Tag Archives: MX

World

Explainer: Why Venezuela’s refugee exodus to the U.S. has been accelerating

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Oct 18 (Reuters) – U.S. and Mexican authorities recently announced a new policy that would expel Venezuelans entering the U.S. land border back to Mexico, but allow up to 24,000 people from the country to apply for humanitarian entry into the United States by air.

As a result of the new policy, thousands of Venezuelans believed to be en route to the United States are now stranded between the two countries during a year when Venezuelans are arriving at the U.S. border in record numbers.

WHY WERE THE NEW MEASURES PUT IN PLACE?

The measures respond in part to political pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to curb record numbers of illegal crossings at the Mexico-U.S. border. Venezuelans have been one of the largest groups of migrants involved in such crossings, in part because Washington granted temporary protection status last year to those who were on U.S. soil. Deporting Venezuelans is also more complicated than with migrants of other nationalities because the two countries broke diplomatic relations in 2019, making it difficult to organize deportation flights.

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More than 150,000 Venezuelans were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border between October 2021 and August 2022, compared with nearly 48,000 in fiscal-year 2021, according to U.S. government data. In September, over 33,000 Venezuelan individuals were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border – more than the number of unique crossers from Mexico and more than immigrants from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras combined, according to U.S. government data.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW TO VENEZUELANS IN TRANSIT TO THE UNITED STATES?

Those in transit may attempt to reach the United States despite the near certainty that they will be sent back to Mexico. Mexican authorities so far have given many of these individuals a deadline of no more than two weeks to leave the country. It is unclear where Venezuelans waiting in Mexico will stay, as Mexico’s migrant shelter system is often overwhelmed.

Some may return to Venezuela, while others could settle down in different Latin American countries, where Venezuelan migrants have in some cases faced discrimination, limited job opportunities and restrictions on their migratory status.

Half of the Venezuelan refugee and migrant population across Latin America and the Caribbean cannot afford three meals a day and lacks access to housing, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), forcing many to resort to sex work or begging.

WHO CAN APPLY FOR THE NEW U.S. PROGRAM?

Venezuelans who meet the U.S. requirements may apply for the recently announced U.S. program. Among the requirements is having a U.S.-based supporter and holding a valid passport. The cost of a passport in Venezuela is $200, nearly ten times the country’s minimum wage.

Maria Victoria, 8, cries because she wants to see her father who is in the United States, during a protest on the banks of the Rio Bravo river, after Venezuelan migrants were expelled from the U.S. with their families and sent back to Mexico under Title 42, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico October 18, 2022. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

Only 1% of 1,591 migrants who left Venezuela between June and August held a passport, according to the Observatory of Social Investigations, a rights group.

WHAT TRIGGERED THE VENEZUELAN EXODUS?

Under late President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves weathered corruption and inflation.

Then in 2014, Venezuela’s economy buckled as global oil prices tumbled, and living conditions further deteriorated as stringent price controls created widespread shortages. Products began to disappear from store shelves while black markets thrived with goods ranging from cooking oil to corn flour.

In 2018, inflation in Venezuela exceeded 1 million percent. Medicines for conditions from headaches to cancer were unavailable.

WHY ARE VENEZUELANS STILL MIGRATING?

Despite some improvements following a 2019 opening of the economy that included an informal dollarization, most Venezuelans still struggle to afford basic goods and services. Efforts by the government of Chavez’s successor, Nicolas Maduro, to ease economic restrictions have alleviated shortages and fueled consumption in high-income brackets, but left the vast majority of the population making wages that fall well short of the cost of living.

The monthly minimum wage in the OPEC-member nation is around $15 while the price of a basket of goods covering the monthly needs of a family of five was around $370 at the end of September, according to the nongovernmental Venezuelan Finance Observatory.

Even in the commerce and services sector of relatively wealthy Caracas, employees make an average of only around $130 a month. Meanwhile in the public sector, which employs some 2.2 million, the average monthly salary is about $20 to $30.

Economists say at least 30% of the population has not benefited from the new economic measures.

Remittances to Venezuelans from relatives in the United States or elsewhere help but are insufficient for most. Just one-fourth of Venezuelan families receive remittances, averaging only $70 a month, according to Caracas-based consultancy Anova.

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Reporting by Vivian Sequera in Caracas and Sarah Kinosian in Mexico City
Editing by Matthew Lewis

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Business

More U.S. companies charging employees for job training if they quit

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WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) – When a Washington state beauty salon charged Simran Bal $1,900 for training after she quit, she was shocked.

Not only was Bal a licensed esthetician with no need for instruction, she argued that the trainings were specific to the shop and low quality.

