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Fact about nutrition Cook With Olive Oil. Swap that vegetable oil for extra virgin olive oil and you'll look younger every time you hit the kitchen. Replacing inflammatory vegetable oils with EVOO can increase HDL, the “good” cholesterol, and help lower blood pressure.
SANTIAGO, June 24 (Reuters) - With copper prices soaring and Chile's economy reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers want to fund recovery efforts by hiking royalties on the booming mining sector but the drive could flounder because of deals that previous governments signed decades ago to freeze tariffs on the biggest miners.
Major foreign miners operating in the world´s largest copper producer obtained tax stability agreements that maintain payment regimes, and a Reuters review shows these do not expire for two to 15 years.
The deals, meant to buffer investors from political or economic upheaval, helped attract investments in some of Chile's largest mines.
Experts interviewed by Reuters said that even after likely passage of a law outlining a royalty as high as 75% on copper sales, the agreements could diminish Chile's windfall.
Some lawmakers want to push to renegotiate the stability clauses, taking a cue from nearby Peru, the world's second-largest copper miner. There, Pedro Castillo, who pledged to boost social spending to help the poor, is on the verge of being confirmed as president after a disputed election. read more
Castillo's team has suggested he will seek to circumvent any delays to a plan to raise taxes on miners by renegotiating tax stability agreements covering 25 operators including major Chinese mines. read more
Among those in Chile who want to take a similar tack is Catalina Perez of the radical-left Democratic Revolution party. She and other opposition lawmakers, many representing mining areas, co-authored the mining royalties bill.
Nonetheless, miners and Pinera's administration will seek to modify the bill as it moves through the senate, with more than a month of evidence-gathering sessions starting this week. read more
But industry analysts warned that trying to override tax stability agreements could damage Chile's business-friendly reputation and bring legal action.
In Colombia, the process announced by President Ivan Duque in February to grant temporary protected status to over a million Venezuelans has already started. Grandi met the President and other national and local authorities and thanked them and the people of Colombia for this generous move, that will pave the way to the full inclusion of refugees and migrants from Venezuela. He also met with Venezuelan refugees and migrants to hear from them about their needs and concerns.
Grandi then travelled to Ecuador, where President Guillermo Lasso announced a new regularization process for Venezuelans in the country. Ecuador plays host to an estimated 430,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants and has a long tradition of asylum and has recognized over 70,000 refugees, the majority from Colombia. In the capital, Quito, Grandi met the Vice-President and other government officials, members of civil society, including refugee and migrant associations. He also joined the private sector in the launch of a new strategy to integrate those forcibly displaced in the labour market in order to support their socio-economic integration.
'Refugees and others displaced can become real agents of change and contribute to the communities hosting them if given a chance and the tools to thrive,' Grandi said. 'In this sense, the rest of the world can learn a great deal about the inclusion and integration of refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean.'
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Digital payments
As well as offering passengers more information through mobile phone applications, operators are also looking to make payments more efficient and COVID-safe through contactless options. Some Latin American cities already offer the option to pay using debit and credit cards, like Rio de Janeiro and Guatemala City, and others like Panama City and San José, Costa Rica are working to implement pilots. Cashless payments aim to simplify and streamline the experience for users by reducing the purchase and entry queues at transport hubs, minimising crowds at peak hours and increasing customer satisfaction using ‘tap and go’.
“The future is new Mobility-as-a-Service applications and there will be more integration in travel within the city and metropolitan regions without the need for interruptions to buy a new ticket,” said Fernanda Caraballo, Director of Business Development for Latin America at Mastercard. “This is a benefit for the frequent, infrequent and tourist travellers because they save time by paying with a debit or credit card and, in the case of tourists, the language barrier and doubts are eliminated, if they are in an unknown city.”
Caraballo says Mastercard’s aim is to transform the collection schemes for transportation systems to generate savings and efficiency for the city and for transportation operators, and to improve the quality of life for citizens.
“Mastercard seeks to offer the best solution that suits the specific needs of each city,” she added.
Shares of copper mining company Antofagasta look set to deflate because of a political lurch to the left in Chile, raising the possibility of higher taxes on resource companies. Recent drops in the price of copper aren’t helping either.
As a result, investors might want to reduce their positions in the stock (ticker: ANTO: United Kingdom).
