MAHENTO

Farmers’ Use of Groundwater for Irrigation Called Unsustainable

Farmers around the world are using an unsustainable amount of well water to irrigate their crops, which could lead to an uptick in food prices as that water runs low, international researchers warned Wednesday.

Farmers are increasing their use of groundwater to grow staple crops such as rice, wheat and cotton, the scientists said. But much of that water use is unsustainable, as water is being pumped out faster than it can be naturally replenished.

“Groundwater depletion is increasing rapidly, especially in the last 10, 20 years, due to the increasing populations and also associated food production,” said Yoshihide Wada, deputy water program director at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, a science organization in Austria.

The shortages are occurring in some big agricultural producers such as India, China and the United States, he said.

But they could have an impact on a much wider area of the world because “much of the agricultural production is traded internationally,” he said.

An estimated 11 percent of crops irrigated with nonrenewable groundwater are traded internationally after harvest, the researchers said in a report published in the journal Nature.

Countries such as Pakistan, Iran and India, which use the most groundwater to grow food, are already suffering from water scarcity, the report said.

For many countries “it doesn’t really make sense that you’re exporting a lot of food that comes from groundwater depletion,” Wada said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Effect on food prices

Unsustainable use of groundwater could lead to rising future food prices, as countries are forced to spend more money to find water to irrigate their crops, he said.

Depleted supplies of groundwater could also hurt local people, who rely on the water for day-to-day use and for other things, including fighting fires or dealing with other emergencies, the scientists said.

Droughts, which are expected to increase as a result of climate change, could also increase the shortages of groundwater and affect food supplies, lead author Carole Dalin added in a statement.

“Where and how the products are grown is crucial, and basic foods like rice and bread could have a damaging impact on global water supplies,” said Dalin, a research fellow at University College London’s Institute for Sustainable Resources.

Unless both food producers and food buyers adopt strategies to use water more wisely, “most of the world’s population risks seeing increased food prices or disrupted food supply,” she warned.

Wada said governments should more closely monitor the use of groundwater and invest in things like drip irrigation technology, which can dramatically cut water use, to better prepare for the future and conserve natural resources.
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PDVSA Manager Arrested in Venezuela Fuel Corruption Probe

Venezuela has arrested a senior manager of state oil company PDVSA on suspicion of “irregularities” in contracts to supply fuel to the domestic market, authorities said on Wednesday.

The detention of international commerce manager Marco Malave, 47, followed a shakeup of personnel at PDVSA’s trade department since January and amid gasoline shortages around the South American OPEC nation last week.

“PDVSA representatives denounced a series of irregularities in the protocol for contracting companies with vessels to supply the referred hydrocarbon to the Venezuelan market,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The situation affected fuel distribution in seven states, including the capital Caracas, it said. Malave was arrested last week in Caracas and his bank accounts have been frozen.

Vow to battle corruption

President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government and Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., familiarly known as PDVSA, have repeatedly vowed to take steps to combat corruption, which has affected Venezuela and its oil industry for decades.

Earlier this month, the heads of Venezuela-based subcontracting companies Castillo Max and Guevara Training were arrested and charged with corruption for overbilling in equipment sales at the main oil-exporting port Jose.

Jesus Osorio, the former manager of Jose terminal, was jailed in February over the purchase of two floating platforms costing $76.2 million.

Opposition leaders have said that PDVSA has been crippled by malfeasance under 18 years of socialist rule.

A probe last year by the opposition-run Congress said $11 billion had gone missing from PDVSA. The government dismissed that as part of a right-wing smear campaign.

Change at the top?

Rumors are rife inside PDVSA and in the wider oil sector that company president Eulogio del Pino may depart soon, to be replaced by Oil Minister Nelson Martinez. There has been no official word on this. Attempts to reach Del Pino have been unsuccessful.

“Del Pino’s apparent replacement Nelson Martinez is part of this broader trend of promoting loyalists,” Eurasia consultancy analyst Risa Grais-Targow wrote in a report on Wednesday.

“Martinez is close to Maduro, who has long wanted him to head PDVSA. Martinez represents the most viable alternative to Del Pino considering a shallow bench of skilled oil sector technocrats.”
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Study Finds Correlation Between Good Health, Economic Prospects

A study by U.S. economic experts and a major health insurance company says a healthy population is a key ingredient in a healthy and growing economy.

