YCLOAK

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday that President Donald Trump had a “quite productive” dinner with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. He says they discussed a wide range of subjects, from the state of the economy to the Super Bowl and Tiger Woods’ golf game.

Talking to reporters at the White House, Mnuchin said that Trump was very engaged during the casual dinner Monday night. It took place in the White House residence and marked the first time Powell and Trump have met since Powell took office as Fed chairman a year ago.

 

Mnuchin said that Powell’s comments were consistent with what he has been saying publicly about the economy. The Fed said in a statement that Powell did not discuss the future course of interest rates.

 

 
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No matter who wins Algeria’s presidential election, 29-year-old cardiologist Moumen Mohamed plans to seek his fortune elsewhere.

He is one of a growing number of young, educated Algerians who are looking for work in Europe or the Gulf to escape the low salaries imposed by a state-dominated economy at home.

The exodus of doctors, engineers and other highly skilled workers is a headache for a government hoping to engage with its largely youthful electorate ahead of the vote on April 18.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 81, has not said if he will seek a fifth term, although the ruling FLN party, labor unions and business leaders are urging him on.

For young professionals, the question is scarcely relevant.

Many feel disconnected from an elite populated by the veterans of Algeria’s 1954-1962 war of independence from France, an era they only know about from their grandparents.

They want to pursue their careers but feel discouraged by a system that offers low-paid jobs and little opportunity to better themselves.

“I have already done my paperwork to migrate,” said Moumen, the cardiologist, who works at a state hospital. “I am waiting for a response.”

Nearly 15,000 Algerian doctors work in France now and 4,000 submitted applications to leave their home country last year, according to official figures.

The government does not accept all the blame.

“The press has exaggerated the phenomenon… it is a problem for all Algerians, not just the government,” Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said in response to a reporter’s question about young doctors leaving.

But in Europe doctors can earn ten times what they get in Algeria, a socialist economy where medical professionals are paid little more than less skilled public employees.

“Salaries, working conditions are bad, and above all there is no appreciation of doctors,” said Mohamed Yousfi, head of the specialist doctors’ union.

“Our doctors are filling the medical desert in Western countries like France, Canada and Germany. They are also present in the Gulf,” said Yousfi, sitting in his office in the public hospital at Boufarik, a town near Algiers.

The hospital, which opened in 1872, was being refurbished by building workers, and Yousfi said medical equipment was readily available.

“The authorities focus on walls and equipment but forget human resources,” he said.

Public sector

Algeria has poured billions of dollars in the health sector in the past decades, with around 50,000 doctors and 150,000 beds available in 2018, official data shows.

The North African oil and gas producing nation guarantees citizens cradle-to-grave welfare, but lack of competition from the private sector means some services are poor.

The country only ranks 85 out of 189 in the Human Development Index of living standards compiled by the United Nations Development Program. This is behind Western and Eastern Europe, the Gulf and even sanctions-hit Iran.

Many public hospitals do not offer the same level of quality as private clinics, which have been slowly opening. Those who can afford it go abroad for treatment.

“We are not respected as we should be as long as our dignitaries, ministers and generals continue to seek treatment overseas,” said a doctor who asked not to be named.

Doctors are not the only ones who want to migrate. Pilots, computer engineers, oil drillers and even journalists are also heading for the airport, privately owned Algerian media report.

Around 10,000 engineers and drillers from the state energy firm Sonatrach have left the company in the past ten years, according to senior company officials. “If nothing is done to improve working conditions and salaries, more and more will leave,” a Sonatrach source said.

Most professionals head for the Gulf, where they earn good salaries.

“I left Algeria in 2015. I am a computer engineer and I am now in Oman working for a big telecoms firm,” Messaoud Benali, 39, said by phone.

“I know plenty of educated Algerians who work in Gulf countries,” he said.

Bouteflika must say whether he will run or not by March 3, according to the constitution.

If he does, he is expected to win despite his poor health, because the opposition remains weak and fragmented, analysts say. But how the ruling elite can connect with young people is another question altogether.

Algeria has one of the world’s slowest internet speeds, but its young people are still very tech-savvy.

This became clear when 21-year-old singer Farouk Boujemline invited fans via Snapchat to celebrate his birthday in the center of Algiers.

About 10,000 showed up, jamming the traffic for hours, and police had to set up barriers around the city’s independence monument to make sure the party didn’t get out of control.

By contrast, Bouteflika, Prime Minister Ouyahia and several other ministers do not have Twitter accounts to communicate with the public.

Algeria is one of the few countries where government ministries still use fax machines to communicate with the outside world.

“How to reconnect with the young elite, this is the top priority for Algeria’s next president,” said political analyst Ferrahi Farid.

