ground that weak domestic industries could affect U.S. national security. ​Canada, Mexico and the European Union are introducing retaliatory tariffs.

“I think the only way this moves toward a deal is if the concern grows among the G-7 countries about the economic impact of this, that Trump begins to feel some pressure from farmers and small manufacturers and others that are harmed, that other countries are feeling the pressure from the decline in their steel and aluminum exports to the United States and it causes some reconsideration of the current positions,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

On the eve of the summit, Trump had lashed out on Twitter at Macron and Trudeau, who had criticized Trump’s trade stance at a joint news conference Thursday in Ottawa. The White House then announced Trump would skip some of the G-7 sessions and depart for Singapore on Saturday morning, several hours earlier than planned.

Trudeau, alongside Trump, was asked if he was disappointed the U.S. president was leaving early. He did not reply, but Trump grinned broadly and said “he’s happy” before appearing to stick out his tongue.

Some attending the summit were openly expressing strong concern about Trump’s positions.

“What worries me most is that the rules-based international order is being challenged,” Donald Tusk, the chairman of European Union leaders, said at a news conference just prior to the start of the G-7 talks. “Quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor — the United States. Naturally, we cannot force the U.S. to change its mind.”

Should Trump disassociate with the group, reducing it to a G-6, it would leave the collective virtually inconsequential, according to some analysts.

“The United States accounts for more than half of the GDP of the total G-7. So, without the United States, the G-7 really isn’t anything,” according to Sebastian Mallaby, a CFR senior fellow for international economics.

Russia invitation?

Before departing the White House for Canada, the president told reporters that Russia should be invited back to the summits of leading advanced countries.

When asked about Russia on Saturday in Quebec, Trump said, “I think it would be good for the world. We’re looking for peace in the world. We’re not looking to play games.”

WATCH: President Trump on Russia

One other G-7 leader, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, said Friday in a tweet that he supported Trump’s suggestion.

But other G-7 leaders said it was not going to happen at this time.

European Union leaders are in agreement “that a return of Russia to the G-7 format summits can’t happen until substantial progress has been made in connection with the problems with Ukraine,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters.

A spokesman at the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, brushed it all off.

“Russia is focused on other formats apart from the G-7,” Peskov said, according to the Sputnik news agency.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron’s economic policy is viewed as favoring the rich and must change to address inequalities, according to a memo written by three economists who worked on his campaign program, Le Monde newspaper said on Saturday.

The criticism is the latest sign of the trouble created by Macron’s economic reforms among the center-left supporters who propelled him to power last year.

In the confidential memo sent to Macron and plastered across Le Monde’s front page, the economists said his policy was failing to convince “even the most ardent supporters.”

“Many supporters of the then-candidate express their fear of a lurch to the right motivated by the temptation to steal the political space left vacant by a struggling conservative party,” the economists wrote.

Jean Pisani-Ferry, the Sciences Po Paris university professor who coordinated Macron’s economic program and is an influential voice in Franco-German academic circles, is one of the authors. He declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

The other two, Philippe Martin, a former Macron adviser who heads France’s Council of Economic Analysis (CAE), and Philippe Aghion of the elite College de France, did not return Reuters’ requests for comment.

Macron, who campaigned on a promise to be “neither left nor right”, moved swiftly in his first year to loosen labor rules and slash a wealth tax, earning himself the nickname “president of the rich.”

The economists said there was a risk the French would find these measures unfair and think the government is deaf to the needs of the poorest in society.

“The president must talk about the issue of inequalities and not leave this debate to his opponents,” the economists wrote.

Among proposals to reduce inequalities, the economists suggested a rise in inheritance tax for the richest, scrapping tax credits on property investments, and cancelling Macron’s promise to abolish a housing tax for the wealthiest 20 percent.

Macron’s office confirmed it had received the note, but said it did not foretell government policy. Macron is currently in Canada with other Group of Seven

leaders, locked in a battle over trade tariffs with U.S. President Donald Trump.
…

Australia’s Commonwealth Bank has agreed to pay a $530 million fine for breaching anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws. The scandal relates to more than 53,000 suspect transactions that the bank did not immediately report to authorities.

