Thousands of Native Americans from across the Unites States marched in Washington to protest President Donald Trump’s decision to advance the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and Dakota Access oil pipelines. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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The first jobs report on President Donald Trump’s watch is a good one. The private sector added 235,000 jobs in February, more than expected, and a sign that the economy and consumer confidence are healthy. But the jobs report also means that higher borrowing costs, for consumers and businesses, are expected in the coming days and weeks. Mil Arcega reports.
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President Donald Trump is embracing government numbers he once maligned as “phony” as he tries to take credit for the latest U.S. jobs report.
The new administration on Friday promoted Labor Department statistics that show U.S. employers added 235,000 jobs in February. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent.
“Great news for American workers: economy added 235,000 new jobs, unemployment rate drops to 4.7% in first report for (at)POTUS Trump,” tweeted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. “Not a bad way to start day 50 of this administration,” he later said.
Watch: US Job Gains Make Higher Interest Rates a Near Certainty
What a difference a year makes
What a difference from last year’s presidential campaign, when Trump repeatedly assailed the report’s legitimacy.
Back then, candidate Trump denounced “phony unemployment numbers” he claimed had been invented to make the Democrats look good.
“Don’t believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment. The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35,” he said last February, on the day of the New Hampshire presidential primary.
“The 5 percent figure is one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics,” he said.
That’s last year’s 5 percent, not the new numbers reported on his watch.
Numbers ‘very real now’
Asked about the apparent disconnect, Spicer offered a smile and a quip: “I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly: ‘They may have been phony in the past but they are very real now.’”
During a speech at the Detroit Economic club last year, Trump pointed to figures that show one in five American households do not have a single member in the labor force. He failed to mention the one in five includes children, young people in school and senior citizens who are retired.
Though the jobless report has been criticized by others for omitting people who aren’t actively searching for work, it provides a benchmark that is similar to most other nations.
Weather makes difference
While business and consumer confidence have risen since the presidential election, economists also say it’s too soon for Trump to be taking credit for jobs.
“No new economic policies have yet been enacted,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West. Instead, he pointed to an unusually mild winter that likely boosted hiring by construction firms.
Cold weather in February typically shuts down work sites across much of the country. But last month was the second-warmest February since 1895, helping construction firms add the most new jobs in a decade.
Optimism on the rise
A survey of small businesses shows that their optimism is up since the election, reaching the highest level in 12 years in January, according to the National Federation of Independent Business. Other measures also show greater business confidence.
But many of the corporate announcements of new jobs that Trump has promoted – by ExxonMobil, Intel and Ford, for example – will take place over many years and were already planned before the election.
Trump and Republicans have been quick to claim credit nonetheless.
“The February jobs report exceeded expectations by 50,000 jobs,” said the Republican National Committee in an email, “another sign President Donald Trump’s pro-growth agenda is spurring businesses to hire ‘aggressively.’”
Spicer offers apology
Spicer, meanwhile, may have jumped the gun with his tweets. A 1985 rule bars executive branch officials from commenting publicly on economic data until at least an hour after its release. Jason Furman, President Barack Obama’s top economic adviser, said on Twitter that the rule was intended to prevent White House officials, some of whom see the report a day early, from immediately spinning the data.
Spicer downplayed that mini-controversy, saying he didn’t think happily touting news that had been widely reported was “exactly a market disruption.”’
“I apologize if we were a little excited and we’re so glad to see so many fellow Americans back to work.”
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Friday he hopes to launch formal talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in a little over three months.
U.S. President Donald Trump was strongly critical during his election campaign of NAFTA and other trade agreements that he said harmed American workers, pledging to review such deals.
Ross told reporters that “sometime in the next couple of weeks” he hopes to send a letter notifying Congress that the Trump administration intends to launch NAFTA negotiations in 90 days.
“That’s what triggers the beginnings of the formal process itself,” Ross said at a news conference with Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.
That timing would put the likely start of NAFTA talks around early July.
Ross added that he was consulting on the NAFTA talks with leaders of Congress’ two trade panels, the Senate Finance Committee and the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee.
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South African taxi drivers on Friday blocked roads around Johannesburg’s main international airport to protest against ride-hailing company Uber, causing some passengers to miss their flights.
The protest by drivers with metered cabs, who say Uber unfairly siphons business from them, caused morning traffic jams on two highways near O.R. Tambo International Airport. Police later cleared the roads.
The impact of the blockade will continue “to be felt throughout the day due to earlier delays, particularly on flights that need to return to O. R. Tambo International Airport,” Airports Company South Africa, which manages the airport, said in a statement. “Airlines have informed the airport that passengers that missed flights in the morning are being accommodated on other flights.”
