The top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee has voiced concerns about Amazon.com Inc.’s $13.7 billion plan to buy Whole Foods Market Inc and is pushing for a hearing to look into the deal’s potential impact on consumers.

The deal announced in June marks the biggest acquisition for the world’s largest online retailer. Amazon has not said what it will do with Whole Foods’ stores and other assets, but analysts and investors worry the move could upend the landscape for grocers, food delivery services and meal-kit companies.

U.S. Representative David Cicilline requested the hearing on Thursday in a letter to the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee chairman. Shares of Amazon were up 0.3 percent in mid-morning trading on Friday.

“Amazon’s proposed purchase of Whole Foods could impact neighborhood grocery stores and hardworking consumers across America,” Cicilline said in a statement. “Congress has a responsibility to fully scrutinize this merger before it goes ahead.”

The deal must be approved by U.S. antitrust enforcers, in this case most likely the Federal Trade Commission. Congress plays no formal role in that process but hearings are often used to highlight the possible impact of deals on consumers. The hearing is unlikely to happen without Republican support.

Amazon and Whole Foods declined to comment.

Also this week, hedge fund manager Douglas Kass from Seabreeze Partners Management Inc. said he was shorting shares of the retailer because of concern about Amazon in Washington.

Kass said he had heard rumblings on Capitol Hill regarding concern about Amazon’s size and clout but did not specify what the concerns were.

“I am shorting Amazon today because I have learned that there are currently early discussions and due diligence being considered in the legislative chambers in Washington, D.C.,” he wrote in a note to investors late on Wednesday. “If I am correct, word of this could lower Amazon’s shares by 10 percent overnight.”

Kass said in emailed comments to Reuters on Friday that he has what he called a “core” short position in Amazon, meaning a sizeable bet based on a long-term outlook.

“This has the potential of being the biggest business news story of [the] year,” he said. Kass declined to comment when asked for more details about pressure from Capitol Hill.

Kass is followed for his bets on declines in companies’ share prices. He shorted Marvel Entertainment in 1992 when its shares were in the high $60s, and the company went bankrupt 1-1/2 years later.

He also bet against big U.S. banks leading into the 2007-2009 financial crisis, shorting Bank of America, MGIC, Citigroup and several other financials that ultimately averaged a 98 percent price decline by the time they bottomed in 2009.

While antitrust experts have said they expect Amazon’s bid to win regulatory approval, some critics argue the deal should be blocked because it gives the retailer a big head start towards domination of online grocery delivery.

They argue the Whole Foods acquisition will give Amazon an unfair advantage over traditional grocers and new players that might emerge in the market, potentially grounds for the deal to be blocked for antitrust reasons.
…

The German Transport Ministry says the country’s motor transport authority will examine cars made by Daimler amid an investigation into suspected manipulation of diesel emissions controls.

Daimler said in May that prosecutors would search several offices in Germany and it was cooperating with the probe.

Company representatives met with a Transport Ministry commission Thursday following a report by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, citing a search warrant, that over a million vehicles may have had engines whose software manipulated emissions levels. Neither the company nor prosecutors commented on that detail.

Ministry spokesman Ingo Strater said Friday the company “set out its position that Daimler is behaving in accordance with the law.”

Strater said the Federal Motor Transport Authority is examining Daimler cars, as it has in the past other manufacturers’ vehicles.
…

Radio Flyer is rolling its largest “little” red wagon into its hometown of Chicago in celebration of the company’s 100-year anniversary.

Radio Flyer’s gargantuan wagon was the centerpiece for the company’s anniversary event Thursday in the city’s downtown area, the Chicago Tribune  reported. The wagon was created 20 years ago for the brand’s 80th anniversary.

 

Attendees of the event had the opportunity to take a photo with the large wagon and participate in free giveaways. Radio Flyer also will donate 2,000 wagons to children’s hospitals across the country in partnership with Starlight Children’s Foundation.

According to Guinness World Records, the wagon, which is 27 feet (8.23 meters) long and weighs over 15,000 pounds (6803.96 kilograms), is the world’s largest toy wagon. It was inspired by a 1930s statue featured in the World’s Fair in Chicago.

Radio Flyer has locations around the world, but Robert Pasin, chief wagon officer of Radio Flyer, said Chicago is still the company’s home.

“Chicago has so much to do with our heritage and story,” Pasin said. “It’s truly a part of the brand’s DNA.”

The company has evolved since its establishment in 1917 and now offers customizable wagons made of various materials and other products, including tricycles, bicycles and scooters.
…

The electricity supply to Gaza’s 2 million residents has dropped to unprecedented lows, with blackouts lasting for more than 24 hours, the territory’s power distribution company said Thursday, prompting fears of a humanitarian and environmental crisis.

The Palestinian enclave needs at least 400 megawatts of power a day, but only 70 megawatts were available as of late Wednesday, when Gaza’s power plant shut down after fuel shipments from Egypt were interrupted following a militant attack last week.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the power cuts have caused a rapid deterioration in basic services, “especially health and environmental services, including water and sewage draining.”

The coastal strip had been experiencing the worst electricity shortage in years, limiting Gazans to about four hours of electricity per day.

​Abbas asks Israel to cut shipments

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently asked Israel, the main provider of power to Gaza, to cut shipments as a way of pressuring the Islamic militant group Hamas, which seized power in Gaza a decade ago.

Several neighborhoods were without electricity for more than 24 hours Thursday.

Late Thursday, Hamas said 27 Egyptian trucks with 1.5 million liters of diesel entered Gaza for the power plant. It was unclear when operations would resume.

Diesel fuel from neighboring Egypt had kept the station running at half capacity since June 21, but deliveries were interrupted after a deadly attack on Egyptian soldiers last week near the border. Gaza’s power station has low storage capacity, and requires new fuel shipments on an almost daily basis.

Abbas pressures Hamas

Abbas has tried to squeeze Hamas financially in recent months, hoping to force it to cede power. He slashed salaries of his employees there, stopped payments for ex-prisoners and reinstated heavy taxes on the power plant’s fuel.

Palestinians have been split since 2007, with Hamas ruling Gaza and Abbas governing parts of the West Bank. Repeated reconciliation attempts have failed.

