Month: July 2023

USDA, States Eye Cheaper Food by Targeting Anticompetitive Acts 

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking to lower food prices and boost competition by joining with 31 states and Washington, D.C., to target price fixing and other anticompetitive behavior in the food and agriculture sectors. 

The USDA on Wednesday said it would coordinate with the bipartisan group of attorneys general on antitrust enforcement amid concerns about industry practices. 

Farmers and ranchers have for decades complained of poor prices and unfair contracts from the biggest buyers and processors in the highly consolidated agriculture sector. 

Months of food price inflation, only recently abating, have also raised questions from farm groups and lawmakers about whether companies were artificially hiking prices. 

“We can ensure a more robust and competitive agricultural sector,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement. 

The USDA partnership with states will focus on anticompetitive practices including price fixing and gouging, as well as create new research programs to study the issue, the department said. 

In the coming months, USDA will also finalize new rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act, a century-old antitrust law meant to protect farmers from anticompetitive conduct, a senior administration official said in a call with reporters. 

USDA has already proposed two of three expected rules. 

The agency will also disburse additional grants to expand meat and poultry processing capacity that would increase the number of options for ranchers, the official said. 

President Joe Biden, a Democrat who has pledged to tackle anticompetitive conduct across the economy, is scheduled to meet with Vilsack and other members of his competition council later Wednesday. 
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Yellen Says Pending Rules Won’t ‘Broadly Disrupt’ Investment in China

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week said that if the Biden administration issues expected new rules limiting outbound U.S. investment in China, they will not be highly disruptive to trade between the two countries, and will focus on national security concerns.

“We are looking carefully at outbound investment controls, and they would serve as a complement to the export controls that we have in place, to make sure that we’ve covered all the channels by which technologies can be transferred to China that we think pose national security concerns,” Yellen said.

The rules, expected from the Biden administration sometime this summer, would focus on semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence, the Treasury secretary said. Yellen added that they will be “narrowly scoped” and “would not be broad controls that would affect U.S. investment broadly in China, or in my opinion, have a fundamental impact on affecting the investment climate for China.”

Yellen’s remarks came in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday, from the sidelines of a meeting of the finance ministers of the world’s largest economies in Gandhinagar, India.

Yellen indicated that she had spoken to Chinese officials about the rules, saying, “What I tried to explain to our Chinese counterparts is that our desire is to make these U.S. policies clearly national-security focused, transparent and narrow, and that we’re not attempting to stifle economic progress in China. We have, and want to continue to have, deep economic ties.”

Yellen was careful in her language to suggest that a final decision about whether to issue the outbound investment rules has not been made.

Addition to export controls

The Biden administration’s effort over the past two years to prevent China from obtaining certain technologies, and a years-long effort by the U.S. to block certain Chinese technology firms from participating in essential infrastructure, like 5G broadband systems, have angered China.

Most recently, the administration has put measures in place to block Chinese companies from purchasing cutting-edge microchips and the equipment to manufacture them.

These policies have led to accusations by China that the aim of the U.S. is to block China’s economic progress in order to prevent it from playing a larger role in the global economy and in international relations.

Those concerns were repeated after Yellen’s recent remarks.

China replies

In a press conference on Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning commented on the coming restrictions.

“China opposes U.S. politicizing and weaponizing of trade and tech issues,” she said. “It is in no one’s interest to place arbitrary curbs on normal technology cooperation and trade, violate the market economy principles and destabilize global industrial and supply chains.”

She added, “We hope that the U.S. will follow through on President Biden’s commitment of not seeking to ‘decouple’ from China, halt China’s economic development or contain China and create a sound environment for China-U.S. economic cooperation and trade.”

In her remarks Monday, Yellen stressed the administration’s desire to improve relations with China, saying, “We now have a new economic team in China that we need to establish relationships with. We need to get our relationship back in a more stable place with a floor under it, and try to promote general understanding between our countries.”

Chinese economic woes

In the background of the discussion of U.S. restrictions on outbound investment in China is increasing evidence that the Chinese economy is struggling. Economic growth has slowed sharply, and the yuan has been losing value against other global currencies.

On Monday, official numbers released by Beijing said that the economy had grown by just 0.8% from the end of the first quarter of 2023 through the end of the second quarter, a rate much lower than expected.

Also this week, the country’s troubled real estate conglomerate, Evergrande, revealed that in 2021 and 2022, it lost more than $81 billion, and still carries obligations worth $340 billion, including some $140 billion to raw materials suppliers and many thousands of Chinese who paid in advance for homes that were never built. Evergrande has become a symbol of the country’s deeply troubled real estate sector, which is awash in bad debt.

In her remarks on Monday, Yellen noted China’s struggles, and said that there is some danger of weakness in its economy having an impact around the world.

“China has seen slower growth than they expected upon opening up from COVID,” Yellen said. “Consumer spending has been relatively weak. It looks like consumers are more focused on building back their savings buffers, and so growth has been slow when, as you know, youth unemployment is quite high there.”

She said that she expects a slowdown in China to have only a small impact on the U.S.

“Countries do depend on strong Chinese growth to promote growth in their own economies, particularly countries in Asia, and slow growth in China can have some negative spillover to the United States,” she said. “Our growth is slowed but our labor market continues to be quite strong. I don’t expect a recession.”
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G20 Finance Ministers Meeting in India Ends Without Consensus

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Consensus eluded a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of 20 countries that ended Tuesday in India as members failed to bridge their differences on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We still don’t have a common language on the Russia-Ukraine war,” Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told reporters after the two-day meeting wrapped up in Gandhinagar city without issuing a joint statement.

Instead, India, which is the president of the group this year, issued what is called a chair summary and an outcome document in which it summed up the talks and noted disagreements.

According to the chair summary, China and Russia objected to paragraphs referring to the war that said it was causing “immense human suffering” and “exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy.”

The failure to reach an accord was not unexpected. As the war in Ukraine is a matter of sharp diplomatic differences, India has not been able to forge a consensus document at any of the key G20 events held so far.

Several G20 members also condemned Russia for refusing to extend a deal to allow critical Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea, India’s finance minister said at a press conference.

