The sweet aroma of mutton smoke drifts through a maze of crumbling alleyways, a barbecue tang that for decades has lured meat-eaters from across Pakistan to the frontier city of Peshawar.

The ancient city, capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has retained its reputation for some of Pakistan’s tastiest cuisine despite bearing the brunt of the country’s bloody war with militancy.

University student Mohammad Fahad had long heard tales of Peshawar’s famed mutton.

“Earlier we heard of Peshawar being a dangerous place,” he told AFP — but security has improved in recent years, and he finally made the hours-long journey from the eastern city of Lahore to see if it could live up to the hype.

“We are here just to see what the secret to this barbecue is,” he says, excitedly awaiting his aromatic portion in Namak Mandi — “Salt Market” — located in the heart of Peshawar.

The hearty cuisine comes from generations-old recipes emanating from the nearby Pashtun tribal lands along the border with Afghanistan.

It is feted for its simplicity compared with the intricate curries and spicy dishes from Pakistan’s eastern plains and southern coast.

“Its popularity is owed to the fact that it is mainly meat-based and that always goes down well across the country,” says Pakistani cookbook author Sumayya Usmani.

The famed Nisar Charsi (hashish smoker) Tikka — named after its owner’s renowned habit — in Namak Mandi chalks up its decades of success to using very little in the way of spices.

For its barbecue offerings, tikkas — cuts of meat — are generously salted and sandwiched on skewers between cubes of fat for tenderness and taste, and slow-cooked over a wood fire.

Its other famed dish, karahi — or curry stew — is made with slices of mutton pan-cooked in heaped chunks of white fat carved from the sheep’s rump, along with sparing amounts of green chilli and tomatoes.

Both plates are served with stacks of oven-fresh naan and bowls of fresh yogurt.

“It is the best food in the entire world,” gushes co-owner Nasir Khan, adding that the restaurant sources some of the best meat in the country and serves customers from across Pakistan daily along with local regulars.

By Khan’s calculations, the restaurant goes through hundreds of kilograms of meat a day — or about two dozen sheep — with hundreds if not thousands served.

Hash and meat

The clientele at Nisar’s Charsi and other Salt Market eateries usually arrive in large groups, with experienced customers ordering food by the kilo and guiding cleaver-wielding butchers to their preferred cuts, which are then cooked immediately.

Peshawar’s improved security has given business a boost, Khan said.

“We had a lot of troubles and pains,” he admitted, remembering friends lost during the years of devastating bombings and suicide attacks.

But some customers said they had been loyal to Peshawar’s cuisine even during the bloodshed.

“I’ve been coming here for more than 20 years now,” said Hammad Ali, 35, who travelled to Peshawar with eight other colleagues from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad for a gluttonous lunch.

“This taste is unique, that’s why we have come all this way.”

Orders generally take close to an hour to prepare, with customers quaffing tea and occasionally smoking hash ahead of the meal.

“They smoke it openly here,” explained Nisar Charsi’s head chef Mukam Pathan. “When someone smokes one joint of hash, they eat around two kilos of meat.”

For those looking for a little less lamb, the city’s renowned chapli kebab offers an alternative.

The kebab is typically made of minced beef and a mix of spices kneaded into patties and deep fried on a simmering iron skillet.

Rokhan Ullah — owner of Tory Kebab House — said the dish is most popular on cold, winter days that see ravenous customers flocking to its four branches across the city, overwhelming staff and making orders hard to fill.

“They eat it with passion… because one enjoys hot food when the weather is cold,” explained Ullah, who plans to expand in major cities across Pakistan.

Customer Muhib Ullah has been eating kebabs three to four days a week for the last decade.

“This is the tastiest and most famous food in Peshawar,” he declared.

Hours-long meals

For regular barbecue eater Omar Aamir Aziz, it is not just the heaping portions of meat that attract foodies to Peshawari cuisine, but the culture that has built up around the meal.

Other cities in Pakistan and abroad have more in the way of entertainment and nightlife options.

But in deeply conservative Peshawar, eating out is the primary leisure activity.

