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New Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals a record number of people are working multiple jobs as households try to keep up with the surge in the cost of living. Inflation has been at record highs, and Australians are paying some of the world’s highest power prices.

Sharp increases in power prices are making a cost-of-living crisis even worse. In some parts of the country, prices have risen by up to 25%.

Power prices in Australia have been fueled by various factors, including high inflation. There have also been expensive upgrades to aging transmission lines and distribution networks. Then there’s volatility in global energy markets caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In Sydney, Diana Olmos, a migrant from Colombia, told local media that rising costs have made electricity almost unaffordable.

“The power prices will increase by 20 to 25%,” Olmos said. “I cannot afford that. I don’t know how we are going to survive this time with a huge cost-of-living rise, the rise of energy bills and really extreme weather.”

Almost a million Australians — or about 7% of the workforce — have multiple jobs, according to official data released this week by the Bureau of Statistics.

Gary Mortimer, a professor of marketing and consumer behavior at the Queensland University of Technology, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that many people are struggling financially, while others are taking advantage of record low unemployment.

“The main reason … is that cost-of-living crisis and being forced to pick up a second job, or a side hustle, but there are other groups involved there, too,” Mortimer said. “I mean, there is obviously the group that are actually taking advantage of the fact that we have got 3.5% unemployment. There is lots of work available.”

Food prices in Australia have increased by more than 7% in the past year. The cost of insurance has soared. So have mortgages. The Reserve Bank has raised interest rates 12 times since May 2022 as it tries to tame inflation, which currently stands in Australia at 6%, the same as neighboring New Zealand. In the United States, inflation — the general increase in prices — is at 4%, its lowest level since 2021, a decline mainly driven by a fall in fuel prices.

Australia’s inflation is, however, below that of the United Kingdom, where inflation fell to 7.9% in June, down from 8.7% in May.
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Pakistan and China are marking a decade of economic cooperation with much fanfare these days as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, popularly known as CPEC, completes 10 years. Experts say while the mega-project helped Pakistan develop much-needed infrastructure, the less-than-generous loans from Beijing coupled with Islamabad’s mismanagement has kept the project from turning Pakistan’s economy around.

Estimated to be the largest partnership of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global investment and infrastructure project, CPEC launched in 2013 with more than $45 billion in planned investments. Over time, it grew to more than $62 billion, of which at least $25 billion was invested in Pakistan, according to both governments.

Mustafa Hyder Sayed, executive director of the Islamabad-based, nongovernmental Pakistan-China Institute, told VOA that the project came at a critical time for Pakistan.

“At that time, we had a lot of terrorism, there was a lot of turmoil and it [Pakistan] wasn’t seen as one of the best places to invest in, particularly,” he said. “And China reposed its trust in Pakistan at that time and dove right in. All in.”

Pakistani government data indicates CPEC has so far created 200,000 jobs, built more than 1,400 kilometers (897 miles) of highways and roads and added 8,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid. The country’s deep-sea southwestern port of Gwadar, the centerpiece of CPEC, handled 600,000 tons of cargo in the last 18 months, according to officials.

At an event in Islamabad this week celebrating a decade of CPEC, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the project a game-changer.

“And this was the result of vision and commitment and friendship,” Sharif told an audience of Pakistani and Chinese dignitaries.

Visiting Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, who received Pakistan’s highest civilian honor for his services in promoting economic cooperation, called the project exemplary.

“It has set an example of common trust and mutual development,” Lifeng said.

While Pakistan is among the top recipients of China’s infrastructure and energy investments, Islamabad now owes nearly one-third of its overwhelming external debt to Beijing.

Research shows that Chinese investments, largely shrouded in secrecy, do not come cheap. A 2021 report by U.S.-based research lab AidData found that most Chinese development financing in Pakistan between 2000 and 2017 were loans, not grants, given at or near commercial rates.

Pakistan-based economist Ammar Habib Khan, a nonresident senior fellow with the Washington-based Atlantic Council, told VOA this financial burden is partly why Pakistan has struggled to stimulate its economy through CPEC.