Bal’s story mirrors that of dozens of people and advocates in healthcare, trucking, retail and other industries who complained recently to U.S. regulators that some companies charge employees who quit large sums of money for training.

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Nearly 10% of American workers surveyed in 2020 were covered by a training repayment agreement, said the Cornell Survey Research Institute.

The practice, which critics call Training Repayment Agreement Provisions, or TRAPs, is drawing scrutiny from U.S. regulators and lawmakers.

On Capitol Hill, Senator Sherrod Brown is studying legislative options with an eye toward introducing a bill next year to rein in the practice, a Senate Democratic aide said.

At the state level, attorneys general like Minnesota’s Keith Ellison are assessing how prevalent the practice is and could update guidance.

Ellison told Reuters he would be inclined to oppose reimbursement demands for job-specific instruction while it “could be different” if an employer wanted reimbursement for training for a certification like a commercial driving license that is widely recognized as valuable.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has begun reviewing the practice, while the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have received complaints about it.

The use of training agreements is growing even though unemployment is low, which presumably gives workers more power, said Jonathan Harris who teaches at the Loyola Law School Los Angeles.

“Employers are looking for ways to keep their workers from quitting without raising wages or improving working conditions,” said Harris.

The CFPB, which announced in June it was looking into the agreements, has begun to focus on how they may prevent even skilled employees with years of schooling, like nurses, from finding new, better jobs, according to a CFPB official who was not authorized to speak on the record.

“We have heard from workers and worker organizations that the products may be restricting worker mobility,” the official said.

TRAPs have been around in a small way since the late 1980s primarily in high-wage positions where workers received valuable training. But in recent years the agreements have become more widespread, said Loyola’s Harris.

Licensed esthetician Simran Bal, who was taken to court by her former employer to repay $1900 in trainings they required her to attend, poses for a portrait outside the King County District Court in Shoreline, Washington, U.S., October 13, 2022. Bal, whose case was dismissed, says she was already licensed for services the trainings covered. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

One critic of the CFPB effort was the National Federation of Independent Business, or NFIB, which said the issue was outside the agency’s authority because it was unrelated to consumer financial products and services.

“(Some state governments) have authority to regulate employer-driven debt. CFPB should defer to those governments, which are closer to the people of the states than the CFPB,” it added.

NURSING AND TRUCKING

Bal said she was happy when she was hired by the Oh Sweet salon near Seattle in August 2021.

But she soon found that before she could provide services for clients, and earn more, she was required to attend trainings on such things as sugaring to remove unwanted hair and lash and brow maintenance.

But, she said, the salon owner was slow to schedule the trainings, which would sometimes be postponed or cancelled. They were also not informative; Bal described them as “introductory level.” While waiting to complete the training, Bal worked at the front desk, which paid less.

When she quit in October 2021, Bal received a bill for $1,900 for the instruction she did receive. “She was charging me for training for services that I was already licensed in,” said Bal.

Karina Villalta, who runs Oh Sweet LLC, filed a lawsuit in small claims court to recover the money. Court records provided by Bal show the case was dismissed in September by a judge who ruled that Bal did not complete the promised training and owed nothing. Villalta declined requests for comment.

In comments to the CFPB, National Nurses United said they did a survey that found that the agreements are “increasingly ubiquitous in the health care sector,” with new nurses often affected.

The survey found that 589 of the 1,698 nurses surveyed were required to take training programs and 326 of them were required to pay employers if they left before a certain time.

Many nurses said they were not told about the training repayment requirement before beginning work, and that classroom instruction often repeated what they learned in school.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said in comments that training repayment demands were “particularly egregious” in commercial trucking. They said firms like CRST and C.R. England train people for a commercial drivers license but charge more than $6,000 if they leave the company before a certain time. Neither company responded to a request for comment.

The American Trucking Associations argues that the license is portable from one employer to another and required by the government. It urged the CFPB to not characterize it as employer-driven debt.

Steve Viscelli, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who spent six months training and then driving truck, said the issue deserved scrutiny.

“Anytime we have training contracts for low-skilled workers, we should be asking why,” he said. “If you have a good job, you don’t need a training contract. People are going to want to stay.”

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Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Chris Sanders and Lisa Shumaker

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Diane Bartz

Thomson Reuters

Focused on U.S. antitrust as well as corporate regulation and legislation, with experience involving covering war in Bosnia, elections in Mexico and Nicaragua, as well as stories from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Nigeria and Peru.

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World

Storm Julia kills 25 in Central America as it churns toward Mexico

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SAN SALVADOR, Oct 10 (Reuters) – The death toll from storm Julia rose to at least 25 on Monday, officials said, with most victims in El Salvador and Guatemala, as the weakening storm dumped heavy rain on a swath of Central America and southern Mexico.

