A cluster of Black Lives Matter groups and the organization leading the push for a $15-an-hour wage are joining forces to combine the struggle for racial justice with the fight for economic equality, just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to do in the last year of his life.

They are launching their first national joint action April 4, the 49th anniversary of King’s assassination, with “Fight Racism, Raise Pay” protests in two dozen cities, including Atlanta; Milwaukee; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago; Boston; Denver; and Las Vegas.

King was gunned down in 1968 while on a visit to Memphis to support striking black sanitation workers.

“When MLK was assassinated, he was talking to workers who were dealing with union-busting, unfair wages,” said Kendall Fells, organizing director for the Fight for $15. “The bottom line is that every day, workers of color across the country face deep-seated racism that would seem to be out of Dr. King’s era, but sadly it’s still happening today.”

New political reality

Fells said the new political reality requires the groups to band together. After President Donald Trump’s election, some civil rights and social justice organizations are taking an all-hands-on-deck approach against an administration they see as hostile to the working poor and minorities.

By working together, the two groups can reach more people and amplify their messages, activists say.

“What we both realize is we’re stronger when we operate together,” Fells said. 

United in Ferguson

Fight for $15 has helped raise the minimum wage in places like New York and Washington. The Black Lives Matter movement grew largely out of the protests over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a white officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. The organization has demanded police reforms and an end to killings of unarmed black people.

Fight for $15 and Black Lives first came together in Ferguson. The nearly all-black workforce at the neighborhood McDonald’s had been on strike before Brown was killed. After Brown’s death, those workers used their organizing skills to protest police department practices.

In a controversial 1967 speech titled “Beyond Vietnam,” King made a radical shift in his message, speaking out about the triple evils of war, racism and capitalism and linking economic and racial inequality. That same year, the civil rights leader launched his Poor People’s Campaign to address disparities in employment and housing.

“We’re not simply remembering his assassination,” said the Rev. William Barber II, who will lead the Memphis protest. “We’re remembering why he was there and reimagining that for the 21st century. Dr. King was connecting black and white poverty and saying black and white poor people need to be allies.”

Broadening the coalition

Asha Ransby-Sporn, national organizing chair with the Black Youth Project 100, one of dozens of Black Lives groups that are taking part in the protests, said police harassment and the routine treatment of blacks as criminals are among the biggest barriers to economic justice for black Americans.

Broadening the coalition, as King attempted, is important, she said.

“We can’t fight on any of these fronts without fighting on all of them,” Ransby-Sporn said.

Terrence Wise, a $9.50-an-hour McDonald’s employee and Fight for $15 organizer in Kansas City, Missouri, plans to take part in the April 4 protest there.

“It’s one thing to be able to make a living wage, but to go home from work and be harassed by the police or treated differently in our communities, or discriminated against in the workplace … I need to be treated as a human being,” Wise said. “They’re one and the same fight.”
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У Міжнародному валютному фонді висловили сподівання, що нову дату засідання Ради директорів, що має розглянути надання Україні чергового траншу позики, оголосять найближчим часом.

«Ми очікуємо оголосити нову дату засідання Ради директорів невдовзі. Тут немає нічого незвичайного – в тому, що ми відклали дату засідання», – сказав на прес-конференції у Вашингтоні речник МВФ Джеррі Райс.

«Запланована зустріч стосовно третього перегляду нашої домовленості про позику з Україною була відкладена, щоб дати нашим працівникам час оцінити наслідки різноманітних подій останнього часу на програму співпраці. Можу тільки сказати, що конструктивні дискусії між працівниками МВФ і владою України тривають», – сказав речник.

За його словами, ці дискусії, що відбулися останніми днями, дуже конструктивні.

«Я думаю, це природно – у випадках, коли відбуваються різні події, ми беремо перерву для оцінки», – сказав він.

