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Burkina Faso is home to many people internally displaced by years of insecurity and conflict. Most of them live in various towns across the country, and some are now trying to find jobs in the capital, Ouagadougou, or starting businesses. VOA’s Gildas Da has this report, narrated by Anthony LaBruto.
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Nairobi, Kenya — Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday ordered significant cuts in the federal budget along with other government reforms to pay off a crushing debt burden in a move seen as a concession to popular disapproval of a tax bill that sparked violent protests.

Following weeks of protests during which dozens of people reportedly were killed, Ruto withdrew a finance bill intended to raise $2.7 billion — most of it from tax increases — to pay off debt.

Ruto instead offered a compromise: a plan is to cut $1.39 billion from the budget and borrow the difference.

To make it work, Ruto said, his government will eliminate 47 state corporations with overlapping or duplicative functions and reduce by 50% the number of government advisors, among many other actions.

Filling the positions of chief administrative secretaries is suspended, Ruto said, and government funds will not be used for the operations of the offices of the first lady, the spouse of the deputy president and the prime cabinet secretary.

And there’s more.

“Public servants who attain retirement age of 60 shall be required to immediately proceed on retirement with no extensions,” Ruto said.

Also, government purchase of new motor vehicles is suspended for 12 months, except for security agencies, and all nonessential travel by state and public officers is suspended, the president said.

Some of the actions were on a list of demands made by protesters.

Ruto also said he has appointed an independent task force to carry out a comprehensive, forensic audit of the country’s public debt.

“This audit will provide Kenyans with clarity on the extent and nature of our debt and how public resources have been expanded and also recommend proposals for managing public debt in a manner that is sustainable and does not burden future generations,” he said.

Nearly 40 people died and 360 were injured nationwide since the protests started three weeks ago, according to Kenya’s National Commission on Human Rights.
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Colombo, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka will save $5 billion following the restructure of its bilateral debt, much of which is owed to China, through slashed interest rates and longer repayment schedules, the president said Tuesday.

The island nation defaulted on its foreign borrowings in 2022 during an unprecedented economic crisis that precipitated months of food, fuel and medicine shortages.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe said a deal struck last week had secured a moratorium on debt payments until 2028, extending the tenure of loans by eight years and cutting interest rates to an average of 2.1%.

Wickremesinghe said bilateral lenders led by China, the government’s largest single creditor, did not agree to take a haircut on their loans, but the terms agreed would nonetheless help Sri Lanka.

“With the restructure measures we have agreed, we will make a saving of $5.0 billion,” Wickremesinghe told parliament in his first address to the legislature since the debt deal.

Some of Sri Lanka’s loans from China are at high interest rates, going up to nearly 8.0% compared to borrowings from Japan, the second largest lender, at less than 1.0%.

Sri Lanka struck separate deals with China and the rest of the bilateral creditors, including Japan, France and India.

Bilateral creditors account for 28.5% of Sri Lanka’s outstanding foreign debt of $37 billion, according to treasury data from March. This excludes government-guaranteed external loans.

China accounts for $4.66 billion of the $10.58 billion that Sri Lanka has borrowed from other countries.

Wickremesinghe said he expected to complete shortly the restructure of a further $14.7 billion in external commercial loans, including $2.18 billion from the China Development Bank.

Sri Lanka’s 2022 crisis sparked months of public protests that eventually forced the resignation of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa after an angry mob stormed his compound.

Wickremesinghe said the nation was bankrupt when he took over and he hoped the $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund bailout he secured last year would be the island’s last.

Colombo had gone to the IMF, the international lender of last resort, on 16 previous occasions and the debt restructuring is a condition of the IMF bailout.
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Washington — U.S. manufacturing activity edged lower in June, deepening a recent slump on continued weak demand, according to industry survey data published Monday.

The Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) manufacturing index came in at 48.5% last month, down 0.2 percentage points from May.

The June data came in below market expectations of 49.1%, according to Briefing.com, and marked the third consecutive month where the reading was below the 50-point mark separating expansion from contraction.

“U.S. manufacturing activity continued in contraction at the close of the second quarter,” ISM survey chief Timothy Fiore said in a statement.

“Demand remains subdued, as companies demonstrate an unwillingness to invest in capital and inventory due to current monetary policy and other conditions,” he continued, referring to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s ongoing battle against rising prices.

Inflation has fallen sharply since the Fed began hiking interest rates in 2022, but remains stuck above its long-term target of 2% — keeping borrowing costs high for both consumers and producers.

