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5fe5638471ae6c5ce1ff481005b55c9d | https://www.reuters.com/article/pandora-results/denmarks-pandora-core-profit-misses-forecast-maintains-fy-guidance-idUSL5N25F3Q6 | Denmark's Pandora core profit misses forecast, maintains FY guidance | Denmark's Pandora core profit misses forecast, maintains FY guidance
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
COPENHAGEN, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Pandora A/S on Tuesday posted a 13.7% fall in second-quarter core profit, missing expectations, but the Danish jewellery maker maintained its full-year guidance.
Second-quarter earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell to 1.29 billion Danish crowns ($191.76 million), compared with 1.5 billion crowns in the year-ago period. It was below the 1.33 billion crowns expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv data.
Its key total like-for-like sales dropped 10% in the second quarter. ($1 = 6.7270 Danish crowns) (Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1add195697b5f1b5235fb1451d4a8375 | https://www.reuters.com/article/papua-lng-total/update-1-papua-new-guinea-frances-total-sign-fiscal-agreement-for-papua-lng-project-idUSL1N2KF0IV | Papua New Guinea, France's Total sign fiscal agreement for Papua LNG project | Papua New Guinea, France's Total sign fiscal agreement for Papua LNG project
By Sonali Paul, Tom Westbrook2 Min Read
FILE PHOTO: The logo of French oil and gas company Total is seen at La Defense business district in Courbevoie near Paris, France, February 8, 2021. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The Papua New Guinea government and France’s Total SA on Tuesday signed a long-awaited fiscal stability agreement for the Papua LNG project, PNG Prime Minister James Marape said.
After nearly two years of uncertainty over the fate of the 5.4 million tonne a year liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, Marape said the agreement would stick to terms agreed in April 2019 for the project.
“It demonstrates Papua New Guinea’s commitment to the Papua LNG Project and gives comfort and encouragement to the developers to progress the project,” Marape said in a statement.
Total and its partners ExxonMobil Corp and Oil Search Ltd had planned to develop Papua LNG in tandem with an expansion of Exxon’s PNG LNG in a $13 billion project adding three new production units at the PNG LNG plant, to help save billions of dollars.
The plan was to double the country’s LNG exports to 16 million tonnes a year.
However, Exxon has not agreed to terms sought by the government for the P’nyang gas development that was going to help feed the expansion, so Total’s Papua LNG project will go ahead with two new production units to be built at the PNG LNG site, fed by the Elk Antelope gas fields.
Papua LNG would still benefit from savings by building its units at the PNG LNG site, which will also help limit its environmental impact.
“These are great outcomes for all stakeholders of the project but more so the National Government,” Marape said.
Reporting by Sonali Paul in Melbourne and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Ed OsmondOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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5c8d5095bffd520c5f96d5f0c7b68220 | https://www.reuters.com/article/par-corretora-ipo-idUSL1N0YO2WY20150602 | Brazil's Par Corretora's IPO prices well above original range | Brazil's Par Corretora's IPO prices well above original range
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
BRASILIA, June 2 (Reuters) - Insurance broker FPC Par Corretora de Seguros SA marked Brazil’s first initial public offering in seven months on Tuesday, with the offering pricing well above the original price range at 12.33 reais ($3.94) per share.
The offering of 48,888,890 shares was worth 602.8 million reais, the website of Brazil’s securities regulator CVM said.
The IPO was only a secondary share offering, in which existing shareholders fully or partially cashed in their shares. The company will not realize any proceeds from the offering.
Managers of the IPO had originally set a price range of between 11.25 to 11.60 reais a share.
The appetite for the Par Corretora shares came as a surprise given the uncertainty clouding the Brazilian economy, which is heading into its worst recession in 25 years.
Shares in financial services companies, however, have outperformed other stocks on the Sao Paulo stock exchange, with investors seeing them as better prepared to ride the economic downturn.
With no shortage of demand for property, health and life insurance companies like Par Corretora are seen to have guaranteed cash flows despite the slowdown.
$1 = 3.1300 Brazilian reais Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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2fd92e775d331c0b31353d3353b5a1d1 | https://www.reuters.com/article/patisserie-hldg-accounts/update-1-scandal-hit-patisserie-valerie-owner-calls-in-administrators-idUSL3N1ZM4I7 | UPDATE 1-Scandal-hit Patisserie Valerie owner calls in administrators | UPDATE 1-Scandal-hit Patisserie Valerie owner calls in administrators
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
(Adds detail on accounting scandal, background)
Jan 22 (Reuters) - British cafe chain owner Patisserie Holdings Plc on Tuesday appointed audit firm KPMG as administrators after it was unable to renew its bank facilities in the aftermath of an accounting scandal.
The troubled company said it did not have sufficient funding and that its Chairman Luke Johnson extended an unsecured, interest-free loan to ensure that the staff was paid wages for January.
Patisserie, which floated four years ago, plunged into turmoil last October after discovering accounting irregularities that led to the suspension of its top management.
Patisserie Holdings, whose cafes are best known for their range of cakes, had said earlier this month that thousands of false entries were made in its ledgers and that misstatement of its accounts was “extensive”.
It had hired KPMG to assess options in a last ditch attempt to save the 93-year old company. (Reporting by Tanishaa Nadkar and Samantha Machado in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber, Bernard Orr)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1db31a1f0de034dc914922fa57d0a88a | https://www.reuters.com/article/patria-ipo-blackstone-group/update-1-blackstone-backed-patria-eyes-expansion-in-latam-asia-idUSL1N2JX265 | CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Blackstone-backed Patria eyes expansion in Latam, Asia | CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Blackstone-backed Patria eyes expansion in Latam, Asia
By Carolina Mandl, Tatiana Bautzer3 Min Read
(Corrects name of Patria partner in fifth paragraph)
SAO PAULO, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Brazilian asset manager Patria Investments Ltd, whose shareholders include Blackstone Group Inc, plans to use the proceeds of its $588 million initial public offering partly to expand in new emerging markets, executives said on Friday.
Patria raised $326 million in the IPO and shareholders selling stakes will receive $262 million. Blackstone, which acquired a 40% stake in Patria ten years ago, will reduce its stake to 14%.
Shares of Patria - which manages more than $14 billion in private equity, credit, real estate and infrastructure funds - were up 23% in their trading debut on Friday in late afternoon.
Class A shares were priced at $17 each in the initial public offering, $1 above the upper limit of its price range, reflecting demand equivalent to 14 times the amount of shares offered, Patria executives said in an interview.
The company was valued at $2.3 billion in the IPO, and its market cap rose to $2.8 billion after the first trading day. Senior managing partner Olimpio Matarazzo said Patria is happy with its new shareholder base, which includes long-term investors, he said.
Chief Executive Officer Alexandre Saigh said the firm is eying acquisitions in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Brazil and may later pursue an expansion in Asia.
“We want to be the leading alternative investment fund manager for emerging countries,” he said. “Alternative assets have attracted a lot of money with global low interest rates.”
Proceeds will also be used to invest in its own funds and to acquire portfolios and distribution channels.
Blackstone and Patria agreed to pursue the IPO to allow the U.S. firm to trim its stake after Brazilian founders refused an offer to sell control.
Patria’s IPO comes as asset managers in Brazil are seeing record inflows from investors, at a time when the benchmark interest rate in Latin America’s largest economy is at a record low of 2%. Last year, net new money to the industry totaled 156.4 billion reais, according to industry group Anbima.
Another Brazilian asset manager, Vinci Partners, has also filed for an IPO on the Nasdaq, which may value it at $1 billion. (Reporting by Carolina Mandl and Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Matthew Lewis)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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f6d00105ee56360967e05aaec0b96ed4 | https://www.reuters.com/article/paypal-cryptocurrency/paypal-to-allow-cryptocurrency-buying-selling-and-shopping-on-its-network-idUSL1N2HB14U?rpc=401& | PayPal to allow cryptocurrency buying, selling and shopping on its network | PayPal to allow cryptocurrency buying, selling and shopping on its network
By Anna Irrera3 Min Read
LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - PayPal Holdings Inc joined the cryptocurrency market on Wednesday, allowing customers to buy, sell and hold bitcoin and other virtual coins using the U.S. digital payments company’s online wallets.
PayPal customers will also be able to use cryptocurrencies to shop at the 26 million merchants on its network starting in early 2021, the company said in a statement.
PayPal hopes the service will encourage global use of virtual coins and prepare its network for new digital currencies that may be developed by central banks and corporations, President and Chief Executive Dan Schulman said in an interview.
“We are working with central banks and thinking of all forms of digital currencies and how PayPal can play a role,” he said.
U.S. account holders will be able to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in their PayPal wallets over the coming weeks, the company said. It plans to expand to Venmo and some countries in the first half of 2021.
Other mainstream fintech companies, such as mobile payments provider Square Inc and stock trading app firm Robinhood Markets Inc, allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, but PayPal’s launch is noteworthy given its vast reach.
The company, based in San Jose, California, has 346 million active accounts around the world and processed $222 billion in payments in the second quarter.
Cryptocurrencies tend to be volatile, making them attractive to speculators, but a lot less appealing to merchants and shoppers. Transactions have been slower and more costly than other mainstream payment systems.
Cryptocurrency payments on PayPal will be settled using fiat currencies, such as the U.S. dollar, meaning merchants will not receive payments in virtual coins, the company said.
Many central banks around the world have expressed their intention to develop digital versions of their currencies in the coming years, while Facebook Inc-led the creation of a cryptocurrency project called Libra in 2019. PayPal was a founding member but dropped out after a few months.
PayPal, which has secured the first conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services, will initially allow purchases of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies called ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin, it said. It partners with Paxos Trust Company to offer the service. (Reporting by Anna Irrera; Editing by Richard Chang)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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dfe8707d0893a1093d5821309b4ccd17 | https://www.reuters.com/article/paytm-india-google-idINKBN2691J7?edition-redirect=in | Paytm app back on Google store after removal over policy violations | Paytm app back on Google store after removal over policy violations
By Sankalp Phartiyal2 Min Read
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian digital payments firm Paytm on Friday said its mobile app was back on Google’s android store after the U.S. tech giant kept it offline for several hours, citing the SoftBank-backed company’s violations of its gambling policy.
A worker adjusts a hoarding of Paytm, a digital payments firm, in Ahmedabad, India, January 31, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
“Update: And we’re back!” Paytm told users on Twitter, some of whom had expressed concerns about their money in the company’s digital wallet and bank.
Earlier on Friday, Alphabet Inc’s Google said in blog post that it did not allow “online casinos or support any unregulated gambling apps that facilitate sports betting.”
“This includes if an app leads consumers to an external website that allows them to participate in paid tournaments to win real money or cash prizes, it is a violation of our policies,” it added.
The blog post did not name Paytm, but Google separately confirmed the removal for policy violations.
Paytm, which also counts Alibaba and Berkshire Hathaway among its backers, confirmed that Google had removed its app.
Launched a decade ago as a platform for mobile recharges, Paytm grew quickly after ride-hailing firm Uber listed it as a quick payment option. Its use swelled further in 2016 when India banned certain high-value currency notes, causing a immense shortage of currency in the economy for months.
It currently competes with global players such as Google Pay and Walmart’s PhonePe in India’s digital payments market which is set to more than double in value to $135 billion by 2023 from 2019, according to PwC and Indian lobby group ASSOCHAM.
The company had not breached Google policies but was running an offer that gave its users stickers, for payments and money transfers, which could then be used to redeem cashbacks - a move Google deemed as gambling, a Paytm spokesman told Reuters.
Paytm has since removed the promotion from its app, he added.
Google did not respond to a request seeking comment on how Paytm’s cashback offer violated its policies.
Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Elaine HardcastleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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242ad4aa14accd35a442eeffda194ff4 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pdvsa-debt-idUSL1N19Z0MY | Venezuela's PDVSA issued $831 mln debt to pay providers this year | Venezuela's PDVSA issued $831 mln debt to pay providers this year
By Corina Pons2 Min Read
CARACAS, July 13 (Reuters) - Venezuela state oil company PDVSA has issued $831 million in promissory notes this year to repay debts to service providers, according to its latest financial statement.
The notes, with an interest rate of 6.5 percent, mature in 2019, the company said in its 2015 financial statement published late on Tuesday.
The exclusive operator of the South American OPEC country’s vast oilfields, PDVSA has run up more than $19 billion in unpaid bills to service providers as a result of cash-flow problems, which has led some companies to slow work.
PDVSA began negotiating private issuances last year to settle years-old suppliers’ bills, with at least $310 million of notes in 2015 to companies including General Electric Co.
PDVSA did not say which service companies were involved in the notes issued this year.
But PDVSA President Eulogio del Pino said last month that the company had signed financing agreements with Halliburton Co and Weatherford International Plc.
PDVSA is also trying to reach a deal to boost Schlumberger AG’s presence after the oilfield services provider said it would reduce operations because of payment problems.
For PDVSA, access to hard currency has tumbled along with oil prices, and Venezuela is struggling with triple-digit inflation, a severe recession and heavy bond payments this year and next. (Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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4e4821de05920e26a03b2787fcc70d68 | https://www.reuters.com/article/peabody-energy-bankruptcy-breakingviews-idUSL2N17G1XZ | Breakingviews: Collapsed Peabody is ghost of oil future | Breakingviews: Collapsed Peabody is ghost of oil future
By Robert Cyran, Reuters Breakingviews3 Min Read
NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Peabody Energy’s collapse heralds the future of oil. The largest U.S. coal producer on Wednesday filed for bankruptcy protection, felled by pollution concerns and declining costs of rival fuels. Oil companies should pay heed.
Less than a decade ago, Peabody’s market value was over $20 billion. Since then, utilities have closed coal-fired plants in favor of cleaner renewable sources and cheaper natural gas. Investors are shunning dirtier energy. The decisions have rippled through the coal industry, causing multiple insolvencies.
It isn’t a big leap to the already reeling oil industry. More than 70 percent of crude used in America is for transportation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the bulk of that is for cars. There may be relatively few electric vehicles on the road now, but that is changing fast. The number sold worldwide grew about 80 percent last year, according to the Department of Energy.
There also appears to be considerable demand. Over 325,000 people just plunked down $1,000 to order Tesla’s new Model 3 sedan, which won’t even be in production until the end of 2017. That’s equivalent to about 2 percent of all new cars sold in the United States last year.
Governments are subsidizing electric cars, which are traveling longer distances on each charge. The price of the lithium-ion batteries they use also has plummeted by about 90 percent over the past decade. GM said last October it paid $145 per kilowatt-hour for batteries, roughly around the threshold needed to be cost-competitive with internal-combustion engines. Moreover, prices are still falling fast and will keep falling as production scales up.
The short-term problem for petroleum is expectations. If what’s in the ground is expected to be worth less tomorrow than it is today, oil-producing countries and companies will pump as fast as they can, curb investment and diversify into areas like natural gas. It’s probably no coincidence that Saudi Arabia is unwilling to slow production despite protestations from its OPEC partners as it considers an initial public offering of its national oil company Aramco.
The $10 trillion valuation estimated by some analysts could turn out to be as fleeting as Peabody’s. The coal company’s bankruptcy and market trends for electric cars are the canaries in the oil fields.
CONTEXT NEWS
- Peabody Energy, the world’s largest privately owned coal producer, sought bankruptcy protection on April 13 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
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be8f7da9922eacccd8c586e813916d07 | https://www.reuters.com/article/peakon-funding-eqt-idUKL5N1H4158?edition-redirect=uk | Peakon raises 6.1 mln euro in funding round led by EQT Ventures | Peakon raises 6.1 mln euro in funding round led by EQT Ventures
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
STOCKHOLM, March 27 (Reuters) - Peakon, a provider of employee engagement and people analytics software, has completed a 6.1 million euro ($6.62 million) funding round led by EQT Ventures, the venture capital arm of Swedish private equity giant EQT, the company said on Monday.
* Peakon, founded in 2014, will use the money primarily to triple staff to over 100 people over the next 12 months, expanding its teams in machine learning, data-science, and engineering.
* “AI is tipped as one of the key tech sectors for investors this year, and the team have had an impressive start, demonstrating strong revenue growth and product adoption,” said Lars Jornow, managing partner at EQT Ventures.
* Other investors in the round were existing owners IDInvest and Sunstone, as well as angel investor Tommy Ahlers.
* The company counts publisher Trinity Mirror and Delivery Hero among its clients.
* It has offices in Copenhagen and London, as well as in Raleigh in the United States.
* Peakon offers a product where the collection of employee feedback is automated and analysed using machine learning techniques to generate insights to improve the clients business
* The funding brings Peakon’s total capital raised over the past year to 10.1 million euro.
$1 = 0.9221 euros Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; editing by Niklas PollardOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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ca066a3b106cdf804334d959582f6645 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pennstate-dataprotection/penn-state-says-college-of-engineering-hit-by-two-data-breaches-idUSL3N0Y66KK20150515 | Penn State says College of Engineering hit by two data breaches | Penn State says College of Engineering hit by two data breaches
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
May 15 (Reuters) - Pennsylvania State University said on Friday two cyberattacks on its College of Engineering compromised servers containing personal information on about 18,000 people.
Penn State said there was no evidence that research data or personal information, such as social security or credit card numbers, had been stolen.
The first time Penn State knew about the breach was in November, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation alerted the university, Penn State executive vice president Nicholas Jones said.
An investigation has been ongoing since then.
Cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc’s forensic unit, Mandiant, hired by Penn State after the breach was discovered, said the first attack took place in September 2012, and the second in mid-2014.
Mandiant confirmed that at least one of the two attacks was carried out by a “threat actor” based in China, Penn State said.
“Cyberattacks like this - sophisticated, difficult to detect and often linked to international threat actors - are the new normal. No company or organization is immune,” Nick Bennett, senior manager at Mandiant, told Reuters.
Penn State said investigators found that a number of college-issued usernames and passwords had been compromised but only a small number had been used to access its network.
The university said the College of Engineering’s computer network has been disconnected from the Internet and attempts were on to recover all systems.
The outage is expected to last for several days, and the effects will largely be limited to the College of Engineering, Penn State said. (Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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3efd3d79684ee2c7f12f2d6e4e2f1b87 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pennsylvania-shooting-suspect/update-1-who-is-robert-bowers-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-suspect-idUKL2N1X709F?edition-redirect=uk | CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Who is Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect? | CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Who is Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect?
By Jarrett Renshaw3 Min Read
(Corrects paragraph 2 to show that HIAS is a non-profit that helps all refugees, not only Jewish refugees)
Oct 27 (Reuters) - The suspect in Saturday’s mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue is a 46-year-old local man named Robert Bowers who posted virulent anti-Semitic messages on social media filled with slurs and conspiracy theories.
Two hours before a gunman burst into the Tree of Life synagogue and opened fire during a Shabbat religious service, Bowers posted on chat site Gab.com about the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a non-profit that helps refugees relocate to the United States.
“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in,” wrote Bowers, a heavy-set, white male.
The gunman reportedly shouted anti-Semitic phrases during the shooting, which left 11 people dead and five injured, including four police officers.
The suspect, a Pittsburgh resident, was shot and in fair condition at a hospital, authorities said.
Gab.com said in a statement that when it learned of the shooting suspect’s profile on its site, it took “swift and proactive” action to contact law enforcement immediately.
Gab, which promotes itself as a free-speech alternative to the more heavily policed Twitter and has been a popular gathering space for the alt-right, said it backed up the user data and suspended the account, then told the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the data held by the company.
“Gab unequivocally disavows and condemns all acts of terrorism and violence,” the company’s statement said.
Bower has an active firearms license and has made at least six known gun purchases since 1996, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told CNN. He did not have a criminal record and was not known to police, law enforcement officials said on Saturday.
An archive of Bower’s Gab posts since he joined the site in January showed an angry, anti-Semitic man who shared messages such as: “Daily Reminder: Diversity means chasing down the last white person.”
About a month ago he posted pictures showing what appeared to the results of his target practice at a shooting range, and a collection of three handguns that he called his “glock family.”
Police said the suspect had three handguns and an assault-style rife at the shooting. It’s unclear whether they were the same handguns as the ones in the photo.
Bowers, who is a registered voter with “no affiliation” in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, took aim in one post at U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of being a “globalist” who did nothing to stop the “infestation” of the United States by Jews.
“For the record, I did not vote for him nor have I owned, worn or even touched a MAGA hat,” he wrote. MAGA is an acronym for Make America Great Again that is frequently used by Trump. (Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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c82cc05b100f0728ce4eaa1947e1127a | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-algoldstein/al-goldstein-pornography-pioneer-who-claimed-free-speech-dies-idUSL2N0JY17Q20131219 | Al Goldstein, pornography pioneer who claimed free speech, dies | Al Goldstein, pornography pioneer who claimed free speech, dies
By Victoria Cavaliere3 Min Read
NEW YORK, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Al Goldstein, founder of the unapologetically raunchy Screw magazine and a leader in the First Amendment fight to protect the pornography industry under the umbrella of free speech, died on Thursday in New York.
Goldstein, 77, who had battled several illnesses in recent years, apparently succumbed to renal failure, according to his lawyer.
Born in the New York borough of Brooklyn in 1936, Goldstein brought pornography into the mainstream and helped to shape a form of sexual satire emulated by a legion of pornographers and entertainers, including Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt and radio star Howard Stern.
In 1968, Goldstein founded Screw, a trailblazer in the smutty magazine trade. The weekly publication offered depictions of sex that were irreverent, realistic, often-unappealing and frequently controversial.
In 1973, the magazine printed nude photos of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, igniting the fury of her supporters while selling more than 500,000 copies.
Screw predated Flynt’s Hustler by six years, and both publishers fought lengthy court battles to protect their First Amendment rights to produce adult content under the protection of free speech.
Goldstein referred to himself as a “crusader” for personal liberties.
Over the course of a career that saw waning fortunes and diminishing magazine sales, Goldstein battled illness, financial ruin and family break-up.
When he was not invited to his only son’s graduation from Harvard law school in 2002, Goldstein lashed out at his ex-wife and the elite private university.
Screw folded in 2003. Once at the top of a multimillion-dollar porn publishing empire, Goldstein lost his Manhattan home and was forced to sell a Florida mansion that came outfitted with a large statue of a hand with the middle finger raised.
For a time in the mid 2000s, the former porn king took an hourly wage job at Manhattan’s famous 2nd Avenue Deli.
In 2002, Goldstein was sentenced to 60 days in jail for threatening a former employee and leaving obscene messages on her answering machine.
Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Gunna DicksonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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349759f77e52c66d9bd012d6287d78b6 | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-harvey-weinstein-lexus/lexus-will-end-its-partnership-with-weinstein-co-statement-idUKL2N1MZ1H0?edition-redirect=uk | Lexus will end its partnership with Weinstein Co -statement | Lexus will end its partnership with Weinstein Co -statement
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
Oct 24 (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp’s Lexus unit said on Tuesday it is ending its partnership with film and TV production firm The Weinstein Company after allegations that co-founder Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted a number of women.
“Lexus has chosen to terminate its agreements with The Weinstein Company that saw the luxury automaker working with the film studio on certain film and television projects,” a company spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to Reuters.
Reporting By Sheila Dang in New York; Editing by Cynthia OstermanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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44119f04f32a73172c5c7358364e6517 | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-harvey-weinstein/colony-capital-in-talks-to-buy-weinstein-co-idINKBN1CL2E6?edition-redirect=in | Colony Capital injects cash, in talks to buy Weinstein Co | Colony Capital injects cash, in talks to buy Weinstein Co
By Greg Roumeliotis, Jessica DiNapoli6 Min Read
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Weinstein Company has entered talks to sell the bulk of its assets to private equity firm Colony Capital, the companies said on Monday, as the film production company looks for stability after firing co-founder Harvey Weinstein.
FILE PHOTO: Film producer Harvey Weinstein attends the 2016 amfAR New York Gala at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan, New York, U.S. on February 10, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo
Co-Chairman Bob Weinstein, Harvey’s brother and fellow co-founder, on Friday had denied the firm was seeking to sell or shut down following Harvey Weinstein’s dismissal after a number of women went public to accuse him of sexually harassing or assaulting them over the past three decades.
Colony Capital, which has about $20 billion in assets under management, will provide an immediate capital infusion into The Weinstein Co and is in talks to buy all or a significant portion of its assets, the companies said in a statement.
The Weinstein Co confirmed its board is to meet on Tuesday. No further details of the meeting were available. The board has shrunk to only three people following the resignation and departure of five others in the wake of the accusations against Weinstein, trade publication Deadline reported over the weekend.
Weinstein has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone.
One of Hollywood’s most influential forces since launching in October 2005, The Weinstein Co produces and distributes films, including such hits as “The King’s Speech,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and others. Its TWC Television arm produces the long-running reality series “Project Runway.” It does not operate a film studio, and as such has few physical assets.
