Europe
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FILE PHOTO: Harald Krueger, Chief Executive of German luxury carmaker BMW, addresses the company’s annual news conference in Munich, Germany, March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Michael Dalder
April 15, 2019
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The bosses of BMW and Deutsche Telekom have urged the German government to take action to block a European Commission proposal that would set a Wi-Fi-based standard for connected cars.
In a letter, BMW CEO Harald Krueger and Telekom’s Tim Hoettges warned that ruling out an alternative approach based on 5G mobile networks would leave Europe lagging rivals like China when it comes to the future of mobility.
“We are convinced that mandating Wi-Fi technology will cause significant delay to the European rollout of car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure communication,” the CEOs said in the letter to Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
Asked for comment, the German Transport Ministry said it was reviewing reservations raised by legal advisers to the European Council – the intergovernmental part of the EU decision process – after a working group meeting on April 5.
These would have to be examined before the government takes a final position on the issue, the ministry said.
The EU executive is seeking to set benchmarks for internet-connected cars, a market for carmakers, telecoms operators and equipment makers expected to be worth billions of euros a year.
The Commission’s preference for the Wi-Fi-based ITS-G5 standard would give Volkswagen and Renault an edge over BMW, Daimler, Ford and PSA Group which endorse the rival 5G standard called C-V2X.
Advocates of C-V2X, which could for example enable cars to ‘talk’ directly to each other to avoid colliding, say the technology works on existing 4G LTE networks and would be enhanced by the rollout of next-generation 5G services.
“C-V2X is a game-changer for safety,” an alliance of groups representing the European information technology and automotive industries said in a separate statement on Monday.
A key committee of EU lawmakers rejected the Commission’s proposal last week. The European parliament will vote this Wednesday in a plenary session in which a simple majority would be needed to block it.
The European Council also has a say in the issue and would also need a blocking majority to derail the proposal, say officials in Brussels.
(Reporting by Douglas Busvine and Foo-Yun Chee; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Evans)
Source: OANN
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini attends a debate on the future of Europe, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler/File Photo
April 15, 2019
BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – Slovakia will boost defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2022, achieving the NATO goal two years faster than planned, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini said.
“After raising defense spending to 1.73 percent of GDP this year we expect to reach the 2.0 percent level as early as 2022, compared with the originally planned 2024,” Pellegrini told a foreign policy conference on Monday.
Slovakia, a member of the U.S.-led military alliance since 2004, will spend about 6.5 billion euros ($7.35 billion) by 2030 to modernize its armed forces and reduce its reliance on Russian equipment dating from its Communist past.
It signed a $1.9 billion deal last year to buy 14 U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to replace its aging Russian-made MiG-29s.
U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed other NATO nations to lift their defense spending beyond the NATO-prescribed 2 percent level.
(Reporting by Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Source: OANN
Chairman of The Social Democratic Party Antti Rinne speaks to media at the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle studios in Helsinki, Finland April 15, 2019. Lehtikuva/Antti Aimo-Koivisto via REUTERS
April 15, 2019
By Anne Kauranen
HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s Social Democrats (SDP) embarked on Monday on the complex task of forming a governing coalition, after beating a nationalist, anti-immigration party by a hairsbreadth in the most fragmented election in the country’s history.
The SDP, which finished first in Sunday’s ballot with 17.7 percent, could team up with two smaller left-wing parties, its leader Antti Rinne said.
“At first sight they feel like the most natural partners,” he told private news outlet Lannen Media, referring to the Greens and the Left Alliance, which scored 11.5 percent and 8.2 percent respectively.
But coalition talks are expected to take weeks after the first Finnish election in which no party won 20 percent, leaving a polarised parliament that reflects deep social divisions over immigration and the environment, and how to reform a creaking welfare system deeply rooted in Nordic social traditions.
Rinne, a 56-year-old former trade union leader tasked by convention with forming a government as the head of the biggest party, would have to add at least a fourth party to give him a parliamentary majority.
But he is at odds over the future shape of public services with the centrist and center-right groups that he might try to ally with, and he has ruled out any cooperation with the nationalist, eurosceptic Finns Party, which won 17.5 percent of the vote.
The leftists want to preserve the welfare system through tax hikes while the center-right wants to see it streamlined because of rising costs linked to a rapidly ageing population.
“The rising inequality has to be turned around. We need to invest in education and equality in the labor market,” Rinne said.