Salvadoran authorities reported the deaths of 10 people, including five soldiers, and said more than 1,000 people were evacuated.

In Guatemala, eight were killed between Sunday and Monday, according to officials, while seven were injured and hundreds more affected by the storm.

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Authorities in both El Salvador and Guatemala also canceled classes on Monday.

In Honduras, five victims have been confirmed including a woman who died Sunday after she was swept away by flood waters, and a four-year-old boy in a boat that capsized near the Nicaragua border on Saturday night, officials said.

Panama’s emergency services confirmed later on Monday two deaths as a result of heavy rains, with around 300 people evacuated from communities near the country’s border with Costa Rica.

Julia made landfall Sunday on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast before crossing into the Pacific Ocean.

By Monday afternoon, Julia had dissipated and what was left of the storm was moving northwest at 15 miles per hour (24 km/h) over Guatemala near the border with Mexico, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).

The Miami-based NHC estimated Julia’s maximum sustained winds at about 30 mph (45 km/h).

The NHC warned of life-threatening surf and rip conditions along the coasts of El Salvador and Guatemala, while heavy rain could still cause flash flooding.

It predicted an additional one to four inches of rain in El Salvador and southern Guatemala, and three to six inches on Mexico’s Tehuantepec isthmus.

The storm system is expected to weaken further Monday, the NHC said.

Honduran authorities added that 9,200 people sought refuge in shelters.

In Nicaragua, Julia left a million people without power and heavy rains and floods forced the evacuations of more than 13,000 families.

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Reporting by Nelson Renteria in San Salvador; Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa, Eli Moreno in Panama City; Enrique Garcia in Guatemala City and Brendan O’Boyle in Mexico City; Editing by Richard Chang and Kim Coghill

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US

IDB directors unanimously recommend firing of Claver-Carone after ethics probe

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Visitors walk past a screen with the logo of Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) at the Atlapa Convention Center in Panama City March 13, 2013. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

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WASHINGTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) – The Inter-American Development Bank’s board of directors voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend firing President Mauricio Claver-Carone after an independent ethics investigation found misconduct, three sources familiar with the vote said.

The recommendation throws the final decision regarding Latin America’s largest development bank to its senior-most body, the board of governors, which will vote from Friday through Tuesday, one of the sources said.

Claver-Carone did not immediately respond to a phone call or text message seeking comment.

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A U.S. Treasury spokesperson declined to confirm the vote, but said the United States, the bank’s largest shareholder with 30% of its voting shares, supported Claver-Carone’s removal from office and wanted to see “swift resolution” by the governors.

“President Claver-Carone’s refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and his creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries, has forfeited the confidence of the bank’s staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership,” the spokesperson said.

Claver-Carone, in a statement in response to the Treasury said, “It’s shameful the U.S. commented to the press before notifying me and that it is not defending two Americans against what is clearly fabricated information.”

The bank’s 14 directors voted after four long days of discussions and an appearance by Claver-Carone, who had been in New York for meetings on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the board was nearing consensus on a vote to fire Claver-Carone.

Termination of Claver-Carone, a nominee of former U.S. President Donald Trump, requires a majority of the total voting power of the governing board. The bank’s three largest shareholders – the United States, Argentina and Brazil – together hold nearly 53% of the voting power. Claver-Carone took office in October 2020.

The governors are expected to approve the recommendation, said one of the sources.

Legal firm Davis Polk told the directors it found evidence to support whistleblower allegations that Claver-Carone had engaged in an intimate relationship with a subordinate and engaged in misconduct that violated the bank’s rules.

Investigators said they had uncovered evidence including a photograph of a hand-written contract on the back of a paper placemat, purportedly written and signed by Claver-Carone and the staffer, which stated, “we deserve absolute happiness” and a clause that stipulated any contract breach would result in “candle wax and a naughty box.”

U.S. officials were particularly concerned by Claver-Carone’s “behavior during the investigation, including his refusal to make available his IDB-issued work phone and other records,” a separate source familiar with the matter said.

They took issue with his “selective and misleading release of confidential information intended to taint the investigation and shape public opinion,” the source said. This had “undermined confidence in Claver-Carone’s trustworthiness and ability to lead a rules-based multilateral development institution,” the source added.

Claver-Carone also denied “direct evidence” that he had been in an undisclosed relationship with an IDB staff member who reported directly to him, and to whom he gave raises totaling more than 45% of base pay in less than one year, the source added.

U.S. officials felt Claver-Carone had created “an environment in which staff feared retaliation, including what appears to be actual retribution against senior and rank-and-file staff who participated fully and honestly in the investigation,” the source said.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, had strongly opposed Trump’s nomination of Claver-Carone as the first American to lead the bank, a job traditionally held by someone from Latin America.