If the deal goes through, it will be familiar territory for Thomas Barrack, the founder and executive chairman of Colony Capital and a friend of Donald Trump who chaired the U.S. president’s inaugural committee.
Colony Capital and the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, in 2010 bought the Miramax studio, the original studio founded by the Weinstein brothers, in 1979. The two brothers sold Miramax to Walt Disney Co DIS.N in 1993. Last year, Colony and Qatar Investment sold Miramax to Qatar-based BeIN Media Group.
Like Miramax, the value of The Weinstein Co likely lies in its library of movie hits, which are in demand by traditional TV networks and online streaming services.
The Weinstein Co handed control of hundreds of films to Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.N and insurance company Assured Guaranty Ltd AGO.N when it overhauled its balance sheet to avoid bankruptcy in 2010, while retaining ownership of 150 films, Reuters reported at the time.
Goldman Sachs later offloaded its control of the library to AMC Networks AMCX.O, which still owns a stake in the library, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.
Colony Capital and The Weinstein Co made no mention in their statement on Monday of a possible deal value.
According to a source familiar with the talks, there are a couple of deal structures under consideration. One would involve Colony’s outright acquisition of all of The Weinstein Co or its major assets, including what it sees as the more attractive TV operations, with an escrow account being negotiated to cover legal liabilities.
Another option is for The Weinstein Co to file for bankruptcy with Colony as a “stalking horse” bidder to buy it or its major assets. That would shield Colony from having to assume The Weinstein Co’s legal liabilities.
MEGA-PRODUCER SHUNNED BY PEERS
There is also the question of what The Weinstein Co is without Harvey Weinstein, the elder of the two brothers and the aggressive dealmaker and wrangler of Hollywood talent, money and egos - and the one credited with conceiving the strategy that scored dozens of Oscar awards for the company’s films.
Last year, Harvey Weinstein told The Hollywood Reporter that the privately held company was worth $700 million to $800 million, including the film library, and that it had no debt.
There are no public filings on which to assess the likely value of the company or its debt load. Opus Bank OPB.O was one of several banks that funded a $400 million credit facility to Weinstein Co in August 2016, but it is unclear if the company tapped the facility.
The cash infusion comes after more of the Weinstein Co’s partners have cut ties in recent days. Goldman Sachs said on Friday it was exploring options for its stake in the company, which is worth less than $1 million.
Hachette Book Group, the U.S. publishing house of French group Lagardere LAGA.PA, terminated the Weinstein Books imprint on Thursday.
Colony’s cash infusion will “stabilise the company’s current operations, as well as provide comfort to our critical distribution, production and talent partners around the world,” the companies said in the statement.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled Weinstein on Saturday, a sharp smack for a Hollywood mogul so closely associated with Oscar gold. The Weinsteins together have received 341 Oscar nominations and won 81 Academy Awards for their films.
On Monday, the Producers Guild of America said it had begun the process of terminating Weinstein’s membership after a unanimous vote by its board of directors and officers. Weinstein will be given until Nov. 6 to respond to the decision.
Colony Capital is the private equity arm of Colony NorthStar Inc CLNS.N, a real estate investment trust that has holdings in healthcare, industrial and hospitality sectors. Colony NorthStar shares closed up 0.2 percent on Monday.
Reporting by Greg Roumeliotos and Jessica DiNapoli in New York; Additional reporting by Jessica Toonkel and Anna Driver in New York, Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru and Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles; Writing by Bill Rigby and Mary Milliken; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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d150428d039b1b32b7e17c72582c4546 | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-lloyds-banking-garvey-idUSL8N1DQ35G | MOVES-Ring-fencing nudges Lloyds into IB merger | MOVES-Ring-fencing nudges Lloyds into IB merger
By Tom Porter, IFR1 Min Read
LONDON, Nov 25 (IFR) - Lloyds has moved to streamline its investment-bank in advance of UK ring-fencing rules, by combining its capital and financial markets into a single unit to be led by managing director of capital markets James Garvey, according to a statement.
Lloyds’ trading business now comes under Garvey’s remit as head of the new Commercial Banking Markets division.
He will work jointly with head of financial markets Richard Moore until the latter leaves Lloyds next year, and continue to report to chief executive of commercial banking Andrew Bester.
The Bank of England’s ring-fencing rules, which force the separation of UK banks’ retail and investment banking operations, take effect in 2019.
In a statement Lloyds said the move was a “natural evolution of the current client led business model in advance of the changes.” (Reporting by Tom Porter, Editing by Sudip Roy, Helene Durand)
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c7736142ff4c4c18d4ff74e49301a490 | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-selleck/tv-actor-tom-selleck-quits-nra-board-of-directors-idINKCN1M00BS?edition-redirect=in | TV actor Tom Selleck quits NRA board of directors | TV actor Tom Selleck quits NRA board of directors
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
FILE PHOTO: Actor Tom Selleck poses as after arriving for the taping of "The Carol Burnett 50th Anniversary Special" at CBS Studios in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
(Reuters) - Actor Tom Selleck, star of such TV crime dramas as “Magnum, P.I.” and “Blue Bloods” and an ardent gun collector, has resigned from the National Rifle Association’s board of directors.
“Tom Selleck has stepped down from the board of the NRA due to his work schedule,” his publicist, Annett Wolf, said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Wednesday.
“Mr. Selleck remains a member of the NRA,” she said.
In his re-election to the board for a three-year term in 2017, Selleck, 73, received 110,000 votes, nearly 20,000 more than the next closest candidate.
Asked in a telephone interview whether Selleck’s resignation from the board had anything to do with NRA policy, Wolf declined to comment.
The Trace, a non-profit website covering gun violence in America, reported Selleck has been a member of the NRA since he was 8 years old, has served on the 76-member board since 2005 and has donated rifles and revolvers from his acting roles to the NRA’s National Firearms Museum.
The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Cynthia OstermanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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20638077ef8bb2d5c760d91bf8563a91 | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-stevewynn/wynn-resigns-as-rnc-finance-chair-after-sexual-misconduct-allegations-idINKBN1FH01I?edition-redirect=in | Wynn resigns as RNC finance chair after sexual misconduct allegations | Wynn resigns as RNC finance chair after sexual misconduct allegations
By Steve Holland, Ginger Gibson4 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn resigned as finance chairman of the Republican Party’s fundraising arm on Saturday, a day after a newspaper reported that he routinely subjected women who worked for him to unwanted sexual advances.
FILE PHOTO: Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
“Today I accepted Steve Wynn’s resignation as Republican National Committee finance chair,” RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said in a statement.
The billionaire has denied the accusations published by the Wall Street Journal as “preposterous” and said they were instigated by his ex-wife to seek advantage in their divorce lawsuit.
But he said in a statement released on Saturday evening that he was resigning to avoid unnecessary distraction. He also thanked U.S. President Donald Trump for the job.
“The unbelievable success we have achieved must continue,” the statement said. “The work we are doing to make America a better place is too important to be impaired by this distraction.”
As recently as Friday night, Wynn associates were insisting he would fight the charges and remain at the RNC.
Instead, he becomes the latest powerful man to pay a price for accusations of sexual misconduct in the United States.
The 76-year-old founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Wynn Resorts Ltd WYNN.O, has been a prominent figure in the casino resort business and onetime rival of Trump.
After previously seeking to appear nonpartisan, he threw his support behind Trump during the 2016 campaign and donated money to several Republican causes including the RNC.
Trump called Wynn a “great friend” after he won the Nevada caucus in February 2016, and Wynn was named finance chairman of the committee after Trump became president.
U.S. Representative Francis Rooney of Florida is being considered as a replacement, one Republican fundraiser said.
The board of directors of Wynn Resorts said on Friday it had met to form a special committee consisting solely of independent directors to investigate the allegations reported by the Journal.
The special investigation panel will be chaired by Patricia Mulroy, a member of the board’s corporate governance and compliance committees and a former member of the Nevada Gaming Commission, the board said in a statement.
The Wall Street Journal said former and current company staff members it interviewed had accused Wynn of creating a hostile work environment for women and of regularly pressuring employees to perform sex acts.
“The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous,” Wynn said in a statement on Friday. “The instigation of these accusations is the continued work of my ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, with whom I am involved in a terrible and nasty lawsuit in which she is seeking a revised divorce settlement.”
A spokeswoman for Elaine Wynn, 75, declined comment on Friday, but her Washington-based attorney, James Cole, told Reuters the notion that his client fomented the allegations in the Journal article “is just not true.”
After The New York Times revealed in October that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein had paid off multiple sexual harassment accusers over decades, it unleashed a wave of accusations against the rich and powerful, leading to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements demanding an end to impunity.
Weinstein was long a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes. The scandal prompted McDaniel to urge the Democrats to give back his “dirty money.”
After the Journal published the accusations against Wynn, Democrats in turn called on Republicans to return his donations.
Reporting by Steve Holland, Ginger Gibson, Yeganeh Torbati and Dustin Volz; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bill Trott and Chris ReeseOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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63c8ff403ad03ec91b16a7e202001e4f | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-us-abdul-idUKTRE4AB74M20081112 | Fan of Paula Abdul found dead near TV star's home | Fan of Paula Abdul found dead near TV star's home
By Alex Dobuzinskis2 Min Read
Paula Abdul speaks on stage during the taping of the 2008 "NCLR Alma" awards at the Civic Auditorium in Pasadena, California, August 17, 2008. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A woman who once tried out for top-rated television show “American Idol” and appears to have been an obsessed fan of judge Paula Abdul has been found dead of an apparent suicide near the pop star’s home.
Police said they discovered the body of Paula Goodspeed, 30, in a car near Abdul’s Los Angeles home on Tuesday night.
“It appears to be a suicide by overdose,” said Detective Robert Bub of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Investigators found prescription drugs in Goodspeed’s car, along with Abdul CDs and pictures of the pop singer, Bub said.
Jeff Ballard, a representative for Abdul, told celebrity TV show “Entertainment Tonight” that Abdul was “shocked and saddened” by the woman’s death. Ballard said Abdul and her staff have known about the woman for several years.
In 2005, Goodspeed auditioned for “American Idol,” which lures about 30 million viewers per week, and said on the program that she had long been a fan of Abdul and had made life-size drawings of the pop star since childhood.
Goodspeed sang the Tina Turner hit song “Proud Mary,” but the judges all gave her bad reviews, with Simon Cowell calling attention to braces in her mouth and saying he did not know how anyone could sing with “that much metal.”
Goodspeed was from a suburb northwest of Los Angeles, and her relatives had reported her missing to local authorities.
Abdul, a pop singer, has been a judge on the reality talent show “American Idol” since its first season in 2002.
Editing by Bob TourtellotteOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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4afa76e5d13a856dc3d4291457d0a29f | https://www.reuters.com/article/people-us-jimmarshall-death/guitar-amplifier-pioneer-jim-marshall-dies-aged-88-idUKBRE8340M220120405 | Guitar amplifier pioneer Jim Marshall dies aged 88 | Guitar amplifier pioneer Jim Marshall dies aged 88
By Mike Collett-White3 Min Read
LONDON (Reuters) - Jim Marshall, dubbed the “Lord of Loud” for his pioneering work on guitar amplifiers used by some of the greatest names in rock music, has died aged 88.
Jim Marshall, builder of amplifiers poses with one of his products at the 'Musikmesse' in Frankfurt March 13, 2002. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
A spokeswoman for the company he founded said he passed away in Milton Keynes, southeast England, on Thursday morning. She could not confirm reports that he had been suffering from cancer and had a series of strokes.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the passing of our beloved founder and leader for the past 50 years, Jim Marshall,” said a statement on his company’s website.
“While mourning the Guv’nor though, we also salute a legendary man who led a full and truly remarkable life.”
Tributes poured in for a man credited with helping to shape the sound of guitar rock.
“The news of Jim Marshall passing is deeply saddening,” former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash said in a message on Twitter. “R & R will never be the same w/out him. But, his amps will live on FOREVER!”
His company said in a written tribute: “Your memory, the music and joy your amps have brought to countless millions for the past five decades and that world-famous, omnipresent script logo that proudly bears your name will always live on.”
TOWNSHEND, HENDRIX AMONG EARLY CLIENTS
Marshall is revered as one of the four forefathers of rock music equipment along with Leo Fender, Les Paul and Seth Lover.
Born in London in 1923, he started out as a drummer before going into business and founding Marshall Amplification in 1962.
In around 1960, a young Pete Townshend, later lead guitarist for The Who, first suggested to Marshall that he expand his music shop to sell guitars and amplifiers as well as drums.
According to an interview Marshall gave several years ago, the London store quickly turned into a “rock’n’roll labour exchange”, and Marshall hired an engineer employed by a record label to help him build prototype amplifiers.
Marshall rejected the first five attempts but was happy with the sound of the 6th -- he received 23 orders for the new equipment on the first day alone.
Legendary musicians including Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton were among the early Marshall amp users.
When Hendrix walked into the store, Marshall recalled thinking to himself: “Bloody hell, here’s another American guitarist wanting something for nothing.”
But the guitarist paid the full price for everything he purchased without delay.
Marshall was awarded an OBE honor for services to the music industry and to charity, and he has donated millions of pounds to “worthy causes”, according to his website.
They included the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore where he was reportedly treated for tuberculosis as a child.
Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Christine KearneyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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7a0a1cbd70f9ad445aac9d648b8f0087 | https://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSN0938785620080409 | Sean Penn, wife Robin end divorce proceeding | Sean Penn, wife Robin end divorce proceeding
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
File photo shows the director of "Into the Wild", Sean Penn (R) and wife Robin Wright Penn attending the premiere of the film in Los Angeles September 18, 2007. REUTERS/Phil McCarten
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar winning actor Sean Penn and his wife actress Robin Wright Penn have withdrawn their divorce petition filed in December, a court document posted on celebrity Web site TMZ.com showed on Wednesday.
The request to dismiss the divorce, filed one day earlier in Superior Court of California in Marin County north of San Francisco, shows the withdrawal was made “without prejudice.”
A spokeswoman for Penn declined to comment, and no further details were available.
Sean Penn, 47, and Robin Wright Penn, 42, were married for 11 years before they first filed for divorce. They have two children.
He has enjoyed a long acting career in movies and won the best actor Oscar for his leading role in 2003’s “Mystic River.” He also is a director whose most recent film, “Into the Wild,” earned solid reviews last year.
She rose to prominence in the 1980s, and has starred in recent movies such as “Beowulf” and “What Just Happened?” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
Editing by Patricia ReaneyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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63e346b76252831a0a92d36e223eab87 | https://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSPEK29199220080111 | Chinese film director accused of drug use | Chinese film director accused of drug use
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
Chinese director Zhang Yuan pictured in Berlin February 15, 2006. He was arrested after being found taking drugs at his Beijing home, official media said on Thursday. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
BEIJING (Reuters) - Award-winning Chinese film director Zhang Yuan has been arrested after being found taking drugs at his Beijing home, official media said on Thursday.
When police burst into his apartment Zhang was found taking a variety of drugs with four friends, the Xinhua news agency said, citing a Beijing Television report.
A subsequent urine sample tested positive for ketamine and ice, the report said.
Zhang appeared “excited and delirious” and shouted at police “I don’t know who you are and why you’re in my apartment” before being taken away, it added.
Zhang, 45, whose works include “Little Red Flowers,” which won an award at the Berlin Film Festival, is one of China’s most popular directors. He is a member of the so-called “six-generation” filmmakers, known for his non-mainstream independent works.
In 1994, Time Magazine named Zhang one of 100 young world leaders for the 21st century.
Reporting by Chen Aizhu; editing by Roger CrabbOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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f6ce9e263758e45f0eb43ef172f5a091 | https://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSTRE5611LD20090702 | UK comedy actress Mollie Sugden dies at 86 | UK comedy actress Mollie Sugden dies at 86
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
Slideshow ( 2 images )
LONDON (Reuters) - British actress Mollie Sugden, best-known for her role as Mrs Slocombe in the television comedy series “Are You Being Served?,” has died at the age of 86.
Her agent Joan Reddin told newspapers Sugden died on Wednesday after a long illness. “She was a lovely, lovely person. She was a great professional,” Reddin said.
With her hair highly coiffed and referring frequently to her “pussy,” Sugden played the bossy Mrs Slocombe throughout the run of the BBC’s innuendo-laden Are You Being Served? between 1972 and 1985.
Re-runs of the show in the United States in the 1990s gained her a new audience overseas.
“She was great fun, a very good actress, very versatile. She could play serious stuff and comedy,” said Frank Thornton, who played opposite Sugden in the series as the stuffy floorwalker Captain Peacock.
“It was a very happy show to work on -- you can’t play comedy with people you dislike,” he told BBC television.
Mark Freeland, head of BBC comedy, said she was one of television’s iconic funny women.
“Her daftly enormous purple rinse and never-to-be-forgotten catchphrase are the stuff of comedy legend,” he said.
Sugden had also found success in the BBC TV comedy series “The Liver Birds” and played an occasional role as pub landlady Nellie Harvey in the long-running ITV soap opera “Coronation Street.”
Reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by Steve AddisonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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037cae3c8bd72dd1c29c239e0b88d6f2 | https://www.reuters.com/article/PersonalFinance/idUSKBN2BO636 | Europe's IPO market roars back to life, can it last? | Europe's IPO market roars back to life, can it last?
By Abhinav Ramnarayan, Arno Schuetze4 Min Read
LONDON (Reuters) - The European market for initial public offerings has come roaring back this year after a moribund, COVID-hit 2020, but the poor debut by Deliveroo has amplified concerns around whether the momentum can last.
FILE PHOTO: A Deliveroo delivery rider cycles in London, Britain, March 31, 2021. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
European companies raised $19.55 billion through stock market listings in the first three months of the year, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2015, according to Refinitiv data, and bankers say the pipeline on IPO candidates is crowded.
“There’s a particularly strong pipeline of European IPOs both in terms of volumes and quality of assets,” said Saadi Soudavar, head of equity capital markets for the EMEA region at Deutsche Bank.
“Certainly our pipeline is the busiest we have seen in some time. Market dependent, we should have an even busier Q2 than Q1,” he said.
But the market backdrop is a concern to some. It has turned more volatile in recent weeks and rising government bond yields may mean worse IPO conditions for the rest of 2021, with mixed trading for several of this year’s debutants.
Listings by Poland’s InPost, Germany’s Vantage Towers and Britain’s Dr. Martens stood out, but a disastrous debut for Deliveroo - with the company’s shares sliding 30% on the first day due - mean investors go into Easter with a bitter taste.
“We’ve been in an environment where growth has been scarce, lacklustre and investors have been happy to pay up for growth wherever they can find it,” said Duncan Lamont, head of research and analytics at British asset manager Schroders.
“While I don’t think (interest) rates are going to go up, I do think we will have an economic recovery and investors may be less happy to pay those premium price tags,” he said.
Equity capital market bankers said that while they believe overall sentiment remains supportive, investors are getting pickier and will concentrate on what they view as quality deals.
“The market, which has seen some exaggerations in recent weeks, will normalize. Investors will get more selective and non-prime IPO candidates may have to wait a bit,” said Thorsten Pauli, head of equity capital markets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at Bank of America.
Graphic: European IPOs enjoy best quarter since 2015
SPAC HOPES
That is also true for so-called special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), he added. SPACs have no operating business of their own and raise money with the purpose of merging with an operating company to take public.
“The merger with a SPAC offers companies an opportunity to go public faster than via the traditional route. A disadvantage is that such a deal is usually more expensive for the seller because the SPAC sponsor takes a share for himself,” said Christoph Stanger, head of EMEA capital markets at Goldman Sachs.
That market segment has seen a surge in activity this year in the United States and to a much lesser extent in Europe, but dozens of additional deals are in the pipeline in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London, people familiar with the industry say.
So far, there have only been 10 SPAC listings in Europe in 2020 and 2021, with a total value of about $1.3 billion - figures dwarfed by the United States where 522 such listings have brought in over $300 billion, according to Refinitiv data.
As European markets are calming down only SPACs led by renowned entrepreneurs with elaborate concepts are expected to fly, bankers said.
“Three things are important for a successful SPAC: structure, sponsor, selection,” says Fabian de Smet, head of investment banking at Berenberg.
The SPAC must be structured in a way that gives investors a say on the target company and the ability to withdraw if necessary; the entrepreneur must be known and successful; and the target company should be active in an attractive industry like technology or healthcare, he said.
Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan and Arno Schuetze; Editing by Susan FentonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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7cd64ed74b50f222fdd0da8c98ca6b71 | https://www.reuters.com/article/PersonalFinance/idUSKBN2BO6NA | Value, small-cap funds outperform in first quarter as U.S. inflation worries rise | Value, small-cap funds outperform in first quarter as U.S. inflation worries rise
By David Randall3 Min Read
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan and expectations of rising inflation helped bolster the performance of fund managers who made bets on economically-sensitive cyclical or small-cap companies in the first quarter of the year, Morningstar data showed.
FILE PHOTO: A man points a computer screen showing stock information in this illustration photo taken in Bordeaux, France, France, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo
At the same time, fund managers who remained heavily-invested in giant technology companies and high-growth stocks that had outperformed during the pandemic floundered.
The gap in performance was pronounced, with the average large-cap value fund gaining 11.4% for the quarter while the average large-cap growth fund rose 2.2% over the same time, according to Morningstar.
The Kinetic Small-Cap Opportunities fund notched the best overall performance among actively managed U.S. equity funds with a 52.5% gain for the year through March 24, according to Morningstar. Among fixed income funds, the Virtus InfraCap US Preferred Stock logged the best overall performance with a 9.1% gain over the same time period.
Overall, active U.S. equity funds returned an average of 7% through March 24, with large cap funds returning an average of 5% while small-cap funds gained an average of 11.7%, according to Morningstar.
The benchmark S&P 500 is up 8.2% for the year to date.
“The more value-oriented, more economically-titled portfolios tended to do better in the first quarter,” said Todd Rosenbluth, director of mutual fund research at New York-based CFRA. “If interest rates remain range bound that bodes well for the future. But if we see rising interest rates that could slow the economy, which would benefit the larger cap strategies.”
Expectations of an economic boom in the United States have pushed inflation expectations have risen to their highest levels since 2014. Rising inflation could weigh on the economy by increasing debt rates for companies and consumers.
Bond yields, meanwhile, rose to their pre-pandemic highs during the first quarter, with benchmark 10 year Treasuries rising to nearly 1.75%.
That surge weighed on tech companies, many of which are valued more on their future earnings than current profits, and prompted investors to seek out companies such as financials that benefit from higher interest rates.
The ARKK Innovation ETF, run by star stock picker Cathie Wood, fell more than 10.7% during the quarter in a performance that left it in the worst 1 percentile of funds in its category, according to Morningstar. Among its top holdings are automaker Tesla Inc and streaming platform Roku Inc.
Despite that underperformance, the fund brought in nearly $5.5 billion in new funds so far this year, an inflow greater than any other actively-managed equity fund.
ARK did not respond to a request to comment.
Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Marguerita ChoyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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bce9fac59fafb09b766cb866e6c883ae | https://www.reuters.com/article/PersonalFinance/idUSKBN2BT2WX | 'Millionaires tax' threat has some NY bankers, managers eyeing exits | 'Millionaires tax' threat has some NY bankers, managers eyeing exits
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss4 Min Read
BOSTON (Reuters) - For decades New York’s bankers and fund managers have accepted the city’s high tax rates as a part of working in the world’s premier financial capital.
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks past JPMorgan Chase & Co's international headquarters on Park Avenue in New York July 13, 2012. REUTERS/Andrew Burton (UNITED STATES - Tags: BUSINESS LOGO CRIME LAW)/File Photo
But with plans afoot to raise rates as part of a New York state budget agreement, some financiers are exploring exits, emboldened by a pandemic that has illustrated how working on Wall Street may no longer mean working from Wall Street.
“I’m already looking for an apartment in Florida,” said one highly paid person at a top-tier bank who asked not to be identified because his employer does not yet know of his plans to move.
Others earning more than $1 million are considering still bolder steps such as moving not only themselves but also their entire investment firms out of the city, arguing higher taxes cut into their ability to pay staff.
A proposal making its way through New York’s state legislature would have top New York City earners paying up to 15.73% in combined state and city taxes.
New York state’s income tax rates currently range from 4% to 8.82% and New York City’s tax ranges from 3.08% to 3.88%, leaving the top earnings paying closer to 12.7%.
Dubbed the “millionaires tax,” the proposal would add surcharges to people earning more than $1 million a year and beat out California localities to claim the country’s highest combined tax rate.
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Some among those who make $1 million or more, putting them in the higher tax bracket, are saying the city’s cultural offerings, which were long a salve, no longer outweigh the benefits of lower tax locations like Florida, Utah or Texas, especially given the success of remote working during the pandemic.
