Switzerland could become the first European country to ban artificial pesticides in a June 13 referendum.

Switzerland could become the first European country to ban artificial pesticides.

On June 13th a referendum will take place, and backers hope it will trigger similar moves elsewhere.

They want the country to ban the use of products made by agro-chemical giants such as Swiss firm Syngenta and Germany’s Bayer and BASF.

Campaigners say artificial products cause serious health problems and reduce biodiversity.

But manufacturers insist their pesticides are rigorously regulated and that crop yields would slump without them.

Another vote on the same day aims to improve the quality of Switzerland’s drinking water and food.

It would stop direct subsidies to farmers who use artificial pesticides and antibiotics in livestock.

If adopted, the proposals give farmers up to 10 years to make the transition.

And would allow Switzerland to become a leader in organic food and drink production.

Roland Lenz is a Swiss wine maker:

“Our drink water will sometime in the future, 20 or 30 years, be pure again, our soil would be fertile again and we would have less dependence on foreign countries”.

The clean water initiative also wants farmers to stop using imported animal feed, and restrict the numbers of cows, pigs and chickens in Switzerland.

The Swiss Farmers Union says many of its members feel their way of life is under siege.

Dominic Haab, runs a dairy farm outside Zurich:

“Our production will go rapidly down, we won’t have any Swiss chicken meat, we won’t have any Swiss pig meat and the result would be there will be much more import, much more food would come from outside countries into Switzerland.”

The country has been divided by the unusually bitter debate over the initiatives.

And according to recent polls, the votes look set to be close.

Royal Dutch Shell will seek ways to accelerate its energy transition strategy and deepen carbon emission cuts following a landmark Dutch court ruling last month, CEO Ben van Beurden said on Wednesday, a move that will likely lead to a dramatic shrinking of its oil and gas business.

Shell looks set to dramatically shrink its oil and gas business, after its CEO Ben van Beurden said Wednesday that the company will look for ways to cut emissions and accelerate an energy transition.

The comments come after a landmark ruling in a Dutch court last month.

Shell plans to appeal the ruling that ordered it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels, which is significantly faster than its current plans.

But van Beurden said the court ruling applies immediately and cannot be suspended before the appeal.

Earlier this year, Shell set out one of the sector’s most ambitious climate strategies.

It has a target to cut the carbon intensity of its products by 20% by 2030, by 45% by 2035 and by 100% by 2050 from 2016 levels.

The court ruling called on Shell to cut its absolute carbon emissions, a move van Beurden had previously rejected.

He said that would force Shell to scale back its oil and gas business, which accounts for the vast majority of its revenue.

Analysts have said the ruling could lead to a 12% decline in the company’s energy output, including a sharp drop in oil and gas sales.

Shell, which is the world’s top oil and gas trader, has said its carbon emissions peaked in 2018, while its oil output peaked in 2019 and was set to drop by 1% to 2% per year.

The ruling by the court in The Hague could trigger action against energy companies around the world.

Miner Vale SA will settle in advance liabilities of around US$2.5 billion related to the project finance for the Nacala logistic corridor (CLN) that serves a coal mine in Mozambique, the company said in a securities filing on Tuesday.

With the payment, scheduled for June 22, Vale said it will have fulfilled all the conditions for completion of its purchase of Mitsui & Co Ltd’s stake in the Moatize mine and the logistics corridor.

Payment was necessary as the project finance conditions did not allow Mitsui to sell its stake, Vale’s press office explained.

Brazil’s Vale announced in January that it was buying out minority stake partner, Japan’s Mitsui & Co, in the Mozambique mine and port project, ahead of selling the loss-making asset as it works to become carbon neutral by 2050.

“With the simplification of governance and asset management, Vale continues the process of responsible divestment of its participation in the coal business, based on preserving the operational continuity of the Moatize mine and CLN,” Vale said on Tuesday.

With the closing of the acquisition of Mitsui’s stake, Vale said it will start consolidating the Moatize mine and CLN in its financial statements.

According to the company, its EBITDA will no longer be burdened with costs related to debt service, investment in maintenance of operations and others charges that in 2020 impacted its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization by about $300 million.

South Africa’s economy expanded at a slower rate in the first quarter of this year compared with the previous three months, as key sectors of mining and trade expanded while farming saw a contraction, data from the statistics agency showed on Tuesday.

The country’s gross domestic product expanded by 1.1% quarter-on-quarter in the first three months of 2021 on a seasonally adjusted and not annualised basis, after an expansion of 1.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020.

On a seasonally adjusted and annualised basis, the economy grew by 4.6% quarter-on-quarter, following growth of 5.8% in the previous quarter.

Mining expanded 4.2% on a seasonally adjusted, not annualised basis, and trade rose 1.5%. Agriculture fell 0.8%.

“We can see that our rise in the first quarter of 2021 hasn’t reached the levels where we have been… Indeed we see we haven’t come out of the woods sufficiently enough in terms of responding to what has happened in COVID-19 despite the fact that the economy is growing,” Statistician General Risenga Maluleke told a news conference.