При цьому на запитання кореспондента російського агентства «ТАСС», чи мається на увазі під «подіями» блокада окупованої частини Донбасу, речник не дав відповіді.

Райс також сказав, що не має інформації про можливість того, щоб в МВФ тепер розглядали нові умови надання траншу чи його нову суму.

Наразі в попередньому плані роботи Ради директорів МВФ, що оголошується лише на найближчі сім днів, питання України немає. При цьому там наголошено, що цей графік може бути змінений і що остаточно теми засідань узгоджуються, як правило, вже в день перед засіданням.

У понеділок з’ясувалося, що запланований було на цей день розгляд питання про новий транш позики для України, що планувався в сумі 1 мільярда доларів, на засіданні Ради директорів МВФ зник із порядку денного. В Міністерстві фінансів України пояснили перенесення розгляду питання щодо України потребою в уточненні розрахунків щодо економічних наслідків від заходів, застосованих Україною у відповідь на блокаду, та захоплення українських підприємств на непідконтрольних урядові територіях Донбасу, а також у зв’язку з визнанням російською стороною документів, виданих на цих територіях. Президент України Петро Порошенко заявив, що Міжнародний валютний фонд відтермінував питання про черговий транш кредиту для України через «наслідки блокади» на Донбасі. Національний банк України оновив макроекономічні прогнози з урахуванням ефекту торговельної блокади ОРДЛО на позачерговому засіданні комітету НБУ з монетарної політики, щоб передати оновлені макропрогнози МВФ.
…

Технічна місія Міжнародного валютного фонду почала свою роботу в Україні, повідомляє Міністерство фінансів на своїй сторінці у Facebook.

«Серед ключових питань на порядку денному – оцінка і рекомендації МВФ щодо концепції розвитку ДФС, яка була напрацьована Мінфіном разом з Державною фіскальною службою. Ми разом працюємо над запуском середньострокової реформи ДФС, яка є одним з ключових пріоритетів Мінфіну і є дуже важливою для покращення системи адміністрування податків», – мовиться у повідомленні.

Нині триває судовий процес щодо відстороненого від посади голови Державної фіскальної служби України Романа Насірова. У ніч на 3 березня в лікарні «Феофанія» детективи НАБУ Насірову повідомлення про підозру за статтею про «зловживання службовим становищем, що спричинило тяжкі наслідки». Його заарештували, після чого відпустили під заставу.
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New data show U.S. home sales advanced in February while job layoffs rose slightly last week.

Thursday’s Commerce Department report showed home sales rose 6.1 percent to hit a seven-month high in February. If newly-constructed homes sold at last month’s pace for a full year, 592,000 would change hands. That is nearly 13 percent better than the same time last year.

Analysts at Wells Fargo Securities said unusually mild weather in February sped up the buying process, so the next few months may see slower sales.

The number of Americans signing up for unemployment assistance rose by 15,000 last week, according to the Labor Department. While the number of layoffs was higher, at 258,000 it is still low enough to show a healthy job market.
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The head of the U.S. central bank says new research strengthens the case for investing in early childhood education.

In a Washington speech Thursday, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said evidence shows “growing up poor makes it harder to succeed as an adult.”

A survey by Fed experts shows childhood poverty makes it less likely that people will be employed as adults, and hurts their chances of having stable jobs and adequate incomes.

Yellen says research also underscores the value of investing in workforce habits and skills like mathematics, literacy, teamwork, communication, and the ability to cope with conflict.  

She says giving kids a strong foundation will help build a stronger U.S. economy. She urged politicians to carefully consider the impact of proposed policies on the future of children and the nation.  

 
…

Поліція провела профілактичні бесіди з найактивнішими учасниками акцій з перекриття руху транспорту в Дніпрі 21 та 22 березня, нікого поки не затримували, повідомив журналістам начальник патрульної поліції міста Володимир Богоніс.

