YCLOAK

You may have noticed: Much of the recent anti-immigration rhetoric in Washington most loudly comes from factions on the political right: H1B, H2B, it’s all about protecting American jobs.

But every step of the way, progressive groups — while pro-immigrant — are just as critical of foreign worker visas. Federal regulations on the books, they argue, are inherently insufficient to protect visa holders from abuse, whether through unwarranted recruitment fees, misrepresentation of job requirements, fraud or intimidation.

The issue plagues potential recruits, but also well-meaning businesses that can’t find enough Americans willing to take seasonal jobs. In Cape Cod, Massachusetts and other areas of the country whose economic models are centered on five-to-six-month tourist seasons, the work of H2B visa-holders becomes essential to business owners.

Employers worry, too

Tyler Hayes, vice president of Cape Cod Restaurants, says he is fortunate that his seasonal foreign workforce, mainly from Jamaica, has created a “family atmosphere” during his 20-year tenure with the company.

“Now, their children are coming in, working for us,” Hayes said.

But while Hayes can only point to the well-being of his own workforce, he acknowledges that at least in recent years, abuse of workers has not been inconceivable.

“There used to be these companies that would send out these big petitions,” Hayes recalled. “They bring in 100 or 200 people, get them in the country and then farm them out.”

In response, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cracked down on abuse within the H2B system in 2015, both in order to prevent the exploitation of workers and to ensure U.S. workers’ awareness of available jobs.

Are regulations enough?

Elizabeth Mauldin, policy director at Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. (CDM) — the Center for Migrant Rights — calls those protections basic, including the right to receive a contract before entering the U.S. and protection from being charged a recruitment fee.

But many aspects of those existing regulations, she argues, are difficult to ensure, absent greater transparency in the recruitment process.

“It’s impossible to enforce a ban on charging workers fees,” Mauldin told VOA. “When workers are charged fees upfront, they are vulnerable to the same type of economic coercion across the board.” As a result, she notes, foreign workers become susceptible to wage theft and other abuses, regardless of their visa category.

Afraid to report

A 2013 report issued by CDM, whose findings were based on a survey and in-depth interviews with hundreds of H2B workers, found that 58 percent of respondents reported paying illegal recruitment fees, while 10 percent reported recruitment fraud — having paid a fee for a nonexistent job.

While there are mechanisms in place for foreign workers to report abuse, Mauldin argues that the disincentives are often too great.

“[Abusive employers] will say, at the end of the season, ‘If you pay those fees, then we will be more likely to recruit you in the future,’ or ‘If you don’t report these violations, then our recruiter will choose you again next year,’” Mauldin said.

Jane Nichols Bishop, founder and president of Peak Season Workforce, a family-run company that helps Cape Cod-area businesses secure H2B visas, says the mechanisms in place to prevent exploitation, including audits by the Department of Labor, have largely worked. But in cases where they do not, she says it’s in everyone’s interest that the infractions are reported.

“If there are abuses, we would like to see them caught,” Nichols said. “They give everyone who does this and who works at this very successfully a very bad name.”

Workers empower themselves

Despite ongoing reports of abuse nationwide, there is some hope for affected foreigners outside of federal regulations, thanks to the internet. A bilingual workers’ rights initiative, which Mauldin calls the Yelp for migrant workers, allows workers to review recruiters and share their experiences, and create a self-empowering community in the process.

 
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Steeped in centuries of seemingly impenetrable tea tradition, Afghanistan’s capital is getting a little coffee buzz.

Nargis Aziz Shahi says business has been increasing day by day since she opened iCafe a couple of weeks ago. Looking a little like a brick-walled Starbucks with a distinctively homey Afghan feel, it’s attracting a mostly youthful clientele drawn by free internet service and books to peruse over a cup or two.

“There were three key objectives that led me open the cafe: 1) to introduce coffee to Afghans who mostly don’t know coffee and its taste and benefits; 2) to provide a place for our youth to carry out social activities; and 3) to provide job opportunities for young people,” Shahi told VOA’s Afghan service.

Tea came to Afghanistan early

Afghanistan was introduced to tea early because of its location on ancient trade routes. The Chinese traded silk and tea for other commodities. Tea became part of the country’s hospitality for guests. Just about every family has its own recipe.

Today, Afghanistan is the world’s largest tea consumer, with each person consuming an average of almost 4.5 kilograms — more than 1,500 cups — per year in 2012. By comparison, the U.S. ranked 72nd at 0.4 kilograms per person.

Only the Russian Federation and Britain, with much larger populations, import more tea.

Coffee culture gets a start

Dr. Nabi Misdaq, adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, has visited iCafe. He regards coffee drinking as a new, enlightening culture in Afghanistan.

“It is a good beginning,” Misdaq said. “It is a profitable business, because many young people come here to read books and exchange ideas. I am sure that this will also lead to the opening of new shops.”

The cafe also serves as a place for young Afghans to carry out social and cultural activities. They come to iCafe to attend literary programs and poetry contests.

The female customers say there are few other places where they can get together and entertain themselves, but they maintain that they come to the shop to relax and enjoy.

“I am very happy that we have a coffee shop in Kabul,” said customer Samira Seerat. “It is a very good place for women to visit. There are in fact no appropriate places for women in Kabul, and Afghanistan as a whole, to visit, because our people believe that women cannot go to restaurants.”
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Steeped in centuries of traditional tea drinking, Afghanistan is getting a little coffee buzz for a change. Hikmat Sorosh has more on this popular new trend from the Afghan capital, Kabul, in this story narrated by Michael Lipin, with additional reporting by Khalil Noorzaie in Herat.
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Along northeastern Cape Cod off the coast of Massachusetts, April doesn’t usually equate with sunshine and sandcastles. The month is mostly a time of waiting for the fog and chill to lift off the Atlantic Ocean and the tourists to arrive.

But this year is a problem for seasonal businesses, whose model is built around five-to-six-month, low-skilled jobs in areas like hospitality. Few Americans are willing to fill them and now, thousands of foreign seasonal workers may not be allowed into the U.S. to take them.

Changes to the U.S. temporary work visa program, called H2B, are keeping out the workers that businesses count on.

For affected businesses, the financial loss could be plenty.

“It could be 20 percent,” said Allen Sylvester, president of American Tent & Table, Inc., a family-owned tent rental and party accessory business in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Sylvester, who has been with the company since 1996, says it earns roughly 85 to 90 percent of its profits in five months — the region’s outdoor wedding season. Fully staffed, the company employs seven to eight Americans and 13 H2B visa workers.

Normally it’s the former group Sylvester has a hard time hiring. But last September, Congress failed to renew a provision that effectively quadrupled the number of H2B visas available in 2016 by not counting returnees against the annual cap. This year, instead of potentially 264,000 visas, there are 66,000 — half allocated in the spring, the other half in the fall.

Businesses in colder areas like Cape Cod, which typically have later start dates, find themselves at a loss. By the time many could complete their visa applications, the cap had been reached.

“Instead of bringing 3,000 workers here, we right now are bringing 300 workers,” said Jane Nichols Bishop, president of Peak Season Workforce, a family-owned business that helps local companies secure annual H2B visas.

Bishop, who calls herself “Mama Visa,” says the 90-day application process that businesses must follow to gain seasonal employment is stringent, including evidence of advertising to recruit American workers.

Of the 171 applications she personally filed for clients, Bishop says 24 made their way through the Department of Homeland Security before all the visas were gone.

Why not hire more Americans?