South African Airways urged passengers to arrive at the airport earlier than usual, even if they planned to fly later in the day.
In a statement, Uber said many South African drivers with metered taxis are also picking up customers with its ride-hailing app.
“Our technology is open and pro-choice and we are keen to offer it to a broad number of taxi drivers to boost their chances for profit,” said Uber, adding that threats and intimidation toward Uber drivers are unacceptable.
Meanwhile, some Uber drivers protested outside the company’s Johannesburg office on Friday, local media reported. That group of protesters reportedly said Uber does not do enough to address their safety concerns.
Taxi drivers in some other countries also have protested, sometimes violently, against Uber because of concerns over allegedly unfair competition.
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The U.S. economy had a net gain of 235,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate fell one-tenth of a percent to 4.7 percent.
Friday’s report from the Labor Department was stronger than most economists expected. Some experts say it takes around 100,000 jobs a month to accommodate new entrants to the work force.
Job gains were seen in construction, private education, manufacturing, health care and mining. On Twitter, White House press secretary Sean Spicer noted the report is the first for the Trump administration and “Great news for American workers.” President Donald Trump has previously called official jobless numbers “phony” and “complete fiction.”
The tight job market means companies may have to start raising wages to attract and keep the best workers. Friday’s report said wages rose about 2.8 percent over the past year, which is a stronger gain than the previous month, and stronger than inflation.
Top officials of the U.S. central bank have said they are watching the labor market closely, and the strong report may encourage them to raise interest rates. The Federal Reserve meets next week to debate interest rate policy and is scheduled to make an announcement on Wednesday. PNC Bank economist Gus Faucher says rates will go up a quarter of a percent because the labor market is where the Fed “wants it to be.” Officials slashed rates to near zero during the recession to boost growth and fight unemployment.
While the latest job data is stronger than expected, it also shows that 7.5 million Americans are still unemployed. Another 5.7 million who want to work full-time can only find part-time employment. The government figures count people as unemployed if they are available for work and tried to find a job sometime in the past four weeks. The figures do not count as officially unemployed those who stay home to rear children or who are enrolled in school or are retired.
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У 2016 році на виконання бюджетної програми «Наукове та інформаційно-аналітичне забезпечення заходів по боротьбі з організованою злочинністю і корупцією» Міністерство внутрішніх справ витратило 4,1 мільйона гривень. Така інформація міститься у звіті про видатки 2016 року Державної казначейської служби, повідомляє #Точно, проект Радіо Свобода.
Як зазначають у міністерстві, вказана бюджетна програма втілена з метою запобігання і припинення правопорушень, забезпечення громадського порядку, свобод і інтересів громадян, організаційно-розшукової діяльності.
Основні завдання програми – підготовка наукових та інформаційних матеріалів для боротьби з організованою злочинністю, а також впровадження в практику передового досвіду по боротьбі з організованою злочинністю та корупцією.
Загалом минулого року в рамках вказаної програми у Міністерстві внутрішніх справ підготували 5 монографій, 25 коментарів до нормативно-правових актів, 35 наукових статей, забезпечили видавництво трьох бюлетенів і двох журналів та іншого.
У бюджеті на 2017 рік на аналогічні наукові витрати Міністерство внутрішніх справ заклало також 4,1 мільйона гривень. У 2015 році МВС витратило 4,2 мільйона гривень.
На роботу Нацагентста з питань запобігання корупції у 2016 році було витрачено з бюджету 65,6 мільйона гривень.
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Найбільший український приватний енергетичний холдинг «ДТЕК Енерго» зберігає контроль над вугільними шахтами на окупованих територіях Донбасу, але видобуток на цих підприємствах зупинений. Про це повідомляє Reuters.
На запитання про стан шахти «Комсомолець Донбасу» представниця прес-служби холдингу відповіла: «Вона в режимі простою. Але контролюється нами. «Ровенькиантрацит» і «Свердловантрацит» теж в простої». На питання про причини простою у прес-службі відповіли: «А вантажити куди?»
Найбільший металургійний комбінат «АрселорМіттал Кривий Ріг» повідомив 9 березня, що стурбований можливими перебоями з електроенергією і сировиною.
«Можливим наслідком блокади може стати скорочення виробництва», – йдеться в повідомленні.
Від січня активісти, серед яких депутати Верховної Ради та люди, що називають себе ветеранами АТО, блокують деякі ділянки залізниці з вимогою припинити, за їхніми словами, торгівлю з окупованими районами Донбасу. Блокада зокрема стосується поставок вугілля, що видобувається не непідконтрольній частині Донбасу.
Президент України Петро Порошенко та прем’єр-міністр Володимир Гройсман засудили дії блокувальників. В середині лютого уряд України оголосив про надзвичайний стан в енергетиці.