За його даними, якщо ситуація повториться і цього вечора, поліція буде застосовувати рішучіші засоби: мітингувальників, які блокуватимуть рух транспорту, обіцяють затримувати. У разі необхідності може бути залучений резервний батальйон поліції, зазначив Богоніс.

«Ми не дамо порушувати правила дорожнього руху, давайте шукати інші шляхи вирішення проблем», – закликав він.

Тим часом у Дніпровській мерії повідомили, що міськрада не має намірів розраховуватись з електропостачальниками за борги жителів гуртожитків бюджетними коштами. Як зазначив заступник міського голови Дніпра Михайло Лисенко, виходом із ситуації було б встановлення лічильників електрики в кожній кімнаті, щоб сумлінні платники не залежали від боржників.

У Дніпрі у вівторок та в середу ввечері жителі гуртожитків перекривали одну з найбільших магістралей міста – Слобожанський проспект, протестуючи проти знеструмлень. У результаті утворилась велика тиснява.

За словами протестувальників, таким чином вони домагаються відновлення електропостачання їхніх гуртожитків, знеструмлених за борги. За словами учасників акції, за послуги електропостачання вони розраховуються за показниками загального лічильника, розподіленими на всіх жителів гуртожитку, частина їхніх сусідів за послуги не сплачує, таким чином сумлінні платники стають заручниками ситуації.

Схожі акції жителі гуртожитків мають намір проводити щовечора.

Раніше в енергопостачальній компанії «ДПЕК Дніпрообленерго» повідомили, що одне з найбільших КП «Житлосервіс-5», яке обслуговує 58 гуртожитків, заборгувало загалом за спожиту електрику майже 1,7 мільйона гривень, і компанія «змушена частково обмежити постачання електроенергії».
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Neda Saiyyada was among a handful of women in India whose company gave her six months of maternity leave last year instead of the mandatory three months. The extended leave helped the young mother enormously.

“When I was pregnant, my biggest worry was that I will not be able to leave my child,” she said. “In three months the child is nothing, can’t even hold the neck straight, and my child was eating and sitting up straight when I joined back, so it was a blessing in disguise.”

About 1.8 million women working in India’s formal sector will soon be legally entitled to get the extended maternity leave that Saiyyada was so grateful for after parliament passed a landmark bill earlier this month doubling maternity leave from 12 weeks to 26 weeks.

WATCH: India maternity leave

India is joining a handful of countries, such as Canada and Norway, that give women generous paid leave of six months or more.

Besides boosting maternal and child health, experts hope the longer maternity leave will encourage more women to return to work and help close a growing gender gap in a country where women account for about one-quarter of the workforce.

Women in workforce

Shachi Irde, executive director of the nonprofit Catalyst India Women’s Research Center, worried that the number of women in the workforce is not only small, it has been declining. 

“In 2004 to 2005 there were about 37 percent women in the workforce, now it has dropped to 29 percent,” she said.

Pointing out that India is the only country facing this downward trend, she said “there are many reasons, but one of them is child care.”

According to a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, 25 percent of new mothers in India quit their jobs after having their first child. And research by Catalyst shows that family responsibilities make it tougher for women to climb the career ladder: About half of working women do not go beyond junior or midlevel positions.

India has few quality child care facilities and most women fall back on the family to take care of children.

The new law tries to address that problem by making it compulsory for workplaces employing more than 50 people to set up day care facilities.

The extended leave itself also will be a huge help, said Neda Saiyyada, who added, “It will encourage women to stay connected with the workplace.”

Will hiring drop?

However some human resource professionals fear the new bill could discourage employers from hiring women, particularly small companies that would see the extended maternity leave as an additional burden.

“For businesses, it is just not easy to not have an employee for six months,” said Sairee Chahal, founder of SHEROES, a portal for women job seekers. “Instead of saying we will hire you as an employee, they will hire you for noncore roles or for more modular roles so this does not fall on them.”

She pointed out that maternity leave has been doubled at a time when the organized sector is facing multiple challenges and shorter business cycles. 