At 3.4 percent, the February unemployment rate in Massachusetts is lower than the current national average, 4.5 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But as Falmouth, Massachusetts, resident Paul Skudder said, the numbers don’t paint the whole picture on Cape Cod, a community with a growing number of retirees and decreasing number of youth.

“There is a limited number of job opportunities on the Cape for college-educated professional or near professional people, which overall leads to a little bit of an exodus of bright, educated young people,” Skudder said.

Eligible job seekers who are willing to accept low-skilled employment, generally need a permanent source of income. And students can offer just three months of labor during their summer breaks, not five or six.

The well-being of the younger population is also a factor. In 2015, Cape Cod suffered the highest per capita death rate by opioid overdose in Massachusetts and remains one of the most affected areas in the country.

“A lot of the kids I used to know have now passed away,” said Prince Wright, who attended high school in Falmouth. “That’s the big problem right now … most of our locals are not coming in no more. Either they’re locked up or they moved away because of the changes on the Cape.”

More effort needed?

But along Main Street in the Cape’s largest town, not all are convinced that businesses are trying their best to hire local.

“It’s good for the [foreigners] that are coming over here on work visas, but it also takes away from the people that are living on the streets that can work,” said Mary Richard. “I just think it’s hard on the people here too.”

Politicians are divided on the H2B visa program, seeing it as either economically exploitative or a job-killer for Americans.

Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, send mixed messages. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the country’s top law enforcement official, has called the H2B program “detrimental to wages and job opportunities of American workers.” But Donald Trump, before he was president, employed H2B workers during peak resort season at his Florida golf club, Mar-a-Lago.

H2B-reliant businesses worry that the visa is unfairly lumped into Trump’s hard-line stance on immigration. And in Bishop’s mind, some legislators simply don’t understand seasonal economies.

“When people come to Cape Cod and the islands, they come to see and visit us. It’s full employment, we are busy, there’s traffic, so they don’t even realize there is a labor shortage,” Bishop said. “But when you come here in January, you may be the only car on the road for quite a while.”

Hiring strategy

Jim Underdah, general manager at the Coonamessett Inn, considers himself one of the lucky few to secure his share of foreign seasonal workers from Jamaica. Still, a backlog in the system has delayed their arrival and forced him to repurpose the limited workforce he retains year-round.

In anticipation of this, Underdah says many businesses like his choose to employ workers full-time even during the offseason, when he doesn’t need them.

“I have people in the kitchen that we work 40 hours for the winter, so they’re not going to leave me,” Underdah said. “They’re gonna say, ‘Hey, they’re treating us good.’ They’re going to be here this spring. They’re going to get me through till hopefully the workers get in.”

Paul Dean, who runs a seafood retail and catering business, was not as lucky. Lacking the workforce he needs to keep his multiple operations running, he says he may be forced to close one of his locations a couple days a week.

Like Sylvester, Dean predicts this would amount to a loss of 20 percent of annual income.

“That means I’m buying 20 percent less product from local vendors,” Dean said. “We’re obviously collecting 20 percent less in meals tax toward the state. We’re not paying payroll taxes … there’s a huge trickle-down effect.”

Dean and Sylvester are crossing their fingers for a last-ditch effort by lawmakers to reinstate an H2B returning worker exemption before April 28, as part of its fiscal year 2017 federal spending bill. But in case that doesn’t happen, Sylvester offers last-resort advice for summer tourists.

“If you’re going to stay over, bring your sheets and some towels,” he joked, “because there’s going to be no one to clean your room.”
…

At first glance, U.S. President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen may have little in common.

Yellen is an academic economist and veteran of Democratic administrations who is committed to an open global economy, while Trump is a real estate mogul with an electoral base suspicious of the economic order Yellen helped to create.

Yet the two may have interests in common now that Trump is president and both want to get as many Americans working as possible.

Since her appointment as Fed chair in February 2014, Yellen has kept interest rates low and she currently pledges to raise them only slowly even though unemployment, at 4.5 percent, is at its lowest in nearly 10 years.

Meanwhile, Trump’s election campaign promises to cut taxes, spend money on infrastructure and deregulate banking, have helped propel a surge in the U.S. Conference Board’s consumer confidence index to its highest level since the internet stocks crash 16 years ago.

Former Fed staff and colleagues who know Yellen said Trump’s surprising remarks this week in a Wall Street Journal interview, in which he did not rule out Yellen’s reappointment to a new four-year term next year, are not as outlandish as they may appear now that the president has a vested interest in keeping markets and the economy on an even keel.

And the same staff and colleagues say Yellen may well accept reappointment, despite Trump’s criticism of her during last year’s election campaign.

Many in Trump’s Republican party have called for tighter monetary policy and a less activist Fed, but “the president would not really find that useful,” said former Fed vice chair Donald Kohn.

If Trump fills three existing Federal Reserve board vacancies with people Yellen thinks she could work with, “it would be really difficult to turn down” a reappointment when her term as chair expires in February 2018.

“If she continues to do well, he’d be nuts to ditch her for an unknown quantity,” said University of California, Berkeley, economics professor Andrew Rose, a long-time colleague and co-author with Yellen of an oft-cited study of labor markets.

Yellen took over from Ben Bernanke as Fed chair in February 2014 with the U.S. economic recovery from the 2008 financial crisis still on shaky ground, and she has made no secret she puts a priority on growth in jobs and wages and a broad recovery in U.S. household wealth.

In a slow return to more normal monetary policy, Yellen has stopped the purchase of additional financial securities by the Fed and in December 2015 began raising short term interest rates for the first time in 10 years.

So far those policy shifts have been engineered with little apparent impact on job growth, and so mesh with Trump’s core election campaign promises to restore employment and earnings.

The slow rise in interest rates in the past year has also happened while U.S. stock prices have risen to record highs, though Trump has claimed the credit for himself.

Precedent for Fed Chair to Stay On

There is precedent for Trump to stick with a former president’s Fed chair appointment. Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, the three previous Fed chairs, served at least two four-year terms and were nominated by both Democratic and Republican presidents.

However it may be a more difficult step for Trump.

During last year’s election campaign, Trump accused Yellen of accepting orders from then President Obama to keep interest rates low for political reasons, and he said he would replace her as Fed chair because she is not a Republican party member.

In a particularly biting moment last year, in a campaign video advertisement, he labeled her as among the “global special interests” who had ruined life for middle America.

 

The Fed on Thursday said it had no response to Trump’s comments published on Wednesday on Yellen and or on whether Yellen would consider a second term.

Much Could Still Go Wrong

Some of Trump’s advisers and some Republican lawmakers want a more conservative Fed in which the chair has less power and would see a Yellen reappointment as yet another step away from his promise to “drain the swamp” of the Washington establishment.

There are also three current vacancies on the Fed’s seven member Board of Governors, and unorthodox new members could make it difficult for Yellen to manage policy or accept another four-year term.

But if the choice is her consensus style or someone unproven in their ability to manage public and market expectations, “he’d be wise to reappoint her,” said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed staffer and Berkeley colleague of Yellen’s currently at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“I don’t see what is in his interests to appoint someone who is going to jack up interest rates.”
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With economic growth rates close to 7 percent, Laos is a star in South East Asia, buoyed by investment and business ties with China, the country’s largest investor.

In a new assessment the Lao government and Asian Development Bank predict the country’s good economic fortunes will continue.

The ADB said national output (GDP) should reach 6.9 percent in 2017, and 7 percent in 2018, despite fiscal constraints and weaker global demand for minerals in recent years.