Several members condemned it saying that shouldn’t have happened,” Sitharaman said. “Food passing through the Black Sea shouldn’t have been stopped or suspended.”

Russia’s quitting the deal has sparked fears about the impact on low-income countries in Asia and Africa, where high food prices already have pushed more people into poverty.  

While India has remained mostly neutral on the Ukraine war, it has expressed concern about the impact of the conflict on developing countries. It said its priority during its presidency is to focus on the need to help nations grappling with a debt crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine conflict.

Sitharaman said members discussed the overall global economic outlook, specifically food and energy issues, climate financing and how to improve assistance to debt-distressed countries. She indicated that progress had been made on key issues.

More than half of all low-income countries are near or in debt distress, twice as many as in 2015, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Before the meeting began, she said that ending the war in Ukraine is “the single best thing we can do for the global economy.”

The chief of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, emphasized the need for a more effective and speedier debt restructuring process at the meeting.

“The costs of delays in reaching agreement on needed debt treatments are borne acutely by borrower countries and their people, who are least able to bear this burden,” she said.

Global growth is slowing and divergence in the economic fortunes of countries was a persistent concern, Georgieva said. “The world today is more shock-prone and fragile, with climate change, pandemics and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine all causing widespread turmoil.”

World Bank President Ajay Banga echoed similar fears. He spoke of “mistrust that is quietly pulling the Global North and South apart at a time when we need to be uniting,” and said that that “lack of progress was in danger of splitting the global economy to the detriment of the world’s poorest.”

India, which wants to emerge as the voice of what it calls the “Global South” has also been urging the G20 to forge a consensus on reforms for multilateral development banks.

A G20 panel has said in a report that international development banks must create a new funding mechanism and triple sustainable lending by 2030 to eliminate poverty and achieve climate goals. It also called for big changes in their operations.

The summit meeting of the G20 is scheduled to be held in September.
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US Communications Commission Hopeful About Artificial Intelligence 

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Does generative artificial intelligence pose a risk to humanity that could lead to our extinction?

That was among the questions put to experts by the head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission at a workshop hosted with the National Science Foundation.

FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she is more hopeful about artificial intelligence than pessimistic. “That might sound contrarian,” she said, given that so much of the news about AI is “dark,” raising questions such as, “How do we rein in this technology? What does it mean for the future of work when we have intelligent machines? What will it mean for democracy and elections?”

The discussion included participants from a range of industries including network operators and vendors, leading academics, federal agencies, and public interest representatives.  

“We are entering the AI revolution,” said National Science Foundation senior adviser John Chapin, who described this as a “once-in-a-generation change in technology capabilities” which “require rethinking the fundamental assumptions that underline our communications.” 

“It is vital that we bring expert understanding of the science of technology together with expert understanding of the user and regulatory issues.” 

Investing in AI 

FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington pointed out that while technology may sometimes give the appearance of arriving suddenly, in many cases it’s a product of a steady but unnoticed evolution decades in the making. He gave the example of ChatGPT as AI that landed seemingly overnight, with dramatic impact. 

“Where the United States has succeeded in technological development, it has done so through a mindful attempt to cultivate and potentiate innovation.”

Lisa Guess, senior vice president of Solutions Engineering at the firm Ericsson/Cradlepoint, expressed concern that her company’s employees could “cut and paste” code into the ChatGPT window to try to perfect it, thereby exposing the company’s intellectual property. ”There are many things that we all have to think through as we do this.” 

Other panelists agreed. “With the opportunity to use data comes the opportunity that the data can be corrupted,” said Ness Shroff, a professor at The Ohio State University who is also an expert on AI. He called for “appropriate guardrails” to prevent that corruption.

FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said AI “has the potential to impact if not transform nearly every aspect of American life.” Because of that potential, everyone, especially in government, shoulders a responsibility to better understand AI’s risks and opportunities. “That is just good governance in this era of rapid technological change.”  

“Fundamental issues of equity are not a side salad here,” he said. “They have to be fundamental as we consider technological advancement. AI has raised the stakes of defending our networks” and ultimately “network security means national security.” 

Digital equity, robocalls 

Alisa Valentin, senior director of technology and telecommunications policy at the civil rights organization the National Urban League, voiced her concerns about the illegal and predatory nature of robocalls. “Even if we feel like we won’t fall victim to robocalls, we are concerned about our family members or friends who may not be as tech savvy,” knowing how robocalls “can turn people’s lives upside down.”

Valentin also emphasized the urgent need to close the digital divide “to make sure that every community can benefit from the digital economy not only as consumers but also as workers and business owners.” 

“Access to communication services is a civil right,” she said. “Equity has to be at the center of everything we do when having conversations about AI.” 

Global competition

FCC Commissioner Simington said global competitors are “really good, and we should assume that they are taking us seriously, so we should protect what is ours.” But regulations to protect the expropriation of American innovation should not go overboard.

“Let’s make sure we don’t give away the store, but let’s not do it by keeping the shelves empty.” 
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Hundreds of Thousands of People Dying From Preventable Heat-Related Causes

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As global warming intensifies and deadly heatwaves spread across the world, becoming the “new normal,” the World Meteorological Organization is calling on governments to adopt heat action plans to protect “hundreds of thousands of people dying from preventable heat-related causes each year.”

WMO’s protective policies incorporate early warning and response systems for urban and nonurban settings that target vulnerable people and critical support infrastructure such as power lines, refrigeration units, roads and rail lines that often buckle under extreme heatwaves.

“Worldwide, more intense and extreme heat is unavoidable,” said John Nairn, senior extreme heat adviser. He said it was imperative to prepare and adapt as cities, homes and workplaces are not built to withstand prolonged high temperatures “and vulnerable people are not sufficiently aware of the seriousness of the risk heat poses to their health and well-being.”

A study published last week in the scientific journal Nature Medicine found more than 60,000 people died in Europe last year from heat-related causes.

Nairn said experts and governments consider this a conservative estimate. “And it is worth noting, those numbers are for Europe, which has some of the strongest early warning systems and heat-health action plans in the world.

“So, you can imagine what the numbers are likely to be globally,” he said.