If approved by the Federal Court, this will be the largest civil penalty in Australian corporate history.

At the heart of the case were so-called smart cash machines that allowed customers to anonymously deposit and transfer money. Thousands of suspect transactions of more than $7,600 each were not referred to the authorities as required by law.

An investigation by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC), the federal financial intelligence agency, along with state and federal police found the machines were being used to launder the proceeds of crime. 

Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison says the bank must now rebuild its reputation.

“It is for them to rebuild that trust, it is for them to make these admissions, it is for them to incur these penalties and get on with the job of restoring trust in the conduct of the CBA and this, I think, is another important step toward doing that,” Morrison said.

The Commonwealth Bank said its actions were not deliberate but it understood “the seriousness of the mistakes” it had made. It had reportedly been anticipating a fine of about $285 million.

“For AUSTRAC, it is able to demonstrate that there has been serious failings by Commonwealth Bank (CBA), one of our major financial institutions,” said Ian Ramsey, a director at Melbourne University’s Center for Corporate Law. “I am sure what the bank did not want was a very lengthy trial where every day more evidence is brought before the court and then promptly reported in the media of systemic, serious failings by CBA.”

AUSTRAC said the penalty would send a strong message to Australia’s financial industry. Since February it has been investigated by a Royal Commission, Australia’s highest form of inquiry, which has unearthed widespread misconduct within the banking and financial services sector.
…

Pope Francis has told the world’s oil executives that a transition to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions.”

On the last day of a two-day conference Saturday, the Roman Catholic leader urged the executives to provide electricity to the one billion people who are without it, but said that process must be done in a way that avoids “creating environmental imbalances resulting in deterioration and pollution gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future.”

Reuters reports the unprecedented conference was held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The news agency says the oil executives, investors and Vatican experts who attended the summit, believe, like the pope does, that science supports the notion that climate change is caused by human activity and that global warming must be curbed.

Pope Francis told the conference, “Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”

 

 
…

Shoppers in the Afghan capital are going online for everything from fashion to furniture to avoid bomb attacks and sexual harassment, with dozens of startups doing a brisk trade where there were few on the ground two years ago.

Suicide bombings and other attacks in Kabul have killed and wounded hundreds of people this year, and security is expected to deteriorate ahead of elections planned for October. Sexual harassment on the street is widespread.

The new retailers, with names like AzadBazar.af, afom.af, JVBazar.com and zarinas.com, sell goods ranging from cosmetics, computers, kitchenware and furniture to cars, rugs and real estate. One website advertises foreign brands including Rolex, Adidas and Zara.

Harassment an issue

Student Asila Sulaimani described online shopping as a “good experience” in a country at war, with U.N. figures putting those younger than 25 at more than 60 percent of the population, the vast majority of them enthusiastic smartphone users.

“Who dares go out shopping these days?” she said.

“I am sure there are some people, but for me it has always been difficult. … Fears of an explosion, an attack and the most common thing, harassment, follow me like my shadow.”

Growing after 8 months

Tamim Rasa, 28, is the founder of Rasa Online, which he started with $30,000 eight months ago. He has since signed contracts with more than 60 stores and traders, with 80 percent of his customers women and cosmetics “a big part of business.”

The store has no physical presence in terms of stock, just an office of eight.

“We work as a connecting bridge between people and large stores and traders. A month ago, we were hardly managing to earn our expenses — we were making a loss — but now we are making a profit of 1,000 to 3,000 afghanis ($14 to $42) a day. It shows we are growing.”

He is now looking to expand to Herat province in the west, Kandahar in the south, Balkh in the north and Nangarhar, neighboring Pakistan, in the east.

Esmatullah, 27, owner of Afghan Mart, which he set up just more than a year ago, has a shop with 500,000 afghanis ($7,000) worth of goods.