Meals tend to last for hours after the meat has been consumed as conversation continues over steaming cups of green tea.

“That’s what we have and that’s our speciality,” says Aziz. “We’ve been doing this for two, three, four hundred years.”
…

New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro issued an executive order Wednesday making the Agriculture Ministry responsible for decisions concerning lands claimed by indigenous peoples, in a victory for agribusiness that will likely enrage environmentalists.

The temporary decree, which will expire unless it is ratified within 120 days by Congress, strips power over land claim decisions from indigenous affairs agency FUNAI.

It says the Agriculture Ministry will now be responsible for “identification, delimitation, demarcation and registration of lands traditionally occupied by indigenous people.”

The move stoked concern among environmentalists and rights groups that the far-right president, who took office Tuesday, will open up the vast Amazon rainforest and other ecologically sensitive areas of Brazil to greater commercial exploitation.

The executive order also moves the Brazilian Forestry Service, which promotes the sustainable use of forests and is linked to the Environment Ministry, under Agriculture Ministry control.

Additionally, the decree states that the Agriculture Ministry will be in charge of the management of public forests.

NGOs criticized

Bolsonaro, who enjoys strong support from Brazil’s powerful agribusiness sector, said during his campaign he was considering such a move, arguing that protected lands should be opened to commercial activities.

Brazil’s 900,000 indigenous people make up less than 1 percent of the population, but live on lands that stretch for 106.7 million hectares (264 million acres), or 12.5 percent of the national territory.

“Less than a million people live in these isolated places in Brazil, where they are exploited and manipulated by NGOs,” Bolsonaro tweeted, referring to non-profit groups. “Let us together integrate these citizens and value all Brazilians.”

Critics say Bolsonaro’s plan to open indigenous reservations to commercial activity will destroy native cultures and languages by integrating the tribes into Brazilian society.

Environmentalists say the native peoples are the last custodians of the Amazon, which is the world’s largest rainforest and is vital for climate stability.

Adding to the gloom for NGOs, Bolsonaro also signed an executive order to give his government potentially far-reaching and restrictive powers over non-governmental organizations working in Brazil.

The temporary decree mandates that the office of the Government Secretary, Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, “supervise, coordinate, monitor and accompany the activities and actions of international organizations and non-governmental organizations in the national territory.”

Good news for farm lobby

After she was sworn in on Wednesday, new Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias defended the farm sector from accusations it has grown at the expense of the environment, adding that the strength of Brazil’s farmers had generated “unfounded accusations” from unnamed international groups.

Dias used to be the head of the farm caucus in Brazil’s Congress, which has long pushed for an end to land measures that it argues hold back the agricultural sector.

“Brazil is a country with extremely advanced environmental legislation and is more than able to preserve its native forests,” Dias said. “Our country is a model to be followed, never a transgressor to be punished.”

In comments to reporters after her speech, she said that decisions over land rights disputes were a new responsibility for the Agriculture Ministry. However, she indicated that in practice, the demarcation of land limits would fall to a council of ministries, without giving further details.

Bartolomeu Braz, the president of the national chapter of Aprosoja, a major grain growers association, cheered Wednesday’s move to transfer indigenous land demarcation to the Agriculture Ministry.

“The new rules will be interesting to the farmers and the Indians, some of whom are already producing soybeans. The Indians want to be productive too,” he added.

Environmental fears

Three-time presidential candidate and former Environment Minister Marina Silva, who was beaten by Bolsonaro in October’s election, reacted with horror to the move.

“Bolsonaro has begun his government in the worst possible way,” she wrote on Twitter.

Dinamã Tuxá, a member of Brazil’s Association of Indigenous Peoples, said many isolated communities viewed Bolsonaro’s administration with fear.

“We are very afraid because Bolsonaro is attacking indigenous policies, rolling back environmental protections, authorizing the invasion of indigenous territories and endorsing violence against indigenous peoples,” said Tuxá.

Under the new plan, the indigenous affairs agency FUNAI will be moved into a new ministry for family, women and human rights.

