Month: June 2017

Mexico’s ancient civilizations cultivated crops such as maize, tomatoes and chilies for thousands of years before the Spanish conquerors arrived — and now those native plants could hold the key to sustainable food production as climate change bites, said a leading ecologist. José Sarukhán Kermez, who helped set up Mexico’s pioneering National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO), said that analyzing the genetic variability of traditional crops, and supporting the family farmers who grow most of the world’s food offered an alternative to industrial agriculture. “We don’t need to manipulate hugely the genetic characteristics of these [crops] … because that biodiversity is there — you have to just select and use it with the knowledge of the people who have been doing that for thousands of years,” said Sarukhán, CONABIO’s national coordinator, in a telephone interview. The emeritus professor and former rector of the National University of Mexico (UNAM) recently won the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, often referred to as a “Nobel for the Environment.” Making use of the knowledge held by indigenous groups is “absolutely essential,” Sarukhán told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. That requires working with a wide range of people, from local cooks to small-scale farmers, especially in states like Oaxaca and Chiapas in the south of Mexico where indigenous farmers have a strong traditional culture, he said. “They haven’t gone to university, and they don’t have a degree — but they damn well know how to do these things,” he said. For example, …

With a record-breaking 26.5 million people going hungry in the Horn of Africa, development banks are increasing their humanitarian funding to fill a gap left by traditional donors, a high-level mission said on Tuesday. Food rations for 7.8 million Ethiopians are due to run out in July due to funding shortages, while neighboring Somalia is on the verge of its second famine in six years. In an unprecedented move, the World Bank is giving $50 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to distribute emergency food, water and cash in Somalia. “We are demonstrating not just that we appreciate the kind of pressure that Somalia is facing but the importance of the humanitarian and development actors working together,” said Mahmoud Mohieldin, a senior World Bank official. Consecutive failed rains have led to widespread crop failures, hurting farmers and livestock herders across the region, many of whom are hungry and on the move in search of grazing, water and work. The African Development Bank (ADB) has also announced $1.1 billion to combat drought in six countries, mostly in the Horn of Africa. Officials from the U.N., World Bank, ADB and African Union held a news conference in Nairobi after meeting displaced people in Ethiopia’s Somali region and Somalia’s Gedo region. The greatest needs are in Ethiopia, where numbers are predicted to rise due to poor spring rains, and South Sudan, where 5.5 million people are short of food, with some areas …

Sheltering under planks on his boat moored at a waterside slum in Lagos, fisherman Thomson Pascal is trying to protect his six children from the rain flooding into what is now their new home. He is one of 30,000 residents who have been living in boats, shacks or in the open since bulldozers escorted by policemen destroyed their slum dwellings as competition for building land heats up in Nigeria’s booming commercial capital. The site of their former settlement is now guarded by police and young men. A developer has unveiled plans to build a luxury residential and commercial complex there. As with most things in Lagos, home to 23 million, the housing problem is magnified by the sheer size and energy of Nigeria’s megacity. Space is scarce as a result of new building projects, a high birth rate and the arrival of thousands of people every day from all over the country looking for work. The Lagos State government said it had evicted the fishing community from the Lekki peninsula because their slum was a hideout for kidnappers and posed a risk to public health. Authorities ignored a court injunction banning any demolition. Residents and rights groups say this was an excuse to help a local businessman get rid of a settlement that had existed for decades so he could build more skyscrapers, hotels and malls. “We don’t have anywhere else to go to. I sleep in this boat with my family,” said Pascal, cradling one of his young children …

The World Bank on Tuesday approved financing worth more than $500 million for Afghanistan to support a string of projects to boost the economy, help improve service delivery in five cities and support Afghan refugees sent back from Pakistan. The bank said the six grants, including donor money, worth some $520 million would help the Afghan government “at a time of uncertainty when risks to the economy are significant.” The international troop withdrawal, which began in 2011, and political uncertainties have impacted Afghanistan’s economy, while a worsening security situation has added to budget pressures, the World Bank said. “The package will help Afghanistan with refugees, expand private-sector opportunities for the poor, boost the development of five cities, expand electrification, improve food security and build rural roads,” the World Bank said in a statement. In May, a World Bank report said economic growth in the country was likely to pick up this year but not enough to provide jobs needed by its growing population. The largest chunk of the package, some $205.4 million, will go toward supporting communities affected by refugees returning from Pakistan, the World Bank said. Some 800,000 Afghans have been sent back from Pakistan and Iran, many of them left to rely on subsistence income in rural areas or low-paid work in towns. In addition, $100 million will support reforms and business development for the poor; $20 million will go to improving services in five provincial capital cities; $29.4 million will help establish wheat reserves and improve grain …

The Trump administration is proposing to curb the authority of the consumer finance watchdog created following the economic crisis as it drives toward easing restrictions on banks and financial institutions. The Treasury Department issued Monday the first part of a review that was ordered by President Donald Trump in one of his earliest acts as president. The report reviewing the Dodd-Frank financial oversight law also urges changes to rules for banks that were put in place under the 2010 law. The law aimed to restrain banks – which received hundreds of millions in taxpayer bailouts – from the kind of misconduct that many blamed for the crisis. The law was enacted by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress to tighten regulation after the 2008-09 financial crisis that sparked the Great Recession that cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes. Trump, however, has called Dodd-Frank a “disaster” that has crimped lending, hiring and the overall economy. He promised to do “a big number” on it. “Properly structuring regulation of the U.S. financial system is critical to achieve the administration’s goal of sustained economic growth, and to create opportunities for all Americans to benefit from a stronger economy,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Monday. The report outlines what it calls core principles of financial regulation – including overhauling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and having more “efficient” bank rules. The CFPB oversees the practices of companies that provide financial products and services, from credit cards and payday …

