Month: May 2019

The Trump administration is committed to making fossil fuels cleaner rather than imposing “draconian” regulations on coal and oil, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday at an energy conference in Salt Lake City.

Perry previously said the administration wants to spend $500 million next year on fossil fuel research and development as demand plummets for coal and surges for natural gas. 

“Instead of punishing fuels that produce emissions through regulation, we’re seeking to reduce those emissions by innovation,” Perry said at the conference.

Fossil fuel emissions have been cited by scientists as a major source of global warming. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently said the world must change how it fuels factories, vehicles and homes to limit future global warming.

Perry said the Trump administration has proven it can make energy cleaner, but he provided no details involving coal and other fossil fuels, other than the closing of old, inefficient coal-burning power plants and exporting increasing volumes of natural gas, an alternative to coal.  

Department of Energy spokesman Dirk Vande Beek didn’t immediately return an email and voicemail seeking more details about Perry’s claim.

Perry pointed to an overall drop in emissions as proof of progress.

Greenhouse gas emissions dropped 13 percent from 2005 to 2017, according to the most recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Lindsay Beebe of the Sierra Club in Utah said trying to make fossil fuels cleaner is misspent energy.

“I don’t know that it’s possible right now, but what is ready right now are renewables. Wind, solar and geothermal are commercially viable and at scale,” Beebe said.

The summit Thursday was briefly interrupted when 15 protesters took the stage to criticize the administration’s fixation on fossil fuels. 

They said the misguided approach ignores climate change. Police then escorted them out.

After they left, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, who sponsored the event, said he and other leaders appreciated the “youthful enthusiasm” but their call to immediately discard fossil fuels and shift entirely to renewable energy isn’t realistic.

They would like us to quit by Friday and not take anything out of the ground,'' Herbert said.That obviously doesn’t work from a practical standpoint.”

Americans burned a record amount of energy in 2018, with a 10% jump in consumption from booming natural gas helping lead the way, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Fossil fuels in all accounted for 80% of Americans’ energy use. 
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The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it had not pressured Venezuela to release economic indicators after years of silence, while two sources said the country’s surprise data release this week was due to pressure from China.

The central bank on Tuesday unexpectedly released data confirming Venezuela is suffering hyperinflation and massive economic contraction. The release reversed President Nicolas Maduro’s unofficial policy of classifying economic indicators as state secrets.

The data reported a 22.5 percent contraction in Venezuela’s economy in the third quarter of 2018 from the same period of the previous year. The bank did not provide a full-year 2018 figure for economic activity.

Monthly inflation in April 2019 was 33.8 percent, while 2018 full-year inflation reached 130,060 percent, the bank said.

The IMF said it suspended work with Venezuela on its economic data in January, when opposition leader Juan Guaido invoked the constitution to assume the interim presidency, arguing Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

Most Western countries, including the United States, have backed Guaido as the OPEC nation’s interim head of state.

However, Maduro and ruling socialist party continue to control state institutions including the military, state oil company PDVSA and the central bank.

The Fund said in March it was awaiting guidance from member countries on whether to recognize Guaido as the country’s leader. The United States and Venezuelan ally China are important IMF members, as they have the world’s two largest economies.

“Work in this area has been suspended since late January as political developments gave rise to questions regarding government recognition,” the spokesman said.

Last year, the IMF issued a “declaration of censure” against Venezuela for failing to report timely and accurate economic data, such as gross domestic product and inflation.

The move was a warning that Caracas could be barred from voting on IMF policies, and eventually expelled, unless it resumed timely and accurate reporting.

Maduro has repeatedly dismissed the IMF as an agent of U.S. colonialism and criticized the institution for leading harsh austerity programs in developing countries.

China, which has for years sought to increase its influence within the IMF, had pressured Maduro’s government to release the data, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

One of the sources said China had hoped releasing the data would help bring Venezuela into compliance with the IMF, making it harder for the institution to recognize Guaido.

An IMF spokesman said the fund could not fully assess the quality of the data because there was no contact with the government.

