Rubber tapper Raimundo Mendes de Barros prepares to leave his home, surrounded by rainforest, for an errand in the Brazilian Amazon city of Xapuri. He slides his long, scarred, 77-year-old feet into a pair of sneakers made by Veja, a French brand.

At first sight, the expensive, white-detailed urban tennis shoes seem at odds with the muddy tropical forest. But the distant worlds have converged to produce soles made from native Amazonian rubber.

Veja works with a local cooperative called Cooperacre, which has reenergized the production of a sustainable forest product and improved the lives of hundreds of rubber tapper families. It’s a project that, though modest in scale, provides a real-life example of living sustainably from the forest.

“Veja and Cooperacre are doing an essential job for us who live in the forest. They are making young people come back. They have rekindled the hope of working with rubber,” Rogério Barros, Raimundo’s 24-year-old son, told The Associated Press as he demonstrated how to tap a rubber tree in the family’s grove in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve. Extractive reserves in Brazil are government-owned lands set aside for people to make a living while they keep the forest standing.

Rubber was once central to the economy of the Amazon. The first boom came at the turn of the 20th century. Thousands of people migrated inland from Brazil’s impoverished Northeast to work in the forest, often in slave-like conditions.

That boom ended abruptly in the 1910s when rubber plantations started to produce on a large scale in Asia. But during World War II, Japan cut the supply, prompting the United States to finance a restart of rubber production in the Amazon.

After the war, Amazon latex commerce again fell into decline, even as thousands of families continued to work in poor conditions for rubber bosses. In the 1970s, these relatively wealthy individuals began selling land to cattle ranchers from the south, even though, in most cases, they didn’t actually own it, but rather just held concessions because they were well-connected with government officers.

These land sales caused the large scale expulsion of rubber tappers from the forest. That loss of livelihood and deforestation to make way for cattle raising is what prompted the famous environmentalist Chico Mendes — together with a cousin of Barros — to found and lead a movement of rubber tappers. Mendes would be murdered for his work in 1988.

After Mendes’ assassination, the federal government began to create extractive reserves so that the forest could not be sold to make way for cattle. The Chico Mendes reserve is one of these. But the story did not end with the creation of the reserves. Government attempts to promote the latex, including a state-owned condom factory in Xapuri, failed to create a reliable income.

What sets the Veja operation apart is that rubber tappers are now getting paid far above the commodity price for their rubber. In 2022, the Barros family received US$ 4.20 per kilo (2.2 pounds) of rubber tapped from their grove. Before, they made one tenth that amount.

This price that shoe company Veja pays the tappers includes bonuses for sustainable harvests plus recognition of the value of preserving the forest, explains Sebastião Pereira, in charge of Veja’s Amazonian rubber supply chain. The rubber workers also receive federal and state benefits per kilo.

Veja also pays bonuses to tappers who employ best practices and local cooperatives that buy directly from them. The criteria range from zero deforestation to the proper management of rubber trees. Top producers also receive a pair of shoes as a prize.

Veja’s rubber is produced by some 1,200 families from 22 local cooperatives spread across five Amazonian states: Acre, home to the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, Amazonas, Rondonia, Mato Grosso, and Pará.

All the rubber goes to the Cooperacre plant in Sena Madureira, in Acre state, where raw product is cut, washed, shredded into smaller pieces, heated, weighed, packed and finally shipped to factories that Veja contracts with in industrialized Rio Grande Sul state, thousands of miles to the south, as well as to Ceara state, in Brazil’s Northeast.

From there the sneakers are distributed to many parts of the world. Over the last 20 years, Veja has sold more than 8 million pairs in several countries and maintains stores in Paris, New York and Berlin. The amount of Amazon rubber it purchases has soared: from 5,000 kilos (11,023 pounds) in 2005 to 709,500 kilos (1.56 million pounds) in 2021, according to company figures.

However, it has not been a game changer for the forest in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, where almost 3,000 families live. The illegal advance of cattle, an old problem, has picked up. Deforestation there has tripled in the past four years, amid the policies of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was defeated in his reelection bid and left office at the end of last year.