“Production execution was down compared to the previous month, likely causing revenue declines, putting pressure on profitability,” Fiore said.

June’s data extends the recent slump, which began after a positive reading in March briefly snapped 16 straight months of contraction.

The ISM survey found that eight manufacturing industries reported growth in June, including petroleum and coal products, and chemical products, while nine contracted, including textile mills, transportation equipment, and electrical equipment.

“Manufacturing activity remained in contraction territory in June, but in a sign of moderating inflation pressure, the prices paid component fell 4.9 points,” Wells Fargo economists wrote in a note to clients.

“New orders rose more than any other component but remains in contraction,” they added.

 
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LA PAZ — Signs reading “I’m buying dollars” line the doors of Víctor Vargas’ shoe shop in the heart of Bolivia’s biggest city, a desperate attempt to keep his family business alive.

Just a few years ago, the 45-year-old Vargas would unlock the doors at 8 a.m. to a crush of customers already waiting to buy tennis shoes imported from China. Now, his shop sits hopelessly empty.

“Right now, we’re in a dreadful crisis,” he said. “No one buys anything anymore. … We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Bolivians like Vargas have been hit hard by economic turmoil in the small South American nation fueled by a longtime hyper-dependence on, and now shortage of, U.S. dollars.

The economic downturn has been exacerbated by an ongoing feud between President Luis Arce and his ally-turned-rival former President Evo Morales in the lead-up to next year’s presidential election. Many Bolivians impacted by the crisis have lost trust in Arce, who denies the country is even in an economic crisis.

“Bolivia has an economy that’s growing. An economy in crisis doesn’t grow,” Arce told The Associated Press in an interview. That was contradicted by both economists and dozens of Bolivians.

That deep distrust came to a head on Wednesday following a spectacle which the government called a “failed coup d’etat” and opponents including Morales called a staged “self-coup” meant to earn the unpopular leader political points before elections.

Whether the coup attempt was real or not, most Bolivians who spoke to the AP said they no longer believe what their leader says, and say Arce would be better served addressing Bolivia’s gasping economy and less time carrying out political stunts.

“He should think about Bolivia’s economy, make a plan to move forward, find a way to get dollars and work to move Bolivia forward,” Vargas said. “No more of these childish ‘self-coups.’”

That simmering anger has paved the way for even more strife in a country that is no stranger to political unrest.

Bolivia’s economic crisis is rooted in a complex combination of dependence on the dollar, draining international reserves, mounting debt and failures to produce products like gas, once the Andean nation’s economic boon.

This has meant that Bolivia has largely become an import economy “totally dependent on dollars,” said Gonzalo Chávez, an economist with Bolivia’s Catholic University. That once worked in Bolivia’s favor, driving the country’s “economic miracle” as it became one of the region’s fastest growing economies.

Vargas’ family opened the shoe business nearly 30 years ago because they saw it as a surefire way to ensure stability for coming generations. The family imports shoes from China, which they pay for in dollars and sell them in Bolivia’s currency, bolivianos. Without dollars, they have no business.

The shortage of dollars has led to the emergence of a black market, with many sellers bringing in greenbacks from neighboring Peru and Chile and selling them at a gouged price.

Pascuala Quispe, 46, spent her Saturday walking around La Paz’s downtown going to different currency exchange shops, desperately searching for dollars to buy car parts. While the official exchange rate is 6.97 bolivianos to the dollar, she was told the real price was 9.30 bolivianos, far too high a price for her. So she kept walking, hoping to find luck elsewhere.

Gouged prices have trickled down to everything. People have stopped buying shoes, meat and clothing, and that has pushed working class people deeper into poverty. Bolivians make jokes about having “mattress banks,” storing cash at home because they don’t trust banks.

“There are no jobs. … and the money we earn isn’t enough for anything,” Quispe said. “Everyone suffers.”

Some vendors like Vargas paste signs on their business doors, hopeful sellers will trade dollars at a more reasonable price.

It’s a complicated economic bind that has few short-term solutions, said Chávez, the economist.

But Arce insists that Bolivia’s economy is “one of the most stable” and says he’s taking action to address problems ailing Bolivians, including shortages of dollars and gasoline. He said the government is also industrializing, investing in new economies like tourism and lithium.

While Bolivia sits on the world’s biggest stores of lithium, a high-value metal key to transitioning to a green economy, investment is only viable in the long term, largely due to government failures, said Chávez. Meanwhile, inflation has outpaced economic growth, and most Bolivians face unstable work conditions with minuscule pay.