“We cannot offer a view on data quality as we have not had the opportunity to make a full assessment in the absence of contacts with the authorities,” the spokesman said.
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U.S. stocks lost ground again on Thursday, as conflicting comments on trade talks from President Donald Trump and Beijing  reinforced investor nervousness that a lengthy battle could be in the offing and harm global growth.

Trump said talks with China were going well but those comments were countered by a senior Chinese diplomat who said provoking trade disputes is “naked economic terrorism.”

The lack of clarity around the trade battle has rattled investors of late, after the S&P 500 had risen more than 17% through the first four months of the year on optimism a trade deal between the two countries could be reached.

That optimism has faded, however, as the escalating dispute between the two countries has weighed heavily on Wall Street in May, with each of the three main indexes declining at least 5% for the month. The benchmark S&P 500 is nearly 6% lower from its closing high on April 30.

“The market is coming to that realization that we are not getting really clean or clear information and it is going to be a lot of noise and just prepare for that,” said Ben Phillips, chief investment officer at Eventshares in Newport Beach, California.

“It is a difficult market right now. There are a lot of macro signals that are starting to roll over and the question is the trade dispute causing that or is it other factors.”

A government report on Thursday showed U.S. inflation was much weaker than initially thought in the first quarter on a sharp slowdown in domestic demand, while growth was also slightly lower than estimated in April.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 27.59 points, or 0.11%, to 25,098.82, the S&P 500 lost 2.11 points, or 0.08%, to 2,780.91 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 9.19 points, or 0.12%, to 7,538.12.

The trade jitters helped sustain demand for safe haven debt, as U.S. Treasury yields held near 20-month lows. The yield curve between three-month bills and 10-year notes remained inverted, the inversion the widest in nearly 12 years.

That, in turn, weighed on interest-rate sensitive bank stocks, which dropped 1.5% and were on track for a third straight day of declines, while the broader financial sector declined 0.8%.

The energy sector fell 1.3%, as oil prices continued their slump in part due to a smaller-than-expected decline in U.S. crude inventories. The sector has fallen more than 10% this month.

Among stocks, Dollar General Corp jumped 7.2% after the discount retailer’s same-store sales and profit topped expectations.

Viacom Inc climbed 3.6% after report that CBS Corp is preparing for merger talks with the media company. CBS rose 2.5%.

PVH Corp plunged 14.2% as the worst performer on the S&P 500, after the Calvin Klein owner cut its annual profit forecast as it grapples with tariffs and slowing retail growth.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 1.11-to-1 ratio; on the Nasdaq, a 1.38-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 had 1 new 52-week high and 25 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite 25 new highs and 119 new lows.
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A Chinese state TV anchor and a host from Fox Business, whose sparring over the U.S.-China trade war has been avidly followed on Chinese social media, brought their duel to the American cable network for what turned out to be a respectful encounter.

The showdown between Liu Xin of China’s state-run English channel CGTN and Fox Business Network host Trish Regan was aired on Wednesday evening in the United States but was not shown live on TV in China, though it had been hyped by state and social media.

Following U.S. moves this month to increase tariffs on Chinese imports and blacklist tech giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd the rhetoric out of Beijing has become more strident.

At the start of the roughly 16-minute segment, Liu corrected

Regan to say that she was not a member of the Chinese Communist Party and was speaking for herself as a CGTN journalist. 

Otherwise, there was little in the way of fireworks.

Liu agreed intellectual property theft was a problem, although not only in China, and that there was a “consensus” in China that “without the protection of IP rights, nobody, no country, no individual, can be strong and can develop itself.”

Regan asked Liu her definition of state capitalism, and Liu described China’s system of “socialism with Chinese characteristics, where market forces are expected to play the dominating or the deciding role in the allocation of resources.”

Liu said state-owned enterprises play “an important but increasingly smaller role, maybe, in the economy,” and said 80 percent of Chinese employment is in the private sector.

Washington argues that Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecoms network gear, is linked to the government and therefore poses a security risk, which Huawei disputes, arguing that it is owned by employees.