Heatwaves to be expected

Scientists say global temperatures are at unprecedented levels. While this year’s extensive and intense heatwaves are alarming, they say this should come as no surprise as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been warning of multiple hazards over the next two decades if global temperatures climb 1.5 degrees Celsius or more.

Meteorologists forecast temperatures in North America, Asia, and across North Africa and the Mediterranean will rise above 40 degrees Celsius for a prolonged number of days this week as heat waves intensify.

“These types of events are very concerning and have increased sixfold since the 1980s,” said Nairn.

Minimum temperatures, which are expected to reach new highs, he said, are particularly dangerous for human health because the body is unable to recover from hot days, “leading to increased cases of heart attacks and death.”

“Whilst most of the attention focuses on daytime maximum temperatures, it is the overnight temperatures which have the biggest health risks, especially for vulnerable populations,” he said.  

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies calls heatwaves “an invisible killer.” According to the IFRC World Disasters Report, climate and weather-related disasters have killed more than 400,000 people worldwide in the past 10 years.

Panu Saaristo, IFRC emergency health unit team leader for the Europe region, noted that the continent was experiencing hotter and hotter temperatures for longer stretches of time every summer.

“Seven countries across southern Europe have issued ‘red’ warnings for heat waves for the coming days, with temperatures likely to stay above average into August,” he said, noting that “infants, the elderly and chronic health conditions are at particular risk.”

Causes of heat-related deaths

Saaristo said most heat-related deaths do not occur because of heatstroke, but because of the impact heatwaves have on people with pre-existing conditions.  

“Extreme heat can worsen cardiovascular and respiratory diseases,” although he added that death was not a foregone conclusion.

“Deaths from heat waves can be greatly reduced with relatively simple solutions,” he said. “Red Cross societies around Europe are implementing these simple, low-cost actions all over Europe.”

For example, he said the Italian Red Cross was checking on elderly people by telephone to make sure they were safe from extreme heat. The Portuguese and French Red Cross societies, he said, were sharing practical tips through social media, telling people they must never leave children or animals in parked cars.

He said other potentially lifesaving actions include handing out drinking water so people do not become dehydrated, opening shelters so people can cool off and reminding people impacted by wildfires “to protect themselves from breathing in wildfire smoke, which can aggravate pre-existing health conditions and be dangerous.”

The WMO and IFRC agree that heat is a rapidly growing health risk due to rapid urbanization, increased high temperature extremes and an aging population. The United Nations reports that more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and that this is expected to increase to two-thirds by 2050.

“Now is the time for cities to incorporate heat-reduction measures in their strategy, planning for more green spaces in their cities,” said Saaristo.

The IPCC says limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius instead of 2 degrees Celsius “could result in around 420 million fewer people being frequently exposed to extreme heat waves.”

WMO’s heat adviser Nairn said a major way to address climate change is to “electrify everything. It is a simple way to stop global warming.” 
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WMO Warns of Risk of Heart Attacks, Deaths as Heatwave Intensifies 

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The heatwave engulfing the northern hemisphere is set to intensify this week, causing overnight temperatures to surge and leading to an increased risk of heart attacks and deaths, the World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday.

“Temperatures in North America, Asia, and across North Africa and the Mediterranean will be above 40°C for a prolonged number of days this week as the heatwave intensifies,” the WMO said in a statement.

Overnight minimum temperatures were also set to reach new highs, according to the WMO, creating risks of increased cases of heart attacks and deaths.

“Whilst most of the attention focuses on daytime maximum temperatures, it is the overnight temperatures which have the biggest health risks, especially for vulnerable populations,” the WMO said.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, a researcher specialized in the study of heatwaves said that the high temperatures Europe was experiencing currently were bound to increase.

“The Mediterranean heatwave is big but nothing like what’s been through North Africa,” said John Nairn, Senior Extreme Heat Advisor for WMO. “It’s developing into Europe at this stage.”
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White House Partners With Amazon, Google, Best Buy To Secure Devices From Cyberattacks

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The White House on Tuesday along with companies such as Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet’s Google and Best Buy will announce an initiative that allows Americans to identify devices that are less vulnerable to cyberattacks.

A new certification and labeling program would raise the bar for cybersecurity across smart devices such as refrigerators, microwaves, televisions, climate control systems and fitness trackers, the White House said in a statement.

Retailers and manufacturers will apply a “U.S. Cyber Trust Mark” logo to their devices and the program will be up and running in 2024.

The initiative is designed to make sure “our networks and the use of them is more secure, because it is so important for economic and national security,” said a senior administration official, who did not wish to be named.

The Federal Communications Commission will seek public comment before rolling out the labeling program and register a national trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the White House said.

Other retailers and manufacturers participating in the program include LG Electronics U.S.A., Logitech, Cisco Systems and Samsung.

In March, the White House launched its national cyber strategy that called on software makers and companies to take far greater responsibility to ensure that their systems cannot be hacked.

It also accelerated efforts by agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Defense Department to disrupt activities of hackers and ransomware groups around the world.

Last week, Microsoft and U.S. official said Chinese state-linked hackers secretly accessed email accounts at around 25 organizations, including at least two U.S. government agencies, since May.
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UN Says Childhood Vaccination Rates Improving, But Trail Pre-Pandemic Levels

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The United Nations said Tuesday vaccinations for children have generally rebounded since a drop during the COVID-19 pandemic but warned that vaccination rates in many smaller and poorer countries are not experiencing the same progress.

The U.N. said 20.5 million children missed one or more routine vaccinations in 2022, an improvement from 24.4 million the year before.  In 2019, before the pandemic hit worldwide, that figure was 18.4 million.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the overall figures “encouraging,” but said global and regional numbers “mask severe and persistent inequities.”

“When countries and regions lag, children pay the price,” he said.

The U.N. said 73 countries saw substantial declines in child vaccination rates during the pandemic, and that 34 of those countries have seen their rates either fail to improve or get worse.

Rates for measles vaccines followed the larger global trend, with 83% of children receiving a first does during their first year of life in 2022, improving from 81% in 2021 but not reaching the 86% level achieved before the pandemic.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Turkey Quake Survivors’ Latest Menace: Dust

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The excavator tore into the remnants of the damaged building in southeast Turkey, bringing it crashing down into a cloud of dust — the latest menace facing survivors of the deadly February quake that ravaged the region.

