Month: June 2018

Pope Francis has told the world’s oil executives that a transition to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions.” On the last day of a two-day conference Saturday, the Roman Catholic leader urged the executives to provide electricity to the one billion people who are without it, but said that process must be done in a way that avoids “creating environmental imbalances resulting in deterioration and pollution gravely harmful to our human family, both now and in the future.” Reuters reports the unprecedented conference was held behind closed doors at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The news agency says the oil executives, investors and Vatican experts who attended the summit, believe, like the pope does, that science supports the notion that climate change is caused by human activity and that global warming must be curbed. Pope Francis told the conference, “Our desire to ensure energy for all must not lead to the undesired effect of a spiral of extreme climate changes due to a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, harsher environments and increased levels of poverty.”     …

Drones guided by artificial intelligence to catch boats netting fish where they shouldn’t were among the winners of a marine protection award on Friday and could soon be deployed to fight illegal fishing, organizers said. The award-winning project aims to help authorities hunt down illegal fishing boats using drones fitted with cameras that can monitor large swaths of water autonomously. Illegal fishing and overfishing deplete fish stocks worldwide, causing billions of dollars in losses a year and threatening the livelihoods of rural coastal communities, according to the United Nations. The National Geographic Society awarded the project, co-developed by Morocco-based company ATLAN Space, and two other innovations $150,000 each to implement their plans as it marked World Oceans Day on Friday. The aircraft can cover a range of up to 700 km (435 miles) and use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to drive them in search of fishing vessels, said ATLAN Space’s founder, Badr Idrissi. “Once (the drone) detects something, it goes there and identifies what it’s seeing,” Idrissi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. Idrissi said the technology, which is to be piloted in the Seychelles later this year, was more effective than traditional sea patrols and allowed coast guards to save money and time. From satellites tracking trawlers on the high seas to computer algorithms identifying illegal behaviors, new technologies are increasingly coming to the aid of coast guards worldwide. AI allows the drones to check a boat’s identification number, establish whether it is fishing inside a protected area …

A ‘smart’ bottle opener, weak and alcohol-free ales and lagers and cannabis brews – all visions of the future of beer offered at a brewing convention in Brussels this week. More than 700 brewers and beer experts, from small microbrewers to megabrew executives, converged in Belgium, for many the home of beer, to debate hot topics in the $600 billion sector – including how to win drinkers back from wine and spirits. Sessions on beer and food pairings sought to show how ales or lagers could challenge the dominance of wine during meals. Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, has set increasing beer’s share of the overall drinks market as a top priority this year. Carlos Brito, its chief executive, told fellow brewers the sector should target mealtimes and women as areas of future growth. Consumers should expect an even wider variety of products, particular of higher priced “premium” beers. “Premiumization has arrived in, for example, confectionery. Look at chocolate. We have a long path ahead of us,” he said. Cees’t Hart, the head of Carlsberg, called wine and tea “the enemy” and said brewers had identified a gap between beer and soft drinks – with low and no-alcohol brands that promised to be healthier than soda alternatives. “That’s what we can own. This could be the future for the brewing industry,” he said. Brewers AB InBev, Heineken, Carlsberg and China’s CR Snow sell about half of all beer drunk across the globe, but a growing number of smaller craft …

Argentina could revise the fiscal targets set as part of a $50 billion financing arrangement with the International Monetary Fund to increase spending on social programs, an IMF director said on Friday. Argentina requested IMF assistance on May 8 after a run on its peso currency in an investor exodus from emerging markets. The country’s stocks rallied on the deal to provide a safety net and avoid the frequent crises of the country’s past. Many Argentines blame the austerity measures the IMF imposed under a previous bailout during its 2001-2002 economic crisis for plunging millions into poverty, but the organization said spending on programs to protect the poor could actually increase under the financing arrangement. “The fiscal targets can be revised in case there is a need to increase social spending,” said IMF Western Hemisphere Director Alejandro Werner, adding that Argentina’s economy today is “very different than 2001.” “That way, society does not have to choose between building a bridge or protecting the poorest.” As part of the deal announced Thursday night, the government agreed to speed up reductions in the primary fiscal deficit to balance the budget by 2020. The government also pledged to propose legislation for a more independent central bank to fight double-digit inflation, which Werner praised on Friday. Opposition politicians aligned with former populist President Cristina Fernandez have said market-friendly President Mauricio Macri was repeating earlier mistakes. “Argentines do not want to go back to the past. It cost us a lot to get away from …