The Egyptian diesel shipments were facilitated by Mohammed Dahlan, a former leading figure in Abbas’ Fatah movement who fell out with the Palestinian president in 2010, went into exile and has since forged strong ties with the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
…

Venezuela’s crude and fuel deliveries to Cuba have slid almost 13 percent in the first half this year, according to documents from state-run oil company PDVSA viewed by Reuters, threatening to worsen gasoline and power shortages in the communist-run island.

Cuba’s government since 2016 has reduced fuel allocations 28 percent to most state-run companies, and has cut electricity consumption. Public lighting was cut 50 percent, while residential electric use was spared.

Beginning in March, Cubans also have reported minor gasoline and diesel shortages at service stations.

Cuba’s economy depends heavily on Venezuelan crude shipments under a series of bilateral agreements started in 2000 by the South American country’s late President Hugo Chavez. In return, the island nation has provided Venezuela with Cuban doctors and other services.

Venezuela’s shipments of crude for Cuba’s refineries dropped 21 percent to 42,310 barrels per day (bpd), the documents showed. Last year, Venezuela made up for a shortfall in crude shipments by sending Cuba more fuels, but this year’s data showed refined products sent to Cuba remained almost unchanged at around 30,040 bpd.

In total, PDVSA sent Cuba an average of 72,350 bpd of crude and refined products in the first half of 2017, down almost 13 percent from the same period of last year, according to the data from internal PDVSA trade reports.

“Cuba needs at least 70,000 bpd from Venezuela to cover its energy deficit and avoid deeper rationing. A larger or total loss of the Venezuelan supply would have a high political and financial cost for Cuba,” which has been gearing up to welcome more tourists, said Jorge Pinon, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas in Austin.

Cuba suffered severe energy rationing in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, an ally that had provided cheap fuel. In 2016, Cuba’s economy went into recession for the first time since those days, declining almost 1 percent as shrinking export earnings left it short of funds to import oil on the open market and replace declining Venezuelan supplies.

With Venezuela’s crude production sliding in 2017 for the sixth year in a row, the OPEC nation has had less oil to send Cuba and other customers in regions from Asia to North America and the Caribbean.

Cuba, which produces extremely heavy crude used by industry and power plants, received 103,226 bpd of oil from Venezuela in the first half of 2015, according to the same data.

PDVSA, whose full name is Petroleos de Venezuela SA, did not reply to a request for comment.

Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba have been falling since 2008, when they peaked at 115,000 bpd mainly due to a decline in crude exports. The poor shape of Venezuelan refineries cut into fuel exports this year, and Venezuela has also had to boost fuel imports to meet domestic demand.

Cuba, in addition to rationing fuel, is seeking oil cargoes from other producers including Russia, something it had not done for more than a decade.

In one of several recent shipments, the Ocean Quest tanker loaded with fuel oil at Russia’s Tuapse terminal, arrived in Havana on July 9 and is waiting to discharge, according to Reuters vessel tracking data. The Tuapse terminal is operated by state-run Rosneft.

Cuba’s three aged refineries have been operating at reduced rates since last year due to a shortage of light crude, which also affects Venezuela’s 1.3-million-bpd refining network.
…

Corruption is undermining all efforts to rebuild Ukraine in line with European Union norms, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said on Thursday, as President Petro Poroshenko vowed to pursue ever-closer integration with the bloc.

Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk were in Kyiv for a 24-hour summit with Poroshenko following the final ratification of a new trade pact that has angered Russia.

“What we are asking … is to increase the fight against corruption, because corruption is undermining all the efforts this great nation is undertaking,” Juncker said at a joint briefing. “We remain very concerned.”

The criticism suggests the EU delegation may have taken a tougher-than-expected line in talks forecast to be largely upbeat after the confirmation on Tuesday of an association agreement for closer political and trade ties.

Seven conditions still in works

Separately, European Commission Vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said Kyiv had a shrinking window to meet 21 conditions to unlock 600 million euros ($684 million) of further financial assistance from the EU, of which seven are outstanding.

These conditions include making sure that a landmark reform forcing officials to declare their assets online is properly implemented, and Kyiv lifting a ban on wood exports.

“What we are emphasizing currently is that we have quite limited time,” Dombrovskis told reporters. “So all the conditions need to be implemented already in October … because the macrofinancial assistance program ends on Jan. 4 next year.”

Reforms lead to investments

The pro-Western government in Kyiv has sought to boost EU relations since the ousting of a Moscow-backed president in 2014, implementing reforms in exchange for billions of dollars in aid and a new visa-free travel deal with the European Union.

But Ukraine’s allies have repeatedly expressed concern that vested interests and corrupt practices remain entrenched, partly due to weak rule of law.

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine’s main financial backer, have called for the creation of a specialized anti-corruption court, but Juncker said a new solution had been agreed at the summit.

“Today we agreed that if Ukraine establishes … a special chamber devoted to this issue, that will be enough,” he said.

EU membership remains far off

Mykhailo Zhernakov, a judicial expert at the non-governmental coalition Reanimation Package of Reforms, said the agreement would be a disappointment to those campaigning for greater accountability.

“There’s no way that a chamber in any court will be as independent as a separate court,” he told Reuters. “It’s not going to help.”

While full EU membership for Ukraine remains far off, Poroshenko stressed that Kyiv hopes to integrate further by joining the customs union and becoming a member of the bloc’s Schengen open-border zone.

“As early as today, it’s important to start developing a roadmap to the realization of our dreams,” he said.
…

United Nations human rights experts on Thursday called on Peru to suspend negotiations on a new contract for a large oilfield in the Amazon until past pollution was cleaned up and the rights of indigenous groups respected.

Canada’s Frontera Energy Corporation now operates Block 192 in the Peruvian Amazon and is in talks with Peru about renewing its contract once the current one expires in September.

U.N. Special Rapporteurs Baskut Tuncak and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, independent experts tasked with investigating human rights issues, said Peru had failed to clean up pollution from oil spills in the region and was not doing enough to ensure indigenous groups had a voice in talks.

“The Peruvian Government must suspend the direct negotiations with companies until the right to free, prior and informed consent is guaranteed, and all environmental damage has been remedied,” Tuncak and Tauli-Corpuz said in a statement from the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The remarks will likely be welcomed by indigenous rights activists in Peru who say a law requiring the government to include native groups in talks on projects affecting them has not been fully enforced.

Peru’s environment ministry and energy and mines ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In previous years, the government has declared several environmental emergencies in the region due to oil pollution.