Blue Cross and Moody’s Analytics used data from millions of insurance customers to draw a statistical relationship between health and prosperity in the United States.

In counties throughout the 50 states where the population had top health scores, per capita incomes were nearly $4,000 a year higher than in counties where people had just average health scores.  

Unemployment showed a similar pattern: The healthiest counties had a jobless rate eight-tenths of a percent better than communities where health was average. Economic growth also was measurably stronger in the healthiest areas.

The report’s authors cautioned that the statistical correlation did not prove that healthier people cause a stronger economy, but it did make researchers suspect that such a relationship exists. The report also noted that healthier people lose less time from work and bring better skills to the job, because they didn’t miss school lessons.

Obamacare debate

The report came in the midst of a long-running national debate among American lawmakers about how to devise and pay for a system of health insurance.

Since President Donald Trump took office, his Republican Party has been planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act that former President Barack Obama signed into law seven years ago, claiming it is ineffective and financially ruinous.

The sentiment among lawmakers in Congress conflicted with many American families’ feelings about the value of the ACA, also known as Obamacare, and a divided Republican majority in Congress proved unable to repeal or replace the law.
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Dirty Air From Global Trade Kills at Home, Abroad, Study Contends

A study that measures the human toll of air pollution from global manufacturing and trade demonstrates how buying goods made far away can lead to premature deaths both there and close to home.

Each year, more than 750,000 people die prematurely from dirty air generated by making goods in one location that will be sold elsewhere. That’s about one-fifth of the 3.45 million premature deaths from air pollution. The study says 12 percent of that total number of deaths, or about 411,000 people, are a result of air pollution that has blown across national borders.

“It’s not a local issue anymore,” said study co-author Dabo Guan, an economist at the University of East Anglia in England. “It requires global cooperation.”

Multiple factors

It has long been known that that the environmental burden of manufacturing often falls heaviest on countries where companies set up shop to take advantage of low labor costs and relatively loose environmental regulations. But this is the first study to bring together economic, manufacturing, trade, atmospheric and health data to calculate the number and location of premature deaths from air pollution.

It found that people in Western Europe buying goods made elsewhere were linked to 173,000 overseas air pollution deaths a year, while United States consumption was linked to just over 100,000 deaths, according to the study published in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

In China, 238,000 deaths a year are associated with production of goods that are bought or consumed elsewhere, the study said. That number is 106,000 deaths in India and 129,000 deaths in the rest of Asia.

“We have a role in the quality of the air in those areas,” study co-author Steven Davis, an atmospheric scientist at the University of California-Irvine, said in an interview. “We’re taking advantage of our positon as consumers, distant consumers.”

Local effects

Still, the study said three-quarters of the 1 million yearly air pollution deaths in China and the nearly half a million deaths in India result from production of goods that are consumed locally.

China and India also have pollution that travels elsewhere and kills between 65,000 and 75,000 people in other countries, the study said. India’s migrating pollution kills more because China’s pollution, which hits Japan and South Korea, often heads over the Pacific Ocean, where its effects dissipate over the miles, Davis said. India’s pollution heads directly to more populous neighboring countries.

The study starts by looking at the 3.45 million deaths a year that this and other studies say are triggered by tiny airborne particles often called soot or smog. About 2.5 million of those deaths are associated with the making and consuming of goods, including the energy needed to produce and ship them. The rest are due to natural factors like dust, fires and other causes that can’t be tracked, said study lead author Qiang Zhang, an atmospheric chemist at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Like smoking, air pollution increases the risk of getting diseases like heart disease and stroke, said study co-author Michael Brauer, a public health professor at the University of British Columbia. Using well-established methods, researchers calculate death estimates using health statistics, pollution levels and other factors.

Dr. Howard Frumkin, a former director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now at the University of Washington, was not part of the study but praised it. He said the calculations done by the study are crucial for understanding the larger problem.

Scientific approach seen vital

“This is a moral question as much as a scientific one,” Frumkin wrote in an email. “But the scientific approach here — linking data on manufacturing and associated pollution emissions, import and export flows, pollutant movement across national boundaries, and the health impact of pollution exposure — is exactly what’s needed.”

Producing more goods locally would change where deaths occur and potentially reduce overall deaths — if local emissions rules are tighter. Bringing back manufacturing to the United States, as President Donald Trump and politicians from both parties want, would bring more air pollution deaths to the U.S., but reduce deaths worldwide because pollution laws are stricter, Davis and others said.