The European Union will spend more than $40 million to help Venezuelans suffering through a deepening humanitarian crisis even as the country’s leaders have steadfastly denied it needs any foreign assistance.   Most of the money will provide health care, food and clean water to vulnerable Venezuelans living inside and outside of the country, European Commission officials said Thursday.   European leaders, meanwhile, have threatened a new round of sanctions against Venezuela’s top officials, after what it considers President Nicolas Maduro’s undemocratic re-election.   Commissioner Christos Stylianides said he recently visited Colombia’s border with Venezuela, and signs of the crisis he saw were obvious.   “Many people are lacking crucial medicines and are in need of humanitarian assistance,” Stylianides said. “We cannot remain bystanders to this human tragedy.”   Venezuela was once one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries, sitting atop the world’s largest oil reserves. Mismanagement and a drop in global oil prices have left it in a deepening economic and political crisis, marked by shortages of food and medicine and mass migration. Maduro won a second, six-year term May 20, which his closest rival has challenged in Venezuela’s supreme court as deeply flawed with illegal tactics. Venezuela’s leading opposition parties boycotted the election as fraudulent.   The United States, European Union and several of Venezuela’s neighbors in Latin America have rejected Maduro’s election as illegitimate.   Humanitarian groups in the past have raised concern that Venezuelan officials would use international assistance as political tool instead of sending it to …

The Cambodian rosewood had stood for hundreds of years, but its value finally proved too hard to resist and the giant tree came crashing down — inside a protected forest. It’s unclear exactly who was behind the felling — nobody has been charged — but it set off a series of events, which culminated in hundreds of villagers rejecting their community forest in favor of cutting more trees. The incident underscores the challenge of protecting the country’s forests, which researchers say have been rapidly disappearing due to logging and agricultural land concessions granted to companies. Cambodia has among the highest deforestation rates in the world, according to a study published in the journal Science Advances in 2017. The Southeast Asian nation lost 1.6 million hectares between 2001 and 2014, including 38 percent of its “intact forest landscape”, which the study defined as “a seamless mosaic of forest and naturally treeless ecosystems.” Conservationists have fought for years to convince the government and people in remote areas to check deforestation, and the community forest model has been a key strategy. Local residents agree to preserve a community forest, although they are allowed to continue to farm areas already under cultivation, as well as harvest timber needed for construction — if they receive permission. That model is broken, according to Ben Davis, who has worked in conservation in Cambodia since 1992 and set up the community forest near Ta Bos village in the province of Preah Vihear. Davis has helped non-governmental organizations (NGOs) …

China’s trade surplus with the United States rose to $24.58 billion in May, from $22.15 billion in April, according to Chinese customs data published Friday. China’s export growth in May was 12.6 percent, slightly down from 12.9 percent in April, but well above the 10 percent that economists polled by the Reuters news agency had predicted. Chinese imports also increased year over year in May, rising 26 percent. For the first five months of the year, China’s trade surplus with U.S. was $104.85 billion. Both countries have threatened to hike tariffs on goods worth up to $150 billion each, as President Donald Trump has demanded Beijing open its economy further and address the U.S. large trade deficit with China. Earlier this week, China warned the U.S. that any trade and business agreements between the two countries “will not take effect” if Trump’s threatened tariff hike and other measures on Chinese goods are implemented. The warning came after U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Liu He ended two days of talks in Beijing aimed at settling the simmering trade dispute, in which Beijing pledged to narrow its trade surplus. The White House renewed a threat last week to raise duties on $50 billion of Chinese technology-related goods over that dispute. …

Just less than $6 billion worth of U.S. waste was sent to China last year to be converted into packaging and products, and then shipped back to the United States and other markets. Scrap recyclers had taken advantage of low shipping costs for empty containers returning to China after the ships had unloaded their goods on the U.S. West Coast. Today, that flow of trash is just a trickle, the result of a Chinese ban that went into effect Jan. 1 on many types of foreign garbage, from mixed papers to waste textiles. The result of the ban is seen at a recycling facility in Anaheim, California, owned by Republic Services, a national company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. The parking lot of the materials recovery facility (MRF) is brimming with 2,400 bales of mixed paper that once would have been bound for China. The surplus is a result of an unprecedented 12-day backlog, said James Castro, the facility’s general manager. And it’s not clear where it’s all going. China has banned imports of mixed paper, as well as low-grade plastics, certain metals and other types of waste. In April, it expanded the ban, to go into effect later this year, to include more metals and chemical waste. A ban on additional kinds of scrap, including waste timber, is being targeted for the end of 2019.   WATCH: China Trash Ban Creates Crisis for US Recyclers Less-contaminated scrap It has also imposed stricter contamination standards on the scrap it does accept, …