“Big companies contact me to sell their imported goods. An average of 50 customers call me daily and we deliver,” he said, adding that he too is looking to expand into the provinces by the end of the year.

Diversionary tactics

The biggest challenge, he said, was security in a city where one bomb blast can be followed by a second in the same area.

Many people who have to go out take diversionary routes through narrow side alleys, sometimes through people’s homes and gardens, to avoid the threat and traffic of major roads and intersections.

“We have seen more bomb blasts in Kabul that delayed our delivery services,” Esmatullah said. “When that happens, we stop delivering in that direction or that part of the city.

“But the insecurity is one of the reasons that our business has found its way. And besides the insecurity, there is a bad culture of street harassment that unfortunately our women face in cities,” Esmatullah added.

Goods are delivered by motorcycle or public transport where possible and the deliverymen get paid up to 8,000 afghanis ($112) a month.

Began 2 years ago

Commerce Ministry spokesman Musafer Qoqandi described online shopping as “unique” for a country at war for more than four decades, with about 50 companies in business, most of them unlicensed.

“The culture of online stores only started two years ago in Kabul and right now more than 20 online stores have a license to trade — there are many more that have yet to get their license and we encourage them to come forward,” he said.

“Around the world, online stores are dealing with billions of dollars annually. It is time for us to join this convoy. … It is hope-giving when we see the growing number of such stores in Afghanistan,” Qoqandi added.

Student Roya Shakeb agreed.

“I needed some books for my exams. I searched shops and libraries without success, then I came across online stores. The book was on my doorstep the next day. Unbelievable.”
…

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been signaling his desire to open up the reclusive state’s economy, ushering in what some analysts believe could be a “reform and opening up era” similar to what happened in China four decades ago. But how far North Korea is willing to go and what concrete measures it is willing to or could take remain unclear, especially with sanctions still firmly in place.

Next week’s Singapore summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to shed light on what steps Pyongyang is prepared to take toward denuclearization and that, in turn, could pave the way for a possible boom in economic activity after sanctions are removed.

Though many hurdles and much uncertainty remain, the glimmer of opportunity for business options in North Korea is an improvement, said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“Given how hermetically closed North Korea has been for decades, any uncertainty about the future and any potential opening up is actually an improvement on the status quo for foreign businesses,” Kirkegaard said in an emailed response to VOA.

​Mission accomplished

In a key address in late April, Kim declared that North Korea had completed the development of its nuclear arsenal and would no longer carry out nuclear or missile tests. In the speech, he also proclaimed that the “new strategic line” for the ruling “Workers’ Party” would be developing the economy.

That shift toward focusing more on improving the people’s livelihood has been a key driver behind the North’s about face in recent months, analysts note. And its stated shift of priorities from nuclear weapons to economic development presents an opportunity for more fundamental changes.

Lu Chao, a North Korea expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said that if sanctions are loosened, areas likely to see a boom in investment are ones with fewer hurdles such as travel and tourism.

Infrastructure is likely to be another key area of focus, he said, with the majority of initial foreign investment expected to come from China and South Korea. 

“Currently, power and transportation are two areas that are in urgent need of transformation [in North Korea] from an economic perspective. In the near future, developments are likely to focus on this area,” Lu said.

​Neighbors first

Analysts said that China and South Korea are likely to benefit the most in the beginning from any opening up of the economy. Few see the United States playing a significant role inititally, let alone taking up a significant portion of North Korea’s trade.

China currently is North Korea’s biggest trading partner and investor, but analysts see Seoul also playing a key role. 

South Korea’s economy is massive by comparison to its northern neighbor. The total value of goods and services produced and sold in South Korea in 2016 was $1.34 trillion. North Korea’s gross domestic product, or GDP, for that same year was estimated to be just under $30 billion.

South Korea’s vast resources could provide crucial investment support to North Korea. But to get investors into the country, Pyongyang will not only need to make policy adjustments, but pass legislation that provides guarantees for investors as well, said Jia Qingguo, a political science professor at Peking University. 