Production is likely to remain concentrated in Asia, however, and it will have to be up to those countries to better regulate their own industrial emissions, said Peter Adams, an engineering professor and air pollution expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who wasn’t part of the study. “Relying on consumer altruism,” he said, won’t be enough.
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California, Washington Face Off Over Vehicle Fuel Standards

California and a dozen other states could be heading for a showdown with the federal government as the Trump administration reviews rules on fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions, rules President Donald Trump has said curtail growth in the auto industry.

California has a waiver under federal law to set its own standards, and other states have the option to follow them.

California has been a leader in promoting fuel-efficient cars and sport utility vehicles, and the state says it will keep its strict standards, despite a review of federal regulations ordered by Trump.

Separately, the president signed an executive order Tuesday to reduce the federal role in regulating carbon emissions in the energy industry to promote “energy independence,” although scientists view carbon emission from fossil fuels as a major cause of global warming.

Vehicle fuel standards were strengthened in the final days of the Obama presidency, as the administration hurriedly completed a review of fuel economy targets through 2025, imposing goals that bring a corresponding reduction in tail-pipe emissions.  

Fueled by 1973 oil embargo

Therese Langer of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy says Obama was continuing a process that started in California in the 1960s, then moved to the rest of the country with federal legislation.

After the Arab oil embargo of 1973, Congress set targets with the CAFE, or Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards.

Langer says the rules helped reduce dependence on foreign oil, but “the dominant effect of bringing down that pollution from tail pipes of cars through a combination of changes to the cars and changes to the fuel is a human health benefit. And it’s really hard to overstate how dramatic that has been over the years.”

CAFE fuel economy standards are locked in through 2021, but the Trump administration is reconsidering the rules for the following years through 2025.

Supporters say strict standards help to cut the greenhouse gases that are fueling global warming, save consumers money, and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

The president says he wants to cut government regulations.

Thomas Pyle of the industry-aligned American Energy Alliance says the president’s review will ask, “How [do] you balance the desire for fuel efficiency, for more fuel-efficient vehicles, with other things that are important when consumers go and purchase vehicles, such as size, safety, whether or not they need a truck for their job.”

Environmentalists push electric cars

Existing standards aim to improve fuel economy by promoting hybrid gasoline-electric and battery-powered electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles, or EVs, are just one percent of the market and pose a special challenge. Environmentalists say they have great promise, but need government incentives to spur development.

Laura Renger oversees air and climate issues for Southern California Edison, and she says the electric utility company is doing its part.

Renger drives an electric car to work and charges it outside the company office. She says EV drivers like her feel “range anxiety,” but the utility is installing 1,500 charging stations where people park their cars, “on campuses, work places, and shopping centers.”

Other companies are engaged in similar programs.

Renger says the market will expand as battery technology gets better and the charging infrastructure grows.

Critics say that government subsidies for electric vehicles are not needed, and Pyle, of the American Energy Alliance, says people who drive EVs can afford to do it without tax breaks.

Finding ‘the right balance’

Jessica Caldwell of the auto research site Edmunds.com disagrees, and she says online behavior shows that buyers are sensitive to price and are looking for incentives.

“People in real time are very deal oriented,” she said, “so my fear is if you take away the federal subsidy, this market is really going to collapse,” she said.

California says it has no intention of removing its subsidies.

Langer, of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, says current government fuel-and-emission standards help consumers.

“If you look at the whole time period for which the standards were adopted under the last administration, that’s model year 2012 through 2025,” she said, “the consumer savings from buying less gasoline exceed a trillion dollars.”

But critics like Pyle ask, “What is the right balance, and who makes those choices, the government, or consumers and the auto industry together?”

He applauds Trump’s goal of improving the productivity of the energy and auto industries.

Twelve other states and the U.S. capital now follow the California standards, and if federal rules are weakened, car makers confusingly could face two different sets of vehicle standards, one based on California’s rules and one on Washington’s.
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Lawmakers: Trump Team Wants More NAFTA Access for US Goods, Services

Trump administration trade officials want a revamped North American Free Trade Agreement to improve access for U.S. farm products, manufactured goods and services in Canada and Mexico, said lawmakers who met with them Tuesday.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee met with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and acting U.S. Trade Representative Stephen Vaughn to discuss the administration’s plans for renegotiating the 23-year-old trade deal.