Frontera did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Peru’s government has been trying to jump start investments in the country’s oil industry that have dropped sharply since global oil prices fell and a series of ruptures largely shuttered the main pipeline serving the sector.

The aging pipeline, operated by state-owned oil company Petroperu, suffered a new rupture this week, Petroperu said Wednesday. The company has blamed most of the dozen spills from the pipeline last year on attacks from unknown parties.

In June, Frontera reached a deal with indigenous people who had occupied Block 192 in a land-use dispute. The company agreed to pay them for use of land and finance community projects.

Block 192 has produced an average of 2,565 barrels of oil per day this year, a sharp drop from previous years when it churned out some 10,000 bpd, according to data from state regulator Perupetro.

U.S. oil company Occidental Petroleum produced oil from Block 192 for decades before Argentine energy company Pluspetrol took over operations in 2001. Frontera was awarded a two-year contract in 2015.
…

McDonald’s is hoping to make a difference in its future seven seconds at a time.

 

The company that helped define fast food is making supersized efforts to reverse its fading popularity and catch up to a landscape that has evolved around it. That includes expanding delivery, digital ordering kiosks in restaurants, and rolling out an app that saves precious seconds.

 

Much of the work is on display in an unmarked warehouse near the company’s headquarters in suburban Chicago, where a blowup of a mobile phone screen shows the app launching nationally later this year. McDonald’s estimates it would take 10 seconds for a customer to tell an employee their order number from the app, down from the 17-second average of ordering at the drive-thru, a difference that could help ease pileups. Elsewhere at the Innovation Center, the digital ordering kiosk shows how customers can skip lines at the register.

 

“Five, 10 years ago, we were the dominant player in convenience, as convenience was defined in those days,” CEO Steve Easterbrook said last month. “But convenience continually gets redefined, and we haven’t modernized.” 

 

The push come as McDonald’s Corp.’s stock has hit all-time highs as investors cheer a turnaround plan that has included slashed costs and expansion overseas. Yet the asterisk on the headlines is the chain’s declining stature in its flagship U.S. market, where it is fighting intensifying competition, fickle tastes and a persistent junk food image.

 

In an increasingly crowded field of places to eat, the number of McDonald’s locations in the U.S. is set to shrink for the third year in a row. At established locations, the frequency of customer visits has declined for four straight years, even after the launch of a popular “All-Day Breakfast” menu. 

 

The chain that popularized innovations like drive-thrus in the 1970s acknowledges it has been slow to adapt, and is scrambling to better fit into American lifestyles. 

 

Running to keep up

 

Lots of once-dominant restaurant chains are feeling the pressure of people having more eating options.

 

An estimated 613,000 places were selling either food or drink in the U.S. last year, up 17 percent from a decade earlier, according to government figures. Supermarkets and convenience stores are offering more prepared foods, and meal-kit delivery companies have been expanding. 

 

“Better burger” places like Shake Shack and Habit Burger Grill don’t come close to McDonald’s roughly 14,000 U.S. locations, but they’re growing. And even if Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts don’t serve burgers and fries, they are among those promoting food more aggressively.

 

“They’re still taking customers from the same market pool,” said Nick Karavites, a McDonald’s franchisee with 22 locations in the Chicago area and chairman of a regional leadership committee.

 

Richard Adams, a former McDonald’s franchisee who is now a consultant to those businesses, has questioned whether the chain can return to the height of its popularity in such a fragmented marketplace. He also noted that many of the new offerings the company is pursuing, such as delivery, are already available at other places.

 

Still, McDonald’s needs to make changes to keep customer visits from falling further. 

 

‘Turning a very large ship’

 

One main focus is the drive-thru, where McDonald’s gets roughly 70 percent of its business. 

 

Customers who place orders on the mobile app, for instance, could also pull into a designated parking spot where an employee would bring out their order. That would theoretically ease backups at the drive-thru, which in turn might prevent potential customers from driving past without stopping during peak hours.

 

Then there’s the partnership with UberEats to offer delivery. McDonald’s gives an undisclosed percentage of the sale to UberEats, in addition to a fee of about $5 that customers pay. So a risk is that delivery could draw from in-store sales, eating into profitability.

 

So far, however, McDonald’s says delivery is bringing in new business during slower times at the roughly 3,500 locations where it has rolled out since the start of the year. 

 

Either way, such changes aren’t likely to transform operations overnight, since most of McDonald’s customers might prefer to order the way they always have. 

 

“That’s like turning a very large ship,” said Karavites, noting the range of company efforts intended to build sales over time. At his remodeled restaurant in Chicago where delivery was recently launched, he said sales are climbing. 

 

To bring more people in over the short-term, the company is promoting $1 sodas and $2 McCafe drinks. Glass cases displaying baked goods are also popping up in stores. And at about 700 locations, the company is testing “dessert stations” behind the counter where employees can make sundaes topped with cake or brownie chunks. 

 

Those stations could eventually handle an expanded menu of sweets.

 

Junk food image

 

At the same time, McDonald’s is trying to shake its image for serving junk food, especially since its appeal to families with children has long helped keep it ahead of rivals like Burger King and Wendy’s.

 

It’s made changes to its Happy Meal, and made a high-profile pledge to offer healthier options. It plans to start using fresh beef instead of frozen patties in Quarter Pounders. But as other chains emphasizing quality or health keep emerging, it may get harder for McDonald’s to hold onto families or change perceptions. 

 

Larry Light, a former chief marketing officer at McDonald’s, says the company strayed in recent years by chasing customers who may have been going to places like Chipotle, but that it is refocusing on burgers and fries. He thinks that will help get people visiting more often.

 

“You cannot build an enduring, profitable business on a shrinking customer base,” Light said.

 

And Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore cited the changes the company is pursuing in raising her rating on McDonald’s to “buy” in April.

 

“I wouldn’t underestimate the power of scale,” Senatore said.
…

Working 50 meters (164 feet) under ground with minimal air supply, Uuganbaatar is one of thousands of Mongolians trying to make a living digging for coal.

Although the mining season does not begin until autumn, when the ground freezes and work is safer, the 31-year-old and his colleagues are seeking to gain a head start by digging a shaft in Nalaikh, one of the nine districts of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, in late June.

But their mine could soon be shut by the government, which has launched an unprecedented crackdown on sites that don’t meet safety standards.

That would mean even fewer opportunities for Mongolia’s individual prospectors, who have already been hit hard by the privatization of mines previously open to all.