A former army captain and longtime member of Congress, Bolsonaro said at his inauguration on Tuesday that he had freed the country from “socialism and political correctness.”

An admirer of Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has suggested he will follow the U.S. president’s lead and pull out of the Paris climate change accord.

In addition to the indigenous lands decree, the new administration issued decrees affecting the economy and society on Wednesday, while forging closer ties with the United States.
…

Lawyers for South Koreans forced into wartime labor have taken legal steps to seize the South Korean assets of a Japanese company they are trying to pressure into obeying a court ruling to provide them compensation.

Lawyer Lim Jae-sung said Thursday the court in the city of Pohang could decide in two or three weeks whether to accept the request to seize the 2.34 million shares Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. holds in its joint venture with South Korean steelmaker POSCO, which are estimated to be worth around $9.7 million.

Lim said Nippon Steel has been refusing to discuss compensation despite a ruling by South Korea’s Supreme Court in October that the company should pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs who worked at its steel mills during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The court made a similar ruling on Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in November, triggering a diplomatic spats between the countries.

It’s unlikely the Japanese companies will follow the South Korean rulings. The Japanese government has expressed strong regret over the rulings and considers all wartime compensation issues settled by a treaty both countries signed in 1965.

Lawyers for forced laborers for Nippon Steel had set a Dec. 24 deadline for the company to respond to their request to begin compensation discussions, but the steelmaker did not respond. Lim said the lawyers decided not to file for a court order that would force Nippon Steel to sell its shares in the South Korean joint venture because they still hope to “amicably” settle the matter through negotiations.

Among the four plaintiffs in the Nippon Steel case, only 94-year-old Lee Chun-sik has survived the legal battle, which extended nearly 14 years.

South Korea says Japan used about 220,000 wartime Korean forced laborers before the end of World War II.
…

Apple on Wednesday cut the revenue forecast for its latest quarter, citing fewer iPhone upgrades and weak sales in China, and its shares tumbled in after-hours trade. 

The company forecast $84 billion in revenue for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 29, which is below analysts’ estimate of $91.5 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Apple originally forecast revenue of between $89 billion and $93 billion. 

“While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in greater China,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in a letter to investors. “In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.”

Wednesday was the first time that Apple issued a warning on its revenue guidance ahead of releasing quarterly results since the iPhone was launched in 2007. 

Sharp drop

Apple shares, which had been halted ahead of the announcement, skidded 7.7 percent in after-hours trade, dragging the company’s market value below $700 billion. 

A slew of brokerages reduced their first-quarter production estimates for iPhones after several component makers in November forecast weaker-than-expected sales, leading some market watchers to call the peak for iPhones in several key markets. 

On Apple’s earnings call in November, Cook cited slowing growth in emerging markets such as Brazil, India and Russia for the lower-than-anticipated sales estimates for the company’s fiscal first quarter. But Cook specifically said he “would not put China in that category” of countries with troubled growth. 

That all came before the damage to the Chinese economy from trade tensions with the United States became clear. On Wednesday, China’s central bank magazine said the country’s economic growth could fall below 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter as companies face increased difficulties there. 

Apple has held firm on its premium pricing strategy in China despite the risk of a slower economy, a factor that has been exacerbated by the strong U.S. dollar. Apple tends to set its prices in U.S. dollars and charge a broadly equivalent amount in local currencies.  

“The question for investors will be the extent to which Apple’s aggressive pricing has exacerbated this situation and what this means for the company’s longer-term pricing power within its iPhone franchise,” James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Equities, told Reuters. 
…

Few experiences capture old New Orleans and the Mississippi River quite like a paddlewheel riverboat coming around a muddy bend with its tooting whistle, towering smoke stacks and water-churning propeller. 

This month, a new riverboat is set to launch in this Louisiana port city. A plunge in tourism after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 forced the New Orleans Steamboat Co. to sell off one of its two boats, but the arrival of the City of New Orleans is a sign of the steadily rising tide of tourists each year to this Southern city of Mardi Gras fame. 