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Українські споживачі 8 березня встановили новий мінімум добового відбору із підземних сховищ газу (ПСГ) у 2017 році. Про це свідчать оперативні дані компанії «Укртрансгаз».
Згідно з цими даними, у святковий і теплий день 8 березня з підземних сховищ було відібрано менш як 8 мільйонів кубометрів газу (точна цифра складає 7,71 мільйона кубометрів). Це найнижчий цього року показник добового відбору.
Порівняно з піковими навантаженнями обсяг споживання скоротився майже в 12 разів: наприклад, 1 лютого споживачі використали 91,8 мільйона кубометрів.
Станом на початок доби 9 березня в українських ПСГ було 8 мільярдів 180 мільйонів кубометрів газу. Від початку року запаси зменшилися на 3,8 мільярда кубометрів, а від початку опалювального сезону (13 жовтня) – майже на 6,6 мільярда кубометрів.
У НАК «Нафтогаз України» ще наприкінці 2016 року заявляли, що вважають сформовані в підземних сховищах запаси газу достатніми для проходження опалювального сезону. За розрахунками компанії, на кінець опалювального сезону у сховищах залишатиметься 7 – 8 мільярдів кубометрів при допустимому значенні 5 мільярдів кубометрів.
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It’s a major natural disaster that slowly grows in one place and then moves across a region, gaining intensity and size. As it spreads, it destroys land, ruins agriculture and tears apart communities, and it can kill people.
It’s a drought.
Researchers are just beginning to view droughts as this type of dynamic force, and some hope that soon they will be monitored similarly to hurricanes — with scientists able to predict their development, helping to protect those living in their path.
Ten percent of droughts travel between 1,400 to 3,100 kilometers from where they begin, according to a recent study. The study, which analyzed 1,420 droughts between 1979 and 2009, identified “hot spots” around the world and common directions in which droughts move.
Some droughts in the southwest United States, for example, tend to move from south to north. In Argentina, they usually migrate the opposite direction. In Central Africa, droughts tend to go southeastern toward the coast.
“It can start somewhere, move throughout the continent, and obviously cause harm throughout its way,” Julio Herrera-Estrada, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University and leader of the study, said Thursday.
Droughts that travel are usually the largest and most disastrous, the scientists found. They can cause a loss of agriculture, wildlife, wetlands and human life, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Very costly
They are also one of the most expensive natural disasters that people face today, according to Herrera-Estrada, who collaborated on the study with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna.
The most recent moving drought that Herrera-Estrada studied began in 2008 in Ukraine and Russia, and moved 1,700 kilometers northeast, ending in northwest Russia and affecting parts of Kazakhstan on the way. It lasted almost a year.
“People haven’t really thought of droughts in this way,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Future research, Herrera-Estrada said, can shed light on what mechanisms cause some droughts to move and what affects their paths. This can be done accurately, however, only through collaboration among national governments, he said.
“It’s important to have a global or a continental understanding about how droughts are behaving,” he said. Collaboration “benefits people on the ground, farmers, cities that need water, power plants that need water.”
The study was published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
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A bronze of a little girl defiantly facing Wall Street’s Charging Bull didn’t appear suddenly or spontaneously in the middle of the night in Manhattan’s financial district.
It took months of intricate planning by two corporate giants to install “Fearless Girl” under the veil of darkness in time for Wednesday’s International Women’s Day. Within hours, she became the talk of the town and the world, a sculpted celebrity drawing crowds as a symbol of a woman’s right to move into power positions.
Behind the scenes, State Street Global Advisors, a $2.5 trillion asset managing firm, created the Fearless Girl project with McCann New York, one of the world’s top ad agencies whose client is State Street. The financial giant wanted to spread a serious message: that more women should be appointed to the boards of the Russell 3000, a broad index of U.S. companies.
Only 16 percent of board seats in Russell 3000 companies are held by women, according to ISS Analytics, a business research firm. Also on State Street’s radar are about 500 other firms in Great Britain and Australia.
The aim of the Fearless Girl was to build what ad experts call a “brand experience” of a product or message, using some kind of creative, unique vehicle — in this case, a sculpture, created by artist Kristen Visbal.
“This thing went viral, and it spread globally, all over,” McCann spokesman Jeremy Miller said. “I’m watching my Twitter feed and it’s still a constant flow, filled with images of the Fearless Girl.”
“In my 20 years in advertising, I personally have not seen anything like this,” he added.
On Thursday, streams of gleeful fans posed for pictures with the 250-pound Fearless Girl statue as she stared down the 7,000-pound Charging Bull.
McCann obtained a one-week permit from the city before starting the installation in Bowling Green Park at 4 a.m. Tuesday, completing it as the sun rose on another New York business day.