Miners such as Uuganbaatar dig for coal under loose arrangements with local unions and private companies.

“Things seem really tough for private miners now,” said Uuganbaatar, who, like many Mongolians, goes by one name. “All the licenses have been bought up by influential big shots. Whenever you start to dig somewhere, someone shows up and chases us away. It’s impossible to find a place or mine to dig in.”

A weak economy and particularly harsh winters drove herdsman from across Mongolia to Nalaikh’s private mines in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The district, with a population of nearly 30,000, was home to Mongolia’s first state mining company, which collapsed in the 1990s in the midst of a post-communist economic crisis. The firm’s dilapidated buildings dot the landscape.

With the economy slowing again after a commodities boom earlier in the decade, authorities fear more people could be tempted down the mines.

“More mines will probably be shut down,” said Byambadorj, a woman who ran two private mine shafts with her husband for 13 years until the government closed them in June.

“In Nalaikh, life revolves around mining, and mining is the main means to support our lives,” she says, insisting that her mines were operating according to the safety standards.

The government had tried to get companies to improve safety by issuing licenses. An official said nine companies had been granted licenses, but not all had met the standards.

“People were working in shafts with no air supply,” said S. Battulga, an official whose department is responsible for reviewing mining licenses across the country.

“Therefore, it was requested that the private mining licenses in Nalaikh be cancelled” on health and safety grounds, he added.

Nalaikh authorities would like people to switch from mining to work in brick factories, but no one seems keen to switch despite the danger.

In the past 25 years, the government has recorded 234 fatalities in Nalaikh’s coal mines, although residents say the real number is hundreds higher.
…

Spanish companies will commit millions of pounds of investment to Britain on Thursday, the British government said, as it seeks to limit the economic impact of leaving the European Union.

The investment plans, which include building trains and trams in Britain, coincide with a three-day state visit to Britain by Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia.

King Felipe and British trade minister Liam Fox are due to address a U.K.-Spain business forum in London on Thursday, before the Spanish monarch holds bilateral talks with Prime Minister Theresa May at her Downing Street residence.

Britain said the investments would include Spanish manufacturer CAF committing 30 million pounds ($39 million) to build trains and trams at a new factory in Wales, creating 300 jobs, and Spanish infrastructure company Sacyr unveiling plans for a new office in London.

Bilateral trade strong

Bilateral trade between the two countries was worth 40 billion pounds in 2015, and more than 400 Spanish companies are registered in Britain, the government said.

“The sheer scale of Spanish investment in Britain demonstrates Spain’s continued confidence in the strength of the UK economy, and shows that we can and will maintain the closest possible relationship,” May said in a statement.

The government also highlighted more than 100 million pounds which is being invested in the expansion of Luton Airport, majority owned Spanish airport operator AENA, and the construction of a 26 million pound factory in the West Midlands by Spanish steel producer Gonvarri Steel Services.

Gibraltar remains issue

Away from the financial deals, the Spanish royal visit comes amid tensions over the post-Brexit future of the British territory of Gibraltar, which Spain wants back.

The future of Gibraltar, a rock on the southern tip of Spain captured by Britain in 1704, and its 30,000 inhabitants, is set to be a major point of contention in the Brexit talks.

During an address to members of both houses of parliament in London on Wednesday, Felipe said he was confident that Spain and Britain could work towards an acceptable arrangement over Gibraltar.

May to meet with King Felipe

The EU and Britain have also yet to agree on guarantees for EU citizens living in the UK and British expats living in other EU countries. More than 300,000 Britons live in Spain, while more than 130,000 Spaniards live in Britain.

On Wednesday, Felipe said these citizens had “a legitimate expectation of decent and stable living conditions” and urged the British and Spanish governments to work to ensure the Brexit agreement provided sufficient assurance and certainty.

May’s office said that during her talks with Felipe she would welcome the contribution that Spanish citizens make to Britain’s economy and society.

 
…

It’s nearly midday at the bustling Tegeta bus terminal in Tanzania’s biggest city and Olivia Mbiku is busy preparing ugali – a popular maize meal – beef stew and vegetables for her customers.

“I wake up early, light up the fire and rush to the market to buy meat, cooking oil, tomatoes and everything I need for the day,” said the 25-year-old mother of two.

Shrouded in a cloud of smoke, and with a traditional colorful ‘khanga’ tied round her waist, Mbiku takes some maize flour from a sachet and sprinkles it into boiling water while briskly stirring with a stick to make it stiff.

“I cook ugali every day because most of my customers like it,” Mbiku told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It’s not a lucrative business, but I get enough to feed my family.”

Mbiku is among dozens of food vendors trying to earn a living amid the hubbub of the Dar es Salaam bus terminal, where conductors hoot and yell to attract customers.

She works eight hours and day, earning around 45,000 shillings ($20) to supplement her husband’s income as a mason.

But unlike licensed hawkers who work from rows of wooden stalls, Mbiku cooks in the open air and is often harassed by the city militias for selling food without the proper papers.

“They often seize my cooking pots and sometimes lock me up. I have to pay some money to be released and get my stuff back,” she said.

Mbiku and other women with unlicensed businesses finally have a glimmer of hope after the Tanzanian government last month announced it would recognize them as part of its broader policy of empowering women.

Maria Ezekiel, 31, who has a stall serving chicken soup, chapati and tea along the busy Bagamoyo highway each morning, said the move to formalize micro-enterprises like hers was an important milestone for small-scale entrepreneurs.

A license would allow her to apply for credit to upgrade her business, she said.

“I think it’s a very good opportunity for me. As soon as the identity cards are issued I will start processing my bank loan,” Ezekiel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I want to borrow at least 500,000 shillings ($225) to modernize my cooking business.”

The roadside chef wants to buy better equipment and switch to a gas stove to replace the smoky firewood she now cooks on.

Unprotected

Operating in the informal sector leaves women without protection and unable to access credit, experts say.

“Urban food vending may be a good tool for creating livelihood security for the urban poor, but to achieve this there has to be better policy initiatives,” said Haji Semboja, economics professor at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Presenting the annual budget in June, Tanzania’s finance minister, Philip Mpango, said all food vendors – most of whom are women – would be brought into the mainstream sector.

The government would work with regional authorities to identify informal businesses and license them before 2020, he said.

“We will issue identity cards and designate special premises for them,” the minister told parliament.