“People come from all over the world. It is astonishing. They really want to see the river,” said Adrienne Thomas, marketing director for the company, which also owns another riverboat, the Natchez. 

Once numerous

A century ago, countless paddlewheel riverboats plied the Mississippi and its tributaries. Today, New Orleans has two: the Natchez and the Creole Queen, which is operated by New Orleans Paddlewheels. 

Now the City of New Orleans is coming full circle, back to the state where it was built in 1991. For years it operated as a casino boat in Rock Island, Ill., until the mid-1990s. But after that state legalized onshore casinos, the boat became obsolete, said Matthew Dow, project manager heading the vessel’s renovation. The then-named Casino Rock Island sat unused for years until the New Orleans Steamboat Co. bought it in 2016. 

“We instantly fell in love with the boat,” Dow said. “We saw the potential in her and knew that we could do her justice and bring her back not only to her former glory but well beyond that.”  

Dow said the vessel already looked the part of a New Orleans riverboat, with its curved decks, plentiful windows, decorative fleurs de lis and giant paddlewheel.  

Initially, it was brought to a dry dock for hull repairs, then towed to New Orleans for a makeover. 

“We had to rip all of the walls out, all the ceilings, a lot of the insulation,” Dow said. “Basically, we had to strip this boat down to the superstructure, to bare bones, and everything had to go back new.” 

There were additions, too. A dumbwaiter was added to connect the galley to all three decks for food transport, along with passenger elevators and handicapped-accessible restrooms.

Dow says the company is aiming to have the boat ready for tours by Jan. 21, when the Natchez goes into its annual service and maintenance layup. After that, both boats will operate simultaneously. 

More spacious

The two riverboats look similar, both painted red and white with giant red paddlewheels and exterior deck space for close-up views by passengers of the giant propeller. But the new boat has more indoor space. 

The Natchez was built in the 1970s for sightseeing with a lot of open deck space, and its main deck is occupied mostly by the boat’s vintage 1925 steam engines, an attraction for passengers. The Natchez is one of only six commercially operated steamboats left in the U.S.  

The new boat is run with a modern diesel-electric system. It takes up less room, allowing for more indoor space for dinner seating, jazz brunches and special events. 

“Even though we don’t have the steam engines, we do have the working paddlewheel, and we want to show that off,” Dow said.  

As with the Natchez, cruises on the City of New Orleans will include narration about the city and shoreline sights such as the port, historic Jackson Square, the Chalmette Battlefield, which marks the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, and the Chalmette National Cemetery. And there will be plenty of live music. 

Cyndi Gruenberg of Houston, Texas, rode the Natchez with her husband and two daughters recently and said they learned much about the city. 

“It was a great trip, a little bit of history along the river and just a fun ride,” said Gruenberg. “It’s pretty cool.” 

‘Back in every way’

Tourism officials say they don’t expect a shortage of passengers, as the number of visitors to New Orleans has surpassed pre-Katrina levels in recent years. 

Stephen Perry, head of New Orleans & Co., which promotes tourism, says the city is “back in every way” with increased hotel and restaurant bookings. Riding a paddlewheel is part of the New Orleans experience, he noted. 

“This is one of the most eclectic, authentic places left in America,” Perry said. “People don’t come here only for food and music. What they like is other experiences. 

“A paddlewheeler is just one of the great added attractions of imagining yourself in a time gone by.”
…

The roller-coaster ride on Wall Street resumed Wednesday, the first trading day of the new year, as stocks plunged early on, then slowly recovered and finished with a slight gain.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped as much as 398 points in the first few minutes of trading after more shaky economic news from China. But it gradually recouped those losses, and a small rally over the last 15 minutes of trading left major indexes a bit higher than where they started.

That kind of whiplash was typical during the last three months of 2018, and many strategists think it is likely to continue.

A Chinese government survey and one by a major business magazine showed manufacturing in China weakened in December as global and domestic demand cooled. That weighed on big exporters, with tech companies like Microsoft and industrials like Boeing taking sharp losses early on, only to bounce back.

