Annual inflation in Brazil accelerated to 4.14% in March, pushed higher by rising fuel and food prices, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) reported on Friday. The figure reverses the slowdown recorded in February, when the index had eased to 3.81%.
Learning how to make lavender soap at home is easy. The scent of lavender is so relaxing, you may find you want to keep them for yourself instead of giving them away as gifts as you intended! Just be sure to make extra soap for yourself. Why this project works These DIY lavender soaps are... Go To project
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A federal judge in Rio de Janeiro issued a preliminary injunction suspending the 12% crude oil export tax for five international companies operating in Brazil: Shell, TotalEnergies, Equinor, Repsol Sinopec and Petrogal. The ruling represents an initial court victory for the oil companies in their dispute with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government over a levy they consider unconstitutional.
Cuba has “absolutely no fuel oil and absolutely no diesel”, according to the country’s Energy Minister, Vicente de la O Levy.
His comments, made to state-run media on Wednesday, underline the severity of Cuba’s energy crisis, which has been intensified by a near-total U.S. blockade on fuel imports since January.
The effects of the fuel shortages were felt immediately, with widespread power outages on Wednesday night sparking protests in Havana. Though the protests soon dissipated, large sections of eastern Cuba remained in darkness on Thursday.
While Cuba has domestic reserves of natural gas and crude oil, it lacks the money to maintain or upgrade its refineries, which are necessary to convert high-viscosity crude oil into fuel oil, essential to electricity generation.
“Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel”, Levy implored.
However, Cuba has largely been cut off from international oil imports by the U.S., which threatened to impose tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba and severed Venezuelan oil supplies to the Cuban state.
Despite this, Russia sent an oil tanker to help alleviate the crisis in March and China has also helped Cuba mitigate its reliance on imported fuel by helping install solar parks across the island.
Nevertheless, it is unclear if any country would be willing to provide Cuba with enough oil to sustain its national grid indefinitely. There is also no guarantee that the U.S. would allow new foreign oil imports to arrive.
The U.S. is reportedly considering sending the island a humanitarian aid package worth US$100 million to ease the effect of its own oil blockade of the island, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe visiting Havana yesterday to discuss “intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security issues”.
Ratcliffe is likely the first CIA Director to visit the island since 1953, as the U.S. and Cuba have been staunch geopolitical adversaries since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
Although the two nations are involved in official diplomatic negotiations, tensions between Washington and Havana have been rising dramatically. The North American superpower has repeatedly threatened the Cuban leadership with political regime change and has ratcheted up punitive sanctions against officials and economic entities deemed to be linked to the Cuban regime.
Although the U.S. claims its measures are solely targeted at the Cuban government, the punitive measures have contributed to an economic and humanitarian crisis that is harming many ordinary Cubans, with hospitals, schools and workplaces facing shortened operating hours because of power cuts.
Critics of the Cuban regime, however, argue that the energy shortages and the humanitarian suffering in the Caribbean nation are a result of the political leadership’s authoritarianism, economic mismanagement and corruption.
Featured Image: An oil refinery near Regla, Cuba
Image Credit: Marcel601 via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
The post Cuban energy minister announces country has run out of fuel oil and diesel appeared first on Latin America Reports.
The US-Iran conflict has propelled currencies from energy-exporting countries into the limelight, with windfall profits from exports of oil, gas and metals helping them to outperform the US dollar.
Travel back in time to hear the origin story of Algenesis, which started as two companies in one, a biotechnology innovator and footwear maker. Today, the company is a leading maker of bio-based plastics. In 2023, Algenesis had just begun making a new, sustainable material and found a clever way to prove its utility to get big companies to embrace it. Join the conversation hear why a shoe company was the best a practical application to prove the value of a plant-based, compostable bioplastic foam. Stephen Mayfield, a professor of Biology at UC San Diego and director of the California Center for Algae Biotechnology, invented Soleic, an algae-based rubbery foam material that can be used in footwear, surfboards, and other products in the place of petroleum-based polyurethane foam. He launched Algenesis, a biotechnology-based materials science company to commercialize Soleic.
Note: This article contains affiliate links that help fund our Recycling Directory, the most comprehensive in North America.
But shoe companies did not come running to use Soleic, which biodegrades completely in sea water and compost piles. Along with Algenisis president Tom Cooke, a footwear and apparel industry veteran who had worked for Reef and Vans, Steve launched Blueview Footwear, maker of the world’s first compostable shoe. Steve and Tom join me today to talk about the evolution of Algenesis and Blueview, as well as the many materials Soleic could replace across a variety of product categories. The companies have also developed compostable, plant-based fabrics and a bioplastic waterproofing technology that biodegrades into organic material in a home compost pile. You can learn more about Blueview Footwear at blueviewfootwear.com and its parent company Algenesis Materials at algenesismaterials.com.
Editor’s Note: This podcast originally aired on February 20, 2023.
The post Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Algenesis & Blueview Launch the Algae-Based Polyurethane Industry appeared first on Earth911.
China’s consumer prices ticked up in April as the cost of crude oil rose globally due to the Iran war, official data showed on Monday.
Helped by the surging oil costs, factory gate prices also continued to show signs of recovery, rising for a second straight month after being stuck in negative territory since October 2022.
However, analysts warn deflation is still a threat for the world’s second-largest economy as prices in other sectors continue to fall and overcapacity remains a headache.
China’s consumer price index (CPI), a key measure of inflation, last month rose 1.2 percent year-on-year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
The jump was due to “changes in international crude oil prices and increased demand for holiday travel”, according to Dong Lijuan, chief NBS statistician.
Domestic gas prices rose 19.3 percent on-year, Dong said, impacted by international commodity price fluctuations.
A five-day holiday at the beginning of May also typically sees more travel and spending in the weeks preceding it.
However, last month’s CPI was still well below the government’s two percent target for the year.
The April producer price index (PPI), which measures wholesale inflation, increased by 2.8 percent on-year — up from 0.5 percent in March.
It beat a Bloomberg forecast of 1.8 percent and marked the quickest pace since July 2022, when the PPI rose by 4.2 percent on-year.
The gauge slipped into negative territory that October and did not reverse until March.
“The rise in international crude oil prices drove up prices in domestic petroleum-related sectors,” the NBS’ Dong said in a statement, listing fuel processing and manufacturing of raw materials.
But analysts warn shocks caused by oil blockages in the Middle East are temporary.
“The fallout from the Iran War pushed up inflation again in April but price pressures remain narrow in scope and aren’t likely to build into a wider reflationary impulse”, Capital Economics said in a note.
“(With) overcapacity in most sectors unresolved and domestic demand growth still sluggish, the ingredients for a sustained reflationary impulse still appear to be missing.”
clgkhkrf54 posted a photo:
WPA Photographs of the Great Depression by Dorothea Lange. These images are on file at the Library of Congress under the 8 digit alpha-numeric code at the end of the file name. See: guides.loc.gov/migrant-mother
clgkhkrf54 posted a photo:
WPA Photographs of the Great Depression by Dorothea Lange. These images are on file at the Library of Congress under the 8 digit alpha-numeric code at the end of the file name. See: guides.loc.gov/migrant-mother
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