YCLOAK

The sale of ivory just became illegal in mainland China, a move heralded by conservationists, who say the legal trade has been providing cover for its illegal counterpart, perpetuating the belief it is okay to buy and own ivory.

Max Graham, CEO of the elephant conservation group Space for Giants, welcomed the news, saying the fact that China has taken this stand means that “there’s a new conservation superpower in the world that is taking its responsibilities seriously.”

“And we’re hugely enthusiastic about this because obviously the ivory trade is a huge challenge,” he said. “But the illegal wildlife trade more generally has many challenges in Asia, particularly in China, where traditional uses of wildlife parts have been fueling the massive loss of species, rare species around the world. So to see China take this stand is very encouraging. It’s the best Christmas present that the conservation community could actually have.”

China announced the ban at the end of 2016 and put it into effect at the end of 2017, surprising those who thought it might take up to five years to go into effect. Conservationists are optimistic, although they say it is too early to predict how it will be enforced.

Save the Elephants CEO Frank Pope believes the ban could prove “transformational” for the fortunes of elephants, but he cited one caveat.

“As you squeeze the balloon of the Chinese trade, you’re going to see secondary markets popping up around the borders,” he said. “And that’s what we’re already seeing in Vietnam, in Laos, in Myanmar, and even in Hong Kong, which functions as external to China. All of these places have markets that have boomed with the restrictions, the looming restrictions in China.”

Like his conservation colleagues, Philip Muruthi, vice president of species conservation at the African Wildlife Foundation, also praised the ban and noted the importance of preventing the market from shifting to other locations and helping preserve endangered species.

“About 35,000 elephants — the number we’ve heard quoted many times — are lost each year. There are about 415,000 elephants on this continent. That means that within 20 years, if the pace is kept of that loss, we will not have elephants, and therefore, all the aspirations that African people have for using wildlife and associated habitat for development, for tourism in countries like Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and all that, those aspirations will not be met. So this is big. ”

But he said elephants will not be the only beneficiaries.

“This is not just about elephants, ” he added. “It’s also about the economy, it’s about African peoples’ well-being. It’s about our heritage. So this is a significant step that China has taken.”

Conservationists say while combating poaching is critical, one of the bigger threats to elephants in the long-term is habitat management. They urge African governments, and China, through its support, to help reduce the threats.
…

A music publisher is seeking at least $1.6 billion from Spotify for alleged copyright violations, the latest lawsuit to hit the fast-growing streaming company.

Wixen Music Publishing Inc., which holds rights to songs of major artists including Neil Young, the Doors, Tom Petty and Santana, charged in a lawsuit that Spotify failed to seek licenses for significant parts of its 30 million-song catalog.

“While Spotify has become a multibillion-dollar company, songwriters and their publishers, such as Wixen, have not been able to fairly and rightfully share in Spotify’s success, as Spotify has in many cases used their music without a license and without compensation,” said the lawsuit filed last week in a federal court in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit said that Spotify initially tried to work with record labels but, “in a race to be first to market, made insufficient efforts to collect the required musical composition information.”

Wixen, which is seeking a jury trial against the Swedish company, presented a list of 10,784 songs for which it questioned Spotify’s permission to stream.

The publisher said it was seeking the maximum allowed $150,000 in damages for copyright damages for each song, meaning an award of at least $1.6 billion, along with the fees of its lawyers.

Spotify did not immediately comment on the latest suit. In May, it reached an agreement to settle a pair of two similar lawsuits under which Spotify said it would set up a $43.45 million fund to compensate songwriters.

Wixen called the settlement, which still needs final approval from a judge, “grossly insufficient” and said that it would opt out of the deal insofar as possible.

Even if unsuccessful, lawsuits amount to a headache for Spotify as the company considers going public.

Spotify, which has been valued at anywhere from $8 billion to $16 billion, has maintained its dominance as streaming rapidly grows and transforms the recorded music market.

Spotify said in July that it had 60 million users worldwide who pay for subscriptions, with 80 million more using its free tier.
…

Brazil’s road to economic recovery has passed another milestone with official data showing Tuesday that the country finished 2017 with a record trade surplus 40.5 percent higher than in the previous year.

The $67 billion surplus was in line with market projections and within the $65 billion to $70 billion range forecast by the government.

Brazil’s economy is projected to grow 2 percent this year, according to an annual report by the United Nations-backed Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) released last month.

That is unspectacular but solid — and far better than the 0.2 percent expected for 2017, or the two years of its worst-ever recession preceding that.

The government’s own projections are slightly more optimistic: 3 percent in 2018 and 1.1 percent in 2017.

Economy Minister Henrique Meirelles said last month that the improvement was owed to better “fiscal control, the approval of a freeze on public spending and reforms in general.”

The country’s key interest rate is now at a record low of 7 percent, half of what it was in late 2016. Inflation is now considered a minimal risk.

Brazil’s center-right president, Michel Temer, has spearheaded austerity cuts, looser labor laws and a big privatization program to boost the economy, Latin America’s largest.

But Temer remains unpopular with voters, clouding the political outlook ahead of presidential election this year.

The front-runners for the election are leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and rightwing former army officer Jair Bolsonaro. Neither man is much welcomed by investors.
…

Coal mining deaths surged in the U.S. in 2017, one year after they hit a record low.

The nation’s coal mines recorded 15 deaths last year, including eight in West Virginia. Kentucky had two deaths, and there were one each in Alabama, Colorado, Montana, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. In 2016 there were eight U.S. coal mine deaths.

West Virginia has led the nation in coal mining deaths in six of the past eight years. That includes 2010, when 29 miners were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia.

In September, President Donald Trump appointed retired coal company executive David Zatezalo as the new chief of the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Most of the deaths this year occurred before his appointment. The Wheeling resident retired in 2014 as chairman of Rhino Resources.

Zatezalo was narrowly approved by the Senate in November. His appointment was opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who said he was not convinced Zatezalo was suited to oversee the federal agency that implements and enforces mine safety laws and standards.

Last month the Trump administration brought up for review standards implemented by Barack Obama’s administration that lowered the allowable limits for miners’ exposure to coal dust. MSHA indicated it is reconsidering rules meant to protect underground miners from breathing coal and rock dust — the cause of black lung — and diesel exhaust, which can cause cancer.

Eight coal mining deaths this year involved hauling vehicles and two others involved machinery. None were attributed to an explosion of gas or dust, which was to blame for the Upper Big Branch disaster.

The number of coal mining fatalities was under 20 for the fourth straight year after reaching exactly 20 in 2011, 2012 and 2013. By comparison, in 1966, the mining industry counted 233 deaths. A century ago there were 2,226.

MSHA has attributed low numbers in previous years to far fewer coal mining jobs and tougher enforcement of mining safety rules. Zatezalo, who said in October that his first priority was preventing people from getting hurt, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment left with MSHA on Tuesday.

There have been 13 fatalities in 2017 in non-coal mines that produce gravel, sand, limestone and mineable metals. There also were 17 such deaths in 2015 and 30 in 2014.