Extending to the horizon, a cocoon of fine grey dust envelops the city of Samandag in the south of Hatay province, devastated by the February 6 earthquake that killed more than 55,000 people and laid waste to parts of Turkey and Syria.

“We survived the earthquake, but this dust will kill us,” Michel Atik, founder and president of the Samandag Environmental Protection Association, said. “We are going to die of respiratory diseases and lung cancer with all these hazardous materials.”

Five months after the quake, the scale of cleanup and reconstruction is enormous, with the government estimating that nearly 2.6 million buildings have been destroyed.

According to the UN Environment Programme, some 210 million tonnes of rubble must be disposed of.

By comparison, some 1.8 million tonnes of rubble had to be hauled away after the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City that brought down the World Trade Center skyscrapers.

Environmental activists and local residents worry that in the rush to clean up and rebuild, crucial safety measures are being ignored, with potentially adverse effects on the health of local residents, the environment and the economy.

Landfills

The landfill near Samandag is one of several that have been set up in this province bordering Syria. It lies next to the Mediterranean and the Milleyha natural bird reserve, which is natural bird reserve, which is a nesting site for endangered green sea turtles.

Another landfill, in the Antakya region, lies near a valley of olive trees at the foot of the Nur Mountains. With olive oil the primary source of income in the province, there are fears that the dump could harm the trees.

“They don’t even hose it down,” said Cagdas Can, 33, an environmental activist with the Reconstruct group, as he watched trucks filled with debris leave Samandag toward the huge open-air landfill that lies next to one of Turkey’s longest beaches.

“There were other possible sites. … But the companies that won the tenders (for clearing) chose here to save fuel,” said Can.

“All they care about it recovering the iron and the metal,” he said.

“Nobody wears a mask. The demolition sites are not covered or hosed down and neither are the holds of the trucks, as required by law,” he said.

Can said that his environmental organization had tried to stop the trucks by forming human chains, “but the police intervened. Eighteen people were arrested, and I had my collarbone broken,” he said.

The exhausted local population, faced with a myriad of problems after the quake, has not mobilized, he said, but they are as worried as the conservationists about the impact of the cleanup.

Hidden hazards

“The children are the first to be affected, they cough a lot, so do we. As soon as it’s windy, everything is covered in dust,” said Mithat Hoca, 64, who sells vegetables at a stall in central Samandag.

“We have to cover everything,” said Mehmet Yazici, a 61-year-old retiree who passed by on a scooter. “We wipe the table 15 to 20 times a day. You have to do it every half hour.”

Ali Kanatli, a doctor in Antakya, some 26 kilometers (16 miles) away from Samandag, has already seen cases of “conjunctivitis, allergies, asthma, bronchitis.”

But above all, he worries about the long-term effects, like an increase in cancers, that the hazardous materials in the rubble and dust could cause in the region.

Turkey did not ban asbestos until 2013 and most of the buildings affected by the quake are older, he said.

“In addition to asbestos, we have lead in paint, heavy metals including mercury in electronic equipment such as televisions, household appliances,” he said.
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Vanishing Whale’s Decline Worse Than Previously Thought

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A review of the status of a vanishing species of whale found that the mammal’s population is in worse shape than previously thought, federal ocean regulators said Monday.

The North Atlantic right whale numbers less than 350, and it has been declining in population for several years. The federal government declared the whale’s decline an “unusual mortality event,” which means an unexpected and significant die-off, in 2017.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released new data that 114 of the whales have been documented as dead, seriously injured or sub-lethally injured or sick — since the start of the mortality event. That is an increase of 16 whales since the previous estimate released earlier this year.

The agency recently completed a review of the whales using photographs from researchers and surveys to create the new estimate, said Andrea Gomez, a spokesperson for NOAA.

“Additional cases will continue to be reviewed, and animals will be added if appropriate, as more information is obtained,” Gomez said.

Thirty-six of the 114 whales included in the estimate had died, NOAA documents state. The agency cautioned that only about a third of right whale deaths are documented, so the total number of dead or injured animals could be much higher.

Right whales are found off the Atlantic coast of the U.S. They are vulnerable to collisions with large ships and entanglement in commercial fishing gear. The federal government has worked to craft stricter rules to protect the whales from both threats.

Commercial fishing and shipping interests have both vowed to fight stricter protections. A federal appeals court sided with fishermen last month after they filed a complaint that proposed new restrictions could put them out of business.

The new data illustrate how dire the situation is for the whales, said Sarah Sharp, an animal rescue veterinarian with International Fund for Animal Welfare. The number of injured animals is especially significant because injured whales are less likely to reproduce, Sharp said.

“If animals are putting energy into healing from a wound, they are not necessarily going to have those energy stores for other things,” Sharp said. “I think this just paints a much more accurate picture of the threats these whales are facing.”

The whales give birth off Florida and Georgia and feed off New England and Canada. They have been protected under the Endangered Species Act for decades, and federal authorities ruled in December that they must retain that protection.
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Norway Threatens $100,000 Daily Fine on Meta Over Data

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Norway’s data protection agency said Monday it would ban Facebook and Instagram owner Meta from using the personal information of users for targeted advertising, threatening a $100,000 daily fine if the company continues. 

The business practices of big U.S. tech firms are under close scrutiny across Europe over concerns about privacy, with huge fines handed out in recent years. 

The Norwegian watchdog, Datatilsynet, said Meta uses information such as the location of users, the content they like and their posts for marketing purposes. 

“The Norwegian Data Protection Authority considers that the practice of Meta is illegal and is therefore imposing a temporary ban of behavioural advertising on Facebook and Instagram,” it said in a statement.  

The ban will begin on August 4 and last three months to give Meta time to take corrective measures. The company will be fined one million kroner ($100,000) per day if it fails to comply.  

“We will analyze the decision … but there is no immediate effect on our services,” Meta told AFP in a statement. 

The Norwegian regulator added that its ruling was neither a ban on Facebook and Instagram operating in the country nor a blanket ban on behavioral advertising. 

The Austrian digital privacy campaign group noyb, which has lodged a number of complaints against Meta’s activities, said it “welcomes this decision as a first important step” and hopes data regulators in other countries will follow suit. 