Some of last year’s worst performers, including energy and internet companies, led the gains Wednesday.

After gliding gently higher for years, propelled by rising corporate profits and extremely low interest rates from the Federal Reserve, stocks have been heaving up and down in recent months as a host of fears weigh on investors, including threats to global economic growth.

Stocks are coming off their worst year in a decade, and many Americans could be in for a shock when they open their monthly and end-of-the-year 401(k) statements.

The benchmark S&P 500 fell 6 percent in 2018, its first substantial loss since 2008, and dropped 14 percent since late September. Many other stock indexes around the world fared even worse last year.

The U.S. economy has been expanding for almost a decade, and stocks have risen steadily over that time. From September through the end of December, however, investors became more and more worried that challenges such as U.S.-China trade tensions, rising interest rates and political uncertainty could slow the economy and company profits, and possibly tip the U.S. economy and the global one into a recession.

Many Wall Street banks are forecasting a year of modest gains for stocks. But most also say they expect these sharp reversals to continue as investors try to handicap so many unknowns.

Vinay Pande, head of trading strategies for UBS Global Wealth Management, said company earnings jumped in 2018 and are likely to keep improving.

The S&P 500 index finished with a gain of 3.18 points, or 0.1 percent, at 2,510.03, while the Dow rose 18.78 points, or 0.1 percent, to 23,346.24. The Nasdaq composite climbed 30.66 points, or 0.5 percent, to 6,665.94.

Most markets were closed Tuesday for New Year’s Day.

Oil prices

Prices on long-term government bonds rose, a sign investors were looking for safer options. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.65 percent from 2.69 percent.

After sharp losses at the start of trading, benchmark U.S. crude jumped 2.5 percent to $46.54 per barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 2.1 percent to $54.91 per barrel in London. Those gains helped send energy stocks higher.

Oil prices have fallen about 40 percent since early October 2018 as investors reacted to the possibility of weaker demand for energy as economic growth slowed. That led to sharp drops in energy companies.

Julian Emanuel, chief equity and derivatives strategist for BTIG, said investors often start a new year by buying shares of the companies that did the worst the year before.

Meanwhile, health care companies, the best-performing part of the market in 2018, fell Wednesday as drugmakers and insurers lost ground.

In other trading:

• The dollar fell to 109.21 yen from 109.61 yen. The euro fell to $1.1344 from $1.1445. The British pound slid to $1.2609 from $1.2752.

• France’s CAC 40 fell 0.9 percent and the British FTSE 100 added 0.1 percent. Germany’s DAX rose 0.2 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 2.8 percent and Seoul’s Kospi gave up 1.5 percent. Tokyo’s markets were closed.

• Wholesale gasoline rose 1.8 percent to $1.33 a gallon. Heating oil gained 1.3 percent to $1.70 a gallon. Natural gas rose 0.6 percent to $2.96 per 1,000 cubic feet.

• Gold rose 0.2 percent to $1,284.10 an ounce and silver added 0.7 percent to $15.65 an ounce. Copper fell 0.3 percent to $2.62 a pound.
  …

The Trump administration and China are facing growing pressure to blink in their six-month stare-down over trade because of jittery markets and portents of economic weakness. 

The import taxes the two sides have imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s goods — and the threat of more to come — have heightened anxiety on each side of the Pacific. The longer their trade war lasts, the longer companies and consumers will feel the pain of higher-priced imports and exports.  

Their conflict is occurring against the backdrop of a slowdown in China and an expected U.S. slump that a prolonged trade war could worsen — a fear that’s weighing on financial markets. Yet those very pressures, analysts say, give the two countries a stronger incentive to make peace. 

“The U.S. and China now have a strong shared interest in striking a deal in order to halt the downward spiral in business and investor confidence, which have taken a beating in both their economies,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. 

The economic threats, agreed Wang Yong, an international relations specialist at Peking University, “might be conducive to negotiations” by nudging Beijing toward market-oriented changes long sought by the United States. 