“It (companies) is also under churn of a different kind, under churn of automation, under churn of globalization. So all those trends are overpowering it at this stage,” she said.

Others say the government should also have looked at involving both parents in the extended leave period instead of only making the provision for the mother.

Caveats

But in a country that is coping with a huge population of 1.3 billion people, the 26 weeks of leave will only be given for the first two children, and women would only be entitled to 12 weeks for a third child.

The bill also brings no benefits to women working in the informal sector, which employs as much as 90 percent of the female workforce. That includes housemaids, laborers or workers in small workshops, who do not get entitlements such as paid leave.

But for the time being, those who stand to get six months off are celebrating.

Traptika Chauhan who is expecting a baby in August was “extremely, extremely relieved” when she heard about the passage of the bill. She pointed out that with more and more people staying in nuclear families, child care is a challenge for working couples.

“I don’t have my parents who stay here or my in-laws who stay here. Then it is really difficult to leave such a small baby all by himself or herself and leave for work,” she said. “Plus your own body is trying to cope up so extremely, extremely great news and perfect for me.”
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Grumbling Venezuelans were lining up for scarce gasoline across the OPEC nation on Wednesday, due to mounting oil industry woes in the country with the world’s largest crude reserves.

Venezuela, which also has the world’s cheapest gasoline, has wrestled with intermittent gasoline shortages in recent months, especially in the central coastal area.

Long lines were reported in capital Caracas, which is unusual, and the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz on Wednesday.

Dozens of cars could be seen snaking into streets and some service stations were shuttered.

“I can’t find 95 octane gasoline anywhere. And we’re an oil-producing country! It’s pathetic,” said Jose Paredes in Caracas’ wealthy Altamira district.

The waits heap extra hardship on the nation of 30 million, where many already jostle for hours in hot lines for food and medicines amid product shortages caused by a brutal economic crisis under leftist president Nicolas Maduro.

State oil company PDVSA’s new head of trading blamed the shortages on problems with internal shipping of products and vowed the issue would be solved soon.

“We’re strengthening deliveries to the center of the country to stabilize gasoline supplies,” Ysmel Serrano tweeted.

Industry Woes

The gasoline shortage comes as new top executives are appointed at PDVSA, largely from political and military quarters, and increasing problems in Venezuela’s oil industry.

As of March 22, about a dozen tankers were waiting around PDVSA ports in Venezuela and the Caribbean to discharge refined products, components, and diluents crucial for oil blending, Reuters vessel tracking data showed.

Backlogs and payment delays to PDVSA’s suppliers, which are now demanding to be prepaid, sometimes mean shippers wait weeks to deliver oil products.

And many tankers are idle because PDVSA cannot pay for hull cleaning, inspections, and other port services, according to internal documents and Reuters data.

Union leader Ivan Freites, a PDVSA critic, said Venezuelan refineries, which have been at around half capacity for months amid outages, only had oil inventories for around two days versus a standard of 15.

“To solve this immediately, we would need deliveries from at least 10 tankers,” he said.

In Venezuela’s industrial city of Puerto Ordaz, the problem has been increasing this week and National Guard soldiers were trying to maintain order at operational service stations.

“We’ve been working extra hours, opening before 6 a.m and closing after 11 p.m. because of the lines,” said Caura service station manager Felix Rodriguez, tired and with blood-shot eyes, adding he had not been given a reason for the slow deliveries.
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Dozens of German companies including Siemens attended meetings in Bolivia this week to discuss building a coast-to-coast railway through Brazil, Bolivia and Peru that could speed up the export of corn and soybeans to Asia, German and Bolivian officials said on Wednesday.

The massive, $10-billion project would involve building a 3,700-kilometer (2,299 miles) rail line across the continent, linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, through mountains and jungles.

“This is the project of the century,” said Germany’s State Secretary of German Transport, Building and Urban Development Rainer Bomba.