Britain’s descent into political crisis just days before Brexit talks begin has sapped confidence among business leaders and infuriated bosses who were already grappling with the fallout from the vote to leave the EU. The failure by Prime Minister Theresa May to win a parliamentary majority in last week’s election has pushed the world’s fifth largest economy towards a level of political uncertainty not seen since the 1970s. May called the election to secure a mandate for her vision of a “hard Brexit” – driving down migration by taking Britain out of the single market and the customs union. Instead, she got a hung parliament in which no single party has a majority. Business leaders demanded a re-think. “The U.K. has had a reputation, earned over the generations, for stability and predictability in its government,” a senior executive at a multi-national company listed on the London FTSE 100 told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “That reputation in 12 months has been destroyed, truly destroyed. First by Brexit and now through this election.” A survey by the Institute of Directors (IoD) found only 20 percent of its nearly 700 members were now optimistic about the British economy over the next 12 months, compared with 57 percent who were quite or very pessimistic. The IoD survey, taken after the election, found a negative swing of 34 points in confidence in the economy from its previous survey in May. “It is hard to overstate what a dramatic impact the current political uncertainty is …

The Trump administration has a backup plan to keep the government from defaulting on its financial obligations even if Congress misses an August deadline to raise the debt limit, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told a congressional panel Monday. Mnuchin had previously set an August deadline for the federal government to avoid a catastrophic default. Mnuchin said he still prefers that Congress increase the government’s authority to borrow before lawmakers leave on a five-week break in August. However, he said he is “comfortable” that the Treasury Department can meet the government’s financial obligations through the start of September. Private analysts say Mnuchin probably has even greater leeway. “If for whatever reason Congress does not act before August, we do have backup plans that we can fund the government,” Mnuchin said without elaborating. “So I want to make it clear that that is not the timeframe that would create a serious problem.” The federal government technically hit the debt limit in March, but Treasury has been using accounting steps known as “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default. Shortly before Mnuchin testified, a Washington think tank projected that despite the slowdown in revenues, the government will have enough cash to pay its bills until October or November. The Bipartisan Policy Center says that revenue results from this month’s quarterly tax payments could clarify the deadline, but for now it forecasts that Mnuchin has sufficient maneuvering room to keep the government solvent into the fall. The policy center says a big Oct. 2 payment …

Israel will reduce electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip after the Palestinian Authority limited how much it pays for power to the enclave run by Hamas, Israeli officials said Monday. The decision by Israel’s security cabinet is expected to shorten by 45 minutes the daily average of four hours of power that Gaza’s 2 million residents receive from an electricity grid dependent on Israeli supplies, the officials said. The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) blamed Hamas’ failure to reimburse it for electricity for the reduction in power supplies. But PA spokesman Tareq Rashmawi coupled that explanation with a demand that Hamas agree to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ unity initiatives, which include holding the first parliamentary and presidential elections in more than a decade. “We renew the call to the Hamas movement and the de facto government there to hand over to us all responsibilities of government institutions in Gaza so that the government can provide its best services to our people in Gaza,” he said. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel and the Palestinian Authority “will bear responsibility for the grave deterioration” in Gaza’s health and environmental situation. Any worsening to Gaza’s power crisis — its main electrical plant is off-line in a Hamas-PA dispute over taxation — could cause the collapse of health services already reliant on stand-alone generators, many of them in a poor state of repair, said Ashraf al-Qidra, spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza. Israel charges the PA 40 million shekels ($11 million) a month …

Work longer hours. Get fewer benefits. Retire years later. Those are the ingredients of the bitter medicine Brazilians are being asked to swallow as a cure for the country’s moribund, overregulated economy. It would be a tough sell under any conditions, but it’s even harder because few trust the politicians trying to pour it down their throats. And a wave of corruption scandals that threaten to topple even the president could water down, if not sink, any cure. President Michel Temer finds himself in a dilemma: He needs the economic reforms to boost his credibility — and perhaps even to avoid being ousted over a flurry of corruption allegations. But his credibility and that of his allies is so low that few Brazilians trust them to do what’s necessary to expand the job market and get people back to work. Temer’s future is unclear   Congress — and action on the reforms — has all but come to a halt in recent weeks after a recording emerged in which Temer apparently endorses the payment of hush money to a former lawmaker imprisoned on money laundering and corruption charges. He has also been accused of accepting bribes. He denies wrongdoing, but he could soon face formal charges. The country’s political and business class has been distracted, when not terrified, by a stream of revelations about bribery, kickbacks and general corruption centered on the national oil company, Petrobras, that has led to the jailing of dozens of the country’s elite. The politicians …

The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports children caught in conflict and natural disasters are most at risk of child labor and of falling prey to trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse. To mark the World Day Against Child Labor, the ILO is calling on governments to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. The world is facing its greatest refugee and displacement crisis, with more than 65 million people forcibly displaced by war and persecution. Children are among those most at risk of exploitation from the breakdown of family and social systems, the loss of homes, schools, and livelihoods. The ILO reports an estimated 168 million children are in child labor globally, including 85 million engaged in the worst forms of child labor. This includes the use of children who work in slave-like conditions, in hazardous work, such as mining and agriculture, and in the use of children in combat or as prostitutes. The ILO reports child labor is most prevalent in Asia and Africa. ILO Senior Technical Officer on Crisis and Fragile Situations Insaf Nizam told VOA children are particularly abused in situations of conflict in Africa, where many are recruited as child soldiers by armed groups in conflicts such as Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. “We also have seen certain armed groups using children for extreme types of violence as suicide bombers or forcibly recruiting them as brides and for sexual slavery.  So, the types of violations against children have increased …