The Ford logo is seen at the Ford oldest Brazil plant after company announced its closure in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil February 21, 2019. REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli
March 30, 2019
By Marcelo Rochabrun
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Brazilian automaker CAOA has signed a confidentiality agreement to negotiate a potential purchase of Ford Motor Co’s plant in the industrial city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Ford in February announced it would shut down the plant, its oldest one in the country, amid a global restructuring plan, costing 3,000 jobs.
The announcement triggered a campaign led by Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria to find a buyer for the space.
Reuters reported CAOA’s interest in the factory last month, but at the time there were up to three different companies interested in buying it up.
Ford declined to comment on the confidentiality agreement or whether CAOA had been the one to sign it. CAOA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Negotiations are not final, but it is a sign that the two companies are closer to reaching a deal, the source said.
Brazil has long been South America’s automaking hub and has led many brand name global carmakers to set up shop here. But CAOA is the rare company that is actually domestically owned. It currently produces cars for Hyundai and owns a 50 percent stake in China’s Chery operation in Brazil, which led to the rebranding of the cars as CAOA Chery.
It also has a close relationship with Ford as its single largest distributor in Brazil.
(Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun, Editing by Franklin Paul)
The 16 felony charges dropped by Cook County prosecutors against actor Jussie Smollett represent a “whitewash of justice,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“This is a whitewash of justice,” Emanuel said Tuesday during a joint press conference with the Chicago Police. “A grand jury could not have been clearer.”
“I’d like to remind everybody that a grand jury indicted this individual based on only a piece of the evidence that the police had collected in that period of a time. So a grand jury actually brought the charges.”
“Where is the accountability in the system?” he added. “You cannot have, because of a person’s position, one set of rules apply to them and another set of rules apply to everybody else.”
Smollett exploited Chicago’s hate crime laws to his advantage, the Chicago mayor asserted.
“He took those laws, turned them inside out, upside down, for only one thing: himself,” he said.
Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson also expressed his frustration during the press conference.
“Do I think justice was served? No…I think this city is still owed an apology,” he told reporters.
“They chose to hide behind secrecy and broker a deal to circumvent the judicial system.”
“It’s Mr. Smollett who committed this hoax. Period,” Johnson added. “If he wanted to clear his name, the way to do that is in a court of law so everyone can see the evidence.”
“After reviewing all of the facts and circumstances of the case, including Mr. Smollett’s volunteer service in the community and agreement to forfeit his bond to the City of Chicago, we believe this outcome is a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case,” the statement said.
FILE PHOTO: A street vendor stands next to his stall in front of a jewellery shop in Istanbul, Turkey, April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
April 15, 2019
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s unemployment rate surged to 14.7 percent in the December-February period, its highest level in almost 10 years, data from the Turkish Statistics Institute showed on Monday.
Non-agricultural unemployment stood at 16.8 percent in the same period, the data showed. In the November-January period, unemployment stood at 13.5 percent while non-agricultural unemployment was at 15.6 percent.
Unemployment last stood at 14.7 percent in the February-April period of 2009.
(Reporting by Behiye Selin Taner; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Dominic Evans)
The German share price index DAX graph is pictured at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, April 10, 2019. REUTERS/Staff
April 11, 2019
By Susan Mathew and Medha Singh
(Reuters) – European shares slipped on Thursday as comments from the U.S. and European central banks added to concerns about the risks of a slowdown in global growth, but strong gains by LVMH boosted luxury goods stocks and buoyed equities in France.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.2 percent by 0907 GMT, led by declines in Milan and Madrid, but Paris rose 0.3 percent.
The European Central Bank stood pat on borrowing rates on Wednesday and said threats to global economic growth remained, while the U.S. Federal Reserve reiterated its patient stance on similar grounds, citing risks from an unresolved trade dispute with China and potentially, Europe.
“At least on (the) part of the ECB, they seem to be slightly less certain on their outlook that (growth) will rebound but they are still hoping this,” said Bas van Geffen, a quantitative analyst ECB at Rabobank.