Meta suffered a major setback earlier this year when European regulators dismissed the legal basis Meta had used to justify gathering users’ personal data for use in targeted advertising. 

Meta suffered another major setback earlier this month when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected its various workarounds and empowered antitrust regulators to take data privacy issues into account when conducting investigations. 
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Comprehensive Sex Education Remains Controversial in the Philippines 

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Jomarie Oliva, 33, led an afternoon workshop with 10 teenagers on topics that many in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines consider taboo. The conversation included the reasons that some teens have sex.

“Out of curiosity?” Oliva asked the group? “For pleasure,” responded one of the teens, while the rest of the group laughed.

Later, Oliva talked about the responsibilities of parenthood as well as different types of birth control, including “abstinence, pills, condoms, IUDs, implants, injectables,” she said, before explaining each one.

Oliva is a community mobilizer for Likhaan Center for Women’s Health, a non-government organization that works on reproductive health, access to contraceptives and sex education.

In some countries, in-depth classroom discussions about sex and contraceptives are common for teenagers, but not in the Philippines. “Not every student gets sex education in schools,” Oliva told VOA. “You don’t always learn all the ways to protect yourself from unplanned pregnancies, how to use condoms and other contraceptives.”

Advocates for comprehensive sex education say the lack of lessons for many youths is one of the reasons one out of 10 births in the Philippines is by a mother younger than 19.

Government data reports the number of females ages 15 to 19 who became pregnant during the previous five years fell from 8.6% in 2017 to 5.4% in 2022. Health advocates, however, say they are very concerned that about 2,300 girls ages 10 to 14 gave birth in 2021.

“There are teens who don’t know that a woman can get pregnant the first time she has sex,” Oliva says. “Some kids think a girl needs to have sex multiple times to get pregnant.”

Oliva holds workshops in community centers and neighborhood gathering spots in metropolitan Manila. At a recent session, 17-year-old Hanah Ilajas listened carefully. Ilajas said this was first time anyone explained to her how birth control pills work.

“I’ve heard about pills before, but I only really learned about them now,” she said, adding that in school, her teachers don’t discuss contraceptives. “It’s just not something that really comes up.”

Sex education and access to contraceptives are controversial subjects in the Philippines, where the Catholic Church holds significant influence on a population that’s about 80% Catholic. The church fought a reproductive health law, passed in December 2012, that expanded sex education in public schools and made contraceptives available for free at public health clinics. Minors, however, can only legally access contraceptives with parental approval.

The Rev. Jerome Secillano, a spokesperson for the Catholics Bishops Conference of the Philippines, says teaching people about contraceptives might encourage them to use them. The Catholic Church advocates only for natural birth control methods and Secillano says for teens, the only one that should be encouraged is abstinence.

“We start by telling them that sex should be done not outside the marriage but inside the marriage,” Secillano said. “Secondly, do not use contraceptives, do not use pills, do not use condoms and thirdly, you need to preserve your body. You’re still young and sexual intercourse is not for your biological age.”

Erickson Bernardo, a youth advocacy officer for Likhaan, believes complete education for teens on all forms of birth control, including pills and condoms, is important. “You don’t actually encourage them to have sex, but basically you allow them to make responsible decisions,” Bernardo said.

Bernardo and other advocates for comprehensive sex education say in reality, many teens still aren’t getting these lessons in schools. Although the reproductive health law was passed in late 2012, it took the Department of Education more than five years to issue guidelines for comprehensive sexuality education. According to Bernardo, it still faces resistance

“There are some school administrators who are willing to adopt comprehensive sexuality education so long as not in their schools,” Bernardo said. The Department of Education did not answer questions, sent in writing from VOA, about implementation of comprehensive sexuality education.

Bernardo and Oliva say while the pace is slow, gradually more schools are teaching students about all methods of birth control. Both, however, say the issue also has roots in the home.

“Parents often shy away from having reproductive health discussions with their children,” Oliva said. “In some cases, it’s because it makes them uncomfortable and sometimes, they don’t have enough knowledge themselves.”

Seventeen-year-old Hanah Ilajas said participating in Oliva’s workshop was time well spent.

“It helped me understand things better,” she said.
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Comprehensive Sex Education Remains Controversial in the Philippines

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In the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, a debate is raging over whether to teach teenagers about contraceptives. Comprehensive sex education is required in public schools but not all schools are following through. Dave Grunebaum has the story.
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UK Watchdog Proposes Applying ‘Consumer Duty’ to Social Media

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Britain’s financial watchdog on Monday proposed toughening up safeguards against the illegal marketing of financial products on social media by applying a stringent “consumer duty” that is being rolled out to banks, funds and insurers on July 31.

The Financial Conduct Authority has said its new duty will be a step change in protecting retail investors after years of mis-selling scandals, by forcing firms to demonstrate how they are giving consumer good outcomes.

“Where applicable, the Consumer Duty will raise our expectations of firms communicating financial promotions on social media above the requirement… to be ‘clear, fair and not misleading’,” the FCA said in proposals out to public consultation.

“Firms advertising using social media must consider how their marketing strategies align with acting to deliver good outcomes for retail customers.”

In the fourth quarter of last year, nearly 70% of amended or withdrawn financial marketing following FCA intervention involved a promotion on websites or social media, the FCA said.

The watchdog is targeting so-called ‘finfluencers’ or widely followed people on social media who promote financial products.

“Consumers exhibit high levels of trust in finfluencers, but their advice can often be misleading,” the FCA said.

“Promoting a regulated financial product or service without approval of an FCA authorized person, or providing financial advice without FCA authorisation, may be a criminal offense.”

Promotions should also include risk warnings, it added.
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China’s Economy Misses Growth Forecasts, Raising the Odds of More Support for Its Tepid Recovery

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China’s economic growth missed forecasts in the second quarter of the year, adding to worries over surging youth unemployment and a weak property sector and raising the likelihood the government will double down on support for the faltering post COVID-19 recovery.

The world’s second largest economy grew at a 6.3% annual pace in the April-June quarter, much slower than the 7% plus growth analysts had forecast given the anemic pace of activity the year before.