Coal production

Appalachia has been especially hit hard by the closing of dozens of mines in recent years, but there was a turnaround in production in 2017.

According to the Energy Information Administration’s weekly estimates, U.S. coal production increased 8.9 percent in the 52 weeks ending Dec. 23, the latest available. Production in West Virginia increased 16 percent, including 25 percent in coal-rich southern West Virginia.

Wyoming, the top coal-producing state, saw a 10.7 percent increase and Pennsylvania had an 11.6 percent hike.

There were about 92,000 working miners in the United States in 2011, compared with about 52,000 in 2016, the lowest figure since the Energy Information Administration began collecting data in 1978. The 2017 numbers are not yet available.
…

2017 was the safest year on record for the commercial airline industry, two new reports said.

No major airline experienced a plane crash anywhere in the world, the Dutch aviation consultancy To70 reported Monday.

“2017 was much better than could reasonably [and statistically] be expected, and was again better than last year’s remarkable performance,” said To70 researcher Adrian Young.

Young said air travel is the safest way to travel, with an estimated fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights of 0.06 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 16 million flights — even as global air traffic in 2017 grew by 3 percent over the previous year.

Accidents involving military planes, cargo flights and small turboprop planes were not part of the study.

A second report by the Aviation Safety Network said 10 civil passenger and cargo plane crashes killed 44 people last year.

Experts cited improved technology and safety systems aboard passenger jets, which they noted have just about eliminated midair collisions and crashes into mountains.

The network’s study also said engineers and crews were spotting more safety problems before planes take off.

President Donald Trump appeared to take credit Tuesday for 2017 being fatality-free for commercial flights:

But The Associated Press pointed out there were no new major airline safety regulations introduced by the Trump administration in 2017.

It also said the White House had dragged its feet on implementing an Obama administration proposal to ban rechargeable lithium batteries from passenger planes. Tests have shown the batteries can explode and start fires.

The president’s plan to privatize the nation’s air traffic control system has also not moved forward.

But a White House spokesman said Tuesday that the president had “raised the bar for our nation’s aviation safety and security.”

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said the last deadly passenger airline crash in the U.S. occurred in 2009, and the last fatal commuter plane crash was in Hawaii in 2013.

Airplane crash statistics were first compiled in 1946.
…

Airlines recorded zero accident deaths in commercial passenger jets last year, according to a Dutch consulting firm and an aviation safety group that tracks crashes, making 2017 the safest year on record for commercial air travel.

Dutch aviation consulting firm To70 and the Aviation Safety Network both reported Monday there were no commercial passenger jet fatalities in 2017. “2017 was the safest year for aviation ever,” said Adrian Young of To70.

To70 estimated that the fatal accident rate for large commercial passenger flights is 0.06 per million flights, or one fatal accident for every 16 million flights.

The Aviation Safety Network also reported there were no commercial passenger jet deaths in 2017, but 10 fatal airliner accidents resulting in 44 fatalities onboard and 35 persons on the ground, including cargo planes and commercial passenger turbo prop aircraft.

That figure includes 12 people killed on Dec. 31 when a Nature Air Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff into a mountainous area off the beach town of Punta Islita, Costa Rica.

In comparison, there were 16 accidents and 303 deaths in 2016 among airliners.

The deadliest incident last year occurred in January when a Turkish cargo jet smashed into a village in Kyrgyzstan as it tried to land at a nearby airport in dense fog, killing 35 on the ground and all four onboard.

The Aviation Safety Network said 2017 was “the safest year ever, both by the number of fatal accidents as well as in terms of fatalities.”

Over the last two decades aviation deaths around the world have been steadily falling. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network said.

The United States last recorded a fatal airline passenger jet crash in February 2009, when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed short of the runway in Clarence Center, New York, killing 49 onboard and one person on the ground.

In 2016, 412 people were killed in the United States in aviation accidents — nearly all in general aviation accidents and none on commercial passenger airlines.

The last fatal passenger jet airliner accident worldwide took place in November 2016 near Medellin, Colombia and the last commercial passenger aircraft crash to kill more than 100 people occurred in October 2015 in Egypt.
…

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani may have to step back from some of his core economic policies in the face of nationwide protests by tens of thousands of people frustrated by high unemployment and stagnant living standards

The protests, during which at least 10 people have been killed, are fuelled by disappointment that the lifting of sanctions on Iran in January 2016 has failed to deliver an economic boom.

Instead, the non-oil part of the economy has continued to struggle, with unemployment officially put at around 12.5 percent — in reality, much higher for Iran’s millions of young  people — and inflation running at nearly 10 percent.

“There is a crisis of expectations in Iran,” said Tame  Badawi, a research fellow at the Istanbul-based Al-Sharq Forum. “It is a deep sense of economic frustration.”

Need for more jobs

To ease that discontent, Rouhani may need to spend more government money on creating jobs, restrain inflation by supporting the rial exchange rate and do more to eradicate the widespread corruption which angers the protesters.

But all of those actions would involve policy change. Rouhani has been pursuing a conservative budget policy to bring Iran’s volatile state finances under control, part of his effort to create an attractive environment for foreign investors. Meanwhile, fighting corruption would risk a backlash from powerful interests hurt by a crackdown.

Mehrdad Emadi, an Iranian economist who is head of energy risk analysis at the Betamatrix consultancy in London, said Rouhani faced a “Herculean challenge” fighting corruption in particular. But he suggested Rouhani might have no choice 

“People are more and more desperate,” he said. “In this situation, there will be periodic outbreaks of dissent.”

Sanctions

After taking power in 2013, Rouhani quickly reversed the spendthrift fiscal and monetary policies of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, curbing a system of cash handouts for lower- and middle-income Iranians.

Last month he proposed another conservative budget to parliament for the Iranian year starting next March 21. The $104 billion budget was up about 6 percent from the plan for the current year — a cut in real terms at current inflation rates.

Such austerity has become increasingly unpopular among the public as the economy has struggled despite the end of sanctions. Many foreign banks and companies remain reluctant to do business with Iran, partly because U.S. President Donald Trump’s hard line on Tehran has deterred trade and investment.

Emadi said a study to which he contributed found Iranians were dissatisfied with the economy for five main reasons: unemployment, weak purchasing power, corruption, a weak rial, and unequal distribution of wealth among Iran’s regions. The study showed their perceptions of the first three areas have worsened this year, he said. In some areas of southeast Iran, unemployment among young people has reached 45 percent and the job market is shrinking, he added.

The rial has sunk to 42,900 against the U.S. dollar from 36,000 a year ago. Rouhani’s administration might support the currency by spending more of Iran’s foreign reserves, but this would risk deterring foreign investment; the International Monetary Fund warned against such a policy last month.

Emadi blamed much of the economy’s poor performance on a deep-rooted structural issue: the influence of paramilitary bodies such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as religious institutions on business.

Those interests, which according to some estimates control over 60 percent of assets in Iran, generally do not pay taxes and stifle competition from small private companies, blocking job creation, he said.

Emadi said Rouhani’s administration was addressing this problem, pressing institutions to open their books to tax audits and demanding more transparency in the business world.