The ad agency wasn’t trying to be secretive.
“We just didn’t want to disrupt business in the area,” Miller said.
And they wanted to mirror the 1989 arrival of the girl’s bronze counterpart.
The Charging Bull was dropped into place in the middle of a Manhattan night by artist Arturo Di Modica and his team, who had no permit. The powerful piece was a symbol of Americans’ can-do energy following the 1987 stock market crash, and it proved so popular that the city allowed the bull to stay.
At the end of International Women’s Day on Wednesday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that Fearless Girl could remain in Lower Manhattan through April 2. Popular support for the piece to be kept permanently is growing, with petitions being signed.
“Our future rests in the hands of fearless girls,” the Democratic mayor tweeted.
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Countries that signed up for the failed trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will meet in Chile next week, seeking a way forward on a possible future regional deal, Chile’s head of international trade told Reuters.
Representatives from the 12 countries that formed the TPP, plus China and South Korea, will meet for the first time since President Donald Trump pulled the United States out the TPP in January, effectively killing the accord in its current form.
The Chile meeting is a sign that efforts to find an alternative Asia-Pacific trade pact are moving ahead, with China now likely leading the talks after the United States dropped out.
Chile has accomplished its first goal of getting everyone together and will now seek commitments for further meetings to evaluate alternatives, Paulina Nazal told Reuters in an interview in Santiago on Wednesday evening.
“The objective is to confirm if the strategy of growth and openness of recent years is what we believe to be correct,” she said. “Do we need to include other issues? Do we need to implement policies that complement the opening of trade or not?”
It was still premature to say what the future roadmap would look like, she added.
“What we have seen from the various delegations is that it’s too open still,” said Nazal. “This is going to be the first meeting on how we go forward.”
Likely options, according to Nazal, could be to build on the base of pre-existing agreements — such as Latin America’s four-country Pacific Alliance, or the proposed Southeast Asian-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Countries including Australia, New Zealand and Canada had a “similar commercial approach” to the Pacific Alliance and had signaled an interest in joining or negotiating as a bloc, said Nazal.
“Others evidently feel more comfortable with the RCEP model and they could open a door to let others in.”
China, which is part of RCEP talks, has argued the TPP was too complex and political rather than purely trade-based.
Critics of the RCEP — including the former Obama administration — warned it would not include strong protections for workers, the environment or intellectual property.
With the election of Trump and the demise of the TPP, eyes have been on Beijing to take the lead on future trade talks.
“The Chinese want to be the leaders, the benchmark,” said Nazal. “That was not like that before.”
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За останні 3 роки частка банків з російським державним капіталом на ринку України зменшилася з 45% до 8%. Про це в ефірі Радіо Свобода розповів голова Ради НБУ Богдан Данилишин.
«Банки зменшили мережу відділень на 42%. Впродовж 3 років вклади населення у цих банках також зменшилися майже у 2 рази у гривні та майже у 4 рази в іноземній валюті», – заявив Богдан Данилишин.
За його словами, у кожному з банків з російським капіталом ще з 2014 року працює куратор від НБУ, який ретельно відстежує всі операції.
При цьому, щоб обмежити роботу російських банків в Україні, не достатньо лише рішення НБУ.
«Зараз в Україні працює п’ять банків з державним російським капіталом. У цих банках обслуговуються мільйони наших співвітчизників і тисячі підприємств. НБУ застосував всі обмеження, які передбачені рішенням РНБО та указами президента. Аби обмежити роботу банків з російським капіталом, потрібна політична воля. За відповідний законопроект має проголосувати Верховна Рада або рішення має ухвалити РНБО», – наголосив голова ради НБУ.
Раніше в НБУ заявили, що можуть застосувати санкції до «Сбербанку» – дочірнього банку «Сбербанку Росії» в Україні. 7 березня «Сбербанк Росії» повідомив, що готовий до обслуговування осіб, які звернулися з «паспортами» від угруповань «ДНР» і «ЛНР», у всіх філіях банку.
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Торги на російському фондовому ринку відкрилися 9 березня падінням більш як на 2%. Таке зниження, зокрема, демонструє номінований у доларах США індекс РТС.
Причиною втрат стало аналогічне падіння нафтових котирувань у вечірні години 8 березня. Станом на 9:15 за Києвом 9 березня ціна нафти марки Brent на світових біржах становить близько 53 з половиною доларів за барель, хоча від початку березня цей показник намагався закріпитися вище позначки 56 доларів за барель.
Аналітики називають причиною зниження ціни нафти те, що ринок перестав ігнорувати дані, які впродовж багатьох тижнів надходили зі США. Нафтовидобувники зі сланцевих покладів постійно збільшують кількість активних свердловин, а запаси нафти та нафтопродуктів на найбільшому світовому ринку майже невпинно зростають.