Representative Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat, said Ross told lawmakers in the closed-door session that the administration was still aiming to complete NAFTA renegotiations by the end of 2017.

‘Ambitious’ schedule

That time frame is viewed by some members as “ambitious,” especially because it is not clear when the administration will formally notify Congress of its intention to launch NAFTA renegotiations, Pascrell said.

The notification will trigger a 90-day consultation period before substantial talks can begin. Tuesday’s meeting was a legal requirement to prepare the notification and preserve the “fast track” authority for approving a renegotiated deal with only an up-or-down vote in Congress.

President Donald Trump has long vilified NAFTA as draining millions of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and he has vowed to quit the trade pact unless it can be renegotiated to shrink U.S. trade deficits.

Lawmakers said Ross and Vaughn discussed broad negotiating objectives, but did not get into specific issues such as U.S. access to Canada’s dairy sector or rules of origin for parts used on North American-assembled vehicles.

Key objectives

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, a Texas Republican, told reporters that market access, modernizing NAFTA and “holding trading partners accountable” were key objectives articulated by Ross and Vaughn.

“They were very clear. They want to open access in ag, manufacturing and services as well, so they want this to be a 21st-century agreement,” Brady said.

Spokesmen for the Commerce Department and USTR were not immediately available for comment on the meeting.

Lawmakers said the administration has not settled on the form of the negotiations, whether NAFTA will remain a trilateral agreement or whether it would be split into two bilateral trade deals.

“My sense is that they are not prejudging the form. They are focused on the substance of the agreement itself with Mexico and Canada,” Brady said.

Some lawmakers expressed frustration that the Trump officials were short on specific answers.

“I wouldn’t exactly call this meeting as moving the ball forward very much,” said Representative Ron Kind, a Wisconsin Democrat.
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Brazil Police Raid Brokerage for Allegedly Laundering ‘Car Wash’ Bribe Cash

Brazil’s federal police on Tuesday raided a brokerage in Rio de Janeiro which they allege helped launder money for corrupt former executives of state-run oil firm Petrobras, as part of their sprawling “Car Wash” anti-graft probe.

Police said they searched the offices of the Advalor Distribuidora de Titulos e Valores brokerage firm in Rio, which they allege facilitated the movement of bribes from big construction firms to the then-Petrobras executives, often to their overseas bank accounts.

A person who answered the phone at Advalor’s Rio de Janeiro office did not respond to requests for comment.

Goncalves arrested

Former Petrobras executive Roberto Goncalves was arrested in Tuesday’s operation on the order of federal judge Sergio Moro, who oversees Operation Car Wash.

Police allege Goncalves received at least $5 million in bribes paid into overseas bank accounts.

The arrest warrant issued by Moro states that Goncalves had at least five Swiss bank accounts. In just one of those, he received $3 million in bribes from construction giant Odebrecht, according to police.

Allegedly took bribes for several projects

Goncalves allegedly took bribes in connection with several projects, one of the largest being a contract awarded to a consortium composed of Odebrecht and UTC Engenharia for work on the Comperj refinery outside Rio de Janeiro.

He does not yet face any formal charges. Under Brazilian law, only prosecutors can level charges. The prosecutor’s office did not respond to request for comment about Goncalves’ case.

A lawyer for Goncalves could not immediately be reached.
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US Consumer Confidence Surges in March

U.S. consumer confidence, home prices, and the trade deficit all improved, according to economic reports published Tuesday.

Consumer confidence hit a 16-year high, as consumers said they were more confident about getting or keeping jobs and the economic outlook in general. The Conference Board said its index jumped more than nine percentage points in March.

Experts track consumer attitudes for clues about the consumer spending that drives most U.S. economic activity.

A separate report by S&P Case-Shiller showed home prices rose sharply over the past 12 months, increasing at the fastest pace since July 2014.  Some buyers may have speeded up home purchases to avoid further expected interest-rate hikes.  Experts say prices are rising in part because demand for homes is outstripping the supply.

In a separate report, the Census Bureau said the trade deficit shrank as imports dropped sharply. The deficit means that U.S. consumers buy more from foreign companies than Americans are selling to customers abroad.
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Ford Investing $1.2B in 3 Michigan Plants, Adding 130 Jobs

Ford Motor Co. is investing $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities, including an engine plant where it plans to add 130 jobs.

President Donald Trump, who has pressured automakers to invest more and create jobs in the U.S., applauded the move Tuesday in an early morning tweet.