“That tradition should be reinstated, with a person of the highest integrity and professionalism,” Leahy told Reuters.

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Reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington and Cassandra Garrison in Mexico City; Editing by Josie Kao and Stephen Coates

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Cassandra Garrison

Thomson Reuters

Mexico-based reporter focusing on climate change and companies with an emphasis on telecoms. Previously based in Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires covering the Argentine debt crisis, the tussle for influence between the United States and China in Latin America and the coronavirus pandemic.

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World

Major earthquake strikes Mexico on ‘cursed’ anniversary, at least one dead

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MEXICO CITY, Sept 19 (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake struck western Mexico on Monday on the anniversary of two devastating temblors, killing at least one person, damaging buildings, knocking out power and sending residents of Mexico City scrambling outside for safety.

One person was killed in the Pacific port of Manzanillo when a department store roof collapsed on them, the government said. Authorities also reported damage to several hospitals in the western state of Michoacan near the epicenter, which was in a sparsely populated part of Mexico. One person was injured by falling glass at one of the hospitals, the government said.

The magnitude 7.6 quake hit shortly after 1 p.m. (1800 GMT) near the western coast and close to the Michoacan border with the state of Colima – where Manzanillo is located, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

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The quake was relatively shallow, at only 15 km (9 miles) deep, which would have amplified its impact.

Reuters Graphics

The U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for parts of Mexico’s coast, saying waves reaching 1 to 3 meters (3 to 9 feet) above the tide level were possible.

Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said there were no immediate reports of major damage in the capital after the tremors, which rumbled through Mexico on the same day as destructive quakes battered the country in 1985 and 2017.

“It seems like a curse,” Isa Montes, a 34-year-old graphic designer in the city’s central Roma neighborhood, said of the quake’s timing as helicopters flew overhead, surveying the city.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), one of the country’s most prestigious seats of higher learning, said there was no scientific explanation for three major quakes on the same day and attributed it to pure coincidence.

But others could not quite believe it.

“It’s this date. There’s something about the 19th,” said Ernesto Lanzetta, a business owner in the Cuauhtemoc borough of the city. “The 19th is a day to be feared.”

Thousands of people were killed in the Sept. 19, 1985 earthquake and more than 350 died in the Sept. 19, 2017 quake.

Vehicles damaged by the collapse of the facade of a department store during an earthquake are pictured in Manzanillo, Mexico September 19, 2022. REUTERS/Jesus Lozoya

Many Mexicans reacted to the latest quake by posting an array of memes online venting their amazement. read more

Before first announcing the death in Manzanillo, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador had said there was material damage near the epicenter. Images posted on social media showed buildings badly damaged.

Mexican authorities said the seismic alert had sounded nearly two minutes before the quake struck, giving residents time to evacuate their homes.

Still, some people in the capital struggled to grasp it was a real quake as the government had already sounded the alarm earlier in the day as a practice exercise commemorating the past earthquakes on the same day.

POWER OUT

In Coalcoman, Michoacan, not far from the epicenter, pictures showed shingles knocked off homes and building walls cracked by the force of the quake. In one store, merchandise was scattered across the floor.

Power was knocked out in parts of Roma in Mexico City, some 400 km (250 miles) from the epicenter. The national power utility said outages hit 1.2 million users.

Residents of Roma stood on the streets cradling pets, while tourists visiting a local market with a guide were visibly confused and upset. Traffic lights stopped working, and people clutched their phones, sending text messages or waiting for calls to get through.

Clara Ferri, who owns an Italian bookshop in Roma, said she told a customer to get out as soon as she heard the windows rattle, her senses attuned to the sounds of incipient earthquakes after 16 years in the location.

“It was like the dentist’s drill for me,” she said.

The rumbling grew in intensity, and as Ferri gathered with neighbors at an intersection, she looked up to see the eight-story building that houses her shop sway from side to side.

When she returned, shelves had toppled like dominos, sending over 1,000 books into heaps on the floor.

Officials roped off the sidewalk, which was littered with masonry that appeared to have fallen off the building. Residents trickled out with pets and suitcases, preparing to spend the night elsewhere, and a woman carefully escorted her 89-year-old uncle in his blue-and-white striped pajamas.

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Additional reporting by Isabel Woodford, Stefanie Eschenbacher, Anthony Esposito, Raul Cortes and Mexico City Newsroom; writing by Dave Graham; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer, Sandra Maler and Cynthia Osterman

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World

Body found in Mexico resort believed to be missing radio host, authorities say

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MEXICO CITY, Aug 27 (Reuters) – A body found earlier this week in a Mexican resort town is believed to be that of a missing former radio host, though forensic tests were pending, local authorities said on Saturday.