Meanwhile, chiming with a groundswell of support for far-right parties across Europe, the message from the Finns Party has resonated with voters who believe the nation has gone too far in addressing issues such as climate change and migration at its own expense.
Its leader Jussi Halla-aho, fined by the Supreme Court in 2012 for blog comments linking Islam to pedophilia and Somalis to theft, won over 30,000 constituency votes on Sunday, more than any other parliamentary candidate.
The centre-right government of Prime Minister Juha Sipila resigned last month, saying it could not deliver on a long-delayed healthcare reform widely seen as crucial to securing the long-term viability of government finances.
Until a new government is chosen Sipila, whose Centre Party won 13.8 percent on Sunday, will remain as head of a caretaker cabinet.
Finland’s largest business daily Kauppalehti said the Social Democrats, the centre-right National Coalition – which won 17.0 percent – and the Greens were most likely to form the core of the next government.
But Rinne faced “a mountain-sized challenge” to form a workable parliamentary majority, it wrote.
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; editing by Justyna Pawlak and John Stonestreet)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo is seen on a new car model at the 89th Geneva International Motor Show in Geneva, Switzerland, March 5, 2019. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
April 15, 2019
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Volkswagen is pushing its joint venture partners including SK Innovation (SKI) to build electric car battery plants which have at least one Gigawatt manufacturing capacity, Chief Executive Herbert Diess told Reuters.
“Anything below that amount would make little sense,” Diess said on the sidelines of the Shanghai Auto Show on Sunday.
Volkswagen will buy 50 billion euros ($56.57 billion) worth of battery cells for electric cars and has identified South Korea’s SKI, LG Chem and Samsung SDI as strategic battery cell suppliers as well as China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL).
The German automaker is retooling 16 factories to build electric vehicles and plans to start producing 33 different electric cars under the Skoda, Audi, VW and Seat brands by mid 2023.
“We are considering an investment in a battery manufacturer in order to reinforce our electrification offensive and build up the necessary know-how,” Volkswagen said.
SKI is building a battery cell manufacturing plant in the United States to supply Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
SKI will supply lithium-ion battery cells for an electric car that Volkswagen plans to start making in Chattanooga in 2022.
LG Chem, Samsung and SKI on will also supply battery cells for Volkswagen in Europe. CATL is the automaker’s strategic partner for China, and will supply batteries for its electric fleet from 2019.
(Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A man cycles past a building bearing the logo of MYbank, an online lender that is an offshoot of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, at the Ant Financial Services Group headquarters, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China January 24, 2018. REUTERS/Shu Zhang/File Photo
April 15, 2019
By Alun John and Sumeet Chatterjee
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asia’s internet firms are challenging the region’s traditional banks for consumer finances, tapping their massive user networks for business and following a trail blazed in China by tech giants Alibaba and Tencent.
The push into banking by companies better known for their messaging apps, cute emojis and online holiday bookings comes as regulators across Asia open up their banking sectors to a new breed of digital players.
The shift is in its infancy but contrasts sharply with the banking markets of Europe and North America, where change is slower and such startups tend to be backed by venture capital funds and financial sector incumbents, not tech firms.
Asia’s tech entrants see their advantage in the way they can seamlessly integrate banking services with their users’ regular online activities and the efficiency that comes from their technology.
“If you want to open a bank account (in Hong Kong) you need to go to a branch, answer questions for an hour, and you still won’t get the account opened without follow up calls,” said Wayne Xu, president of ZhongAn International, a unit of Chinese online insurer ZhongAn, setting up a virtual bank.
“However, all the information needed at the counter can already be collected on a mobile phone.”
Hong Kong’s banking regulator last month issued one of four so-called virtual banking licenses to ZhongAn in what could be the biggest shake-up in years in a city dominated by HSBC and Standard Chartered. Last week, the regulator said on it was making progress on four additional applications.
In South Korea, authorities have issued two online only bank licenses, one of them to Kakao Bank in 2017, which is operated by the company behind the country’s largest chat app.
“The 45 million monthly average users of our messaging app Kakao Talk is a huge plus for us when advertising our bank,” a spokesman for Kakao Bank said. He added the bank uses Kakao’s artificial intelligence technology for its automated customer support systems. The bank had 8.9 million users as of March.
Other Asian countries set to approve online-only banks include Taiwan – where a group led by a unit of Japanese messaging app operator Line Corp has applied for a license – and Malaysia, which plans guidelines by the end of the year. Bank of Thailand Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob said the central bank was exploring the issue.