The major issue for U.K.-incorporated Antofagasta is Chile, where the company’s mines are based. In May, Chile’s lower house approved a bill that would impose a new royalty fee on producers operating in the top copper-producing nation.
“The left-wing is on the ascension in Chile, and that doesn’t bode well for where the taxes come out in the end,” says Tyler Broda, head of EU mining research at Canadian financial company RBC Capital Markets in London. “We think it is going to be hard for the shares to hold in where they are.”
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said China’s anti-COVID vaccine did not fully work and questioned whether Russia’s Sputnik jab would ever get approval from European regulators.
'The Chinese vaccine... has shown itself not to be adequate. You can see that from Chile’s experience of tackling the epidemic,' Draghi told reporters at the end of a European Union summit.
Chile has relied heavily on the COVID-19 shot developed by China’s Sinovac, but health authorities in the South American country have questioned how effective it is against more transmissible virus variants and are also looking into how long it remains effective once injected.
A study published in April said the Chinese vaccine proved minimally effective at preventing illness after one dose. With a second jab, it was 67% effective in preventing symptomatic infection, 85% effective in preventing hospitalizations and 80% in preventing deaths.
Draghi also questioned Russia’s Sputnik vaccine.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) had been expected to conclude its review of the Russian jab and issue a decision in May or June. However, approval was delayed because the makers missed a June 10 deadline to submit data, sources told Reuters earlier this month.
“The Russian vaccine Sputnik has never been able to get approval from EMA and perhaps it never will,” Draghi said.
Chileans favored left-leaning independent candidates in electing an assembly that will draft a new constitution, replacing the one imposed in the 1980s during the military dictatorship.
In a major blow to the traditional political forces in Chile, weekend voting for the 155-member constitutional assembly gave 48 seats to independent candidates, most of them identified with leftist ideology, according to official results announced Monday.
The next biggest group was the governing center-right coalition, with 37 seats, and then the Communist Party with 28. Twenty-five seats went to another leftist coalition, and 17 were reserved for Indigenous people.
Two almost simultaneous earthquakes were felt Saturday in the South Shetland Islands in the Antarctica and in central Chile, where buildings shook in the country’s capital. No casualties or damage were immediately reported.
The quake in the South Shetland Islands had a magnitude of 6.9 with a depth of 9.6 kilometers, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, while the earthquake in Chile had a magnitude of 5.8.
Chile’s Interior Ministry said on Twitter the South Shetland Islands quake was 216 kilometers northeast of the country’s O’Higgins scientific base, and called for coastal regions in the Antarctica to be evacuated because of a tsunami risk.
Nigerians have been justifiably confused by conflicting poverty data presented by the Muhammadu Buhari administration and the World Bank. According to Buhari, his administration has lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty within the past two years. But no sooner had he made the statement than the World Bank asserted that inflation has plunged seven million Nigerians into poverty.
These statements might seem to be contradictory to non-economists. But closer analysis suggests that Buhari and the World Bank are right - depending on how poverty is measured.
The first is income or monetary measure of poverty, what economists refer to as the 'headcount index'. It measures the proportion of the population that is poor based on a minimum personal income - for example $1.90 per day. This minimum amount is deemed adequate to maintain an acceptable living standard, given the cost of living in a given country.
Based on this measure, Buhari is right to claim that - by transferring cash to 12 million households during the past five years - a majority of these Nigerians have exceeded the income threshold. Therefore, they have escaped poverty.
The other measure is known as the multidimensional poverty measure. It measures poverty by income, and by the access people have to health, education and living standard indicators. These include sanitation, drinking water, electricity, and housing. It is therefore possible for someone to be regarded as non-poor under Buhari's calculations, but poor when this measure is used.
This is the measure the World Bank appears to be applying. By this measure 47.3% Nigerians, or 98 million people, live in multidimensional poverty. Most of them are located in northern Nigeria. This poverty rate does not include Borno State, where insurgency has prevented data collection.
Aware of this, the Buhari administration has set the very ambitious goal of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030. This is a tall order, considering that another five million more Nigerians are expected to become poor as a result of COVID-19 in 2020.
The administration's cash transfer programme is commendable. But Buhari should turn his focus more on promoting structural transformation. This would move millions of poor Nigerians from low-productivity agricultural and informal-sector activities to high-productivity sectors such as manufacturing, agro-processing, as well as information and communication technologies.
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