That is only compounded by ongoing fights between Arce and Morales, who returned from exile after resigning during unrest in 2019, which Morales maintains was a coup against him. Now the former allies have slung insults and fought over who will represent their Movement for Socialism party, known by its Spanish acronym MAS, ahead of 2025 elections.

“Arce and Evo Morales, they fight over who is more powerful,” Vargas said. “But neither govern for Bolivia. … There’s a lot of uncertainty.”

Broad discontent has fueled waves of protests and strikes in recent months. Protests and road blocks have dealt another economic blow to Vargas, the shoe vendor, because customers from all over the country no longer travel to buy products because of the chaos of ubiquitous protests.

Morales, who still wields a great deal of power in Bolivia, blocked Arce’s government from passing measures in Congress to ease the economic turmoil, which Arce told the AP was a “political attack.”

Morales has fueled speculation that the military assault on the government palace last week allegedly led by former military commander José Zúñiga was a political stunt organized by Arce to gain sympathy from Bolivians. The claim was first made by Zúñiga himself upon his arrest.

“He tricked and lied to, not just the Bolivian people, but the entire world,” Morales said in a Sunday radio program.

The political spats left many like 35-year-old Edwin Cruz, a truck driver, shaking their heads as they wait for hours, sometimes days, in long lines for diesel and gasoline because of intermittent shortages caused by lack of foreign currency.

“Diesel is like gold now,” he said. “People aren’t idiots. And with this whole thing with the ‘self-coup’ this government has to go.”

Cruz is among those who don’t want to vote for either Morales or Arce. While Bolivians have few other options, Chávez said discontent opened a “small window” for an outsider to gain traction, just as it has with a number of Latin American outsiders in recent years.

Most recently, self-described “anarcho-capitalist” Javier Milei has taken the helm of neighboring Argentina with promises to lift the country out of its economic spiral, which shares a number of similarities with Bolivia’s.

Meanwhile, Vargas doesn’t know what he’ll do with his family’s shoe store. Once a point of pride, the shop has turned into a financial drain. He would pass it down to one of his four children, but all of them want to leave Bolivia. One of his children has already migrated to China.

“They don’t want to live here anymore,” Vargas said in his empty store. “Here in Bolivia, there’s no future.”
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Washington — Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was down sharply last year, according to the United Nations and private sources, but the plants are being grown in most provinces despite a ban imposed by the Taliban. Some areas grow more than others.

According to sources inside Afghanistan and on Taliban-run social media accounts, farmers in about 29 provinces have been growing poppies since spring. The largest amounts are grown in Badakhshan, Helmand, Herat and Nangarhar provinces.

Poppies, which farmers process to make opium, are being grown in the open and hidden behind property walls.

Taliban forces conducted thousands of operations to destroy the plant, as was announced on the X social media platform by the Ministry of Interior Counter Narcotics. It listed 29 provinces where they conducted eradication efforts.

The Taliban Interior Ministry said that in the past six months, its police conducted more than 15,000 poppy eradication operations on more than 3,600 hectares (8,900 acres). It also said thousands of people were arrested for violating the ban.

Abdul Haq Akhundzada, Taliban deputy interior minister for counternarcotics, told VOA there won’t be problems with narcotics this year.

“In those provinces, in areas where farmers grow hidden poppy, we conducted operations there as well, and we eradicated their hidden poppy,” he said.

Not everyone is peacefully accepting the opium ban and eradication. In northeastern Badakhshan province, violent clashes erupted last month between the Taliban and farmers. Two people were killed.

Local Taliban eradication officials reported that in Badakhshan, 35,000 to 40,000 acres were cleared.

Aminullah Taib, deputy Taliban governor in Badakhshan, said they were able to eradicate the fall and spring poppy cultivation in eight districts and will not allow further growth.

Farmers said the eradication was disrespectful of the local culture as the Taliban went to the villages without talking to the elders and informing the villagers about the process.

Abdul Hafiz, a resident of Argo district, where the clash between the farmers and Taliban took place, told VOA the Taliban entered people’s homes and destroyed their poppy crops “without a prayer, notice or acknowledgment.”

Poppy growth was at its high in 2021, the year the Taliban regained power. Farmers grew as much as possible, fearing the crop would be banned. While the Taliban banned poppy growth in 2022, they allowed the farmers to harvest what they had already planted.

It was a record year. The United Nations estimated that Afghan opium production was 6,800 metric tons (7,500 tons) in 2021 and 6,200 metric tons (6,800 tons) in 2022.