За прогнозами аналітиків Citigroup, обсяг видобутку сирої нафти в США до четвертого кварталу 2017 року виросте на 1 мільйон барелів на добу порівняно з аналогічним періодом торік. Крім того, капітальні витрати в сланцевій індустрії і в цілому в нафтовому секторі Північної Америки зростуть у 2017-му на 80% і 45% відповідно.
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On Pingtung jail’s sunlit roof, prisoner No. 24 has a view of a brighter future.
Ex-cop Chen, serving time for bribery, is learning how to install solar panels in a program that’s part of Taiwan’s shimmering vision of a future without nuclear power.
The 48-year-old is working on a project that has seen the southern Taiwan prison become the first to send solar power into the island’s electricity grid.
“I should be out in two-three years,” said Chen, whose full name can’t be disclosed under prison rules, “this should help (in finding a future job).”
Things are looking up for Chen, selected for the solar team on good behavior. But with a capacity of 1.8 megawatts, enough to supply power to 639 average Taiwanese households for a year, the drop-in-the-ocean Pingtung project highlights the towering scale of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen’s pledge to make the island nuclear-free by 2025.
Nuclear accounts for around 14 percent of Taiwan’s total electricity generation. Renewable sources, including solar, wind and hydro, together account for less than 5 percent, leaving the 2025 goal of having renewables, primarily solar, account for a fifth of electricity generation by 2025 looking like a mirage.
Not a main power source
At Pingtung prison, where temperatures outside can peak around 33 degrees Celsius in summer, the chief of project manager Taichung-based Lixma Tech Co. said the arithmetic was simple: It’s not possible for renewables, dependent on weather conditions, to be a main supply source.
“Renewable energy can reduce and replace a lot of traditional power generation, coal or nuclear power, only during peak electricity consumption periods,” said Lixma’s Chief Executive, Thomas Hsu.
With plentiful sunshine at its disposal, Taiwan has certainly made progress in expanding solar energy in recent years. From current capacity of about 1,061 megawatts, Taipei is targeting about double that amount by mid-2018, with other jails among those considering solar projects, Pingtung prison officials said.
But to match official government targets of having solar power account for 73 percent of total renewable energy capacity by 2025, Taiwan would need nearly 20 times’ current solar power capacity within nine years — about 20,000 megawatts. That kind of power could mean panels taking up around 25,000 hectares of space on the island — nearly the size of capital Taipei.
Roadblocks vs consensus
While Pingtung sees Taiwan join the ranks of countries from the United States to Brazil and South Africa in developing solar prison projects, the island will have to resolve numerous serious roadblocks if it’s to implement the massive rollout of renewables it needs to meet its goals, experts and industry insiders say.
Problems in grid transmission for renewable energy, outdated regulations governing a power industry long dominated by state monopoly Taiwan Power Co., known as Taipower, environmental concerns and rival interests among government agencies and local communities are among issues to be overcome.
“The biggest uncertainty is how to get consensus among the various stakeholders,” said Laurence Li, head of the government’s Renewable Energy Project Office in Taipei, who says private sector players are eager to participate.
While a key player in encouraging renewables projects like the Pingtung prison, Taipower is also the principal operator of Taiwan’s nuclear energy industry, as well as coal and liquefied natural gas plants.
Financing development
At Pingtung prison, Lixma shoulders all costs and says it will receive around T$9 million ($292,000) a year from Taipower for the solar power from the prison. Lixma CEO Hsu said the firm won’t break even on the project until the ninth year of its 20-year contract with the prison and Taipower.
Better known in Taiwan for the aged soy sauce its inmates have been making for decades, Pingtung prison is content to offer its 10,000 square meters of roof space for the 6,000 installed panels for the advancement of renewables.
“We are primarily a resource for absorbing solar energy,” said vice warden Lin Cheng-rong. “It is the companies with technical capabilities who invest and set up the solar panels and who sell the solar energy to Taipower,” Lin said.
Part of the central government’s corrections agency, the prison can’t keep revenue from the solar energy it is generating, or even directly use the power itself — before lights-out at 9 p.m., its bulbs run on electricity from the Taipower grid.
For inmate Chen, each night brings release and the day he no longer needs his No. 24 prison vest a step closer. Once the solar panel installation is complete, he’ll return to tending crops on prison grounds as part of his regular prison life, but with rooftop views still firmly on his mind.
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U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday that substantial negotiations to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement likely will not get started until the latter part of this year and could take a year to complete.
Ross, speaking to Bloomberg Television, said U.S. legal notification requirements with partners Mexico and Canada create some built-in delays to the start of substantial discussions.
“You’re talking probably the latter part of this year before the real negotiations get underway,” Ross said.