Margareth Chacha, a banker and former chief executive of Tanzania Women’s Bank that supports small-scale women entrepreneurs, said women are held back because of strict loan conditions imposed by banks.

“Most of the women can’t access the loans because the conditions are too tough,” she said. “But if the government can act as a guarantor, I’m sure the banks will be willing to give loans.”

The benefits of thriving women-led businesses are felt throughout the economy, she said.

Back at Tegeta bus terminal, Olivia Mbiku says she is now hoping for a more stable, prosperous future.

“I would very much like to get a bank loan and start a big catering business,” she said.
…

The speaker of Brazil’s lower house vowed Wednesday to fight any changes President Michel Temer makes to a labor reform bill passed by the Senate, highlighting new tension between longtime political allies.

The speaker, Rodrigo Maia, would replace Temer if Congress allows the Supreme Court to move ahead with a corruption charge against the president, a vote that Maia has said he wants to have this week.

The bill, a business-friendly measure modernizing labor laws dating from the 1940s, passed by a wide margin in the Senate on Tuesday following approval in the lower house and will be sent to Temer to be signed into law.

Given that any changes in the Senate would have sent the bill back to the lower house for fresh debate, Temer assured senators Tuesday that he would use a decree to tweak the legislation as they suggested after he signed it into law.

Maia rejected any such arrangement.

“The lower house will not accept any change to the law. Any [presidential decree] will not be recognized by the House,” the speaker said in a Twitter post.

Graft scheme

Prosecutors charged Temer last month in a graft scheme involving JBS SA, the world’s biggest meatpacker. Executives said the president took bribes from the company in exchange for resolving tax matters and facilitating loans from state-run banks.

Temer has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

The presidential press office said in a statement that Maia has remained loyal to Temer since becoming speaker last year.

“The presidential palace rebuffs the attempts to create a false crisis between the executive and legislative power without connection to facts and reality,” the statement said.

Under Brazilian law, two-thirds of the lower house of Congress must vote to allow a criminal charge against a sitting president to move to the Supreme Court. The vote could happen Friday or possibly be delayed until early August, after a congressional recess.
…

Zambia’s parliament has imposed a 90-day state of emergency, after the president last week declared the need for one. The situation is likely to deepen the political crisis in the country, and analysts say it also could scare away much needed investors to the copper-dependent, landlocked nation.

The president called for the state of emergency after a fire destroyed the capital’s main market earlier this month. He described the fire as an arson attack by “a few unpatriotic citizens” and said, in a speech to the nation, that this and other fires were “premeditated acts, which if left unchecked could have serious socio-economic consequences capable of drawing the country backwards.”

Parliament unanimously passed the measure Tuesday. No opposition lawmakers voted, as 48 of them were suspended last month for boycotting a speech by President Edgar Lungu. Their leader, Hakainde Hichilema, has been in jail since April, facing a treason charge. The few opposition who remained Tuesday boycotted the vote.

Opposition spokesman Charles Kakoma says his opposition United Party for National Development would have voted against the measure, which he says limits citizens’ essential freedoms. Additionally, he says he fears it will scare away visitors.

“People obviously, investors and even tourists will be scared to come to a country that has just declared a threatened state of emergency,” he told VOA. “They are not sure about their investments, and about their safety once they are in Zambia.”

Falling copper prices and an energy crisis had already sent Zambia’s economic growth downward in 2015. That was well before the disputed 2016 poll that pitted Lungu against Hichilema and led to today’s bitter political landscape.

Martyn Davies, managing director of emerging markets and Africa at Deloitte, says local business owners expressed heightened concern to him during his recent visit to Zambia. He notes, though, that Zambia has never quite lived up to its promise.

“The country always had this perennial word which is used for many countries in the region, ‘potential,’” he told VOA from Johannesburg. “The potential doesn’t quite trickle down, didn’t quite result into real strong robust growth and real trickle down economics, i.e. creating a competitive private sector.

“And I think this is something which a small economy — a small, arguably vulnerable economy like Zambia, landlocked as it is, dependent on a single economy source — you have to be stable. You can’t have these sort of swings in policy and fiery political rhetoric. That just undermines the confidence of capital, both domestic and foreign, in your economy,” said Davies.

Analyst Nicole Beardsworth, of the Johannesburg-based Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, notes that parliament enacted Article 31 of the constitution, the milder “Declaration Relating to Threatened Emergency,” instead of Article 30, “Declaration of Public Emergency.” She says the effect is the same, however, and Lungu’s soft-pedaling of the situation could be making things worse.

“He’s trying to play a very dangerous game, which is he is imposing legislation that curbs, or has the potential to curb, the freedoms of Zambians,” she told VOA. “But he is trying to sell it as not being a state of emergency, and not legislation that will curb the freedom of Zambians. I don’t think that anyone really believes him in the statements that he made where he said Zambia is a democracy and people’s rights and freedoms will be respected. Because to be quite honest, his behavior over the last 18 months has proven that to not be the case.”

A spokesman for Zambia’s president told VOA last week that the emergency measure is not intended to curb liberties, but to keep Zambians safe.

Lungu now has three months to apply his new powers to solve the case of the fire that gutted the country’s busiest market and destroyed the livelihoods of some 1,900 traders. Officials have estimated it will take one year and cost $20 million to rebuild.

 
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Iraq says it will offer new oil and gas exploration rights as it looks to boost energy revenues to fund its war against the Islamic State group and shore up its finances amid low oil prices.

 

Oil Minister Jabar Ali al-Luaibi said late Tuesday that his ministry plans to put nine border exploration blocks up for bidding by international energy companies. Five are shared with Iran, three with Kuwait and one is in the Persian Gulf.

 

He did not provide a timetable.

 

Iraq has the world’s fourth largest oil reserves. This year, it added 10 billion barrels, bringing its total reserves up to 153.1 billion. Low oil prices have taken a heavy toll, as some 95 percent of the country’s revenues come from the energy sector.

 

 
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When Janet Yellen delivers her testimony on the Federal Reserve’s semiannual report to Congress on Wednesday, investors may listen as much for clues to her own future – and the Fed’s – as they will to what she says about interest rate policy.

The Fed chair is likely to repeat a message she has been sending about rates: That further gradual increases will follow the three rate hikes the Fed has made since December. She is expected to say that even though inflation has slowed further below the Fed’s target level, the job market appears healthy enough to justify slightly higher borrowing costs.