Last year, the Taliban were largely successful in banning the crop. In opium-rich Helmand province, poppy crop cultivation was down by 99.9%.

Yet how successful the ban was considered depends on the source.

The United Nations reported in October that poppy cultivation was down by 95%. Across Afghanistan, the U.N. said, opium cultivation fell from 233,000 hectares (575,755 acres) in 2022 to just 10,800 hectares (26,687 acres) in 2023.

But the imaging company Alcis, in its comprehensive satellite survey, says poppy cultivation was down by 86% to 31,088 hectares (76,200 acres).

William Byrd, a senior researcher at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA that the 9 percentage-point spread between Alcis and the U.N. makes a difference in how much poppy is estimated to have been harvested for 2023.

He said Alcis paints a more complete picture.

“Opium poppies’ distinctive characteristics and the tools developed by Alcis over a number of years facilitate the complete-coverage approach,” he said, adding that the U.N. relies on sampling different areas. Alcis analyzes satellite imagery for all agricultural land and poppy fields multiple times during the planting, cultivation and harvesting of opium poppy.

Results for 2024 poppy planting are expected by both organizations in the fall.

The economic situation in Afghanistan is dire as more than 12 million people face acute food insecurity.

The poppy ban takes about $1 billion in income away from the rural economy. So, even faced with the ban, impoverished farmers continue to grow poppies because they have few options for income.

For decades now, poppies and the resulting opium have been the biggest cash crop for farmers. Most practice subsistence farming. They have no extra income or time to buy the seeds of other plants and then wait years for them to mature to be harvested and sold.

Farmers complain that the Taliban government isn’t helping them with alternative crops.

Hassebullah, a farmer in Laghman province, told VOA that farmers need support and that they are still waiting for the Taliban government’s help.

“If a farmer doesn’t grow poppy and hashish,” said Hassebullah, who, like most rural Afghans, goes by his first name, “then as an alternative, the government should provide seeds and fertilizer, some agriculture products and other assistance.”

Taliban Deputy Counternarcotics Minister Javed Qaem told VOA that until farmers are provided alternatives, “unfortunately, we will be witnessing more clashes in the coming years.”
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After more than three decades, Egypt has increased the fixed price of subsidized bread from 0.05 Egyptian pounds ($0.0010) a loaf to 0.20 Egyptian pounds ($0.0042). With record levels of inflation already straining the Egyptian people — the majority of whom rely upon the discounted dietary staple — Cairo-based photojournalist Hamada Elrasam turns his lens on bakeries and their customers amid the 300% price hike. Captions by Elle Kurancid.
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HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Officials in Zimbabwe, which is facing a growing problem of substance abuse — especially among unemployed youth, say arrests have surged in 2024, with close to 2,400 people taken into custody so far.

Officials say economic difficulties are hampering efforts to curb the problem.

Zimbabwean Information Minister Jenfan Muswere said the Cabinet recently approved a review of fines ranging from $30 to $400 or imprisonment not exceeding two years for any business convicted of selling illicit drugs.

He said that in addition to the 2,373 people who have been arrested in 2024, 48 bases in six provinces have been raided and destroyed.

“The fight against the scourge of drug and substance abuse will continue across all provinces of Zimbabwe,” Muswere said. “Religious organizations have embraced the fight against drug and substance abuse through campaigns encouraging particularly the youths to live drug-free lives.”

Oscar Pambuka, who was recently released from jail after serving time for drug use, said more tools are needed to fight the vice, such as creating more jobs.

He said he started taking crystal methamphetamine after he and his wife divorced and he had no job.

“I began to associate with the new characters,” Pambuka said. “They became my new friends. And within those associations, I fell in love with a drug called crystal meth. … It used to make me feel comfortable. It used to give me temporary joy.”

But his drug use led to losing financial resources and his networks, he said, because many people don’t want to associate with drug users. He also lost weight — 20 kilograms (44 pounds) between 2016 and 2020 — although he started regaining some in jail.

“I thank God for the incarceration,” he said.

Officials say Zimbabwe’s economy has been hurt by U.S. sanctions against the government for alleged corruption and human rights abuses in the early 2000s.

Critics attribute the economic decline to corruption and bad policies by Harare.

Inflation is running at an annual rate of 55% — lower than the hyperinflation that plagued Zimbabwe in the past but still high enough to make the cost of living difficult for most ordinary Zimbabweans.