In the past, authorities could ensure public support by increasing salaries or extending the welfare state.

When riots erupted in Algiers in 2011, the government sought to prevent any spread of the Arab Spring uprisings by offering billions to pay for salary increases, interest-free loans, and thousands of jobs in the public sector.

But 95 percent of government income depends on oil and gas revenues, which halved in the years from 2014 to 2017, forcing officials to impose a public hiring freeze.

“When the oil price is $100 you can do a lot, but when it is $50 there is not much you can do,” Farid said.

 
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A patient is being tested for Ebola at a hospital in Philadelphia, although officials don’t believe the patient has the potentially deadly illness.

Penn Medicine says preliminary testing at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania indicates the person has another condition. They did not release the patient’s name.

 

Officials say the testing is being done “in an abundance of caution” because the patient met screening criteria for Ebola. They say it’s unknown if the patient had traveled to a location that has the disease or came in contact with someone who does.

 

An Ebola outbreak was declared just over six months ago in the eastern part of Congo. It’s the African country’s 10th outbreak and the world’s second largest recorded.

 

WPVI-TV in Philadelphia was the first to report the patient was being tested.

 

 
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Rwanda said on Tuesday it had signed a $400 million deal to produce bottled gas from Lake Kivu, which emits such dense clouds of methane it is known as one of Africa’s “Killer Lakes.”

The project by Gasmeth Energy, owned by U.S. and Nigerian businessmen and Rwandans, would suck gas from the lake’s deep floor and bottle it for use as fuel. This should, in turn, help prevent toxic gas bubbling to the surface.

The seven-year deal, signed on Friday, was announced on Tuesday.

Rwanda already has two companies that extract gas from Lake Kivu to power electricity plants.

Clare Akamanzi, chief executive of the Rwanda Development Board, told Reuters bottled methane would help cut local reliance on wood and charcoal, the fuels most households and tea factories use in the East African nation of 12 million people.

“We expect to have affordable gas which is environmentally friendly,” she said. “We expect that people can use gas instead of charcoal, the same with industries like tea factories instead of using firewood, they use gas. It’s part of our green agenda.”

The deep waters of Lake Kivu, which lies in the volcanic region on Rwanda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, emit such dense clouds of methane that scientists fear they might erupt, killing those living along its shore.

Eruptions from much smaller methane-emitting lakes in Cameroon, one causing a toxic cloud and another sparking an explosion, killed a total of nearly 1,800 people. The shores of Lake Kivu are much more densely populated.

Gasmeth Energy said it would finance, build and maintain a gas extraction, processing and compression plant to sell methane domestically and abroad.

The bottled gas should be on sale within two years, Akamanzi said, adding that prices had yet to be determined.
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When he was younger, the only thing that Enrique Morales knew about marijuana was that you smoked it to get high.

 

Today, the former driver is a horticulturist on a cannabis plantation about 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo and he says drops of marijuana oil have been key to treating his mother’s osteoarthritis.

 

“My perception has now changed. It is a plant that has a lot of properties!” he said.

 

The company that owns the plantation, Fotmer SA, is now part of a flourishing and growing medical cannabis industry in Uruguay.

 

The country got a head start on competitors in December 2013 when it became the first in the world to regulate the cannabis market from growing to purchase, a move that has brought a wave of investment.

 

For Uruguayan citizens or legal residents over 18 years old, the law allows the recreational use, personal cultivation and sale in pharmacies of marijuana through a government-run permit system, and officials later legalized the use and export of medical marijuana to countries where it is legal.

No company has yet begun large-scale export operations, but many say selling medical cannabis oil beyond the local market of 3.3 million inhabitants is key to staying ahead of the tide and transforming Uruguay into a medical cannabis leader along with the Netherlands, Canada and Israel.

 

“The Latin American market is poorly supplied and is growing,” said Chuck Smith, chief operating officer of Denver, Colorado-based Dixie Brands, which recently formed a partnership with Khiron Life Sciences, a Toronto company that has agreed to acquire Dormul SA, which has a Uruguayan license to produce medical cannabis.

 

“Uruguay is taking a leadership position in growing high CBD, high value hemp products. So we see that as a great opportunity from a supply chain perspective,” he said, referring to the non-psychoactive cannabidiols that are used in medical products.

 

Khiron has said it should be able to export medical marijuana from Uruguay to southern Brazil under regulations of the Mercosur trade bloc, marking a milestone for Uruguayan marijuana companies focused on exports.

 

Fotmer, based in the small town of Nueva Helvecia, also currently employs 80 people and is investing $7 million in laboratories and 10 tons of crops that it hopes to ship to countries including Germany and Canada, which is struggling to overcome supply shortages in its cannabis market.