“A lot of that infrastructure came at a fairly high cost, and a lot of that borrowing was essentially in dollar terms and fairly higher than market terms,” he said. “Because of that, Pakistan continues to make significant dollar payments for the Chinese debt. Because of that we continue to have a current account crisis and some serious debt issues.”

In 2018, complaining of unfavorable terms, then-Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government set out to review CPEC projects. By 2021, the government was promising to prioritize the projects, however, in a bid to revive cooling bilateral relations that observers believe stemmed from the Khan government’s unease with CPEC’s terms.

Economist Khan said Pakistan definitely has a debt problem but not a Chinese debt problem. He blamed Islamabad for mismanaging resources.

“We added a lot of generation capacity, but we did not make efficient the distribution channels, due to which whatever electricity is generated, a lot of it is wasted,” Khan said.

That wasted electricity is costing the government millions of dollars every year, and its debt to power plants built under CPEC is piling up.

Islamabad and Beijing reject Washington’s assertion that China’s development financing to Pakistan and other BRI recipients is a debt-trap.

Pakistan has plenty of say in CPEC projects, Sayed said, through the Joint Coordination Committee that includes Chinese and Pakistani officials.

“So, this perception of China coming in by predatory financing and weakening a host country and gaining political influence is unfounded,” he said.

A report last year by Taiwan-based anti-disinformation lab DoubleThink’s China in the World network placed Pakistan at the top of the list of countries most exposed to Chinese influence.

According to the AidData report, Chinese loan terms are less generous than what Western countries usually offer. Khan said a lack of Western funding for Pakistan left Islamabad with little choice.

“The choice was simply whether to have a power plant or whether to have 12 to 15 hours of electricity shutdown,” Khan said. “So, yes, CPEC did provide Pakistan with a base of necessary infrastructure required for industrial growth. Meanwhile, Western countries have not been able to provide the same over the last many years.”

Under the BRI, China is spending over eight times more in Pakistan than the United States is, according to AidData’s research. The U.S. spends on soft infrastructure in Pakistan such as education, governance, and law and order capacity building, while China spends on hard infrastructure there.

Pakistan is the biggest recipient of China’s energy investment in Asia, while its share of BRI’s transportation and storage projects is the highest in the world.

Along with being Pakistan’s biggest single creditor country, China also routinely rescues it from economic collapse. In the last few months, Beijing rolled over close to $8 billion in debt, according to the Pakistani government, preventing Islamabad from default.

Experts say that to lessen the debt burden stemming from CPEC, Pakistan must find ways to efficiently use the energy and infrastructure it acquired through the mega-project and strengthen domestic production and exports.
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President Joe Biden is expected to issue his long-awaited executive order to screen outbound investments in sensitive technologies to China early next week, according to people familiar with the matter.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

The goal of the order is to prevent U.S. capital and expertise from accelerating the development of technologies that would support China’s military modernization and threaten U.S. national security.

The order is expected to target U.S. private equity, venture capital and joint venture investments in China in semiconductors, quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Most investments captured by the order will require that the government be notified about them. Some transactions will be prohibited, sources have said.

“It fills a gap in our current regime,” said Cordell Hull, a former U.S. Commerce Department official. “We have prohibitions on exporting the technology. We have restrictions on in-bound investment. This will help to plug that gap on funding and know-how and give the government visibility into these capital flows.”

The regulations are not expected to take effect right away, and the administration will solicit comments on its proposals, according to sources. It has already conducted meetings with stakeholders and has been consulting with allies. The topic also came up during U.S Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent trip to China.

Yellen last month described the potential restrictions as “highly targeted, and clearly directed, narrowly, at a few sectors where we have specific national security concerns.”

Laura Black, a former policy director for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews certain transactions in the United States, said the order was not expected to establish a “reverse CFIUS,” because it would not involve a case-by-case review in which a committee would clear, mitigate or block a transaction. However, it is expected to prohibit certain investments, she said.

Two sources said briefings were expected Monday, with the announcement Tuesday. But the timing has slipped many times before and could do so again.