Representatives from government and United Nations agencies in Zimbabwe are expected to meet with President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare this Wednesday to devise a national plan on drug and substance abuse.
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BEIJING — Beijing wants the EU to scrap its preliminary tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles by July 4, China’s state-controlled Global Times reported, after both sides agreed to hold new trade talks. 

Provisional European Union duties of up to 38.1% on imported Chinese-made EVs are set to kick in by July 4 while the bloc investigates what it says are excessive and unfair subsidies. 

China has repeatedly called on the EU to cancel its tariffs, expressing a willingness to negotiate. Beijing does not want to be embroiled in another tariff war, still stung by U.S. tariffs on its goods imposed by the Trump administration, but says it would take all steps to protect Chinese firms should one happen. 

Both sides agreed to restart talks after a call between EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and China’s Commerce Minister on Saturday during a visit to China by Germany’s economy minister, who said the doors for discussion are “open.” 

China’s Global Times, citing observers, said the best outcome is that the EU scraps its tariff decision before July 4. 

But the Commission, analysts and European trade lobby groups stressed that talks would be a major undertaking and China would need to come willing to make major concessions. 

“Nobody will dare to do this now. Not before the elections in France,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, senior fellow at Bruegel, an influential EU affairs think tank, on whether the planned curbs could be dropped. 

“The Commission can’t change a decision it has been pondering for months on months on months,” she added. “Yes, China is putting pressure on the member states, but they would need to vote with a qualified majority against the Commission.” 

The tariffs are set to be finalized on Nov. 2 at the end of the EU anti-subsidy investigation. 

“The EU side emphasized that any negotiated outcome to its investigation must be effective in addressing the injurious subsidization,” a Commission spokesperson said on Monday. 

The Chinese commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 

Talks are a ‘good sign’  

Siegfried Russwurm, head of Germany’s biggest industry association BDI, said it was a “good sign” that both sides would hold talks in the ongoing dispute. 

“You know the old saying: as long as there are talks you’re not shooting at each other,” he told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. 

Russwurm, who also serves as chairman for German conglomerate and car supplier Thyssenkrupp, said tariffs was the last thing Germany needed as a major exporting nation. 

At the same time, Brussels’ move to apply tariffs of varying degrees suggested a thorough analysis has taken place and that this was not an effort that targets the entire Chinese car sector in equal measure. 

Meantime, Maximilian Butek, executive director at the German Chamber of Commerce in China, said there was “zero chance” that the preliminary tariffs would be removed by July 4 unless China eliminated all the issues flagged by the European Commission. 

EU trade policy has turned increasingly protective over concerns that China’s production-focused development model could see it flooded with cheap goods as Chinese firms look to step up exports amid weak domestic demand. 

China has rejected accusations of unfair subsidies or that it has an overcapacity problem, saying the development of its EV industry has been the result of advantages in technology, market and industry supply chains.  

“When European Commission President Von der Leyen announced she would investigate China’s new energy vehicles … I had an intuitive feeling it was not only an economic issue but also a geopolitical issue,” said Zhang Yansheng, chief research fellow at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. 

Armed and ready 

Trade relations between the 27-strong bloc and the world’s No. 2 economy took an abrupt turn for the worse in May 2021 when the European Parliament voted to freeze ratification of what would have been a landmark investment treaty because of tit-for-tat sanctions over allegations of human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. 

They came to blows again that year when China downgraded diplomatic ties with Lithuania and told multinationals to sever relations with the Baltic state after Vilnius invited democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, to open a representative office in the capital. 

Although calling for talks, Beijing has also indicated that it has retaliatory measures ready if the EU does not back down, and that it considers Brussels wholly responsible for the escalating tensions. 

The Global Times, which first reported China was considering opening a tit-for-tat anti-dumping investigation into European pork imports — which the commerce ministry confirmed last week — has also teed up an anti-subsidy investigation into European dairy goods and tariffs on large engine petrol cars. 

Chinese authorities have dropped hints about possible retaliatory measures through state media commentaries and interviews with industry figures. 

“It seems probable that Beijing will raise tariffs up to 25% for Europe-made cars with 2.5 or above liter engines,” said Jacob Gunter, lead analyst at Berlin-based China studies institute MERICS. 

“Pork and dairy are already on the table for Beijing, and likely more agricultural products will be threatened,” he added. 

“On the EU side, there are a variety of ongoing investigations … so we should expect some sort of measures targeting distortions on [Chinese] products ranging from medical devices to airport security scanners to steel pipes.” 
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