NAFTA renegotiation ‘complex’
The 79-year-old billionaire investor, who was sworn into his job just last week, said he hoped the renegotiations could be completed within a year, but it was unclear how long it would take to see benefits like a smaller U.S. trade deficit with Mexico.
He said the NAFTA renegotiation would be “complex,” with more than 20 chapters in the 23-year-old agreement that needed to be modernized, along with new chapters such as those covering the digital economy and other sectors that did not exist in the early 1990s.
Without a U.S. Trade Representative in office, Ross is taking the lead on trade negotiation issues in the early weeks of the Trump administration.
Agreement needs to be updated
In Detroit last week, Mexican economy minister Ildefonso Guajardo said he was hopeful that Mexico, Canada and the United States could begin discussions in June to “modernize” NAFTA, stressing that Mexico would not accept tariffs.
A less belligerent U.S. tone towards Mexican trade in recent weeks has lifted the Mexican peso from historic lows of about 22 to the dollar in January to about 19.6.
But Ross said on Wednesday that Mexico would have to make some concessions to the United States.
Trump to study House proposal
President Donald Trump during his election campaign threatened to slap 35 percent tariffs on Mexican imports. He is studying a House Republican proposal for a border tax adjustment system that would levy a 20 percent tax on all imports while exempting exports. The plan is partly aimed at offsetting value-added taxes charged on imports by Mexico and many other countries.
Ross said Trump “has made my job a lot easier by softening up the adverse parties. What could be better than going into a negotiation where the fellow on the other side knows he has to make concessions?”
The new Commerce secretary also said he was not concerned about starting trade wars, because the United States was already fighting one.
“We’ve been in a trade war for decades,” he said. “The difference is now our troops are coming to the ramparts.”
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National leaders may have been the ones to sign the Paris Agreement to combat climate change — but when it comes to putting the deal into effect, “it is cities that drive most of the change,” says Cape Town’s mayor Patricia de Lille.
Since taking charge of South Africa’s second biggest city in 2011, her administration has overseen the installation of LED streetlights on 25,000 roads, retrofitted 32 city buildings to make them more energy efficient and installed 46,000 roof-top solar water heaters.
A big plot of land in the city has been set aside for green companies that want to move in and build solar panels, wind turbines or other forms of clean tech.
Tesla committed to Cape Town office
Already U.S. electric car manufacturer Tesla has indicated it intends to open its first Africa office in Cape Town, de Lille said, and a Chinese manufacturer of solar-powered electric buses will come in next year.
Cape Town has an order in for 10 of the buses, the first of which will hit the streets later this year, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.
“They’re going to save us a lot of money,” said de Lille, 66, a former trade union leader and longtime South African politician.
“Our maintenance budget will be cut by 60 percent, as they’re very easy to maintain. And to recharge the batteries we’re also going to use solar energy.”
Women lead the way
Around the world, cities are increasingly at the forefront of action to curb climate change — and a growing number, from Cape Town to Paris to Sydney, are now run by women.
In two years, the number of women in charge of large cities leading on climate action has risen from four to 16, according to the C40 Cities network of more than 80 cities committed to addressing climate change, which is organizing a conference for women leaders in New York this month.
De Lille said that women leaders are far from “the panacea for all of our problems.” But when it comes to climate change, “you always see it is girls and mothers who are disproportionately affected. As women, we have to represent those voices of other women.”
The poor in Cape Town have much to lose if climate change is not effectively dealt with.
Cape Town faces water shortage
Worsening flooding has hit the poor particularly hard, she said, and now extended drought — the worst in 100 years over the last two winters — has left the city’s main water supply dam at just 23 percent of capacity. That is water for just 121 days, the mayor said.
The seaside city is looking for more water where it can — recycling water, treating effluent and pumping it back into the dam, tapping into old springs under the city and testing out desalination.
But the solutions need to keep the poor in mind, de Lille said.
“Desalination is very expensive and once you go for expensive infrastructure and operating costs, it will put up the price of water” — something she would like to avoid, she said.
Renewable ambitions … and obstacles
One of de Lille’s key ambitions is to see Cape Town get at least 20 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020 — just three years away. Independent solar and wind power producers, hoping to feed energy into the national grid, have sprung up, including in Cape Town.
But Eskom, the national company that produces 95 percent of South Africa’s electricity, has yet to sign agreements to purchase much of the renewable power, arguing the deals could put Eskom’s finances at risk.
The company is waiting for the completion of two big and years-delayed coal-fired power plants it is building, designed to reduce energy shortages in the country.
The impasse has so far limited Cape Town’s ability to source renewable power — and has led de Lille and the renewable energy firms to threaten lawsuits.