“The question is to what extent are markets going to see this as indeed ‘low rates for longer’ and, if so, how concerned are they on the growth cautions.”
Ireland’s ISEQ stock index was flat after the European Union gave British Prime Minister Theresa May until October to leave the bloc, but the lack of clarity on when, how or even if Brexit will happen, kept a lid on gains.
ASML was one of the biggest drags on the pan-region index after a media report said Chinese employees stole corporate secrets from the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker, resulting in hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in losses. ASML, in response, said that a U.S. software subsidiary was the victim of corporate theft several years ago, but denied that the information stolen was a blueprint for its lithography machines.
German silicon wafer maker Siltronic fell 2.1 percent after Credit Suisse cut its target price for the company by 12 euros.
Material stocks lost 1.2 percent with mining majors BHP and Rio Tinto, tracking a decline in iron ore and copper prices.
Utilities were dragged 1 percent lower, with Engie down 1.8 percent after Morgan Stanley downgraded it to “equal-weight” from “overweight” as it sees headwinds in 2019.
Prysmian shed more than 8.5 percent and was among the biggest percentage decliners on the STOXX 600 as the Italian cable maker said it would review its financial results for last year.
On the other hand, LVMH surged to an all-time high, up 4 percent after sales growth at the luxury goods conglomerate picked up pace in the first quarter.
Other luxury good stocks such as Kering, Christian Dior, Moncler and Burberry also climbed.
Sodexo jumped 5.4 percent after the French food services group reported a stronger-than-expected rise in first-half revenues as growth accelerated in North America during the second quarter.
EssilorLuxottica SA was also among the biggest boosts as Citigroup upgraded shares of the world’s largest eyewear maker to “neutral”.
(Reporting by Susan Mathew, Medha Singh and Agamoni Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Susan Fenton)
FILE PHOTO: Vapor is released into the sky at a refinery in Wilmington, California March 24, 2012. REUTERS/Bret Hartman/File Photo
February 25, 2019
(Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers on Monday asked the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general to investigate whether two senior agency officials violated ethics rules by helping reverse an enforcement decision against their former client company.
The request comes as Democrats, who now control Congress and oppose President Donald Trump’s push to roll back environmental regulation to help businesses, scrutinize top officials at EPA who have worked as industry lobbyists in the past.
House energy committee chairman Frank Pallone and Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Tom Carper asked the acting inspector general of the EPA to investigate whether the agency’s Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum and Senior Counsel David Harlow violated federal ethics law.
At issue is their alleged involvement in a December 2017 EPA memo that changed agency policy in a way that benefited DTE Energy, a client of Wehrum and Harlow at their previous employer, Hunton & Williams, a law firm representing energy industry companies.
DTE had been in a legal battle with the EPA since 2010 over whether the agency could fine it for expanding a coal-fired power plant in Michigan without having added new emissions controls, even before any significant increase in pollution from the facility had occurred.
In the memo, then-Administrator Scott Pruitt changed the EPA’s stance to agree with DTE that fines should come only after emissions increase, not before – a decision that effectively took EPA’s preventative effort to fine DTE off the table.
“The DTE memo is plainly a substantial decision that had a direct and predictable effect on a particular matter involving a client represented by their former law firm,” the lawmakers wrote.
EPA spokesman John Konkus said EPA appointees receive rigorous ethics training from career ethics officials.
“Each of them understand and strive to uphold their ethical obligations,” he said.
Wehrum told the Washington Post, which first reported on the officials’ involvement in the memo, that he believed he complied with agency ethics policies.
“I have, from day one, tried to be absolutely strict and assiduous as to what I do about complying with my ethical obligations,” Wehrum told the Washington Post.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Dan Grebler)
DHAKA, Bangladesh – The Latest on a fire in Bangladesh's capital (all times local):
8:45 a.m.
Officials say the fire that burned through buildings in an old part of Bangladesh's capital has killed at least 69 people.
The fire in Dhaka was mostly under control early Thursday after more than nine hours of frantic efforts by firefighters.