Sources have told Reuters the investments that will be restricted are expected to track export control rules for China issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce in October.

Emily Kilcrease, a former U.S. official who has worked on China investment policy, said the U.S. also has been trying to define what counts as artificial intelligence, and aiming to control offshore investments by U.S. people and companies.

She described the order as a major step in setting up a U.S. system of oversight to screen transactions to countries of concern and said that it was expected to expand in time.

She also said the United States should be prepared for retaliation by China.
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The regional economic forum APEC has begun hosting senior official and ministerial meetings in Seattle, Washington. This year, the United States will host the annual gathering as it navigates a range of complex topics and diplomatic challenges. Natasha Mozgovaya attended a ministerial on food security Thursday and has this report.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added 187,000 last month, fewer than expected, as higher interest rates continued to weigh on the economy. But the unemployment rate dipped to 3.5% in a sign that the job market remains resilient.

Hiring was up from 185,000 in June, a figure that the Labor Department revised down from an originally reported 209,000. Economists had expected to see 200,000 new jobs in July.

Still, last month’s hiring was solid, considering that the Federal Reserve has raised its benchmark interest 11 times since March 2022. The Fed’s inflation fighters will welcome news that more Americans entered the job market last month, easing pressure on employers to raise wages to attract and keep staff.

The U.S. economy and job market have repeatedly defied predictions of an impending recession. Increasingly, economists are expressing confidence that inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve can pull off a rare “soft landing” — raising interest rates just enough to rein in rising prices without tipping the world’s largest economy into recession. Consumers are feeling sunnier too: The Conference Board, a business research group, said that its consumer confidence index last month hit the highest level in two years.

There’s other evidence the job market, while still healthy, is losing momentum. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that job openings fell below 9.6 million in June, lowest in more than two years. But, again, the numbers remain unusually robust: Monthly job openings never topped 8 million before 2021. The number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence they can find something better elsewhere — also fell in June but remains above pre-pandemic levels.

The Fed wants to see hiring cool off. Strong demand for workers pushes up wages and can lead companies to raise prices to make up for the higher costs.
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FRANKFURT, Germany — Adidas brought in $437 million from the first release of Yeezy sneakers left over after breaking ties with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, as the German sportswear maker tries to offload the unsold shoes and donate part of the proceeds to groups fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate.

The first batch of shoes released in June, which sold out, helped the company reach an operating profit of $192 million in the second quarter, better than it originally planned, Adidas said Thursday. A second sale started Wednesday.

After Ye’s antisemitic and other offensive comments led the company to end its partnership with the rapper in October, Adidas said it had sought a way to dispose of $1.3 billion worth of the high-end shoes in a responsible way.

“We will continue to carefully sell off more of the existing Yeezy inventory,” said CEO Bjørn Gulden, who took over in January.

“This is much better than destroying and writing off the inventory and allows us to make substantial donations to organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, the Philonise and Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change and Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism,” Gulden said.

Adidas has already handed over $10.9 million to the groups and is expected to give an additional $109 million, with further donations possible depending on how future sales go, Chief Financial Officer Harm Ohlmeyer said.

Several Jewish civic leaders contacted by The Associated Press said they weren’t planning to buy a pair of Yeezys themselves but generally welcomed the plan to support anti-hate organizations, saying the company is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

The Adidas CEO said the Yeezy sales are “of course also helping both our cash flow and general financial strength.”

The first sale unloaded roughly 20% to 25% of the Yeezy sneakers that were left stacked up in warehouses, contributing $164 million of Adidas’ $192 million in operating earnings in the April-to-June quarter.

Ohlmeyer, however, cautioned that Adidas’ earnings from the Yeezy brand were smaller than the number made it seem because it did not include many of the company’s costs.

Adidas also warned that the first sale included the highest-priced shoes and sold out completely, but that it wasn’t clear whether the remaining releases would see similar price levels and demand.

The blowup of the Ye partnership put Adidas in a precarious position because of the popularity of the Yeezy line, and it faced growing pressure to end ties last year as other companies cut off the rapper.