Fotmer s 35,000 marijuana plants are sheltered in 18 large greenhouses measuring 12.5 meters by 100 meters (41 feet by 328 feet), where workers such as Morales change into special clothing, wash their hands with alcohol and wear gloves and surgical masks to avoid any contamination.

 

Helena Gonzalez, head of quality control, research and development for Fotmer, said the precautions are important in producing a quality product that can be used in medical research into the effects of cannabis products.

 

“Aiding that research is another of our objectives,” she said.

 

The first crop of prized flowers will be harvested for their cannabis oil in March.

 

The oil containing THC and CBD will be extracted in its labs to eventually manufacture pills, creams, ointments, patches and other treatments for cases of epilepsy and chronic pain, among other ills.

 

Competition is arriving as well. In December, Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez inaugurated a $12 million laboratory owned by Canada s International Cannabis Corp., which aims to produce and export medicine from hemp, a variety of cannabis that contains CBDs but has no psychoactive effects.

 

Despite the momentum, experts say there is one key problem: Countries including Ecuador, Cuba, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala continue to prohibit both the recreational and medicinal use of marijuana and exports of cannabis products are subject to a complex web of international regulations that is still being developed.

Marcos Baudean, a member of Monitor Cannabis at the University of the Republic of Uruguay, says another difficulty is that the South American country is competing for market share. He said cannabis exports give the country a chance to expand beyond its traditional exports of raw materials into more sophisticated products involving science and biology.

 

Diego Olivera, head of Uruguay s National Drug Secretariat, said Uruguay s comprehensive cannabis law, along with its strong rule of law and transparent institutions, gives it a head start.

 

“Uruguay today has a dynamism in the cannabis industry that is very difficult to find in other sectors,” he said.
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As Asian-Americans across the U.S. mark the Lunar New Year on Tuesday, they can celebrate by eating Mickey Mouse-shaped tofu, sporting a pair of Year of the Pig-inspired Nike shoes and by snacking on pricey cupcakes.

The delicacies and traditions that once made a generation of Asian-Americans feel foreign are now fodder for merchandizing. Between now and Feb. 17, Disney California Adventure Park is offering “Asian eats” that include the Mickey-shaped tofu and purple yam macarons. Nike is issuing a limited-edition Chinese New Year colle ction of shoes with traditional Chinese patchwork. And housewares giant Williams Sonoma has a slew of Lunar New Year dishware and its website offers a set of nine “Year of the Pig” cupcakes for $80.

Robert Passikoff, a marketing consultant and founder of Brand Keys Inc., said there’s been a “reawakening” in the last few years of the United States’ world view of China. But it’s also about differentiating your business and growing revenue, not necessarily inclusion.

“They’re not there as social workers to create harmony among the disenfranchised people,” Passikoff said. “The other side is brands are all looking for an itch, they’re all looking for some way to engage customers. And if the Lunar New Year will do it, why not?”

Chinese fast-food chain Panda Express funded a New Year’s-themed interactive exhibit inside a Los Angeles mall. “The House of Good Fortune: A Lunar New Year,” includes different rooms showcasing customs, like a room of “flying” red envelopes and a “hall of long noodles,” a customary dish that symbolizes long life.

“Crazy Rich Asians” cast member Harry Shum Jr. promoted the exhibit and brushed off those who may scoff at the company’s efforts.

“I think it’s good to be reminded of these traditions. It’s been so important for many generations before us to try and pass that on and also experience it in a new way,” Shum said.

Andrea Cherng, the Panda Restaurant Group’s chief marketing officer and the daughter of Chinese-American founders Andrew and Peggy Cherng, said she knows some Asian-Americans will roll their eyes.

“Now the reality about Panda is that we were many people’s first Chinese experience in the U.S.,” Cherng said. “But then what a fantastic opportunity for us to be able to bridge cultures and bring to them our interpretation of what’s so special about this holiday.”

Christopher Tai, 37, of San Francisco, recently bought a Golden State Warriors jersey specially made for the Lunar New Year as a gift for his girlfriend’s father. The design includes the Chinese character for “warrior.” He said the jersey shows an effort at inclusion.

“They’re recognizing an underrepresented part of their fan base,” Tai said.

But he wonders if shoppers who snap up Williams Sonoma dishware will come away learning anything.

“I feel like a lot of people are attracted to these aesthetic elements like say red, dragons, dogs or shiny gold, without really knowing the significance of the colors and symbols and what the animals mean,” Tai said.