Representatives from Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia as well as Germany and Switzerland are still studying the feasibility of the train route, which would drastically shorten shipping routes from Brazil’s coast to Asian markets for key commodities.

Siemens, Europe’s top engineering group, participated in the meetings “to get more information about the project,” spokesman Dennis Hofmann said in an email.

“The project is at an early stage and questions have to be clarified,” he wrote.

The discussions, on Tuesday and Wednesday, come after a similar, Chinese-led project build a trans-South America railway ran into roadblocks late last year due to cost and environmental concerns.

Bolivian and German officials did not name other companies that attended the meetings, but Bomba said: “The presence of 40 German companies here demonstrates that Germany is not only in the planning phase, but also in the realization phase.”

Bolivia’s Public Works Minister Milton Claros told Reuters Bolivia and Germany had signed agreements for technical assistance and financing for the project. The ministry said the project would connect the Brazilian port of Santos to the Peruvian port of Ilo and had a preliminary cost estimate of $10 billion.

Brazil is expected to export 28 million tons of corn and 61 million tonnes of soybeans in the 2016/17 crop year according to the USDA. It is the world’s largest soybean exporter and second-largest corn exporter.

China and Peru agreed in 2015 to study a 3,000-mile-long railway through the Andes, but Peru balked when China estimated its cost at $60 billion. Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski later said the rail should go through Bolivia.

Land-locked Bolivia has long pined for a corridor to the Pacific, blasting Chile for taking its coastline in a war in the late 19th century and maintaining its Navy on Lake Titicaca.

Brazil had also questioned the Chinese project and would likely back the Bolivian route, a member of the Brazilian delegation said.

“We identified problems in the reports made by the Chinese group. We communicated the points of disagreement to Chinese authorities and we are seeing how we can continue the studies,” said Joao Carlos Parkinson, coordinator of economic affairs at Brazil’s Foreign Ministry, who attended the meetings.

Brazil’s Ambassador to Bolivia Raymundo Santos said talks would continue.

“Our delegation confirmed Brazil’s interest in participating,” he said. “The political side has been resolved, but now the technical work has to move forward.”
…

Міністр енергетики і вугільної промисловості України Ігор Насалик повідомив, що уряд планує заборонити імпорт енергетичного вугілля з Росії.

Як сказав він інтернет-виданню «Енергореформа», проект постанови про це вже готується, і рішення буде ухвалене.

За його словами, попередньо планується винести цей проект на розгляд Кабінету міністрів через одне його засідання.

Україна наразі змушена імпортувати енергетичне вугілля антрацитної групи, яке в ній видобувається тільки на окупованій частині Донбасу, через блокаду переміщення товарів через лінію розмежування на Донбасі, спершу з боку активістів і низки депутатів, а потім і з боку уряду – після захоплення сепаратистами шахт та інших підприємств на окупованих територіях, що діяли у правовому полі України. Таке вугілля видобувають, зокрема, в сусідній Росії, яка є для України державою-агресором. Інші варіанти – купувати й доставляти його з Південної Африки чи США.

За даними Держстату України, які наводить видання, в січні цього року, до початку блокади, імпорт вугілля з Росії склав 903,2 тисячі тонн на суму в 114,58 мільйона доларів, але з цього обсягу на антрацит припало лише 46,86 тисячі тонн на суму у 3,66 мільйона доларів. Основний обсяг імпорту з Росії – це бітумінозне вугілля для використання в металургії: за січень 2017 року – 856,4 тисячі тонн на суму 110,92 мільйона доларів. Імпорту такого вугілля очікувана постанова українського уряду не заборонятиме.
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Розгляд питання про новий пакет фінансової допомоги для України від Міжнародного валютного фонду наразі відсутній у попередньому порядку денному фонду до кінця березня. Це випливає із графіка і тем обговорення Ради директорів МВФ, оприлюднених на сайті установи.