Cattle long ago replaced rubber as Acre’s main economic activity. Nearly half of the state’s rural workforce is employed in cattle ranching, where only 4% live from forest products, mainly Brazil nuts.

According to an economic study by Minas Gerais Federal University, 57% of Acre’s economic output comes from cattle. Rubber makes up less than 1%.

Surrounded by cattle pasture and paved highway — the entry point for deforestation — Chico Mendes has the third highest rate of deforestation of any protected reserve in Brazil.

The growing pressure of cattle on the reserve, which has already lost 9% of its original forest cover, even led Veja to set up its own satellite monitoring system.

“Our platform shows a specific region where deforestation is rampant. So we may go there and talk. But we are aware that our role is to offer an alternative and raise awareness,” Pereira told the AP in a phone interview. “We are careful not to cross the line, as the public authority should be the one doing the law enforcement.”

According to Roberta Graf, who leads Acre’s branch of the association of federal environmental officials, the Veja experience is essential as it shows a path for living inside extractive reserves sustainably. But to achieve that, she argues, requires a joint effort that includes government at different levels, nonprofits and grassroots organizations.

“The forest communities still hold rubber tapping dear. They enjoy making a living off the latex,” she told the AP in an interview in her home in Rio Branco, Acre’s capital. “There are many forest products: copaiba, andiroba (vegetable oils), Brazil nuts, wild cacao, and seeds. The ideal should be to work with all of them according to what each reserve can offer.”
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Представники країн погодилися, що такий підхід дозволить точніше встановлювати граничні ціни, оскільки він враховує широкий діапазон
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Sri Lanka has moved closer to securing a crucial $2.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund after India extended financing assurances that Colombo needs from its major foreign creditors to get the bailout package. 

The IMF loan is critical for the tiny island country to begin a slow recovery process from its worst economic crisis in decades. 

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced that the ministry would facilitate the IMF loan Friday in Colombo, where he met President Ranil Wickremesinghe and other senior Sri Lankan ministers.    

“India decided not to wait on others, but to do what we believe is right. We extended financing assurances to the IMF to clear the way for Sri Lanka to move forward,” Jaishankar said in a statement. “Our expectation is that this will not only strengthen Sri Lanka’s position but ensure that all bilateral creditors are dealt with equally.”  

India is the first of Sri Lanka’s major creditors to agree to restructuring the country’s debt. Colombo needs the same assurances from China, its largest lender, to clear the way for the disbursement of the loan, which the IMF had agreed to grant in August but which remains contingent on the support of its lenders.   

Sri Lankan officials expressed optimism that they will also get Beijing’s backing soon.  

“We can say that discussions with China are at the final stage and we expect their assurances in the next few days,” Sri Lanka’s deputy treasury secretary, Priyantha Ratnayake, told reporters. “Once China also gives assurances soon, then Sri Lanka will work to get [IMF] approval as soon as possible.”  

Sri Lanka went virtually bankrupt last year as it grappled with severe foreign exchange shortages to pay either for essential imports or its foreign creditors. Since then, it has grappled with runaway inflation of food and fuel prices. It also suspended repayment of $7 billion in foreign debt due last year.  

The Indian foreign minister also expressed New Delhi’s commitment to increase investment flows to hasten Sri Lanka’s economic recovery.

“India will encourage greater investments in the Sri Lankan economy, especially in core areas like energy, tourism, and infrastructure,” Jaishankar said.   

India has extended assistance of about $4 billion since Sri Lanka’s economy sank. “For us, it was an issue of the neighborhood first and not leaving a partner to fend for themselves,” he said. 

The two countries are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for a renewable power project for three islands in Sri Lanka. 

Sri Lanka, which will have to implement stringent reforms to get the IMF loan, has raised taxes and tightened government spending. It has also announced deep cuts in its defense expenditure, saying it will slash its army by one third.  

Political stability has returned to the country after it was rocked by widespread citizen protests that led to the resignation of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was widely blamed for the crisis.  