Still, it will hardly be easy to bridge the complex differences between the world’s top two economies. They range from President Donald Trump’s insistence that China buy more U.S. products to widespread assertions that Beijing steals trade secrets from foreign companies operating in China.  

Negotiations between the two nations are expected to resume next week. Gao Feng, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry, said last week that the two sides have “made specific arrangements for face-to-face meetings” and are talking by phone. Gao offered no details, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative declined to confirm the talks. 

The world is watching anxiously. China and the United States are the “main engines of the world,” noted Song Lifang, an economist at Renmin University in Beijing. That makes their dispute “a matter not only for the two countries but for the world.”

Globally significant

The dispute is “a major factor” in a slowdown in global growth, Song said, and a settlement would “help in arresting the decline of the economies of the two countries and of the world.” 

Trump has long complained about America’s gaping trade deficit with China: The gap between what Americans sold and what they bought from China in 2017 amounted to $336 billion and will likely be higher in 2018. But the dispute goes far deeper than lopsided exports and imports. It’s fundamentally a high-stakes conflict over the economy of the future.  

The U.S. accuses China of deploying predatory tactics in a drive to surpass America’s technological supremacy. A report in March by the U.S. Trade Representative accused China of hacking into U.S. companies’ computer networks to steal secrets and coercing American companies to hand over technology as the price of admission to the Chinese market.    

To try to compel China to reform its ways, Washington has imposed tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports; Beijing has counterpunched by taxing $110 billion in U.S. goods. Trump had been set to raise the tariffs on most of the Chinese goods on Jan. 1. But he and President Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day cease-fire to try to resolve their differences. 

Since then, the case for peace has strengthened as economic risks in the U.S. and China have grown and financial markets have reeled. For 2018, the Dow Jones industrial average — America’s highest-profile stock market benchmark — fell nearly 6 percent, its worst performance since 2008. China’s Shanghai Composite Index sank nearly 25 percent.  

On top of concerns about collateral damage from the U.S.-China trade war, investors in the U.S. markets are worrying about rising interest rates and a wobbly U.S. real estate market. Fears are growing that the second-longest economic expansion in U.S. history could slide to a halt next year or in 2020. Cutting a deal with Beijing could help at least reduce the threat.  

China’s economy has been decelerating since the government pulled back on bank lending a year ago to try to curb a run-up in debt. The International Monetary Fund estimates that China’s economy grew about 6.6 percent in 2018, down from 6.9 percent in 2017. But heavy government spending masked weakness in private sector activity. In December, factory activity shrank for the first time in more than two years. 

Auto sales in China plunged 16 percent in November from a year earlier. It was the fourth month of contraction, and it put annual sales in the world’s biggest auto market on track to contract for the first time in three decades. 

Despite its softening economy, China will most likely find it difficult to comply with U.S. demands to slow its economic ambitions. Those ambitions cut to the heart of China’s drive to become the world’s 21st-century economic superpower. 

U.S. demands

“It is difficult to solve the trade dispute immediately because the U.S. demands are too high, especially demands for changes in China’s economic and social systems, which are difficult for China to accept,” said Song, the economist at Renmin University. 

Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator, said the U.S. most likely can’t realistically settle for anything less than an agreement by Beijing to reform how it does business. 

“There are certainly compelling reasons for both sides to reach a deal and avoid further tariff increases,” said Cutler, now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “However, these reasons can only take you so far. … Without a strong deal that addresses structural issues, it sets the administration up for critics to say,  ‘You took us into a trade war for this?’ ”
…

Shares in Tesla dropped as much as 9 percent on Wednesday on worries of future profitability, after the electric car maker cut U.S. prices for all its vehicles to offset lower green tax credits, while falling short on quarterly deliveries of its mass-market Model 3 sedan.

Analysts questioned whether the $2,000 price cut on all models signaled lowered demand in the United States, and ultimately whether the move would undermine nascent profitability at the Silicon Valley automaker, which has never posted an annual profit.

“In our view, this move could suggest that what many bulls assume to be a substantial backlog … for Tesla may be less robust,” wrote Bank of America analyst John Murphy in a client note.

