As many as three dozen domestic and international flights at New Zealand’s Auckland Airport have been canceled Tuesday as it struggles to deal with a weeklong fuel shortage.

New Zealand’s main airport has lost 70 percent of its jet fuel supplies since a digger ruptured the main pipeline that carries fuel to the facility, forcing many air carriers to refuel at other airports in the Pacific region. The accident has also cut off supplies of high-grade gasoline at Auckland gas stations, although fuel supplier Z Energy says stocks of regular gasoline are still plentiful.

The pipeline’s owner says the repairs will not be completed until sometime next week.

Prime Minister Bill English says a naval tanker and military trucks have been assigned to transport fuel to ease the shortage, and has ordered all lawmakers and public employees to avoid any unnecessary air travel until the situation is resolved.

The fuel disruption has placed enormous pressure on English with Saturday’s national elections on the horizon. Jacinda Ardern, the leader of the main opposition Labour Party, accused English of ignoring warnings about the pipeline’s vulnerability.

“One pipeline, one digger, and New Zealand grinds to a halt,” Ardern told reporters Tuesday. The 37-year-old politician has led the Labour Party from a certain electoral defeat to a tight race with English’s ruling National Party.
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Two of Italy’s biggest coffee houses are reinforcing their brands with flagship cafes in Milan near the spot where U.S. rival Starbucks is set to begin operations next year.

Lavazza opens its first flagship cafe in the coffee-obsessed city on Tuesday, not far from the renovated 19th century palazzo where Starbucks will open its first Italian store, a ‘Reserve Roasteries’ outlet offering specialty blends and fine food.

Another top Italian brand, illycaffe, opened its own luxury cafe close to the Starbucks site in May, in a cozy courtyard in Milan’s most fashionable street.

Lavazza, which is opening near the city’s famous La Scala opera house, and illycaffe both deny their moves are a response to a global rival’s impending arrival, a first step in what may become a 200-store expansion.

Industry experts suspect it is no coincidence.

“Lavazza and illycaffe are the purists of coffee, they want to show they are there when Starbucks arrives,” says Jean-Paul Gaillard, who ran Nespresso for 10 years before founding the Ethical Coffee Company, a Swiss firm selling coffee pods.

Milan’s battle of the coffee palaces reflects global competition among major brands to capture a growing market for people who are prepared to pay a premium for quality espresso coffees in upmarket boutique cafes.

Nestle last week bought California-based Blue Bottle Coffee, one of the top boutique U.S. chains whose single-origin and cold-brewed coffees have proven popular with hipsters and have made inroads into the Starbucks franchise.

JAB Holdings, the investment vehicle of Germany’s Reimann family, has also been buying up independent start-ups selling premium brews around the world, from Europe to the Americas.

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz hopes his company’s arrival in Milan, which he calls the home of the “perfect espresso”, and the inspiration for his Starbucks vision, will show discerning Italian coffee-lovers that “we got it right.”

“We are happy to hear about Lavazza’s growth,” said a Starbucks spokesman when asked to comment on Lavazza’s opening.

The U.S. chain will open its 2,400-square-meter cafe in late 2018, seeking to attract tourists, young Italians and the business crowd. If the Milan experiment succeeds, Starbucks and its local partner, Antonio Percassi, could open more than 200 stores in Italy over six years, according to Percassi.

Some analysts are skeptical that Starbucks can crack a market where espresso typically sells for just one euro ($1.20), a fraction of the price of a Starbucks coffee.

But the local brands are also gambling Italians will spend much more than one euro for a restaurant-style experience: illycaffe charges around three times that for coffee brought to the table.

Nestle, JAB Holdings and Starbucks are the three largest players in the global coffee market, followed by several mid-tier players including Lavazza and illycaffe.

“As the biggest get bigger, mid-tier companies are in a position where they must either expand or risk being left behind or swallowed up by their massive rivals,” said Matthew Barry, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International.

Lavazza’s chief executive and some of its family owners will cut a ribbon to launch their cafe, where customers can sip a blend of coffee specifically crafted for the store, taste gourmet food and buy single-origin coffees.

“The opening of the new flagship store has nothing to do with Starbucks,” a Lavazza spokeswoman said, adding that it was solely aimed at giving people an exclusive Lavazza experience.

The group is primarily a roaster and supplier to independent cafes and restaurants rather than a retailer and its new store is a way of boosting brand visibility on the high street.

Lavazza went on an acquisition spree three years ago, buying up three coffee suppliers in Europe and Canada, boosting sales to nearly 2 billion euros last year. It has overtaken Starbucks in supermarket sales, Euromonitor International says.

Illycaffe sells its coffee both through independent cafes and 230 mono-brand stores, some of them directly owned, in 43 countries, and says it wants to develop the network further, though not via major acquisitions.

“The new store wants to be a landmark for the global nomad in search for the real Italian lifestyle experience,” illycaffe said, without commenting on the arrival of Starbucks.

Milanese coffee society is divided on whether Starbucks can make its name at the high-end of Italian market, the world’s fourth-largest coffee consumer.

“I am curious about Starbucks, I will give it a try when it arrives in Milan,” office worker Giuseppe Gaggiano, 55, said at a small, upmarket independent cafe close to the Starbucks site.

However, another customer there, Alberto Paparusso, 31, said he wouldn’t abandon his usual cafe: “I don’t like Starbucks coffee. It’s not worth going there.”