Liu had said on Twitter that because of rights issues, CGTN would not be able to show the debate live, though it would “report on it closely.”

A Fox News spokesperson said a free live stream of the debate would be available on the Fox Business Network website and the entire segment would also be available after the broadcast.

China’s internet is heavily censored and many major foreign media sites are blocked, but many people in China appeared to have followed the debate on state broadcaster CCTV’s live blog or watched via livestream.

The feud between Liu and Regan had started on air and was amplified on Twitter, which is blocked in China, with one social media hashtag on the Twitter-like Weibo garnering more than 120 million views as of Wednesday.

Liu had been critical of Regan’s China coverage and Regan has taken up the challenge, calling on Liu to have an honest debate.

“She’s so sure of U.S. victimhood, so indignant that her eyes practically spit fire, yet in carefully analyzing her words, it’s all emotion and accusation, supported with little substance,” Liu said of Regan on CGTN.

Regan responded this week on air and on Twitter: “They’re launching a full-scale information war against the United States of America, and their latest target is me.”

State broadcaster CCTV and the People’s Daily newspaper had shared news of the debate on Weibo, while other Chinese media outlets had joined in, some even circulating footage of Liu in an English speech competition from 23 years ago.

Chinese state media has opened the floodgates to patriotic commentaries since the latest U.S. tariff hike and there has been a surge in internet chatter about the trade war during the past few weeks.
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In recent weeks, Australia and India have re-elected incumbent prime ministers. These Asia-Pacific countries, who have a difficult relationship with China, are unlikely to make the kind of policy changes that Beijing has been seeking for a long time, analysts said.

Australia this month re-elected Prime Minister Scott Morrison stunning pollsters who had anticipated his defeat for several months. India gave a landslide victory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, who campaigned largely on a nationalistic agenda.

China wants support from Australia and India on issues like the U.S.-China trade war, the Huawei controversy, South China Sea controversy and the Belt and Road Initiative.

The Communist Party in Beijing attaches great importance to obtaining support from democratic countries as a means to enhance China’s global influence. It has spent huge sums to obtain the support of the relatively poor European countries like Greece in order to expand the Chinese footprint. But Australia and India are unlikely to support China on many of the issues that are core to Beijing’s foreign policy.

But there may be some exceptions. India has invited Huawei to start trials of its 5G telecommunications network while Australia has blocked it.

“Australia was the first country to reject Huawei’s 5G technology and it is very hard to see how it is going to revisit the decision,” said Richard McGroger, senior fellow at Lowy Institute in Sydney.

China’s official media expressed dissatisfaction over a statement by Morrison describing China as a customer of Australia and the United States as a friend. He made a clear distinction between the two countries when he said, “China is an incredibly important country for Australia’s future. Our relationship with China is of course different to our relationship with the United States,” he said during the elections.

McGregor said there was no reason to be upset over the remarks. “I think it was not a good choice of words. I am sure the Prime Minister did not intend to send any kind of wrong signal and I doubt very much he will be describing China that way again,” he said.

Beijing may have preferred a change of government in Australia which would revisit some of the decisions taken by the coalition under Morrison earlier. But Morrison is back as Prime Minister and he is unlikely to review past decisions.

Besides, Australia has its own domestic reasons to support the United States on issues like opposing China’s military build up in the South China Sea.

“Of course, Australia is worried about the Chinese bases in the South China Sea, since most Australian trade passes through those waters,” he said.

China-India relations

In his congratulatory message to India’s re-elected prime minister, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Modi to continue joint efforts with China in “promoting multi-polarization and economic globalization as well as upholding multilateralism.”

Analysts see this statement as a sign that Xi wants India to join in a broad coalition against the dominating influence of the United States.

Xi’s choice of words is significant because they come ahead of the meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kyrgyz Republic capital, Bishkek, on June 13-14. He will meet Modi along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and heads of central Asian countries. China will once again push forward its agenda for opposing U.S. trade policies.

As the re-elected government settles down in New Delhi after a stormy election, envoys from India and China are making swift preparations for a series of exchanges between the leaders. A meeting of foreign ministers will happen soon.