On a year-on-year basis, GDP contracted 3.2% in the three months to the end of March, compared to a contraction of 4.2% in the previous quarter.

South Africa’s economy deteriorated sharply last year after the government imposed a strict lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The economy contracted 7% in 2020.

Australia’s Sandfire Resources said on Wednesday it had awarded a $496 million mining contract and is set to break ground at the T3 Motheo Copper Project in Botswana’s Kalahari Copper belt in coming weeks.

The Kalahari Copper Belt, which extends for nearly 1,000 km from northeast Botswana to western Namibia, is touted as one of the world’s emerging but mostly under-explored copper-silver region.

“Full-scale construction of the $279 million mine development is expected to commence immediately upon receipt of the mining license, which is expected over the coming weeks, with mining scheduled to commence in early 2022,” said Sandfire CEO Karl Simich.

The contract was awarded to African Mining Services, which will form a joint venture with a Botswana partner.

The 3.2 million tonnes per annum opencast T3 Motheo mine will be the second copper mine to be developed in the area with U.S-based Cupric Canyon set to start production at its Khoemacau copper mine at the end of this month.

The emerging copper belt could help Botswana diversify beyond its mainstay diamond mining, which contributes 70% to its export revenue and has left the southern African country overly exposed to one commodity.

Prevailing high international copper prices will be a boon for Botswana as preferred bidders have been identified for two copper mines currently under liquidation.

The Price of bitcoin tumbled as much as 12% on Tuesday to trade around $31,500 per coin.

The fall may have been a result of security concerns after US authorities clawed back $2.3 million (63.7 bitcoin) of the $4.3 million Colonial Pipeline attack crypto ransom from hackers, according to an affidavit.

The money was recovered by the Department of Justice’s recently launched Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force.

At a briefing discussing the ransomware attack, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said agents were able to recover a digital currency wallet that “DarkSide” hackers used to collect payment from Colonial Pipeline.

Using law enforcement authority, victim funds were seized from that wallet, preventing Dark Side actors from using them,” Abbate said.

The FBI declined to say exactly how it accessed the bitcoin wallet, but experts say it was unlikely they hacked the wallet with brute force tactics.

The Department of Justice announced that it has seized 63.7 bitcoins currently valued at approximately $2.3 million. These funds allegedly represent the proceeds of a May 8, ransom payment to individuals in a group known as DarkSide, which had targeted Colonial Pipeline, resulting in critical infrastructure being taken out of operation.

Cyber criminals are employing ever more elaborate schemes to convert technology into tools of digital extortion,” said Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Stephanie Hinds. “

“There is no place beyond the reach of the FBI to conceal illicit funds that will prevent us from imposing risk and consequences upon malicious cyber actors,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. “We will continue to use all of our available resources and leverage our domestic and international partnerships to disrupt ransomware attacks and protect our private sector partners and the American public.”

On or about May 7, Colonial Pipeline was the victim of a highly publicized ransomware attack resulting in the company taking portions of its infrastructure out of operation. Colonial Pipeline reported to the FBI that its computer network was accessed by an organization named DarkSide and that it had received and paid a ransom demand for approximately 75 bitcoins.

As alleged in the supporting affidavit, by reviewing the Bitcoin public ledger, law enforcement was able to track multiple transfers of bitcoin and identify that approximately 63.7 bitcoins, representing the proceeds of the victim’s ransom payment, had been transferred to a specific address, for which the FBI has the “private key,” or the rough equivalent of a password needed to access assets accessible from the specific Bitcoin address. This bitcoin represents proceeds traceable to a computer intrusion and property involved in money laundering and may be seized pursuant to criminal and civil forfeiture statutes.

The Special Prosecutions Section and Asset Forfeiture Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California is handling the seizure, with significant assistance from the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. The Department components who worked on this seizure coordinated their efforts through the Department’s Ransomware and Digital Extortion Task Force, which was created to combat the growing number of ransomware and digital extortion attacks.

Online sales rose two-thirds from last year as the pandemic kept stores shuttered across the world for much of the quarter.

Consumers spent $861.12 billion online with U.S  retailers in 2020, up 44.0% from $598.02 billion in 2019, according to the latest digital commerce 360 analysis. online spending represented 21.3% of total retail sales in 2020, compared with 15.8% the year prior.

However, retail giants are reporting first-quarter net profit of easily beating analysts’ expectations for 2021

Spanish retail giant Inditex reported a first-quarter net profit of 421 million euros ($513 million) on Wednesday, a number that easily beat analysts’ expectations but was still a third below pre-pandemic levels.

Spanish retail giant Inditex beat expectations on Wednesday (June 9).

The home of the Zara clothing chain reported a first-quarter net profit of 421 million euros, or $513 million.

Revenue for the quarter was up 48% on the same time last year, but still well short of 2019’s $7.2 billion.

Online sales rose two-thirds from last year as the health crisis kept stores shuttered across the world for much of the quarter.

The company said 98% of its stores had reopened by June 6, but with around 10% fewer opening hours available due to ongoing restrictions.

Sales between May and early June more than doubled compared with the same period last year, and were up 5% compared with the same period in 2019.