Candida Cristal Vazquez, a former radio presenter who also worked in communications for the local police, was reported missing in late July.

The mayor of Mazatlan on Mexico’s Pacific coast, Luis Guillermo Benitez, told reporters on Saturday that tests were pending to confirm that a body found Thursday was Vazquez, but “everything indicates that it is her.”

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A statement from the state attorney general on Friday said family members had identified the body as Vazquez, but that it could not yet confirm the decomposing body was hers without results from genetic tests it had performed.

Police found the body floating in a canal in Mazatlan.

Mexican media has described Vazquez as a journalist. The Committee to Protect Journalists told Reuters it was still investigating whether she was a journalist and whether her death was motivated by her profession.

2022 is already the deadliest year on record for members of the Mexican press, with at least 18 journalists killed so far, according to Article 19. read more

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Reporting by Brendan O’Boyle and Kylie Madry; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Daniel Wallis

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US

Texas governor sends migrants to New York City as immigration standoff accelerates

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NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said on Friday he has started to send buses carrying migrants to New York City in an effort to push responsibility for border crossers to Democratic mayors and U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

The first bus arrived early on Friday at the city’s Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan carrying around 50 migrants from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras and Venezuela. Volunteers were helping to steer people who had no relatives in town to city resources.

“Most of them don’t have anybody to help. They don’t know where to go, so we’re taking them to shelters,” said one volunteer at the bus station, Evelin Zapata, from a group called Grannies Respond.

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One family of four from Colombia, who ended up at a homeless intake center in the Bronx, were unsure of where they would spend the night. Byron and Leidy, both 28, said they left the country’s capital Bogota because they were having trouble finding work. They did not provide their last name.

“It’s a little easier to enter the country now, before it was very hard to come here with children,” said Leidy, who traveled with her kids Mariana, 7, and Nicolas, 13. She said the family had hoped someone they knew in New York would take them in, but that plan did not work out. “We came here because they said they would help us find a place to sleep to not have to stay in the street,” Leidy said.

Abbott, who is running for a third term as governor in November elections, has already sent more than 6,000 migrants to Washington since April in a broader effort to combat illegal immigration and call out Biden for his more welcoming policies. read more

Biden came into office in January 2021 pledging to reverse many of the hardline immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, but some efforts have been blocked in court.

Abbott said New York City Mayor Eric Adams could provide services and housing for the new arrivals.

“I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Abbott said in a statement.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, another Republican, has followed Abbott’s lead and bused another 1,000 to Washington.

U.S. border authorities have made record numbers of arrests under Biden although many are repeat crossers. Some migrants who are not able to be expelled quickly to Mexico or their home countries under a COVID-era policy are allowed into the United States, often to pursue asylum claims in U.S. immigration court.

‘POLITICAL PAWNS’

Texas Governor Greg Abbott holds a news conference with state agencies and local officials at Uvalde High School, three days after a gunman killed nineteen children and two adults in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, U.S. May 27, 2022. REUTERS/Marco Bello

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Adams’ office has in recent weeks criticized the busing efforts to Washington, saying some migrants were making their way to New York City and overwhelming its homeless shelter system.

On Friday the mayor’s press secretary Fabien Levy said Abbott was using “human beings as political pawns,” calling it “a disgusting, and an embarrassing stain on the state of Texas.”

Levy said New York would continue to “welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we always have, but we are asking for resources to help do so,” calling for support from federal officials.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday called the Texas initiative “shameful” and an unnecessary burden on taxpayers in that state.

Costs for the effort amounted to $1.6 million in April and May, a local NBC News affiliate reported in June, more than $1,400 per rider.

Texas officials declined to provide the cost when asked by Reuters.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has also said her city’s shelter system has been strained by migrant arrivals and last month called on the Biden administration to deploy military troops to assist with receiving the migrants, a request that has frustrated White House officials. read more

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had declined a request for D.C. National Guard to help with the transportation and reception of migrants in the city because it would hurt the troops’ readiness.

Bowser suggested on Friday that she would submit a more targeted troop request, reiterating her stance that the federal government should handle what she called a “growing humanitarian crisis.”

“If the federal government’s not going to do it, they need to at least get out of our way and give us the resources that we need,” she told reporters.

Many migrants are arriving after long and difficult journeys through South America.

Venezuelan migrant Jose Gregorio Forero said before traveling more than a day by bus from Texas he had crossed through eight countries. “It’s taken 31 days to get here, on foot and asking for rides,” he said, saying he was glad to be in New York where he thought there would be more job opportunities.