Modi is inviting Xi to his election constituency and pilgrimage city of Varanasi in northern India for an informal summit in September.

The first Mar-a-Lago style informal summit took place with the two leaders meeting each other without aides took place in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year. The idea is for the two leaders to understand each other, see issues from a larger canvass and give “strategic guidance” to their ministers on enhancing India-China relations.

The Wuhan summit took place one year after India and China were engaged in a 72-day long border spat at a place called Doklam near the Bhutan border.

“There will be some serious effort to improve relationship. I think they will also look at the possibility of finding an early solution to the border dispute between the two countries,” said Phunchok Stobdan, former Indian diplomat and strategic expert.

“They might also discuss the Dalai Lama issue,” he said. The Tibetan leader fled China and came to India in 1959. He has since been demanding “greater autonomy” for Tibetan speaking people in China while Chinese leaders describe him as a “separatist and splittist” element who is instigating a section of Tibetans to break up from China.

Modi will also be careful about allowing implementation of China’s Belt and Road Initiative because it can be an emotional issue, more so because the Indian public regards Beijing as Pakistan’s biggest ally and protection. Modi and his party fought the election speaking against what he regards as Pakistan based terrorists causing mayhem in India.

An important issue on Xi’s mind is to garner support from different countries against Washington’s aggressive trade actions, which has also affected India and other countries. An important question is whether he will manage to persuade Modi to come out openly against the trade war.

“India usually tries to stay middle of the road instead of choosing between the U.S. and China. It is unlikely to come out strongly against U.S. trade actions,” Stobdan said.

India cancelled oil shipments from Iran under pressure from Washington, incurring huge losses. But it is likely to go back to the earlier practice of importing Iranian oil despite U.S. sanctions, Stobdan said.

“India is ready to make exceptions when it comes to its long-term a relationship with Iran and Russia. Everyone’s watching if India would regard its relationship with China at the same level,” he said.
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Water restrictions are to be imposed in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, for the first time in almost a decade because of falling reservoir levels and a long-standing drought. Residents who breach the regulations could be fined US$150.

The flow of rainwater into some of Sydney’s reservoirs is at its lowest since World War II. From Saturday, households will face restrictions that will target the use of water outdoors. Garden sprinklers will be banned, and tougher measures could follow. The New South Wales state government says that “early and decisive action” will help to conserve supplies as a record-breaking drought worsens.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is predicting below-average rainfall and higher temperatures for the next three months across the much of the continent.

“With the lowest inflows into Sydney’s water storage since 1940, the government has come to a decision that it is best to go into water restrictions,” said Melinda Pavey, the New South Wales state Minister for Water. “We may get rain. The Bureau of Meteorology’s predictions are not fabulous, but as we know as we plan weekends, they are not always right and I hope that they are wrong. We are taking the appropriate course of action to take it to level one.”

New South Wales has been in drought since the middle of 2017.

Catherine Port, from Sydney Water, a government-owned company, says its officers will patrol to ensure the water ban is not broken.

“Sydney Water have a team of community water officers that will be out in the community to monitor and ensure that water restrictions are complied with. Penalties that will apply is AUD$220 for individuals and $550 for businesses,” she said.

Critics, though, insist that Sydney’s plight is in part the result of poor planning and a failure to take water recycling seriously.

Falling reservoir levels prompted authorities to switch on a multi-million dollar desalinization plant in January. At full capacity, it could supply Sydney, a city of 4.6 million people, with 15 per cent of its water needs.

Smaller towns in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, are also facing water crises. In Tamworth, residents are on level four restrictions that ban all use of water outdoors, and swimming pools cannot be filled or topped up. Level five restrictions are considered to be an emergency measure.

Australia is the world’s driest inhabited continent.

 
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The Trump administration said on Tuesday that no major trading partner met its currency manipulation criteria but nine countries, including China, required close attention as Washington presses tariffs and negotiations to address trade deficits.

