VOA’s Zubair Dar brings us the story of ‘Pencil Village’ where a factory provides two-thirds of the wood needed to make pencils in India, which exports the old-school writing implement to scores of countries. This report is narrated by Aisha Khalid.
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Йдеться про «окремих бізнесменів, які на початку активних бойових дій перебралися до Москви»
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Білий дім планує «посилення санкцій проти фінансових інституцій, російських державних компаній, санкції проти російських посадовців і їхніх родин»
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U.S. government officials warn that many African countries will continue to face shortages and high food prices as long as Russia continues to wage war against Ukraine, from which Africa gets much of its wheat and cooking oil.

Speaking to journalists online Tuesday, the U.S. representative to U.N. agencies in Rome, Cindy McCain, said Ukraine is the world’s breadbasket, and the attack on its land and people is raising hunger around the globe.

“The Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that as many as 13 million more people worldwide will be pushed into food insecurity as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The truth of the matter is Putin’s war forces us to take from the hungry to feed the starving. As long as Russia continues its brutal campaign, innocent people are going to pay the price,” she said.

Ukraine annually exports 40% of its wheat and corn to Africa. The World Food Program feeds 138 million people in 80 countries, including Ethiopia and Nigeria, with the grain it gets from the European country.

With Ukrainian supplies cut off, food prices are on the rise across Africa. Meanwhile, increasing energy costs have driven up prices for fertilizers such as phosphate used in food production.

Jim Barnhart, assistant to the administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, says the high cost of living will make life difficult for more families in Africa.

“Reduced food supplies and subsequent price increases in these commodities make it harder for farmers in Zambia to access inputs they need to plant their crops, for families in Malawi to buy nutritious food for their children. So, if that is not mitigated, these price increases could result in significant increases in global poverty, hunger and malnutrition, particularly in regions like sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.

The International Committee for the Red Cross says more than 346 million Africans face a food security crisis, making families skip meals every day.

The ICRC says it will ramp up its operations in 10 countries to combat the food shortages.

The head of ICRC’s global operations, Dominik Stillhart, says the war in Ukraine has impacted their humanitarian work.

“The other impact, which is more indirect, is that the rise in food and fuel prices, as well as supply chains that are seriously affected by the situation in Ukraine, they have an effect on our own capacity to scale up. Lead times are going to be longer, for instance, (and) food imports, and that’s also why we are increasingly resorting to cash transfers to support people in various countries in which we are operating,” he said.

Persistent drought, poor rains in some parts of Africa and conflicts have also exacerbated Africa’s food situation.
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За словами прем’єр-міністра, значних пошкоджень зазнала критична інфраструктура – зокрема, газопроводи, лінії електропередач, водопостачання
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An announcement by the U.S. Commerce Department last week that it would investigate allegations that solar panel manufacturers in Southeast Asia are using Chinese-made parts and evading U.S. tariffs has raised alarms concerning both trade and environmental policy. 

The department announced March 28 that it would investigate claims by California-based solar panel manufacturer Auxin Solar that solar energy equipment manufacturers in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have close business ties to companies in China that produce the raw materials and some components of solar panel assemblies. 

In 2011, the Commerce Department ruled that China was “dumping” solar panels in the U.S. market, or pricing the panels below the cost of manufacturing them. This forced U.S. firms out of the business because they could not operate at a profit while matching Chinese prices. 

In response, the Commerce Department imposed tariffs on Chinese solar panels of as much as 250% of their sales price. The result was a rapid decline in U.S. imports of Chinese solar equipment, from $2.8 billion in 2011 to less than $400 million in 2020. 

In its complaint, however, Auxin points out that as imports of solar panels from China fell by 86% over that period, imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam surged by 868%. The company also produced evidence suggesting that during that period, exports of raw materials and solar panel parts from China to the four named countries also surged.  

Investigation timeline 

In a statement emailed to VOA, a Commerce Department spokesperson confirmed that the investigation had been initiated, saying that “Commerce will conduct an open and transparent investigation to determine whether circumvention is occurring. This inquiry is just a first step — there has been no determination one way or the other on the merits, and no additional duties will be imposed at this time.” 

The Commerce Department said it would complete its preliminary investigation within 150 days and make a final determination within 300 days.  

So far, the response of the four affected countries to the department’s announcement has been limited. The government of Thailand announced that it had filed a formal letter of complaint with the agency. 

VOA reached out to U.S.-based representatives of the governments of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam for comment on this story. None had replied by the time of publication. 

US solar firms divided 

Auxin’s complaint and the Commerce Department’s decision to pursue it have laid bare a major rift within the solar energy industry in the U.S. Many of Auxin’s competitors, who would seem to suffer from the same disadvantages the company describes, have come out against the Commerce Department’s actions, as have industry trade groups.  

In a joint op-ed, Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute; Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association; and Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said the future for solar energy in the United States would be bleak if tariffs were applied to solar panels coming from the four named countries. 

“Make no mistake — if the complainant is successful, solar energy will become as much as two to three times more expensive than it was just one year ago, setting back our efforts to achieve independence, putting hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs at risk along with the Biden administration’s renewable energy goals,” they wrote.  

“If these tariffs are applied, we expect that far less solar generation will be installed in the U.S. during the four years of the Biden administration as compared to previous administrations,” they added. 

In a statement, Auxin CEO Mamun Rashid called the warnings of the trade groups “classic fearmongering tactics” and said, “We are grateful Commerce officials recognized the need to investigate this pervasive backdoor dumping and how it continues to injure American solar producers.” 

Dilemma for Biden administration 

The solar panel case presents a dilemma for the Biden administration because it puts two of the president’s priorities in conflict: assuring a level playing field for U.S. manufacturers, and leading the country to a carbon-neutral energy future. 

The relationship between solar panel manufacturers in the United States and those in China is a complicated one. On the one hand, foreign-made solar panels made with Chinese parts are in direct competition with U.S.-made panels. However, U.S. solar firms rely on some of those same Chinese firms for raw materials and components. 

Industry officials warned that even the possibility of sanctions being placed on panels imported from the four named countries would cause the rollout of solar energy products in the U.S. to slow dramatically because of uncertainty about costs. This in turn would make it more difficult for the Biden administration to meet its climate goals. 

Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen said the Biden administration should look to other ways of supporting U.S. solar energy companies.  

“I’m disappointed that the administration is initiating this investigation, because we should be repealing existing solar tariffs, not exploring adding new tariffs,” she told The Hill newspaper March 28. “Direct assistance to American solar manufacturers would be much more meaningful to our domestic solar industry than a trade investigation or tariffs that will only increase consumer costs, threaten good-paying jobs, and set us even further back from our climate goals.” 

 
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Russia and Ukraine are two of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat. Sanctions against Russia and the war in Ukraine are driving up global wheat prices. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns reports from the Western U.S. state of Wyoming on what those higher prices mean for U.S. farmers.
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Щоб спростити логістику з вивезення урожаю, аграріям рекомендують сіяти насамперед соняшник, ріпак та сою
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