Chief Executive Elon Musk, who has often set goals and deadlines that Tesla has failed to meet, surprised investors by delivering on his pledge to make Tesla profitable in the third quarter, for only the third time in its 15-year existence. But the company is unprofitable for the first nine months of 2018, and cash flow remains a concern for investors.

Pressure to deliver on promise

Musk has been under intense pressure to deliver on his promise of stabilizing production for the Model 3, which is seen crucial for easing a cash crunch and achieving long-term profitability. It said it was churning out almost 1,000 Model 3s daily, broadly in line with Musk’s promises but slightly short of Wall Street expectations.

The company said it would begin delivering Model 3s to Europe and China in February.

The price cut of $2,000 beginning on Wednesday on the Model 3 — as well as on its higher-priced Model S and Model X — took the market by surprise and weighed on the stock, pushing it down 9.4 percent in morning trade. Shares were last down 6.7 percent at $310.48.

The price cut comes as automakers expect U.S. new vehicle sales to weaken in 2019, and increased competition from new electric vehicle entrants. Tesla sales benefited from a $7,500 federal tax credit on electric vehicles throughout 2018, but that full credit expired at the end of 2018, and new buyers will now receive only half that amount.

Under a major tax overhaul passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress in 2017, tax credits that lower the cost of electric vehicles are available for the first 200,000 such vehicles sold by an automaker. The tax credit is then reduced by 50 percent every six months until it phases out.

“The price cut is what’s driving the stock lower, as it openly acknowledges the sunset of subsidy dollars is a material headwind,” said Craig Irwin, an analyst with Roth Capital Partners.

But some said fears of eroded demand were overblown. Gene Munster of Loup Ventures calculated that the lowered tax credit equaled, on average, to a 3-percent discount on a Tesla. If Tesla had a demand issue, therefore, the company would have cut its prices by more than 3 percent, he wrote in a note.

 Also on Wednesday, General Motors said it had sold its 200,000th electric vehicle in 2018, similarly triggering a phase-out of the federal tax credit, according to a source.

Effect on profit?

Hargreaves Lansdown analyst Nicholas Hyett estimated in a client note that if Tesla continues to deliver cars at the current rate, the price cut will mean $700 million in lost revenue in 2019.

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives, meanwhile, said the price cut was “a potential positive” for demand, “but not what the bulls wanted to hear on the impact to profitability and ultimately the bottom line.”

Tesla delivered 63,150 Model 3s in its fourth quarter, falling short of FactSet estimates of 64,900. Tesla said that based on its own compilation of analysts’ forecasts, its delivery numbers were in line with market expectations.

Bank of America analyst John Murphy wrote that the numbers were in line with market consensus, though below the bank’s estimate of 71,500 Model 3s.

Deliveries rise, forecasts missed

Total deliveries rose from the third quarter to 90,700 cars, but missed forecasts, which had been influenced by analysts’ expectations of a surge in buyers looking to cash in on the tax credit before year-end.

The automaker’s third-quarter pre-tax profit was around $3,200 per vehicle delivered, but for the first nine months of 2018 the company suffered a third-quarter loss per vehicle delivered of $8,019, according to Reuters calculations.

Overall, total production rose 8 percent to 86,555 vehicles. The company churned out 61,394 Model 3s, up from a total of 53,239 Model 3s in the third quarter.

“Tesla disappointed the market. The deliveries are below our estimates and the consensus estimates. I don’t expect that Tesla operates in the black in 2019,” said Frank Schwope, an analyst with NORD/LB.

 
…

Rotting hides on the road are all that is left of three butchered cows.

Such carnage is common in Venezuela’s cattle country, where thieves, squatters and government policy threaten a vital food resource.

Venezuela’s severe economic crisis is felt keenly in cities — where food sources are limited — but it’s also cutting a swath through what should be the country’s food basket.

Seeing the hides on the road — the handiwork of cattle poachers — Jose Labrador stops his truck and explodes with rage.