But lawmakers may prod Yellen about her own plans and about the potential reshaping of the Fed itself resulting from a forthcoming influx of new board members selected by President Donald Trump. During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump was critical of the central bank for its low-rate policies, which he said were helping Democrats, and for its efforts to enact tougher regulations on banks in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

On Monday, the administration announced that it had chosen Randal Quarles, a Treasury Department official under two Republican presidents, to serve as vice chairman for supervision, the Fed’s top bank regulatory post.

Including the post Quarles would fill, the Fed has three vacancies on the seven-member board. Trump has yet to announce his other choices, though at least one person –  Marvin Goodfriend, an economist, a former staffer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and now a professor at Carnegie Mellon University – is considered a leading candidate for one of the spots.  All of Trump’s nominations will require Senate approval.

Yellen so far has deflected questions about whether she would accept a second four-term term as chairman if Trump asked her to remain after her term ends in February. But lawmakers may try to glean some insight into her own wishes and about how the Fed could potentially change under the influence of Trump’s nominees.

On Wednesday, Yellen will address the House Financial Services Committee and on Thursday the Senate Banking Committee. She will be testifying on the Fed’s Monetary Policy Report, with one wrinkle this time: For the first time, the Fed released the report five days before Yellen’s testimony. In the past, the two had occurred the same day.

The central bank explained the change by saying Fed officials wanted to give lawmakers more time to review the semiannual monetary report before Yellen addressed questions about it.

The report said the Fed “expects that the ongoing strength of the economy will warrant gradual increases in the federal funds rate,” referring to its benchmark short-term rate.

The Fed had slashed that rate to a record low near zero in December 2008 to combat the worst economic downturn since the 1930s – and kept it there for seven years until nudging it up modestly in December 2015. It then left the rate unchanged for another year until raising it again in December of last year, followed by increases in March and June this year. Even so, the rate remains in a still-low range between 1 percent and 1.25 percent.

The Fed’s report noted that officials had affirmed at their June meeting that they foresee a total of three rate increases in 2017, if the economy performs as they expect. If so, that would mean one additional increase before year’s end. The Fed also expects to raise rates three times in 2018 if economic conditions evolve as they expect.

This week, Yellen will surely face questions about sticking to that pace, given that while job growth has been solid, inflation has slowed this year rather than edging closer to the Fed’s 2 percent target.

In a speech Tuesday, Lael Brainard, a Fed board member who has often argued for a go-slow approach to rate hikes, said she wanted to “monitor inflation developments carefully and to move cautiously on further increases” in the Fed’s key rate.

Brainard suggested that she would support a move soon to begin paring the Fed’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet, which swelled to five times its previous size after the Fed bought Treasury and mortgage bonds to hold down long-term borrowing rates in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

At its June meeting, the Fed signaled that it could begin shrinking its balance sheet later this year, a step that could put gradual upward pressure on longer-term rates for such items as home mortgages.
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Japanese car parts company Takata on Tuesday recalled another 2.7 million air bags that it previously thought were safe.

The recall affects certain Ford, Mazda and Nissan cars from the 2005 through 2012 model years.

Takata’s air bags are inflated by a chemical — ammonium nitrate — in emergency situations, but it can deteriorate in conditions of high humidity and heat. The company added a desiccant to stop the chemical inflators from degrading and thought they had then been made safe.

However, tests by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board showed that Takata air bags were still subject to inflating without warning, expanding with great force and sending metal parts flying. Previous problems with Takata air bags have killed at least 17 people and injured more than 180.

Takata, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, has already recalled 42 million cars to replace the defective inflators, the largest automobile-related recall in U.S. history. But the latest recall raised doubts about the safety of other Takata inflators. The company has agreed to recall all original equipment inflators without a drying agent in phases by the end of 2018. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave Takata until the end of 2019 to prove that inflators with the drying agents are safe, or they must be recalled as well.

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said federal regulators have to act faster to determine whether all Takata air bag inflators are safe.

“We certainly can’t afford to wait until the December 2019 deadline. … If even more are found to be defective, it will take us from being the biggest recall ever to something that could become mind-boggling,” Nelson said.
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Three years ago, at the peak of the Boko Haram insurgency, Nigerian soldiers stopped all fishing activities in the country’s section of Lake Chad. Militants had infiltrated the ranks of the fishermen, the army said, and were using the guise to fund arms purchases and launch surprise attacks on innocent people.

The local fishermen’s union said it understood the army’s actions but pushed for an easing of the ban, because its members had no other way to earn a living in the largely dry and remote area.

Relief came to the local fishermen over the weekend, when the Nigerian Army commander in charge of the area, Major General Ibrahimn Attahiru, addressed the fishermen and said they could return to work based on some guidelines the army had reached with their leaders.

Fishermen support changes

The president of the Lake Chad Fishermen Association, Alhaji Abubakar Gamande, confirmed the development in an interview Monday with VOA’s Hausa Service and pledged that fishermen will follow the new rules.

“Based on what happened in the past, we will not continue to operate as we used to, where everyone did as he deemed fit,” he said. “We and the army will watch the activities of the fishermen and anyone whose work requires entering the lake. We will not let him operate as he wishes. We will screen all our members. We have to know where they are coming from and where they are going.”

In normal times, the fishermen can still make a decent living off Lake Chad despite the lake’s radical shrinkage over the past 50 years, which scientists believe is a result of overuse and shifting rainfall patterns brought on by climate change.

Local authorities back in control

But Boko Haram’s takeover of northeastern Nigeria severely disrupted a fishing industry that draws traders from Nigeria’s Lake Chad neighbors  Chad, Cameroon and Niger  and enables many locals to support themselves. By early 2015, the well-armed militants had seized effective control of the areas along the lake, and there was little the fishermen could do to stop Boko Haram activity.

Local authorities are now back in control, following a 30-month regional offensive by the army and a multi-national task force that includes soldiers from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin.

Gamande was full of praise for the army, which he said has worked tirelessly to restore peace to the area.

Quiet on new rules

Asked how the new rules will prevent Boko Haram activity, the union leader said he cannot reveal all the details for security reasons.

“On our own part as a union we have laid down guidelines that enable us to know who comes for fishing, those who buy, and those who come to sell,” Gamande said.

“We will do all we can to ensure that what happened in the past will never happen again. Enough is enough.”
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The former chief executive officer of the failed Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox pleaded not guilty to charges that he stole hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of the virtual currency.