“Big announcement by Ford today. Major investment to be made in three Michigan plants. Car companies coming back to U.S. JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!,” Trump tweeted hours ahead of the announcement.

The investments were in the works well before Trump took office, however. Ford announced plans to upgrade some of its Michigan plants in November 2015 as part of a new contract with the United Auto Workers union.

Ford Americas President Joe Hinrichs said the company told the White House about the investments Tuesday morning. Hinrichs said it’s not unusual for the company to reach out to state and national political leaders before such an announcement.

Hinrichs said Tuesday’s announcement was timed to a state meeting where officials approved nearly $31 million in grants and 15-year tax exemptions for Ford.

Ford will spend $850 million to upgrade the Michigan Assembly Plant next year to build the Ford Ranger midsize pickup and Ford Bronco SUV. Ford plans to build the Ranger starting at the end of 2018 and the Bronco starting in 2020.

The suburban Detroit plant currently makes small cars, which are moving to a plant in Mexico. Trump has needled Ford and other automakers in the past about plans to move small car production to Mexico. Amid slowing sales of smaller vehicles, Ford did scrap plans for a brand new plant in Mexico, but will continue to build small cars at an existing facility there.

Hinrichs said the Michigan Assembly Plant will operate on two shifts unless demand dictates that a third shift be added. The plant used to operate on three shifts, but it cut a shift and 673 factory workers in 2015 because of slumping sales of small cars.

Ford will spend $150 million to upgrade its Romeo Engine Plant outside Detroit. The company says it will create or retain 130 jobs at that plant, which will make components for a new engine.

Ford also is spending $200 million on a data center that will store information collected from self-driving and connected cars. The data center will be located at an assembly plant in the Detroit suburb of Flat Rock. Ford announced in January that the Flat Rock plant would get $700 million in upgrades and 700 new jobs to make electric and self-driving cars.

Ford shares rose 2.2 percent to $11.71 in afternoon trading.
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Souq.com says Amazon has Bought it After $800M Counteroffer

Amazon purchased the Middle East’s biggest online retailer Souq.com on Tuesday for an undisclosed amount, a day after a state-backed firm disclosed an $800 million counteroffer.

A joint statement described the purchase as expanding Amazon’s influence into the Mideast as the state-supported firm Emaar prepares to launch its own retail website in a country known more for its luxury malls than online shopping.

That could put Seattle-based Amazon in a head-to-head competition with a firm helmed by one of the sheikhdom’s favored business magnates.

“This is a milestone for the online shopping space in the region,” Souq.com co-founder and CEO Ronaldo Mouchawar said in a statement.

The announcement said the two companies expect the sale to close this year.

“Together, we’ll work hard to provide the best possible service for millions of customers in the Middle East,” Russ Grandinetti, a senior vice president at Amazon, said in a statement.

On Monday, Emaar Malls PJSC made public its bid for Souq.com in a filing on the Dubai Financial Market. The short filing, signed by Emaar Malls vice chairman Ahmad Thani al-Matrooshi, said the bid was made “in line with the strategy to align e-commerce with physical shopping.”

Rumors about Amazon’s interest in Souq.com have circulated for months. In November, Emaar chairman Mohamed Alabbar reportedly met Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the state-backed firm’s cavernous Dubai Mall, home to a massive aquarium and in the shadow of the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building it built.

Dubai, the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and the world’s busiest international airport, also has luxury malls that even include an indoor ski slope. Its summer heat of over 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) makes malls a major attraction for both shopping and leisure time in the city.

While Uber and other online services firms work in Dubai, online retail shopping has yet to truly take off like it has in Western countries.

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       Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .

       AP-WF-03-28-17 0927GMT

 
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Indiana Board Set to Endorse $7M Carrier Deal Trump Brokered

An Indiana board is poised to endorse a deal directing $7 million in tax breaks and grants for a deal brokered by President Donald Trump to keep hundreds of jobs at the Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis.

The incentive package is set for a vote by an Indiana Economic Development Board committee on Tuesday, nearly four months after Trump celebrated the deal at the furnace factory.

Carrier is pledging to keep nearly 1,100 jobs at the factory, including about 800 production jobs that the company had planned to outsource to Mexico. But about 550 jobs are still being lost. Carrier is also investing $16 million for automation at the factory.

Plant union president Chuck Jones says the deal means Indiana taxpayers are rewarding a very profitable corporation for cutting jobs.
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