Commodities

MEXICO CITY, Sept 24 (Reuters) - A cannabis 'garden' sprouting next to Mexico's Senate building has become a smoker's paradise, with Mexican stoners lighting up joints without fear of arrest. The cannabis seeds sowed in a plaza by Mexico's Senate by pro-marijuana activists in February have mushroomed into strikingly large plants, and become symbolic of a drive to legalize marijuana in a nation riven by drugs-related violence. "Being able to smoke here (in the garden) in freedom is very important to me," said Marco Flores, a barista sitting on a bench overlooking the Congress building. "I no longer go out on the streets in fear". Mexico's Supreme Court has ruled that laws prohibiting cannabis use are unconstitutional but the government is yet to draft legislation that would formally l...

By Jamie Freed SYDNEY, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The air travel market has shifted toward last-minute bookings, one-way flights and more domestic trips as consumers grapple with fast-moving changes due to the coronavirus pandemic, a report from online search and booking site Skyscanner shows. The new trend will be an advantage for low-cost carriers that are able to offer competitive pricing amid an uncertain future for business travel, which was previously a major profit driver for full-service airlines, the report said. "I think generally we have seen if you look at the market prices are much keener than you would expect," Skyscanner Vice President Commercial and Flights Hugh Aitken told Reuters in a phone interview. "That just reflects that airlines have capacity and need to fill that cap...

By Tracy Rucinski, Jamie Freed and Allison Lampert CHICAGO/SYDNEY/MONTREAL Sept 21 (Reuters) - When Megyn Thompson landed her dream job as a commercial pilot last year, she was one of thousands being recruited globally to boost the number of women in the cockpit and meet record pilot demand. Now an industry-wide campaign to recruit more female aviators is under threat, dealing a blow to efforts to overhaul the male-dominated airline sector as the coronavirus crisis transforms a shortage into a pilot surplus. (reut.rs/2FM3iWc) In the United States alone, the top two airlines are set to furlough more than 3,000 pilots when government stimulus expires this month, and a disproportionate number of those are women. Under layoff agreements between airlines and unions, junior pilots lose the...

By Rod Nickel WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Looking to improve milk production, California farmer John Verwey turned to a Swiss-made feed additive designed to make a cow more efficient while reducing methane emissions from cattle burps. The more a cow belches, the more it spends energy that could be used instead for milk production, Verwey reasoned. So two years ago, he started feeding his cattle Agolin, made of coriander, clove and carrot extracts, and replaced costlier additives that promoted weight gain. He is still determining whether the change has affected milk output, but Verwey figures he has positioned himself for a world where consumers care more about greenhouse gas emissions from livestock. "We think we're ahead of the curve," he said from Fresno, California. "E...

By Andy Home LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - The United States has had another change of heart about how to deal with aluminium imports from its neighbour and largest supplier Canada. The 10% tariff that was re-imposed on unalloyed primary metal last month will now be lifted. Cue a collective sigh of relief from U.S. users facing another sharp rise in local premiums. But there's a catch. The United States has made its peace gesture conditional on how much metal flows over the border in the last four months of this year. Too much and the tariffs come back. These are unilateral quotas. Canada is clear that it hasn't negotiated them. The U.S.-Canada border is going to remain a contested zone for the aluminium market with politics a bigger price driver than physical supply and demand for ...

By Sarah Mills LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - London Fashion Week kicked off on Thursday in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic with Britain's Burberry putting on a live virtual display of its latest collection which broke with the traditional catwalk show. Burberry's Riccardo Tisci presented his spring-summer 2021 collection "In Bloom" on video streaming service Twitch, a first for the British fashion house that like others has had to adapt its runway show in the time of COVID-19. While there were plenty of models gathered to showcase the collection, rather than featuring a catwalk, the surreal show, produced with artist Anne Imhof, was set in a circle in a wooded location. "It began with a thought of British summertime; embracing the elements with a trenchcoat on the beach mixing with...

By Guy Faulconbridge LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned the United Kingdom that it must honour the Northern Irish peace deal as it extracts itself from the European Union or there would be no U.S. trade deal. "We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit," Biden said in a tweet. "Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period." Johnson unveiled legislation that would break parts of the Brexit divorce treaty relating to Northern Ireland, blaming the EU for putting a revolver on the table in trade talks and trying to divide up the United Kingdom. He says the United Kingdom has t...

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat BANGKOK, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Chemicals giant Bayer BAYGn.DE and the U.S. government cooperated closely last year to lobby Thailand to reverse its ban on glyphosate, used in the company's controversial weedkiller Roundup, documents obtained by an environmental group and reviewed by Reuters show. The lobbying, including U.S. trade officials asking Bayer for information on Thailand's deputy agriculture minister, is detailed in more than 200 pages of partially redacted documents and emails, some directly between U.S. officials and a Bayer representative. The documents were obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act by the Tucson, Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which shared them with Reuters. Thailand eventually dropped plans to ban glyph...

LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Scotland's top law adviser to the British government, Richard Keen, has offered his resignation to Prime Minister Boris Johnson over his plan to break international law by breaching parts of the Brexit divorce treaty, the BBC reported on Wednesday. "@BBCScotlandNews understands Lord Keen, the advocate general, has found it increasingly difficult to reconcile govt plans to change EU exit deal with the law," BBC reporter Glenn Campbell said on Twitter. He added that the resignation had yet to be accepted. Keen has served as advocate general, a political appointment, since 2015. Other senior members of Johnson's Conservative Party have also expressed opposition to the draft legislation unveiled last week, which the government acknowledges would violate internat...

By Michael Holden LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Terence Conran, a renowned designer and restaurateur credited with modernising British retail and decor, has died aged 88, his family said on Saturday. Conran made his name in the 1960s with the Habitat home-furnishing store, known for its contemporary pine furniture, brightly coloured fabrics and tasteful kitchenware which proved a big hit with the public. He went on to become chairman of the Storehouse Plc retail group which included other well-known British high street shops such as Mothercare MTC.L and British Home Stores. Also passionate about food, his first restaurant, The Soup Kitchen, opened in London in 1953, and he went on to open many more in the capital including Le Pont de la Tour, Quaglino's and Mezzo, with his restaurant i...