“Large technology companies are seeing this as a land-grab opportunity where they can build out new sets of financial services that can be cross-sold to their existing users,” said Jeff Galvin, a Hong Kong-based partner at McKinsey.
DIGITAL ASIA
Driving the shift in Asia is mobile technology’s deep penetration across all aspects of consumer life.
Such trends were forged by Alibaba and Tencent in China where the two upended financial services and drove a revolution in the cashless economy with their digital payment applications.
In contrast, U.S. tech giants such as Amazon and Alphabet Inc’s Google have focused their financial industry efforts on providing tech and consulting services to incumbents.
Asian consumers are far more willing to bank with tech firms than elsewhere in the world.
More than 90 percent of consumers under 35 in China and India would bank with a technology firm, according to Bain research, compared to 75 percent in the United States and just 51 percent in France.
The online-only banks in Hong Kong plan to start-off by offering services such as savings accounts, credit cards, personal loans and travel insurance.
“What we are seeing in Asia is technology companies moving sideways into finance, inspired by or even threatened by the examples of Alibaba and Tencent,” said James Lloyd, partner and APAC fintech leader at consultancy EY.
In Asia, the emergence of tech gains in the banking sector comes at a difficult time for the region’s incumbents who have begun reassessing the vast branch networks that, until recently, were seen as their competitive advantage.
The number of bank branches in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand has declined in the last couple of years, dropping by between 1 percent and 7 percent in 2017 from 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund. That compares with growth of as much as 8 percent a decade ago.
To be sure, legacy banks in Asia have their own plans to stay relevant in the changing space with some tying up with new rivals.
Among the new Hong Kong digital banking licensees is a joint venture between StanChart, Chinese holiday booking giant Ctrip and local telco PCCW.
“We think that the ecosystem we can build together will be a great integration of lifestyle into banking,” Mary Huen chief executive of StanChart Hong Kong, and chairman of the new virtual bank, said at a press conference.
(Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee and Alun John; additional reporting by Heekyong Yang in Seoul, Liz Lee in Kuala Lumpur, Chayut Setboonsarng in Bangkok; Editing by Jennifer Hughes and Sam Holmes)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: The financial district can be seen as a person runs in the sunshine on London’s south bank, Britain February 23, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo
April 14, 2019
(Reuters) – A growing number of large British-based businesses are prioritizing cashflow, fearing a downturn, as their view of the long-term economic impact of Brexit has darkened to its most negative so far, accountancy firm Deloitte said on Monday.
Some 81 percent of chief financial officers surveyed expect Brexit to lead to a long-term deterioration in Britain’s business environment, the highest since the question was first asked at the time of June 2016’s referendum on leaving the European Union.
This was up from 78 percent at the end of last year in the quarterly survey of 89 companies, including 15 in the FTSE 100 and 33 in the FTSE 250 share index, plus smaller firms and subsidiaries of major foreign companies.
Deloitte carried out the survey between March 26 and April 7, just after it became certain Britain would not leave on the long-planned date of March 29, and before British Prime Minister Theresa May secured a delay of up to six months.
“Large businesses are clearly looking to protect themselves against risk by raising cash levels and bullet-proofing balance sheets,” David Sproul, Deloitte’s chief executive for northwest Europe, said.
Official data last month showed British business investment fell every quarter of 2018, the longest decline since the 2008/09 financial crisis.
Speaking on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s spring meeting in Washington last week, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said a chaotic Brexit remained one of the top three risks to the world economy.
Trade tensions between the United States and China and a slowing euro zone economy have also fueled fears of a global downturn.
Most large businesses now expect the BoE to keep interest rates on hold over the coming year.
The Deloitte survey showed the proportion of CFOs expecting one or more interest rate rises in the next 12 months dropped to 40 percent from 58 percent at the end of 2018.
Deloitte’s long-running gauge of corporate risk appetite remained close to lows last seen after 2016’s Brexit referendum and during the depths of the financial crisis, and more than half of firms said increasing cashflow was a priority, the highest proportion in nine years.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: A bird flies past The Bank of England in the City of London, Britain, December 12, 2017. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne/File Photo
April 14, 2019
By David Milliken
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – British finance minister Philip Hammond has fired the starting gun for the race to succeed Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, but concerns about Brexit may keep some potential contestants on the sidelines.
Britain is unusual in throwing open the invitation to run its central bank to candidates from around the world.
Yet Carney’s tenure – the first for a foreigner at the BoE – has been seen as a success for the country’s financial diplomacy, and the government is keen to promote what it calls a “global Britain” after the country leaves the European Union.
