Venezuelans are storming supermarkets and attacking trucks as food supplies dwindle 29 Jun 2016 11:28 AM (9 years ago)
In the darkness the warehouse looks like any other, a metal-roofed hangar next to a clattering overpass, with homeless people sleeping nearby in the shadows.
But inside, workers quietly unload black plastic crates filled with merchandise so valuable that mobs have looted delivery vehicles, shot up the windshields of trucks and hurled a rock into one driver’s eye. Soldiers and police milling around the loading depots give this neighborhood the feel of a military garrison.
“It’s just cheese,” said Juan Urrea, a 29-year-old driver, as workers unloaded thousands of pounds of white Venezuelan queso from his delivery truck. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The fight for food has begun in Venezuela. On any day, in cities across this increasingly desperate nation, crowds form to sack supermarkets. Protesters take to the streets to decry the skyrocketing prices and dwindling supplies of basic goods. The wealthy improvise, some shopping online for food that arrives from Miami. Middle-class families make do with less: coffee without milk, sardines instead of beef, two daily meals instead of three. The poor are stripping mangoes off the trees and struggling to survive.
“This is savagery,” said Pedro Zaraza, a car oil salesman, who watched a mob mass on Friday outside a supermarket, where it was eventually dispersed by the army. “The authorities are losing their grip.”
Transgender woman seeking political first — in Utah 29 Jun 2016 11:26 AM (9 years ago)
A transgender Utah woman making her first foray into politics will face off against incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Lee in November after winning the Democratic nomination.
Misty Snow would become the state’s first openly transgender elected official if she wins the general election. She defeated marriage therapist Jonathan Swinton in Tuesday’s primary.
Snow, a grocery store cashier, ran on a platform of raising the minimum wage and advocating for women’s rights and the LGBT community. She also told voters Swinton’s values were too conservative.
Lee ran unopposed in the Republican primary.
Snow was a relative unknown before losing to Swinton in the state’s party convention in April, but the race went to the primary because Swinton didn’t get 60 percent of the vote at the convention.
Swinton told voters his professional experience would help him solve problems and that he was the only candidate who could dethrone Lee in the general election.
Snow vowed Tuesday to make the race against Lee competitive.
“This shows LGBT people that being LGBT is not a barrier to running for political office,” Snow said. “You can be you, and people will respect you for that.”
Brexit vote, UK political confusion keep world markets on edge 29 Jun 2016 11:24 AM (9 years ago)
Britain’s vote to leave the European Union continued to reverberate through financial markets, with the pound falling to its lowest level in 31 years, despite government attempts to relieve some of the confusion about the political and economic outlook.
UK finance minister George Osborne said early Monday that the British economy was strong enough to cope with the market volatility caused by last week’s “Brexit” referendum which has resulted in the biggest blow since World War Two to the European goal of forging greater unity.
“Our economy is about as strong as it could be to confront the challenge our country now faces,” Osborne told reporters.
“It is inevitable after Thursday’s vote that Britain’s economy is going to have to adjust to the new situation we find ourselves in,” said Osborne, who later ruled himself out of the running to succeed David Cameron as prime minister.
Boris Johnson, a leading proponent of Brexit and the frontrunner to be the next prime minister, praised Osborne for saying “some reassuring things to the markets”.
The former London mayor said it was now clear that “people’s pensions are safe, the pound is stable, markets are stable. I think that is all very good news.”
But neither Osborne’s nor Johnson’s words failed to stop the slide in stocks on world markets which began last Friday when Britons confounded investors’ expectations by voting to end 43 years of EU membership.
European bank shares had their worst two-day fall on record and world stocks as measured by MSCI index saw their worst two-day fall since the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crisis. On Friday alone about $2.8 trillion was wiped off the value of world stocks, the biggest daily loss ever.
Sterling fell to a low around $1.3120, its lowest level since mid-1985. The euro also remained weak, after falling to a three-month low around $1.0910 on Friday.
Asian stocks markets opened weaker on Tuesday, with MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan index extending losses for a third day, down 0.5 percent. Japan’s Nikkei was off 0.7 percent.
“Markets already appear to be pricing in a full-blown recession in the U.K. and rising recession risk in the rest of Europe,” said David Donabedian, chief investment officer of Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management.
Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s stripped Britain of its last remaining top-notch credit rating on Monday, warning that more downgrades could follow.
“In our opinion, this (referendum) outcome is a seminal event, and will lead to a less predictable, stable, and effective policy framework in the UK,” S&P said in a statement.
The yield on British 10-year government bonds fell below 1.0 percent for the first time as investors bet the Brexit vote would trigger a Bank of England interest rate cut aimed at steadying the economy.
U.S. stocks ended lower for a second day also, following European markets, pulled down by banking stocks amid uncertainty over London’s future as the region’s financial capital. Safe-haven bond and gold prices rose.