Rattanatay Luanglathbandith, Vientiane-based ADB public management specialist, said, “The key driver of Laos’ economic growth is mainly the resources sector, hydropower and mining, namely copper, silver and gold.”

Laos’ ambition as the “battery of South East Asia” has seen development of hydro-power dams with 10 now operating. Three more proposed for the Mekong River are moving forward despite criticism from conservationists because of their environmental impact, especially on fish stocks.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Development Department says tourism contributed $724 million to the national budget in 2016. Visitor arrivals stood at 4.23 million, down from 4.68 million a year earlier, but Laos is spending $61 million to expand Wattay International airport.

Service sector growing

Rattanatay said the tourism industry is a key to absorbing rising numbers entering the workforce.

“The expansion of the services’ sector is happening right now. [It will] start to absorb labor into the total labor employed, but it happens slowly in the hotel, restaurant and retail trade and then some service provider in the IT sector,” Ratanatay told VOA.

China is Laos’ largest investor with more than $6.7 billion in 760 projects, according to a report by the Xinhua news agency. Behind China, the other key trade and investment partners are Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Martin Stuart-Fox, emeritus professor of history at the University of Queensland, says Laos must manage the interests of China and Vietnam.

“The problem for Laos is balancing the Chinese money against the Vietnamese, the traditional Vietnamese influence, particularly the Vietnamese influence through the military. And there’s the Chinese money coming in and the special economic zones – some are a complete set up run by a single Chinese company [for] casinos, money laundering, and prostitution and gambling,” Stuart-Fox told VOA.

China is also contributing 70 percent of the total cost of the $5.8 billion China-Lao railway. The 410-kilometer segment is part of China’s Kunming-Singapore rail link. Chairman of the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Oudeth Saouvannavong, told Lao media the rail link is seen as “crucial in boosting development, generating jobs and income for local people”.

Growth impacting society

But economists say rapid growth has led to fiscal and budgetary issues, as well as social considerations. In 2017 budget expenditures are forecast at $3.92 billion against revenues of $2.89 billion, a deficit of $1.07 billion.

Buavanh Vilavong, a Lao scholar at the Australian National University, said the Lao economy suffers from chronic fiscal deficits due to a narrow revenue base and “macro-economic mismanagement”. He said the government is taking steps at reform with improved economic governance and “fiscal consolidation.”

ADB’s Rattanatay says for the long term, “The government has to create a favorable business environment to encourage the development of small and medium enterprises in order to diversify the economy from the resources sector to more labor intensive manufacturing and service sector.”

The Asian Development Bank says the 23 percent of Laos’ seven million population living in poverty needs to be addressed.

Holly High, a senior research fellow from Sydney University’s department of anthropology, says promising prosperity is a cornerstone of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party platform.

“So if they are generating a lot of economic growth that is certainly a step towards delivering on their promises, but it’s not going to be adequate if this isn’t delivered in a way that’s perceived to be equitable,” High told VOA.

Analysts say Laos faces high rates of corruption. The Berlin-based Transparency International in 2016 ranked Laos at 123 of 176 nations on its corruption perception index. Stuart-Fox says corruption and the black economy, that disregards government rules, remains a major issue.

“It’s massively corrupt. Absolutely massively corrupt. If you are the top of the party you get a lot of money, and there’s a lot of Chinese money coming in, of course, and there are top people in the politburo who are extremely wealthy,” said Stuart-Fox.

High says with the backdrop of growth, there is also a need for “more venues for political dissent” for public debate on social and economic issues.

“Even when there’s good news, about say economic growth or poverty declining, people are still suspicious because there’s not a lot of trust in the political sphere in Laos,” she said.
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South Korea is expecting tough trade talks ahead with the United States after President Donald Trump strongly criticized the free trade agreement between the two countries for dramatically increasing the U.S. trade deficit.

A report by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) laid out key trade objectives for the Trump administration that include “breaking down unfair trade barriers” and ensuring American businesses have a “fair opportunity to compete.” And it specifically points to South Korea, along with China and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as egregious examples of unbalanced and unfair trade.

The South Korea/U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) was the largest trade deal implemented during the administration of former President Barack Obama. Since it took effect in 2012, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea has more than doubled. U.S. exports to South Korea fell by $1.2 billion, while U.S. imports from South Korea grew by more than $13 billion. “Needless to say,” the report notes, “this is not the outcome the American people expected from that agreement.”

”Those are harsh words and that is the economic and political reality that we have to deal with,” said Jeffrey Jones, an international trade attorney with the law firm Kim & Chang at a recent Korea International Trade Association forum.

Deficit vs. investment

Business leaders and some former trade officials in Seoul have voiced concern that the Trump administration is being overly critical of the KORUS FTA by putting too much emphasis on the trade deficit that is just one aspect of a complex and evolving economic relationship.

For example, Korean investment in the United States, from companies like Samsung and Hyundai, have created more than 45,000 American jobs. “Direct investments Korean companies have made in the United States since KORUS have exceeded trade deficits with Korea,” James Kim, chairman of both GM Korea and the American Chamber of Commerce, said in a recent Korea Times interview.

However Kim also said South Korea could do more to lower non-tariff related trade barriers in the auto industry, that account for 80 percent of the U.S. trade deficit, by relaxing environmental and inspection regulations.

There is also an argument to be made that the KORUS FTA helped prevent the trade deficit from getting worse, said Jones, who is also a former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea. All foreign imports into South Korea have been in decline in recent years. U.S. imports dropped only by 2.8 percent, while Japanese imports are down 15 percent, Australian imports are down by 20 percent, and imports from the EU are down almost 10 percent.

And Jones notes that last year’s $23 billion South Korea trade deficit with the United States is small in comparison with the U.S. trade deficit with Japan that is five times higher and with China that is 10 times as large.

Broader alliance

While American business leaders in Seoul say it is important to understand the complex reasons for the current U.S. trade deficit with South Korea, former trade officials say it is also important to recognize how it took years of tough negotiations and compromises to reach such a comprehensive free trade deal.

Kim Jong-hoon, the former director of the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who was a key trade negotiator during the KORUS talks, said his country made  major concessions.  

“Everybody knows that Korea’s tariff was much higher than those of the U.S. So when we talk about reduction, then Korea had a deeper cut, deeper, deeper cut than the U.S. did,” said Kim.

Wendy Cutler, the former USTR chief KORUS negotiator, who is now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the trade agreement also provided a framework to resolve disputes that were undermining trust and cooperation in other areas of the U.S./South Korea alliance.

“In our bilateral relationship it was often the economic issues that were really the source of tension. And so once we were able to conclude KORUS, we found that our overall alliance became stronger,” said Cutler.

Business leaders with the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea recommend that the South Korean government agree to cooperate with the Trump administration to improve the FTA, which is now five years old and in need of upgrading.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report
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President Donald Trump plans to revive the hobbled Export-Import Bank of the United States, his office said, a victory for American manufacturers like Boeing and General Electric which have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products.

Trump first told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday he would fill two vacancies on the agency’s five-member board that have prevented the bank from having a quorum and being able to act on loans over $10 million. Trump’s picks must gain approval from the Senate, which blocked nominees by former President Barack Obama.

Trump told the Journal that the bank benefits small businesses and creates jobs, a reversal of his earlier criticism of the bank being “featherbedding” for wealthy corporations.

Bank offers loans to foreign entities

The Export-Import Bank, an independent government agency, provides loans to foreign entities that enables them to purchase American-made goods. For example, it has been used by foreign airlines to purchase planes from Boeing and farmers in developing nations to acquire equipment.