The chances are high that the Canadian’s successor was somewhere among the thousands of delegates at the International Monetary Fund’s half-yearly meeting last week, where Hammond told media the process for finding a new governor was “getting underway”.
Attendees included all four of the BoE’s current deputy governors, the head of Britain’s market regulator as well as central bankers, academics and other policymakers from across the globe.
The role becomes vacant on Feb. 1 next year when Carney leaves after over six years on the job. This followed five years as governor of the Bank of Canada – during which he was courted by Hammond’s predecessor, George Osborne, when they met at international meetings in 2012.
But the next BoE governor will have to reckon with a sharply divided political backdrop on top of the obvious challenges that Brexit poses as regards short-term growth and longer-term regulatory relations with the EU.
“There may be some candidates who might be deterred from an application because of the political debate around Brexit, which inevitably the governor of the Bank of England can’t avoid being part of,” Hammond said in Washington.
Carney has been criticized by members of hardline pro-Brexit faction of the Conservative Party.
Jacob Rees-Mogg last year labeled Carney a “wailing banshee” and a “failed second-tier politician” who gave unfairly negative forecasts of the economic impact of Brexit. Boris Johnson, when foreign secretary, was dismissive of BoE predictions of Brexit damage.
Shortly after coming to power, Prime Minister Theresa May said in a speech that the BoE’s quantitative easing had damaging side-effects.
Brexit has certainly put off many other job-seekers. Recruitment agencies report falling numbers of job searches from overseas and net immigration to Britain by EU nationals fell to the lowest since 2009 last year – though non-EU immigration rose strongly.
INTERNATIONAL ROLE
Since starting at the BoE in July 2013, Carney delayed his departure twice – in October 2016 and September 2018 – to help prepare for Brexit. The second time, the hunt for a successor had already started and Hammond had said explicitly he was open to another foreign governor.
This time, Carney has said he has no intention of staying longer at the BoE, even after the latest delay to Brexit that sees Britain’s departure potentially postponed until Oct. 31.
A formal job advert is likely to appear before long, and one key criterion is to be able to effectively represent Britain in international forums like the IMF.
Someone already well-known on the international stage – such as former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan, who publicly debated with Carney and other central bankers on stage at the IMF – may have an edge.
Rajan declined to comment when asked by Reuters whether he would consider a return to active policymaking. Last year he said he would not apply for the role, but was slightly more equivocal about what he would do if approached directly, as Carney was.
A lack of in-depth knowledge about the details of Britain’s economy and more domestically-focused financial institutions is not necessarily a stumbling block.
The BoE’s structure – with four deputy governors and a chief economist responsible for different areas of monetary policy and regulation – can potentially fill in gaps.
Nonetheless, there is a question over how far afield Hammond can go with his choice – which must formally be approved by May and ultimately Queen Elizabeth.
Carney had strong existing ties to Britain before his appointment to Britain. He had previously studied, worked and met his wife in the United Kingdom, and as a Canadian already shared the queen as head of state. He also promised to apply for British citizenship once he met residence requirements.
As well as representing Britain internationally, the BoE under Carney has placed increased emphasis on communication with the British public. Carney speaks regularly on British television and radio after major decisions.
With Britain in the throes of Brexit, an EU national could be a tough sell as the face of the central bank — though the BoE has plenty of staff from continental Europe.
There is also domestic competition. Andrew Bailey, a former BoE deputy governor who now heads Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority, is widely seen as a strong contender given the governor’s job involves at least as much supervision of London’s financial center as it does monetary policy.
Current deputy governors and the BoE’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, are potential contenders too.
Either way, Hammond expects applicants will have a greater idea about what form of Brexit they will have to handle before a final decision is made.
“I hope we get it resolved before we get to the shortlisting stage,” he said.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Salisbury Cathedral, in the centre of the city in which former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and a woman were found unconscious after they had been exposed to an unknown substance is seen at dawn in Salisbury, March 7, 2018. REUTERS/Toby Melville
April 14, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – The English cathedral city of Salisbury, the location of a deadly nerve agent poisoning blamed on Russia, was named as Britain’s best place to live by the Sunday Times newspaper.
The award comes a little over a year after a former Russian double agent and his daughter were found slumped on a bench, triggering a sequence of events which ended with one person dead and the West’s relations with Russia in the diplomatic deep-freeze.
The Sunday Times praised the “divinely attractive” city in southern England, previously best-known for its medieval cathedral, citing its friendly atmosphere, good rail links and the high-speed broadband connections.