“There’s a part of me that’s still that kid who felt my culture was very ‘other.’ From that standpoint, I’m happy to see it more mainstream,” said Lisa Hsia, 37, of Oakland, California. “But at the same time when I see Chinese New Year shoes or whatever, I have to ask, who’s putting this together and who’s it for?”

Most Chinese traditionally ring in the Lunar New Year, which is assigned one of 12 animals each year off the Chinese zodiac, with a family dinner the evening before. The meals typically include a whole chicken, a whole fish, pork, noodles, spring rolls and dumplings, whose shape resembles ancient Chinese gold ingot currency.

Other customs include giving money-filled red envelopes to children or single young adults and sharing mandarin oranges, which represent good fortune. The celebrations, which are also commemorated in Vietnam and other countries with ethnic Chinese communities, can last up to two weeks.

As Asian populations in the U.S. and social media use grow, it’s easier for people to be aware of the holiday and its customs.

Xi Chen, who is from China but teaches Mandarin to middle-schoolers in Hamilton, Massachusetts, incorporated dumpling-making as part of her Lunar New Year lesson.

“We don’t have many Asian restaurants in town. Some students told me it was the first time in their life they’ve tried dumplings,” Chen said.

Stella Loh, 39, of Los Altos, California, said as a kid, she often got questions like, “Didn’t we already celebrate the new year?”

But now, even non-Asian co-workers have been wishing her a happy new year.

“I’d never really brought it up before,” Loh said. “It’s always nice to know people who aren’t Chinese recognize a piece of your own culture.”
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Zambia’s profitable copper mining industry is making its citizens poor, an explosive new report by a southern African research organization says.  The report by Southern Africa Resource Watch examined conditions in the community around one mine in northwestern Zambia, where they say they found the vast wealth is not being spread to the surrounding community.  And this situation, they say, is a tale told across mineral-rich communities in Africa.

Report author Edward Lange said the organization chose to investigate that mine because the Canadian owner, which is Zambia’s highest corporate taxpayer, has a good reputation.

 

“But then, what we discovered, was that the wealth that Kansanshi Mine extracts does not match the poverty, the disorder, the poor social conditions which is prevailing in the shantytown of Solwezi,” he said.  “It is a provincial capital of the northwestern province of Zambia, but it could be termed to be a shantytown.  …They’ve polluted, they’ve displaced people in the community, facilities they’ve provided cannot quench the amount of pollution they’ve caused on the community.”

 

VOA sought comment from First Quantum Minerals, but it did not reply.  On its website, the company said it had found that the operations “contribute almost 4 percent of the total economic value added to the countries in which we operate.”

Measured purely by its underground wealth, copper- and gold-rich Zambia should be one of the world’s richest nations.  In 2018 it exported more than $700 million worth of copper, which accounted for most of Africa’s copper exports.

But above ground is a different story.  The average citizen brings in just $1,500 a year, according to the World Bank.

Lange spoke to VOA from the sidelines of Africa’s main mining conference, held this week in Cape Town.  But Lange was not attending the Mining Indaba, the high-powered annual gathering of Africa’s industry chiefs and investors.  He spoke from the Alternative Mining Indaba, a grass roots meeting of mining-affected communities, faith-based organizations and rights groups.

 

“This is a sad African story of a big investment where the communities are not benefiting,” he said.  “It’s a failure, you know, the failure to use the abundant mineral resources to transform the lives of the people is what is worrying us.  And this is at the center of discussions across the continent.”

But the nation’s mining minister, Richard Musukwa, painted a rosier picture. He spoke from the sidelines of the Mining Indaba.

 

“The effect of the mining industry on Zambia and its communities has been overwhelmingly positive,” he told VOA.  “It has brought jobs, growth, education and infrastructure development.  Where there is wrongdoings, breaches of regulation or abuse of the Zambian people and unsafe mining methods, this government will actively and immediately intervene to ensure that the lives of our people are guaranteed.”

 

So where does that wide disconnect come from? Lange blames the gap between the government’s strong words and its ability to enforce them, and added that mining companies often implement changes in the surrounding areas without consulting the community.  He said one of the main messages from activists at this year’s mining gathering is that mining giants need to collaborate more with communities.

 
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Zimbabwe’s public teachers are alleging intimidation as they try to launch a nationwide strike for better salaries.

Some urban teachers tell The Associated Press that riot police are guarding classrooms, while public service inspectors are moving around and marking attendance registers for teachers.

Some rural teachers say ruling ZANU-PF party activists have set up camps at their schools in what they see as acts of intimidation.

The secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, Raymond Majongwe, confirms receiving reports of intimidation.

Teachers say their current average monthly salary of $100 is too low to make ends meet. The price of bread went up by about 70 percent this week, while Zimbabwe’s inflation is at its highest in a decade.