The bank’s acting chairman, Charles “CJ” Hall, was not immediately available for comment.

The bank has become a popular target for conservatives, who have worked in Congress to kill the bank, arguing that it perpetuates cronyism and does little to create American jobs.

Trump’s about-face on the export bank comes after meeting on Tuesday with former Boeing Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney, who left the company last year but oversaw the corporation’s aggressive lobbying effort in support of the bank in 2015.

Trump also met at the White House on Feb. 23 with GE CEO Jeff Immelt and Caterpillar Inc CEO Mark Sutton, both vocal supporters of the bank.

It is not known if they discussed the bank at those meetings.

Bank helps level playing field

Large American corporations that do significant amounts of exports say other countries have similar agencies and the export bank levels the playing field.

“This is an encouraging development on a key competitive issue for U.S manufacturers and their extensive supply chains,” Boeing spokeswoman Kate Bernard said in statement to Reuters.

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, which includes companies like Ingersoll-Rand, United States Steel and Pfizer, cheered the move.

“Manufacturers are encouraged by President Trump’s vocal support for the bank,” said NAM Vice President of International Economic Affairs Linda Dempsey in a statement.

A 2015 fight to shutter the bank led by conservatives in Congress allowed the bank’s charter to expire for five months.

After overwhelming bipartisan support emerged to renew the bank’s charter, which is needed for it to operate, conservatives blocked nominees to the board, preventing it from financing large exports like aircraft and power turbines.

Groups work to shut down bank

Freedom Partners and Americans for Prosperity, two groups funded by the Republican donor Koch brothers, worked aggressively for years to kill the bank. Brothers Charles and David Koch have opposed the bank for what they call damaging interference into the free market by government.

Nathan Nascimento, Freedom Partners vice president of policy, called the bank on Wednesday “the epitome of what’s wrong with Washington.”

“Reopening the flood gates to Ex-Im’s corporate welfare is a bad deal for hardworking taxpayers and a bad deal for American businesses,” he said.

The Club for Growth, which spends heavily in electing conservative candidates and was one of the few groups to campaign against Trump during the Republican primary in 2016, also lamented the change in position.

“Ex-Im has a long history of cronyism and corruption that is well-known to many in the Trump Administration, and while we hoped it would be done away with, the administration now has taken on the almost impossible challenge of reforming a federal agency whose mission has been to pick winners and losers with taxpayer dollars,” spokesman Doug Sachtleben said in a statement to Reuters.

 
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Zimbabwean entrepreneurs could soon use movable assets, including livestock and vehicles, to secure loans from banks, according to a bill brought before the country’s Parliament this week.

The southern African country’s economy is dominated by informal business following the formal sector’s contraction by as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2008, according to government data, after President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of white-owned farms decimated the key agriculture sector.

The Movable Property Security Interest Bill, introduced Tuesday by Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, seeks to make it easier for Zimbabwe’s burgeoning informal sector to access bank funds.

A copy of the bill seen Wednesday by Reuters defines movable property as “any tangible or intangible property other than immovable property.”

New economic reality

Presenting the bill, which still has to go through several stages before becoming law, Chinamasa said the majority of small businesses did not have the immovable assets that banks require as collateral for loans.

“The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act will be amended to achieve the objective of this bill, and the assets to be considered include any type, such as machinery, motor vehicles, livestock and accounts receivable,” Chinamasa told lawmakers.

The finance minister said banks had failed to adjust to Zimbabwe’s new economic reality, in which the informal sector, mostly made up of small businesses, plays a dominant role.

Loans to small businesses amounted to $250 million in the year to date, Chinamasa said, out of total bank loans of nearly $4 billion.

“As minister in charge of financial institutions, I feel there is need for a change of attitude by our banks to reflect our economic realities,” Chinamasa said.

The bill provides for a collateral registry to be set up by the central bank, which would maintain a database of all movable assets put up as loan security.

“The purpose of the registry is to facilitate commerce, industry and other socioeconomic activities by enabling individuals and businesses to utilize their movable property as collateral for credit,” reads part of the bill.

Pitching the proposed law to legislators, Chinamasa cited several developing economies — including those of Liberia, Ghana, Malawi, Kenya, Lesotho, Peru and Ukraine — that he said used movable assets as collateral to increase lending to small businesses.

“Their access to banking finance increased by 8 percent [on average], while interest rates declined by 3 percent per annum,” he said.

Foreign currencies

Zimbabwe’s economy enjoyed a temporary reprieve after it adopted the use of multiple foreign currencies — mainly the U.S dollar and South Africa’s rand — in 2009 to replace its inflation-ravaged local unit.

The currency move initially paid dividends, with the economy expanding by an average 11.3 percent between 2010 and 2012, according to World Bank data, while inflation came down to single digits.

However, declining exports from the mineral-dependent country following weaker mineral commodity prices coincided with a sharp rise in imports, triggering an acute foreign currency shortage and slowing down the economy as credit to businesses dried up.
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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that his administration would not label China a currency manipulator, backing away from a  campaign promise, even as he said the U.S. dollar was “getting too strong” and would eventually hurt the economy.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump also said he would like to see U.S. interest rates stay low, another comment at odds with what he had often said during the election campaign.

A U.S. Treasury spokesman confirmed that the Treasury Department’s semiannual report on currency practices of major trading partners, due out this week, would not name China a currency manipulator.

The U.S. dollar fell broadly on Trump’s comments on both the strong dollar and interest rates, while U.S. Treasury yields fell on the interest rate comments, and Wall Street stocks slipped.

Trump’s comments broke with a long-standing practice of both U.S. Democratic and Republican administrations of refraining from commenting on policy set by the independent Federal Reserve. It is also highly unusual for a president to address the dollar’s value, which is a subject usually left to the Treasury secretary.

 

A day-one promise

“They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump told the Journal about China. The statement was an about-face from Trump’s election campaign promises to slap that label on Beijing on the first day of his administration as part of his plan to reduce Chinese imports into the United States.

The Journal paraphrased Trump as saying that he’d changed his mind on the currency issue because China has not been manipulating its yuan for months and because taking the step now could jeopardize his talks with Beijing on confronting the threat from North Korea.

Separately Wednesday, at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump said the United States was prepared to tackle the crisis surrounding North Korea without China if necessary.

The United States last branded China a currency manipulator in 1994. Under U.S. law, labeling a country as a currency manipulator can trigger an investigation and negotiations on tariffs and trade.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement that Trump’s decision to break his campaign promise on China was “symptomatic of a lack of real, tough action on trade” against Beijing.

“The best way to get China to cooperate with North Korea is to be tough on them with trade, which is the number one thing China’s government cares about,” Schumer said.

Yellen’s future

Trump also told the Journal that he respected Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and said she was “not toast” when her current term ends in 2018.

That was also a turnaround from his frequent criticism of Yellen during his campaign, when he said she was keeping interest rates too low.

At other times, however, Trump had said that low rates were good because higher rates would strengthen the dollar and hurt American exports and manufacturers.

“I think our dollar is getting too strong, and partially that’s my fault because people have confidence in me. But that’s hurting — that will hurt ultimately,” Trump said Wednesday.

“It’s very, very hard to compete when you have a strong dollar and other countries are devaluing their currency,” Trump told the Journal.

The dollar fell broadly Trump’s comments on the strong dollar and on his preference for low interest rates. It fell more than 1.0 percent against the yen, sinking below 110 yen for the first time since mid-November.