No quick fix

But Badawi predicted the government would find it hard to secure any quick improvement in the economy. While it may announce a stimulus package to create jobs, it is unlikely to backtrack on cash handouts, and problems such as diversifying the economy and repairing a debt-burdened banking system can only be solved in the long term, he said.

“My guess is that nothing significant will change. The government will try to be open with people, to propose initiatives, but there are structural problems — diversification, the banking problem and relations with the rest of world, especially Trump.”
…

More than two decades after California became the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana use, on January first it becomes the final West Coast state to legalize pot for recreational purposes — a move approved by California voters in November 2016, in a referendum known as Prop 64.

While this is good news for cannabis enthusiasts, those with visions of unencumbered marijuana use in the California sunshine will find that reality is not quite so cut-and-dried — meaning, simple — referring to the processing of tobacco leaves.

Most importantly, while seven U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana use, the U.S. federal government still considers it a controlled substance, classified with heroin and LSD as illegal drugs. Elsewhere, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, and Maine and Massachusetts are set to legalize recreational pot in 2018.

Federal versus state law

Former White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters in February 2017 that the Department of Justice may be looking into legal marijuana use in the future.

“When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming around so many states… the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people,” Spicer said.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an opponent of legalized pot, said in November that he is taking a close look at federal enforcement of anti-drug laws that include marijuana. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” he said at a Senate hearing in 2016.

Federal and state laws come more into play in California, which has several U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints, at which federal agents, mainly searching for illegal immigrants, are also empowered to seize pot stashes and prosecute the owners.

The Associated Press quotes Ronald Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner of the federal Customs and Border Protection agency, as calling drug seizures at border checkpoints an “ancillary effect”of enforcing immigration laws.

In addition to 34 permanent checkpoints along the U.S. border with Mexico, Border Patrol operates more than 100 “tactical” stops that may appear or disappear as needed, as far as 161 kilometers inside the U.S. border.

AP reports that people found with pot at those checkpoints are typically photographed and fingerprinted, and their stashes seized. The report says those people often aren’t charged with a crime, however, because pot possession in small amounts is considered a low-priority offense.

The checkpoints are legal. Border Patrol agents say they help catch illegal immigrants who have made it past the U.S. border and might disappear into a large city; and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agents can question people at checkpoints even if they have no reason to believe anyone inside the car is in the country illegally.

Bureau of Cannabis Control

Meanwhile, California has created its own Bureau of Cannabis Control to regulate the growing and sale of cannabis.

Bureau spokesman Alex Traverso told the Los Angeles Times that about eight enforcement officers will be in place by January 1.

The bureau has issued fewer than 200 temporary business licenses so far, although cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco are expected later to issue their own local licenses, which will be required to get a state permit. Only a few dozen retail outlets are expected to be up and running by January 1.

Many localities inside California have not yet approved recreational pot use — and some may choose not to do so at all. Cannabis Control did not start issuing licenses to sell recreational cannabis until mid-December, so many applications are still in the works.

San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, Berkeley and Eureka are among the towns where pot stores can open on January 1.

Still proponents of legalized pot say bringing the drug out into the open makes it possible to tax sales of cannabis — which lawmakers hope will result in $1 billion a year in new tax revenue for the state. The money will come from a 15 percent state excise tax on every cannabis purchase. Local governments can place additional taxes on top of that — or they can ban pot shops entirely, if they choose.

Daniel Yi, a spokesman for the L.A.-area dispensary Med Men, says he expects an eighth of an ounce of pot to go for about $35 when two Med Men shops begin selling to recreational users on January 2. He told Reuters news agency that three other locations will probably not begin selling to recreational users for a few more weeks.

Keeping out of trouble

Further moves to keep control on the industry include guidelines for retailers, and age and use limits for consumers.

Pot sales will be restricted to people who are age 21 or older, but anyone visiting the state who is of age may buy and consume marijuana at legal outlets. Prop 64 specifically prohibits marketing of pot products to minors.

Pot shops cannot be within 180 meters (600 feet) of a school and they must maintain 24-hour surveillance. They also cannot open before 6 a.m. and must close by 10 p.m.

California anti-smoking laws make it illegal to smoke pot in places where regular tobacco smoking is banned. Employers may still subject employees to drug tests to ensure a drug-free workplace.

Drivers are being warned not to drive after using pot. While it is harder to measure a person’s intoxication level after smoking pot than it is after alcohol consumption, Hound Labs of Oakland is developing what it says is a “marijuana breathalyzer” for cops and employers to gauge whether a person has been using while driving or on the job.

L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell says he worries about people getting behind the wheel while high.

“The public’s perception is that weed is innocuous, that this is something they did 40 years ago and it is no big deal,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Well, today’s marijuana is not yesterday’s marijuana. The active ingredient, THC, is so much higher today than back 40 years ago.”

As for food products containing THC, Californians will be able to consume them in any public place where food is normally consumed. The publishers of Mother Jones magazine say at least one of their readers wrote in to ask if there will be cannabis ice cream — and the answer, they say, is yes. Medical marijuana users have been consuming it for years. But there’s a catch: the amount of THC allowable in such items is limited to 10 milligrams per serving.

One other effect of the new pot law is that it will reduce penalties on people who have been convicted for pot crimes in the past. In addition to making pot more available, the law that legalized it, known as Prop 64, also makes pot crimes once viewed as felonies into lower-level misdemeanors. That means some people currently in California jails for selling or possessing pot could see their sentences reduced.
…

China’s total domestic movie ticket sales rose 13.5 percent in 2017 to 55.9 billion yuan ($8.6 billion), a state news agency said Monday.

The top-grossing title was the mainland-made action picture “Wolf Warrior 2,” which took in 5.7 billion yuan ($875 million), the Xinhua News Agency said, citing data from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

China is the second-largest global film market and is narrowing the gap with the United States, where last year’s domestic box office is estimated to have declined 2.6 percent from 2016 to $11.1 billion.

Mainland-made movies accounted for 54 percent of 2017 ticket sales, or 30.1 billion yuan ($4.6 billion), according to Xinhua.

The No. 2-grossing title was the Hollywood action movie “The Fate of the Furious,” which earned 2.7 billion yuan.
…

North America couldn’t catch a break in 2017. Parts of the United States were on fire, underwater or lashed by hurricane winds. Mexico shook with back-to-back earthquakes. The Caribbean got hit with a string of hurricanes.

The rest of the world, however, fared better. Preliminary research shows there were fewer disasters and deaths this year than on average, but economic damages were much higher.

While overall disasters were down, they smacked big cities, which were more vulnerable because of increased development, said economist and geophysicist Chuck Watson of the consulting firm Enki Research.

In a year where U.S. and Caribbean hurricanes caused a record $215 billion worth of damage, according to insurance giant Munich Re, no one in the continental U.S. died from storm surge, which traditionally is the No. 1 killer during hurricanes. Forecasters gave residents plenty of advance warning during a season where storms set records for strength and duration.

“It’s certainly one of the worst hurricane seasons we’ve had,” National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said.