“When companies look to invest, they are not just pursuing a vision, but more than that they are looking to grow profits,” Jia said. “And if there is no way to make profits, why would they go in the first place?”

​Adapting to change

Analysts said that as North Korea looks to transform its centrally planned economy, it will adopt some measures from China and other countries, but will never admit that it is doing so.

“North Korea won’t adopt a China, Vietnam or Cuba model,” Lu said. “In the beginning, [North Korea] is likely to create development zones where special economic policies can be put into place.”

Lu said that such zones would have some similarities to those in China, but would be completely cut off from the broader economy and public — fenced in by barbed war.

Starting in 2013, Kim Jong Un began stepping up efforts to open more than a dozen special economic zones, but international sanctions have seriously slowed the development of those projects, analysts said.

North Korea has cautiously approached such changes in the past and that is not likely to change going forward. Jia Qingguo said Kim will need to do more than create a narrative to explain why the country is shifting its focus toward economic development.

“As he tries to open up North Korea’s economy, he will also need to pay attention to political stability and make adjustments to the country’s system [of governance],”Jia said. “Whether he can do that or not is uncertain.”

VOA’s Saibal Dasgupta and Joyce Huang contributed to this report.
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China’s trade surplus with the United States rose to $24.58 billion in May, from $22.15 billion in April, according to Chinese customs data published Friday.

China’s export growth in May was 12.6 percent, slightly down from 12.9 percent in April, but well above the 10 percent that economists polled by the Reuters news agency had predicted.

Chinese imports also increased year over year in May, rising 26 percent.

For the first five months of the year, China’s trade surplus with U.S. was $104.85 billion.

Both countries have threatened to hike tariffs on goods worth up to $150 billion each, as President Donald Trump has demanded Beijing open its economy further and address the U.S. large trade deficit with China.

Earlier this week, China warned the U.S. that any trade and business agreements between the two countries “will not take effect” if Trump’s threatened tariff hike and other measures on Chinese goods are implemented.

The warning came after U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Liu He ended two days of talks in Beijing aimed at settling the simmering trade dispute, in which Beijing pledged to narrow its trade surplus.

The White House renewed a threat last week to raise duties on $50 billion of Chinese technology-related goods over that dispute.
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Just less than $6 billion worth of U.S. waste was sent to China last year to be converted into packaging and products, and then shipped back to the United States and other markets. Scrap recyclers had taken advantage of low shipping costs for empty containers returning to China after the ships had unloaded their goods on the U.S. West Coast.

Today, that flow of trash is just a trickle, the result of a Chinese ban that went into effect Jan. 1 on many types of foreign garbage, from mixed papers to waste textiles.

The result of the ban is seen at a recycling facility in Anaheim, California, owned by Republic Services, a national company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. The parking lot of the materials recovery facility (MRF) is brimming with 2,400 bales of mixed paper that once would have been bound for China.

The surplus is a result of an unprecedented 12-day backlog, said James Castro, the facility’s general manager.

And it’s not clear where it’s all going.

China has banned imports of mixed paper, as well as low-grade plastics, certain metals and other types of waste. In April, it expanded the ban, to go into effect later this year, to include more metals and chemical waste. A ban on additional kinds of scrap, including waste timber, is being targeted for the end of 2019.

 

WATCH: China Trash Ban Creates Crisis for US Recyclers

Less-contaminated scrap

It has also imposed stricter contamination standards on the scrap it does accept, allowing only 0.5 percent contaminants, down for most materials from 1.5 percent.

That has slowed the sorting process, said Richard Coupland, Republic’s vice president of municipal sales.

Further complicating matters, the ban has led to a huge reduction in worldwide prices on recyclable goods, such as mixed paper.

One year ago, bales of unsorted paper, like those now stacked in the parking lot, would have been worth $100 a ton. Today, each ton is worth “less than $5, or negative in some markets,” including shipping costs, Coupland said. He added that much of the industry’s backlog may end up in landfills.