The government says it cannot meet the salary demands.

 

 
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The World Bank may be poised for a shake-up with President Donald Trump planning to nominate David Malpass, a Trump administration critic, to lead the institution focused on global poverty.

 

Malpass’ selection was confirmed by a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to comment publicly on personnel decisions. Trump is expected to make the announcement later this week.

 

Malpass, now the undersecretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department, has been an outspoken skeptic of the 189-nation World Bank, a leading source of funding for economic development. The World Bank provides low-cost loans for projects around the world. Among its key missions is helping combat poverty in developing countries.

 

Malpass has called for curbing the World Bank’s financial reach and has criticized its lending to China, one of the bank’s leading recipients of aid.

 

If the World Bank’s directors approve his nomination, Malpass would be positioned to overhaul an institution that, he has argued, has become too focused on its own expansion and prestige rather than on the interests of poor countries.

 

A host of organizations are creating mountains of debt without solving problems,'' Malpass said in a speech last year.Huge organizations like the World Bank and the many multi-lateral development banks have created an environment where their own growth ends up being as important as their clients’ growth.”

 

Having Malpass at the helm of the World Bank would fit a pattern inside the Trump administration of tapping officials to lead institutions whose core missions they have publicly questioned or opposed. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, among others, have under Trump been led by some of their sharpest former critics.

 

More broadly, the Trump presidency has defined much of its mission by challenging the global institutions that emerged out of World War II such as NATO and what eventually became the World Trade Organization. The president sees the rules set by these organizations as putting the United States at an economic disadvantage.

 

Malpass, 62, has straddled the top echelons of government and Wall Street, having worked in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and as the chief economist for the defunct bank Bear Stearns. He also unsuccessfully sought the 2010 Republican nomination for a Senate seat from New York.

 

Malpass’ public forecasting has at times been misguided and arguably shaped by his political leanings.

 

In 2007, he wrote on the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal that the “economy is sturdy and will grow solidly in coming months, and perhaps years.” Over the subsequent months, the United States toppled into its worst financial crisis and recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

 

In the same editorial, Malpass dismissed the risks from subprime mortgages by saying, “Housing and debt markets are not that big a part of the U.S. economy, or of job creation.” As it turned out, the reckless use of subprime mortgages was the catalyst that ignited the 2008 financial crisis.

 

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declined Tuesday to confirm that Malpass was the president’s pick to lead the institution.

 

When the president is ready to make that announcement, he certainly will,'' Sanders said.I can tell you if he chooses David, it will be a great choice. Highly respected and a strong member of the team.”

 

Malpass would succeed Jim Yong Kim, who announced in January that he was stepping down three years before his term was to expire. The final decision on a successor to Kim will be up to the bank’s board.

 

Politico was first to report on the nomination.

 

The World Bank was founded in 1944 with the task of shoring up the economies of nations devastated by World War II. The first recipient of a World Bank loan was France. The bank, whose leader is nominated by the United States and has always been a U.S. citizen, has since shifted its focus from reconstruction to development, extensively in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

 

Kim’s unexpected departure could set up a contentious fight between the Trump administration and other countries who argue that the United States exerts too much influence over the bank, which is based in Washington. 
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Negotiating new World Trade Organization rules to try to rein in China’s “mercantilist” trade practices would be largely a futile exercise, the Trump administration’s trade office said on Monday, vowing to pursue its unilateral approach to protect U.S. workers, farmers and businesses.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office used its annual report to Congress on China’s WTO compliance in part to justify its actions in a six-month trade war with Beijing aimed at forcing changes in China’s economic model.

The report also reflects the United States’ continued frustration with the WTO’s inability to curb what it sees as China’s trade-distorting non-market economic policies, and offered little hope that situation could change soon.

“It is unrealistic to expect success in any negotiation of new WTO rules that would restrict China’s current approach to the economy and trade in a meaningful way,” the USTR said in the report.

Some U.S. allies, including Canada, the European Union and Japan, which are also frustrated with pressures created by China’s economic policies, have begun talks on the first potential changes and modernization of WTO rules since it was founded in 1995.

But any WTO rule changes must be agreed by all 164 member nations, and past efforts have stalled. It was “highly unlikely” China would agree to new disciplines targeting changes to its trade practices and economic system, the USTR said.

Tariff deadline

The report shed little light on progress in talks between the United States and China to ease a bruising tariff fight, despite a swiftly approaching March 2 deadline to hike U.S. tariffs to 25 percent from 10 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods imports.

The WTO report follows two days of intense talks between high-level U.S. and Chinese officials last week centered on U.S. demands for structural policy changes. These include enforcing intellectual property protections, ending cyber theft of trade secrets, halting the forced transfers of American technology to Chinese firms and reining in industrial subsidies.