“It’s hard to talk down your currency unless you’re going to talk down your interest rates, and so obviously he’s trying to get Janet Yellen to play ball with him,” said Robert Smith, president and chief investment officer at Sage Advisory Services in Texas.

Trump’s comments on the Fed were his most explicit about the U.S. central bank since he took office in January, and they suggested a lower likelihood that he plans to try to push monetary policy in some unorthodox new direction.

Fed overhaul

Some key Republicans have advocated an overhaul of how the Fed works, using a rules-based policy that would most likely mean higher interest rates, not the lower ones Trump said he prefers.

The Fed in mid-March hiked interest rates for the second time in three months, increasing its target overnight rate by a quarter of a percentage point.

“Maybe he’s learning on the job,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago, noting that with Trump’s transition from candidate to president he was now being counseled by more orthodox voices sensitive to what is needed to keep global bond markets on an even keel.

The president is also “very close” to naming a vice chair for banking regulation and filling another open seat that governs community banking on the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during the interview.
…

United Airlines saw its stock price decline by 4 percent or more after a viral video showing a passenger being dragged off a flight and injured sparked outrage in the U.S. and several nations. One airline analyst says he has never seen such a “parade of incompetence.”
…

Russia is struggling to source gas turbines for two new power plants it is building in Crimea, Russian Energy Ministry Alexander Novak said Wednesday.

European Union sanctions bar European individuals and companies from providing energy technology to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Black Sea peninsula has suffered electricity shortages since then.

Three sources told Reuters last year that turbines for the Crimean plants would be made by Siemens Gas Turbine Technologies LLC, a joint venture in which Siemens has a 65 percent share.

The German company categorically denied it intended to send turbines to Crimea.

The joint venture’s factory is the only one in Russia capable of making turbines which will be compatible with the Crimean power plants.

“Work is continuing despite problems related to the delivery of equipment from a Western company. We are working on buying other equipment,” Novak told the upper house of Russia’s parliament on Wednesday. He did not name the Western company.

Novak later told reporters Russia was considering various options, including sourcing equipment from other countries, using Russian machinery, or using foreign equipment on Russian territory that was imported before sanctions were introduced.

The two new power plants were due to be commissioned at the end of 2017, but Novak said last month their launch had been delayed by a few months.
…

Former Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes, the moving force behind organizing last year’s Olympics, is being investigated for allegedly accepting at least 15 million reals ($5 million) in payments to facilitate construction projects tied to the games.

Paes is one of dozens of top politicians implicated in a sweeping judicial corruption investigation in which construction giant Odebrecht illegally paid billions to help win contracts.

Paes’ name appears in documents published Tuesday by Brazil’s top court, and could stand trial if the country’s attorney general decides to prosecute.

In a statement Wednesday from his spokeswoman, Tereza Fayal, the former mayor strongly denied the allegations made in several plea bargains signed by former and present Odebrecht employees, calling the accusations “absurd and untruthful.”

“He vehemently denies that he has accepted bribes to facilitate, or to benefit, the interests of the Odebrecht company,” the statement said.

Paes stepped in forcefully about two years before the Olympics opened, shortly after International Olympic Committee Vice President John Coates called Rio’s preparations “the worst” he’d ever seen and woefully behind schedule.

The IOC repeatedly credited Paes with speeding up preparations and cutting through red tape.

As rumors swirled around Olympic preparations, Paes often challenged reporters to find any corruption in city-hall contracts.

Days after the trouble-plagued Olympics ended, Paes and Carlos Nuzman — an IOC member and the president of the organizing committee — were awarded the “Olympic Order” by IOC President Thomas Bach.

In a statement Wednesday to The Associated Press, the IOC said Paes should be regarded as innocent until proven otherwise.

“These are allegations which he (Paes) strenuously denies,” the IOC said.

Odebrecht was involved in building many Olympic-related projects, including several arenas at the Olympic Park in suburban Barra da Tijuca, a subway-line extension, and the renovation of Rio’s port area.

The Supreme Court documents showed Paes received more 11 million reals ($3.5 million) in local bank accounts, and the rest in off-shore accounts.

In the statement, Paes said “he’s never had off-shore accounts.”

Paes left office on Jan. 1 after a term-limited eight years. He was once viewed as a presidential candidate, hoping to use the Olympics as a springboard. He recently said he hoped to run next year for governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro.

He is referred to in the Odebrecht documents as “The Little Nervous One.”

Sidney Levy, the CEO of the Rio organizing committee, which operated independently from the government, repeatedly pledged his body was being run “without corruption.” His name did not come up in the documents.

Plea bargains also indicate that irregularities — none of them involving Paes — were seen in awarding contracts for at least three stadiums for the 2014 World Cup: Sao Paulo, Recife and Brasilia.

In the case of the Sao Paulo stadium of Brazilian club Corinthians, plea bargains showed that Vicente Candido, a federal congressman and former official of the Brazilian Football Confederation, appeared to receive 50,000 reals ($16,000) from Odebrecht to help secure public financing.

Odebrecht built the stadiums in Sao Paulo and Recife. Brazilian constructor Andrade Gutierrez built the stadium in Brasilia.
…

President Donald Trump told a group of chief executives Tuesday that his administration was revamping the Wall Street reform law known as Dodd-Frank and might eliminate the rules and replace them with “something else.”

At the beginning of his administration, Trump ordered reviews of the major banking rules that were put in place after the 2008 financial crisis, and last week he said officials were planning a “major haircut” for them.

“For the bankers in the room, they’ll be very happy because we’re really doing a major streamlining and, perhaps, elimination, and replacing it with something else,” Trump said Tuesday.

“That will be the minimum. But we’re doing a major elimination of the horrendous Dodd-Frank regulations, keeping some obviously, but getting rid of many,” he said.

The many provisions of the Dodd-Frank measure were aimed at decreasing risks in the U.S. financial system. The White House is not unilaterally able to upend Dodd-Frank’s rules, almost all of which are implemented by independent regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve.

A sweeping change to the law would require congressional action, though in some cases regulators may also have wiggle room to make changes through a formal rule-making process.

Report on regulations

In February, Trump issued an executive order requiring Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to consult with U.S. regulators and submit a report outlining a proposal for possible regulatory and legislative changes that will help fuel economic growth and promote American business interests.

That report, due to be released in June, will most likely serve as a blueprint for possible changes down the road. However, congressional action on a Wall Street bill is not expected in the near term, as Congress focuses primarily on health care and tax reform.

Participants in the Tuesday meeting included Rich Lesser, chief executive of Boston Consulting Group; Doug McMillon, chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores; Indra Nooyi, chief executive of PepsiCo; Jim McNerney, former chief executive of Boeing; Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM; and Jack Welch, former chairman of General Electric.

The business leaders are part of Trump’s “Strategy and Policy Forum” that last met with him in February.

Trump also reiterated his criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“NAFTA is a disaster. It’s been a disaster from the day it was devised. And we’re going to have some very pleasant surprises for you on NAFTA, that I can tell you,” he said.
…

United Airlines saw its stock price decline by 4 percent or more after a viral video showing a passenger being dragged off a flight and injured sparked outrage in the U.S. and several nations. One airline analyst says he has never seen such a “parade of incompetence.”
…

South Asian migrants powering the construction boom in oil-rich Gulf countries are often illegally made to pay for their own recruitment, adding to hardships of poor working conditions and wages, according to an investigation released Tuesday.

Millions of migrants seeking a way out of poverty by working in Gulf nations from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates must routinely pay fees that can equal a year’s salary, U.S. researchers said in a report.