The Chawkbazar area where the fire was burning is crammed with buildings separated by narrow alleys and is a mix of homes, shops and warehouses.
Mahfuz Riben, a control room official of the Fire Service and Civil Defense in Dhaka, said the death toll had risen to 69 and many victims had become trapped in the buildings.
He told AP by telephone, "Our teams are working there but many of the recovered bodies are beyond recognition. Our people are using body bags to send them to the hospital morgue, this is a very difficult situation."
___
7 a.m.
A devastating fire has raced through at least five buildings in an old part of Bangladesh's capital and killed at least 45 people.
About 50 other people have been injured and the fire in Dhaka is not yet under control.
The fire department's Director General Brig. Gen. Ali Ahmed said early Thursday the blaze broke out in the Chawkbazar area Wednesday night in one building but quickly spread.
Ali said by early Thursday rescuers recovered at least 45 bodies as they were trying to get the blaze under control.
Some floors of the destroyed buildings had chemicals and plastic in storage.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of U.S. conglomerate General Electric is pictured at the company's site of its energy branch in Belfort, France, February 5, 2019. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler/File Photo
March 26, 2019
(Reuters) – General Electric Co has reached a $49 million settlement to end a long-running lawsuit over its relationship with Thomas Petters, the Minnesota businessman serving a 50-year prison term for running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
The settlement between GE and a trustee for two bankrupt Florida investment funds known as Palm Beach Finance was disclosed in a Tuesday filing with the federal bankruptcy court in West Palm Beach, Florida.
GE denied liability in agreeing to settle.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Cambodian authorities have ordered a one-hour reduction in the length of school days because of concerns that students and teachers may fall ill from a prolonged heat wave.
Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said in an announcement seen Friday that the shortened hours will remain in effect until the rainy season starts, which usually occurs in May. The current heat wave, in which temperatures are regularly reaching as high as 41 Celsius (106 Fahrenheit), is one of the longest in memory.
Most schools in Cambodia lack air conditioning, prompting concern that temperatures inside classrooms could rise to unhealthy levels.
School authorities were instructed to watch for symptoms of heat stroke and urge pupils to drink more water.
The new hours cut 30 minutes off the beginning of the school day and 30 minutes off the end.
School authorities instituted a similar measure in 2016.
LONDON – Explosions have rocked Britain’s largest steel plant, injuring two people and shaking nearby homes.
South Wales Police say the incident at the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot was reported at about 3:35 a.m. Friday (22:35 EDT Thursday). The explosions touched off small fires, which are under control. Two workers suffered minor injuries and all staff members have been accounted for.
Police say early indications are that the explosions were caused by a train used to carry molten metal into the plant. Tata Steel says its personnel are working with emergency services at the scene.
Local lawmaker Stephen Kinnock says the incident raises concerns about safety.
He tweeted: “It could have been a lot worse … @TataSteelEurope must conduct a full review, to improve safety.”
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Ryan Woo
LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.
But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.
The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.
LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.
Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.
“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.
In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.
A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.
No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.
The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.
“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.
Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.
That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.
(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)
NEED FOR CASH
LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.
The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.
After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.
Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.
That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.
“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.
FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.
Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.
Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.
But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.
“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.
Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.
Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.
In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.
STATE COMPETITION
China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.
In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.
The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.
In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.
The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.
At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.
Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.
The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.
“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
JOHANNESBURG – At least one person is reported dead and homes have been destroyed by a powerful cyclone that struck northern Mozambique and continues to dump rain on the region, with the United Nations warning of “massive flooding.”
Cyclone Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique, killing more than 600 people and displacing scores of thousands. The U.N. says this is the first time in known history that the southern African nation has been hit by two cyclones in one season.
Forecasters say the new cyclone made landfall Thursday night in a part of Mozambique that has not seen such a storm in at least 60 years.
Mozambique’s local emergency operations center says a woman in the city of Pemba was killed by a falling tree.
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
April 26, 2019
By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger
BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.
Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.
Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.
A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.
“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.
About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.
Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.
Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.
Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.
“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.
He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.
Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.
Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.
Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.
“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.
This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.
(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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