French-born Mark Karpeles appeared Tuesday in Tokyo District Court at the start of his trial on embezzlement and data manipulation charges.  Prosecutors have accused the 32-year-old of manipulating Mt. Gox’s data and moving millions of Bitcoins into his personal account before the exchange shut down in February 2014.

Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy after losing about 850,000 bitcoins, then worth close to half a billion U.S. dollars.  The exchange blamed the loss on hackers who exploited a security flaw.  The company later claimed it found about 200,000 of the missing bitcoins in another location.

The collapse of Mt. Gox, which handled much of the world’s Bitcoin trading activity, angered investors and damaged the reputation of the alternative currency.  The scandal prompted Japanese lawmakers to enact laws regulating the use of bitcoins and other digital-based currencies.
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U.S. President Donald Trump plans to nominate former Treasury official Randal Quarles to be the Federal Reserve’s top banking regulator, the White House said on Monday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Quarles would be the first vice chair of supervision at the Fed, a role created after the 2008 financial crisis but never filled during the Obama administration.

Quarles is viewed as an industry-friendly figure who will likely listen to banks that have complained about the impact of regulations implemented since the financial meltdown. His nomination has been widely expected since April.

Former Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo effectively ran banking supervision until he stepped down in February, overseeing a strict implementation of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and administering rigorous “stress tests” annually to banks on how prepared they are to withstand unexpected shocks.

Quarles currently runs a private investment firm that he founded, the Cynosure Group, from Salt Lake City, Utah. He was previously a partner at private equity firm the Carlyle Group.

He was also under secretary for domestic finance at the Treasury under President George W. Bush and was the U.S. executive director of the International Monetary Fund.

In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal in March 2016, Quarles and Lawrence Goodman, another former U.S. Treasury official, argued against breaking up big banks because it would risk damaging the wider economy. He has also talked about refining Obama-era financial rules, introduced after the financial crisis.

Quarles will be a central figure in pushing the Trump administration’s plans to loosen the leash put on Wall Street banks following the crisis.

Trump laid out his plans last month but he needs officials at key regulatory posts to carry out his agenda. He has gradually been nominating heads of financial agencies, but only Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton have been approved by Congress.

Other agencies are either awaiting presidential picks or are operating under “acting” chiefs. Others have leaders appointed by Trump’s Democratic predecessor, President Barack Obama.
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President Donald Trump’s administration is postponing and plans to drop a program to provide visas for foreign entrepreneurs who launch companies in the United States.

The visa program, proposed last year by former President Barack Obama, was intended to give entrepreneurs who are not eligible for other types of visas permission to live in the U.S. for 30 months to get their enterprises up and running.

Leading figures in the technology industry had lobbied strongly for the visa program as a way for immigrants to come to the U.S. to start companies, contribute to the economy and create more jobs. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has estimated that nearly 3,000 entrepreneurs would be eligible for such visas each year.

The so-called startup visa program was to have taken effect next week, but DHS will issue a notice Tuesday postponing implementation of the International Entrepreneur Rule until March 14, 2018.

A draft of the notice posted online by the Federal Register said DHS plans to rescind the rule, but is requesting public comments before issuing a final decision.

The program would permit non-U.S. citizens to stay in the country for renewable 30-month terms if they have $250,000 in capital investments or win $100,000 in government grants to support their proposals.

The president of the National Venture Capital Association, Bobby Franklin, said Monday the administration’s decision was “extremely disappointing.”

“At a time when countries around the world are doing all they can to attract and retain talented individuals to come to their shores to build and grow innovative companies,” Franklin said, “the Trump administration is signaling its intent to do the exact opposite.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of the DHS, has said it decided to delay the rule to ensure it is consistent with an executive order Trump issued during his first days in office, limiting federal officials’ authority to grant permission for foreign nationals to remain in the U.S., except on a case-by-case basis.
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Tanzanian President John Magufuli said on Monday he has signed into law new mining bills which require the government to own at least a 16 percent stake in mining projects.

The laws, which also increase royalties tax on gold and other minerals, were passed by parliament last week despite opposition from the mining industry body.

Magufuli reiterated on Monday that no new mining licenses would be issued until Tanzania “puts things in order” and that the government would review all existing mining licenses with foreign investors.

“We must benefit from our God-given minerals and that is why we must safeguard our natural resource wealth to ensure we do not end up with empty mining pits,” Magufuli told a rally in his home village in Chato district, northwestern Tanzania.

The president has sent shock-waves through the mining community with a series of actions since his election in 2015, which he says are aimed at distributing revenue to the Tanzanian people.

The new mining laws, which were fast-tracked through parliament, raise royalties tax for gold, copper, silver and platinum exports to six percent from four percent.

They also give the government the right to tear up and renegotiate contracts for natural resources like gas or minerals, and remove the right to international arbitration.

“I would like to thank parliament for making the legislative changes. I signed the bills into law the same day Parliament concluded its session on July 5,” Magufuli said.

Passage of the new legislation also followed months of  wrangling between the government and the country’s biggest gold miner, London-listed Acacia Mining Plc, over mining contracts after Magufuli decided in March to ban exports of gold and copper concentrates to push for the construction of a domestic mineral smelter.

Magufuli said on Monday that talks between Tanzania and Barrick Gold Corp., Acacia’s majority owner, would begin in two days to try to resolve allegations of tax evasion against Acacia.

Tanzania accused Acacia of tax evasion in 2016 in a case that is ongoing.

Acacia, which denies all allegations, said on July 4 it was seeking an adjudicator to resolve its dispute with the Tanzanian government.

Tanzania is also pushing for the mandatory listing of mining companies on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) by August as part of measures aimed at increasing transparency and spreading wealth from the country’s natural resources.

Other major foreign-owned mining companies in Tanzania include AngloGold Ashanti and Petra Diamonds.
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Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk on Sunday tweeted pictures of the first Model 3 sedan to roll off the assembly line.

Tesla board member Ira Ehrenpreis was the first to put down a $1,000 deposit on the Model 3 and gifted the car to Musk for his 46th birthday, Musk said in a tweet.

Musk has high hopes for the $35,000 Model 3, aimed at the mass market, and expects the rollout to help the company deliver five times its current annual sales volume.

Tesla’s shares have taken a beating in the last few weeks, as investors have become increasingly concerned that demand for the company’s existing Model S sedan is weakening.

Musk said in May that some “confused” Tesla buyers considered the new Model 3 as an upgrade to the Model S, hurting orders for the older car.

