The North Korea flag flutters next to concertina wire at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su
March 26, 2019
By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Russia sent home nearly two-thirds of some 30,000 North Koreans working there during 2018 and China repatriated more than half, but did not specify a figure, according to unpublished reports by Moscow and Beijing to the United Nations Security Council.
The one-page reports, seen by Reuters on Tuesday, were submitted to the council’s North Korea sanctions committee in compliance with a 2017 resolution that demanded the repatriation of all North Korean workers by the end of this year to stop them earning foreign currency for leader Kim Jong Un’s authorities.
The United States has said it believed Pyongyang was earning more than $500 million a year from nearly 100,000 workers abroad, of which some 80,000 were in China and 30,000 in Russia.
The U.N. Security Council has steadily toughened sanctions on North Korea since 2006 to choke off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have met twice in the past year in a bid to negotiate denuclearization.
The December 2017 U.N. resolution required countries to report to the sanctions committee this month on all North Korean workers repatriated during 2018 “including an explanation of why less than half of such” workers were repatriated if applicable.
Russia reported that in 2018 the number of North Koreans “with valid work permits in the Russian Federation decreased from 30,023 to 11,490 persons.” Key North Korean ally China said it had repatriated “more than half of the total DPRK nationals earning income.”
“China will continue earnestly implementing its international obligations, carry out the repatriation work in an orderly manner and complete the repatriation on time,” wrote China’s mission to the United Nations, adding that it did not want the report to be made public.
In 2015, U.N. human rights investigator Marzuki Darusman said that the North Koreans abroad worked mainly in mining, logging, textile and construction. The reports submitted by Russia and China to the sanctions committee did not specify what industries had employed the North Koreans.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a 2017 report that “the treatment of North Korean workers overseas falls short of international labor standards, with no right to freedom of association or expression, control by minders who limit freedom of movement and access to information from the outside world, long working hours and no right to refuse overtime.”
North Korea has said its laborers were working abroad legally and were not mistreated or forced to go.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Michael Perry)
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's state-run IRNA news agency says President Hassan Rouhani has rejected the resignation of Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
The report on Wednesday comes after Zarif's sudden resignation late on Monday night.
It's unclear what will happen next. Zarif could stop going to work at the Foreign Ministry, forcing Rouhani's hand. But there's no precedent for that in the history of the Islamic Republic.
Zarif more than likely will return to work. There was no immediate response from the 59-year-old diplomat.
Both Rouhani and Zarif face growing pressure from hard-liners and the public over the country's unraveling nuclear deal, which both men negotiated.
NEW ORLEANS – Authorities say five people waiting at a downtown New Orleans bus stop were wounded by gunfire during a police shootout with an armed robbery suspect.
The shootout happened Sunday night, and officials say the robbery suspect was killed during the exchange of gunfire.
News outlets report the New Orleans Police Department says officers confronted a man deemed a person of interest in an armed robbery investigation. Police say the man, whom they haven't identified, pulled out a gun and started shooting.
Of five people wounded at the bus stop, four victims were listed in stable condition at a local hospital, while the fifth victim was in critical condition Sunday night. Authorities haven't released their names.
Local media says 10 shootings were reported across the New Orleans region over the weekend.
A pigeon flies past the logo of Vodafone in Kiev, Ukraine, March 15, 2016. REUTERS/Gleb Garanich
March 11, 2019
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – A unit of Vodafone PLC has offered voluntary redundancy to thousands of staff members in New Zealand, the company said on Monday, as part of plans to review its business ahead of a possible stock market listing next year.
Vodafone New Zealand said about 2,000 employees – with the exception of frontline call center and retail team members – were asked in February if they would consider redundancy.
A small proportion have taken up the opportunity, a spokeswoman of the company told Reuters.
“We’re now in the process of working through those expressions of interest and will evaluate them based on ensuring customer service levels are preserved, business continuity maintained, and key skills are retained and developed to drive for our future growth,” she said in an email.
Vodafone New Zealand said in December that it was reviewing all areas of its business to improve its performance and that a new operating model would be finalised in March.
There are no pre-determined number or type of roles that would be impacted, it had said at the time.
Vodafone New Zealand’s newly installed CEO Jason Paris said late last year that the company was being restructured to get it into shape for an initial public offering in 2020.