The torn-up contract is in arbitration, “a process that is being taken care of by legal people” for both sides, and was surrounded “by a lot of uncertainty,” said Gulden.

Asked whether it must pay Ye royalties on the shoes, the company has said only that it will observe all its contractual obligations.

Yeezy revenue from June was “largely in line” with sales seen in the second quarter of last year, Adidas said. The boost has allowed the company to cut its expectations for this year’s operating loss to $492 million from the $766 million predicted previously.

On the amount of money given to anti-hate groups, Adidas said that the donations were not a fixed percentage of sales, but that it had discussed with the recipients what an appropriate amount would be.
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The Biden administration has recently been emphasizing the strength of the U.S. economy, but some small business owners remain skeptical. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias visited their shops and found out more about their economic struggles, ahead of election season.
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Pakistan and China are celebrating as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the centerpiece of Beijing’s global Belt and Road initiative, completes 10 years. The investment project has grown to over $60 billion and provided Pakistan with crucial infrastructure, but it also has added to the country’s ballooning debt. VOA’s Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports. (Produced by Malik Waqar Ahmed, Jon Spier)
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WASHINGTON — Washington added more China-based companies to a blacklist Tuesday, barring their goods from entering the United States as officials seek to remove forced labor — especially involving minorities such as the Uyghur people — from supply chains.

Battery maker Camel Group, along with spice and extract company Chenguang Biotech Group, are the latest to be included in the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) entity list, according to U.S. authorities.

The firms were targeted over accusations of working with China’s government to recruit, transport or receive forced labor or members of persecuted groups such as Uyghur minorities out of the Xinjiang region.

“Today’s additions demonstrate the United States’ unwavering commitment to eliminating forced labor, including by ensuring that goods made by forced labor are not imported into our country,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.

The U.S. government and lawmakers in other Western countries have labeled China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in the northwestern Xinjiang region “genocide” — a charge Beijing vehemently denies.

Rights groups said at least 1 million people, mostly members of Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in the region and face widespread abuses, including forced sterilization of women and coerced labor.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said, “We will continue to work with all of our partners to keep goods made with forced labor from Xinjiang out of U.S. commerce while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade.”

The UFLPA, adopted by Congress with bipartisan support in 2021, bans the import of all goods from the Xinjiang region unless companies offer verifiable proof that production did not involve forced labor.

Apart from Tuesday’s additions to the entity list, two other China-based companies — printer manufacturer Ninestar Corporation and chemical products firm Xinjiang Zhongtai Chemical Co. — were added earlier this year.
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The Teamsters said on Sunday that the union was served a notice that Yellow Corp. is ceasing operations and filing for bankruptcy. 

“Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. 

Yellow did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment. 

Earlier in the day, The Wall Street Journal reported about the closure of the trucking firm’s operations which cited notices sent to customers and employees. Last week, WSJ also reported that the company has laid off a large number of workers. 

Earlier this month Yellow averted a threatened strike by 22,000 Teamsters-represented workers, saying the company will pay the more than $50 million it owed in worker benefits and pension accruals. 

The company said on Thursday it is exploring opportunities to divest its third-party logistics company Yellow Logistics Inc. and is engaged with multiple interested parties. 

Its customers include large retailers like Walmart WMT.N and Home Depot, manufacturers and Uber Freight, some of which have paused cargo shipments to the company for fear those goods could be lost or stranded if the carrier went bankrupt. 

In 2020, the Donald Trump-led government rescued the company with a $700 million pandemic relief loan in exchange for a 30% stake. 
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At the entrance to Missouri prisons, large signs plead for help: “NOW HIRING” … “GREAT PAY & BENEFITS.”

No experience is necessary. Anyone 18 and older can apply. Long hours are guaranteed.

Though the assertion of “great pay” for prison guards would have seemed dubious in the past, a series of state pay raises prompted by widespread vacancies has finally made a difference. The Missouri Department of Corrections set a record for new applicants last month.