При цьому там наголошено, що цей графік може бути змінений і що остаточно теми засідань узгоджуються, як правило, в день перед засіданням.

Згідно з цим попереднім порядком денним, Рада директорів МВФ збирається на засідання 22, 24, 29 і 31 березня.

На кінець поточного місяця наразі заплановано розгляд питань співпраці фонду з Сент-Люсією, республікою Науру, Ізраїлем, Домініканською Республікою, Нігерією та Нідерландами.

Днями депутат від БПП Ірина Луценко повідомляла, що розгляд рішення щодо нового пакету фінансової допомоги від МВФ для України відтермінувати приблизно до кінця місяця. Про це вона заявляла за підсумками зустрічі президента Петра Порошенка з керівництвом парламентських фракцій.

Раніше рада директорів МВФ відклала обговорення третього перегляду програми для України і виділення чергового кредитного траншу в розмірі одного мільярда доларів, що було заплановано на 20 березня.

У Міністерстві фінансів України пояснили перенесення розгляду питання щодо України потребою в уточненні розрахунків щодо економічних наслідків від заходів, застосованих Україною у відповідь на блокаду, та захоплення українських підприємств на непідконтрольних урядові територіях Донбасу, а також у зв’язку з визнанням російською стороною документів, виданих на цих територіях.

20 березня Національний банк переглянув прогноз зростання валового внутрішнього продукту України в 2017 році, погіршивши його з 2,8% до 1,9% у зв’язку з тимчасовим припиненням переміщення вантажів через лінію розмежування на Донбасі.
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Oil prices dipped on Wednesday as rising crude stocks in the United States underscored an ongoing global fuel supply overhang despite an OPEC-led effort to cut output.

Prices for front-month Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil, were at $50.79 per barrel at 0451 GMT, down 17 cents, or 0.3 percent, from their last close.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 18 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $48.08 a barrel.

“Crude oil prices fell as concerns over rising U.S. inventories resurfaced,” ANZ bank said on Wednesday.

U.S. crude oil inventories climbed by 4.5 million barrels in the week to March 17 to 533.6 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said late on Tuesday.

“The American Petroleum Institutes’ crude inventories stuck the knife into crude overnight, coming in at a 4.5 million barrel increase against an expected increase of 2.8 million barrels,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at futures brokerage OANDA in Singapore.

“If the API stuck the knife in, tonight’s EIA Crude Inventory figures may twist it. A blowout above the 2.1 million barrel increase expected, may well torpedo oil below the waterline,” he added.

Official U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) oil storage data is due on Wednesday.

The bloated storage comes as U.S. oil production has risen over 8 percent since mid-2016 to more than 9.1 million barrels per day (bpd), levels comparable to late 2014, when the oil market slump started.

Rising production in the United States and elsewhere, and bloated inventories, are undermining efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to cut output and prop up prices.

“OPEC’s market intervention has not yet resulted in significant visible inventory draw-downs, and the financial markets have lost patience,” U.S. bank Jefferies said on Wednesday in a note to clients, although it added that the cutbacks would likely start to show by the second half of the year if OPEC extends its production cuts beyond June.

Despite cuts, analysts warned of renewed or ongoing oversupply in coming years, especially as U.S. shale producers ramp up and once OPEC returns to full capacity.

U.S. bank Goldman Sachs warned its clients in a note this week that a U.S. shale led production surge “could create a material oversupply in 2018-19.”
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Brazil’s government plans to announce spending freezes of 30 billion to 35 billion reais ($9.7 billion to $11.3 billion) this week to help meet part of its 2017 budget deficit target, the Senate leader said on Tuesday.

The rest of the shortfall will have to come from raised taxes and higher revenues from such sources as infrastructure concessions to private companies, Senator Romero Jucá said in an interview.

Jucá said tax increases being studied include one on gasoline and another on financial operations called IOF, both of which would not require legislation.

