Day: February 19, 2019

Pyongyang is upgrading its overcrowded mass transit system with brand new subway cars, trams and buses in a campaign meant to show leader Kim Jong Un is raising the country’s standard of living. 

 The long-overdue improvements, while still modest, are a welcome change for the North Korean capital’s roughly 3 million residents, who have few options to get to work or school each day. 

First came new, high-tech subway cars and electric trolleybuses — each announced by the media with photos of Kim personally conducting the final inspection tours. Now, officials say three new electric trams are running daily routes across Pyongyang. 

Transport officials say the capacity of the new trams is about 300, sitting and standing. Passengers must buy tickets in shops beforehand and put them in a ticket box when they get on. The flat fare is a dirt cheap 5 won (US$ .0006) for any tram, trolleybus, subway or regular bus ride on the public transport system. The Pyongyang Metro has a ticket-card system and the Public Transportation Bureau is considering introducing something similar on the roads as well. 

Private cars are rare

Privately owned cars are scarce in Pyongyang. Taxis are increasingly common but costly for most people. Factory or official-use vehicles are an alternative, when available, as are bicycles. Motorized bikes imported from China are popular, while scooters and motorcycles are rare.

The subway, with elaborate stations inspired by those in Soviet Moscow and dug deep enough to survive a nuclear attack, runs at three- to five-minute intervals, depending on the hour. Officials say it transports about 400,000 passengers on weekdays. But its two lines, with 17 stations, operate only on the western side of the Taedong River, which runs through the center of the city.

“The subway is very important transportation for our people,” subway guide Kim Yong Ryon said in a recent interview with The AP. “There are plans to build train stations on the east side of the river, but nothing has started yet.”

The lack of passenger cars on Pyongyang’s roads has benefits. Traffic jams are uncommon and, compared to Beijing or Seoul, the city has refreshingly clean, crisp air. Electric trams, which run on rails, and electric trolleybuses, which have wheels, are relatively green transport options. 

Crowded and slow

But mass transit in Pyongyang can be slow and uncomfortable. 

The tram system, in particular, is among the most crowded in the world. 

Swarms of commuters cramming into trams are a common sight during the morning rush hour, which is from about 6:00 to 8:30. Getting across town can take about an hour.

Pyongyang’s tram system has four lines. In typical North Korean fashion, one is devoted to taking passengers to and from the mausoleum where the bodies of national founder Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il, lie in state.

The city’s red-and-white trams look familiar to many eastern Europeans. In 2008, the North bought 20 used trams made by the Tatra company, which produced hundreds of them when Prague was still the capital of socialist Czechoslovakia.

North Korea squeezes every last inch out of its fleet. 

Red stars are awarded for every 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) driven without an accident, and it’s not unusual to see trams with long lines of red stars stenciled across their sides. One seen in operation in Pyongyang last month had 12 — that’s 600,000 kilometers (372,800 miles), or the equivalent of about 15 trips around the Earth’s circumference.

The numbers work

Impossible as that might seem, the math works.

Ri Jae Hong, a representative of the Capital Public Transportation Bureau, told an AP television news crew the main tram route, from Pyongyang Station in the central part of town to the Mangyongdae district, is 21 kilometers from end to end. He said a tram might do the full route there and back on average six times a day. 

By that reckoning, it would take just over 198 days of actual driving to win that first red star. 
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Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Monday fired one of his most senior aides and cabinet members, Gustavo Bebianno, amid a scandal involving campaign financing for some of his party’s congressional candidates.

Bebianno was secretary general of the president’s office.

His departure punctuated Bolsonaro’s first cabinet crisis since he took office on Jan. 1 and has cast a shadow over the young government’s plans.

Brazilian markets fell on Monday as investors feared that the brewing scandal could hurt Bolsonaro’s ability to pass a pension overhaul seen as key to fiscal and economic recovery.

In a short video clip released late on Monday, Bolsonaro said he took the decision to dismiss Bebianno due to “differences of opinion on important issues,” although he did not elaborate.

Bebianno, who helped coordinate government affairs and was acting president of Bolsonaro’s right-wing Social Liberal Party for the election campaign last year, denies any wrongdoing.

Analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note on Monday, before Bebianno was dismissed, that the scandal is unlikely to dent Bolsonaro’s approval ratings. Despite the dubious optics, the president can claim to be taking a tough stand against an aide accused of illicit activity.

But the timing could not be worse. Days before unveiling its landmark pension reform proposal, the government is mired in scandal, even if it is one that probably will not have much lasting impact on the administration or pension reform.

“It is indicative, however, of a political team in disarray,” they wrote, adding that everything points to “an end result that will probably lead to the approval of a less ambitious version of the government’s proposal for pension reform.”

The scandal is denting investor sentiment, which had brightened last week after early details of Bolsonaro’s social security reform proposals were released. The full package will be presented to senior lawmakers on Wednesday.

Brazil’s Bovespa stock market fell 1 percent on Monday, the dollar rose almost 1 percent to 3.7350 reais and January 2020 interest rates rose two basis points to 6.39 percent.

Last week, the Bovespa rose 2.3 percent, within touching distance of its record-high 98,588. Interest rates fell 15 basis points, the biggest weekly drop in two months, and the real also rose.

The Bebianno scandal got personal after one of Bolsonaro’s sons branded him a liar on Twitter, putting pressure on the president to dismiss him just weeks into his term.
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A group representing some of Mexico’s biggest companies told left-wing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Monday that politicians should resist “extortion” by labor unions after strikes and blockades in recent weeks.

Alejandro Ramirez, president of the Mexican Business Council, said strikes at factories in the northern state of Tamaulipas and blockades of railways by a teachers union had caused more than a billion dollars in losses and could cause businesses to close.