While U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping to try to hammer out a trade deal, the USTR report makes clear a massive amount of work will be needed to bridge the gulf between the two countries.

It cited the key structural issues in the talks, which also include China’s new cybersecurity law and discriminatory regulatory practices, as examples of how China aids domestic firms at the expense of foreign competitors in ways that escape WTO rules, adding that China has become “a unique and pressing problem for the WTO and the multilateral trading system.”

The criticism also comes as the United States weakens the WTO’s role as global commerce watchdog by blocking the appointments of judges to its appellate body, which may no longer be able to function by December, when two judges step down.

‘Holding China accountable’

USTR said the United States intends to “hold China accountable” for adhering to existing WTO rules and “any unfair and market-distorting trade practices that hurt U.S. workers, businesses, farmers or ranchers.”

“Until China transforms its approach to the economy and trade, the United States will take all appropriate actions to ensure that the costs of China’s non-market economic system are borne by China, not by the United States,” USTR said.

The agency reiterated a broad array of concerns over China’s key structural issues, such as its 2025 plan for investment in particular sectors and its failure to follow market-oriented principles expected of WTO members, the report said.

“China retains its non-market economic structure and its state-led, mercantilist approach to trade, to the detriment of its trading partners,” it said.
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Brazil’s government has opened discussions with congressional leaders, state governors and mayors on a pension reform bill that would set the minimum retirement age for men and women at 65, a government official said on Monday.

The proposal is one of several under consideration, as President Jair Bolsonaro looks to get the legislative ball rolling on his ambitious plans to overhaul Brazil’s creaking social security system.

Currently, if workers have contributed into the system for at least 15 years, the earliest men can retire is 65 and for women it is 60. But men can retire at any age if they have paid into the system for at least 35 years, and women if they have contributed for 30 years.

Speaking to reporters outside the Economy Ministry in Brasilia, Rogerio Marinho, secretary of social security and labor at the ministry, confirmed talks were underway on the proposal to change that.

Part of the proposal, which was originally reported by O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper, stipulates that workers must pay into the system for a minimum of 20 years.

“Until a draft has been finalized, Bolsonaro cannot confirm anything on social security,” Bolsonaro’s spokesman Otavio Rego Barros said on Monday.

Bolsonaro has put overhauling social security at the top of his agenda. Depending on the final proposals, it could save up to 1.3 trillion reais ($354 billion) over the next decade, economy ministry sources reckon.

Investors have pinned much of their optimistic outlook for Brazil this year on Bolsonaro delivering on pension reform. The elections of Bolsonaro allies as house and senate presidents last week were seen as a step in that direction.

The Bovespa stock market hit a record high on Monday above 98,500 points, and the real has risen around 7 percent against the dollar in the last six weeks.

($1 = 3.6707 reais)
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Long before she became just one of the financially destitute legions of street sweepers that dot Moscow’s bitterly cold winter landscape, Shaknoza Ishankulova had simply wanted to do the right thing.

It was 2008, and the recent Uzbekistan National University graduate was ecstatic to secure a teaching post at a Tashkent high school, finally making good use of her diploma in secondary education.

Twenty-two years old and eager to guide younger Uzbeks toward a better life, she was shaken when Uzbekistan’s notoriously vast culture of entrenched corruption revealed itself in the form of a personal mentor and supervisor — a deputy principal at the school who notified her that, if she wished to keep her job, a full third of her weekly salary would have to be kicked back to him.

It was his cut, he explained, for having hired her in the first place.

Years passed before Shaknoza gathered the courage to broach the issue with the school’s principal, a suspiciously wealthy public servant who promptly dismissed the complaint as naively frivolous.

Taking her cue from the anti-corruption initiatives she had seen in Uzbekistan, marketed in the form of public service announcements since 2005, Shaknoza escalated her complaint to Russia’s Ministry of Education, and was summarily placed on paid leave pending further investigation. 

Two years and a cancer battle later, Shaknoza’s case had wound its way through ministry proceedings, leaving her fate in the hands of her employer, who summarily fired her, demanded reimbursement for the two years of salaried leave, and permanently blacklisted her from any professional employment.

Like many unemployed Uzbek nationals, Shaknoza was lured by Moscow’s abundance of service sector jobs that paid more than similar work in Tashkent. After spending nearly a year as a sweeper, she lucked out by landing a relatively well-paid waitressing job, only to lose the position when a Russian supervisor publicly castigated her for making conversation with foreign diners, an experience she attributed to the ethnic workplace discrimination many Uzbeks face in Russia.