“The freezes will be a maximum of 30 to 35 billion reais, More than that would be an amputation,” Jucá said.

Brazil’s primary budget deficit target for this year is 139 billion reais, but a severe recession shrunk revenues and the government is expected to miss that goal by 65 billion to 70 billion reais.

Nothing has been decided

Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles told reporters that the freezes have not been decided yet, nor any tax hikes.

President Michel Temer’s key measure to bring the widening deficit under control, reform of Brazil’s costly social security system to make it pay for itself, is facing a battle for approval in Congress.

Jucá said the government is working on an agreement between the Senate and lower chamber on the proposal which established a minimum retirement age among other unpopular changes.

The consolidated report will cover possible adjustments to make the bill more palatable to lawmakers, and some of them will be announced by Temer by the end of this week, Jucá said.

Change in retirement age?

Jucá said he believed the government must insist on the introduction of a minimum retirement age of 65, a controversial move in a country where people on average work until they are 54.

Modernizing labor laws, next on the government’s reform list to lower business costs and help pull Brazil from its worst recession, will get off the ground before the pension bill clears Congress, Jucá said.

An outsourcing bill will be put to a vote this week in the Senate and merged with another proposal from the lower chamber, so that it can be quickly sent to Temer to sign into law.

The bills face fierce opposition from labor unions who see allowing temporary workday contracts as an attack on workers’ rights. Jucá said temporary union payments will be added to the legislation to keep labor leaders happy.
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Amid continuing economic turmoil, Venezuela skipped heating oil contributions to a Massachusetts-based nonprofit for a second consecutive winter, signaling that the popular program that began with fanfare after Hurricane Katrina may be kaput.

The decision by Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp. to bow out of the program founded by Joseph P. Kennedy II, which has helped hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, coincides with plummeting oil prices and corresponding economic problems in oil-rich Venezuela.

Hopes of a late contribution to the “Joe-4-Oil” program to help the poor heat their homes faded with spring’s arrival this week, Kennedy said.

“While this is not good news, it certainly isn’t surprising,” the businessman and former congressman told The Associated Press.

Citgo officials declined to comment.

The Citgo heating oil program was launched after Katrina damaged U.S. refining capacity in 2005, causing energy costs to spike as winter approached.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the fiery leader who died in 2013, responded to an appeal from Kennedy to help out after criticizing then-Republican President George W. Bush for failing to do enough for the poor. Houston-based Citgo is a subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company.

Over the years, the program has provided $500 million in heating assistance to 2 million program participants in 25 states and the District of Columbia, supplementing federal energy assistance.

Rita Soucier, 80, said she and her husband received assistance many times over the years, helping the couple stay warm in their trailer in Howland, Maine.

This year, there was no help, said Soucier, whose husband, a retired paper mill worker, died last month. But she said she’s grateful for past help, typically 100 gallons of heating oil.

“It helps a lot when you’re not the richest people in the world,” said Soucier, who said her needs are few. “As long as I can get by, I don’t want any more or any less.”

Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, has been hurt by declining prices. The unraveling economy, cuts to social programs and growing political divisions have rocked the once-stable country, leading to food shortages and a dramatic drop in currency value.

Citizens Energy continues to operate other programs. The nonprofit was created in 1979 to channel revenue from commercial enterprises to charitable programs.

But the heating oil program may fold. The “Joe-4-Oil” television advertisements did not run this year or last, and a message online said that applications for winter heating oil help were not being accepted.

The nonprofit isn’t giving up hope, however. The Citgo program was suspended in 2009, only to return a few months later.

Citizens Energy continues to operate solar, wind and transmission projects that provide assistance, including solar panels for low-income homes, energy grants for homeless shelters and natural gas subsidies for low-income households.

“The good news is Citizens Energy continues to grow and prosper and provide significant benefits to low-income people around our country as a result of businesses that provide the financial firepower to fulfill our mission,” Kennedy said.
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