The globe typically averages about 325 disasters a year, but this year’s total through November was fewer than 250, according to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Louvain in Belgium. They included flooding and monsoons in South Asia, landslides in Africa, a hurricane in Ireland, and cyclones in Australia and Central America. Colombia experienced two different bouts of floods and mudslides.

Lower tolls

Disasters kill about 30,000 people and affect about 215 million people a year. This year’s estimated toll was lower — about 6,000 people killed and 75 million affected.

Was it a statistical quirk or the result of better preparedness? Experts aren’t certain, but say perhaps it’s a little bit of each.

“This has been a particularly quiet year,” said Debarati Guha-Sapir, who heads the disaster research center. “The thing is not to be … complacent about this.”

But quiet depends on where you live.

The U.S. had gone more than a decade without a Category 3 storm or larger making landfall on the mainland. The last few Septembers — normally peak hurricane month — had been particularly quiet, but this year, Harvey, Irma, Jose and later Maria popped up and grew to super strength in no time, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

“September was just bonkers. It was just one after the other. You couldn’t catch a break,” he said.

There were six major Atlantic hurricanes this year; the average is 2.7. A pair of recent studies found fingerprints of man-made global warming were all over the torrential rains from Harvey that flooded Houston.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina estimated that economic damage from this year’s disasters, adjusted for inflation, were more than 40 percent higher than normal, mostly because of Harvey, Irma and Maria. By many private measures, Harvey overtook Katrina as the costliest U.S. hurricane, but the weather service hasn’t finished its calculations yet.

Much of the hurricane-related damage and deaths in the Caribbean — from storm surge and other causes — is still unknown. The National Hurricane Center hasn’t finished tallying its data.

Uccellini of the weather service said warmer than normal waters and unusual steering currents made the hurricanes especially damaging, combined with booming development in disaster-prone areas. 

“We are building in the wrong places. We are building in areas that are increasing in risks,” said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina.

​Devastating wildfires

Wildfires blazed nearly year-round in the U.S., fanned by relentless winds and parched conditions. About 9.8 million acres of land have burned, mostly in the West, nearly 50 percent more than the average in the past decade. A wildfire that ignited in early December in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties northwest of Los Angeles grew to be the largest in California history.

Scientists connect drier weather after heavy rains — leading to buildup of fuel that can catch fire and burn easily — to a combination of man-made warming and a natural La Nina, the climate phenomenon that’s the flip side of El Nino, said Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb.

Worldwide, drought affected significantly less land and fewer people this year, and heat waves were less severe compared with those in the past.

Landslides were more frequent and deadlier this year, mostly because of the Sierra Leone landslide that killed 915 people, Guha-Sapir said.

Earthquakes worldwide were dramatically down. As of mid-December, there had been only seven earthquakes of magnitude 7 or larger compared with about 15 in a normal year. Two powerful quakes struck Mexico in September, including one that hit on the anniversary of the devastating 1985 Mexico City quake.

The back-to-back Mexico quakes were unrelated, said geophysicist Ross Stein of Temblor Inc., a company that provides information about seismic risk. 

“We have to remember that coincidences really do happen,” he said. 
…

There were no fireworks on Wall Street for the last trading day of the year, as U.S. stocks closed out their best year since 2013 on a down note, with losses in technology and financial stocks keeping equities in negative territory for the session.

Major indexes hit a series of record highs in 2017, lifted by a combination of strong economic growth, solid corporate earnings, low interest rates and hopes for a tax cut from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

The benchmark S&P 500 surged 19.5 percent this year, the blue-chip Dow 25.2 percent and Nasdaq 28.2 percent, as each of the major Wall Street indexes scored the best yearly performance since 2013.

The market has also remained resilient in the face of tensions in North Korea and political turmoil in Washington. The S&P 500 only saw four sessions all year with a decline of more than 1 percent while the CBOE Volatility index topped out at 15.96 on a closing basis, well below its long-term average of 20.

What will 2018 bring?

“The real question is what happens as we head into 2018,” said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York. “There is an awful lot of optimism built into share prices right now that could set us up for disappointment.”

Among sectors, the technology index has been the best performer, up 37 percent and led by a gain of 87.6 percent in Micron Technology.

Telecom services, down 5.7 percent, and energy, down 3.7 percent, were the only two sectors to end the year in the red.

The rally is widely expected to extend into 2018, boosted by gains from a new law that lowers the tax burden on U.S. corporations.

Last day a down day

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 118.29 points, or 0.48 percent, on Friday to close at 24,719.22, the S&P 500 lost 13.93 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,673.61 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 46.77 points, or 0.67 percent, to 6,903.39.

For the week, the Dow lost 0.13 percent, the S&P 500 shed 0.36 percent and the Nasdaq lost 0.81 percent.

Apple declined 1.08 percent after issuing a rare apology for slowing older iPhones with flagging batteries.

Goldman Sachs lost 0.68 percent after saying its fourth-quarter profit would take a $5 billion hit related to the new tax law.

Amazon fell 1.4 percent after Trump targeted the online retailer in a call for the country’s postal service to raise prices of shipments in order to recoup costs.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.46-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.91-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 36 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 81 new highs and 20 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 4.94 billion shares, compared to the 6.4 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
…

When the 55-year-old woman stood up to speak at a meeting of shoemakers in south India earlier this month, she was seeing her employers for the first time.

She told them about the decades she had spent hunched up in her home, repeatedly pulling a needle through tough leather as she sewed shoe uppers, the meager income she earned, her failing eyesight and the wounds on her hands.

For manufacturers and brands, her story was a revelation.

The meeting brought women workers, manufacturers, charities and brands face-to-face for the first time in a bid to map the role of homeworkers – an “invisible workforce” in a global supply chain making high-end shoes – and improve conditions.

“It was a historical meeting in that sense,” said Annie Delaney of the Australian RMIT School of Management, who has documented the condition of homeworkers and attended the meeting a fortnight ago in Vellore in Tamil Nadu.

“Homeworkers described their reality. It was a powerful experience for not just the women but also for the manufacturers and brands who were meeting them for the first time.”

There are hundreds of thousands of women from poor, marginalized families who work for cash — stitching, embroidering and weaving at home to put the finishing touches to products that are sold globally, campaigners said.

Most of them are not recognized as formal workers so have no access to social security or fair wages.

Vellore district in Tamil Nadu is the hub of a growing industry in India producing leather footwear for export. In 2016, India exported 236 million pairs of shoes — up from 206 million in 2015, according to the World Footwear Yearbook.

It also has one of the highest concentrations of homeworkers in India – largely women hand-stitching uppers of leather shoes.

Identifying homeworkers​

While factories in the area employ people at higher salaries to assemble the shoes, manufacturers find it cheaper to outsource the labor-intensive process of stitching uppers to women who work from home, using middlemen, campaigners said.

The meeting saw Britain-based Pentland Brands – the first company to map homeworkers in its supply chain – share their interventions with other participating brands including UK-based Clarks and the Switzerland-based AstorMueller Group, according to a stakeholder who attended the closed-door meeting.