PASSAGE SEEMS LIKELY
The tax proposal, which seems likely to pass, is the culmination of a battle between progressive and moderate Democrats. Until recently New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resisted the millionaires tax.
The political dynamics have made the extensive lobbying efforts of businesses and wealthy individuals all but moot.
Large financial companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Virtu Financial Inc and hedge fund Elliott Management have already said they are moving some staff out of New York.
Big companies will probably not abandon their New York headquarters for tax reasons altogether, but some of their staff and smaller firms, like hedge funds that employ only dozens of people, might, sources said. “This is real,” one of the smaller fund managers said. “This creates an overwhelming incentive to move.”
Last month, a group of business leaders, including those of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and BlackRock Inc, took the unusual step of issuing a public letter warning that rich people would move out of New York if a major tax increase came to fruition.
It said companies may have to move staff out of New York because their top talent does not want to be taxed at high levels. Some companies already have initiated moves for expense and corporate tax purposes, said people familiar with the moves.
“When wealthy people don’t like something, they don’t protest, they just leave,” said Geoffrey Weinstein, a tax attorney at Cole Schotz.
“The wealthy are under attack and they are seeing if there isn’t a way to lop off 15%. They are looking for options.”
Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Lauren Tara LaCapra and Howard GollerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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623d04b982af28df2beec0555b74d947 | https://www.reuters.com/article/PersonalFinance/idUSKBN2BV1MR | Analysis: Investments get 'real' as inflation fears dim appeal of bonds | Analysis: Investments get 'real' as inflation fears dim appeal of bonds
By Saikat Chatterjee, Thyagaraju Adinarayan5 Min Read
LONDON (Reuters) - Electric vehicle infrastructure, top-end offices and industrial metals - with a resurgence in inflation seemingly on the horizon, investors are slashing their exposure to bonds in favour of “real” assets.
FILE PHOTO: An ESB (Electricity Supply Board) electric vehicle charge point is seen in use in Dublin, Ireland, September 3, 2020. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo
While such investments tend to generate income and often appreciate in value, they are particularly prized as a shield against inflation, which many economists expect will make a return as economies recover from the pandemic.
That means major changes for multi-asset portfolios run along traditional 60-40 lines. Sovereign debt such as U.S. Treasuries and German Bunds has typically accounted for part of a rough 40% bond allocation - providing an income and acting as an anchor against the lucrative but volatile 60% equity component.
But with rock-bottom yields, G7 sovereign debt is offering neither substantial income in normal times nor much safety when things turn rough, and inflation may prove an even bigger headwind.
Guilhem Savry, head of macro and dynamic allocation at $22 billion asset manager Unigestion, has slashed bond exposure to nearly the lowest since October 2019, instead favouring energy, industrial metals and commodity-linked currencies.
“The reversal of bond yields this year is the game changer for the 60-40 portfolio,” he said.
“We think inflation will be much more sustainable than the (U.S) Federal Reserve thinks. The uncertainty for owning fixed income assets has increased sharply.”
Inflation erodes the value of future bond coupon payments and fears of a pick up in the measure drove U.S. 10-year Treasuries to a 5% loss in the first three months of the year, their worst quarter since 1987, according to Refinitiv data.
It was also the first quarter in more than two years that a 60:40 portfolio underperformed more flexible strategies, according to fund tracker Morningstar.
Those sticking to 60:40 models will earn less than 2% on an annualised basis in the next 20 years, Credit Suisse warns, a third of what was generated in the last 20 years.
“We’re re-imagining the ‘40’, looking at what else can you own to provide income and diversify,” said Grace Peters, investment strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
Peters has added exposure to construction materials, which are set to benefit from a $2 trillion U.S. infrastructure push. She is bullish too on digital infrastructure, particularly 5G networks and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, and private, or unlisted assets, such as real estate, where she sees “a broader sweep of opportunities”.
Annual returns of 4%-6%, comprising rental income and capital appreciation, exceed those of most G7 bonds, Peters said.
European funds are the most keen to cut their exposure to bonds, said Christian Gerlach, a founding partner at boutique investment firm Gerlach Associates. While euro zone inflation remains dormant, yields on two-thirds of the region’s sovereign bonds are negative.
CHEAP ALTERNATIVES
Real assets were gaining in popularity even before pandemic-linked government and central bank stimulus raised inflation expectations. Consultancy Willis Towers Watson estimates pension funds’ bond allocations fell to 29% over the past 15 years, while “alternatives” nearly doubled to 23%.
But broadly they remain under-owned, comprising just 5.5% of exchange traded funds’ assets, Bank of America data shows.
The bank’s strategist Michael Hartnett is among those making the case for real assets, believing a secular turning point for both inflation & interest rates has arrived to halt the 40-year bull market in bonds.
Valuations for property, commodities, infrastructure and collectibles are the lowest since 1925 relative to financial assets, Hartnett told clients, noting U.S. Treasuries were at their most expensive relative to, for example, diamond prices.
Finally, there is a 73% correlation between their returns and inflation, he said, making them “a very good hedge against rising inflation and interest rates in coming years”.
Investors will continue to hold the liquid, ultra-safe bonds issued by G7 countries, which are useful as collateral, capital buffers and defensive assets, with rising yields over time likely restore some of their ability to act as portfolio “ballast”.
For now though, BofA’s latest monthly survey shows investors are “very short” bonds, versus record high commodity allocations, with a record net 93% of those surveyed expecting higher inflation in the coming 12 months.
Graphic: Treasury returns
Reporting by Saikat Chatterjee and Thyagaraju Adinarayan; editing by Sujata Rao, Kirsten DonovanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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23b421c3f5aa48b363848cd02c0518c7 | https://www.reuters.com/article/perthmint-sales-idUSL1N2KA07Y | UPDATE 1-Perth Mint's Jan silver coin sales soar on retail mania | UPDATE 1-Perth Mint's Jan silver coin sales soar on retail mania
By Diptendu Lahiri3 Min Read
* More than 1.1 million troy ounces of silver sold in Jan
* Selling everything that can be currently made in silver- Mint
* Short-squeeze story boosted demand for physical silver-analyst
* Gold sales dropped nearly 1% from December (Recasts, adds comments, details, graphic)
Feb 4 (Reuters) - Australia’s Perth Mint said on Thursday its January silver coin sales jumped 23.5% from the previous month, boosted by a robust demand for the white metal spurred by a social media-led buying spree that commenced towards the end of the month.
The refiner sold more than 1.1 million troy ounces of silver last month, its highest since October, it said in a blog post.
Silver’s demand peaked during the last days of January after small investors responded to calls on Reddit and other social media platforms to pile into the market and push up prices.
The retail boost powered prices to a near eight-year peak of $30.03 an ounce on Monday.
“The short squeeze story that has been unwinding for the past couple of days definitely boosted demand for physical silver,” said IG Markets analyst Kyle Rodda.
But an underlying demand for silver was already existing, not just because precious metals are considered a hedge against inflation and currency debasement, but also helped by rising industrial demand and looming supply deficit, Rodda said.
Investors expect silver’s demand to get a boost from U.S. President Joe Biden’s green policies, as the metal is widely used in the production of solar panels and wind turbines.
“January was a better month for coin production at the Perth Mint. Even so, we are still selling everything that we can currently make in silver,” said Neil Vance, general manager - minted products.
Maintenance issues that previously restricted manufacturing capacity had unwound during the month, he said.
Sales of gold coins and minted bars, however, declined to 76,103 troy ounces, a near 1% drop from December, but increased almost 60% from an year ago.
The Mint, owned by the government of Western Australia, refines more than 90% of the newly mined gold in Australia, one of the world’s top gold producers.
Reporting by Diptendu Lahiri in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Swati Verma; Editing by Rashmi AichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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77cdf1acdb7e44a6a4a1b1952015dfac | https://www.reuters.com/article/perthmint-sales/perth-mints-july-gold-silver-sales-surge-idUKL4N1UU20Y?edition-redirect=uk | Perth Mint's July gold, silver sales surge | Perth Mint's July gold, silver sales surge
By Reuters Staff0 Min Read
Aug 3 (Reuters) - The Perth Mint's sales of gold products nearly doubled in July from a month earlier, its highest since January, while silver sales more than doubled, the mint said on Friday. Sales of gold coins and minted bars climbed about 78 percent to 29,921 ounces in July, up from 16,847 ounces reported in June, the mint said in a blog post. Gold sales in July were also up 26.4 percent compared with the same month last year. Silver sales in July were at 486,821 ounces, up from 229,280 ounces in June, and marked an over-58 percent decline compared with a year-ago period. The Perth Mint refines more than 90 percent of newly mined gold in Australia, the world's second-largest gold producer after China. Gold prices fell 2.3 percent in July, down for a fourth straight month, marking its longest losing streak since 2013. Spot gold was up 0.1 percent at $1,209.15 an ounce at 0050 GMT, after hitting the lowest since July 2017 at $1,206.80 in the previous session. Period Gold (oz) Silver (oz) (year-month) 2018-July 29,921 486,821 2018-June 16,847 229,280 2018-May 14,800 557,120 2018-April 15,161 458,655 2018-March 29,883 975,921 2018-Feb 26,473 992,954 2018-Jan 37,174 1,067,361 2017-Dec 27,009 874,437 2017-Nov 23,901 544,436 2017-Oct 44,618 999,425 2017-Sept 46,415 697,849 2017-Aug 23,130 392,091 2017-July 23,675 1,167,963 2017-June 19,259 1,215,071 2017-May 29,679 826,656 2017-April 10,490 468,977 2017-March 22,232 716,283 2017-Feb 25,257 502,353 2017-Jan 72,745 1,230,867 2016-Dec 63,420 430,009 2016-Nov 54,747 984,622 2016-Oct 79,048 1,084,213 2016-Sept 58,811 1,031,858 2016-Aug 14,684 376,461 2016-July 16,870 693,447 2016-June 31,368 1,220,817 2016-May 21,035 974,865 2016-April 47,542 1,161,766 2016-March 47,948 1,756,238 2016-Feb 37,063 1,049,062 2016-Jan 47,759 1,473,408 (Reporting by Sumita Layek in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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bc41972cc692d086c069c2a56c561d4c | https://www.reuters.com/article/peru-climatechange-forests/landmark-project-to-help-peru-coffee-farmers-combat-climate-change-idUKL5N1ZT4U9?edition-redirect=uk | Landmark project to help Peru coffee farmers combat climate change | Landmark project to help Peru coffee farmers combat climate change
By Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation3 Min Read
BOGOTA, Jan 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Thousands of coffee farmers in Peru hope to produce higher and more profitable crop yields to better cope with the impact of climate change under a landmark United Nations-backed project.
More than 1.3 billion people live on farmland that is deteriorating and producing less, putting them at risk of worsening hunger, water shortages and poverty, the U.N. says.
Land degradation could displace 135 million people by 2030 unless action is taken to restore their land, says the U.N.
The $12 million Peru project involves 2,400 small coffee farmers and is the first by a public-private investment set up with the U.N., called the Land Degradation Neutrality Fund.
“What we’re trying to do with this fund is to finance the transition to a more sustainable use of land,” said Gautier Queru, head of the Paris-based fund, which is run by investment manager Mirova.
“This translates in producing more and better with less,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The project, set to start within weeks, runs for 15 years.
Four coffee co-operatives in northern Peru will be trained in sustainable farming, learning about the best use of organic fertiliser and robust seeds.
“It’s a matter of selecting the seeds that are well adapted to the local conditions, and future conditions, taking into account climate change to make the coffee plantations more resilient and also to ensure good quality coffee is produced to drive prices up for farmers,” Queru said.
The project also focuses on reforestation.
Covering nearly 9,000 hectares of degraded land, trees will be planted in and around plantations, providing shade. It is hoped this may cut carbon dioxide emissions by 1.3 metric tons.
Land degradation drives climate change, with deforestation - which contributes 10 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions - worsening the problem, the U.N. says.
The fund aims to invest $300 million in land management and restoration projects worldwide to meet global goals - known as the Sustainable Development Goals - on land degradation by 2030.
“If you want to meet the sustainable development goals, we can’t only rely on small pilot projects,” Queru said.
“We need this program to scale up.”
Queru said the aim is to expand the pilot project to other coffee cooperatives in Peru and other coffee-producing nations in Latin America, as well as to cocoa and tree nut farmers. (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney @anastasiabogota, Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)
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2137fa37c386e37c2cb1f35299b01d7a | https://www.reuters.com/article/peru-copper/perus-southern-copper-to-push-forward-on-new-projects-as-copper-price-spikes-idUSC0N2HP00N | Peru's Southern Copper to push forward on new projects as copper price spikes | Peru's Southern Copper to push forward on new projects as copper price spikes
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
LIMA, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Peru’s Southern Copper Corp will seek to push forward with several new and pending projects in the mineral-rich Andean nation as prices rise and supply remains tight, an executive told Reuters on Thursday.
Raul Jacob, the company’s vice president for finance, said in an interview it hoped to advance development of the sprawling $5.4 billion Chancas and Michiquillay copper-mine projects after the country’s new presidential administration takes office later this year.
The executive added that the company, among the world’s top copper miners, was also “very enthusiastic” to revive a proposed $1.35 billion smelter project in southern Peru, but that the project had yet to receive the board’s blessing. (Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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fa9cc4d5dd2f173def4d9934132153de | https://www.reuters.com/article/peru-economy-inflation-idUSL1N1401MQ20151211 | UPDATE 1-Peru cenbank would hike rate on inflation views, real interest rate | UPDATE 1-Peru cenbank would hike rate on inflation views, real interest rate
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
(New throughout)
LIMA, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Peru’s central bank would likely hike the benchmark interest rate again if private economists’ expectations for inflation continue to rise above target and the real interest rate falls, the bank’s chief economist said on Friday.
The central bank hiked the benchmark interest rate on Thursday to 3.75 percent to tame above-target inflation. The rate hike was the second in four months, and was made after a spike in consumer prices in November pushed the inflation rate to a nearly four-year high of 4.17 percent, above the central bank’s 1-3 percent target range.
The bank’s chief economist, Adrian Armas, told reporters on a conference call that without any additional changes to monetary policy the real interest rate should gradually rise as inflation cools.
But if the real interest rate falls and inflation expectations rise, “it’s almost certain that the central bank is going to react by raising the benchmark interest rate,” Armas said.
The real interest rate is the benchmark interest rate after inflation is taken into account.
Armas called the current real interest rate of 0.50 percent “very low” and said monetary policy was still expansive even after Thursday’s move.
“An important factor in determining inflation is precisely how economic agents form their expectations of price increases,” Armas said.
Analyst and bank expectations for inflation in full-year 2015, 2016 remained above-target in a central bank poll this month. The poll was conducted before a recent spike in inflation became public and was the first to include October’s relatively low rise in consumer prices, suggesting the next survey might project a gloomier outlook.
Armas said the central bank expects a lower rise in consumer prices in November despite the sol currency’s nearly 3 percent depreciation last month.
The sol’s slide against the dollar amid expectations for a rate hike in the United States has fanned inflation in Peru’s highly dollarized economy this year.
The central bank last estimated 2015 inflation at 3.9 percent. (Reporting By Mitra Taj; Editing by Andrew Hay and Grant McCool)
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08a1c7dbb648b41b39d4622b185888bc | https://www.reuters.com/article/peru-grana-y-montero-idUSL1N1G91AD | Shares in Peru's Grana y Montero down more than 20 pct | Shares in Peru's Grana y Montero down more than 20 pct
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
LIMA, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Peruvian builder Grana y Montero’s shares dropped more than 20 percent after a report by local news magazine Hildebrandt en sus trece fanned worries that the company knew about bribes that its partner Odebrecht has acknowledged distributing.
Hildebrandt cited testimony that it said was given by Odebrecht’s former executive Jorge Barata to prosecutors who are investigating bribes that Odebrecht said it gave to win two contracts for a highway that Grana helped build.
The attorney general’s office, Grana and Barata did not immediately respond to requests by Reuters for comment. (Reporting By Ursula Scollo; Editing by Alden Bentley)
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57b3e20490f5151b1086b26cfa21b597 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pes-bankruptcy-idUSL4N24N1N7 | Fire forces Philadelphia Energy Solutions to file for bankruptcy again | Fire forces Philadelphia Energy Solutions to file for bankruptcy again
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
July 22 (Reuters) - Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) filed for its second Chapter 11 bankruptcy in less than two years on Sunday, a court filing showed, a month after a fire and explosion led to the permanent shutdown of the biggest oil refinery on the U.S. East Coast.
PES said in June it will seek to permanently shut its oil refinery in Philadelphia after the massive fire caused substantial damage to the complex.
The business has struggled ever since the explosion, with the refinery no longer in a functional state and crude shipments charted for PES being diverted in the weeks after June 21.
The refinery, struggling financially for years, slashed worker benefits and scaled back capital projects to save cash.
PES filed for bankruptcy process in January 2018 to reduce debt, but cash on hand dwindled even after it emerged from bankruptcy in August.
The company has both assets and liabilities between $1 billion and $10 billion, a filing made in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware showed.
The company began selling its stocks of oil and some equipment after the refinery’s owner announced it would seek to permanently shut it, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month.
The asset sell-off triggered worries among workers that the company no longer aimed to find a buyer willing to restart the plant, as it had promised after the fire. The sale proposals included offers for future crude cargoes and time-chartered Jones Act vessels, sources had told Reuters. (Reporting by Akshay Balan in Bengaluru; editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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6317d9bf238ca540289b8ea1401996ed | https://www.reuters.com/article/petrobras-brazil/update-4-petrobras-shares-slump-as-brazils-bolsonaro-doubles-down-on-intervention-idUSL1N2KS0T7 | Petrobras shares slump as Brazil's Bolsonaro doubles down on intervention | Petrobras shares slump as Brazil's Bolsonaro doubles down on intervention
By Sabrina Valle, Gram Slattery4 Min Read
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Petrobras shares plunged 22% on Monday, wiping out 71 billion reais ($13 billion) in market value, as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro again slammed its pricing policies after he replaced the state-controlled oil company’s market-friendly CEO with a retired army general.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Brazilian oil company Petrobras is pictured at a gas station in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 22, 2021. Picture taken February 22, 2021. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
The selloff, following a series of analyst downgrades, deepened after Bolsonaro said the company’s fuel policy was only pleasing to financial markets and select groups in Brazil and should be changed as part of an effort to lower gasoline and diesel prices.
Overall, the last few days have marked a dramatic about-face for Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist whose interventionist instincts until now had been largely contained by economically conservative allies.
Shares in state electricity company Eletrobras also plunged on Monday after Bolsonaro said it would be the next sector in which the government would “stick its finger.”
In comments to Brazil’s Radio Bandeirantes on Monday, Joaquim Silva e Luna, the man tapped by Bolsonaro on Friday to take the reins from Roberto Castello Branco, floated the idea of a government fund, or “cushion”, to lessen the effects of fluctuating fuel prices on consumers.
Bolsonaro doubled down on his criticism of Castello Branco, mocking his decision to social distance since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the severity of which the president has repeatedly minimized.
“Now, the current Petrobras chief executive, let’s be very clear, has been at home for 11 months without working, working remotely. Now, the boss has to be on the front line,” Bolsonaro said, adding: “This is for me unacceptable.”
BONDS ALSO HIT
Credit Suisse, Santander, Scotiabank, Bank of America, Bradesco and XP analysts were among those who downgraded their recommendations on shares of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the Rio de Janeiro-based producer is known.
Related CoverageBrazil bankers, investors worry about Bolsonaro's effect on capital markets revivalBrazil oil regulator says Petrobras shakeup will not change refinery policy
“A good reputation is hard to earn and easy to lose,” BTG bank analyst Thiago Duarte said in a note to clients.
Dollar-denominated debt issued by Petrobras also suffered hefty losses with the 2043 bond dropping 7.6 cents to trade at a seven-month low of 98 cents on the dollar, Refinitiv data showed.
Morgan Stanley removed its ‘like’ recommendation on Brazil sovereign bonds on Monday, citing fiscal concerns and potential spillover from the removal of Castello Branco.
Petrobras’ “all-important” pricing policy and its implications for cash generation and planned asset sales, particularly of its refineries, has clouded its debt reduction and dividend outlook, Santander analysts led by Christian Audi said in a note to clients. They downgraded their recommendation on the stock to “hold” from “buy.”
Director-General Rodolfo Saboia of Brazil’s oil regulator ANP said that the CEO change would not affect the country’s policy of opening up the refinery sector to private investment or pursuit of free markets. He declined to comment directly on Petrobras’ refinery sales.
“The best way to attempt to reach a fair price is by opening the market ... and not depending on one actor to set the price a certain product should have,” he told Reuters in an interview.
In a Facebook post after the close of trading on Friday, Bolsonaro announced the nomination of Silva e Luna, a former defense minister who has been managing giant hydroelectric dam Itaipu, to replace Branco.
The retired general, who lacks any oil and gas industry experience, said in the Radio Bandeirantes interview that he had not discussed and does not have an opinion on an eventual privatization of the company.
On Saturday, Silva e Luna told Reuters that the company needed to find “balance” in fuel pricing, considering the impact on shareholders, investors, sellers and consumers.
Brazil’s securities industry watchdog CVM on Monday announced the opening of an investigation on the change of leadership, confirming an earlier Reuters report on the matter.
($1 = 5.4659 reais)
Reporting by Sabrina Valle, Gram Slattery, additional reporting by Marta Nogueira in Rio de Janeiro; Aluisio Alves, Paula Laier and Tatiana Bautzer in Sao Paulo; Karin Strohecker and Marc Jones in London, Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Dan Grebler and Richard PullinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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bc39ce3820e74e2d1b9710a2d68106b0 | https://www.reuters.com/article/petrobras-ceo/update-1-brazil-vp-elect-impressed-after-meeting-with-petrobras-executives-idUSL2N1XK0VA | UPDATE 1-Brazil VP-elect 'impressed' after meeting with Petrobras executives | UPDATE 1-Brazil VP-elect 'impressed' after meeting with Petrobras executives
By Rodrigo Viga Gaier, Marta Nogueira2 Min Read
(Updates with tweet by vice president)
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Brazil’s Vice-President-elect Hamilton Mourão said on Twitter he was “very much impressed” after meeting on Friday with top executives at state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA , in the midst of uncertainty over the company’s future leadership.
The meeting came as President-elect Jair Bolsonaro is still making decisions over who will take up key posts in his future government. Petrobras Chief Executive Ivan Monteiro said this week that he has not talked with Bolsonaro about whether or not he will stay in the job, but he would be willing to discuss staying on if he were invited to do so.
Investors are closely watching to see if heavily indebted Petrobras will build on a turnaround that is already underway, as Bolsonaro sends conflicting messages promoting both free-market policies and a nationalist economic vision.
Continuity with Petrobras’ top brass could soothe investor concerns about excessive government interference in the company.
“This morning, I had the pleasure of visiting Petrobras and hearing, alongside CEO Ivan Monteiro, a presentation by the management about the situation of the company,” Mourao wrote. “I came out very much impressed.”
On Wednesday, Brazilian television channel GloboNews said Bolsonaro had decided to keep Monteiro as the CEO of the world’s most indebted listed oil company. But Bolsonaro said later on Wednesday that his future economy minister, Paulo Guedes, will make that decision.
In October, Bolsonaro’s transition team informally sounded out Roberto Castello Branco, a former Petrobras board member and ex-chairman of iron ore miner Vale SA, about his interest in the post, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Writing by Gram Slattery Editing by Susan ThomasOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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0c8e3f8498451d0fad249f1bc2639179 | https://www.reuters.com/article/petrobras-corruption-swiss/swiss-prosecutors-investigate-banque-cramer-over-brazil-car-wash-probe-idUKL8N2GZ3TK?edition-redirect=uk | Swiss prosecutors investigate Banque Cramer over Brazil 'Car Wash' probe | Swiss prosecutors investigate Banque Cramer over Brazil 'Car Wash' probe
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
ZURICH, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Swiss federal prosecutors said on Thursday they had opened a criminal investigation of Geneva-based Banque Cramer & Cie as part of a wide-ranging corruption probe surrounding Brazilian state oil company Petrobras and construction firm Odebrecht.
“The (Office of the Attorney General) suspects a lack of internal organisation of the bank that would not have allowed it to prevent the commission of the offence of money laundering,” the agency said, confirming a report by online site Gotham City.
Banque Cramer declined to comment.
The Swiss Attorney General’s office said it had around 40 criminal proceedings pending in the Petrobras-Odebrecht affair, of which three are against financial institutions in Switzerland.
Prosecutors said a year ago they had opened an investigation of private bank J. Safra Sarasin as part of the probe.