“Recruitment is not free,” said report co-author David Segall of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “Somebody does have to bear these costs, but that of course should be the employing company.”

The findings came as conditions for construction workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh in the 2022 FIFA World Cup host, Qatar, have drawn scrutiny from rights groups who say migrants live in squalor and work without proper access to water and shelter.

In five fact-finding missions to the Gulf and South Asia, the researchers found workers are typically made to pay for their airfare from South Asia and their work visa, often at inflated prices.

Selling visas for profit is illegal in the six Gulf countries the researchers investigated — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But violations rarely lead to prosecution and punishment, the report said.

Fees highest for Bangladeshis

Bangladeshi workers paid as much as $5,200 in recruitment fees, according to the study, the highest price among other South Asian construction workers, who number some 10 million people in the Gulf.

In rare cases, construction companies took on expenditures to recruit their workers, the study found. The fees had the effect of pushing already destitute migrants further into poverty by tying them to high-interest loans.

“These are people who are already desperate enough that they feel that they need to undertake this journey, leave their families in order to just achieve the possibility of economic success,” Segall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “For them to be in debt before they even start this journey is really an injustice.”

Reports of abuse of migrant domestic workers have prompted countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Indonesia to ban their citizens in recent years from seeking jobs in the Middle East.

The New York University report expanded on the findings of an investigation conducted in Qatar and released last week, which concluded hundreds of Asian workers had paid recruitment fees.
…

“No one should ever be treated this way,” reads part of a new public statement issued Tuesday by United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, following Sunday’s incident when a passenger was bloodied after being dragged off an overbooked United airliner at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

“I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight,” the Munoz statement also says.

The incident has gone viral through social media after being captured on other passengers’ cell phones.

Munoz added that the company will conduct a review of how the airline handles overbooking situations and how it interacts with airport authorities and law enforcement. He said the company will release the results of its review April 30.

 

Munoz released two earlier statements staunchly supporting the crew, saying in a statement late Monday that United attendants “followed established procedures” when the passenger was forcibly removed.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump has seen what Spicer describes as the “troubling” video recorded on the United Airlines flight. Besides the global social media firestorm, the incident also has stirred up threats of a boycott.

Spicer told reporters at a White House briefing Tuesday the incident was “unfortunate” but does “not necessarily need a federal response,” adding there are “plenty” of law enforcement agencies available to conduct an investigation.

Because the Chicago to Louisville flight was overbooked, the crew asked passengers to voluntarily take another flight in exchange for financial compensation. According to media reports, the airline needed to make room for four of its employees.

No one volunteered, so the airline randomly selected four people, one of whom refused to leave – resulting in his forced removal by three men who were identified as Chicago aviation security officers.

 

 

Video showing the man, who appeared to be of Chinese descent, being dragged from the plane and later returning with a bloodied face was widely circulated on social media, drawing angry reactions. One passenger, Audra Bridges, who posted video of the incident, said the passenger was very upset when he was chosen and explained he was a physician who needed to get home in order to see patients the next morning. Bridges said the man appeared disoriented when he ran back onto the aircraft moments later.

Crew members eventually ordered everyone off the plane and did not let them return until the injured passenger was removed again on a stretcher.

Bridges said the passengers were “shocked and appalled” at the incident, which prompted threats of a boycott as the busy summer travel season begins.

The online backlash intensified when CEO Munoz used the euphemism “re-accommodate” in a Twitter posting Monday to describe the forcible removal of the passenger. Munoz. However, he also said the airline was reaching out to the passenger “to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation.”

In the letter to employees, Munoz said the passenger “raised his voice and refused to comply” when he was initially asked to leave, and became “more disruptive and belligerent” in response to subsequent requests.

Crew members had “no choice” except to call Chicago Aviation Security officers to help remove the passenger, Munoz wrote.

In a statement late Monday, the Chicago Department of Aviation said the incident was “not in accordance with our standard operating procedure and the actions of the aviation security officers are obviously not condoned by the department.”

The statement added one officer involved has been placed on administrative leave, pending a review of the incident.

Munoz admitted to employees that the airline could learn from the incident but reiterated on his support of his employees’ actions. “I emphatically stand behind all of you,” he wrote.

Sunday’s incident follows another controversial occurrence in late March in which two girls, one estimated to be about 10 years old, were prevented from boarding a flight in Denver because they were wearing leggings, a violation of the airline’s dress code under a program for United employees.

The negative publicity may be adversely affecting the value of the airline. United’s stock price dropped nearly 4 percent during late morning trading Tuesday in New York, but by the close of the market it had dropped only about 1.1 percent.

For United Airlines, a global carrier that launched nonstop service to China in 1986, and bills itself as offering “more nonstop U.S.-China flights” to more cities in China “than any other airline,” comments on China’s lively social media were just one more problem Tuesday.

One commentator said: “Reading the news of the United Airlines’ violent removal of a passenger reminds me of three nightmarish trips with United Airlines. [It] provides the world’s worst service ever, not just one of the worst.”

Another commented: “I would like to give the passenger thumbs up. Although lots of American Chinese are discriminated against, they are afraid of speaking out due to [losing] face.”

 

Tourists’ remarks

VOA’s Mandarin service interviewed some Chinese tourists visiting Washington.

“I feel very angry. I feel this shouldn’t have happened in the U.S.,” said Xiaotian Liu. “It happened to be an Asian-American. I do not think they had a target.”

“I hope [United Airlines] can improve its service after this incident,” said Liu. “We will probably choose different airlines next time.”

“We happened to fly [United Airlines] on this trip,” said Xuhai Lu. “We flew a Chinese airline last time. Chinese airlines provide better service than American ones.”

VOA’s Mandarin service contributed to this report.
…

China Southern Airlines has flown its inaugural Guangzhou to Mexico City flight, via Vancouver, the first route operated by a domestic Chinese carrier to the Latin American nation, the Mexican government said on Tuesday.

China’s interest in Mexico, including tourism and investment, has been on the rise in recent years. In 2016, 74,300 Chinese tourists visited Mexico, up 33.5 percent from a year earlier.

Mexican authorities expect over 100,000 Chinese tourists to visit this year.

China and Mexico recently pledged to deepen ties at a meeting between their top diplomats following the U.S. presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has tested Washington’s relationship with both countries.

 
…

Several minutes after a passenger recorded a video watched around the world that showed security officers dragging another passenger off an overbooked United Express flight at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, a smaller snippet of video showed an even more troubling scene.

There stood the passenger who had been dragged on his back to the front of the plane, appearing dazed as he spoke through bloody lips and blood that had spilled onto his chin.

 

“I want to go home, I want to go home,” he said.

 

The treatment of the passenger on Sunday night prompted outrage and scorn on social media, and anger among some of the passengers on the flight as the unidentified man was evicted.

 

The incident risks a backlash against United from passengers who could boycott the airline as the busy summer travel season is about to begin. For Chicago, it is another public relations nightmare, adding to its reputation as a city unable to curb a crime wave in some neighborhoods, which President Donald Trump has highlighted with critical tweets.

 

The embarrassing incident spiraled out of control from a common air travel issue – an overbooked flight. United was trying to make room for four employees of a partner airline, meaning four people had to get off the flight to Louisville.

 

At first, the airline asked for volunteers, offering $400 and then when that didn’t work, $800 per passenger to relinquish a seat. When no one voluntarily came forward, United selected four passengers at random.

 

Three deplaned but the fourth, a man who said he was a doctor and needed to get home to treat patients on Monday, refused.