Critics of Obrador

Members of the group, including Mexico’s second-richest man, German Larrea, who controls mining and transport conglomerate Grupo Mexico, were critics of Lopez Obrador before his July 1 election, warning voters should be wary of populism.

“In labor matters, we look favorably on Mexicans starting a new era of union freedom that will allow the end of old protectionist practices for a few unions and companies,” said Ramirez, chief executive of cinema chain Cineopolis.

“Freedom of association and respect of the rule of law should be the axis of this new labor reform. For that reason, we make a respectful call to lawmakers of all parties that it doesn’t just guarantee union freedom but also avoids union extortion.”

Lower prices on services

Since taking office, Lopez Obrador and members of the ruling party have sought regulation in areas ranging from banking and pensions to mining to make services cheaper for consumers.

The former Mexico City mayor wants to encourage investment to drive growth, but some worry regulation will be heavy handed and unpredictable.

MORENA, the party created by Lopez Obrador, is planning a reform to make it easier for workers to form independent unions.

Traditionally, unions have allied with the former party of power, the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Lopez Obrador brought veteran union leader Napoleon Gomez into his party as a senator. Gomez has a history of conflict with Grupo Mexico, including strikes.

Gomez last week founded a federation called the International Workers Confederation.

First meeting since election

Monday’s event was the first time the group met with Lopez Obrador since he took office in December. Earlier in the day, he met the Council for Investment Promotion, Job Creation and Growth, a body he created to advise on economic policy.

Labor strikes in January at manufacturers in the Mexican city of Matamoros on the U.S. border cost about $50 million a day in unfulfilled international contracts.

Teachers from the National Committee of Education Workers blocked railroad tracks for weeks in January to protest labor demands.
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Brazil has asked the European Union for compensation after it imposed import tariffs on steel from major producing countries earlier this month, the Brazilian government said in a statement on Monday.

The government has also notified the World Trade Organization that it may adopt its own countermeasures to “rebalance” trade following the EU’s actions, according to a joint statement from the foreign, economy and agriculture ministries. 

Brazil is seeking 180 million euros ($203.6 million) in compensation, a government source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

If the EU denies compensation, that could open the way for Brazil to place or increase tariffs on European products, including powdered milk, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be named.

On Feb. 1, the EU announced limits on steel imports in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s metals tariffs. The tariffs establish limits and quotas for major exporting countries including China, India, Russia and many others.

“The Brazilian government remains open to dialogue with the European Union in order to seek the best way to address these issues,” the statement said.

“It also reiterates its willingness to continue defending the interests of Brazilian producers and exporters with every effort.”
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Glen Libby looks back fondly on his days as a Maine shrimp trawler, but he’s concerned about what seafood lovers will think if the shuttered fishery ever reopens.

“Shrimp? What are those?” he said. “There will be a market. But it depends how big of a market you’re talking about.”

Maine’s historic shrimp industry has been closed since 2013 due to a loss in population of shrimp off of New England that is tied in large part to warming oceans. And with a reopening likely several years away — if it ever happens at all — Libby and others who formerly worked in the business are grappling with how much of the industry they’ll be able to salvage if the time ever comes.

The state’s shrimp fishery was traditionally a winter industry, but it’s in the midst of its sixth straight season with no participation because of a government-imposed moratorium. Fishermen, wholesalers, distributors and others in the seafood business lament the industry wouldn’t be in a good position to return right away even if fishing for the little, sweet pink shrimp was allowed.

The region’s shrimp are much smaller than those caught in the Gulf of Mexico, which has a much more extensive fishery. Maine’s shrimp were essentially a specialty item available fresh only in the winter, though widely available in New England grocery stores.

Maine lacks processing infrastructure for the shrimp now, because that went away when the fishery closed down. The shrimp are largely absent from restaurants and stores, save for some imports from Canada. And the shrimp’s brand as a local, wintertime New England delicacy has taken a hit due to years off the market.

If Maine shrimping does come back, it will likely be at a smaller scale, centered on local retail as opposed to freezing the product for export around the country and internationally, said Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange auction house.

“I mean, I think people would remember it. But you couldn’t be dumping millions of pounds of shrimp into the market expecting to get rid of it,” Jongerden said. “It would have to be a slow build up.”

There is no clear timeline for the return of the fishery, because its future is tied to the status of the shrimp population, which looks grim off of New England. Decisions about the future of the fishery are made by an arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an interstate body that regulates fisheries. The panel voted in November to extend the fishing moratorium for another three years.

Scientific reports that guide the commission have consistently portrayed the shrimp population as depleted and with poor prospects for the future. The shrimp, which were also brought to land in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, were primarily fished from the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans.

Maine shrimpers were mostly fishermen who harvested other fisheries, such as lobsters, scallops and cod, during other parts of the year. The lack of a shrimp season has caused them to lose income or try their luck in other fisheries.

If the fishery does return, part of its appeal could be selling the story of a local New England shrimp fishery to consumers, said Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, a fishing advocacy group.

“We would have this slow ramp up where we’d have this delicious, local and highly prized resource, that restaurants, customers and especially local consumers really want,” he said.

In the meantime, Canada’s shrimp fishery for the same species is still active, but it lacks the brand of the New England-caught product, which long held cachet in Maine and beyond. And Canada’s catch has also declined. The country harvested less than 168 million pounds (76 million kilograms) of the shrimp in 2017, less than half the 2010 total and the lowest haul in at least a decade.

Stephenie Pinkham, who was executive director of the Maine Shrimp Trappers Association when it was active, is hopeful. She hears from Mainers that they miss the product, and is confident they’ll buy it if the fishery ever reopens.

“A shrimp market is definitely out there,” Pinkham said.
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