New York City, he said, “is very beautiful. I love it.”

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Reporting by Sofia Ahmed in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Jeff Mason in Washington, Roselle Chen and Dan Fastenberg in New York; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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World

G20 host calls for end to Ukraine war as Russia dismisses criticism

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  • Russian foreign minister rejects ‘frenzied’ criticism of war
  • Lavrov leaves during Ukraine minister’s virtual address
  • Indonesia warns food prices to hit low-income nations hardest
  • UK foreign minister Liz Truss cuts short Bali trip

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, July 8 (Reuters) – G20 host Indonesia urged foreign ministers of the group on Friday to help end the war in Ukraine, as Russia’s top diplomat accused the West of scuppering a chance to tackle global economic issues with “frenzied” criticism of the conflict.

The G20 ministers’ meeting in Bali has been overshadowed by the war and its impact on the global economy, with top officials from Western countries and Japan stressing it would not be a “business as usual” event.

Shouts of “When will you stop the war” and “Why don’t you stop the war” were heard as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shook hands with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi as he arrived for the meeting.

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Lavrov said ministers from Western nations “strayed almost immediately, as soon as they took the floor, to the frenzied criticism of the Russian Federation in connection with the situation in Ukraine”.

“Aggressors’, ‘invaders’, ‘occupiers’ – we heard a lot of things today,” Lavrov told reporters after the first session of the talks, in which he was seated between representatives from Mexico and Saudi Arabia. read more

Russia has maintained it has launched a “special military operation” to degrade the Ukrainian military and root out people it calls dangerous nationalists.

Ukraine and its Western backers say Russia is engaged in an imperial-style land grab. They say Russia has no justification for the invasion.

Retno had called on the G20 to “find a way forward” to address global challenges and said the repercussions of the war, including rising energy and food prices, would hit low-income countries the hardest.

“It is our responsibility to end the war sooner than later and settle our differences at the negotiating table, not at the battlefield,” Retno said at the opening of talks.

Challenges related to rising food and energy costs had been “dramatically exacerbated by Russian aggression against Ukraine”, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on the sidelines of the meeting.

During the plenary meeting, Blinken confronted Russia about blocking the export of Ukrainian grain and stealing it, a Western official said.

“He addressed Russia directly, saying: To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out'”, the official said.

Lavrov was not in the room at the time, the official said.

Ukraine has struggled to export goods, with many of its ports blocked as war rages along its southern coast. It is the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter.

Lavrov told reporters later Russia was ready to negotiate with Ukraine and Turkey about grain but it is unclear when such talks might take place.

‘NEW COLD WAR’

Ukraine’s foreign minister addressed the meeting virtually, with Lavrov leaving the room during his speech, Ukraine’s ambassador to Indonesia said.

Underlining tensions in the lead-up to the meeting, Retno said G7 counterparts had informed her they could not join Thursday’s welcome dinner where Lavrov was present.

A senior official for the Indonesian foreign ministry told Reuters no communique was expected from Friday’s meeting.

Retno had said it was important the host “create an atmosphere that’s comfortable for everybody”, noting it was the first time since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine that all major players were sitting in the same room.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on the sidelines of the meeting Beijing opposed any act of hyping up bloc confrontation, and creating a “new Cold War”.

Friday’s agenda includes the closed-door meeting of top diplomats from G20 countries including China, India, the United States, Brazil, Canada, Japan and South Africa, as well as bilateral talks on the sidelines.

For the first time in three years, the Chinese and Australian foreign ministers will also hold talks on Friday, signalling a thaw in relations that has soured over claims of foreign interference and retaliatory trade sanctions. read more

Absent from Friday’s events was British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who was represented by Tim Barrow, second permanent under-secretary at the foreign office. Truss had cut her Bali trip short after the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, media reports said.

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Additional reporting by Ryan Woo in Beijing, Kirsty Needham in Sydney and Yuddy Cahya Budiman in Nusa Dua; Writing by Kate Lamb; Editing by Martin Petty, Ed Davies and Raju Gopalakrishnan

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Business

Airline SAS clashes with striking pilots over U.S. bankruptcy filing

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  • Airline files for Chapter 11 in the United States
  • Filing comes after pilot strike began on Monday
  • Company says strike accelerated bankruptcy filing
  • Attempts to blame staff “beneath contempt” -union
  • Strike grounding roughly half of airline’s flights

STOCKHOLM, July 5 (Reuters) – Scandinavian airline SAS (SAS.ST) has filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States to help cut debt, it said on Tuesday, piling pressure on striking pilots it blames for deepening its financial woes and sending its shares down 10%.