Ukraine’s parliament has voted to establish an anti-corruption court in an effort to meet the criteria to receive $17.5 billion from the International Monetary Fund.   Before the IMF releases the funds needed to shore up Ukraine’s struggling economy, it will have make sure the court’s laws are IMF compliant. The West has repeatedly called on Ukraine to reform it political system and establish an independent body to fight corruption.   “What we’ll be looking to see is that it ensures the establishment of an independent and trustworthy anti-corruption court that meets the expectation of the Ukrainian people,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said at a briefing Thursday.   President Petrol Poroshenko said the court was in line with Western recommendations and Ukrainian law.     Last year Poroshenko rejected the need for an anti-corruption court, saying such institutions are needed in “Kenya, Uganda, Malaysia and Croatia” but not in Western Europe or the United States.   While the approval of the court was seen as a positive, Ukraine also likely dismayed the West by firing Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk, a respected reform advocate. Danylyuk’s ouster came after he took on Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, accusing him of stalling reforms of the state tax service that are needed to combat corruption.   Before the parliament voted on his ouster, Danylyuk addressed the lawmakers, telling them he had been accused of “defending the interests of international organizations.”   But, “I am defending the interests of Ukrainians,” he said. …

The Trump administration said Thursday it would spend $4 million on construction projects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in preparation for oil drilling in the nation’s biggest wildlife park. In an announcement that touted planned improvements to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service visitor facilities, the Department of the Interior said it has approved spending on projects for “Oil Exploration Readiness” in the coastal plain of the Arctic refuge. The Trump administration is pushing for an oil lease sale in the refuge as early as next year. The tax-overhaul bill passed by the U.S. Congress last December includes a provision mandating two oil lease sales, each offering at least 400,000 acres (161,874.26 hectares), within seven years. True wilderness refuge The 19-million-acre (7.7 million-hectare) Arctic refuge, the largest in the U.S. national wildlife refuge system, contains some of the wildest territory in North America. There are no roads, established trails or buildings within the refuge border, and no cell phone service, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. “This is a true wilderness refuge,” the Arctic refuge website advises. Political and business leaders in oil-dependent Alaska have tried for decades to pry open the refuge’s coastal plain, which is believed to hold potential for billions of barrels of oil. But the plain, between the mountains of the Brooks Range and the Arctic Ocean, is prized for its importance to caribou, polar bears and other wildlife. Oil development there had been banned until Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski led a move to insert …

Argentina and the International Monetary Fund said Thursday that they had reached an agreement for a three-year, $50 billion standby lending arrangement, which the government said it sought to provide a safety net and avoid the frequent crises of the country’s past. Argentina requested IMF assistance on May 8 after its peso currency weakened sharply in an investor exodus from emerging markets. As part of the deal, which is subject to IMF board approval, the government pledged to speed up plans to reduce the fiscal deficit even as authorities now foresee lower growth and higher inflation in the coming years. The deal marks a turning point for Argentina, which for years shunned the IMF after a devastating 2001-02 economic crisis that many Argentines blamed on IMF-imposed austerity measures. President Mauricio Macri’s turn to the lender has led to protests in the country. “There is no magic. The IMF can help but Argentines need to resolve our own problems,” Treasury Minister Nicolas Dujovne said at a news conference. Dujovne said he expected the IMF’s board to approve the deal during a June 20 meeting. After that, he said, he expects an immediate disbursement of 30 percent of the funding, or about $15 billion. Argentina will seek to reduce its fiscal deficit to 1.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2019, down from 2.2 percent previously, Dujovne said. The deal calls for fiscal balance in 2020 and a fiscal surplus of 0.5 percent of GDP in 2020. “This measure will ultimately lessen the government financing needs, put public debt on a downward trajectory and, as President Macri has stated, relieve a burden …