Unemployment of youths aged 16 to 24 rose to a record 21.3% in June, up from 20.8% the month before.

Investment in property development, a vital driver of both industrial and consumer demand, sank 7.9% in the first half of the year compared to a year earlier in a troubling sign of persisting weakness in an industry that slowed even before the pandemic as the government moved to rein in excessive borrowing.

Officials have acknowledged that the economy is facing stiff headwinds, but said they expected growth to still reach the ruling Communist Party’s official target for this year of about 5%.

The government will adjust policies to stabilize growth, National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui said at a news conference Monday.

Quarterly growth, the usual measure for other major economies, was 0.8%, according to government data released Monday, in line with expectations but down sharply from 2.2% in January-June.

Analysts have been far less optimistic than the Chinese government about the outlook for the year, given weakening demand for Chinese exports in other major economies.

The numbers are a “worrying result,” said Moody’s Analytics economist Harry Murphy Cruise.

“China’s recovery is going from bad to worse,” he said. “After a sugar injection in the opening months of 2023, the pandemic hangover is plaguing China’s recovery.”

Government spending is likely to help key industries like real estate and construction, but won’t be a “silver bullet,” he said in a commentary.

The 6.3% growth in China’s gross domestic product from April to June outpaced a 4.5% expansion in the previous quarter.

The still robust growth is largely due to the economy growing just 0.4% a year earlier in April-June of 2022 amid strict lockdowns in Shanghai and other cities during COVID-19 outbreaks.

Apart from more government spending, regulators may cut interest rates and take other measures to free up credit, Marcella Chow, global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management wrote in a report.

“The weak economic readings suggest an urgency in escalating policy support so as to stabilize expectations,” Chow said.

Earlier this year, growth was boosted as people flocked to shopping malls and restaurants after nearly three years of “zero-COVID” restrictions were removed in late 2022.

The government’s growth target of “around 5%” was seen as a conservative goal. It can only be met if the economy maintains close to its current level of growth.

Data released earlier showed exports declined 12.4% in June from a year earlier as global demand faltered after central banks in U.S. and Europe raised interest rates to curb inflation.

Retail sales, an indicator of consumer demand, in June rose 3.1% from the same period in 2022. That’s seen as a strong point, but not strong enough, analysts said.

Industrial output, which measures activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors, beat analyst’s expectations, rising by 4.4% in June compared to the same month a year earlier.

China’s policymakers are not having to fight inflation, but may end up having to contend with its opposite, deflation, or falling prices due to weak demand. In recent months, the authorities have tried to spur lending and spending, with mixed success.

Fixed-asset investment — spending on factory equipment, construction and other infrastructure projects to drive growth — rose by a still tepid 3.8% for the first half of 2023 compared to the same period of 2022.
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Canadian Wildfires’ Smoke Creates Unhealthy Conditions in Large Swath of US

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency posted air quality alerts Sunday for several states stretching from Montana to Ohio because of smoke blowing in from Canadian wildfires.

“Air Quality alerts are in place for much of the Great Lakes, Midwest, and northern High Plains,” the National Weather Service said. “This is due to the lingering thick concentration of Canadian wildfire smoke over these regions. While the concentration of smoke in the atmosphere should begin to wane by Monday, there is still enough smoke to support unhealthy air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups in parts of these regions into the start of the upcoming week.”

The U.S. EPA’s AirNow air quality page rated the air in Chicago as “unhealthy” as of 9 a.m. CDT Sunday. And in Michigan, state environmental officials said the air “is unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services advised people in the state to check the Air Quality Index regularly to decide if they should be participating in outdoor activities.

The Indianapolis Office of Sustainability issued a Knozone Action Day for Sunday, saying people throughout central Indiana should avoid time spent outdoors as much as possible, especially active children, the elderly, anyone who is pregnant, and those with asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), emphysema, heart disease or COVID-19. Sensitive groups should remain indoors Sunday and refrain from activities that degrade indoor air quality, including burning candles and vacuuming.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Sunday that unhealthy air from the wildfires in Canada was expected to hit parts of New York state again Monday, mostly in the northern and western parts of the state. She said the air quality index was forecast to be 100 to 150 in those areas, when 0 to 50 is the norm. Her comments came at a news conference about heavy rain and flooding.

“As if the rain coming out of the sky isn’t enough, if you start looking up tomorrow, you’re going to see a similar situation to what we had a couple of weeks ago because of the air quality degradation resulting from the wildfires in Canada,” she said. “We’re likely to be issuing [an] air quality alert for portions of our state. It seems to be projected to be mostly around western New York and the North Country at this time. But as we saw, it can shift very quickly and start developing in more populated areas.”

Health officials have recommended people can stay safe by taking steps such as wearing a mask, staying indoors and keeping indoor air clean.
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US Treasury Chief: Ukraine Aid Is the Best Boost for Global Economy

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Redoubling support for war-stricken Ukraine is the “single best” way to aid the global economy, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday, along with boosting emerging economies and tackling debt distress.Yellen also said on the sidelines of a G20 finance ministers’ summit in India she would “push back” on criticism there was a tradeoff between aid to Ukraine and developing nations.

 

“Ending this war is first and foremost a moral imperative,” she told reporters in Gandhinagar. “But it’s also the single best thing we can do for the global economy.”

Yellen also pointed to efforts to tackle debt distress faced by struggling economies, bank reform and a global tax deal, and warned it was “premature” to talk of lifting tariffs on China.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — both countries are global breadbaskets that together exported almost a quarter of the world’s wheat supply — triggered shockwaves in economies worldwide by sending prices for food and fuel shooting up.

Japan’s Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki, speaking after a G7 meeting of ministers, “reconfirmed the G7’s unshakeable support” to Ukraine.

“We confirmed that Russia-owned assets that are under the G7’s supervision would not be transferred until Russia pays damages to Ukraine,” Suzuki said, adding that Moscow should also “pay long-term reconstruction costs.”

Any discussion on Ukraine is awkward for G20 host India, which has not condemned Russia’s invasion but is also part of the Quad grouping alongside Australia, the United States and Japan.

Yellen also cited debt restructuring progress in Zambia, which she discussed with Chinese officials in Beijing last week, and said she expected Ghana and Sri Lanka debt treatments would be finalized soon.