The Treasury Department, in a semi-annual report to Congress, said it reviewed the policies of an expanded set of 21 major U.S. trading partners and found that nine required close attention due to currency practices: China, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

“No major U.S. trading partner met the relevant 2015 legislative criteria for enhanced analysis” as a currency manipulator, the department said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has imposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports and begun the process of imposing tariffs on another $300 billion in Chinese goods.

Talks to end the trade dispute between the two countries collapsed earlier this month, with the two sides in a stalemate over U.S. demands that China change its policies to address a number of key U.S. grievances, including theft of intellectual property and subsidies for state enterprises.

The Treasury Department said Washington believes direct foreign exchange intervention by the People’s Bank of China has been limited in the past year.

“Treasury will continue its enhanced bilateral engagement with China regarding exchange rate issues, given that the RMB (yuan) has fallen against the dollar by 8 percent over the last year in the context of an extremely large and widening bilateral trade surplus,” Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

China needs to aggressively address market-distorting forces, including subsidies and state-owned enterprises, the Treasury statement said. Improved economic fundamentals would support a stronger yuan and help reduce China’s trade surplus with the United States, it said.
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Officials in Zimbabwe say the bodies of eight illegal miners have been retrieved from an abandoned gold mine about 50 kilometers north of Harare. The news Monday was a reminder of the risk faced by desperate illegal miners trying to make a living in the economically troubled southern African country. Matopo is a gold rich area in southern Zimbabwe, and some men there enter such mines, despite the danger involved. 

These men are illegal miners, using a metal detector to search for gold at the Nugget Mine, about an hour’s drive from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city. 

​Piniel Ndingi-Nyoni is one of those who entered the mine, despite the recent collapse of a mine shaft that killed four men. 

Ndingi-Nyoni says he has no choice but to take the risk. 

“Problems at home force me to do this. We need school fees, you need food, there are medical bills to take care of, so all that force you to stay in the bush. It is not funny at all. In this cold weather, we sleep in shacks while the wife is at home. At times, we can go for three months without getting anything,” Ndingi-Nyoni said.

​A few minutes later, the illegal miners disappeared into the bush at the sight of officials in the area. Once the coast is clear, they re-appear.

No man gives up, is the motto 42-year-old Edward Madyauta lives by. He says he has gold rush dreams. But he says on several occasions, he has gone for months on a wild-goose chase. 

What about fears of being trapped under, as what happened a few meters away?

“I do not fear death, because (I) usually get gold before depth gets past my height. So that can’t collapse on me. But those who go under have a higher risk of the shaft collapsing on them,” Madyauta explained.

On Monday, searchers found the bodies of eight men working an abandoned mine in Mazowe, north of the capital. It was the third fatal incident involving illegal miners this year. 

Polite Kambamura, deputy minister of mines, says the government is worried about the trend and has embarked on a campaign to urge people to stay away from abandoned mines.

​“We are going to call on owners of such mines to show cause why they are not mining. We are risking the lives of many people. If a mine stays for long without any activity, the ground will weaken up,” Kambamura said. “Some of those miners are going underground to mine on pillars. The moment they mine on pillars, then there is no more support and the ground will fall off.”

But with Zimbabwe’s economy in meltdown and no recovery in sight, one wonders if any of the miners, like Nyoni and Madyauta in Matopo, will listen to the advice.
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Zimbabwe’s disused mines continue to be a death trap for poor and desperate illegal miners in search of the precious minerals to earn a living. Columbus Mavhunga travelled to Matopo a gold rich area about 500 kilometers south of Harare, where mining continues despite some having been trapped earlier this month.
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Fiat Chrysler proposed a merger Monday with Renault, a union that would create the world’s third biggest automaker.

The merger, if it happens, would vault the new company, with annual sales of 8.7 million vehicles, into a position ahead of General Motors and behind only Volkswagen and Toyota, both of which sell about 10.6 million.

The merger could give the combined companies a better chance in the battle among auto manufacturers to build new electric and autonomous vehicles.

Investors in both companies showed their initial approval of the announcement, with Renault’s shares jumping 15 percent in afternoon trading in Paris and Fiat Chrysler stock up more than 10 percent in Milan. The proposal calls for shareholders to split ownership of the new company.