“After we got our raise, we started seeing people come out of the woodwork, people that hadn’t worked in a while,” said Maj. Albin Narvaez, chief of custody at the Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center, where new prisoners are housed and evaluated.

Public employers across the U.S. have faced similar struggles to fill jobs, leading to one of the largest surges in state government pay raises in 15 years. Many cities, counties and school districts also are hiking wages to try to retain and attract workers amid aggressive competition from private sector employers.

The wage war comes as governments and taxpayers feel the consequences of empty positions.

In Kansas City, Missouri, a shortage of 911 operators doubled the average hold times for people calling in emergencies. In one Florida county, some schoolchildren frequently arrived late as a lack of bus drivers delayed routes. In Arkansas, abused and neglected kids remained longer in foster care because of a caseworker shortage. In various cities and states, vacancies on road crews meant cracks and potholes took longer to fix than many motorists might like.

“A lot of the jobs we’re talking about are hard jobs,” said Leslie Scott Parker, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives.

Lingering vacancies “eventually affects service to the public or response times to needs,” she added.

Workforce shortages worsened across all sorts of jobs due to a wave of retirements and resignations that began during the pandemic. Many businesses, from restaurants to hospitals, responded nimbly with higher wages and incentives to attract employees. But governments by nature are slower to act, requiring pay raises to go through a legislative process that can take months to complete — and then can take months more to kick in.

Meanwhile, vacancies mounted.

In Georgia, state employee turnover hit a high of 25% in 2022. Thousands of workers left the Department of Corrections, pushing its vacancy rate to around 50%. The state began a series of pay raises. This year, all state employees and teachers got at least a $2,000 raise, with corrections officers getting $4,000 and state troopers $6,000.

The Georgia Department of Corrections used an ad agency to bolster recruitment and held an average of 125 job fairs a month. It’s starting to pay off. In the first week of July, the department received 318 correctional officer applications — nearly double the weekly norm, said department Public Affairs Director Joan Heath.

Almost 1 in 4 positions — more than 2,500 jobs — were empty in the Missouri Department of Corrections late last year, which was twice the pre-pandemic vacancy rate in 2019.

Missouri gave state workers a 7.5% pay raise in 2022. This spring, Gov. Mike Parson signed an emergency spending bill with an additional 8.7% raise, plus an extra $2 an hour for people working evening and night shifts at prisons, mental health facilities and other institutions. The vacancy rate for entry level corrections officers now is declining, and the average number of applications for all state positions is up 18% since the start of last year.

At the Fulton prison, where staff shortages have led to a standard 52-hour work week, newly hired employees can earn around $60,000 annually — an amount roughly equal to the state’s median household income. The prison also is proposing to provide free child care to correctional officers willing to work nights.

If prison staffing is too low, “it can get dangerous” for both inmates and guards, Narvaez said.

Public safety concerns also have arisen in Kansas City, where a country music fan attacked before a concert last month waited four minutes for a 911 call to be answered and an hour for an ambulance to arrive. About one-quarter of 911 call center positions are vacant — “a huge factor” in the longer wait times to answer calls, said Tamara Bazzle, assistant manager of the communications unit for the Kansas City Police Department.

In Biddeford, Maine, a 15-person roster of 911 dispatchers dipped to just eight employees in July as people quit a “pressure cooker job” for less stress or better pay elsewhere, Police Chief JoAnne Fisk said. The city is now offering fully certified dispatchers $41 an hour to help plug the gaps on a part-time basis — $10 an hour more than comparable new workers normally would earn.

This month, Biddeford also launched a $2,000 bonus for city employees who refer others who get jobs. That comes a year after Biddeford adopted a four-day work week with paid lunch periods to try to make jobs more appealing, said City Manager Jim Bennett.

To attract workers, other governments have dropped college degree requirements and spiced up drab job descriptions.

Nationally, the turnover rate in state and local governments is twice the average of the previous two decades, according federal labor statistics.

Uncompetitive wages were the most common reason for leaving cited in exit interviews, according to a survey of 249 state and local government human resource managers conducted by MissionSquare Research Institute, a Washington, D.C. -based nonprofit. The hardest positions to fill included police and corrections officers, doctors, nurses, engineers and jobs requiring commercial driver’s licenses.