She said it was still too soon to lift restrictions placed on China during a trade war launched by former U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Tariffs were put in place because we had concerns with unfair trade practices on China’s side, and our concerns with those practices remain, they really haven’t been addressed,” Yellen said. “Perhaps over time this is an area where we could make progress, but I’d say it is premature to use this as an area for de-escalation.”

Yellen pointed to other work tackling debt distress and the reform of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank and other regional lenders, in efforts she said could unlock $200 billion over the next decade.

More than half of all low-income countries are near or in debt distress, double the case in 2015, she said.

G20 finance chiefs and central bank heads are due to meet Monday and Tuesday in Gandhinagar in Gujarat, the state where India’s independence leader Mahatma Gandhi was born.

World Bank chief Ajay Banga warned of a “deep mistrust… quietly pulling the Global North and South apart” over issues such as the climate change crisis, post-pandemic recovery efforts, the war in Ukraine and a lack of progress in the fight against poverty.

“The Global South’s frustration is understandable,” Banga said in an op-ed. “In many ways they are paying the price for the prosperity of others. When they should be ascendant, they’re concerned promised resources will be diverted to Ukraine’s reconstruction; they feel aspirations are being constrained because energy rules aren’t applied universally, and they’re worried a burgeoning generation will be locked into a prison of poverty.”

The International Monetary Fund said finding common efforts to tackle the weak global economy would be crucial.

The world will be looking for joint action to address rising economic fragmentation, slowing growth, and high inflation,” the IMF said in a statement ahead of the meeting.

The G20 will also discuss cryptocurrency regulations, as well as making access to financing to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change easier for developing nations.”In the Global North, climate change means emissions reductions,” Banga said.  

“But in the Global South, it is a matter of survival, because hurricanes are stronger, heat-resistant seeds are in short supply, drought is destroying farms and towns, and floods are washing away decades of progress.”

A newly agreed first step on a fairer distribution of tax revenues from multinational firms reached by 138 countries Wednesday is also set to be delivered during the G20 talks.
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‘We Cannot Work’ — Why Gulf Summer Feels Even Hotter Than Usual

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As much of the world swelters in record temperatures, spare a thought for Issam Genedi, who ekes out a living washing cars in one of the planet’s hottest regions, the Gulf.

Pausing from his work at an outdoor carpark in Dubai, the Egyptian migrant says the United Arab Emirates’ furnace-like summer feels even hotter this year. 

“This summer is a little more difficult than other years,” says Genedi, who shines cars for about 25 dirhams ($6.80) a time in temperatures that pass 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) each day. 

“Between noon and 3 p.m. or 3:30 p.m., we simply cannot work.”

The oil-rich UAE — host of this year’s COP28 United Nations climate talks, where the world will try to sharpen its response to global warming — is no stranger to unbearable summers.

In the blistering summer months, those who can decamp to cooler climes, or stay cocooned inside air-conditioned homes, offices and shopping malls.

The streets are largely deserted, apart from laborers hired cheaply from abroad. Many manual workers have a compulsory rest period in the hottest hours of the day.

It’s a similar story all around the energy-rich desert region. In Bahrain, an island nation off Saudi Arabia, July average temperatures threaten to beat the record of 42.1C (107.8F) set in 2017.

Two weeks ago, more than 1.8 million Muslims battled through a days-long hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in temperatures up to 48C (118F), with thousands treated for heat stress.

And in Kuwait, which regularly records some of the world’s highest temperatures, experts warn the mercury could pass a formidable 50C (122F) in the coming weeks. 

Where ‘real feel’ is 60C

Genedi is right that this summer seems unusually hot. Apart from last week being identified as the hottest ever recorded worldwide, a wave of humidity has been suffocating the Gulf.

“People have been left wondering if the temperatures are even higher” than usual, Ahmed Habib of the UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology told AFP. 

“An increase in relative humidity … combined with already high temperatures, makes the temperature seem higher than it really is,” he said, adding that “real-feel” temperatures have ranged between 55-60C (131-140 F) in some areas.

The Gulf’s extreme heat and high humidity are a dangerous mix because, in such conditions, the human body struggles to cool itself by evaporating sweat on the skin.

The combination is measured by a thermometer wrapped in a wet cloth to calculate the “wet bulb temperature” — the lowest possible through evaporative cooling.

The Gulf is one of the few places to have repeatedly measured wet bulb temperatures above 35C (95F), the threshold of human survivability beyond which heat stress can be fatal within hours, regardless of age, health and fitness.

It is for this reason that experts warn accelerated climate change will make parts of the Gulf region unliveable by the end of this century.

In Kuwait, meteorologist Issa Ramadan said “the increase in temperature over the past year has been significant.”

“It is expected that from the middle of the month until August 20 there will be a noticeable rise in temperatures that may reach and even exceed 50C (122F) in the shade,” he told AFP.

Humidity could top 90% in Bahrain by the end of the week, with maximum temperatures ranging between 42-44C (108-111F), according to official forecasts.

‘Our profession is difficult’

Gulf temperatures will rise to disruptive levels if global warming is left unchecked, according to projections by Barrak Alahmad of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Dominic Roye of the Foundation for Climate Research. 

In the UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi, the number of 40C-plus (104F-plus) days will rise by 98% by 2100 if global temperatures increase by 3C, according to the findings published in June by Vital Signs, a coalition of rights groups working on migrant laborer deaths in the Gulf. 

The same 3C global increase will see Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia experiencing 180 days of 40C-plus temperatures a year by the end of the century, it said.

“These conditions could seriously disrupt human societies in ways we are just beginning to understand,” Alahmad told the Vital Signs Partnership.

Intense heat and humidity is already a daily reality for many in the Gulf, not least the thousands of mostly South Asian delivery motorcyclists who crisscross its cities carrying food and other packages. 
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Musk Says Twitter Is Losing Cash Because Advertising Is Down and the Company Is Carrying Heavy Debt

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Elon Musk says Twitter is still losing cash because advertising has dropped by half.

In a reply to a tweet offering business advice, Musk tweeted Saturday, “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load.”

“Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he concluded.