“Whatever foes this beautiful medieval city has faced, from the Celts to the Vikings the recent Novichok poisonings, it has emerged victorious,” the newspaper wrote.
In the weeks and months after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found, police uncovered a trail of evidence that they said lead back to two agents from Russia’s GRU military intelligence who visited the city to smear ‘Novichok’ poison on a door handle.
Russia has denied any involvement in the attack, and the two men said they were innocent tourists visiting the city’s cathedral.
“It’s famous not only in Europe, but in the whole world. It’s famous for its 123 metre-spire,” one of the men told Russia’s state-funded RT television station.
Nevertheless, British Prime Minister Theresa May blamed Putin for the attack and European countries and the United States expelled 100 Russian diplomats over the incident.
Large areas of the city center, which is just 90 minutes by train from London, had to be cordoned off for decontamination and one woman died after her partner found a perfume bottle which turned out to have been used to transport the poison.
Nevertheless, the Sunday Times said the city had bounced back, tourists were returning, and even the Zizzi Italian restaurant visited by the Skripals before the nerve took effect had reopened with a packed crowd.
The paper said it had looked at statistics like crime, schools and property prices in reaching its judgment, but that the award had also been based on less easily-measured factors like “beautiful scenery, culture and, above all, community spirit.”
(Reporting by William James; Ediitng by Angus MacSwan)
Source: OANN
Almost a month to the day after Facebook experienced its worst outage ever, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp are again experiencing worldwide outages that started around 6:30 am Eastern, triggering a flurry of complaints on rival social networks like Twitter.
In areas around the world, Facebook and Instagram feeds wouldn’t refresh, and neither Whatsapp messages nor Facebook messenger messages could be sent or received.
During last month’s outage, it took more than a day for Facebook to finally resolve the issue. The company blamed a “server configuration change”, and apologized for the outages.
The outages appeared to affect a sizable swath of the US, as well as parts of Canada, Mexico and South America. Most of Europe was also impacted, according to an outage map. The outages for Instagram and Facebook appeared to mostly overlap…
…While the Whatsapp outages were worse outside the US, typically markets where Whatsapp is more popular.
Once again, Facebook’s stumble was a ‘win’ for Twitter…
Whatsapp is down
Facebook is down
Instagram is down
I heard it all on Twitter— 🇳🇬Dreadnstyn🇳🇬 (@dreadnstyn) April 14, 2019
FACEBOOK IS DOWN.
MESSENGER IS DOWN.
INSTAGRAM IS DOWN.
WHATSAPP IS DOWN.… THIS BIRD APP STAY WINNING. 😌😌
— dionysus (@elyagullo) April 14, 2019
…Where users rushed to share complaints, jokes and, most importantly, memes.
JUST IN: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are reportedly down worldwide.
Everyone is heading to Twitter to find out what’s happening.
Retweet for awareness! #FacebookDown pic.twitter.com/Cq2kXzreTN
— Addic (@addictstore_) April 14, 2019
When Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp all go down at once pic.twitter.com/CkaEYd9ojc
— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 14, 2019
#Facebook & #Instagram down worlwide pic.twitter.com/aYjpMTEXWt
— 🐱☕🍸Dee Gillespie🍸☕🐱 (@SPOOGYWOOGY) April 14, 2019
Facebook hasn’t released a statement on the outages or given any indication about when users can expect functionality to return.
In the mean time, it looks like people will need to suck it up and try actually talking to one another for a change.
Big Tech is immune to F.O.I.A. requests in certain cases of wrongdoing so the best thing for society is to have employees of Big Tech become whistle-blowers. Dr. Nick Begich hosts and breaks down how whistle-blowing may just save the future of free speech.
Source: InfoWars
FILE PHOTO: Silhouettes of mobile users are seen next to a screen projection of the Facebook logo in this picture illustration taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
April 14, 2019
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s social networking site is inaccessible to some users across the world on Sunday, according to Downdetector.com, a website which monitors outages.
The outage tracking website showed that there are more than 9000 incidents of people reporting issues with Facebook.
Downdetector.com’s live outage map showed that the issues mainly cropped up in Europe.
Separately, Downdetector.com also showed that there were issues with WhatsApp and Instagram, but with relatively lower count of outage reports.
Facebook had experienced one of its longest outages in March, when some users around the globe faced trouble accessing Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for over 24 hours.
(Reporting by Akshay Balan in Bengaluru)
Source: OANN
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