The firm has about 3,000 employees and 72 retail shops across New Zealand. It has accumulated 2.4 million customers since it started operations in 1998, its website shows.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
NICOSIA, Cyprus – A Cypriot law enforcement official says a court has fined a U.S. national and a Norwegian man 6,000 euros ($6,730) each for illegally searching for an old shipwreck off the east Mediterranean island's coast.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to disclose details of the case publicly, said Friday authorities had received a tip in February that the two men were looking for the shipwreck aboard a research vessel.
The 36-year-old American and 44-year-old Norwegian were convicted last month on two charges of conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor and attempting to illegally search for antiquities without formal authorization.
Cyprus has a seafaring tradition going back thousands of years. Wrecks discovered off its coast are dated as far back as the 5th century B.C.
Pope Francis addresses reporters aboard the plane bringing him back following a two-day trip to Morocco March 31, 2019. Alberto Pizzoli/Pool via REUTERS
March 31, 2019
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Sunday said political leaders who want walls and other barriers to keep migrants out “will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build”.
The pope made his comments to reporters aboard the plane returning from Morocco in response to a question about migration in general and about U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to shut down the southern border with Mexico.
“Builders of walls, be they made of razor wire or bricks, will end up becoming prisoners of the walls they build,” he said.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
In an interview in a book published by French politician and essayist Philippe de Villiers, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says there is no place for multiculturalism in Hungary.
“What outrages our opponents the most is the fact that in our Constitution we have written that Hungary has Christian roots, that here there is no place for multiculturalism, that a child has the right to a mother and a father, and that our nation has the right to defend its borders.”
Orbán stated that the Hungarian people have long-standing traditions of resistance to “limited sovereignty”: “First there were the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire, then the khans of the vast Mongol Empire, followed by the sultans of the Ottoman Empire; and then the Soviet comrades and their tanks. All of them wanted to put an end to Hungary”, he said, “but mysteriously the Hungarian people have survived in a boundless sea of Germans and Slavs.”multimulti
Asked if he is concerned today about the danger of national dissolution, Orbán said that he sees disintegration of the EU as a greater danger, with a line dividing Europe into two parts – one which is becoming Islamised, and one which does not want to become Islamised.
He outlined the choices thus: “If they leave us alone and do not force Islamisation upon us, Europe can live on as a club of free nations. If, however, they force us to accept the UN’s migration compact or the decisions of the European Commission, thereby aligning us with their permissive Western policy, disintegration cannot be ruled out.”
FILE PHOTO: Cases of Pepsi are shown for sale at a store in Carlsbad, California, U.S., April 22, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Amit Dave and Mayank Bhardwaj
AHMEDABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – PepsiCo Inc has sued four Indian farmers for cultivating a potato variety that the snack food and drinks maker claims infringes its patent, the company and the growers said on Friday.
Pepsi has sued the farmers for cultivating the FC5 potato variety, exclusively grown for its popular Lay’s potato chips. The FC5 variety has a lower moisture content required to make snacks such as potato chips.
PepsiCo is seeking more than 10 million rupees ($142,840.82) each for alleged patent infringement.
The farmers grow potatoes in the western state of Gujarat, a leading producer of India’s most consumed vegetable.
“We have been growing potatoes for a long time and we didn’t face this problem ever, as we’ve mostly been using the seeds saved from one harvest to plant the next year’s crop,” said Bipin Patel, one of the four farmers sued by Pepsi.
Patel did not say how he came by the PepsiCo variety.
A court in Ahmedabad, the business hub of Gujarat, on Friday agreed to hear the case on June 12, said Anand Yagnik, the lawyer for the farmers.
“In this instance, we took judicial recourse against people who were illegally dealing in our registered variety,” A PepsiCo India spokesman said. “This was done to protect our rights and safeguard the larger interest of farmers that are engaged with us and who are using and benefiting from seeds of our registered variety.”
PepsiCo, which set up its first potato chips plant in India in 1989, supplies the FC5 potato variety to a group of farmers who in turn sell their produce to the company at a fixed price.
The All India Kisan Sabha, or All India Farmers’ Forum, has asked the Indian government to protect the farmers.
The farmers’ forum has also called for a boycott of PepsiCo’s Lay’s chips and the company’s other products.
The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
PepsiCo is the second major U.S. company in India to face issues over patent infringement.