 

Three men, identified later as city aviation department security officers, got on the plane. Two officers tried to reason with the man before a third came aboard and pointed at the man “basically saying, ‘Sir, you have to get off the plane,’ ” said Tyler Bridges, a passenger whose wife, Audra D. Bridges, posted a video on Facebook.

 

One of the security officers could be seen grabbing the screaming man from his window seat, across the armrest and dragging him down the aisle by his arms.

 

Other passengers on Flight 3411 are heard saying, “Please, my God,” “What are you doing?” “This is wrong,” “Look at what you did to him” and “Busted his lip.”

 

“We almost felt like we were being taken hostage,” said Tyler Bridges. “We were stuck there. You can’t do anything as a traveler. You’re relying on the airline.”

 

United Airlines’ parent company CEO Oscar Munoz late Monday issued a letter defending his employees, saying the passenger was being “disruptive and belligerent.”

 

While Munoz said he was “upset” to see and hear what happened, “our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this.”

 

Chicago’s aviation department said the security officer who grabbed the passenger had been placed on leave.

 

“The incidence on United Flight 3411 was not in accordance with our standard operating procedure and the actions of the aviation security officer are obviously not condoned by the Department,” the department said in a statement.

 

After a three-hour delay, United Express Flight 3411 took off without the man aboard.

 

Airlines are allowed to sell more tickets than seats on the plane, and they routinely overbook flights because some people do not show up.

 

It’s not unusual for airlines to offer travel vouchers to encourage people to give up their seats, and there are no rules for the process. When an airline demands that a passenger give up a seat, the airline is required to pay double the passenger’s one-way fare, up to $675 provided the passenger is put on a flight that arrives within one to two hours of the original. The compensation rises to four times the ticket price, up to $1,350, for longer delays.

 

When they bump passengers, airlines are required to give those passengers a written description of their compensation rights.

 

Last year, United forced 3,765 people off oversold flights and another 62,895 United passengers volunteered to give up their seats, probably in exchange for travel vouchers. That’s out of more than 86 million people who boarded a United flight in 2016, according to government figures. United ranks in the middle of U.S. carriers when it comes to bumping passengers.

 

ExpressJet, which operates flights under the United Express, American Eagle and Delta Connection names, had the highest rate of bumping passengers last year. Among the largest carriers, Southwest Airlines had the highest rate, followed by JetBlue Airways.

 

___

 

Associated Press Writer David Koenig contributed to this report.

AP-WF-04-11-17 1128GMT
…

With its colonial mansions, landscaped gardens and ornate fountains, the town of Petropolis, a traditional haunt of Brazil’s last monarch Dom Pedro II, retains a grandeur that has not faded since he was forced into exile in 1889.

 

But beneath the opulent surface of the former summer imperial capital, resentment simmers against a special tax, the proceeds of which continue to go directly to the king’s descendants – more than a century after he was ousted.

For many of the 300,000 people living in the hill town, a 2.5 percent tax on real estate transactions is a symbol of social injustice in Latin America’s biggest country where inequality has widened amid its worst recession on record.

Brazil is one of the world’s most unequal places for property distribution with almost half of the land owned by one percent of the population. Colonial-era laws exacerbate the problem, analysts said.

“People aren’t happy to pay this tax,” Isabela Verleun, who works at the Imperial Museum of Petropolis, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It shouldn’t exist.”

Petropolis, known as the Imperial City, is the closest mountain resort to Rio. Just 65 kms (42 miles) northeast of Brazil’s second biggest city, it’s a favored getaway for Rio residents with its forested hills and waterfalls.

It is well known for its 19th century architecture and home of the Imperial Museum, one of Brazil’s most visited museums.

Dom Pedro II and his family spent summers there after 1845 to escape the sweltering heat of then capital Rio de Janeiro.

 

Inside what is now a tourist attraction, children slide along wooden floors as adults marvel at a grand dining room complete with crystal chandelier.

“Ancient and Hereditary”

The town’s special property tax – known as laudemio – dates back to before Brazil’s independence in 1882.

The tax was imported to Brazil by its former colonial master Portugal to ensure land was passed from European settlers to their heirs. In colonial years, Brazil’s land was deemed the property of the Portuguese crown.

Despite becoming an independent republic in 1889, the special tax has never been repealed and is now criticized for continuing to earn money for a few privileged families.

“This ancient tax is hereditary and perpetual,” said Vitor Fernandes, a property law expert at the University of Campinas.

Marco Antonio de Melo Breves, a senior official with Brazil’s federal tax department, could not provide figures on how much revenue is paid annually under the royal property tax or how much it costs the average homeowner.

“There is not a unified database where it’s possible to obtain this,” Breves told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Payments are generally made through notaries, or private lawyers who certify documents, Breves said, so the government doesn’t have information on how many royal descendants are receiving benefits from property taxpayers.

Dom Joao Henrique de Orleans e Braganca, a businessman and photographer popularly known as Prince Bishop Johnny, is the great-great-grandson of the final monarch, and counts prominent politicians and artists among his friends.

In an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Valor, Braganca acknowledged some resent the royal family’s continued perks.

The prince said he received “very little money” from Petropolis under the special tax, without giving an amount, but added payments must continue as they are part of a “legal contract” in the city.

Royal Rewards

A fan of the British TV series “The Crown” which showcases the hectic schedules of the U.K. royal family, Braganca said that he does useful work “traveling all over Brazil doing talks in favor of respect for democracy and citizenship.”

The former royal family is not the only institution to benefit from the laudemio and a related land tax known as enfiteuse. The navy and the Catholic Church also levy similar property taxes, said Ely Machado, a lawyer in Rio de Janeiro who helps clients navigate Brazil’s complex housing rules.

A lack of clear property ownership and complex land registration policies are ongoing problems in Brazil, government officials said.

Half the population cannot prove full legal ownership of their homes, according to the Ministry of Cities.

While taxing homeowners based on colonial history may seem archaic, removing the special land tax would require a series of complex legal changes, said Ana Paula Bueno, a lawyer with the Land Governance Group at the State University of Campinas.

When Brazil emerged from military dictatorship and launched a new constitution in 1988 some people pushed for the tax to be abolished, said Verleun, but their lobbying was unsuccessful.

“We have to live with it,” Ana Paula Bueno told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
…

When they are not tending to international affairs, diplomats based in Havana can be found these days stewing in interminable queues at gas stations and concocting ways to increase the octane in fuel as Cuba’s premium gasoline shortage takes its toll.

Cuba sent around an internal memo last week advising that it would restrict sales of high-octane, so-called “special fuel” in April. That is not an issue for most Cuban drivers, whose vintage American cars and Soviet-era Ladas use regular fuel.

But it is for the embassies that use modern cars whose engines could be damaged by the fuel at most Havana gas stations. So the diplomats are taking a leaf out of the book of Cubans, used to such shortages, and becoming resourceful.

Given the U.S. trade embargo, Cubans have for decades had to invent new ways to keep their cars on the road, replacing original engines with Russian ones and using homemade parts.

“I bought octane booster, and the embassy has bought lubricants, meant to help the motor deal with rubbish gasoline,” said one north European diplomat, who got a relative to bring the booster in his luggage given it is unavailable in Cuba.

“At the moment we are using the car that runs on diesel, so we can ‘survive’,” said an Eastern European diplomat.

Cuba has not announced the measure officially yet. According to the memo, “the special fuel remaining in stock at gas stations from April will only be sold in cash and to tourists until the inventory is depleted.”