“I don’t think they’ve got a right to block me buying clean renewable power from any independent power producer,” the mayor said.
Focus on ‘implementation’
De Lille said that she’s seen little push back on her clean energy agenda at home and that, like many mayors, she spends her time focusing on “implementation, implementation, implementation.”
“In government, things don’t just happen by wishing,” she said. But with good leadership, “later on, you find that people have now bought into the idea and understand the benefit of what we are achieving. Then it’s much easier — you have leadership at all levels bought into the new way of doing things.”
One thing she wishes she had, however, is more money.
International funding to help developing countries address climate change is only slowly getting flowing and what arrives at the national government level does not always trickle down to cities, she said.
To change that, the world’s mayors should work together “to say to these multilateral bodies that we want a say in how the resources are distributed,” she said.
Mayor hopes to reach goals by 2020
De Lille’s term as mayor ends in 2021 — one reason her renewable energy goal is set for 2020.
“I’m going to push as hard as I can to get all or most of my targets embedded in this city so no one can change them again, so they can just come in and build on that,”she said.
With climate change impacts worsening fast and few years left to bring about a wholesale shift to clean energy, “there’s no time for trial and error,” she said. “We have to make sure we do it right the first time.”
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Сенат Канади у другому читанні схвалив ратифікацію Угоди про зону вільної торгівлі з Україною. Про це на своїй сторінці у «Твіттері» повідомила заступник міністра економічного розвитку, торговий представник України Наталія Микольська.
Тепер документ передадуть у профільний комітет, після чого відбудеться остаточне голосування у третьому читанні. Після ратифікації Сенатом угоду ще має підписати генерал-губернатор Канади.
Нижня палата парламенту Канади ратифікувала Угоду про зону вільної торгівлі з Україною 15 лютого. Сторони підписали її у липні 2016 року.
Очікується, що зона вільної торгівлі між Україною та Канадою дасть змогу зняти більшість торгових обмежень і митних зборів у взаємній торгівлі.
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Українські споживачі через значне підвищення температури повітря оновлюють мінімуми добового відбору із підземних сховищ газу (ПСГ). Про це свідчать оперативні дані компанії «Укртрансгаз».
Згідно з цими даними, в понеділок, 6 березня, з підземних сховищ було відібрано близько 13 мільйонів кубометрів газу. Це найнижчий цього року показник добового відбору.
Порівняно з піковими навантаженнями обсяг споживання скоротився більш як усемеро: наприклад, 1 лютого споживачі використали 91,8 мільйона кубометрів.
Станом на початок доби 7 березня в українських ПСГ було понад 8,2 мільярда кубометрів газу. Від початку року запаси зменшилися майже на 3,8 мільярда кубометрів, а від початку опалювального сезону (13 жовтня) – більш як на 6,5 мільярда кубометрів.
У НАК «Нафтогаз України» ще наприкінці 2016 року заявляли, що вважають сформовані в підземних сховищах запаси газу достатніми для проходження опалювального сезону. За розрахунками компанії, на кінець опалювального сезону у сховищах залишатиметься 7 – 8 мільярдів кубометрів при допустимому значенні 5 мільярдів кубометрів.
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Wednesday March 8 marks International Women’s Day, with festivals, concerts and exhibitions among the numerous events planned around the world to celebrate the achievements of women in society.
The annual event has been held since the early 1900s and traditionally promotes a different theme each year, with this year’s edition calling on people to #BeBoldForChange and push for a more gender-inclusive working world.
Reuters photographers have been speaking with women in a range of professions around the world about their experiences of gender inequality.
Here are just a few of the women and their comments:
Doris Leuthard, Switzerland
Doris Leuthard says she still sees gender inequality occur in the workplace.
“Salaries. The differences between wages of men and women can be up to 20 percent. It happens to many women. Transparency helps, discussions about salaries are important. In upper management and leading positions in politics we still seem to be the minority. I encourage women to work on their career,” she said.
Cristina Alvarez, Mexico
“I’ve never felt any gender inequality,” Alvarez said.
“I believe women can do the same jobs as men and that there should be no discrimination.”
Serpil Cigdem, Turkey
“When I applied for a job 23 years ago as an engine driver, I was told that it is a profession for men. I knew that during the written examination even if I got the same results with a male candidate, he would have been chosen. That’s why I worked hard to pass the exam with a very good result ahead of the male candidates,” Cigdem said.
“In my opinion, gender inequality starts in our minds saying it’s a male profession or it’s a man’s job,” she said.
Phung Thi Hai, Vietnam
Hai is among a group of 25 women working at a brick factory where she has to move 3,000 bricks a day to the kiln.
“How unfair that a 54-year-old woman like me has to work and take care of the whole family. With the same work male laborers can get a better income. Not only me, all women in the village work very hard with no education, no insurance and no future,” she said.