Tall and slender with distinctly Asian facial features and straight shoulder-length hair, Shoksana, appearing older than her 34 years, is now a cashier and produce vendor at one of Moscow’s many 24-hour convenience stores.

Speaking with VOA on a frigid afternoon in Moscow, her bare hands balled in fists as she stood stock still in seemingly arctic gales, the former high school teacher said she has done reasonably well for herself when compared to fellow migrants sleeping 10 to a room on the city’s outskirts.

Making $37 per 24-hour shift, each of which is followed by 24 hours off, she said the salary is enough to share a two-room apartment with three other laborers: two Uzbek men and a woman, with whom she shares the bedroom.

After feeding and clothing herself, she says, she sends a small amount home to her mother.

“But it’s not enough to save anything,” she said, explaining that she lacks the resources to get ahead in Moscow and that, as a blacklisted whistleblower, any path back to Tashkent is surely a dead end.

Millions seek opportunity

By 2017, Russia was home to nearly 12 million migrants — the world’s third largest foreign-born population.

Much like in western European nations and the United States, the large numbers of immigrants have triggered unease, and a majority of Russians have become increasingly intolerant of the newcomers.

A 2018 survey by the Washington-based Pew Charitable Trust showed that nearly 70 percent of Russian nationals felt the country should allow fewer or no migrants in the future.

While many of the migrants from China, eastern Europe and the West possess a broad range of professional skill sets, the vast majority of Russia’s lowest-paid laborers hail from impoverished central Asian countries, of which Uzbeks are the largest group.

This makes them the most visible targets of anti-immigrant vitriol.

Some high-level Russian officials have relayed largely context-free statistics that they portray as an immigrant-fueled crime wave for which Uzbeks in particular are to blame.

“If you create a ranking of criminality, you will find citizens of Uzbekistan at the top,” Moscow chief prosecutor Sergei Kudeneyev told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper in 2014. “They have committed 2,522 crimes; next is Tajikistan, with 1,745 crimes; and in third place there is Kyrgyzstan, whose citizens committed 1,269 crimes.”

“The unremitting crime rates among foreign citizens are causing serious concern, particularly since crimes of this nature draw a lot of public attention,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told a gathering of top security officials in 2016. During the televised statement, the president demanded a swift crackdown on foreign criminals.

Alexander Verkhovsky of SOVA, the Center for Information and Analysis, a think tank in Moscow, questioned the veracity and transparency of these datasets.

“Any statistics on working migrants are very blurry,” he said. “While there are police crime statistics — or at least crime documentation — that may indicate a given perpetrator’s country of origin, that specific data is never published in full.

“In general, data on crimes is organized by categories of crime, and even whether these crimes may have been committed by or against a foreigner,” he said. But by the time police records are internally digested into statistics and prepared for public presentation via the prosecutor’s office, hard data about specific countries of origin has been scrubbed.

“You never get to see the complete data,” he said.

A 2016 report by Columbia University’s Eurasia.org news site suggests migrants who have committed crimes may have acted in response to a series of new Russian laws that drastically increased living costs.

Migrant work permit requirements unveiled in 2015 required applicants to “undergo a battery of tests for HIV, tuberculosis, drug addiction and skin diseases.” Permit holders, the report says, were also required to purchase health insurance, acquire taxpayer identification numbers, and be tested on Russian language, history and laws.

Failure to satisfy requirements within a month of arriving in Russia subjected migrants to a $152 fine.

“Once migrants have jumped through all the hoops, they must pay 14.5 thousand rubles ($219) for their work permit and another four thousand rubles ($61) every month to renew the document,” the report says. “All told, this costs almost $1,000 per year.”

A December 2018 SOVA report on hate crimes that was compiled from official statistics and field research said although attacks targeting foreigners are decreasing, ethnic migrants are among the most vulnerable to violent attacks on Russian soil.

“People perceived as ethnic outsiders constituted the largest group of victims in 2017,” says the report, which recorded 28 ethnically motivated attacks, down from 44 attacks (7 fatal) in 2016.

“Migrants from Central Asia were the most numerous group in this category of victims … followed by individuals of unidentified non-Slavic appearance,” the report states. “Most likely, the overwhelming majority of these people were also from Central Asia, since their appearance was described as Asian.”

Foreigners targeted

All of the migrants VOA spoke with mentioned that they had been intimidated by racists or nationalists, swindled into weeks of free labor by dishonest employers, or were the victims of robbery.

Oibek Usupov, a construction worker from Tashkent, recounted the time he and his brother accepted jobs at an apartment development, wherein the employer required them to sign contracts to work throughout the winter. They received a small advance up front, followed by a handful of paychecks well below what they were promised.