Stung by a long-standing intellectual property dispute, seed maker Monsanto, which is now owned by German drugmaker Bayer AG, withdrew from some businesses in India over a cotton-seed dispute with farmers, Reuters reported in 2017. (reut.rs/2ncBknn)
(Reporting by Amit Dave in AHMEDABAD and Mayank Bhardwaj in NEW DELHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Louise Heavens)
FILE PHOTO: The Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By P.J. Huffstutter and Shradha Singh
CHICAGO/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Archer Daniels Midland Co said on Friday it was considering spinning off its ethanol business after slim biofuel margins and Midwestern floods slammed the U.S. grains merchant’s profit, which tumbled 41 percent in the first quarter.
ADM said it was creating an ethanol subsidiary, which will include dry mills in Columbus, Nebraska; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Peoria, Illinois.
The ethanol subsidiary will report as an independent segment, the company said, allowing options “which may include, but are not limited to, a potential spin-off of the business to existing ADM shareholders.”
Results were hit by the “bomb cyclone” blizzards that devastated the Midwest and Great Plains this year, causing massive flooding across Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, washing out rail lines and wreaking havoc in the moving and processing of corn, soybeans and wheat. One-sixth of U.S. ethanol production was halted.
In March, ADM warned Wall Street that flooding and severe winter weather in the U.S. Midwest would reduce its first-quarter operating profit by $50 million to $60 million.
“The first quarter proved more challenging than initially expected,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Juan Luciano, with earnings down in its starches, sweeteners and bioproducts unit. Luciano said impacts of the severe weather ultimately “were on the high side of our initial estimates”.
Ongoing problems in the ethanol industry added to the problems and “limited margins and opportunities” for ADM, Luciano said.
The ethanol industry has been in the midst of a historic downswing due to the U.S.-China trade war, excess domestic supply and weak margins.
ADM, which had been an ethanol pioneer, signaled to Wall Street in 2016 that it was hunting for options and considering sales of its U.S. dry ethanol mills. Luciano told Reuters this year that offers ADM had received for the mills were too low.
In addition, ADM said it planned to repurpose its corn wet mill in Marshall, Minnesota, to produce higher volumes of food and industrial-grade starches.
Other major traders are alsy trying to distance themselves from struggling ethanol businesses. Louis Dreyfus Company BV spun off its Brazilian sugar and ethanol business Biosev in 2013. Rival Bunge sold its sugar book and has sought a buyer for its Brazilian mills since 2013.
ADM, which makes money trading, processing and transporting crops, such as corn, soybeans and wheat, has been looking to strengthen its core business. Last month it said it would seek voluntary early retirements of some North American employees and cut jobs as part of a restructuring effort.
The company expects to lower 2019 capital spending by 10 percent to between $800 million and $900 million.
Net earnings attributable to the company fell to $233 million, or 41 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, from $393 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.
Revenue fell to $15.30 billion from $15.53 billion. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share, while analysts on average had estimated 60 cents, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
(Reporting by Shradha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta, Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio)
FILE PHOTO: The Slack app logo is seen on a smartphone in this picture illustration taken September 15, 2017. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – Slack Technologies Inc, operator of the popular workplace instant-messaging app, reported a loss of $140.7 million in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2019, the company said on Friday in a regulatory filing ahead of its planned public market debut.
The company said its daily active users exceeded 10 million in the three months ended Jan. 31, 2019.
Slack expects to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SK”, it said.
The San Francisco-based company is seeking to go public via a direct listing, making it the second big technology company after Spotify Technology SA to bypass the traditional route of listing shares through an initial public offering.
A direct listing is a cheaper way of becoming a public company as the process requires fewer investment banks and therefore lower fees.
In a direct listing, however, a company does not sell any new shares to raise money. Instead, it gives existing shareholders the opportunity to cash out.
Slack is the latest in a string of high-profile technology companies looking to go public this year. Lyft Inc, Pinterest and Zoom Video Communications have completed IPOs so far in 2019.
The company is hoping for a valuation of more than $10 billion in the listing, Reuters had previously reported. Some early investors and employees have been selling the stock at around $28, valuing the company close to $17 billion, Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, a brokerage company, told CNBC on Thursday.
Slack set a placeholder amount of $100 million to indicate the size of the IPO. The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.
Its competitors include Microsoft Teams, a free chat add-on for Microsoft’s Office365 users.
(Reporting By Aparajita Saxena and Joshua Franklin in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anil D’Silva)
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine April 21, 2019. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
April 26, 2019
By Matthias Williams
KIEV (Reuters) – Russia’s decision to make it easier for residents of rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport is meant to test Ukraine’s new leader and the West should not recognize the documents, Lithuania’s foreign minister said on Friday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the order on facilitating passports on Wednesday, three days after comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, won a landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election.