Fiat Chrysler said the deal would save the combined companies $5.6 billion annually with shared payments for research, purchasing and other expenses. The deal does not call for closure of any manufacturing plants but the companies did not say whether any employees would lose their jobs.

The deal would give Fiat access to Renault’s electric car technologies, allowing it to meet the strict carbon dioxide emission standards the European Commission is enacting.

For its part, Renault might be able to gain ground in the U.S. market because of Fiat’s extensive operations in North America.

The French government owns 15 percent of Renault and said it supports the merger, while adding that “the terms of this merger must be supportive of Renault’s economic development, and obviously of Renault’s employees.”

 
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Only the chirping of birds and insects break the silence at a gold mining site in the Eastern Region of Ghana, right at the foot of the Atewa forest reserve.

Caterpillar excavators stand still, as the two Ghanaian companies operating them wait for a new mining permit  a process that has been in the works for months.

But a fresh pile of sludge spilt over a patch of vegetation suggests the mine is being operated illegally.

Felix Addo-Okyreh, who works for Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says the sludge — referred to as slime’ in mining jargon — is dirty waste water created when gold is separated from sediment, sometimes with the help mercury. It is stored in dams on the site.

“It rained heavily last week. The embankment of the dam was weak. It got broken, and this is the result,” he says.

The toxic slime landed a few meters away from a stream that flows into the Birim, a river supplying water to millions of people in the capital Accra.

Ghana cracked down on illegal small-scale gold mining in 2017, after the national water company warned that the chemicals discharged by what is locally known as galamsey could force the country to import all its drinking water within the next two decades.

That year the government set up a military task force to dismantle illegal mining sites and imposed a 20-month ban on all small-scale mining to give nature a breather. Satellite imagery and digital technologies are being used to better monitor mining activity.

Yet Global Forest Watch data released last month shows the rate of deforestation in Ghana increased by 60 percent in 2018, faster than in any other part of the world. The country lost 1.13 percent its primary forest last year, in part due to gold mined illegally and often siphoned away by Chinese buyers.

Daniel Kwamena Ewur, an officer for conservation group A Rocha, said the ban pushed more small-scale miners to work within the protected Atewa forest, operating at night when security officials are off duty.  

Local authorities and NGOs have started training illegal miners to learn alternative livelihood skills such as soup-making and farming bees. But critics doubt these activities are economically viable.

“It’s kind of scratching the surface of the core issues of livelihood driving people,” said Nafi Chinery, Ghana country manager for the New York-based Natural Resource Governance Institute.

Chinery believes the anti-galamsey campaign has been more about politics than impact. “We don’t have enough data about who is actually involved in galamsey,” she added.

Around 1.1 million Ghanaians were estimated to work in small-scale mining before the ban, which was lifted in December, accounting for around 30 percent of the country’s annual mineral production. 

EPA’s head of mining Michael Ali says the government is now going to great lengths to “sanitize” the gold industry by formalizing galamsey sites, being stricter with paperwork and cracking down on the use of mercury.

“The mission is to reduce it to the barest minimum,” said Ali. “We cannot eliminate it completely, unless the citizens themselves police it.”

The EPA has reclaimed ten acres of illegally mined land around the Atewa forest, near the southeastern town of Kyebi. Trees were planted to encourage residents to take initiative and help meet an ambitious reclamation target of more than 7,000 square kilometers of land by 2022.

In the nearby town of Sagymase, 65-year old cocoa farmer Janet Achampong does not know what to do about the gaping pit left on land she leased to illegal miners five years ago. She cannot afford to fill the hole herself and reconvert it to farmland.

The government has acknowledged money is short and says it is seeking support from the international community. In Sagymase, Norwegian donors are funding the reclamation of six acres of galamsey land over the next four years.

A Rocha’s Ewur is facilitating the project, but is wary of planting trees and food crops in soil that has been mixed with chemicals.

“There is some quantity of mercury in the belly of this land,” said Ewur. “I would not eat the mangoes that grow here.”   
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