Swiss financial watchdog FINMA said in 2018 that PKB Privatbank SA Lugano committed serious breaches of money laundering regulations in business linked to Petrobras and Odebrecht.
The so-called Car Wash probe began in 2014 with the arrest of a currency dealer and mushroomed into Brazil’s biggest graft scandal, mainly involving Petrobras contracts in which some 200 business executives, officials and politicians have been convicted.
A Swiss court in February found a Swiss-Brazilian man guilty of complicity in bribery and money laundering, marking Switzerland’s first conviction related to the probe. (Reporting by Silke Koltrowitz and Michael Shields. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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52ec5ec4d75afa62bba798fd8e0da74a | https://www.reuters.com/article/petrobras-corruption/former-petrobras-exec-sentenced-for-samsung-drillship-bribe-idUSL1N10S16120150817 | Former Petrobras exec sentenced for Samsung drillship bribe | Former Petrobras exec sentenced for Samsung drillship bribe
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
SAO PAULO, August 17 (Reuters) - A Brazilian judge sentenced Nestor Cervero, former international chief of state-run oil firm Petrobras, to just over 12 years in prison on Monday for corruption and money laundering related to a bribe allegedly paid to the speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress.
Cervero and two other defendants are accused of organizing bribes from Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries in exchange for two drillship contracts, the Petrobras 10000, which was leased jointly by Petrobras and Mitsui in 2006, and the Vitoria 10000, hired by Petrobras in 2007.
Consultant Julio Camargo, who said in plea bargain testimony that Speaker Eduardo Cunha asked him for a $5 million bribe, was given a 14-year sentence that was reduced to reporting to police twice monthly and doing community service because he collaborated.
Lobbyist Fernando Soares, accused of funneling bribes to Cunha’s Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), was sentenced to just over 16 years in jail.
Cunha, who quit President Dilma Rousseff’s ruling coalition last month, accused her government of framing him in the broadening scandal focused on Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras.
He was not a defendant. But the sentences handed down by federal judge Sergio Moro could give federal prosecutors in Brasilia more ammunition to bring charges against Cunha and other politicians thought to have benefited from the price-fixing and political kickback scheme.
Cervero’s lawyer, Edson Ribeiro, did not immediately respond to request for comment but had previously tried to move the case away from Judge Moro in the southern city of Curitiba, arguing the Supreme Court should take the case after Cunha’s name was mentioned. Only Brazil’s high court can legally try sitting lawmakers and ministers.
Moro, who has become the face of an anti-corruption movement, defended his right to try the case. The broader scheme was discovered in his state and related facts are required to remain with the same judge, he wrote.
Cervero’s 12 years and three-month sentence was the second he has received from Moro. In May he was sentenced to five years in prison for using a front company to launder money stolen from Petrobras and buy a luxury apartment in Rio de Janeiro. He was fired from Petrobras in 2014 and arrested in January as he stepped off a plane from Europe.
Executives at Samsung Heavy Industries are not being charged and the company has not responded to request for comment about the case. (Reporting by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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de1f768964afd35c4fbc574595cac62d | https://www.reuters.com/article/petrobras-fire/brazils-petrobras-says-fire-at-revap-refinery-brought-under-control-idUSL2N26L00X | Brazil's Petrobras says fire at Revap refinery brought under control | Brazil's Petrobras says fire at Revap refinery brought under control
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
SAO PAULO, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petrobras said a fire broke out at its Revap refinery, in the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, on Sunday afternoon.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, said in a statement the fire had already been brought under control without any casualties.
The blaze broke out in tanks that store materials used to produce asphalt and fuel.
Petrobras said the cause of the fire was still under investigation. It did not say immediately if production at Revap had been halted. (Reporting by Carolina Mandl; Editing by Paul Tait)
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42fc88e3d98799c6560f96c510ae8642 | https://www.reuters.com/article/petrobras-shareholders-netherlands/update-2-shareholders-will-take-on-petrobras-in-dutch-court-idUSL8N1W53MF | UPDATE 2-Shareholders will take on Petrobras in Dutch court | UPDATE 2-Shareholders will take on Petrobras in Dutch court
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
(Updates with Petrobras reaction)
AMSTERDAM, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Shareholders in Brazilian state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA will have their demands for compensation over corruption at the company heard in the Netherlands, a Dutch court ruled on Wednesday.
The district court in Rotterdam said a preliminary hearing of the case against Petrobras, as the company is known, will be held on Dec. 18.
It will look into demands by shareholders for compensation for losses due to a long-running corruption scandal at the company, which has numerous subsidiaries headquartered in the Netherlands.
Shareholders, united in the Stichting Petrobras Compensation Foundation (SPCF), claim to have been misled by Petrobras as the company covered up widespread fraud for years, while issuing shares and bonds on the basis of false information.
Petrobras said in a regulatory filing it denies all the allegations made in the Dutch case and will continue to defend its interests.
The decision of the Dutch court to hear the case comes after Petrobras reached a $3 billion settlement with U.S. investors over corruption at the company. That deal was seen as a milestone as Petrobras seeks to turn the page on years of corruption that were revealed in a probe known as Operation Car Wash.
Documents released by the Rotterdam court on Wednesday did not specify the amount of compensation shareholders are demanding from the world’s most indebted oil company.
The stock market value of Petrobras has plunged as the investigation laid bare the company’s central role in the bribery schemes, which have entangled two former Brazilian presidents and dozens of the country’s corporate executives. (Reporting by Bart Meijer, editing by Angus MacSwan and Elaine Hardcastle)
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259d736147bb5933c872552374a5e4ea | https://www.reuters.com/article/petroleo-colombia-reservas-idESKBN2AJ1O4 | Reservas de colombiana Ecopetrol bajan 6,5% en 2020 por caída de precios del crudo | Reservas de colombiana Ecopetrol bajan 6,5% en 2020 por caída de precios del crudo
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
Foto de archivo. Imagen de la refinería de Ecopetrol en Barrancabermeja, Colombia, 1 de marzo, 2017. REUTERS/ Jaime Saldarriaga
BOGOTÁ, 19 feb (Reuters) - Las reservas probadas netas de la petrolera colombiana Ecopetrol se contrajeron un 6,5% interanual al cierre de 2020, a 1.770 millones de barriles de petróleo equivalentes (bpe), debido a la caída de los precios internacionales del crudo en medio de la pandemia, reveló el viernes la compañía.
La variación el año pasado contrastó con el incremento de 9,6% que reportaron en 2019 las reservas de la petrolera.
La vida media de las reservas de crudo disminuyó levemente al cierre del año pasado a 7,5 años, desde los 7,8 años que marcó al cierre del 2019, precisó la petrolera en un comunicado.
“La reducción de las reservas probadas fue ocasionada principalmente por la caída en 32% de los precios de los hidrocarburos utilizados para la estimación”, explicó Ecopetrol. El índice de reemplazo de reservas fue de 48%.
Ecopetrol informó que continuó avanzando en la progresión de reservas probables y posibles a reservas probadas en el campo Rubiales, debido a la continuidad de la operación de perforación entre otros.
“En cuanto a descubrimientos se presentan las comercialidades de los campos ESOX en Golfo de México y Andina en Colombia”, agregó.
Ecopetrol tiene previsto invertir entre 3.500 millones y 4.000 millones de dólares durante este año, concentrados en restablecer el crecimiento, elevar la competitividad y cimentar su la transición energética.
El plan fue elaborado con una expectativa de precio promedio del Brent de 45 por barril y una producción entre 700.000 y 710.000 barriles de hidrocarburos promedio día para el año.
Reporte de Nelson Bocanegra. Editado por Luis Jaime AcostaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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6f24bf410451c043cfb395931b3551db | https://www.reuters.com/article/pets-at-home-grp-outlook/uks-pets-at-home-sees-fy-profit-ahead-of-expectations-idUSL4N2KW2KF | UK's Pets At Home sees FY profit ahead of expectations | UK's Pets At Home sees FY profit ahead of expectations
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
Feb 26 (Reuters) - Britain’s Pets At Home lifted its annual underlying pretax profit forecast on Friday, boosted by a better-than-expected performance over the last eight weeks across all categories.
The pet supplies retailer said it expects full-year underlying pretax profit of about 85 million pounds ($118.39 million), ahead of its previous outlook of at least 77 million pounds. ($1 = 0.7180 pounds) (Reporting by Tanishaa Nadkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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d975029183a54afba867168523fc0d16 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pfizer-india-vaccine-idINKCN1B218W?edition-redirect=in | India grants Pfizer patent on pneumonia vaccine in blow to aid group | India grants Pfizer patent on pneumonia vaccine in blow to aid group
By Zeba Siddiqui4 Min Read
(Refiled to clarify production time of the vaccine in paragraph 16)
The Pfizer logo is seen at their world headquarters in New York April 28, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/Files
MUMBAI (Reuters) - India has granted Pfizer Inc a patent for its powerful pneumonia vaccine Prevenar 13, in a blow to some health groups that said this would put the treatment out of reach of thousands in poorer nations.
The decision by India’s patent office bars other companies from making cheaper copies of the vaccine and allows Pfizer to exclusively sell it in India until 2026.
It’s a big victory for the U.S. drugmaker in a market that has the world’s largest number of pneumonia cases, a lung disease that kills nearly a million children a year globally.
The decision also has international implications, as several poorer nations rely on India’s robust drugs industry to supply cheaper copies of medicines and vaccines.
It also comes at a time of ongoing U.S. pressure on India to tighten its patent laws. The United States Trade Representative expressed concerns about India’s intellectual property laws in a report in June, and listed it among countries whose IP laws unfairly favour local companies.
Pfizer’s vaccine protects children and adults from 13 types of pneumococcal bacteria, and a full vaccination course costs about $170 on India’s private market.
India started giving out the vaccine for free under its national immunisation program earlier this year, but the rollout like that of most vaccines in the program, is in phases, so only about 2.1 million of the 25 million eligible people in the country will get it this year.
The patent grant means Indian companies won’t be able to make the vaccine for domestic use, or exports.
"Manufacturers will have to find new routes to develop a non-infringing (pneumonia) vaccine, which may delay the availability of competing products in the pipeline from Indian producers," the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said in a statement. (bit.ly/2vU4rUk)
MSF filed an objection to Pfizer's patent request last year on the grounds that a patent would deprive many developing nations of cheaper copies. (reut.rs/1QJEdXq)
At least one Indian company, Panacea Biotec Ltd, is developing a cheaper form of the vaccine, and had also filed an opposition to Pfizer’s patent request last year.
A source familiar with the matter said Panacea is considering filing a post-grant opposition. Separately, MSF said it was reviewing its legal options in the matter.
Pfizer’s patent on the same vaccine was revoked by the European Patent Office last year, and is being challenged in South Korea and the United States, MSF said.
The pharmaceutical giant has made the vaccine available at discounted prices under the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) - an international public-private partnership to improve access to vaccines in the world’s poorest countries. More than 50 countries are eligible to procure the vaccine through GAVI, according to the organization’s website.
Following criticism over the high price of Prevenar 13, Pfizer reduced the vaccine price to non-governmental organisations last November, seeking to protect vulnerable people from illness in humanitarian crises.
Pfizer welcomed the granting of the patent, saying each dose of Prevenar 13 takes two-and-a-half years to produce, and the vaccine was launched in India in 2010.
“Pfizer remains committed towards further enhancing access of this vaccine in India, both in the market as well as through partnership with the Government to expand introduction in the public program,” a spokeswoman in India said.
($1 = 64.1275 Indian rupees)
Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Editing by Mark Potter and Louise HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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8af11451258409102975c06ff743aea4 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pfizer-research-idCNHKG35399420091125 | Pfizer says to expand R&D in central, western China | Pfizer says to expand R&D in central, western China
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
HONG KONG, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc PFE.N plans to expand its research and development operations in central and western China as it strengthens its biomedical infrastructure throughout the country, the company said on Wednesday.
Pfizer (China) Research and Development Co Ltd will team up with its Chinese partnerm Wuhan National Bioindustry Base Construction and Management Office, to establish a new Pfizer R&D centre in Wuhan, expand its existing R&D facility in Shanghai and serve as a platform for global drug development and strategic biomedical alliances.
“With plans to be a state-of-the-art facility, the Wuhan center will be an integral part of Pfizer’s global R&D operations while being closely aligned with the Chinese government’s strategy on biopharmaceutical industry development in the region,” Allan Gabor, the company’s Regional President for North Asia, said in the statement.
Pfizer’s R&D operations in Wuhan will support global clinical drug development programs, including Phase I-IV clinical trials, and will utilize the resources of local staff and industry to develop research collaboration on drug innovation and development. The number of employees in the facility will grow to 200 within 3 years, it said.
Shanghai will remain the operations hub of Pfizer’s R&D in China. It gave no further details on the investment.
Many major drug makers are speeding up their investments for research and development in China in a bid to take advantage of the low cost of employees and high growth potential of the mainland market.
Earlier in November, Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG NOVN.VX said it was investing $1 billion to build the largest pharmaceutical research plant in China, emphasising the importance of developing markets for future growth. [ID:nL3525806] (US$1=HK$7.75) (Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Ken Wills) ((donny.kwok@thomsonreuters.com; +852 2843 6470; Reuters Messaging: donny.kwok.reuters.com@reuters.net)) ((If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com))
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346605c312d03f42befa90b8cfcba31e | https://www.reuters.com/article/pge-poland-idUSL8N2HA2RA | UPDATE 1-Poland's PGE to split coal assets by end of 2021 | UPDATE 1-Poland's PGE to split coal assets by end of 2021
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
(Adds details)
WARSAW, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Poland’s biggest energy group PGE should separate its coal assets from other activities by the end of 2021, the company’s Chief Executive Wojciech Dabrowski said on Monday.
State-run PGE currently generates most of its electricity from coal and lignite, but earlier on Monday announced plans to become climate neutral by 2050 and said it plans to invest 75 billion zlotys ($19.3 billion) in building up renewable energy capacity by 2030 and other projects.
“Our strategy is a response to market changes. There is no way back from transformation. PGE will play a significant role in Poland’s reaching climate neutrality,” Dabrowski told a news conference.
By 0900 GMT shares in PGE were up by 6.3% as investors welcomed the group’s plans.
Poland is the only EU state that refuses to pledge climate neutral by 2050, with the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party claiming that the country needs more time to switch its economy from coal to zero-emission sources.
“This is an exceptional and important day for Poland’s energy sector, because we have the first complex strategy by PGE, which falls under the country’s energy policy, a strategy, which moves to the direction of 100% of green energy in 2050,” Climate Minister Michal Kurtyka told the same conference.
PGE wants to become climate neutral through carving out its coal assets, which include lignite mines and power stations, and through investment in wind farms, offshore and onshore, solar power stations and in energy storages.
Separating coal assets will help PGE raise financing from banks, which are reluctant to provide loans to coal-related groups.
“In our opinion, it would be optimal to separate the assets by the end of 2021,” Dabrowski said. He added that PGE analyses show that banks and other financial institutions are open to financing PGE if it had no coal assets.
Dabrowski said PGE could potentially aim at up to 35 billion zlotys of extra debt.
But while investors welcomed the group’s plans, environmentalists rejected it.
“Transformation involving separation of carbon assets is not a transformation. From the perspective of the environment, Polish women and men, and the climate crisis it is just a transfer of dirty assets from one pocket to another,” Piotr Wojcik, an energy analyst at Greenpeace, said. ($1 = 3.8819 zlotys) (Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko, Editing by Alan Charlish and Susan Fenton)
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5e762aee7c6d793ed7ad9c2e68cc5da4 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pginig-gazprom-opal-eu/eu-says-2009-curbs-on-opal-pipeline-apply-after-court-ruling-idUSL5N2614H4 | EU says 2009 curbs on Opal pipeline apply after court ruling | EU says 2009 curbs on Opal pipeline apply after court ruling
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
BRUSSELS, Sept 10 (Reuters) - The European Union on Tuesday said limits on Gazprom’s access to the Opal gas pipeline will apply after Europe’s top court rejected a later decision that lifted curbs on flows via Opal from Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline to Germany.
A spokeswoman for the EU executive said it had no comment on whether it would appeal the European Court of Justice’s ruling against its 2016 decision.
“The principle of energy solidarity is highly valued by the European Commission and, as found by the Court, will need to be assessed explicitly in future exemption decisions,” the spokeswoman said.
“As the revised Commission decision has been annulled, there is no legal void. The 2009 exemption decision is now again applicable.” (Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
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2df4b007e521934affa02d34572e10f7 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pgms-zurich-idUSL6N0CEELB20130328 | London overtakes Zurich as market for platinum group metals | London overtakes Zurich as market for platinum group metals
By Jan Harvey4 Min Read
* More than half of platinum stocks now seen in London
* Swiss platinum, palladium exports to UK jumped last year
LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - London is overtaking Zurich as Europe’s biggest centre of platinum and palladium trading, traders say, less than four years after the ‘loco London’ market for white metals was launched.
Clearing and settlement of platinum and palladium trades, which had previously been carried out almost entirely in Switzerland, has quietly been gathering pace in London since September 2009.
Since then, platinum and palladium holders have increasingly shifted physical metal from storage vaults in Switzerland to the UK, traders said, with data from the Swiss customs office showing a rise in exports of the metals to Britain in that time.
While no volumes data is published for either Zurich or London, Peter Smith, head of the London Platinum and Palladium Market (LPPM), told Reuters the majority of the market was now trading on a ‘loco London’ basis.
“Like everything else it took a while to get critical mass, but once the clearing members decided they would make metal available loco London... it became self perpetuating,” he said.
“In all probability, the relationship will end up much the same as it is for gold, in that London is the prime centre for physical precious metals,” he added.
The greater variety of clearing services - which act as a buffer between buyer and seller - offered by London is particularly appealing to investors after the global financial crisis raised concerns over counterparty risk, traders said.
On a net basis, the amount of raw palladium shipped from Switzerland to Britain more than tripled last year to 33.096 tonnes, according to Swiss customs data, against 9.132 tonnes in 2011. Net raw platinum shipments rose 62 percent to 30.1 tonnes.
EXPORTS TO UK RISE
These were likely to represent transfers of metal from one vault to another, rather than actual underlying demand, traders in the UK and Switzerland said.
Precious metals consultancy GFMS now estimates that more than half of the world’s 4.4 million ounces of above-ground platinum stocks are located in the UK.
While the quantity of platinum and palladium shipped from Switzerland to the UK varies widely from month to month, average monthly raw platinum exports have risen to 2,138 kilograms since September 2009 from 547 kilograms over the previous five years.
Average monthly raw palladium exports to the UK have risen to 2,688 kilos from less than 1,200 kilos in the same period. In the first two months of 2013, palladium exports from Switzerland to Britain have already reached nearly half last year’s total.
“London is the premier trading centre for gold and silver and it makes sense given the vaulting infrastructure and other factors to make that the case for platinum and palladium as well,” an industry source said.
The London market has added vault capacity in recent years. Barclays opened a major new precious metals vault there in September, while Deutsche Bank announced a year ago it would open a new UK vault.
According to traders, vaulting fees for precious metals are sometimes more attractive in the UK than in Switzerland.
“The Swiss banks charge higher fees than those in London,” one platinum group metals trader said. “And as London is able to clear platinum group metals now, there is no need anymore to keep everything in Switzerland.” (Editing by Veronica Brown and James Jukwey)
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83f454360fef2e0dcb3c3e59c3780c12 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pharma-vaccines-lawsuit-idUSN0817526020100308 | UPDATE 2-US court to decide if vaccine makers can be sued | UPDATE 2-US court to decide if vaccine makers can be sued
By 4 Min Read
* Case involves Wyeth, which Pfizer purchased last year
* Child developed seizures after third dose of DTP vaccine
* Supreme Court to hear arguments in upcoming term
* Pfizer shares fall 1 percent (Adds Pfizer comments, shares)
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday that it would decide whether a federal law protects vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits in state court seeking damages for alleged design defects.
The high court agreed to hear a Pennsylvania case involving a lawsuit by the parents of a child who suffered seizures after her third dose of a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine. They sued the vaccine manufacturer, Wyeth, which Pfizer Inc PFE.N purchased last year.
Pfizer shares fell 1 percent to $17.30 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
At issue was the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. It says no manufacturer “shall be liable in any civil action” for any injury that “resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.”
The justices agreed to decide the issue after conflicting lower-court rulings.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled the federal law allows some design defect claims against vaccine manufacturers while a U.S. appeals court based in Philadelphia ruled Congress expressly prohibited such lawsuits in an effort to shield manufacturers from liability.
The Obama administration said the federal law expressly prevented design defect lawsuits in state court, but said the uncertainty caused by the conflicting rulings warranted the Supreme Court getting involved.
While the issue remains unsettled, manufacturers’ uncertainty about potential liability may harm the public health by deterring development and production of vaccines, administration attorneys said.
Pfizer, in a statement, said it was “hopeful that the Supreme Court will affirm” the Philadelphia appeals court ruling in Wyeth’s favor.
“Pfizer is pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to resolve this legal issue, which is of critical importance to national public health policy,” the company said.
There are about 5,000 claims pending under the process set out under federal law alleging a link between childhood vaccines and neurological damage such as autism. The legal issue would affect whether those claimants can also seek damages under state law, the attorneys said.
The case from Pennsylvania involved Hannah Bruesewitz. Her parents in their lawsuit alleged her seizure disorder and serious developmental delay stemmed from toxins inherent in the vaccine design.
After their claims were rejected under the federal compensation process, they filed a lawsuit in state court. But a federal judge and the appeals court based in Philadelphia both ruled that the federal law barred such lawsuits.
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the case and to issue its decision during its upcoming term that begins in October. Chief Justice John Roberts did not take part in considering the case, an action he usually takes when he owns stock in a company in the case before the court. (Reporting by Jim Vicini and Lisa Richwine; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick, Dave Zimmerman)
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1b09e032929a05def2b674c2df4f8a9b | https://www.reuters.com/article/pharmaceuticals-eloxx-fundraising-idUSL8N1JB33V | Israeli biopharmaceutical firm Eloxx raises $24 mln | Israeli biopharmaceutical firm Eloxx raises $24 mln
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
TEL AVIV, June 14 (Reuters) - Eloxx Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a clinical stage company developing drugs for genetic diseases, raised $24 million in an investment round led by Catalyst CEL Fund and Israeli life sciences venture capital fund Pontifax, among others, Catalyst said on Wednesday.
Eloxx is seeking treatments for rare genetic diseases caused by mutations such as cystic fibrosis and cystinosis.
The company entered into a merger agreement with Sevion Therapeutics on May 31. Eloxx will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sevion, which will change its name to Eloxx and intends to apply to have its shares listed on Nasdaq.
The Catalyst CEL Fund, jointly managed by Israel’s Catalyst Equity Management and China Everbright Ltd, primarily invests in companies whose growth strategy is oriented towards emerging markets, with a special focus on China. (Reporting by Tova Cohen)
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0d7c4e57be76d71fbca6426663fe7ed7 | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippine-economy-fx-rules/philippine-c-bank-relaxes-rules-on-foreign-loans-to-boost-investments-idUSL4N1OM2EZ | Philippine c.bank relaxes rules on foreign loans to boost investments | Philippine c.bank relaxes rules on foreign loans to boost investments
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
MANILA, Dec 22 (Reuters) - The Philippine central bank said on Friday it has approved revisions to foreign exchange rules to facilitate financing of private sector investments to boost economic growth.
Foreign loans meant to fund various types of private sector projects and activities would no longer need prior central bank approval, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said in a statement.
The central bank said the revised rules only cover loans without guarantee from, and exposure to, any public sector entity.
Regulators have also reduced substantially the requirements to support applications for registration and purchase of foreign exchange from the banking system.
“The revised rules aim to further facilitate financing of critical and urgent projects and activities that can contribute to a more vibrant business climate conductive to growth,” the central bank said in a statement.
Policymakers have been relaxing foreign exchange rules to make it more responsive to the needs of the economy and easier for businesses and individuals to transact foreign exchange within the banking system.
The revised rules take effect on Jan. 15, 2018.
Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Jacqueline WongOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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81f383891f093c3c8d0f4e13f6ffb20b | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-duterte-drugs-idINKBN15H0M7?edition-redirect=in | Philippine leader to use troops in drug war, says willing to 'kill more' | Philippine leader to use troops in drug war, says willing to 'kill more'
By Karen Lema, Martin Petty3 Min Read
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday he would issue an executive order for military support in his fight against illicit drugs, which he said was a national security threat and he would “kill more” people if he had to.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte speaks during a late night news conference at the presidential palace in Manila, Philippines January 29, 2017. REUTERS/Ezra Acayan/Files
The mercurial leader ruled out declaring martial law and said he did not need extra powers, but wanted to bring the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) into his drugs war because he could no longer trust law enforcement agencies.