Along Florida’s east coast, the Brevard County transit system and school district have been competing for bus drivers. On days when drivers are lacking, the transit system has cut the frequency of bus stops on some routes. The school system, meanwhile, has asked some bus drivers to run a second route after dropping children off at school, often resulting in the second busload arriving late.

Since 2022, the county has twice raised bus driver wages to a current rate of $17.47 an hour. The school board recently countered with a $5 increase to a minimum $20 an hour for the upcoming school year. The goal is to hire enough drivers to regularly get kids to class on time, said school system communications director Russell Bruhn.

In Arkansas, the goal is to get foster kids into permanent homes in less than a year. But during the first three months of this year, the state met that target for just 32% of foster children — well below the national standard of over 40%. More than one-fifth of the roughly 1,400 positions in the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services are vacant.

Many new employees leave in less than two years because of heavy caseloads and the “very difficult, emotionally tolling work,” Mischa Martin, the Department of Human Services’ deputy secretary of youth and families, told lawmakers last month.

“If we had a knowledgeable, experienced workforce,” she said, “they would be able to work cases in a better way to get kids home quicker.”
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday that Sri Lanka is a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific but also at countering an increasingly assertive China.

Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo.

The initiative, announced by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in March includes Japan’s assistance to emerging economies, support for maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation.

Last year Sri Lanka, which owed $51 billion in foreign debt, became the first Asia-Pacific country since the late 1990s to default, sparking an economic crisis.

While Japan is Sri Lanka’s largest creditor, about 10% of its debt is held by China, which lent Colombo billions to build seaports, airports and power plants as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. In March, China agreed to offer Sri Lanka a two-year moratorium on loan repayments.

Hayashi said that he conveyed expectations for further progress in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process. He welcomed Sri Lanka’s efforts under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which includes anti-corruption measures and transparency in the policy-making process.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Sabry said that he, along with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, invited Japan to resume investment projects already in the pipeline and to consider fresh investments in sectors such as power generation, ports and highways, and dedicated investment zones, as well as in the green and digital economy.

Over many decades, Japan became one of Sri Lanka’s key donors, carrying out key projects under concessionary terms. However, relations between the two countries came under strain after Wickremesinghe’s predecessor, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, unilaterally scrapped a Japan-funded light railway project following his election in 2019.

Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has already approved a proposal to restart the railway project.

Rajapaksa was forced to resign in July 2022 amid angry public protests over the country’s worsening economic crisis.
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NIAMEY, Niger — The European Union has cut off financial support to Niger, and the United States has threatened to do the same after military leaders this week announced they had overthrown the democratically elected president, Mohamed Bazoum.

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving close to $2 billion a year in official development assistance, according to the World Bank.

It is also a key security partner of Western countries such as France and the United States, which use it as a base for their efforts to contain an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa’s Sahel region. Previously seen as the most stable country among several unstable neighbors, Niger is the world’s seventh-biggest producer of uranium.

Niger’s foreign allies so far have refused to recognize the new military government led by General Abdourahamane Tchiani, previously head of the presidential guard, who officers declared head of state on Friday.

Bazoum has not been heard from since early Thursday when he was confined within the presidential palace, although the European Union, France and others say they still recognize him as the legitimate president.

“In addition to the immediate cessation of budget support, all cooperation actions in the domain of security are suspended indefinitely with immediate effect,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Niger is a key partner of the European Union in helping curb the flow of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. The EU also has a small number of troops in Niger for a military training mission.

The EU allocated $554 million from its budget to improve governance, education and sustainable growth in Niger over 2021-2024, according to its website.

The United States has two military bases in Niger with some 1,100 soldiers, and it also provides hundreds of millions of dollars to the country in security and development aid.

“The very significant assistance that we have in place for people in Niger is clearly in jeopardy,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. U.S. support depends on the continuation of democratic governance, he said.