The severe fuel and food shortages have also eased and tourists are returning to the county, helping the recovery of its tourist-dependent economy. But the dramatic rise in the cost of living continues to pose a challenge to millions in the country. 
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Alphabet Inc., the parent company of tech giant Google, announced Friday it is laying off 12,000 workers across the entire company — cuts reflecting six percent of the company’s total workforce.

In an email to employees Friday, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said the company saw dramatic growth over the past two years and hired new employees “for a different economic reality than the one we face today.” He said he takes full responsibility for the decisions that led to where the company is today.

In his email, Pichai said the layoffs come following “a rigorous review across product areas and functions” to ensure the company’s employees and their roles are aligned with Google’s top priorities. “The roles we’re eliminating reflect the outcome of that review,” he said.

In the email, Pichai said U.S. employees to be laid off already have been notified, while it is going to take longer for employees in other countries because of different laws and regulations.

Google’s decision comes the same week other big tech companies, Meta Platforms Inc. – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Twitter Inc., Microsoft and Amazon, announced they were laying off thousands of employees.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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Дослідження показало, що американські компанії виявили більшу готовність залишити Росію, ніж інші західні фірми
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The U.S. has begun taking “extraordinary measures” to avoid spending that would breach the country’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers Thursday, touching off a Washington debate on how to avoid a default on the government’s financial obligations and calamity for the global economy.

The Treasury chief said she has started to suspend investments in the Civil Service retirement fund for government workers and a retiree health plan for postal workers that weren’t immediately needed to pay beneficiaries but warned those measures were only a stopgap until June 5.  

Yellen told key congressional leaders they need to increase the government’s debt ceiling, which has been done 78 times since 1960 — or, less likely — do away with any spending limit, which is the practice in most countries throughout the world.

The U.S. government routinely fails to balance its annual budget, often spending $1 trillion or more than it collects in taxes, and then reaches its debt ceiling set by Congress and agreed to by sitting presidents.

The U.S. has never defaulted on its worldwide financial commitments, such as to China, Japan and other countries that have bought its debt, or on obligations to some taxpayers, such as pension and health care payments to older Americans.

But the political debate in the U.S. over increasing the debt limit to make payments on spending already approved by Congress and a succession of presidents has often intertwined with heated discussions over future spending, leading to a standoff as spending approaches the debt ceiling.  

Once such stalemate occurred in 2011, when Democratic President Barack Obama eventually reached agreement with Republican congressional opponents to increase the debt ceiling while also curbing spending for much of the past decade.

Now, the newly empowered but narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives is similarly calling for future spending cuts to keep 2024 discretionary federal spending for government agencies at 2022 levels.  

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told reporters this week, “I don’t see why you would continue the past behavior.”

But the White House is balking and instead demanding a “clean vote” on increasing the federal debt ceiling that is not linked to new spending totals. President Joe Biden said he will not curb pension and health care assistance for older Americans.

“Americans have every right to expect that Congress will come together as they have dozens and dozens and dozens of times before in a bipartisan fashion to make sure we keep the American economy on this stable path,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton told reporters aboard Air Force One as they accompanied Biden to California to view storm damage in the state.  

No negotiations have been held with congressional leaders.

If the government defaults — essentially running out of money to pay its debts — payments to U.S. bond holders, foreign governments and individual Americans alike, would be delayed until a new debt ceiling is reached. So could paychecks to government workers and monthly payments to pensioners and health care providers.

In addition, the credit rating of the U.S. could be cut, and stock markets destabilized, as occurred in 2011.

Yellen warned that Congress needs to act to avoid such financial turmoil.     

“The period of time that extraordinary measures may last is subject to considerable uncertainty, including the challenges of forecasting the payments and receipts of the U.S. Government months into the future,” she told congressional leaders. “I respectfully urge Congress to act promptly to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”
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«Настав час переглянути обмеження ціни на нафту, оскільки поточна ринкова ціна на Urals нижча за 50 доларів США за барель»
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