All police operations in the drug crackdown were suspended on Monday due to deep-rooted corruption. Duterte has placed an anti-drugs agency in charge of the campaign and has said he wants the armed forces to play a supportive role.
“I still have to write the, whether it is a proclamation or an executive order, but I’ve taken in the AFP and raised the issue of drugs as a national security threat, so that I can call on the armed forces to assist,” he said in a speech in Davao.
“I have limited warm bodies but so many wars to fight,” he said.
The former city mayor said the police and the justice ministry-run National Bureau of Investigation could not be relied upon and promised “a cleansing, a purge”.
Duterte did not say what the remit of the military would be in the drugs campaign, or give any indication of the number of troops that would be involved, but said they were necessary.
Some 7,600 people have been killed since Duterte launched his war on drugs seven months ago, more than 2,500 in what police say were shootouts during raids and sting operations.
The cause of the remainder of deaths remains disputed, with police blaming turf wars and vigilantism, and activists alleging widespread summary executions and police collusion with hit men.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Thursday involving the military was the wrong move because the armed forces had a track record of extrajudicial killings, particularly where Communist rebels were concerned.
“Using military personnel for civilian policing anywhere heightens the risk of unnecessary or excessive force and inappropriate military tactics,” the rights group said.
“But there is also a deeply rooted culture of impunity for military abuses in the Philippines.”
Duterte said he cared little for drug dealers and addicts and had underestimated the scale of the problem when he made his initial target of six months to win his war.
“You bleed for those son of a bitch. How many? 3,000? I will kill more if only to get rid of drugs and this campaign,” he said. “I thought that would finish it in six months.”
Reporting by Martin Petty and Karen Lema; Editing by Robert BirselOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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6c3a84e51170ebb99f98a6d5b47ab3e5 | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-economy-moneysupply-idUSL4N1LG1YJ | Philippines' M3, bank lending growth accelerate in July | Philippines' M3, bank lending growth accelerate in July
By Reuters Staff0 Min Read
MANILA, Aug 31 (Reuters) - The Philippine central bank on Thursday released preliminary data for July domestic liquidity (M3) and bank lending. M3 (pct change yr/yr Jul Jun May Apr Mar 13.5 13.3 11.3 11.2 11.6 Bank lending (pct change yr/yr) Total loans net of reverse 19.7 19.0 18.7 19.2 20.2 repurchase (RRP) deals Total loans with RRP 18.7 18.3 17.4 16 18.4 Seasonally adjusted data Total loans net of RRP 1.7 1.4 1.7 1.1 1.7 Total loans with RRP 1.4 1.9 3.3 0.4 0.9 NOTE: The June M3 figure was revised. - The accelerating liquidity growth, driven mainly by demand for credit, remained in line with the central bank's prevailing outlook for inflation and economic activity, it said in a statement. - Production loans, comprising 88.4 percent of the combined loan portfolio of universal and commercial banks, grew 18.9 percent in July from a year earlier, accelerating from the previous month's 17.9 percent rise. - Consumer loan growth eased to 22.3 percent from 22.5 percent in June. (Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
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a3629b2926ec2f348830af68a0b66ab4 | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-gambling/philippines-sees-record-gambling-revenue-braces-for-stiff-competition-idUSL3N1ZM25X | Philippines sees record gambling revenue, braces for stiff competition | Philippines sees record gambling revenue, braces for stiff competition
By Neil Jerome Morales3 Min Read
MANILA, Jan 22 (Reuters) - The Philippines is banking on a steady stream of foreign high rollers to drive gambling revenue to a record this year even as it braces for greater competition from neighbours who want to cash in on the casino boom, the head of the state gaming regulator said on Tuesday.
Gross gaming revenue of the casino industry, which includes the local units of Macau’s Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd and Japan’s Universal Entertainment Corp, is expected to reach 217 billion pesos ($4.1 billion) this year, up 8.5 percent from a year earlier, Andrea Domingo, chairman, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (Pagcor), told Reuters.
“All the integrated casino resorts are doing very well,” Domingo added. Gross gaming revenue jumped 13 percent to a record of roughly 200 billion pesos in 2018.
The Philippines is one of Asia’s fastest-growing gambling markets and its integrated casino-resorts have helped create jobs and generate tax and tourism revenue. It also benefits from bans on gambling in many Southeast Asia nations.
Domingo said she would not rest on her laurels given that other countries in the region now want to get a piece of the gambling pie.
Japan has approved the development of megacasinos, while Cambodia and Vietnam have welcomed investment in the gambling sector.
Domingo said she plans to meet Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is opposed to gambling, and update him on threats faced by the gambling industry and socio-civic projects funded by the casino sector.
The firebrand leader lashed out at the casino business last year, saying there would be no new casinos set up during his presidency.
Last year, Duterte’s government shelved Landing International Development Ltd’s $1.5 billion integrated casino project in Manila and blocked the plan of Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment Group to build a $500 million integrated casino-resort on a holiday island in April.
“The operators are threatened (by the growing competition). However, if you have critical mass (plenty of options) and a safe environment, gamblers will still be there,” Domingo explained.
There were nine private casino firms in the Philippines operating 1,580 gaming tables and 9,895 electronic gaming machines, according to government data. Pagcor also operates several casinos totalling 470 tables and 9,679 gaming machines.
$1 = 52.9350 Philippine pesos Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales, Editing by Sherry Jacob-PhillipsOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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7c289dcd806c701954e82db39d2b53ce | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-lng-imports-idUSL1N2L606Y | Japan-backed AG&P says gets approval to develop Philippines LNG terminal | Japan-backed AG&P says gets approval to develop Philippines LNG terminal
By Jessica Jaganathan2 Min Read
SINGAPORE, March 8 (Reuters) - Atlantic Gulf & Pacific Company (AG&P) said on Monday its Philippines subsidiary has received the green light to develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import and regasification terminal in Batangas Bay, south of Manila.
The firm, part owned by Osaka Gas and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, said the Philippines’ energy department has issued it a notice to proceed to develop the terminal, known as Philippines LNG, which will provide the fuel to power plant, industrial and commercial customers and other consumers.
Philippines LNG will be the fifth planned LNG import terminal in the Southeast Asian nation, which is seeking the fuel as the Malampaya gas field in western Philippine waters is expected to run dry this decade.
Four other terminals worth about 65 billion pesos ($1.34 billion) are at various stages of approval or financial closure.
Philippines LNG will have an initial capacity to deliver up to three million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of regasified LNG, with additional capacity for liquid distribution, AG&P said in a statement.
It will also have scalable onshore regasification capacity of 420 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) and almost 200,000 cubic metres (cbm) of storage, AG&P said.
The statement did not disclose financial details of the project.
The company has completed its pre-development work for the terminal which is expected to be commissioned by mid-2022. ($1 = 48.5800 Philippine pesos) (Reporting by Jessica Jaganathan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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af7504f50d438b328632d7407d052b34 | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-mining-nickel-idUSL4N1A302D | Philippines says it suspends a nickel miner in Palawan | Philippines says it suspends a nickel miner in Palawan
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
MANILA, July 17 (Reuters) - The Philippines has suspended a third nickel mine in less than two weeks and again warned miners not to violate environmental laws, the cabinet secretary overseeing mining told a radio station.
Regina Lopez, secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, told the Manila station DZMM on Saturday a suspension order was slapped on Friday on Berong Nickel Corp’s mine on Palawan because of a spill that affected corals.
Palawan, in the southwest Philippines, has become popular with tourists in recent years.
Lopez said while the spill was not intentional, company authorities “really need to get their act together”.
She described Palawan as “the number one (tourist) island destination in the entire planet”.
A top official of unlisted Berong’s stakeholder DMCI Holdings Inc said on Sunday he was not aware of the suspension order and the spill incident.
“Sorry, I am not aware. Will check tomorrow,” Isidro Consunji, chairman and CEO of DMCI, said in a text message to Reuters.
DMCI owns Toledo Mining Corp, which has management control over the Berong project. Berong Nickel, which last year produced 868,000 tonnes of nickel ore, is a joint venture of Toledo Mining and another Philippines-listed firm, Atlas Consolidated and Mining Development Corp.
The Palawan nickel mine is the biggest of five slapped with suspension orders in the past two years, including two early this month.
The crackdown on miners by the government of President Rodrigo Duterte has sparked some concerns about ore supply to China, the world’s biggest nickel consumer. At present, the Philippines is the top supplier of nickel ore to China.
A one-month audit of all Philippine mines starting July 8 is under way and Lopez, a staunch environmentalist, said she was unhappy with the initial reports.
"If they (miners) are not doing well and they are not following the law, we will withdraw the ECC (environmental clearance certificates)," she said on radio. (bit.ly/29GsGrc) (Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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d38b194da7f330605af454bc96e5c7fb | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-polio/philippines-to-vaccinate-millions-as-polio-virus-resurfaces-idUKL3N26B0MP?edition-redirect=uk | Philippines to vaccinate millions as polio virus resurfaces | Philippines to vaccinate millions as polio virus resurfaces
By Karen Lema3 Min Read
MANILA, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The Philippines is preparing to vaccinate millions of children against polio to halt an outbreak of a disease it believed to have been eradicated two decades ago, a top official said on Friday.
Next month’s programme, following the detection of the virus in a three-year-old girl, comes as the Philippines grapples to tackle twin outbreaks of dengue and measles that have killed more than 1,000 people since January, most of them children.
“The polio vaccinations happen all year round, but our coverage dropped for the past five years,” Rolando Enrique Domingo, an undersecretary of the Department of Health, told Reuters.
“We’ve learned our lesson. It is time to move on and really start vaccinating all kids and make sure we sustain this every year.”
Vaccination teams will aim to administer polio drops to every child younger than five, he added.
There is no cure for the virus, which invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours, but it can be prevented with vaccines.
The virus spreads rapidly among children, especially in unsanitary conditions in underdeveloped or war-torn regions where healthcare access is limited.
Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan are the last three countries where the disease is endemic.
Children nationwide are at risk as long as a single child remains infected, the United Nations agency for children, UNICEF, has said.
The Philippines has faced a challenge recently in convincing parents to vaccinate children after it scrapped a dengue immunisation programme using Sanofi’s Dengvaxia in late 2017, following its linkage to child deaths.
More than 800,000 children received the vaccine. The records of 119 dead children are being examined to determine if Dengvaxia was to blame, a panel of medical experts said in March.
The inquiry continues and Sanofi has repeatedly said its vaccine is safe.
The Philippines’ latest polio case was confirmed on Monday in Lanao del Sur, one of the country’s poorest provinces.
In 2017, Islamic State-inspired rebels occupied a city in the southern province for five months in a battle with the military that displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
The polio virus was detected in the sewage systems of Davao in a nearby province two months ago, and in Tondo, a rundown area of Metro Manila notorious for slum communities.
A vaccine campaign started in August in the historic heart of Manila will be expanded to cover more than 5 million children and go nationwide next year, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said in a speech on Friday.
The last known case in the Philippines had been in 1993, the World Health Organization says.
Immunisation coverage in the Philippines is at 70%, below the recommended rate of 95%, Domingo said, as trust in vaccines declines. (Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty and Clarence Fernandez)
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89d0558e71b0adfc36d4cf5aa2e9074c | https://www.reuters.com/article/philippines-typhoon-idINKBN0TX06620151214?edition-redirect=in | Typhoon threatens central Philippines, 750,000 evacuated | Typhoon threatens central Philippines, 750,000 evacuated
By Manuel Mogato2 Min Read
MANILA (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from the central Philippines on Monday as a typhoon with winds of up to 150 kph (95 mph) made landfall, dumping heavy rain that could cause flooding, landslides and storm surges, authorities warned.
About 40 domestic flights were grounded, while 73 ferries and hundreds of fishing boats were ordered to remain in port as typhoon Melor hit the village of Batag on the northern tip of Samar island.
Known locally as typhoon Nona, it was expected to roll across nearby islands before making landfall later on Monday close to Sorsogon, about 385 km (240 miles) southeast of the capital, Manila, on the heavily populated main island of Luzon.
Melor was plotting a similar path to Haiyan, a category 5 typhoon that struck the central Philippines in 2013. Almost 8,000 people were killed or left missing by Haiyan.
Disaster authorities have temporarily closed schools and some offices and evacuated about 750,000 people in three provinces. About 8,000 people were stranded after the coast guard stopped ferries and fishing boats from leaving ports in the central Philippines.
“Melor is a very compact typhoon, so that will prevent its most devastating impacts from extending too far from its centre,” said AccuWeather meteorologist Adam Douty.
He said the typhoon had weakened a little as it encountered drier air early on Monday. “While Melor will not slam onshore as a super typhoon as once feared, it still poses dangers to lives and property,” Douty said.
Alexander Pama, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, said typhoon Melor was expected to cause flooding, landslides and storm surges of up to 4 metres (13 feet) and disrupt power and communications.
About 20 provinces, some around Manila, are under public storm alert due to strong winds and torrential rains of up to 300 mm (12 inches) within a 300 km (185 miles) radius.
About 20 major typhoons pass through the Philippines each year.
Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Paul TaitOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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760bb5f44da64356d4b13070944e42c5 | https://www.reuters.com/article/philips-ma-gic-idUSL8N2KG5PG | Singapore's GIC teams up with Chinese asset manager for Philips' home appliances bid -sources | Singapore's GIC teams up with Chinese asset manager for Philips' home appliances bid -sources
By Pamela Barbaglia, Arno Schuetze, Kane Wu3 Min Read
LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC has teamed up with Chinese asset manager CDH Investments to submit a joint offer for the $3.6 billion home appliance business of Philips, two sources told Reuters.
The duo is facing competition from Asia-focused private equity firm Hillhouse Capital and a consortium of Citic Capital, Sequoia and TCL Capital, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Philips has put pressure on the bidders to finalise their binding offers by the end of March and raised the prospect of ditching the sale and pursuing an alternative listing of the business, which produces coffee machines, vacuum cleaners and air fryers.
Philips declined to comment while none of the bidders were immediately available out of business hours.
The sale is a central part of Philips’ transformation into a health technology business focused entirely on hospital equipment and personal health products.
Once a sprawling conglomerate, the Amsterdam-based company has narrowed its focus in recent years, spinning off the lighting and consumer electronics divisions for which it was previously best known.
Philips’ home appliance unit is valued at about 3 billion euros ($3.64 billion) and appeals to Asian bidders since the bulk of its manufacturing operations takes place in China, the sources said.
The Dutch technology giant kicked off the auction process last year and although it wants to wrap it up by the end of the first quarter, the sources said some of the bidders may face delays in completing due diligence and securing financing.
CDH is, however, determined to snap up the unit and has teamed up with GIC which already owns stakes in Western companies including British insurer Rothesay Life and Italian cosmetics firm Intercos, one of the sources said.
In the event of delays Philips will gauge appetite for an initial public offering (IPO) of the business and has hired Lazard to start the preparation work for a possible float on an Asian exchange, a third source said.
“The IPO project remains at an early stage. It will gain traction if Chinese bidders can’t get their act together,” he said. ($1 = 0.8241 euros) (Reporting By Pamela Barbaglia, Arno Schuetze and Kane Wu, additional reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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93eeb0cbeb219114cfbf6185ab344c32 | https://www.reuters.com/article/philips-results-idUSL8N1CU0GY | CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Philips Q3 profit misses; sales, margins rise | CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Philips Q3 profit misses; sales, margins rise
By Toby Sterling3 Min Read
(Corrects percentage rise in paragraph 1, comparative figure in paragraph 4)
AMSTERDAM, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Dutch healthcare technology and services company Philips reported a 14 percent jump in third-quarter earnings as sales and margins rose, but narrowly missed analysts’ estimates.
Chief Executive Frans Van Houten said the company expected further earnings improvements in the fourth quarter.
However “we remain concerned about risk due to volatility in the markets in which we operate,” he added.
The company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA) grew to 649 million euros ($705 million) from 570 million euros in the same period a year ago.
Analysts polled for Reuters were expecting adjusted EBITA of 651 million euros.
Comparable sales rose 2 percent to 5.90 billion euros. Van Houten said sales at the company’s core “HeathTech” portfolio were up 5 percent, with order intake up 8 percent.
Group sales were dragged lower by the results of Philips Lighting, which Philips continues to own after its May spinoff.
Philips shed the division to reinvent itself as a healthcare company, and to allow Lighting to pursue growth and acquisitions separately.
Philips now operates with three main divisions: personal health products, which include sleep masks as well as toothbrushes and shavers; diagnostic products, including high-end medical scanners and equipment; and “connected care”, a business-to-business division that collaborates with hospitals to offer software and services on a large scale to help improve their performance.
Philips improved margins at the first two divisions, reporting group adjusted EBITA of 11 percent of sales, up from 9.8 percent a year ago.
However the connected care division saw margins shrink, with sales of patient-monitoring systems falling, mostly due to a “double digit decline in Western Europe” in the category, the company said.
Analysts had been sceptical that the company could reach 11 percent adjusted margin, its full-year target, this quarter. Philips has said that in the medium term, the figure should continue improving to the mid-teens.
$1 = 0.9205 euros Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Amrutha GayathriOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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0185d6ae5f50722ce7a612f860b6a7c1 | https://www.reuters.com/article/ping-an-ins-moves-citigroup/update-1-citis-asia-insurance-investment-banking-head-joining-ping-an-fund-sources-idUSL4N1MZ3LB | UPDATE 1-Citi's Asia insurance investment banking head joining Ping An fund - sources | UPDATE 1-Citi's Asia insurance investment banking head joining Ping An fund - sources
By Anshuman Daga, Kane Wu2 Min Read
* Lacey to become COO of Global Voyager Fund
* Ping An has said fund to mainly invest in fin & healthcare tech (Updates with Ping An’s response)
SINGAPORE, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Citigroup’s Asia head of insurance investment banking Donald Lacey is leaving the bank to become the chief operating officer of Ping An Insurance Group Co of China’s Global Voyager Fund, sources familiar with the situation said.
Lacey, who joined Citi roughly 10 years ago, will start in his new job in a few months, one of the sources told Reuters.
Citi and Ping An declined to comment. The sources did not want to be identified as they were not authorised to talk to the media.
Ping An said in May it was launching its first overseas fund to primarily invest in financial and healthcare technology worldwide. The initial size of the fund is $1 billion and it is led by Jonathan Larsen, an 18-year stalwart of Citigroup who joined Ping An as its chief innovation officer. (Reporting by Anshuman Daga in SINGAPORE and Kane Wu in HONG KONG; Additional reporting by Julie Zhu; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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801d9f7656d704a349b02dcf1c660d02 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pingan-investment-idUSL8N1I60ND | China's Ping An to launch first overseas fintech and healthcare fund of $1 bln | China's Ping An to launch first overseas fintech and healthcare fund of $1 bln
By 3 Min Read
* Ping An to fully invest the fund in the next 3-4 years
* The fund to focus on early-stage investments
* Fund to be led by Jonathan Larsen, ex-Citigroup
* Larsen joins Ping An as its chief innovation officer
By Julie Zhu
HONG KONG, May 4 (Reuters) - Ping An Insurance Group Co of China Ltd, the country’s largest insurer by market value, is launching its first overseas fund to primarily invest in financial and healthcare technology worldwide, underscoring its push beyond its home market.
The initial size of the so-called Ping An Global Voyager Fund will be $1 billion, the insurer said in a statement on Thursday. It will be managed from Hong Kong and led by Jonathan Larsen, an 18-year stalwart of Citigroup who joined Ping An as its chief innovation officer.
Ping An’s overseas ambitions mirror those of other Chinese firms, including Anbang Insurance Group and Fosun International Ltd, which are spending billions on overseas acquisitions in a bid to reduce their dependence on the slowing Chinese economy and weakening yuan currency.
The Shenzhen-based financial group plans to fully invest the Global Voyager Fund in the next three to four years with a focus on early-stage start-ups.
Ping An in recent years has been building up its expertise in the fintech and healthcare-related areas, but mostly in mainland China.
Its main subsidiary Lufax, China’s biggest peer-to-peer lending and wealth management platform, is also looking to expand into Hong Kong or Singapore, Lufax’s chief executive officer Gregory Gibb told Reuters in an interview.
Valued at $18.5 billion when it raised $1.2 billion from a group of investors in January 2016, it is looking to list in Hong Kong to secure more funds to finance its expansion at home and abroad.
Ping An Good Doctor, a medical service app backed by the insurer, raised about $500 million in its maiden financing round last year, valuing the fast-growing start-up at $3 billion.
Ping An had about 5 percent of its total insurance assets abroad as of December 2016, its chief financial officer, Jason Yao, told Reuters at the time.
That was well below the 15 percent cap imposed by China’s insurance regulator, giving it ample room to splurge. It plans to gradually increase its overseas investments to 10 percent over the next three to five years.
Before the Global Voyager Fund comes on the scene, the insurer has venture capital firm Ping An Ventures to make early-stage investments mostly in China.
Ping An’s overseas push also comes as the country’s insurance regulator was considering relaxing rules to boost the biggest and most solvent firms’ expansion abroad, while smaller, riskier insurers would come under tighter scrutiny, Reuters reported in March.
Last year Ping An made its biggest annual profit in more than a decade thanks to growth in its life insurance business. (Reporting by Julie Zhu; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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1c0cd52ae1f1b090985ac32671ae5e09 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pinnacl-ent-ma-penn-natl-gaming/update-1-u-s-ftc-approves-penn-nationals-purchase-of-pinnacle-with-divestitures-idUSL2N1WH21X | UPDATE 1-U.S. FTC approves Penn National's purchase of Pinnacle with divestitures | UPDATE 1-U.S. FTC approves Penn National's purchase of Pinnacle with divestitures
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
(Adds assets to be sold to Boyd Gaming Corp, background)
WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday approved casino operator Penn National Gaming Inc’s $2.8 billion purchase of Pinnacle Entertainment Inc, requiring they divest assets in three Midwestern cities.
The deal is the latest in a series of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. gambling sector in recent years as companies look to expand their reach, diversify their businesses and take advantage of recent legalization of gaming in some states.
The FTC said the companies should sell casino-related assets in Cincinnati, St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri, to Boyd Gaming Corp.
The cash-and-stock deal, which would cement Penn National’s position as the leading U.S. regional gaming operator, was announced in December.
Penn National said at the time that after the deal it would operate a combined 41 properties with about 53,500 slots, 1,300 tables and 8,300 hotel rooms in the United States. (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Eric Beech and Sandra Maler)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1f1b18ade6d154d853f907ae301e8115 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pj-solomon-moves-renewables/moves-u-s-boutique-bank-pj-solomon-names-head-of-renewable-power-idUKL8N1TT5WM?edition-redirect=uk | MOVES-U.S. boutique bank PJ Solomon names head of renewable power | MOVES-U.S. boutique bank PJ Solomon names head of renewable power
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
NEW YORK, June 28 (Reuters) - PJ Solomon has hired Jim McGinnis to head its renewables coverage, the firm said in a statement on Thursday, as the U.S. boutique investment bank seeks to bolster its expertise at a time of heightened interest in clean energy.
McGinnis most recently served as founder and chief executive of the financing and investments unit of Irish wind and solar firm Mainstream Renewable Power Ltd, and has more than 25 years of experience in the energy sector including at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Inc, the statement said.
PJ Solomon, majority-owned by French bank Natixis since mid-2016, has been adding bankers in its infrastructure, power and renewables segment with Jeff Pollard joining in October from Goldman Sachs to head the bank’s power coverage.
Renewable energy generation in the United States has been growing at a significant pace, accounting for over half of the country’s annual added electric capacity in five of the six years between 2012 and 2017.
While President Donald Trump’s administration has implemented policies seen as unfavorable to the renewables sector, including the ending of tax credits and tariffs on imported solar panels, demand from states and corporations for more clean energy and the falling cost of technology is expected to support further growth.
Reporting by David French; editing by Diane CraftOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1bff9304ee900bab7215ece06fd07274 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pko-dividend-idUSL8N1QZ07B | Polish regulator says PKO can spend up to 25 pct of 2017 profit on dividend | Polish regulator says PKO can spend up to 25 pct of 2017 profit on dividend
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
WARSAW, March 17 (Reuters) - Polish financial market regulator KNF has said the country’s biggest bank, PKO BP , can spend up to 25 percent of last year’s net profit on its dividend, the lender said late on Friday.
Last year, state-run PKO BP did not pay a dividend, following the regulator’s recommendation to retain profit.
PKO’s net profit in 2017 amounted to 3.1 billion zlotys ($903 million).