Once the units began selling, the developer said, they would be reimbursed in full. Then payments stopped and, a week before spring, it was announced the project had been bought out by another developer.

The new boss, Usupov told us, said prior contracts weren’t binding because his company hadn’t authorized them.

“We lost months of back pay,” he said.

Adkham Enamov, an Uzbek artist who lives an hour north of Moscow, says he became stranded in Russia after intermediaries who sold his paintings at a famous Moscow arts bazaar disappeared with the profits.

“At the time, my dream was to see Moscow, to sell my paintings in Russia, but I didn’t know that half of Moscow are artists,” he said. “So my current dream is to see my motherland, to return in good health.”

Emanov, 46, who speaks very little Russian, has a 16-year-old son with cerebral palsy. His purpose in Moscow was to cover the medical expenses stacking up in Tashkent.

And then in early 2018, tragedy struck when his 4-year-old daughter, Nama, died from an undiagnosed illness.

“She was buried without me due to the Muslim tradition,” he said, referring to the Sharia ritual of washing and burying the dead within 24 hours of passing. “Well, I sent some money there. Not much.”

After a long, reflective pause, he added, “I should come back being quite rich, but my dream didn’t come true.”
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A federal bankruptcy judge approved a major debt restructuring plan for Puerto Rico on Monday in the first deal of its kind for the U.S. territory since the island’s government declared nearly four years ago that it was unable to repay its public debt.

The agreement involves more than $17 billion worth of government bonds backed by a sales-and-use tax, with officials saying it will help the government save an average of $456 million a year in debt service. The deal allows Puerto Rico to cut its sales-tax-backed debt by 32 percent but requires the government to pay $32 billion in the next 40 years as part of the restructuring. 

Senior bondholders, who hold nearly $8 billion, will be first to collect, receiving 93 percent of the value of the original bonds. Junior bondholders, many of whom are individual Puerto Rican investors and overall hold nearly $10 billion, will collect last and recover only 54 percent.

‘An important step’

“Puerto Rico has taken an important step toward its total financial recovery,” Gov. Ricardo Rossello said in a statement. “This represents more than $400 million annually that will be available for services in critical areas such as health, education, pension payments, and public safety, in compliance with other obligations.”

The deal was previously approved by bondholders but prompted hundreds of people to write and email Judge Laura Taylor-Swain, who held a hearing on the issue nearly three weeks ago, to express concerns about the government’s ability to make those payments and the effect it will have on public services. In her ruling, she wrote that she reviewed and carefully considered all those messages before making a decision. 

“Many of the formal and informal objections raised serious and considered concerns about the Commonwealth’s future ability to provide properly for the citizens of Puerto Rico who depend upon it,” she wrote. “They are not, however, concerns upon which the Court can properly act in making its decision … the Court is not free to impose its own view of what the optimal resolution of the dispute could have been.”

Reasonable compromise

The judge said that the deal represents a reasonable compromise and that further litigation would present a “significant gamble” for Puerto Rico. The island is mired in a 12-year-old recession and struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria as the government tries to restructure a portion of its more than $70 billion public debt load. 

A U.S. government report issued last year said Puerto Rico’s public finance problems are partly a result of government officials who overestimated revenue, overspent, did not fully address public pension funding shortfalls and borrowed money to balance budgets. The Government Accountability Office also reviewed 20 of Puerto Rico’s largest bond issuances over nearly two decades and found that 16 were issued solely to repay or refinance debt and fund operations, something many states prohibit.

Taylor-Swain’s ruling said the compromise is “admittedly, deeply disappointing to countless citizens of Puerto Rico and investors in Commonwealth bonds.”

A federal control board that oversees the island’s finances praised the ruling, saying in a statement that the bond restructuring will help revive Puerto Rico’s economy. 

“The deal demonstrates … our determination to resolve Puerto Rico’s debt crisis and establish sustainable foundations for (the) island’s economic road to recovery,” said Natalie Jaresko, the board’s executive director.

Settlement called a good deal

Antonio Fernos, a Puerto Rico economist, said in a phone interview that the agreement is a good deal.

“It’s positive because it brings some clarity to bondholders and what the board and government are willing to accept in negotiations,” he said.

More challenges remain, with Puerto Rico’s government still negotiating with those who hold general obligation bonds. 

Last month, the control board asked the judge to invalidate $6 billion worth of that debt, including all general obligation bonds issued in 2012 and 2014, alleging that issuance violated debt limits established by the island’s constitution. Taylor-Swain has held hearings on the issue, but has not ruled yet.

In November, Puerto Rico’s government reached a debt-restructuring deal with creditors holding more than $4 billion in debt issued by the now-defunct Government Development Bank.

 
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