None of the companies were immediately available to comment.

Pentland, with annual sales of USD $3 billion across 190 countries, owns sports, outdoor and fashion brands including Berghaus and Speedo, and holds a majority stake of JD Sports.

Since 2016, Pentland has worked with nonprofit groups Cividep in India and Homeworkers Worldwide to identify homeworkers making shoes for them and is at present mapping their pay and hours worked to ensure better wages.

No one from Pentland was immediately available to comment on the initiative, which according to their website aims to provide direct employment to homeworkers, better training and to work with suppliers for sustainable improvement of labor conditions.

Cheap labor

Campaigners say homeworkers are paid by the piece and the exact number of hours they work are not tracked.

The women are paid less than $0.14 per pair of shoes, which are sold in Britain for between $60 and $140, according to a 2016 report by Cividep India and British nongovernment organizations Homeworkers Worldwide and Labor Behind the Label.

The report highlighted how the industry relies on homeworkers who earn less than the minimum wage, lack legal rights, and suffer from chronic headaches and body pain.

“Homeworkers have been under the radar for a long time,” Delaney said. “A start was made in Vellore to collaborate and ensure they get their dues.”
…

President Donald Trump returned to a favorite target Friday, saying that the U.S. Postal Service should charge Amazon.com more money to ship the millions of packages it sends around the world each year.

 Amazon has been a consistent recipient of Trump’s ire. He has accused the company of failing to pay “internet taxes,” though it’s never been made clear by the White House what the president means by that.

In a tweet Friday, Trump said Amazon should be charged “MUCH MORE” by the post office because it’s “losing many billions of dollars a year” while it makes “Amazon richer.”

Amazon lives and dies by shipping, and increasing rates that it negotiated with the post office, as well as shippers like UPS and FedEx, could certainly do some damage.

In the seconds after the tweet, shares of Amazon, which had been trading higher before the opening bell, began to fade and went into negative territory. The stock remained down almost 1 percent in midday trading Friday.

Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. The Post, as well as other major media, has been labeled as “fake news” by Trump after reporting unfavorable developments during his campaign and presidency.

He has labeled Bezos’ Post the, “AmazonWashingtonPost.”

The Seattle company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. A spokeswoman for the Postal Service said, “We’re looking into it.”

Between July and September, Amazon paid $5.4 billion in worldwide shipping costs, a 39 percent increase from the same period in the previous year. That amounts to nearly 11 percent of the $43.7 billion in total revenue it reported in that same period.

In 2014, Amazon reached a deal with the Postal Service to offer delivery on Sundays.

Trump has also attacked U.S. corporations not affiliated in any way with the news media.

Just over a year ago, he tweeted “Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”

Shares of Boeing Co. gave up almost 1 percent when trading opened that day, but recovered.

Several days later, and again on Twitter, he said that Lockheed-Martin, which is building the F-35 fighter jet, was “out of control.”  Its shares tumbled more than 5 percent, but they too recovered.  

The Postal Service has lost money for 11 straight years, mostly because of pension and health care costs. While online shopping has led to growth in its package-delivery business, that hasn’t offset declines in first-class mail. Federal regulators moved recently to allow bigger jumps to stamp prices beyond the rate of inflation, which could eventually increase shipping rates for all companies.

Amazon has taken some steps toward becoming more self-reliant in shipping. Earlier this year it announced that it would build a worldwide air cargo hub in Kentucky, about 13 miles southwest of Cincinnati.

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. slipped less than 1 percent Friday morning to $1,178.69. The Seattle company’s stock is up more than 57 percent this year and surpassed $1,000 each for the first time in April.
…

Officials in the Philippines, one of Asia’s fastest growing economies, are planning a series of economic stimulus measures in 2018 to ease poverty and compensate for a lag in foreign investment.

Manila is building $169 billion in infrastructure, such as railways and an airport terminal, while toying with legal changes that would let foreigners own larger shares of localized businesses.

​Tax reform

In another major step, President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law this month the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion act. Tax revenue would pay for infrastructure and social services.

The idea is to create jobs and bring in foreign investment. Those outcomes would help sustain economic growth while giving the government funds to ease poverty that afflicts about a quarter of the population of 102 million.

“As the country builds for the future, there is the developing (of) social capital,” said Jonathan Ravelas, chief market strategist with Banco de Oro UniBank in Metro Manila.

“Developing social capital eventually means these are your health, technical skills and education that are needed by individuals,” he said. “That’s part and parcel of the package.”

​Infrastructure and taxes

The World Bank forecasts 6.7 percent growth in the Philippine economy this year followed by 6.8 percent in 2018 and 2019. Much of the growth comes from overseas remittances, a boom in call-center jobs and consumption.

A cornerstone of Duterte’s economic policies is the “Build, Build, Build” program to replace decayed infrastructure through 2022 by adding the likes of railways and expressways.

By 2019, a small airport three hours north of Manila will open a new terminal to ease congestion in the capital, for example.

Officials hope new infrastructure will entice foreign factory investment that’s now deterred in part by transportation delays. Foreign investment makes up less than 3 percent of the economy now, lagging Asian peers such as South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.

The tax law signed by Duterte on December 19 is expected to generate $1.8 billion in revenues in its first year. It exempts tax payments for people earning less than the equivalent of $5,005 per year while shifting payment burdens to wealthier people and vehicle owners.

Congress received a bill in 2016 that would lower corporate taxes by 2 percentage points per year until they drop from today’s 30 percent, among Southeast Asia’s highest, to 20 percent.

“I think the way they are going about overhauling the tax code is clearly something that is somewhat path-breaking,” said Rahul Bajoria, a regional economist with Barclays in Singapore.

“They’re looking to tax the right set of individuals,” he said. “It kind of makes sense, and if they’re able to do the same with the corporate tax code, that would be a pretty significant achievement because the tax base itself is quite small.”

The government is also eyeing monetary policy changes to keep inflation in check, economists believe.

And in November Duterte told the National Economic and Development Authority Board to work on easing restrictions on foreign participation in certain industries where ownership is restricted.

Foreign companies, a potential provider of factory jobs for Filipinos, have held back investments because of those restrictions.

​Roadblocks

The government aims to cut poverty from 26 percent to 17 percent by 2020, according to the Ministry of Finance. But snags in the proposed economic measures could limit the jobs or funding needed to reach that goal, some fear.

Timelines for new infrastructure, which is paid in part by foreign aid, is catching attention now given the country’s budget deficit, Ravelas said. 

“What people are looking at now is how fast they are going to push the spending,” he said.

Infrastructure spending has grown from 5 percent of GDP in 2016 to about 7.45 percent now because of the surge in infrastructure construction.

But that program contributed to a 234.9 billion peso ($4.7 billion) budget deficit in the first 10 months of this year, 9 percent more than in the same period of 2016.

Economists still say Duterte is doing more than previous presidents to overhaul the economy and reduce poverty.

But past Philippine presidents have tried the same, particularly with infrastructure spending and tax reform, with little to show, said Renato Reyes, secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabaya alliance of left-wing Philippine organizations.