The United Nations said the coup has not affected its deliveries of humanitarian aid.

It is unclear how much support the military junta has among Niger’s population. Some crowds came out in support of Bazoum on Wednesday, but the following day coup supporters were demonstrating in the streets.

The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, will hold an emergency summit in Nigeria on Sunday to discuss the situation.

After an emergency meeting on Friday, the African Union’s Peace and Security Council issued a statement demanding the military return to their barracks and restore constitutional order within 15 days. It did not say what would happen after that.
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More than one-third of US workers are remote for at least part of the week
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The European Union allowed the free trade of Ukrainian crops after Russia invaded. The glut that resulted prompted some EU members to impose a ban on sales, which threatens the flow of the grain to world markets. VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze reports from Warsaw, Poland. VOA footage by Daniil Batushchak
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WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund said on Friday that it has reached a staff-level agreement with Argentina to unlock about $7.5 billion and complete the fifth and sixth reviews of the struggling country’s $44 billion loan program.

The agreement, which still needs IMF Executive Board approval, eases some program requirements because a devastating drought has created a “very challenging” economic environment in Argentina, causing some end-of-June financial targets to be missed.

Reuters first reported that the agreement would combine the fifth and sixth reviews of Argentina’s IMF program — a move that provides additional loan funds sooner. The IMF said its board would meet to consider the agreement in the second half of August.

The Fund said in a statement that since the fourth review of the loan program in March, “Argentina’s economic situation has become very challenging due to the larger-than-anticipated impact of a drought, which had a significant impact on exports and fiscal revenues.”

“There have also been policy slippages and delays, which have contributed to strong domestic demand and a weaker trade balance,” the IMF said.

To sustain demand for Argentina’s peso currency, the agreement calls for authorities to ensure that policy interest rates remain “sufficiently positive in real terms.”

The agreement projects a more gradual accumulation of reserves, with a target of around $1 billion by the end of 2023, compared to an $8 billion goal set in March.

The agreement calls for Argentina to tamp down import demand with new foreign exchange taxes for imported goods and to strengthen expenditure controls. But its 2023 primary fiscal deficit target remains unchanged at 1.9% of GDP, the IMF said.

With no liquid currency reserves in the central bank, Argentina has recently introduced more peso exchange rates to stop the drainage. The Fund said that the program will need waivers because these measures are “against the introduction of multiple currency practices.”

The government will need to take some additional measures, known as prior actions, between the staff-level agreement and the board approval, according to a source familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the measures are still not public.

The next review is expected to take place in November, a month earlier than originally scheduled.

Argentina is set to have another three reviews on its 2022 IMF program by September 2024, although the IMF statement didn’t specify what would happen with those.

The IMF’s board approval of the reviews would come after a primary vote on Aug. 13 when Economy Minister Sergio Massa runs as one of the presidential candidates for the ruling coalition.

The country still needs to avoid a default with the Fund next week, with maturities of $2.6 billion due on Monday and almost $800 million due on Tuesday. Argentine officials are working to “get financing from several sources” to meet these obligations, the source added, without providing any further details. 

While it is not clear how the country will make those payments, Buenos Aires could potentially use a swap line with China, a move it recently made to complete part of its June payment to the IMF.
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BANGKOK — Shortly after China opened its borders with the end of “zero-COVID,” Zhang Chuannan lost her job as an accountant at a cosmetic firm in Shanghai and decided to explore the world.

“The cosmetics business was bleak,” said Zhang, 34, because everyone wore face masks during the pandemic. After being laid off, she paid $1,400 for an online Thai course, got an education visa and moved to the scenic northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.

Zhang is among a growing number of young Chinese moving overseas not necessarily because of ideological reasons but to escape the country’s ultra-competitive work culture, family pressures and limited opportunities after living in the country under the strict pandemic policies for three years. Southeast Asia has become a popular destination given its proximity, relatively inexpensive cost of living and tropical scenery.

There are no exact data on the number of young Chinese moving overseas since the country ended pandemic restrictions and reopened its borders. But on the popular Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, hundreds of people have discussed their decisions to relocate to Thailand. Many get a visa to study Thai while figuring out their next steps.