Registrations for Tesla’s vehicles in California, its largest market, fell 24 percent in April from a year ago, according to data from research firm IHS Markit.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that new registrations of Tesla cars fell to zero in Hong Kong after authorities slashed a tax break for electric vehicles in April.

Last week, Musk said production of the Model 3 would increase exponentially — from 100 cars in August, more than 1,500 in September to 20,000 Model 3 cars per month in December.
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China’s biggest shipping company, state-owned COSCO Shipping Holdings Co., is creating the world’s No. 3 container shipping giant by acquiring rival Orient Overseas (International) Ltd.

Shares in both companies surged Monday following the announcement of the $6.3 billion deal.

A wave of consolidation has created huge competitors in a global shipping industry that is struggling with sluggish trade and depressed prices.

On Monday, COSCO’s shares traded in Hong Kong jumped 4.7 percent while Orient Overseas’ shares soared 19.5 percent.

On its own, COSCO ranks No. 4 globally with 317 ships and 8.4 percent of container traffic, according to Alphaline, an industry database. Adding Orient Overseas would give it market share of 11.7 percent, moving it ahead of Marseilles, France-based CMA CGM Group.

The No. 1 shipper is Denmark’s AP Moeller-Maersk with 643 ships and 16.4 percent of container traffic.

Orient Overseas, with 103 ships, is controlled by the family of former Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa.

The transaction is subject to antitrust review by Chinese, European and U.S. authorities, according to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The filing said COSCO will pay $10.07 per share (HK$78.67), a premium of 38 percent over Orient’s Friday share price on the Hong Kong Exchange. The total price tag for the deal will be $6.3 billion (HK$49.2 billion).

AP Moeller-Maersk acquired Hamburg Sud of Germany in December. CMA CGM bought Singapore-based Neptune Orient Lines last year.

Orient Overseas reported a loss of $219.2 million last year. It blamed a glut of capacity, slow growth and rising fuel prices as well as freight rates that sometimes dipped below those seen in 2009 during the financial crisis.
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For a farmer in Brazil’s Amazon, Manoel Freire Camurca was doing pretty well for himself until a local power broker burned down his house and took the surrounding fields he had poured his life into.

Camurca’s eviction eight months ago happened as officials were finalizing his claim to 500 hectares of land in southwestern Amazonas state where he had spent nearly three decades growing corn, sugar and beans.

“I lost everything,” 61-year-old Camurca told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, wiping away tears. “I went into town and when I came back everything was burned and destroyed.”

Half a dozen other small farmers in his village suffered the same fate after a large rancher said he was the rightful owner of the land.

Camurca’s story highlights an increasingly violent environment in parts of rural Brazil which government officials say is fueled by unclear property title deeds, local corruption and a system where competing state agencies work on land regularization.

‘Death in the Countryside’

At least 36 people died in land conflicts in the first five months of this year, according to the Brazil-based Pastoral Land Commission watchdog.

One government official said 2017 had so far been the most violent year for land fights this century.

“Land conflicts in the Amazon have gotten worse,” said Ronaldo Santos, an official with the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), a government body responsible for managing and demarcating rural land.

“Big farm operators have the power to dispense injustice,” Santos told the Thomson Reuters Foundation following a public meeting with hundreds of angry farmers embroiled in land conflicts in Amazonas in northwestern Brazil.  “We have assassinations and death in the countryside.”

Conflicting Titles

Recent violence has led officials from different government agencies and privately owned land registration agents known as cartorios to trade blame over who is responsible for the conflicts.

Across Brazil, land must be registered by cartorios. They maintain property records and transfer deeds in specific regions. There is no single, centralized system for checking who owns what nationwide.

Inherited from Portuguese colonialists, the cartorio system is confusing and widely abused by wealthy land owners, government officials told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

They said unclear property ownership makes it easier for large ranchers to displace small farmers like Camurca.

“The cartorios hold the biggest responsibility for legalizing grilagem [land grabs],” said Miguel Emile, a senior official with Terra Legal, a government program for regularizing small farmers’ land titles in the Amazon.

There are an estimated 5 million landless families in Brazil, according to a 2016 Canadian study. Government officials say they are working to speed-up property allocations for the rural poor who often live on land they do not formally own.

But even lands demarcated and distributed by government officials from INCRA and Terra Legal must be registered at private cartorios to be fully legal, Emile said.

Small farmers often cannot afford cartorio services, he said, and the system itself faces widespread abuse.

Wealthy ranchers can bribe cartorios to register someone else’s land, Emile told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A common scam involves elites legally buying a small piece of property and then having a cartorio register a far larger surrounding area in their name, he said.

As a result of this type of fraud in Para, a neighboring Amazon state, four times more land has been privately registered than the state’s total area, said Jeremy Campbell, an expert on land rights in Brazil at Roger Williams University in the United States.

Trading Blame

Cartorios, however, say they are not responsible for most of the problem, blaming government agencies for weak Amazon property rights and the resulting violence.

“Grilagem is not done by cartorios,” said one cartorio in Amazonas who spoke on condition of anonymity.

His office, which is responsible for maintaining local land records, is full of yellowed, time-worn books of property deeds, along with some digitized documents.

Corruption in government agencies, including INCRA, is a major driver of land scams, the cartorio said, as property owners can bribe officials to hand them swaths of state land.

The government is moving to geocode new property registrations so the land is digitally registered through satellite maps but this process has been slow, he added.

Proving Ownership

Forced evictions in Camurca’s village of Bom Lugar in Boca do Acre municipality exemplify the problems with Brazil’s rural property system.

INCRA had provided Camurca with a certification of possession, known locally as a “posse title.” But the farmer said he couldn’t register this as a formal title with a cartorio as the process of property demarcation had not been finalized.

This meant that despite a government agency granting Camurca rights to the land where he had lived since 1988 he still did not formally own it.

The rancher who Camurca says was behind the burning of his house could not be reached for comment.

The federal prosecutor for Amazonas state said he was investigating house burnings and displacement across Boca do Acre.

Amazonas senior security official, Sergio Fontes, said the violence affecting Camurca and thousands of others across Brazil’s largest state was due to poor management by officials.

“INCRA should resolve the farmers’ disputes with ranchers before distributing lands, otherwise all these problems happen,” Fontes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “[Officials] have to take responsibility for who was placed there.”

Travel support for this story was provided by the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ).
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