Tomoe Ichino, Japan
“In general, people think being a Shinto priest is a man’s profession. If you’re a woman, they think you’re a shrine maiden, or a supplementary priestess. People don’t know women Shinto priests exist, so they think we can’t perform rituals. Once, after I finished performing jiichinsai [ground-breaking ceremony], I was asked, ‘So, when is the priest coming?,'” Ichino said.
“When I first began working as a Shinto priest, because I was young and female, some people felt the blessing was different. They thought: ‘I would have preferred your grandfather.'”
“At first, I wore my grandfather’s light green garment because I thought it’s better to look like a man. But after a while I decided to be proud of the fact that I am a female priest and I began wearing a pink robe, like today. I thought I can be more confident if I stop thinking too much [about my gender].”
Yanis Reina, Venezuela
“No doubt this is a job initially intended for men, because you have to be standing on the street all your shift, it is dirty, greasy and there is always a strong gasoline smell. I have to adapt the pants of my uniform because they are men’s and make me look weird but I adore my work. My clients are like my relatives, they come here everyday and we chat a couple of minutes while the tank is being filled. They come every day because they feel safer to be served by a woman,” Reina said.
“With the difficult situation that we have in Venezuela, having a job that covers your expenses is almost a luxury, but beyond that, I’m very proud of my job. I believe that now we, the women, have to be the warriors,” she said.
Januka Shrestha, Nepal
“There is no difference in a vehicle driven by a woman and man. While driving on the road people sometimes try to dominate a vehicle especially when they see a woman driving it,” she said.
“People have even used foul language toward me. When this happens I keep quiet and work even harder to prove that we are as capable as men,” Shrestha said.
Maxine Mallett, Britain
“The most stressful time of my career was when I had children. Women who return to work after having a child are sometimes treated with suspicion, as if they now lack commitment to the school when it is quite the opposite,” Mallett said.
“We need to remove barriers and support all. Having a fulfilling career should not have to be a battle that you have to constantly fight.”
Jeung Un, South Korea
“Most news outlets prefer to employ male photographers. I feel strongly about gender inequality,” Un said.
“When I cover violent scenes, sometimes I am harassed and hear sexually-biased remarks.”
Deng Qiyan, China
“Sometimes [gender inequality] happens,” Qiyan said.
“But we cannot do anything about that. After all, you have to digest all those unhappy things and carry on.”
Emilie Jeannin, France
“Once I could not help laughing when an agricultural advisor asked me, where the boss was, when I was standing right in front of him. I can assure you that the meeting got very quickly cut short!,” Jeannin said.
“Being a breeder is seen as a man’s job. In the past women were usually doing the administrative work or low level tasks. People need to be more open-minded. This change needs to happen everywhere not just on the fields.”
Meet more of the women in our photo gallery:
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Wednesday March 8 marks International Women’s Day, with festivals, concerts and
exhibitions among the numerous events planned around the world to celebrate the achievements of women in society.
Reuters photographers have been speaking with women in a range of professions around the world about their experiences of gender inequality.
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Brazil’s President Michel Temer launched an infrastructure concessions program on Tuesday that he said should raise 45 billion reais ($14.43 billion) in investment in building and operating roads, port terminals, railways and power transmission lines.
Temer said the program was key to restoring an attractive business environment as Brazil struggles to emerge from its worst-ever recession.
“There will be 45 billion reais in new investment in the energy, transport and sanitation sectors which will lead to the creation of 200,000 new direct and indirect jobs,” Temer said.
Inaugurating a meeting of the Program for Partnerships and Investments (PPI), which will oversee the tendering of the concessions, Temer said 55 projects would be launched with private-sector partners.
“We are leaving behind a deep recession and entering in a phase of prosperity where private investment will be decisive,” said the president, who has said his top priority is curbing unemployment running above 12 percent.
Data on Tuesday showed a surprise acceleration in Brazil’s deep economic downturn in the final quarter of 2016, stepping up pressure on President Michel Temer and the central bank to do more to promote growth.
The economy showed a steeper-than-expected decline of 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter, following a 0.7 percent drop in the previous three months.
Wellington Moreira Franco, the minister coordinating the PPI, said the federal government would propose 35 concessions in energy transmission.
The government said in a statement it would also launch the early renovation of five railway concessions in return for commitments on investment.
The government said it would launch concessions for new areas in the ports of Santana, Itaqui and Paranagua and extend contracts in Santos, Vila do Conde and Niteroi.
With its budget squeezed by the deep recession, Temer’s government is betting that an increase in private investment can help revive the economy despite political turbulence caused by a sweeping anti-corruption investigation.
($1 = 3.1179 reais)
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