His alliance advocates land reform instead of the government’s “neoliberal” policies.

“Previous presidents have had their own versions of the same economic stimulus programs, which did not really raise the livelihood of the ordinary folks, but it did contribute to making economic statistics look a little better,” Reyes said.
…

President Donald Trump’s administration is rescinding proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing and other oil- and gas-drilling practices on government lands, government officials announced Thursday.

The rules developed under President Barack Obama would have applied mainly in the West, where most federal lands are located. Companies would have had to disclose the chemicals used in fracking, which pumps pressurized water underground to break open hydrocarbon deposits.

The rules to be rescinded Friday were supposed to take effect in 2015, but a federal judge in Wyoming blocked them at the last minute. In September, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver declined to rule in that case because the Trump administration intended to rescind the rules.

Industry praise

The long-awaited change drew praise from industry groups including the Washington, D.C.-based Independent Petroleum Association of America and Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, which sued to block the rules.

They claimed the federal rules would have duplicated state rules, putting unnecessary and expensive burdens on petroleum developers.

“States have an exemplary safety record regulating fracking, and that environmental protection will continue as before,” Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma said in a release.

Fracking and water

Fracking has been so successful in boosting production over the past decade it has become almost synonymous with oil and gas drilling. In many areas, it would be rare nowadays for a gas or oil well to not be fracked.

The process requires several million gallons of water each time. Environmentalists say the potential risks to groundwater require regulation.

“Fracking is a toxic business, and that’s why states and countries have banned it. Trump’s reckless decision to repeal these common-sense protections will have serious consequences,” Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in an email.
…

By 2020, China could become the world’s second-largest wine consumer, behind the United States, according to a report by Vinexpo, a leading wine exhibition.

“Nowadays, many people in China have given up Baijiu, no more Baijiu,” says Jiawei Wang, a Napa Valley visitor from China, referring to his native country’s traditional grain-based spirits. “Because wine has enough alcohol, but it’s also good for health. It can soften humans’ blood vessels. People are changing.”

Wang is not alone. Chinese are visiting Northern California’s Napa Valley wine region in numbers never seen before.

“It’s interesting because the Chinese market in Napa is the fastest growing international market that we have, according to the statistics from Visit Napa Valley, our visitor bureau here in Napa Valley,” says John Taylor of Yao Family Wines. “China was the number one international market in the Napa Valley last year, composing, I think, about 5.5 percent of total visitation to the valley.”

A must-see stop for Chinese tourists is the Yao Family Wines vineyard, which is owned by retired basketball star Yao Ming. Yao’s celebrity aside, his wines have won praise from wine critics.

“The Cabernet Sauvignon is very nice,” says Wang. “It tastes great.”

About an hour’s drive to the east, the University of California-Davis has one of the country’s top programs for the science of growing grapes and wine making.

“From what I can see, there were not many Chinese students previously,” says Shizhang Han, a Chinese student in the UC-Davis program, “but now in my class and also among those who came after me, there are many more Chinese.”

The Chinese students believe that the wine industry has a promising future in their homeland.

“In Asia, especially in China, people are getting richer,” says student Heigi Wan. “This is one factor.”

“Wine in China is just starting,” says Han. “Before, we imported a lot of wine. And now we start to build new vineyards. The grape vines are still growing. It’s like a newborn baby. Chinese wine carries a lot of hope.”

Hope that has some of the UC-Davis students thinking that their first jobs might not be here in California’s wine country after all, but rather in an emerging wine industry back home in China.
…

Despite initial concerns about an untested new leader, the world’s largest economy will end the year on a high note. The US economy is expanding at the fastest pace in more than two years, buoyed in part by low unemployment, soaring stock prices and a broad economic recovery around the globe. The momentum is expected to carry into 2018, but, as Mil Arcega reports, economists say the new year is likely to bring new challenges.
…

United Parcel Service Inc is on track to return a record number of packages this holiday shipping season, a sign that e-commerce purchases surged to new heights over the past month.

The world’s largest package delivery company and rival FedEx Corp get paid by retailers like Amazon.com Inc and Wal-Mart Stores Inc for handling e-commerce deliveries.

Both have benefited from booming delivery volumes over the past few years, but also have had to invest billions of dollars to upgrade and expand their networks to cope.

An 8 percent increase in returns

UPS said on Wednesday it handled more than 1 million returns to retailers daily in December, a pace expected to last into early January. It said returns would likely peak at 1.4 million on Jan. 3, which would be a fifth consecutive annual record, up 8 percent from this year.

The returns follow what could be the strongest holiday shopping season on record for both brick-and-mortar and online retailers, once stores publish sales data. Mastercard Inc said on Tuesday U.S. shoppers spent over $800 billion during the season, more than ever before.​

FedEx said on Wednesday it experienced another record-breaking peak shipping season, but declined to provide specifics. The company’s Chief Marketing Officer Rajesh Subramaniam told analysts last week about 15 percent of all goods purchased online are returned, with apparel running at about 30 percent.

UPS said record-breaking e-commerce sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in late November jolted the returns season, with a larger flood of packages going back to retailers even as many gifts sat under Christmas trees.

Rates raised

UPS has worked for years to increase its ability to forecast customer shipping demands to handle major package volume spikes ahead of the holidays. It has also raised shipping rates and added 2018 peak-season surcharges.

The returns delivered in 2017 are part of the 750 million packages UPS said it expects to deliver globally during the peak shipping season from the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday through New Year’s Eve. That is an increase of nearly 40 million over the previous year.

UPS and FedEx shares were both up slightly on Wednesday.
…

Airbus is drawing up contingency plans to phase out production of the world’s largest jetliner, the A380 superjumbo, if it fails to win a key order from Dubai’s Emirates, three people familiar with the matter said.

The moment of truth for the slow-selling airliner looms after just 10 years in service and leaves one of Europe’s most visible international symbols hanging by a thread, despite a major airline investment in new cabins unveiled this month.

“If there is no Emirates deal, Airbus will start the process of ending A380 production,” a person briefed on the plans said.

A supplier added such a move was logical due to weak demand. Airbus and Emirates declined to comment. Airbus also declined to say how many people work on the project.

Gradual shutdown?

Any shutdown is expected to be gradual, allowing Airbus to produce orders it has in hand, mainly from Emirates. It has enough orders to last until early next decade at current production rates, according to a Reuters analysis.

The A380 was developed at a cost of 11 billion euros to carry some 500 people and challenge the reign of the Boeing 747. But demand for these four-engined goliaths has fallen as airlines choose smaller twin-engined models, which are easier to fill and cheaper to maintain.

Emirates, however, has been a strong believer in the A380 and is easily the largest customer with total orders of 142 aircraft, of which it has taken just over 100.

Talks between Airbus and Emirates over a new order for 36 superjumbos worth $16 billion broke down at the Dubai Airshow last month. Negotiations are said to have resumed, but there are no visible signs that a deal is imminent.

British Airways interested

Although airlines such as British Airways have expressed interest in the A380, Airbus is reluctant to keep factories open without the certainty that a bulk Emirates order would provide.