To the north in the city of Azusa, Waste Management’s MRF is also dealing with tightened standards for the workers and sorting machines that use magnets, optical sensors and other means to separate the waste. Executives say they are tweaking a costly system that was designed to meet China’s insatiable craving for scrap.

Asia-based journalist Adam Minter, author of the book Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade, sums up the dilemma facing these companies.

“Recycling is about manufacturing,” Minter said, “and if somebody doesn’t want to use those raw materials, then putting stuff in your recycling bin is doing nothing more than playing with your garbage.”

He says China’s trash ban is spurred partly by a desire to clean up the environment, but even more by nationalism and a desire for political control.

“When you see China pushing against the recycling industry,” Minter said, “it’s really pushing against private industry and in favor of state-owned enterprises, and that is very much in line with the way that Chinese economic policy has been going for the last five years.”

​‘Shockwaves around the world’

Some environmentalists have welcomed the trash ban.

Greenpeace East Asia plastic campaigner Liu Hua said it will send “shockwaves around the world” and force countries to confront their attitudes toward waste, especially environmental contaminants like plastics.

China expert Joshua Goldstein of the University of Southern California said the ban will have social repercussions in China.

Goldstein has studied the informal sector of 3-5 million small-scale recyclers, entrepreneurs whom he says are “picking through (trash) and making their lives slightly better every day through the money that they made.”

“It had environmental repercussions,” he said, “but it also raised 3 to 5 million households out of poverty.”

Goldstein said China faces hurdles to create an operation as efficient.

Companies are also searching for new markets. More recyclable scrap from the United States will now go to India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand or Indonesia, but industry experts say shipping costs are high and demand in those countries is limited.

As commodity prices drop, there is hope for increased use for scrap such as mixed paper in the United States.

​Cleaning up waste

Brent Bell, vice president of recycling operations for Waste Management, said his company is also cleaning up its waste to meet the higher standards that China and other countries are demanding.

“I think as an industry, we’re all at fault to some degree,” Bell said, noting the company is working to educate consumers about better recycling. “Something we all missed as an industry,” he added. “Whether we’re shipping material to China, to India, or even to Louisiana, our customers all want to make sure the material is as clean as possible.”

Republic’s Coupland said the waste and recycling industry needs to work with local communities to find a new business model to replace one that has become unsustainable. It could mean, he said, an increase in the rate that consumers pay for hauling away their trash.

China may yet make adjustments to its policies, USC’s Goldstein added.

Paper fiber is hard to replace, he notes, and China may loosen its bans to bring in the raw materials that its manufacturers require.

“What parts of this reform, this ban, are going to be long term and what parts are going to be short term is still quite unclear,” Goldstein said. But he noted that the economics of the recycling industry are changing.
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Ukraine’s parliament has voted to establish an anti-corruption court in an effort to meet the criteria to receive $17.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund.

 

Before the IMF releases the funds needed to shore up Ukraine’s struggling economy, it will have make sure the court’s laws are IMF compliant. The West has repeatedly called on Ukraine to reform it political system and establish an independent body to fight corruption.

 

“What we’ll be looking to see is that it ensures the establishment of an independent and trustworthy anti-corruption court that meets the expectation of the Ukrainian people,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said at a briefing Thursday.

 

President Petrol Poroshenko said the court was in line with Western recommendations and Ukrainian law.  

 

Last year Poroshenko rejected the need for an anti-corruption court, saying such institutions are needed in “Kenya, Uganda, Malaysia and Croatia” but not in Western Europe or the United States.

 

While the approval of the court was seen as a positive, Ukraine also likely dismayed the West by firing Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk, a respected reform advocate.

Danylyuk’s ouster came after he took on Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, accusing him of stalling reforms of the state tax service that are needed to combat corruption.

 

Before the parliament voted on his ouster, Danylyuk addressed the lawmakers, telling them he had been accused of “defending the interests of international organizations.”

 

But, “I am defending the interests of Ukrainians,” he said.
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