$1 = 3.4324 zlotys Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko Editing by Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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754346d60a82bf3acd3315df1aa92b0f | https://www.reuters.com/article/platinum-week-wpic/platinum-week-platinum-surplus-for-2019-slashed-after-jump-in-investment-idUKL5N22M5MU?edition-redirect=uk | PLATINUM WEEK-Platinum surplus for 2019 slashed after jump in investment | PLATINUM WEEK-Platinum surplus for 2019 slashed after jump in investment
By Eric Onstad LONDON, May 13 (Reuters) - A surge in investment demand has0 Min Read
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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e994c627e2bfb6e0007f7cfc71b26b24 | https://www.reuters.com/article/play-communicat-ma-iliad-eu/exclusive-eu-to-approve-iliad-deal-for-polish-mobile-group-play-sources-idUSL8N2H54CE | EXCLUSIVE-EU to approve Iliad deal for Polish mobile group Play -sources | EXCLUSIVE-EU to approve Iliad deal for Polish mobile group Play -sources
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
BRUSSELS/PARIS, Oct 14 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators are expected to clear French telecoms operator Iliad’s 3.5 billion euro ($4.11 billion) takeover of Polish mobile group Play, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Iliad, Europe’s sixth-largest mobile operator, is controlled by French tycoon Xavier Niel and has been steadily expanding outside its home market in recent years, including in Ireland and Italy. ($1 = 0.8518 euros) (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels and Mathieu Rosemain in Paris Editing by David Goodman )
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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ebd91c227e2b8e3e319ec2e4736f8c4c | https://www.reuters.com/article/playtika-holding-ipo/playtika-prices-ipo-at-27-per-share-above-indicated-range-source-idUSL1N2JQ01R | Playtika prices IPO at $27 per share, above indicated range -source | Playtika prices IPO at $27 per share, above indicated range -source
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
Jan 14 (Reuters) - Mobile gaming company Playtika Holding Corp on Thursday sold shares in its U.S. initial public offering above its target range at $27 each, a person familiar with the matter said.
Playtika had set a target price of between $22 and $24 apiece. The Israel-based company, which is owned by a Chinese investor group, had planned to sell 21.7 million shares with a further 47.8 million sold by existing investors, making the total offering worth around $1.88 billion at $27 per share.
The IPO, the biggest U.S. listing in 2021 so far, values Playtika at $11.1 billion. Playtika did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The source requested anonymity as the price was not yet public. (Reporting by Joshua Franklin in Miami; Editing by Tom Hogue)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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923938b1be371d590308a18ad31ef069 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pldt-globe-telecom-idUSL4N19831I | Philippines' PLDT, Globe Telecom to share content to boost internet speed | Philippines' PLDT, Globe Telecom to share content to boost internet speed
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
MANILA, June 16 (Reuters) - The Philippines’ two largest telecom firms have agreed to share each others’ online content and applications, company officials said on Thursday, paving the way for faster web services in a country that ranks near the bottom in Asia in internet speeds.
The deal between Globe Telecom Inc and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co (PLDT) comes less than a month after they bought San Miguel Corp’s telecom assets for $1.5 billion in a bid to boost snail-paced internet in the Southeast Asian nation.
The Philippines’ telecoms regulator has however said the country’s two main operators have one year to boost chronically slow internet speeds or it will revoke approval of the acquisition.
The Philippines ranked 21st out of 22 Asian countries in terms of internet speed, just ahead of Afghanistan, according to a 2015 study by data analytics firm Ookla.
“With an effective domestic internet peering in place, Globe customers will gain direct access to content and applications hosted by PLDT data centers and vice-versa,” Gil Genio, Globe’s chief technology and information officer, told a briefing.
PLDT-hosted content and applications will be treated as local content, removing the need to be routed overseas, which causes additional transit costs and slower data transmission, PLDT said in a statement.
Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Biju DwarakanathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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0b3d289764a868280be58eb2dd3a441b | https://www.reuters.com/article/plexsystems-m-a-idINKBN16S2S8?edition-redirect=in | Manufacturing software company Plex Systems explores sale: sources | Manufacturing software company Plex Systems explores sale: sources
By Liana B. Baker2 Min Read
(Reuters) - Plex Systems Inc, a privately held U.S. maker of software used to run manufacturing plants, is exploring a potential sale which it hopes will value it at more than $1 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move comes as the world's largest industrial companies, from General Electric Co GE.N to Siemens AG SIEGn.DE, seek to snap up software assets to modernize their manufacturing processes, improve their supply chains and cut costs.
Francisco Partners, the private equity firm that is the majority owner of Plex, is working with investment bank Morgan Stanley MS.N to run an auction process for Plex, the people said this week, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
If it decides not to follow through with a sale, Plex could also explore an initial public offering, given that the stock market has been receptive to subscription-based software IPOs as of late, the people added.
Plex generates about $100 million in annual revenue, according to the sources.
Representatives for Plex, Francisco Partners and Morgan Stanley all declined to comment.
Plex's sector has seen strong dealmaking activity recently. Last year, General Electric acquired ServiceMax, which monitors devices for maintenance and other services, for $915 million, while Roper Technologies ROP.N bought software maker Deltek for $2.8 billion last year.
Based in Troy, Michigan, Plex was founded by factory workers on a shop floor to help improve manufacturing in 1995, according to its website. One of the biggest areas it serves is the automotive industry. It has branched out into cloud-based resource planning and accounting in recent years.
Francisco Partners acquired Plex from buyout firm Apax Partners LLP in 2012. Plex has also raised money from Accel Partners and T. Rowe Price Associates for a total of roughly $90 million in funding.
Reporting by Liana B. Baker in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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074ffc7a8e47fafe9a546704ea65a34b | https://www.reuters.com/article/pmi-india-government-idINKBN1A62DO?edition-redirect=in | India to quiz Philip Morris on marketing of Marlboro | India to quiz Philip Morris on marketing of Marlboro
By Aditya Kalra2 Min Read
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India plans to seek an explanation from Philip Morris International Inc about its marketing practices after Reuters reported that the tobacco giant used tactics that government officials say flout the country’s law, a health ministry official said on Friday.
Slideshow ( 3 images )
Philip Morris advertises Marlboro cigarettes, the world’s best-selling brand, at tobacco shops in India and distributes free smokes at nightclubs and bars frequented by young people to promote the brand, Reuters reported earlier this week.
The strategy is laid out in hundreds of pages of internal documents reviewed by Reuters that cover the period from 2009 to 2016. (reut.rs/2uuye5Y) Indian government officials previously have said these marketing activities violate the country's Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act and its accompanying rules, but companies get away with it because enforcement is weak.
The government now plans to write letters to Philip Morris’ India unit as well as other tobacco companies and take “action as per law”, said Arun Kumar Jha, a federal health ministry official who oversees tobacco control in the country.
Jha added that the ministry will also ask states to take action against advertisements that violate regulations.
“Our basic objective is to reduce deaths caused by tobacco,” Jha told Reuters.
Philip Morris previously described its advertising as “compliant with Indian law”. It did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
India has about 100 million smokers. Of those, about two-thirds smoke traditional hand-rolled cigarettes, government data showed. Tobacco use kills more than 900,000 people a year in the country.
The cigarette industry is dominated by ITC Ltd, which also uses some of the same marketing tactics, such as advertising at kiosks, Reuters had found.
ITC has said it complies with Indian regulations. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Friday.
Additional reporting by Duff Wilson in NEW YORK; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Mike Collett-WhiteOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1800a895c70f3e03795963320ee099f7 | https://www.reuters.com/article/pmi-israel-idUSL8N153292 | Philip Morris to invest $20 mln in firm developing inhaler -report | Philip Morris to invest $20 mln in firm developing inhaler -report
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
JERUSALEM, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Cigarette giant Philip Morris International will invest about $20 million in an Israeli start-up that developed a metered-dose vaporiser of raw plants for medical use, Israeli news website Calcalist reported on Tuesday.
As part of the deal, Tel Aviv-based Syqe Medical will develop technologies for Phillip Morris that will help reduce health risks associated with smoking, Calcalist said, but provided no further details.
Officials at Syqe would not comment on the report and officials at Philip Morris could not be reached for immediate comment.
Syqe, which was formed in 2011, says it has already developed an inhaler that allows medical cannabis to be delivered in a safe and precise manner.
The technology turns cannabis into a granulate and allows it to be taken in standardized doses, Syqe says. The company plans to develop similar systems that can be used with other medicinal plants. (Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Katharine Houreld)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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51344d39116432337af916de2a6067c5 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-abortion/poland-needs-calm-to-discuss-disputed-abortion-ruling-government-idINL8N2HP4VZ | Poland needs calm to discuss disputed abortion ruling -government | Poland needs calm to discuss disputed abortion ruling -government
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
WARSAW, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Poland needs a period of calm to discuss a ruling by the highest court that bans most abortions, a government spokesman said after the measure did not take effect on Monday as expected following two weeks of mass protests.
Widespread outrage among women and others greeted the Oct. 22 ruling which bans terminations due to foetal defects, ending one of the few legal grounds left for abortion in a staunchly Roman Catholic country with a deeply conservative government.
While focused largely on abortion rights, the protests quickly turned into an outpouring of anger against the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government, its church allies and its traditionalist policies. On Tuesday two protesters stripped naked in front of the Presidential Palace.
The government’s publications department had initially said the court’s verdict would be enforced by Nov. 2, but it has not yet been published in its official gazette, meaning it has not entered into legal force.
“According to the regulations, the judgment of the Constitutional Tribunal should be published in a timely manner,” government spokesman Piotr Muller told a news conference when asked about the delay.
“At the moment, however, we all need peace and discussion around this judgment, a quieting down of the public mood and discussions among experts.”
President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, has tried to defuse the protests by proposing a bill which would reinstate the right to abortion due to foetal abnormalities, although limited only to “lethal” defects.
Opposition politicians questioned whether the PiS could muster enough votes to pass the amendment, after parliament delayed a sitting scheduled for Wednesday for two weeks.
“...They don’t have any ideas how to resolve the situation in Poland, they do not have a majority in parliament (in favour of the bill), they are afraid to answer questions,” opposition Deputy Speaker Malgorzata Kidawa-Blonska told reporters.
PiS lawmaker and Deputy Parliament Speaker Ryszard Terlecki rejected any suggestion that the government lacked a majority on the issue, saying the postponement was related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Poland’s Federation for Women and Family Planning said on Tuesday women had intensified efforts to get a legal abortion in recent days ahead of the court verdict coming into force.
It said it knew of 61 abortions performed in hospitals in less than two weeks since the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling, a rate of occurrence that would send the annual total well above that of 1,100 recorded in 2019.
Reporting by Alan Charlish, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Koper Editing by Mark HeinrichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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55989ffc323eb5e195b54df02a24ce05 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-economy-rates-projections/polish-gdp-to-grow-2-6-5-3-in-2021-says-c-bank-idUSW8N2JJ01Y | Polish GDP to grow 2.6-5.3% in 2021, says c.bank | Polish GDP to grow 2.6-5.3% in 2021, says c.bank
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
WARSAW, March 3 (Reuters) - Polish gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 2.6-5.3% in 2021 and 4.0-6.9% in 2022, Poland’s central bank said on Wednesday in its latest forecasts.
Inflation is expected to be 2.7-3.6% in 2021 and 2.0-3.6% in 2022, the bank said.
In its November inflation report, the bank forecast GDP growth of 3.1% in 2021 and 5.7% in 2022. (Reporting by Alan Charlish, Anna Koper, Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Toby Chopra)
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03a8d47d73c4acdbd047ee8015439af0 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-economy-salesfigures/update-1-polish-retail-sales-return-to-growth-in-july-idUSL8N2FN211 | UPDATE 1-Polish retail sales return to growth in July | UPDATE 1-Polish retail sales return to growth in July
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
(Adds quotes, details)
Aug 21 (Reuters) - Polish retail sales returned to growth in July, statistics office data showed on Friday, in a boost for the largest economy in the European Union’s eastern wing as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.
Private consumption fuelled by rising wages and generous state benefits had been the motor of Poland’s economic growth in recent years, although there had been signs of a slowdown even before the arrival of the virus.
Nominal retail sales rose 2.7% in July, the statistics office data showed. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected retail sales to fall by 0.4% year-on-year.
“Today’s data confirm the V-shape rebound scenario and this is proof that the rebound is progressing well,” said Piotr Bartkiewicz, an economist at Pekao SA.
“It is worth remembering, however, that retail sale is only one of the elements of consumption and does not show the full condition of the consumer,” he said.
The biggest gains were seen in the sales of durable goods such as furniture, household appliances and electronics. Sales in this category rose 16.8% for the second month in a row
Statistics office data also showed construction falling 10.9% year-on-year in July. (Reporting by Monika Czeremanska and Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk and Alicja Ptak in Warsaw; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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a982bad4656b0b4549f1abb11a6f0996 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-energy-solar/polands-solar-power-capacity-triples-in-a-year-to-39-gw-idUSL5N2L03W9 | Poland's solar power capacity triples in a year to 3.9 GW | Poland's solar power capacity triples in a year to 3.9 GW
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
WARSAW, March 2 (Reuters) - Poland’s installed capacity in solar power increased to 3.9 gigawatts (GW) in January from 1.3 GW a year ago, data from the grid operator PSE showed on Tuesday
Poland’s solar energy capacity has surged in the past two years due to generous subsidies from the government, which has encouraged households to install solar panels on roofs as the coal-reliant country aims to cut carbon emissions.
Data from the climate ministry showed that the number of households with solar panels rose to over 450,000 as of December 2020 from 4,000 in 2015.
“This is the most dynamically developing renewable energy technology in Poland,” Climate Minister Michal Kurtyka told Reuters, adding that the government will also continue to support big scale solar plants.
Poland plans to have 10-16 GW in installed capacity in solar power by 2040, on top of 7-10 GW and 8-11 GW in onshore and offshore wind respectively.
Kurtyka said he expected further growth in demand for electricity in Poland.
“We will need additional capacities and we see that they are being built mostly in zero-emission technology,” he added.
Poland was the only EU member not to commit to climate neutrality by 2050 when the bloc set the target in 2019 and the government has long courted political support from interests in coal.
But under pressure to cut emissions and with surging costs of burning coal, the government has encouraged investment in clean energy sources. (Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
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a00fdd4c334ef69f5a24797999a919f8 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-gas-shale-idUKL8N1CI3PF?edition-redirect=uk | Polish firms concede defeat in search for shale gas riches | Polish firms concede defeat in search for shale gas riches
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
WARSAW, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Poland’s drive to exploit shale gas has come to an end with state-run gas firm PGNiG and oil refiner PKN Orlen drawing a line under projects to find it.
The country’s quest to explore for shale gas began five years ago, when the then prime minister Donald Tusk raised hopes with a forecast of it coming on stream in 2014.
This attracted global energy majors, including Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil and Total, but one by one they pulled back after disappointing results and a slump in oil prices.
Polish state-run firms, including PGNiG and PKN Orlen were the last ones to work on the country’s shale gas projects.
“The discussion and projects related to shale gas is a closed issue for us,” Miroslaw Kochalski, deputy head of PKN Orlen told a news conference on Wednesday.
This was echoed by Piotr Wozniak, the chief executive office at PGNiG, who said:
“Shale gas has ended not that badly when it comes to the improved techniques of unconventional gas exploration. Shale gas as such has failed indeed.” (Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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efc6a081ea042a127158069748a2daae | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-germany-lgbt/they-are-not-alone-lgbt-march-against-fear-on-german-polish-border-idUSL8N2G20D8 | 'They are not alone': LGBT+ march against fear on German-Polish border | 'They are not alone': LGBT+ march against fear on German-Polish border
By Hugo Greenhalgh, Thomson Reuters Foundation5 Min Read
SLUBICE, Poland, Sept 5 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Led by drag queens in glitter suits and towering high heels, some 2,000 demonstrators marched from Poland to Germany on Saturday in a landmark joint Pride parade to symbolically bridge the two countries’ deepening divide over LGBT+ rights.
Amid fears of a possible attack by Polish nationalists, riot police lined the streets at the start of the parade and led the marchers slowly across a blue, steel arch bridge spanning the River Oder, which marks the border between Poland and Germany.
Chanting in defiance, with rainbow flags fluttering in a light breeze, the Pride marchers peacefully passed a small group of about 20 Polish counter-protesters, holding banners and singing hymns, as well as a van daubed in anti-LGBT+ slogans.
“The only way we can change people opinions is through visibility,” said Mewa Topolska, one of the organisers of the Pride march and a teacher living in Poland’s Slubice, which sits directly opposite the German town of Frankfurt an der Oder.
“We don’t have full queer rights in Poland - and won’t for a long time so the main (aim of the march) is (German) solidarity with the Polish side,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
While being gay, bisexual or trans is widely accepted in Germany, which allows same-sex marriage and adoption, Poland is the worst place to be LGBT+ in the European Union, according to ILGA-Europe, a regional advocacy group.
LGBT+ rights are increasingly contested in Poland, with ruling party Law & Justice politicians and Catholic bishops denouncing them as a foreign “ideology” that threatens traditional social values.
President Andrzej Duda was re-elected in July after an acrimonious campaign in which he proposed a constitutional ban on same-sex adoption and LGBT+ education in schools.
The Polish government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman said last month there was “no public policy or regulation restricting the civil rights of people with different sexual orientation in Poland”.
“There’s far more tolerance in Germany than in Poland,” said Ed Lada, 64, a U.S. military veteran who came to support his LGBT+ friends, standing in the main square of Slubice, home to about 17,000 people, at the start of the march.
“I don’t think too many minds will be changed. But even if it’s one or two, that’s a change.”
BORN DIFFERENT
Slubice and Frankfurt an der Oder share a close history: they were one German town until, as part of the post-World War Two settlement, the east was given to Poland and renamed Slubice while the west became an East German border town in 1949.
Their paths have diverged in the last 75 years, particularly their nations’ attitudes towards sexuality and gender identity.
In Poland, same-sex couples cannot enter into civil partnerships and there is no specific law against homophobic hate crime.
About a third of Polish municipalities have declared themselves “LGBT free zones” and an activist who was arrested for damaging an anti-LGBT+ campaigner’s van went on hunger strike last month to protest her imprisonment.
Slubice is not a so-called LGBT-free zone and public opinion in both towns among those watching the march was broadly positive.
“No one should judge people according to their race, religion or (sexuality),” said Stella, a care worker in Frankfurt an der Oder, who declined to give her full name.
“We are all born different and we don’t choose how we are born.”
The day passed peacefully, despite the presence of a van daubed with anti-LGBT slogans that has sparked tensions at other Polish Pride parades. The driver, waving rosary beads - used by Catholics to count their prayers - declined to be interviewed.
“For me and my friends, the traditional family is very important, where there is the woman and the man and the children,” said one anti-Pride protester.
“This is very fundamental for us.”
Having a strong sense of community was also at the heart of the parade for the LGBT+ marchers and their allies.
“We are here to have a good time, but also to show young people living in small towns that they can feel free and that they are not alone,” said Lelita Petit, 28, a former drag queen who now works on a construction site.
"We are here to cheer them up and let them know that they don't have to be afraid." (Reporting by Hugo Greenhalgh; Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit news.trust.org)
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f644b8ed287f2ac847aa37932b988fd3 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-gold-glapinski-idUSL1N2LD11D | UPDATE 1-Poland's central bank wants to buy 100 tonnes of gold, governor says | UPDATE 1-Poland's central bank wants to buy 100 tonnes of gold, governor says
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
(Adds context)
WARSAW, March 15 (Reuters) - Poland’s central bank wants to buy at least 100 tonnes of gold -- worth some $5.5 billion at current prices -- over the coming years, as it continues to expand its bullion reserves, governor Adam Glapinski said in an interview published on Monday.
“At the moment, we have 229 tonnes of gold, of which more or less half was bought during my term in office,” Glapinski told conservative magazine Sieci.
“Over the course of a few years we want to buy at least another 100 tonnes of gold and keep it in Poland as well,” he said.
Over the last decade central banks, particularly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, have stepped up purchases of gold, often seeing it as a way to reduce reliance on assets such as the U.S. dollar.
Gold was trading around $1,730 an ounce on Monday.
In excerpts from the interview published on Sunday, Glapinski said the chances of a change in Polish interest rates are almost zero. (Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Peter Hobson; editing by Jason Neely and Toby Chopra)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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0a9231e258c8d581cd4981c85401b278 | https://www.reuters.com/article/poland-government-idUSL8N14U0CJ20160110 | UPDATE 1-Polish minister dismisses "silly" EU criticism, cites Nazis | UPDATE 1-Polish minister dismisses "silly" EU criticism, cites Nazis
By Reuters Staff3 Min Read
(Edits)
WARSAW, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Poland’s justice minister dismissed an EU commissioner’s criticism of new media regulations as “silly” in a confrontational letter that marked a low in the new government’s relations with the bloc and the commissioner’s home Germany.
Minister Zbigniew Ziobro questioned Berlin’s own record on media freedoms and alluded to Nazi Germany’s occupation of Poland during World War Two in the message to EU commissioner Gunther Oettinger.
Relations between Poland and the European Union have deteriorated since the Law and Justice party (PiS) won elections in October on a Eurosceptic platform.
Oettinger, responsible for the bloc’s policy on society, said last week the EU’s largest eastern member should be put under supervision over its plans to put Polish public TV and radio broadcasters under state control and to change the makeup of the constitutional court.
“I am not in the habit of replying to silly comments on Poland made by foreign politicians,” Ziobro wrote to Oettinger in a letter published by state news agency PAP on Saturday.
“Such words, said by a German politician, cause the worst of connotations among Poles. Also in me. I’m a grandson of a Polish officer, who during World War II fought in the underground National Army with ‘German supervision’,” he said.
The National Army was the main Polish resistance movement during World War Two, while “supervision” appeared to be a reference to the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Ziobro, whose party advocates higher state spending and conservative Catholic values, also accused German authorities of trying to cover up news of attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.
“I came to a sad conclusion that it is easier for you to talk about fictitious threats to media freedom in other countries than to condemn censorship in your homeland,” Ziobro wrote.
There was no immediate reaction from Brussels or Berlin to the letter.
The EU executive has written to Poland asking how the new media law, giving the treasury minister the right to appoint heads of state-run broadcasters, tallies with EU rules on media freedoms. Poland dismissed those concerns.
The government’s law changes prompted protests, rattled investors and drew accusations from rights activists that PiS is undermining democratic checks and balances in a country long seen as a bulwark of economic and political stability in Europe. (Reporting by Adrian Krajewski; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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a75dadf2e20314fb7a279b57f4c9e628 | https://www.reuters.com/article/polaris-inds-products-idUSL4N1G849V | Polaris to launch new electric bike in 4-5 years -exec | Polaris to launch new electric bike in 4-5 years -exec
By Ankit Ajmera3 Min Read
Feb 28 (Reuters) - Motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle maker Polaris Industries Inc plans to launch an electric bike under its marque Indian brand in the next four or five years, a senior executive said.
This will be Polaris’s second shot at making electric bikes.
In January, the company wound down the production of its Victory motorcycles, which also included its Empulse electric bike, after booking cumulative losses of more than $100 million over the past 18 years.
Polaris now wants to attract new riders with “fun” electric motorcycles as it focuses on the storied Indian brand, which it bought in 2011, Steve Menneto, president of its motorcycles division, told Reuters.
The company’s new electric motorcycle is expected to cover 120-140 miles on a single charge if driven aggressively, compared with 75 miles for an Empulse bike.
“The characteristics of the (new) powertrain are going to be more applicable to be able to ride a bike in pleasure and twisties, and kind of how you would use pleasure bikes today,” said Menneto.
Polaris and larger rival Harley-Davidson Inc are increasingly targeting price-conscious millennials as demand skids for big bikes in the United States, where the core customer group of baby boomers is aging.
Polaris would also expand the product line of the Indian brand to include bikes with smaller cylinder capacities, Menneto said.
He expects the company’s revenue from its motorcycle business to grow to $1 billion in the next five years from $708.5 million last year.
Market-leader Harley has also been working to attract young riders. The company unveiled its prototype battery-powered motorcycle, LiveWire, in 2014 and plans to launch an electric bike within the next four years or so.
Harley’s revenue from motorcycles and related products has fallen about 2.7 percent cumulatively over the past two years. In contrast, Polaris’s revenue from its motorcycles business, which includes sales of parts, garments and accessories, has jumped about 30 percent in the same period.
Menneto declined to give pricing details about the new electric bike but said that it would be priced competitively. The company’s suggested retail price for the Victory Empulse is upward of $19,999. (Reporting by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Anil D’Silva)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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cac0605c8316ff1a1828bf5baab26c39 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUKN1948672420080820?sp=true | Poll shows McCain in 5-point lead over Obama | Poll shows McCain in 5-point lead over Obama
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent5 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) waves to the veterans gathered at the 109th Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Orlando, Florida, August 18, 2008. REUTERS/Scott Audette
McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama’s solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.