Wage talks between SAS and its pilots collapsed on Monday, triggering a strike that adds to travel chaos across Europe as the peak summer travel season shifts into full gear.

Chief Executive Anko van der Werff said the strike had accelerated its decision to file for Chapter 11 status. But the negotiator for SAS’ Danish pilots said the scope of the filing showed it had been months in the making and called attempts to blame striking staff for triggering it “beneath contempt”.

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The airline, whose biggest owners are Swedish and Danish taxpayers, said that the strike would have “a negative impact on the liquidity and financial position of the company and, if prolonged, such impact could become material”.

The strike will cost it $10 million to $13 million per day, the company said in its court filing. Sydbank analysts estimated, in a worst-case scenario, it could erase up to half of its cash flow in the initial four to five weeks alone.

“The pilots may well consider themselves pieces in the puzzle that legalizes the management’s Chapter 11 request, and it’s doubtful whether it will bring them back to the negotiating table,” Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen said.

“On the other hand, the Chapter 11 request also shows how serious the situation is for SAS.”

Entering Chapter 11 would make it easier for the company to lay off employees, experts say.

Swedish Airline Pilots Association Chairman Martin Lindgren said his members had seen it as inevitable the airline would need to embark on a “reconstruction”.

“It does not affect the strike or our agreements,” he said.

The airline said the U.S. bankruptcy protection filing was aimed at accelerating a restructuring plan announced in February.

“SAS aims to reach agreements with key stakeholders, restructure the company’s debt obligations, reconfigure its aircraft fleet, and emerge with a significant capital injection,” it said.

TALKS WITH LENDERS

View of SAS Airbus A321 and A320neo aircraft at Kastrup Airport parked on the tarmac, after pilots of Scandinavian Airlines went on strike, in Kastrup, Denmark July 4, 2022. TT News Agency/Johan Nilsson via REUTERS

SAS said discussions with lenders regarding another $700 million of financing were “well advanced”.

The strike is grounding roughly half the airline’s flights, affecting some 30,000 passengers per day, it said.

Data from flight tracking website FlightAware showed 232 SAS flights – 77% of those scheduled – had been cancelled on Tuesday, while Oslo’s Gardermoen airport, one of SAS’ hubs, had the world’s highest cancellation rate on the day.

SAS expects to complete the Chapter 11 process in nine to 12 months, it added. SAS shares can be traded as normal during the bankruptcy proceedings.

Wallenberg Investments, SAS’s third biggest shareholder with a 3.4% stake, said it supported the decision and would allow for talks to continue to make the airline competitive.

“For decades, SAS has had too-high costs and too-low productivity compared to its rivals,” it said.

SAS needs to attract new investors and has said to do that it must slash costs across the company, including for leased planes that stand idle because of closed Russian airspace and a slow recovery in Asia. read more

Its finance chief Erno Hilden said in the court filing the airline had so far been unable to renegotiate lease terms, many of which it said were “significantly above” market rates.

SAS had three bonds outstanding , , with a total face value of 5.4 billion Swedish crowns ($519 million). They now trade at deeply distressed levels of around one-third of face value.

The airline predicted its cash balance of 7.8 billion Swedish crowns was sufficient to meet its business obligations in the near term.

Sweden’s government has said no to injecting more cash into the carrier, while Copenhagen has said it may do so if SAS is able attract new investors.

Nordnet analyst Per Hansen said the U.S. application showed SAS needs a fresh start and that it thinks the strike will drag on. “Management and the board want to make it absolutely clear for all stakeholders that the situation is very serious.”

($1 = 10.3216 Swedish crowns)

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Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Essi Lehto in Helsinki, Victoria Klesty in Oslo, Agata Rybska in Gdansk, Jamie Freed in Sydney and Karin Strohecker in London; Writing by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Matt Scuffham, Jan Harvey and Emelia Sithole-Matarise

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US

Suspected truck driver in Texas migrant deaths was on meth, lawmaker says

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  • 53 migrants died in U.S. border smuggling attempt
  • Suspected driver charged with human trafficking offense
  • Driver had meth in his system, lawmaker and U.S. official say

SAN ANTONIO, June 30 (Reuters) – The suspected driver of a truck packed with dozens of migrants who died in blazing heat during a Texas smuggling attempt was allegedly under the influence of methamphetamine when police encountered him, a U.S. lawmaker told Reuters, citing information from law enforcement.

San Antonio police officers found Homero Zamorano Jr, a Texas native, hiding in brush near the abandoned tractor-trailer on Monday, according to documents filed in federal court on Thursday. Fifty-three migrants lost their lives, making it the deadliest such trafficking incident on record in the United States.