Emirates, for its part, wants a guarantee that Airbus will keep production going for a decade to protect its investment.

A decision to cancel would mark a rupture between Airbus and one of its largest customers and tie Emirates’ future growth to recent Boeing orders.

European sources say that reflects growing American influence in the Gulf under President Donald Trump, but U.S. and UAE industry sources deny politics are involved. There are also potential hurdles to a deal over engine choices and after-sales support.

Safety net

Yet if talks succeed, European sources say there is a glimmer of hope for the double-deck jet, which Airbus says will become more popular with airlines due to congestion.

Singapore Airlines, which first introduced the A380 to passengers in 2007, showcased an $850 million cabin re-design this month and expressed confidence in the model’s future.

Airbus hopes to use an Emirates order to stabilize output and establish a safety net from which to attract A380 sales to other carriers, but has ruled out trying to do this the other way round, industry sources said.

As of the end of November, Airbus had won orders for 317 A380s and delivered 221, leaving 96 unfilled orders. But based on airlines’ intentions or finances, 47 of those are unlikely to be delivered, according to industry sources, which halves the number of jets in play.

30 orders needed

Airbus needs to sell at least another 30 to keep lines open for 10 years and possibly more to justify the price concessions likely to be demanded by any new buyers.

To bridge the gap, Airbus plans to cut output to six a year beyond 2019, from 12 in 2018 and 8 in 2019, even if it means producing at a loss, Reuters recently reported.

Chief Operating Officer Fabrice Bregier confirmed this month Airbus was looking at cutting output to 6-7 a year.

If Airbus does decide to wind down production, some believe Emirates will ask Airbus to deliver the remaining 41 it has on order and then keep most A380s in service as long as possible. Even so, some A380s are likely to be heading for scrap.
…

The global fight over land and resources is getting increasingly bloody and the race for control of valuable assets is expanding from forests and indigenous territories to the seas, space and databanks.

Here are five hotspots for property rights in 2018:

1. Rising violence: From Peru to the Philippines, land rights defenders are under increasing threat of harassment and attack from governments and corporations.

At least 208 people have been killed so far this year defending their homes, lands and forests from mining, dams and agricultural projects, advocacy group Frontline Defenders says.

The tally has exceeded that of 2016, which was already the deadliest year on record, and “it is likely that we will see numbers continue to rise”, a spokeswoman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

1. Demand for affordable housing: Governments are under increasing pressure to recognize the right to housing, as Smart Cities projects and rapid gentrification push more people on to the streets, from Mumbai to Rio de Janeiro.

India has committed to providing Housing for All by 2022, while Canada’s recognition of housing as a fundamental right could help eliminate homelessness in the country.

“We need our governments to respond to this crisis and recognize that homelessness is a matter of life and death and dignity,” said Leilani Farha, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to housing.

1. Takeover of public lands: From the shrinking of wilderness national monuments in Utah to the felling of rainforests for palm plantations in Indonesia, public lands risk being rescinded or resized by governments in favor of business interests.

Governments are also likely to be hit by more lawsuits from indigenous communities fighting to protect their lands, as well as the environment.

1. Fight over space and sea: A race to explore and extract resources from the moon, asteroids and other celestial bodies is underway, with China, Luxembourg, the United States and others vying for materials ranging from ice to precious metals.

The latest space race targets a multi-trillion dollar industry.

Expect more debate over the 50-year-old U.N. Outer Space Treaty, which declares “the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind.”

On Earth, the fight over the seas is intensifying, particularly in the Arctic. Melting ice caps have triggered a fierce contest between energy companies in the United States, Russia, Canada, and Norway over drilling rights.

1. Debate over data: As more countries move towards digital citizen IDs, there are growing concerns about privacy and safety of the data, the ethics of biometrics, and the misuse of data for profiling or increased surveillance.

Campaigners are pushing for “informational privacy” to be part of the right to privacy, and for governments to treat the right to data as an inalienable right, like the right to dignity.
…

There was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each.

Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up for years.

Though used to expensive repairs, this one was too much and put him out of business. “Repairs cost an arm and a leg in Venezuela,” said the now-unemployed 42-year-old Garcia, who has a wife and two children to support in the southern city of Guayana. “There’s no point keeping bolivars.”

For a decade and a half, strict exchange controls have severely limited access to dollars. A black market in hard currency has spread in response, and as once-sky-high oil revenue runs dry, Venezuela’s economy is in free-fall.

The practice adopted by gourmet and design stores in Caracas over the last couple of years to charge in dollars to a select group of expatriates or Venezuelans with access to greenbacks is fast spreading.

Food sellers, dental and medical clinics, and others are starting to charge in dollars or their black market equivalent – putting many basic goods and services out of reach for a large number of Venezuelans.

According to the opposition-led National Assembly, November’s rise in prices topped academics’ traditional benchmark for hyperinflation of more than 50 percent a month – and could end the year at 2,000 percent. The government has not published inflation data for more than a year.

“I can’t think in bolivars anymore, because you have to give a different price every hour,” said Yoselin Aguirre, 27, who makes and sells jewelry in the Paraguana peninsula and has recently pegged prices to the dollar. “To survive, you have to dollarize.”

The socialist government of the late president Hugo Chavez in 2003 brought in the strict controls in order to curb capital flight, as the wealthy sought to move money out of Venezuela after a coup attempt and major oil strike the previous year.

Oil revenue was initially able to bolster artificial exchange rates, though the black market grew and now is becoming unmanageable for the government.

Trim the Tree With Bolivars

President Nicolas Maduro has maintained his predecessor’s policies on capital controls. Yet, the spread between the strongest official rate, of some 10 bolivars per dollar, and the black market rate, of around 110,000 per dollar, is now huge.

While sellers see a shift to hard currency as necessary, buyers sometimes blame them for speculating.

Rafael Vetencourt, 55, a steel worker in Ciudad Guayana, needed a prostate operation priced at $250.

“We don’t earn in dollars. It’s abusive to charge in dollars!” said Vetencourt, who had to decimate his savings to pay for the surgery.

In just one year, Venezuela’s currency has weakened 97.5 percent against the greenback, meaning $1,000 of local currency purchased then would be worth just $25 now.

Maduro blames black market rate-publishing websites such as DolarToday for inflating the numbers, part of an “economic war” he says is designed by the opposition and Washington to topple him.

On Venezuela’s borders with Brazil and Colombia, the prices of imported oil, eggs and wheat flour vary daily in line with the black market price for bolivars.

In an upscale Caracas market, cheese-filled arepas, the traditional breakfast made with corn flour, increased 65 percent in price in just two weeks, according to tracking by Reuters reporters. In the same period, a kilogram of ham jumped a whopping 171 percent.

The runaway prices have dampened Christmas celebrations, which this season were characterized by shortages of pine trees and toys, as well as meat, chicken and cornmeal for the preparation of typical dishes.

In one grim festive joke, a Christmas tree in Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital and second city, was decorated with virtually worthless low-denomination bolivar bills.