($1 = 0.8371 euros)
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Mexico’s economy minister said on Monday a successful retool of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would hinge on two or three complex areas that he called “elephants in the room,” just days before the next round of treaty talks in Canada.

Speaking at an event in Mexico City, Ildefonso Guajardo said four chapters in the agreement could be renegotiated in the third round of talks, due to take place Sept. 23-27 in Ottawa.

The areas cover smaller companies, transparency and food safety.

The “elephants,” such as the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and rules of origin, will determine the success of the trade treaty’s renegotiation, he said. Rules of origin specify the percentage of components in a product that must be from the three NAFTA nations for it to qualify as duty free.

“This challenge of resolving two or three un-traditional topics at the trade negotiation tables is what is going to determine if, at the end of the day, we’re going to have an agreement or not,” Guajardo said in a Forbes Mexico talk.

In addition, Guajardo added that as many as 13 other chapters would also be tough to negotiate.

Asked by journalists if Mexico would accept national content rules that would require a portion of products to be made in the United States, the minister said the topic had yet to reach the negotiating table.

“We would analyze it, but I believe as of today there is no trade agreement that contains this type of clause,” he said.

Guajardo reiterated that Mexico was ready to modernize the agreement, which U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scrap, and to find solutions with the United States and Canada.
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The WTO dispute settlement system is “deficient” and has often ruled in favor of free trade that overlooks details of a trade agreement, U.S. trade envoy Robert Lighthizer said on Monday.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Lighthizer, a trade lawyer, made clear that the administration was poised to push for major changes to the global trade system during upcoming meetings of the Geneva-based trade body. WTO member countries will meet in Buenos Aires on Dec 10.

U.S. President Donald Trump called the World Trade Organization a “disaster” during his presidential campaign and his administration has sought to unilaterally go after countries like China that it thinks is breaking trade rules.

“There are a number of issues on which there is pretty broad agreement that the WTO dispute settlement understanding is deficient,” said Lighthizer, highlighting problems with WTO staffing and transparency.

“The United States sees numerous examples where the dispute settlement process over the years has really diminished what we’ve bargained for or imposed obligations that we do not believe we agree to,” he said.

He added: “There have been a lot of cases in the trade remedies laws where in my opinion the decisions are really indefensible.”

Since its launch in 1995 the WTO has become the main venue for resolving trade disputes between countries. The Trump administration has begun to launch trade investigations under statutes seldom used in the WTO era, including a “Section 301” probe of China’s intellectual property practices.

Lighthizer did not threaten a U.S. withdrawal from the WTO, but emphasized his own dissatisfaction with some of its rulings.

In a letter in March, the Trump administration made clear that U.S. law supersedes WTO rules — a view that could be invoked should Congress adopt policies that are later challenged by other member countries as violating WTO rules.

“We’ve had tax laws struck down, we’ve had other provisions where the WTO has taken…the decision they were going to strike down something they thought shouldn’t happen, rather than

looking at the agreement as a contract,” he said.

Lighthizer emphasized that the Trump administration was reviewing all trade agreements and would seek to renegotiate those that did not benefit U.S. workers and businesses.

“I believe, and I think the president believes, that we must be proactive,” he said, “We must demand reciprocity in home and international markets. So expect change, expect new approaches and expect action.”
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Peru’s prime minister said on Monday that the country’s new Cabinet will focus on reviving public investments as it seeks to mend fences with the opposition party that forced President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to form a new government.

Congress ousted the former Cabinet last week following a dispute over education reforms, fueling fears that political fighting might hurt economic growth that has already slowed sharply this year due to floods and a graft scandal.

Mercedes Araoz, Peru’s new prime minister, said on local broadcaster RPP that she was optimistic about rebuilding a working relationship with the opposition. A key test will be efforts to rapidly rebuild parts of Peru hit by flooding, Araoz said.

Congress will likely vote on whether to give Araoz’ Cabinet a vote of confidence in the first week of October, she added.

Araoz is a ruling party lawmaker and former finance minister in the 2006-2011 term of former President Alan Garcia.

Forecasts for an economic recovery in Peru hinge on the government increasing public investments that fell 10.4 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2017.

“Now’s the time. We can’t fall behind in this process” of increasing public investments, Araoz said.

President Kuczynski, a center-right politician and former Wall Street banker, vowed to work to modernize Peru and strengthen the economy of the world’s second-biggest copper producer.

But his first year in office has been marked by slowing economic growth and clashes with Congress, where the right-wing populist party of his former rival Keiko Fujimori has a majority.

Fujimori welcomed the new Cabinet on Twitter after it was sworn in on Sunday and said Kuczynski’s government still has four years to “mend its ways and make progress.”

Similar remarks from opposition lawmakers signaled Congress would likely give the new Cabinet a vote of confidence. But after previous efforts to reset relations failed, it was unclear how long the new truce might last.

Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk analysis company, said Peru has a score of 4.44 out of 10 – a “high risk” ranking – on its government effectiveness index.

Despite Fujimori’s support for the new Cabinet, “the re-tooled team will remain hostage to the Fujimorista-controlled Congress, with Kuczynski’s political credibility continuing to ebb,” said Maplecroft analyst Eileen Gavin.

If Congress fails to approve of the new Cabinet, Kuczynski can summon new legislative elections.
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Protesters gathered in several West African capitals Saturday to demand their countries abandon the CFA franc in favor of a common African currency. It Is not a new debate, but passions have been reignited since Senegal arrested and expelled an activist for burning a CFA bill at a rally last month. Sofia Christensen reports for VOA from Dakar.
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