At Payap University in Chiang Mai, around 500 Chinese began an online Thai course early this year.

Royce Heng, owner of Duke Language School, a private language institute in Bangkok, said around 180 Chinese inquire each month about visa information and courses.

The hunt for opportunities far from home is partly motivated by China’s unemployment rate for people ages 16 to 24, which rose to a record high of 21.3% in June. The scarcity of good jobs increases pressure to work long hours.

Opting out is an increasingly popular way for younger workers to cope with a time of downward mobility, said Beverly Yuen Thompson, a sociology professor at Siena College in Albany, New York.

“In their 20s and early 30s, they can go to Thailand, take selfies and work on the beach for a few years and feel like they have a great quality of life,” Thomson said. “If those nomads had the same opportunities they hoped for in their home countries, they could just travel on vacation.”

During the pandemic in China, Zhang was cooped up in her Shanghai apartment for weeks at a time. Even when lockdowns were lifted, she feared another COVID-19 outbreak would prevent her from moving around within the country.

“I now value freedom more,” Zhang said.

A generous severance package helped finance her time in Thailand, and she is seeking ways to stay abroad long-term, perhaps by teaching Chinese language online.

Moving to Chiang Mai means waking up in the mornings to bird songs and a more relaxed pace of life. Unlike in China, she has time to practice yoga and meditation, shop for vintage clothes and attend dance classes.

Armonio Liang, 38, left the western Chinese city of Chengdu in landlocked Sichuan province for the Indonesian island of Bali, a popular digital nomad destination. His Web3 social media startup was limited by Chinese government restrictions while his use of cryptocurrency exchange apps drew police harassment.

Moving to Bali gave him greater freedom and a middle-class lifestyle with what might be barely enough money to live on back home.

“This is what I cannot get in China,” said Liang, referring to working on his laptop on the beach and brainstorming with expatriates from around the world. “Thousands of ideas just sprouted up in my mind. I had never been so creative before.”

He also has enjoyed being greeted with smiles.

“In Chengdu, everyone is so stressed. If I smiled at a stranger, they would think I am an idiot,” he said.

Life overseas is not all beach chats and friendly neighbors, though. For most young workers, such stays will be interludes in their lives, Thompson said.

“They can’t have kids, because kids have to go to school,” Thompson said. “They cannot fulfill their responsibilities to their parents. What if their aging parents need help? They eventually will get a full-time job back home and get called back home because of one of those things.”

Zhang said she faces pressure to get married. Liang wants his parents to move to Bali with him.

“It’s a big problem,” Liang said. “They worry they will be lonely after moving out of China and worry about medical resources here.”

Huang Wanxiong, 32, was stranded on Bohol Island in the Philippines for seven months in 2020 when air travel halted during the pandemic. He spent his time learning free diving, which involves diving to great depths without oxygen tanks.

He eventually flew home to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou but lost his job at a private tutoring company after the government cracked down on the industry in 2021. His next gig was driving more than 16 hours a day for a ride-hailing business.

“I felt like a machine during those days,” Huang said. “I can accept a stable and unchanging life, but I cannot accept not having any hope, not trying to improve the situation and surrendering to fate.”

Huang returned to the Philippines in February, escaping family pressures to get a better job and find a girlfriend in China. He renewed his Bohol Island friendships and qualified as a dive instructor.

But without Chinese tourists to teach and no income, he flew home again in June.

He still hopes to make a living as a diver, possibly back in Southeast Asia, although he also might agree to his parents’ proposal to emigrate to Peru to work in a family-run supermarket.

Huang recalled that he once surfaced too quickly from a 40-meter (131-foot) dive and his hands trembled from a dangerous lack of oxygen, known as hypoxia. The lesson he took was to avoid rushing and maintain a steady climb. Until his next move, he plans to use that free diver discipline to counter the anxieties of living in China.

“I will apply the calm I learned from the sea surrounding that island to my real life,” Huang said. “I will maintain my own pace.”
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