“It’s very serious. I have already suspended a trip to Santiago de Cuba for fear of lack of gas,” said one Latin American diplomat, adding that it seemed like the problem would last. “Diplomats are very worried.”

Some embassies in Havana have people scouting out which stations still have some higher-octane fuel and are sending around regular updates to staff. One gas station worker said they were getting small deliveries of fuel each day still.

The embassies are also advising people to carpool or use the diplomatic shuttle.

Meanwhile the European Union has requested from the ministry of foreign affairs that one or more service centers be set aside for diplomats with special gas, according to a European diplomat.

Cuba has become increasingly reliant on its socialist ally Venezuela for refined oil products but the latter has faced its own fuel shortage in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, the Communist-ruled island cannot easily replace subsidized Venezuelan supplies as it is strapped for cash.

Although the memo referred to April, it is not clear how long the shortage will last. Cubans joke that once something disappears in Cuba, it is never to return, referring to products that have disappeared from their ration book like cigarettes, beef and condensed milk.

The Peugeot dealership in Havana has sent its clients lists of technical tips how to protect their motors while using lower-grade gasoline, including more frequent maintenance and ensuring vehicles at running at optimum temperature before driving.

The shortage is also impacting others using modern cars such as taxi drivers, tourists and workers at joint ventures.
…

The airlines are getting better at sticking to their schedules and are losing fewer bags. Their customers seem to be complaining less often.

Those are the findings of an annual report on airline quality being released Monday by researchers at Wichita State University and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

 

The researchers use information compiled by the U.S. Department of Transportation to rate the airlines for on-time performance, baggage handling, bumping passengers off oversold flights, and complaints filed with the government.

 

They planned to release their list of the best airlines later Monday.

 

The report’s general observations:

 

On time performance: The percentage of flights that arrived on time or close enough rose to 81.4 percent in 2016 from 79.9 percent in 2015. Of 12 leading U.S. carriers, only American, JetBlue and Virgin America got worse.

 

Lost bags: The rate of bags being lost, stolen or delayed fell 17 percent.

 

Bumping passengers: Your chances of getting bumped by the airline dropped 18 percent, which doesn’t include people who voluntarily gave up their seat for money or a travel voucher.

 

Fewer complaints: The rate of complaints filed with the government dropped about one-fifth, with complaints rising only for Hawaiian and Virgin America.

 

The official complaint rates don’t include the larger number of complaints that passengers file directly with the airline. The airlines are not required to report those figures.

 

Clearly, however, airlines still have a perception problem. It’s not hard to find passengers who complain about a miserable flight, a missed connection, or shabby treatment by airline employees. Comments like that abound on Twitter.

 

“People don’t look at the numbers,” said Dean Headley, a marketing professor at Wichita State and co-author of Monday’s report. “They just know what happened to them, or they hear what happened to other people.”

 

The Wichita State and Embry-Riddle researchers have been doing their report for more than 25 years, making it useful for comparing airlines. But some observers of the airline industry dismiss their number-crunching approach, and there are many other surveys that purport to rank the airlines.

 

The Transportation Department counts a flight as being on time even if it arrives up to 14 minutes late. “Airlines are happy with that (grace period) because it makes them look better and misleads the passenger,” said aviation consultant Michael Baiada. He said airlines can do better, and besides, travelers pay to be on time — not 14 minutes late.

TripAdvisor releases rankings

 

More broadly, a statistical analysis of government data “really doesn’t take into consideration how the customer is treated,” said Bryan Saltzburg, an executive with travel site TripAdvisor LLC. “`How comfortable are they on the plane? How helpful is the staff? What’s the value for what the customer paid?”

 

TripAdvisor released its own airline rankings Monday, which it said were based on analysis of “hundreds of thousands” of reviews posted by users. It placed JetBlue and Alaska Airlines among the top 10 in the world, and it rated Delta ahead of American and United among the largest U.S. carriers.

 

Other outfits including J.D. Power and Skytrax also put out ratings. Airlines boast when they win. Recently, American Airlines started putting stickers on all 968 of its planes to note that a trade publication, Air Transport World, named it airline of the year.

 
…

India and Bangladesh signed a slew of agreements on Saturday, including a $4.5 billion concessionary line of credit from India for development projects in Bangladesh, as the South Asian neighbors try to deepen their ties.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart, Sheikh Hasina, held wide-ranging talks in New Delhi, exchanging views on defense, regional security and cooperation in combating international terrorism.

Officials from the two sides signed 22 agreements, including a framework deal for defense cooperation over the next five years and an additional $500 million for Bangladesh to buy military equipment from India.

The two sides also signed an agreement on civil nuclear cooperation under which India will help Bangladesh develop its civilian nuclear program.

Modi said Hasina’s visit marked the “golden era” of India-Bangladesh relations and described India as “a long-standing and trusted development partner of Bangladesh.”

India and Bangladesh share a nearly 4,100-kilometer (2,545-mile) border. The two countries have had a close relationship since 1971, when Bangladesh, aided by India, gained independence from Pakistan following a bloody nine-month war.
…

India and Bangladesh signaled deepening ties Saturday as New Delhi committed a $4.5 billion line of credit to Dhaka for development projects, and the two countries signed their first-ever pact on defense cooperation. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an additional $500 million in credit for Bangladesh to buy military equipment from India during the visit to New Delhi by Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Calling India a “long standing and trusted development partner,” Modi said that the new credit lines “bring our resources allocation to Bangladesh to more than $8 billion over the past six years.” 

Both leaders reaffirmed their close ties during the Bangladeshi prime minister’s first visit to India in seven years, with Modi speaking of a “golden era” in their friendship and Hasina saying their friendly ties would benefit South Asia.

The two countries signed 22 agreements, including one on civil nuclear cooperation that aims to help Bangladesh develop its civilian nuclear program.

Many in New Delhi see the deal for defense cooperation over the next five years as the key breakthrough that will help reduce Bangladesh’s reliance on China for its military needs.

Worried by the growing Chinese influence in its neighborhood, New Delhi has made a concerted push in recent years to grow strategic ties with neighboring countries. Bangladesh’s purchase of two submarines from China last year deepened those concerns in India.

Calling the defense pact a feather in India’s cap, Sukh Deo Muni, a South Asia expert at New Delhi’s Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses, said,“India does not want China to consolidate defense ties just next to its belly, that is true.”

Although the political opposition in Bangladesh has denounced the pact, independent analysts in Dhaka was optimistic that it will help achieve balance.

“Approximately 80 percent dependency at this moment you see on China, so it should be brought down. That actually reduces our vulnerability,” said Abdur Rashid, Executive Director of the Institute of Conflict, Law and Development Studies in Dhaka. “If one is interrupted we can depend on the other.”

 A new rail link between the Indian city of Kolkata and Khulna in Bangladesh, and a bus link between Kolkata and Dhaka also were inaugurated, while another old rail link was restored to coincide with Hasina’s visit. The Bangladeshi leader said the greater connectivity is vital for the region’s development.

A key water-sharing agreement that Dhaka has long pushed for, however, eluded Hasina.

Although New Delhi favors such an arrangement, opposition from West Bengal state in India, through which the Teesta River flows into Bangladesh, has prevented the two countries from clinching a deal.

As Modi assured her of his commitment to conclude a deal, the Bangladeshi leader sounded a note of optimism. “I believe we shall be able to get India’s support in resolving these issues expeditiously,” said Hasina.

The two countries have had a close relationship since 1971, when India helped Bangladesh gain independence from Pakistan following a bloody nine-month war.

  

 
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