The reversal follows a month of attacks by McCain, who has questioned Obama’s experience, criticized his opposition to most new offshore oil drilling and mocked his overseas trip.
The poll was taken Thursday through Saturday as Obama wrapped up a weeklong vacation in Hawaii that ceded the political spotlight to McCain, who seized on Russia’s invasion of Georgia to emphasize his foreign policy views.
“There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now,” pollster John Zogby said. “This is a significant ebb for Obama.”
McCain now has a 9-point edge, 49 percent to 40 percent, over Obama on the critical question of who would be the best manager of the economy -- an issue nearly half of voters said was their top concern in the November 4 presidential election.
That margin reversed Obama’s 4-point edge last month on the economy over McCain, an Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war who has admitted a lack of economic expertise and shows far greater interest in foreign and military policy.
McCain has been on the offensive against Obama during the last month over energy concerns, with polls showing strong majorities supporting his call for an expansion of offshore oil drilling as gasoline prices hover near $4 a gallon.
Obama had opposed new offshore drilling, but said recently he would support a limited expansion as part of a comprehensive energy program.
That was one of several recent policy shifts for Obama, as he positions himself for the general election battle. But Zogby said the changes could be taking a toll on Obama’s support, particularly among Democrats and self-described liberals.
“That hairline difference between nuance and what appears to be flip-flopping is hurting him with liberal voters,” Zogby said.
Obama’s support among Democrats fell 9 percentage points this month to 74 percent, while McCain has the backing of 81 percent of Republicans. Support for Obama, an Illinois senator, fell 12 percentage points among liberals, with 10 percent of liberals still undecided compared to 9 percent of conservatives.
OBAMA NEEDS TO WORK ON BASE
“Conservatives were supposed to be the bigger problem for McCain,” Zogby said. “Obama still has work to do on his base. At this point McCain seems to be doing a better job with his.”
The dip in support for Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, cut across demographic and ideological lines. He slipped among Catholics, born-again Christians, women, independents and younger voters. He retained the support of more than 90 percent of black voters.
“There were no wild swings, there isn’t one group that is radically different than last month or even two months ago. It was just a steady decline for Obama across the board,” Zogby said.
Obama’s support among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, which had been one of his strengths, slipped 12 percentage points to 52 percent. McCain, who will turn 72 next week, was winning 40 percent of younger voters.
“Those are not the numbers Obama needs to win,” Zogby said about Americans under 30. The 47-year-old is counting on a strong turnout among young voters, a key bloc of support during his primary battle with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.
It made little difference when independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, who are both trying to add their names to state ballots.
McCain still held a 5-point edge over Obama, 44 percent to 39 percent, when all four names were included. Barr earned 3 percent and Nader 2 percent.
Most national polls have given Obama a narrow lead over McCain throughout the summer. In the Reuters/Zogby poll, Obama had a 5-point lead in June, shortly after he clinched the Democratic nomination, and an 8-point lead on McCain in May.
The telephone poll of 1,089 likely voters had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The poll was taken as both candidates head into their nominating conventions and the announcements of their choices of vice presidential picks. The Democratic convention begins on Monday in Denver, with the Republican convention opening the next Monday, September 1, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Editing by Patricia Wilson and Patricia ZengerleOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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e1ed6abe57a9e607fdd6ef4737f22d52 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2AO18L | U.S. Supreme Court set to weigh Republican-backed voting restrictions | U.S. Supreme Court set to weigh Republican-backed voting restrictions
By Andrew Chung6 Min Read
(Reuters) - Fresh off an election in which former President Donald Trump made false claims of fraud, the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to ponder the legality of a restriction on early voting in Arizona that his fellow Republicans argued was needed to combat fraud.
FILE PHOTO: A woman walks to cast her ballot at the register of voters during early voting in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., October 29, 2020. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido/File Photo
The Republican-backed law, spurred in part by a video purportedly showing voter fraud that courts later deemed misleading, made it a crime to provide another person’s completed early ballot to election officials, with the exception of family members or caregivers.
Community activists sometimes engage in ballot collection to facilitate voting and increase voter turnout. Ballot collection is legal in most states, with varying limitations. Republican critics call the practice “ballot harvesting.”
Supreme Court arguments over the 2016 ban and another Arizona voting restriction - both ruled unlawful by a lower court - are scheduled for next Tuesday, with a decision due by the end of June. A broad ruling by high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, endorsing the restrictions could further weaken the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 federal law that barred racial discrimination in voting, by making it harder to prove violations.
The video, taken from security camera footage, shows a man carrying a box of ballots into a Maricopa County Elections Department office. It was posted on a blog in 2014 by A.J. LaFaro, the Republican Party chairman at the time in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.
LaFaro’s post questioned whether the man was a U.S. citizen and called him a “violent thug” who was “stuffing the ballot box as I watched in amazement.” A judge later called the blog post “racially charged” and concluded that the footage showed no illegal activity. The man seen in the video filed an unsuccessful defamation suit against LaFaro.
Republican-governed states including Arizona have imposed a variety of voting restrictions in recent years. In the aftermath of Trump’s baseless claims of fraud, further curbs on voting are being pursued in 33 states following his Nov. 3 loss to Democrat Joe Biden in an election that drew record turnout, according to New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice.
‘THE MAIN TOOL’
At issue in the Supreme Court case is the Voting Rights Act’s Section 2, which bans any rule that results in voting discrimination “on account of race or color.” The court in 2013 gutted another section of the statute that determined which states with a history of racial discrimination needed federal approval to change voting laws.
Slideshow ( 4 images )
Weakening Section 2 would eliminate “the main tool we have left now to protect voters against racial discrimination,” said Myrna Pérez, director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program.
“If there’s one thing that the election and the insurrection showed it’s that not everyone buys into the idea of free, fair and accessible elections,” Pérez added, referring to a pro-Trump mob’s Jan. 6 rampage at the U.S. Capitol.
The Supreme Court case also involves a longstanding Arizona policy that discards ballots cast in-person at a precinct other than the one to which a voter has been assigned. In some places, voters’ precincts are not the closest one to their home.
The case pits Arizona’s Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich and the Arizona Republican Party against the Democratic National Committee and the Arizona Democratic Party, which sued over the restrictions. Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has backed the challenge.
The two sides differ sharply over whether genuine voter fraud must be documented to justify ballot restrictions.
“The notion that voter fraud must be proved in order to enact regulations of elections is not established in the law,” said Republican election lawyer Jason Torchinsky, who filed a brief backing Brnovich. “There are tons of areas where legislatures legislate without proving that some kind of fraud or crime has occurred.”
Jessica Ring Amunson, an attorney who represents Hobbs, said courts should take false fraud claims into account when evaluating the legality of voting restrictions.
Legislatures often justify such restrictions as necessary to tackle fraud and increase voter confidence, but “simultaneously they’re spreading baseless claims of voter fraud when none exists, and that is the very thing that is leading to people losing confidence in elections,” she added.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year found Arizona’s restrictions unlawful, though they remained in effect for the Nov. 3 election. It ruled that the restrictions disproportionately burdened Black, Hispanic and Native American voters and violated the Voting Rights Act.
The 9th Circuit also found that “false, race-based claims of ballot collection fraud” were used to convince Arizona legislators to enact that restriction with discriminatory intent, violating the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on denying voting rights based on race.
U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes in 2018 faulted Arizona’s legislature for its “misinformed belief that ballot collection fraud was occurring,” but upheld the voting restrictions. The 9th Circuit last year overturned that ruling.
Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will DunhamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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bfb30bb460f3277a90b165aede6cc301 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2BU1KX | Biden administration disburses 25 million more stimulus payments to Americans | Biden administration disburses 25 million more stimulus payments to Americans
By Reuters Staff1 Min Read
FILE PHOTO: A family's stimulus check from the U.S. Treasury for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) aid arrived in the mail in Milton, Massachusetts, U.S., March 25, 2021. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Biden administration said on Wednesday that 25 million more stimulus payments worth a total of $36 billion had been sent out to Americans from the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief legislation.
The announcement of a fourth batch of checks was made by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service. It brings to 156 million payments the amount disbursed, with a total value of $372 billion.
The latest payments of up to $1,400 began processing last Friday, with some people receiving direct deposits, Treasury said in a statement.
The pandemic-hammered U.S. economy has been on the rebound, with 916,000 jobs created last month, bringing the jobless rate down to 6%.
Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Peter CooneyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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5e4dd09f4e354e8aa5c017040ba4a501 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2BU2GA | Biden ally in U.S. Senate says Republicans have until end of May for infrastructure deal | Biden ally in U.S. Senate says Republicans have until end of May for infrastructure deal
By David Morgan3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in Congress have until the end of May to negotiate provisions of an infrastructure bill before Democrats opt to move sweeping legislation on their own, one of U.S. President Joe Biden’s closest Senate allies predicted on Wednesday.
FILE PHOTO: Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) during Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC U.S., February 22, 2021. Demetrius Freeman/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Biden’s home state of Delaware said several senior Senate Republicans had privately signaled they would support a package of up to $1 trillion that targets roads, bridges and other typical infrastructure areas and includes some tax increases to pay for legislation.
Biden has proposed a more sweeping $2 trillion infrastructure package, which invests in traditional projects but also seeks to change the course of the U.S. economy by addressing climate change and boosting human services such as elder care.
The president and his Democratic allies, who narrowly control both houses of Congress, have insisted that they want Republican support for the package but will not wait long before deciding whether to move forward on their own.
“I believe that President Biden is open to spending the next month negotiating what the possibility is,” Coons told Punchbowl News in an interview. He said he spoke to the president earlier this week.
If no clear deal exists by the May 31 Memorial Day holiday, Coons added, “I think Democrats just roll it up into a big package and move it.”
Biden is expected to meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on infrastructure next week, said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Coons said talks with “several fairly seasoned senior Republicans” suggest bipartisan support for a narrower bill that could be funded partially by higher gasoline taxes and a new fee for electric vehicles to be dedicated to road infrastructure.
But the president’s larger plan faces determined opposition from Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who describes the Biden package as “a Trojan horse” for tax hikes and unnecessary spending.
“There’s broad bipartisan support for tackling the infrastructure issue. But it depends on what your definition is,” McConnell told a Wednesday news conference in his home state of Kentucky.
“Infrastructure is roads, is bridges. It’s broadband. But beyond that, they’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink into it,” he said.
Republican opposition raises the odds Democrats will use a maneuver called reconciliation to pass a package with just their own votes. Democrats control half the 100 seats in the Senate with Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, the tie-breaking 51st vote.
Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard GollerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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169142e247ba1c4459abd25931608273 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2BU2NS | Trump adviser Giuliani asks judge to throw out $1.3 billion lawsuit over his 'big lie' election claims | Trump adviser Giuliani asks judge to throw out $1.3 billion lawsuit over his 'big lie' election claims
By Jan Wolfe3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani asked a judge on Wednesday to throw out a voting machine company’s $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit relating to his false claims about the November 2020 presidential election being rigged.
FILE PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani, former New York City Mayor and personal attorney to U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference to promote Republican Party candidates in New York City, U.S., September 16, 2020. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Giuliani’s lawyer said in a court filing that Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and because the company has not adequately justified its request for money damages.
The filing said Giuliani denies defaming Dominion, adding that the former New York City mayor would present a more forceful defense on the merits if his jurisdictional arguments are rejected by the federal judge in the District of Columbia who is assigned to the case.
“Should this matter reach legal or factual adjudication on the merits, Giuliani will provide a vigorous and complete response,” the court filing stated.
Megan Meier, a lawyer for Dominion, said in a statement that
“Giuliani said he wanted to present the ‘evidence’ for his defamatory statements about Dominion, but now he’s trying to avoid a trial and still offering no evidence at all.”
Trump and his allies spent two months denying his election defeat, and claiming without evidence that it was the result of widespread voter fraud, before the then-president’s supporters launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Denver-based Dominion alleged in its Jan. 25 lawsuit that Giuliani “manufactured and disseminated the ‘Big Lie,’ which foreseeably went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.”
Dominion said it filed the lawsuit “to set the record straight” and to “stand up for itself, its employees, and the electoral process.”
Founded in 2002, Dominion is a major U.S. manufacturer of voting machines, and various Dominion machines were used in more than two dozen states during the 2020 election.
Dominion has similar defamation lawsuits pending against Fox News, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell, and pro-Trump businessman Mike Lindell of My Pillow Inc. Like Giuliani, they have denied defaming Dominion.
Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Peter CooneyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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a47f0a1dfa6c72b1a4003d477606c35e | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2BV1CX | Biden seeks to ease housing shortage with $5 billion 'carrot, no stick' approach | Biden seeks to ease housing shortage with $5 billion 'carrot, no stick' approach
By Andy Sullivan, Jarrett Renshaw5 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden is seeking to ease a national affordable housing shortage by pushing local governments to allow apartment buildings in neighborhoods that are currently restricted to single-family homes.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris listens as President Joe Biden speaks about jobs and the economy at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 7, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
The $5 billion plan could inject the White House into a debate pitting older homeowners against younger workers seeking to gain a foothold in the most expensive U.S. cities, where many families spend a third or more of their income on housing.
The proposal, which would provide financial incentives to local governments that change zoning laws restricting many neighborhoods to single-family homes, is an example of the sort of broad social policy changes Democrats are including in Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Critics of the zoning laws say they drive up housing costs, contribute to urban and suburban sprawl and perpetuate racial segregation.
“It’s an enormous step forward,” said Richard Kahlenberg, a housing expert at the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank. “Very few politicians have taken the next step to propose something really meaningful to change the system.”
The infrastructure bill would need to pass the narrowly Democratic-controlled Congress, where Republicans are already attacking it as not focused on roads and bridges.
Zoning laws were rare in the United States until the Supreme Court in 1917 struck down laws that prevented Black people from buying property in white neighborhoods, prompting local governments to adopt rules that set minimum lot sizes and barred apartment buildings from many neighborhoods.
Under pressure from politically active homeowners, urban areas with the tightest restrictions in place - coastal cities including New York and San Francisco - have increased them further since 2006, according to a University of Pennsylvania survey.
Younger Americans, civil rights groups and employers have pushed some cities in the opposite direction. In recent years, Minneapolis has allowed small apartments to be built in residential areas across the city, and Oregon made a similar change for all urban areas.
California last year allowed smaller living spaces to be built next to single-family homes. But its Democratic-controlled legislature rejected a bill that would have required cities to allow developers to build high-density apartment buildings near transit lines and job centers, even if they are located in single-family neighborhoods.
With the U.S. economy near full employment in 2019, roughly one in three U.S. households still spent more than 30% of income on housing, near record highs, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
‘NEW APPROACH’
The Biden proposal would set up a $5 billion fund for local governments to compete for grants to pay for new schools, roads or bridges if they agreed to loosen zoning rules.
“This is a new approach that is purely carrot, no stick,” said a White House official on condition of anonymity.
A similar effort by Democratic former President Barack Obama failed to gain traction. Republican former President Donald Trump’s housing secretary, Ben Carson, voiced support for easing zoning rules but did not take action.
Trump himself explicitly campaigned against the idea last year, warning “suburban housewives” that crime would spike and home values drop if zoning rules were relaxed.
Housing experts praised Biden’s proposal, but said it may do little to influence affluent communities that have the tightest zoning laws, which have little need for federal assistance.
“This isn’t going to change the world, but it could do some amount of good,” said Jenny Schuetz, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank.
Biden may get more results if he conditions the hundreds of billions of dollars of transportation and housing spending in his proposal to zoning changes, but that could spur a backlash that could make it harder to pass into law, she said.
The sheer scale of Biden’s proposed spending - $2 trillion in infrastructure following $1.9 trillion in coronavirus aid - may also dilute the impact of the $5 billion fund.
“We’ll have to see how this plays out in a world in which there will be a lot of money sloshing around,” said Michael Stegman at the Urban Institute, who is a former senior housing adviser to Obama.
Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Jarrett Reshaw; Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Scott Malone and Peter CooneyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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c9c894ef66bb1f15e39031912745e39d | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2BV1D3 | U.S. interior secretary looks to restore Utah monuments slashed by Trump | U.S. interior secretary looks to restore Utah monuments slashed by Trump
By Valerie Volcovici4 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The president of the Navajo Nation on Thursday urged U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to protect 1.9 million acres of land as the Bears Ears National Monument during her visit to Utah, expanding the site that was slashed in size by former President Donald Trump to open it to mining, grazing and drilling.
Slideshow ( 5 images )
Jonathan Nez, president of the largest Native American tribe, met with Haaland in Bluff, the gateway to the Utah monument, during her two-day visit to the southwestern state, where she is meeting with tribes and political officials to discuss the potential restoration - or expansion - of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two national monuments that were drastically downsized by Trump.
The visit is the centerpiece of Haaland’s first multi-state tour since being confirmed last month as the first Native American cabinet member, holding symbolic power given the importance of the monuments to Southwestern tribes.
“Bears Ears is sacred and deserves to be protected,” Nez said in a statement.
Nez said having Haaland sit at the head of the table during the consultation is a “historic moment” for Indian Country and made the case that the site is sacred for the Navajo and four other tribes who joined together in 2015 to propose the creation of the monument to protect cultural sites from vandalism, looting and energy development.
Haaland, whose job gives her oversight of America’s vast public and tribal lands, visited Utah’s San Juan county on Thursday and will visit Kane county on Friday as part of a review of their boundaries launched by Joe Biden on the Democrat president’s first day in office.
Trump, a Republican, had cut the size of the two formerly massive monuments by 2 million acres (8,000 square kilometers) combined at the request of Utah’s Republican lawmakers, removing protections that had hindered ranching, drilling, mining, and other development in an area twice the size of the state of Rhode Island.
President Barack Obama, a Democrat, had created the 1.3 million acre Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 under the U.S. Antiquities Act after tribes originally proposed the site to cover 1.9 million acres. Trump cut it to around 200,000 acres.
Tribes in the region consider the areas sacred and home to thousands of important cultural and archeological sites and want Haaland to recommend to Biden to go further than restoring Bears Ears to Obama’s boundaries, according to Pat Gonzales-Rogers, director of the Inter-Tribal Coalition.
“We are consistent in what we are asking for. The original tribal proposal and a path to making that permanent,” he said.
Grand Staircase-Escalante, meanwhile, was created by former President Bill Clinton, also a Democrat, in 1996 at 1.9 million acres and was cut roughly in half by Trump.
Under the Antiquities Act, presidents have the authority to create or alter national monuments unilaterally, which makes their protections uncertain over time.
Utah’s Republican Governor Spencer Cox, Senator Mitt Romney and Congressman John Curtis - who have advocated for a smaller protected area for both monuments - also met Haaland on Thursday.
“I’m hopeful this visit will ... highlight to the Secretary the importance of working with Congress toward a permanent legislative solution for the monuments’ boundaries and management that reflects the input of Utah’s state, local, and tribal leaders, rather than unilateral action,” Romney spokesperson Arielle Mueller said.
Earlier this month, the Utah delegation met tribal leaders from the Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian ahead of Haaland’s visit to try to reach a compromise on legislation to protect a smaller area of Bears Ears.
Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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759d30b9dbb847d72497ccf4c50fa6ec | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSKBN2BV1UE | Details of sweeping effort to counter China emerge in U.S. Senate | Details of sweeping effort to counter China emerge in U.S. Senate
By Patricia Zengerle, David Brunnstrom4 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee introduced legislation on Thursday to boost the country’s ability to push back against China’s expanding global influence by promoting human rights, providing security aid and investing to combat disinformation.
FILE PHOTO: Chinese and U.S. flags flutter outside the building of an American company in Beijing, China, January 21, 2021. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
The draft measure, titled the “Strategic Competition Act of 2021,” mandates diplomatic and strategic initiatives to counteract Beijing, reflecting hard-line sentiment on dealings with China from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
The 280-page bill addresses economic competition with China, but also humanitarian and democratic values, such as imposing sanctions over the treatment of the minority Muslim Uighurs and supporting democracy in Hong Kong.
It stressed the need to “prioritize the military investments necessary to achieve United States political objectives in the Indo-Pacific.” It called for spending to do so, saying Congress must ensure the federal budget is “properly aligned” with the strategic imperative to compete with China.
The bill recommends a total of $655 million in Foreign Military Financing funding for the region for fiscal 2022 through 2026, and a total of $450 million for the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative and related programs for the same period.
It would expand the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which scrutinizes financial transactions for potential national security risks. However, like many provisions of the bill, this clause could be changed as it moves through the committee and full Senate.
The draft legislation calls for an enhanced partnership with Taiwan, calling the self-ruled island “a vital part of the United States Indo-Pacific strategy” and saying there should be no restrictions on U.S. officials’ interaction with Taiwanese counterparts. China considers Taiwan a breakaway province.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a regular news briefing on Friday that China “resolutely opposes” the bill and called for senators to do more to help the stable development of China-U.S. relations.
Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou expressed thanks for the Senate’s show of support, adding it would pay close attention to the development of the legislation.
The bill also says Washington must encourage allies to do more about Beijing’s “aggressive and assertive behavior,” including working together on arms control.
Introduced by Senators Bob Menendez, the committee’s Democratic chairman, and Jim Risch, its ranking Republican, the draft bill was released to committee members to allow a markup, a meeting during which the panel will discuss amendments and vote, on April 14.
“I am confident that this effort has the necessary support to be overwhelmingly approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week and the full Senate shortly thereafter,” Menendez said in a statement.
Risch said in a statement he was also pleased the bill included a “strong and actionable” plan to counteract China’s influence efforts at U.S. universities.
The measure is part of a fast-track effort announced in February by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to pass legislation to counter China.
“Congress is extremely focused on the various challenges that China poses to American interests and is trying to develop effective responses that are within its purview,” said Center for Strategic and International Studies Asia expert Bonnie Glaser.
The Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on April 14 on its bipartisan measure, the “Endless Frontier Act,” to bolster the U.S. semiconductor industry.
Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, David Gregorio, Andrea Ricci and Nick MacfieOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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5023e88da87276b9df08f01bf6984890 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL2469631420071124 | U.S. to reduce Iraq troop levels by 5,000 | U.S. to reduce Iraq troop levels by 5,000
By Missy Ryan3 Min Read
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Overall U.S. troop levels in Iraq will fall by about 5,000 when a combat brigade completes its pullout from the country’s volatile Diyala province next month, U.S. military officials said on Saturday.
U.S. soldiers patrol in Baquba June 26, 2007. Overall U.S. troop levels in Iraq will fall by about 5,000 when a combat brigade completes its pullout from the country's volatile Diyala province next month, U.S. military officials said on Saturday. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
The 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division is the first brigade not be replaced by fresh troops from the United States since the U.S. commander in Iraq General David Petraeus announced plans to cut forces by some 20,000 by July 2008 as violence ebbs.
There are now about 162,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
While the brigade is leaving, the number of U.S. soldiers in Diyala will actually increase with units elsewhere in the country redeploying to the province northeast of Baghdad.
The 3rd Brigade was not part of President George W. Bush’s “surge” of 30,000 troops in the first half of 2007. But its departure marks the first big reversal of a troop build-up ordered to pull Iraq back from the brink of all-out civil war.
“The redeployment without replacement reflects overall improved security within Iraq,” military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told a news conference.
“If conditions continue to permit, a total of five brigade combat teams will be redeployed over the next eight months,” Smith said, putting a full brigade at 5,000-6,000 personnel.
Colonel David Sutherland, commander of the 3rd Brigade, told the news conference Diyala was a different province than when he deployed there 15 months ago.
“Today there is hope in Diyala,” he said.
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Sutherland painted a grim picture of Diyala’s recent past: a province in the grip of al Qaeda militants, where Iranian-backed militias plotted violent attacks and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party vied to regain power.
A dysfunctional government “afraid to come to work” and plagued by rampant corruption further undermined order, he said, while hapless residents were starved of basic services.
SUICIDE ATTACKS
But killings, kidnapping and suicide attacks had decreased in Diyala by over 68 percent since April, he said.
Sutherland said U.S. troops had particular success against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.
He also credited much of the improvement in Diyala to more effective Iraqi police and army, and to around 3,000 local men who had joined neighborhood watch patrols.
Some 700 of the so-called “concerned local citizens” had since signed up to join the Iraqi police, he added.
Sutherland said progress was also being made in cobbling together a measure of political consensus in the ethnically diverse province, home to more than two dozen major tribes.
But Diyala remains a dangerous place.
A suicide bomber killed at least 30 Iraqi policemen in the provincial capital Baquba in late October, while suspected al Qaeda militants beheaded a school guard and his wife on Friday in front of the victims’ children.
U.S. officials insist they are not abandoning Diyala. Beginning on November 27, troops from the larger 4th Striker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, located near Baghdad, will take over the area, military officials say.