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat whose district includes the eastern part of San Antonio, told Reuters on Thursday that Zamorano was found to have had methamphetamine, a powerful synthetic drug, in his system.

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Cuellar said he was briefed on the matter by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), but did not know how authorities made that determination. A CBP official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, separately told Reuters that Zamorano had methamphetamine in his system.

Reuters was not immediately able to independently confirm the accounts of the alleged drug use.

Zamorano, 45, appeared in federal court in San Antonio on Thursday where human trafficking charges against him were read. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty and up to a $250,000 fine, he was told.

He was accompanied by public defender Jose Gonzalez-Falla, who declined to comment on the case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Chestney said Zamorano would be held in custody until his next hearing, on July 6.

Officials described finding the trailer’s rear door ajar with bodies stacked inside that were hot to the touch. In nearby brush, officers discovered other victims, some deceased. They found Zamorano hiding near the victims and escorted him to a local hospital for medical evaluation, prosecutors said. Mexican officials said he had tried to pass himself off as one of the survivors.

‘WHERE YOU AT?’

The truck had been carrying migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and was found in a desolate, industrial area near a highway on the outskirts of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Temperatures in the area that day had soared as high as 103 Fahrenheit (39.4 Celsius), and authorities called to the scene found no water supplies or signs of working air-conditioning inside the cargo trailer.

Prosecutors allege Zamorano conspired with Christian Martinez, 28, who was also charged with a human trafficking offense. Martinez on Monday sent a photo of a truck load manifest to Zamorano, who responded by saying, “I go to the same spot,” a federal investigator wrote in a court filing Wednesday.

Martinez repeatedly messaged Zamorano in the hours after but received no reply, wrote Nestor Canales, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) investigations division. Martinez sent messages including “Call me bro” and “Wya bro,” meaning “where you at,” Canales wrote.

A confidential informant for ICE and the Texas police spoke with Martinez after the incident, Canales wrote. Martinez told the informant, “The driver was unaware the air conditioning unit stopped working and was the reason why the individuals died,” Canales added.

Reuters was unable to reach Martinez for comment. Martinez, who is in official custody, made an initial appearance in a court in the Eastern District of Texas on Wednesday.

‘STASH HOUSE’

Along with 27 Mexicans, the victims included 14 Hondurans, eight Guatemalans and two Salvadorans, Mexican and Guatemalan officials said. Others, including minors, remain hospitalized.

A spokeswoman for Guatemala’s foreign ministry told Reuters it was unclear whether two of the Guatemalans identified Thursday had died on Monday or at a later date.

Among the dead were Pascual Melvin Guachiac, 13, and Juan Wilmer Tulul, 14, both from Guatemala, the country’s foreign ministry wrote on Twitter.

The two were cousins who left home two weeks ago to escape poverty, Guachiac’s mother was quoted as saying by Guatemalan media. read more

Also among the victims was Yazmin Nayarith Bueso, who left Honduras nearly a month ago. Her brother said she had gone a year without a job. “She looked and looked and couldn’t find anything, and became desperate,” Alejandro Bueso told a Honduran television program on Thursday.

Officials believe the migrants boarded the truck on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico.

Surveillance photographs captured the truck passing through a border checkpoint at Laredo, Texas, at 2:50 p.m. CT (1950 GMT) on Monday, before the migrant passengers are believed to have boarded.

Cuellar, the Texas lawmaker, said the migrants had likely crossed the border and gone to a “stash house” before being picked up by the trailer and passing the Encinal checkpoint. They likely then went into San Antonio and experienced mechanical issues that left them in the back of the truck without air conditioning or ventilation, Cuellar said.

Another truck carrying migrants headed for San Antonio evaded the Encinal checkpoint on Thursday, crashing into the back of a tractor-trailer after a chase and killing four on board, according to Mexican authorities. read more

Two other men suspected of involvement in Monday’s incident, Mexican nationals Juan Claudio D’Luna-Mendez and Francisco D’Luna-Bilbao, were charged on Tuesday in U.S. federal court with possessing firearms while residing in the country illegally. A preliminary hearing for the pair is set for Friday.

D’Luna-Mendez’s attorney, Michael McCrum, said his client is a 21-year-old carpenter who has been in the U.S. since childhood and had “nothing to do with” the tragedy. McCrum said he believed the other man charged was his client’s father.

Charging documents in the case said the truck’s registration was tracked to the men’s address. “They are arresting anyone they can,” McCrum said.

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Reporting by Jason Buch and Julio-Cesar Chavez in San Antonio, Ted Hesson in Washington; Additional reporting by Gustavo Palencia in Tegucigalpa, Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Kylie Madry in Mexico City
Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Mica Rosenberg, Aurora Ellis and Leslie Adler

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