Most Venezuelans, earning just $5 a month at the black market rate, are nowhere near being able to save hard currency.

“How do I do it? I earn in bolivars and have no way to buy foreign currency,” said Cristina Centeno, a 31-year-old teacher who, like many, was seeking remote work online before Christmas in order to bring in some hard currency.
…

The sauvignon blanc boasts brassy, citrus notes, but with one whiff, it’s apparent this is no normal Sonoma County wine. It’s infused with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that provides the high. 

Move over, pot brownies. The world’s largest legal recreational marijuana market kicks off Monday in California, and the trendsetting state is set to ignite the cannabis culinary scene. 

Chefs and investors have been teaming up to offer an eye-boggling array of cannabis-infused food and beverages, weed-pairing supper clubs and other extravagant pot-to-plate events in preparation for legalization come Jan. 1. 

Legal pot in states like Oregon, Washington and Colorado and California’s longstanding medical marijuana market already spurred a cannabis-foodie movement with everything from olive oil to heirloom tomato bisques infused with the drug.

Cannabis-laced dinners with celebrity chefs at private parties have flourished across Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego in recent years, but a medical marijuana card was required to attend. 

With that requirement gone, the edibles market is expected to boom, though manufacturers face a host of regulations, and doctors fear the products could increase emergency room visits and entice youth. Marijuana industry analysts predict edibles for the recreational marijuana market will top $100 million in sales in 2018. 

“Californian’s culinary expertise is far more refined from college kids making pot brownies in a dorm,” said John Kagia of Frontier Data, a cannabis market research firm. 

Expect a slew of vegan and gluten-free choices and low-dose snacks from trail mixes to chocolates. And they may well be served at a gym or Pilates studio.

“This is the dawn of the Amsterdam-style cafe in the U.S.,” Kagia said. “We expect to see spaces that are targeted to cannabis consumers that capitalize on the arts and entertainment offerings of California and really create unique and elevated experiences.”

That includes ethnic options in a state with the largest immigrant population in the U.S. 

“Now you see all kinds of cuisines,” said Cristina Espiritu of the 420 Foodie Club, which has promoted cannabis food events in Southern California that have included everything from Mediterranean dishes to Filipino specialties. “There’s going to be infused tacos, infused burritos. I think because of the diversity and creativity in California, this is going to explode.”

But Espiritu worries regulations could make certain aspects of the culinary experience accessible only to the elite in places like Beverly Hills.

Kitchens for those making edibles to sell must be licensed. And organizers must pay $5,000 a year for a license to host up to 10 events, and depending on the size, they may be required to hold them at a fairground. Cities can pose additional fees and ban an event altogether. 

Regulations prohibit manufacturers from producing cannabis products for retail sale that include perishable items that could pose a health risk, such as dairy, seafood, fresh meat, or food or beverages appealing to children. It’s still unclear if those rules would apply to a chef-hosted dinner or cooking class that people have paid for.

Edible products must be produced in serving sizes with no more than 10 milligrams of THC and no more than 100 milligrams of THC for the total package.

Drug policy expert and Stanford Law School professor Robert J. MacCoun said the regulations are too lax. Edibles already being sold in the medical marijuana industry vary widely in their potency, so people get more stoned than they planned and can end up in emergency rooms. 

The bright packages appeal to children, who often are too young to read warning labels, MacCoun said. He thinks edibles should be restricted to plain brown or white packaging.

“Everyone sees this as a kind of new gold rush in the way that it will make a lot of money, but I think we need to be more careful about how this rolls out,” he said.

Many see California’s recreational marijuana business mirroring its wine industry, with people seeking weed pairings, cannabis farm tours and products made from organic, local plants. 

Rebel Coast Winery’s THC-infused sauvignon blanc is made from Sonoma County grapes, but the alcohol is removed in compliance with regulations that prohibit mixing pot with alcohol. 

It smells like marijuana, meeting another requirement that it not be confused with a food or beverage that does not contain pot.

Founder Alex Howe is planning high-end dinner parties in Los Angeles in early 2018 to debut the $59.99 bottle of wine. Each bottle contains 16 milligrams of THC, and the company says on average, people feel the effects in under 15 minutes. 

“We really wanted to mimic that ritual of opening a bottle of wine at dinner, or at a party with friends or while watching a movie, which is something so familiar to people, especially in California,” he said.
…

Authorities in eastern Libya have announced a conference in March to drum up support to rebuild the country’s second-largest city Benghazi heavily damaged during three years of fighting between military forces and Islamist fighters.

The announcement signals a desire to demonstrate a return to normality in the port, where top military commander Khalifa Haftar declared the end of a campaign to oust Islamist fighters in July.

Clashes have sporadically continued in some isolated areas, while life has returned in the rest of the city, though some districts were almost completely destroyed by shelling and air strikes.

A forum titled “International Conference and Exhibition for rebuilding Benghazi city” will be held from March 19-21, the organizers said in an invitation posted online, adding that a six-day exhibition would be held the same month.

Haftar is aligned with a government and parliament in eastern Libya which was listed as the conference’s sponsor.

He has rejected a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.

The United Nations has sought to bridge differences between the two sides, part of a conflict since Muammar Gadhafi was toppled in 2011. Talks were suspended in October.
…

Oil moved higher above $65 a barrel on Tuesday, within sight of its highest since mid-2015, supported by an explosion on a crude pipeline in Libya and voluntary OPEC-led supply cuts.

The move towards restart of a key North Sea pipeline, Forties, capped the rally. The pipeline is being tested after repairs and full flows should resume in early January, its operator said on Monday.

Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil prices, rose 19 cents to $65.44 a barrel at 1447 GMT. Prices hit $65.83 on December 12, the highest since June 2015. U.S. crude added 24 cents to $58.71.

“The confirmation that Forties is coming back … has the potential for capping Brent,” said Olivier Jakob, analyst at Petromatrix.

Trading activity was thin due to the Christmas holiday in many countries.

Oil turned positive following the explosion at the Libyan pipeline, which feeds the Es Sider terminal. It was not immediately clear what impact the blast will have on Libyan output, which has been recovering in recent months after being hampered for years by conflict and unrest.

Brent has risen 17 percent in 2017. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, plus Russia and other non-members, have been withholding output since January 1 to get rid of a glut.

The producers have extended the supply cut agreement to cover all of 2018.

Iraq’s oil minister said on Monday there would be a balance between supply and demand by the first quarter, leading to a boost in prices. Global oil inventories have decreased to an acceptable level, he added.

That is earlier than predicted in OPEC’s latest official forecast, which calls for a balanced market by late 2018.

While the OPEC action has lent support to prices all year, the unplanned shutdown of the Forties pipeline on December 11 pushed Brent to its mid-2015 high.

Forties plays an important role in the global market as it is the biggest of the five North Sea crude streams underpinning Brent, the benchmark for oil trading in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Rising production in the United States is offsetting some of the OPEC-led cuts.

The U.S. rig count, RIG-OL-USA-BHI, an early indicator of future output, held at 747 in the week to December 22, according to the latest weekly report by Baker Hughes.
…