Linas Linkevicius, whose own country also has strained relations with Moscow, told Reuters in an interview that the West should consider imposing new sanctions on Russia.
“This is a blatant violation of international law. And basically also a kind of test to the new (Ukrainian) leadership, which is also a usual game,” Linkevicius said.
“The least we can do (is) we shouldn’t recognize these passports. How to do that technically, it’s another issue to discuss. Also (we need) to look at additional sanctions,” said Linkevicius, whose small Baltic nation is a member of NATO and the European Union.
Western nations imposed sanctions on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its support for armed separatists battling Kiev’s forces in eastern Ukraine. Some 13,000 people have been killed in that conflict despite a notional ceasefire signed in Minsk in 2015.
Linkevicius, who in Kiev on Friday became the first minister of an EU country since Ukraine’s election to meet President-elect Zelenskiy, said they had discussed the passport issue.
Zelenskiy also raised the possibility of resetting the Minsk ceasefire agreement without giving any concessions to Russia, Linkevicius said.
“DANGEROUS CANCER” OF GRAFT
The minister urged Zelenskiy to deliver on his electoral promise of tackling corruption, which he described as the “most dangerous cancer” facing Ukraine, which hopes one day to join the EU.
Last month, Lithuania’s own relations with Russia came under renewed strain after a Vilnius court found former Soviet defense minister Dmitry Yazov, in absentia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in a 1991 crackdown against Lithuania’s pro-independence movement.
Russia branded the verdict “extremely unfriendly and essentially provocative” and opened a probe into the judges involved.
Linkevicius accused Russia of seeking to politicize the judicial process by trying to take revenge on the judges, adding: “This is lamentable.”
A Cook County judge recently called out embattled State Attorney Kim Foxx for upholding a double standard by prosecuting a woman for filing a false police report — but dropping similar charges against embattled “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.
Foxx has faced intense criticism over her office’s decision to drop a 16-count indictment against Smollett, just weeks after bringing the charges against the high-profile TV star. Foxx’s deal with Smollett, which did not require him to admit guilt, drew ire from the public, the city’s top cop and the former mayor who called it a “whitewash of justice.”
Cook County Judge Marc Martin, who was presiding over an unrelated case, chastised Foxx and her office for creating a situation where anyone charged with filing a false report would expect the same leniency her office afforded Smollett.
Candace Clark, 21, is facing one felony count of making a false report. Prosecutors accused her of giving a friend access to her bank account and then telling authorities the money had been stolen. She denies the charges and claims she’s the victim of Foxx’s double standard — something the judge weighed in on.
“Well, Ms. Clark is not a movie star, she doesn’t have a high-price lawyer, although, her lawyer’s very good. And this smells, big time,” Martin said to prosecutors during a recent hearing, Fox 32 reported. “I didn’t create this mess, your office created this mess. And your explanation is unsatisfactory to this court. She’s being treated differently.”
The judge continued, “There’s no publicity on this case. She doesn’t have Mark Geragos as her lawyer or Ron Safer or Judge Brown. It’s not right. And (if) I proceed in this matter, you’re just digging yourselves further in a hole. (If the) press gets a hold of this, it’ll be in a newspaper. Why is Ms. Clark being treated differently than Mr. Smollett?”
Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February but continued to oversee the investigation through text messages with her assistant Joseph Magats.
The text messages revealed Foxx called Smollett a “washed up celeb who lied to cops.” They also show she cautioned Magats about throwing the book at Smollett.
“Sooo……I’m recused, but when people accuse us of overcharging cases…16 counts on a class 4 becomes exhibit A,” Foxx wrote to Magats on March 8.
“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16. On a case eligible for deferred prosecution I think it’s indicative of something we should be looking at generally. Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should,” she added, referring to the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, who was indicted on 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with four women, three of whom were underage.
President Trump said last month he asked for a federal review of Foxx’s decision to drop the charges against Smollett. He also called the actor “an absolute embarrassment to our country.”
The Smollett case garnered national attention and threatened to tear Chicago apart. It pit the police department and mayor against prosecutors and underscored the idea that wealthy people are somehow above the law.
Smollett told police he was attacked on Jan. 29 around 2 a.m. as he was returning home from a sandwich shop in Chicago. He said two masked men shouted racial and anti-gay slurs, poured bleach on him, beat him and tied a rope around his neck. He claimed they shouted, “This is MAGA country” — a reference to President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.
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