Editing by Dean Yates and Charles DickOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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6806e84825bcad8a4288b9649fc01f7b | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSL2525249520061025 | Ireland considering immigration deal with U.S | Ireland considering immigration deal with U.S
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Thousands of Irish citizens living unlawfully in the United States could be legalized in return for more work permits for U.S. citizens lured to Ireland by its thriving economy, an Irish minister said on Wednesday.
“There is clear evidence to support the establishment of some form of bilateral agreement between the U.S. and Irish governments,” Labour Minister Tony Killeen said in a statement after he returned from a trip to New York.
Killeen said that, while 30,000 to 40,000 illegal Irish immigrants were living in the United States, two centuries of mass emigration to the United States from Ireland because of famine and unemployment was clearly now at an end.
Ireland’s Trade and Employment Ministry said more than 4,300 Americans immigrated to Ireland in search of employment in 2005, compared with 1,700 Irish people moving to the United States, where more than 10 percent of the population claims Irish descent.
Killeen said a jobs fair in New York showed how appealing Ireland had become in the wake of the “Celtic Tiger” boom.
“The interest expressed by Americans to come and work in Ireland was so great that a queue more than two-and-a-half blocks long formed outside the exhibition venue,” he said.
“In less than 15 years, Ireland has gone from being the sick man of Europe to one of the most dynamic economies in the developed world.”
Killeen told Reuters in New York last week that Ireland would also try to lure Irish and U.S. citizens back to Ireland where the population is now back above 4 million, having slumped to a 120-year low of 2.8 million in the 1960s.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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a43450a78a3e00e62926edef6905d8bc | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0427445620080106?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true | Clinton, Obama in New Hampshire dead heat | Clinton, Obama in New Hampshire dead heat
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent4 Min Read
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama has pulled into a virtual dead heat with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire two days before the state’s presidential nominating contest, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday.
Republican rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain are also essentially deadlocked as the White House races in both parties tightened ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
About half of the polling in the four-day tracking survey was conducted after the Iowa caucuses last Thursday, when Obama and Republican Mike Huckabee sailed to easy wins in the opening test of the U.S. presidential campaign.
Obama, an Illinois senator vying to be the first black president in U.S. history, pulled within one point of Clinton in the state’s Democratic race -- a statistically insignificant lead. The poll in both races had a 3.4 percentage point margin of error.
Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, led Obama 31 percent to 30 percent, with former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards at 20 percent. Before Iowa’s caucuses, Clinton led Obama by six points.
“We are seeing clear movement in Obama’s direction and away from Hillary Clinton,” pollster John Zogby said. “There isn’t much time for her to regroup here.”
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who lost in Iowa to Huckabee, gained two percentage points overnight to move ahead of McCain by one point, 32 percent to 31 percent, also well within the margin of error.
Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, was in third with 12 percent.
Slideshow ( 4 images )
TOO CLOSE
“It’s too close to call on the Republican side,” Zogby said. “Romney is leading among Republican voters, and there has been a little movement for Huckabee but not a lot.”
The rolling poll of 844 likely Democratic voters and 837 likely Republican voters was taken Wednesday through Saturday, before back-to-back debates by candidates in both parties on Saturday night.
New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday is the next battleground in the state-by-state process of choosing Republican and Democratic candidates for November’s election to replace President George W. Bush.
The state is vital to efforts by Clinton and Romney to revitalize their campaigns after disappointing showings in Iowa.
Zogby said Obama had been helped and McCain had been hurt by the preference of independents, who can vote in either party’s primary, to participate in the Democratic race.
McCain, an Arizona senator, won New Hampshire during his failed 2000 presidential bid with the help of substantial independent support.
But this year about 40 percent of independents expect to vote in the Democratic primary and only one-quarter in the Republican contest, Zogby said.
“Right now McCain’s biggest problem may be going after Republican votes because there just aren’t going to be as many opportunities among independents,” Zogby said. “Obama seems to be gaining ground among independents.”
Slideshow ( 4 images )
About 7 percent of Republicans and 6 percent of Democrats remain undecided, according to the New Hampshire poll.
In the Democratic race, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was in fourth place at 7 percent, ahead of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich at 3 percent.
In the Republican race, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was at 7 percent, slightly ahead of Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 6 percent. Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson was at 3 percent and California Rep. Duncan Hunter was at less than 1 percent.
The rolling tracking poll will continue each day until New Hampshire’s vote on Tuesday. In a rolling poll, the most recent day’s results are added while the oldest day’s results are dropped in order to track changing momentum.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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0733bbbe34b1cc9be8cd143aae5c4e43 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0442454120080206?sp=true | Clinton loans own money to keep up with Obama | Clinton loans own money to keep up with Obama
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent5 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton looked ahead on Wednesday to a long and bruising presidential battle, and Clinton said she had pumped $5 million of her own money into the costly fight to keep pace.
Republican John McCain, still facing conservative opposition, promised to unite his party as his coast-to-coast “Super Tuesday” wins in key states put him on the verge of clinching his party’s nomination and capping a stunning political comeback.
“I hope that at some point we would calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party,” the Arizona senator told reporters in Phoenix before a speech on Thursday to a conference of conservative activists in Washington.
Obama and Clinton battled to a draw on “Super Tuesday,” with Obama winning 13 states and Clinton eight, including the big prizes of California and New York. Their delegate race also was almost even, propelling the fight toward the next round of seven Democratic contests in the next six days.
Clinton tried to keep up with Obama’s growing fund-raising prowess -- he raised about $32 million in January to her less than $14 million -- by loaning her campaign $5 million late last month.
“I loaned it because I believe very strongly in this campaign,” she told reporters at her campaign headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, a state that votes next Tuesday.
“We had a great month fund-raising in January, broke all records, but my opponent was able raise more money and we intended to be competitive and we were and I think the results last night proved the wisdom of my investment,” she said.
Related CoverageWall Street settles in for protracted electionTalk show hosts voice alarm at McCain's riseSee more stories
Both candidates touted their performances on Tuesday and tried to lower expectations for the next contests, even as they looked toward a protracted Democratic fight.
“We’ve got many more rounds to fight and you know I think that Senator Clinton remains the favorite because of the enormous familiarity people have with her and the institutional support she has,” Obama told reporters in Chicago.
“But you know we’re turning out to be a scrappy little team,” he said. “I think we are less of an underdog than we were two weeks ago.”
The Democrats will square off in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington on Saturday, Maine on Sunday, and Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia on Tuesday.
Under Democratic Party rules, delegates are proportioned by results statewide and in individual congressional districts. This enables both candidates to roll up big delegate totals even in states they lose.
Slideshow ( 34 images )
TEXAS IN MARCH
That increased the likelihood that the hotly contested Democratic race could last well into March contests in Texas and Ohio, an April contest in Pennsylvania and perhaps all the way to the party convention in late August.
“As we go farther and farther into this, it is less and less likely that either side will be able to significantly amass a large delegate lead,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said. “Every single delegate is going to matter a great deal.”
Various counts put the Democratic race for pledged delegates in an essential deadlock. Obama led Clinton 838 to 834 in the MSNBC count, well short of the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.
Slideshow ( 34 images )
Clinton leads among “super-delegates,” the elected officials and party insiders who can switch allegiance at will.
All three of the senators in the presidential race -- Obama, Clinton and McCain -- returned to Washington on Wednesday to vote on an economic stimulus package in the Senate.
“We will unite the party behind our conservative principles and move forward to the general election in November,” McCain told reporters in Phoenix, acknowledging conservative concerns about his past stances on immigration, tax cuts and other issues.
McCain, whose campaign was all but dead last summer, won nine states on Tuesday, including California and New York, giving him a huge haul of the convention delegates who select the party’s presidential nominee.
Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee vowed to fight on but could face questions about their viability. Romney won seven states and Huckabee five on Tuesday.
The MSNBC count gave McCain 720 delegates, Romney 256 and Huckabee 194, pulling McCain closer to the 1,191 needed to clinch the nomination.
McCain, who lost the Republican primary race in 2000 to George W. Bush, dropped plans for a possible trip to Germany to attend an international security conference so he could focus on his campaign.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and wealthy venture capitalist who has spent at least $35 million of his own money on the race, has argued McCain lacks the conservative credentials to be the party nominee.
Romney also is scheduled to address the conference of conservative activists in Washington on Thursday, while Huckabee was to speak there on Saturday.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Jeff Mason, Andy Sullivan, Donna Smith; Editing by Chris Wilson)
For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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86face5e6b3bc105a6962d1f7b700ca8 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0530750720070305 | Cheney has blood clot in leg, returns to work | Cheney has blood clot in leg, returns to work
By Matt Spetalnick3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Doctors found a blood clot in U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s left leg on Monday but he was able to return to work and will be treated with blood thinning drugs, his office said.
Vice President Dick Cheney arrives to deliver remarks at the 34th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, March 1, 2007. Doctors found a blood clot in Cheney's left leg on Monday but he was not admitted to a hospital and will be treated with blood thinning medication, his office said. REUTERS/Jim Young
Cheney, 66, who has a long history of heart trouble, went in for tests after experiencing “mild calf discomfort” following a nine-day trip to Asia and the Middle East that ended last week, his spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said.
There was no need to admit him to hospital, she said.
“An ultrasound revealed a deep venous thrombosis or blood clot in his left lower leg,” she said.
“His doctors will treat him with blood thinning medication for several months. The vice president has returned to the White House to resume his schedule.”
Experts consider a blood clot in the leg to be dangerous if not treated properly because it can move to the heart and cause a heart attack, to the lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism or to the brain and cause a stroke.
Cheney, who has been one of President George W. Bush’s closest advisers and has wielded more power than many of his predecessors, has had four heart attacks but none since becoming vice president in January 2001.
Cheney spent 65 hours in the air during his recent trip, which included a visit to Afghanistan where a suicide bomber struck at the gates of the main U.S. military base while he was inside. U.S. officials say he was never in danger.
“In light of his recent prolonged air travel, he visited his doctor’s office,” McBride said. “He feels fine.”
Cheney had addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting at a Washington hotel on Monday morning, telling his audience he covered 25,000 miles on his latest foreign trip.
Stephen Siegel, a cardiologist at NYU Medical Center, said: “This is a very common, potentially life-threatening condition that’s easily controlled with medication.”
He said people can develop deep venous thrombosis from sitting for long periods and that calf pain or swelling is a common symptom. If the condition worsens, some people suffer shortness of breath or cough blood.
Cheney was given a clean bill of health on July 1 after routine tests to check on aneurysms on the backs of his knees. A pacemaker had been inserted in his chest in 2001.
In September 2005, Cheney underwent successful surgery to implant stent grafts behind both knees. They are tubes to help the blood flow through weakened arteries.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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872df5fa49181891e0cd55720c00badf | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0643711820070608 | Republican figure pleads guilty in Abramoff probe | Republican figure pleads guilty in Abramoff probe
By Andy Sullivan3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican activist pleaded guilty on Friday to obstructing Congress and evading taxes in a deal with prosecutors probing the influence-peddling scandal involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Italia Federici faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, but she will likely serve far less. Sentencing was set for November 16 and prosecutors will weigh the value of her cooperation in the ongoing investigation.
She also faces between $6,000 and $60,000 in fines and must pay taxes owed plus interest.
Abramoff, currently serving a six-year prison sentence, is at the center of a lobbying scandal that has resulted in prison time for several Bush administration officials and one congressman.
As head of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, Federici, 37, had close ties to senior Interior Department officials, including former Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Founded by Federici and Norton in 1997, CREA is a nonprofit group that touts Republicans’ environmental accomplishments and criticizes established environmental groups like the Sierra Club.
According to the plea agreement, Federici introduced Abramoff to the Interior Department’s No. 2 official, Steven Griles, in March 2001. Federici and Griles at the time had what the agreement describes as a “close, personal relationship.”
Federici served as a go-between for Griles and Abramoff, whose Indian-tribe clients had interests before the Interior Department.
Federici’s involvement masked the extent of Abramoff’s influence over Griles, the agreement says, allowing the two to discuss how to block casinos that might compete with those owned by Abramoff clients, among other matters.
According to the agreement, Abramoff and his clients donated roughly $500,000 of the $723,500 CREA took in during that time. The payments stopped in May 2003.
It also said Federici sought to minimize the extent of her involvement with Griles and Abramoff before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 2005.
Federici also admitted to failing to pay $77,243 in taxes she owed on the $233,955 she earned between 2001 and 2003 as head of CREA.
She pleaded guilty to both charges and her lawyers declined to comment after the hearing. She has previously expressed regret for her actions.
Griles pleaded guilty in March to obstructing Congress, becoming the highest-ranking Bush administration official convicted in the lobbying scandal. His sentencing is scheduled for June 26.
Former Republican Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio is also serving a 30-month prison sentence for accepting bribes.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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7553268875c467384d76465287a54e0a | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0748258120080507 | U.S. evangelicals call for step back from politics | U.S. evangelicals call for step back from politics
By Ed Stoddard4 Min Read
DALLAS (Reuters) - A group of U.S. evangelical leaders called on Wednesday for a pullback from party politics so that followers would not become “useful idiots” exploited for partisan gain.
One in four U.S. adults count themselves as evangelical Protestants, giving them serious clout in a country where religion and politics often mix. Conservative evangelicals have become a key support base for the Republican Party.
But the movement has had growing pains and the statement issued on Wednesday, called an “Evangelical Manifesto,” is the latest sign of emerging fractures as some activists seek to broaden its agenda beyond hot-button social issues such as opposition to abortion and gay rights.
“Christians from both sides of the political spectrum, left as well as right, have made the mistake of politicizing faith,” the manifesto declares.
“That way faith loses its independence, the church becomes ‘the regime at prayer,’ Christians become ‘useful idiots’ for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form,” it said.
The manifesto was signed by leading and mostly centrist evangelicals such as Leith Anderson, president of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals; Mark Bailey, president of the Dallas Theological Seminary; and evangelical academic and author David Gushee.
Many of the more than 70 signatories have been critical in the past of evangelical partisan involvement which was seen as the crucial element behind U.S. President George W. Bush’s re-election victory in 2004.
Leading figures on the conservative “Religious Right” such as Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, did not sign the document and his office said he had not been asked to sign it.
LIMITED POLITICAL IMPACT
Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said of the statement: “It’s a sign of maturation of the evangelical movement ... It’s an important theological document but it will have limited political influence because it is making a essentially a theological argument.”
The document also highlights divisions that have been there for a while as some leading evangelicals attempt to redirect the movement’s considerable energies toward areas such as action on global poverty and climate change.
Polls show growing numbers of evangelicals receptive to a wider social agenda and Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been attempting to woo them in a bid to peel some away from the Republican camp ahead of the November election showdown with John McCain.
But analysts say most are still center-right politically and polls consistently show most remain opposed to abortion rights. They are also deeply committed to their faith.
“We have a big umbrella called evangelicalism which is theological in nature. We are called to be followers of Jesus Christ and men and women of the book,” said John Huffman, a pastor and chairman of the board of Christianity Today.
Huffman, who helped draft the document, told Reuters by telephone that the group wanted to bring back “civility of discourse in the public square.”
Editing by Michael Conlon and Mohammad ZarghamOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1c1ffd84436aee89229111e93ce4e3a9 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1026419120071010?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true | Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a "disaster" for U.S | Jimmy Carter calls Cheney a "disaster" for U.S
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a “disaster” for the country and a “militant” who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.
Former President Jimmy Carter speaks during a news conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, June 16, 2007. Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a "disaster" for the country and a "militant" who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy. REUTERS/Shruti Shrestha
Cheney has been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including an internal White House discussion over Syria in which the vice president is thought to be pushing a tough approach, Carter said.
“He’s a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world,” Carter told the BBC World News America in an interview to air later on Wednesday.
“You know he’s been a disaster for our country,” Carter said. “I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush and quite often he’s prevailed.”
Asked to comment on Carter’s remarks, Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the Republican vice president, said, “We’re not going to engage in this type of rhetoric.”
Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981 and won the 2002 Nobel Peace prize for his charitable work, is a strong critic of the Iraq war and has often been outspoken in his criticism of President George W. Bush.
In a newspaper interview in May, Carter called the Bush administration the “worst in history” in international relations.
Carter did have kind words in the BBC interview for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“I’m filled with admiration for Condoleezza Rice in standing up to (Cheney) which she did even when she was in the White House under President George W. Bush,” Carter said, referring to Rice’s former role as White House national security adviser.
“Now secretary of state, her influence is obviously greater than it was then and I hope she prevails,” Carter added.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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18f6d9c4f8a34d71371094d4210efa1a | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1445612820070814 | Ex-House Speaker Hastert to retire: source | Ex-House Speaker Hastert to retire: source
By Reuters Staff2 Min Read
House Speaker Dennis Hastert tours Clarity Communication Systems in Aurora, Illinois, October 10, 2006. Hastert is expected to announce on Friday his retirement from Congress, a House Republican aide said on Tuesday. REUTERS/John Gress
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert is expected to announce on Friday his retirement from Congress, a House Republican aide said on Tuesday.
“He is going to announce a retirement ... that’s definitive,” said the aide, who asked not to be identified.
But the aide added that it was not yet clear whether Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker before stepping down after the 2006 elections, would leave his Illinois congressional seat immediately or would serve out his term, which runs through next year.
Hastert became speaker, the most powerful position in the House and second in line for the presidency after the vice president, in 1999 and held the office until Democrats took control of chamber last January.
The former high school teacher and wrestling coach was a loyal supporter of President George W. Bush’s agenda, including the Iraq war.
Voters in last November’s congressional elections ejected Republicans from control of the House and Senate largely because of growing discontent with the war, but also because of a series of ethics scandals that enveloped Republicans in the House.
Following the election defeat, Hastert did not seek his party’s top leadership position in the House and became part of the rank-and-file in the 435-member body, although one who still wielded some influence.
Hastert, then a relatively unknown congressman, became speaker after a tumultuous period in U.S. politics, not long after bruising impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s and the resignation of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Hastert, now in his 11th two-year term in the House, has represented a northern Illinois district west of Chicago.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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1eb033040f58d3b35e677dd98d5a13b0 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1524505720070815?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews | Rumsfeld resigned before election, letter shows | Rumsfeld resigned before election, letter shows
By Kristin Roberts3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq war, resigned as defense secretary before last year’s November election but his decision was not announced until after the voting, according to his resignation letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
President Bush escorts Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from the Oval Office of the White House after announcing Rumsfeld's replacement in Washington, November 8, 2006. Rumsfeld, architect of the unpopular Iraq war, resigned as defense secretary before last year's November election but his decision was not announced until after the voting, according to his resignation letter obtained by Reuters on August 15, 2007. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The letter was dated November 6, the day before voters, angered by Iraq, went to the polls and swept President George W. Bush’s Republicans from power in Congress. According to a stamp on the letter, Bush saw it on election day.
The president, however, did not announce that Rumsfeld would leave until the day after the election.
That infuriated some Republicans, who said their party might have kept more seats in Congress and perhaps kept control of the Senate if Rumsfeld had left before the election.
Rumsfeld did not mention the Iraq war in his four-paragraph resignation letter.
Instead, the man who had become the focal point for critics of the Bush administration’s management of the war, praised the president for his leadership.
“I leave with great respect for you and for the leadership you have provided during a most challenging time for our country. The focus, determination and perseverance you have so consistently provided have been needed and are impressive,” Rumsfeld told Bush.
“It is time to conclude my service. As I do, I want you to know that you have my continuing and heartfelt support as you enter the final two years of your presidency,” Rumsfeld wrote.
Rumsfeld also praised U.S. troops for their dedication, professionalism, courage and sacrifice.
Just days before the election, Bush told reporters he would like Rumsfeld to stay on for the rest of his presidency but later admitted he intentionally misled them.
“I know that one of the things that the president wanted to avoid was the appearance of trying to make this a political decision,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters in Crawford, Texas.
“And that was very important to him. And I think that the American people can appreciate not playing politics with such an important decision,” she said.
MISSING LETTER?
Reuters obtained the letter from a U.S. official on Wednesday after the Pentagon in April said it did not have a copy.
Defense Department spokesmen repeatedly refused to release the resignation letter in November 2006.
Reuters then sought the letter twice under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal law that allows the public to seek release of government documents.
But in response to the request, the Defense Department said it did not have the letter. The White House office likely to hold the letter is not subject to FOIA, according to the White House’s response in May to Reuters’ FOIA request.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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764d8f3c24209676d22aa5067125b7d4 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1536962020071015?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true | McCain would exclude Russia from G8 nations | McCain would exclude Russia from G8 nations
By Steve Holland4 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Monday if elected he would push to exclude Russia from the Group of Eight conclave of major industrial nations to punish Moscow for rolling back political freedoms.
Republican presidential hopeful and U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Az) speaks to the National Rifle Association's 'Celebration of American Values Conference' in Washington, September 21, 2007. REUTERS/Larry Downing
“We need a new Western approach to this revanchist Russia,” McCain wrote in a Foreign Affairs magazine article outlining his views on foreign policy looking ahead to the November 2008 election.
The Group of Eight, known as the G8, includes the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and Russia. Their leaders gather each year in one of their countries to discuss major economic and political challenges facing the globe.
Russia is a fairly recent entry into the group, joining the Group of Seven in 1997, and President Vladimir Putin played host to the annual G8 summit in St. Petersburg in 2006.
McCain, an Arizona senator who frequently denigrates Putin, said the G8 should again become “a club of leading market democracies: It should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia.”
“Today, we see in Russia diminishing political freedoms, a leadership dominated by a clique of former intelligence officers, efforts to bully democratic neighbors, such as Georgia, and attempts to manipulate Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas,” McCain wrote.
At age 71 trying to become the oldest American to win a first term as president, McCain said the challenges facing the country are such that “there will be no time for on-the-job training.”
McCain sought to distance himself from the foreign policies of President George W. Bush in the article, never mentioning the current president, while singling out Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, for praise for forming a broad international coalition during the Gulf War of the early 1990s.
He said years of “mismanagement and failure in Iraq” are proof that the United States should go to war only with sufficient troop levels and with a realistic and comprehensive plan for success.
But he said the current U.S. troop build-up is working in Iraq and should be pursued, dismissing Democratic candidates who promise a quick pullout.
“The war in Iraq cannot be wished away, and it is a miscalculation of historic magnitude to believe that the consequence of failure will be limited to one administration or one party,” he wrote.
McCain said if elected he would set up a new intelligence agency patterned after the Office of Strategic Services, the World War Two predecessor to the CIA, to fight “terrorist subversion around the world and in cyberspace.”
“It could take risks that our bureaucracies today rarely consider taking -- such as deploying infiltrating agents without diplomatic cover in terrorist states and organizations -- and play a key role in frontline efforts to rebuild failed states,” he said.
To fight climate change, McCain said he would do what the current administration has refused to do. He would agree to set reasonable caps on emissions of carbon dioxide and provide industries with tradable emissions credits.
To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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998b2ad9ec62eaa433beba91840b1102 | https://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1722414920070717 | Veterans Affairs secretary to step down | Veterans Affairs secretary to step down
By Kristin Roberts3 Min Read
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson said on Tuesday he would step down, leaving an agency criticized for the care provided to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson appears to testify at a senate hearing concerning a recent massive identity theft case at the agency in Washington in this May 25, 2006 file photo. Nicholson said on Tuesday he would step down, leaving an agency that with the military has been criticized for the care received by Iraq war veterans. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Nicholson, whose resignation is effective no later than October 1, said he wanted to return to the private sector.
“This coming February, I turn 70 years old, and I feel it is time for me to get back into business, while I still can,” he said in a prepared statement.
Nicholson was sworn in on February 1, 2005. He has also served in the Bush administration as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and was a former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
The Veterans Affairs Department (VA) and Pentagon have faced increasing criticism this year for the quality and level of care received by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Reports have shown that the rise in post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury among returning troops has not been met with more resources to deal with mental health problems.
Some critics also say the Veterans Affairs Department is still unprepared and lacks the budget to care for a coming wave of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who will draw on veterans care benefits when they leave the military.
Also, during Nicholson’s tenure, personal information on 26.5 million U.S. veterans was stolen from an agency employee who took the data home without authorization. That laptop was later recovered.
“It is clear that Secretary Nicholson is leaving the VA worse off than he found it,” said Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, a Democrat running for president.
“He oversaw one of the most tumultuous periods in recent VA history, including billion-dollar budget shortfalls, ongoing cuts in services to certain groups of veterans, and the continuation of a dysfunctional bureaucracy that keeps many veterans from getting the disability benefits they deserve.”
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Nicholson could have served longer had he wanted to.
“He certainly could have served longer if he had so desired,” Snow said.
“There’s no back story here. He called up, said he wanted to leave and move on, and the president accepted his resignation.”
Additional reporting by Tabassum ZakariaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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