Ever since he took over Twitter in a $44 billion deal last fall, Musk has tried to reassure advertisers who were concerned about the ouster of top executives, widespread layoffs and a different approach to content moderation. Some high-profile users who had been banned were allowed back on the site.

In April, Musk said most of the advertisers who left had returned and that the company might become cash-flow positive in the second quarter.

In May, he hired a new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, an NBCUniversal executive with deep ties to the advertising industry.

But since then, Twitter has upset some users by imposing new limits on how many tweets they can view in a day, and some users complained that they were locked out of the site. Musk said the restrictions were needed to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.

Twitter got a new competitor this month when Facebook owner Meta launched a text-focused app, Threads, and gained tens of millions of sign-ups in a few days. Twitter responded by threatening legal action.
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Bargain-Hunting Uruguayans Flock to Argentina as its Peso Slides

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On a recent cross-border shopping trip, four friends from Fray Bentos, Uruguay, visited the nearby Argentine city of Gualeguaychú, where they could afford to live lavishly and snap up eye-popping bargains.

Thanks to a huge disparity in the two South American countries’ currencies, Stella Ferreira and a friend treated themselves to a low-cost pampering at a hair salon, while two other friends looked for stylish but inexpensive pants.

With its economy faltering, Argentina’s peso has plunged against the U.S. dollar and its annual inflation is 115.6%, one of the highest rates in the world. In contrast, Uruguay’s economy is more stable, with low inflation and a stronger currency.

The result has been a huge flow of shoppers from Uruguay throwing an economic lifeline to struggling Argentine stores and restaurants in cities like Gualeguaychú, Concordia and Colón.

But there’s a downside for Uruguayan businesses along the border: In the provinces of Salto, Paysandú, Río Negro and Soriano, municipal authorities say 170 stores closed in the first five months of this year. Businesses still open complain they hardly have any customers.

With about $100 apiece, the four friends planned to get their hair done, buy clothing, gasoline and other goods and eat out in Gualeguaychú, in Entre Rios province, which for more than a year has been a shopping mecca for Uruguayans looking for deals. Back in Uruguay, Ferreira, 29, said that same $100 would “get your hair done and not much else.”

Uruguayan businesses just across the border are finding it hard to compete with such bargains.

“Everything is very quiet,” said Susana Guerrero, owner of a shop that sells cheese and sweets in Salto. “I lost an employee, and I did not replace him.”

Guerrero went to Gualeguaychú on an exploratory trip and now sees why Uruguayans are going there to shop. The price differences between the two countries can be staggering. A liter of sunflower oil that costs $5 in Uruguay is 50 cents in Argentina. A jar of skin-care cream that costs $10 in Uruguay can be had for a dollar across the border. And a liter of gasoline in Uruguay is close to $2. In the Argentine province of Entre Rios it is 52 cents.

“Yes, it’s cheap and we can’t fight it,” Guerrero said.

Fray Bentos storefronts, meanwhile, are covered with signs offering specials in a bid to attract customers.

“This year, sales have dropped by 40% or more,” said Alicia Nedor, who works in a pharmacy. She said the sector is seeing its worst crisis in decades.

Nedor, 70, said several small businesses have closed in Fray Bentos and the big ones have laid off staff.

Cross-border bargain hunters also hail from neighboring Chile, Paraguay and Brazil. In Uruguay, industry representatives have called the phenomenon a “border pandemic” and even the country’s president has acknowledged the problem.

“The prices of goods in Argentina are extremely cheap, and naturally its neighbors consume where it is cheaper for them,” President Luis Lacalle Pou said in early May. “This creates an imbalance. We have applied measures, but it is not enough.”

The government then introduced additional measures, including tax breaks for Uruguayan businesses and a 5-kilogram limit on what Uruguayans returning from Argentina can bring with them. But business leaders say the controls are not applied and are demanding a “zero-kilo” border policy, something that Lacalle Pou has rejected.

Lacalle Pou said the government will seek to make sure contraband doesn’t cross the border but added that “it is impossible to solve the exchange rate problem with Argentina.”

The Catholic University of Uruguay has developed a Border Price Indicator for the Argentine city of Concordia, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Gualeguaychú. According to its latest data from May, it is 59% cheaper to buy a basket of food, drinks, clothing and household products in Concordia than in the Uruguayan town of Salto.

The price gap reflects the devaluation of the Argentine peso, which has lost 47% of its value against the U.S. dollar at the official rate so far this year.

Argentina has struggled with inflation multiple times over the last century. Its current crisis started in 2018 but has worsened in the past year and a half, said María Castiglioni, director of C&T Asesores Económicos. The inflation problem arose from several factors, she said, including government overspending and problems in monetary policy.

The country doesn’t have funds to solve its overspending because it has lost access to the international debt market after multiple defaults on its loans. The loss of access means other countries do not feel confident lending money to Argentina.

As this debt crisis arose, the government turned to the country’s central bank for assistance. In an effort to sustain the economy, the central bank hasn’t stopped printing pesos, which has led to the devaluing of the peso. The increase in the flow of pesos also led to ballooning inflation that Argentinians experience every day.

On holidays and weekends, long lines of cars wait to cross the General San Martín International Bridge that crosses the Uruguay River and joins Argentina’s Gualeguaychú with Fray Bentos in Uruguay.

Between June 30 and July 4, which included the first days of the southern winter vacation for Uruguayans, more than 100,000 people left Uruguay for Argentina, most of them through the three border crossings in Entre Ríos. The majority were Uruguayans, although there were other nationalities. Uruguay has a population of about 3.4 million people.

Claudio Gatt, who owns the hair salon Ferreira and her friends went to, said that the flow of Uruguayans into Argentina has been like oxygen.

“If they were not here, sales would drop by a minimum of 50%,” he said.

Signs reading “dollars accepted” hang in store windows in Gualeguaychú and its main streets are filled with visitors from different parts of Uruguay. Half of the purchases of medicines and cleaning supplies in the city are by Uruguayans, according to a local business chamber.

For Alejandro Ramos, a 49-year-old Argentine teacher who lives in Gualeguaychú, the problem is not the Uruguayans, because “they come and buy legally.”

The problem “is us,” he said. “We first have to realize that we are an economic disaster in this country.”
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