“It’s as if they were telling us: ‘We are killing your cattle, so what?'” the 46-year old rancher says, fuming that complaining is useless — police and local authorities will do nothing.

Labrador and other farmers in the cattle-rearing region of San Silvestre, in the western state of Barinas, say they are in a state of siege — from squatters, gunmen and government price controls that make their farms unprofitable.

“I can’t sleep on the farm anymore because I’m scared,” said Jose Antonio Espinoza, owner of a 600-head herd in San Silvestre. “They have come around here and tied people up, and then stolen everything — chainsaws, water pumps, cattle.”

He said as many as 74 bulls have been stolen over the past year from his family farm.

Cowboys on horseback herd his traditional Venezuelan Brahman and Carora breeds, as well as buffalos, to and from their fertile grazing land.

But they are powerless when the rustlers strike.

The wheeling of vultures overhead is a warning that the poachers have struck once again. When they arrive, only bones and skin remain, the meat cut up and taken away to feed a hungry black market.

Farm Policy Failures

In a 2016 survey, three-quarters of Venezuelans reported they had lost weight since the economic crisis began, by an average of 19 pounds (8.5 kilos).

Chronic shortages of protein in the cities should provide an opportunity for the country’s farmers, but farms are producing less and less.

Meat produced in Venezuela now barely accounts for 40 percent of  domestic consumption, less than half the 97 percent of two decades ago, according to the National Federation of Cattle Ranchers.

Per capita meat consumption went from 20 kilos per year in 1999 to only seven kilos at present, the federation says. Even then, farmers can’t fulfill demand.

“We are going backwards… even though those of us who remain on the land work tooth and nail,” federation president Armando Chacin told AFP.

Chacin warned that government policies, far from easing the problem, have served only to strangle growth.

Venezuela, a country of more than 30 million people, raises less than 10 million head of cattle, the federation says; in 1999, when the population was 20 million, there were 14 million cattle.

Dwindling resources makes meat more expensive in the capital Caracas, 560 kilometers (350 miles) away, where it costs the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage to buy two kilos of meat.

Land Expropriations

Since the arrival in power in 1999 of Hugo Chavez, the socialist government has expropriated five million hectares (12.4 million acres) of agricultural land, the cattle ranchers federation says.

At the same time, high oil prices meant Venezuela imported more of its food, to the detriment of its own agriculture industry.

Now, Chavez’s hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro sets prices for basic foodstuffs, often below production costs, leading many farmers to bankruptcy.

Price controls mean farmers get little for the meat they produce.

After years of fattening, a big animal brings in about $250.

But with Venezuela’s staggering inflation set to top one million percent this year — according to the International Monetary Fund — it barely covers the cost of a truck tire.

Land invasions are another problem. Emboldened by government policy, armed squatters invaded a large maize farm in San Silvestre and ransacked it in the space of three days.

“They robbed nine tractors and three harvesters, they destroyed the house. We got tired of complaining about it and neither the national guard nor the police intervened,” said Marisela Febres, the owner.

The incident happened in 2016, but she was never able to recover her land. Arguing that the land was idle, the state-run National Land Institute awarded the farm to the squatters earlier this year.

In border areas, farmers can be even more exposed, regularly becoming the target of extortion by armed groups, engaged in running contraband or drug trafficking.

Late last month, the government took over the running of a score of slaughterhouses. Officials accused their owners of speculation and promptly slashed prices by two-thirds.

There have also been cases of pro-Maduro state governors demanding that farmers sell part of their production, setting the prices themselves, to distribute to their supporters at low cost.

Making matters worse on a local level is that the poachers don’t discriminate.

The animals killed include breeding bulls and dairy cows alike, animals that remain productive for up to 12 years. One cow alone can produce 4,000 liters of milk a year.

Labrador says he was a recent victim.

“They killed a bull of mine with incredible genes, one that was going to be a very productive stud,” he said.

Farmers have difficulty buying seeds and fertilizers, even vaccines for livestock, he says.

“If there are no medicines for people, imagine what it is like for the animals.”
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