Japanese classics from Toyota, Honda, Mazda and the like are now a hot bet among car collectors

Abstract: NEW YORK - When a classic red 1994 Toyota Supra sold online for $121,000 in January, it shocked not only the usual car-related Instagram junkies but also close followers of the tiny Japanese sports car. The going rate for one in good condition tends to hover around $59,000. Credit the high price to its low mileage and the fact that it was so well-preserved — it might as well have been vacuum-packed back in ’94. The record for the most expensive Supra sold at auction is $199,800, the sum paid for the orange Supra that appeared in the movie “The Fast and the Furious.” But this was the highest price ever paid for one in an online auction. Most of them dimly approach the $100,000 mark. The sale came a few weeks before the first-production 2020 Toyota Supra took $2.1 million at a Barrett-Jackson charity auction during the famous annual sales in Scottsdale, Arizona. That’s twice as much as the first-production Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 fetched at the same event. And it’s just the beginning of what experts predict will be a spate of modern collectible Japanese-branded cars gaining value in the near future, with some already climbing. Rarities like the Toyota 2000GT and the Mazda Cosmo have long commanded six- and seven-figure prices at auctions worldwide. But lately, more mundane cars from Asia have also started to gain value, according to the 2019 Hagerty Bull Market List, an annual report that identifies trends and value potential for collectible and classic cars. The biggest push has come from millennials who have finally made enough money to afford their own era’s hero cars. Their attraction is the thrill of actually owning the car they had in a poster on the wall or raced in early video games. For Japanese vehicles in the Hagerty price guide, the value of a car in “fine” condition with minimal wear has increased by an average of 18.1 percent in the past three years and 38.8 percent in the past five years. (The market in general rose 13.1 percent over the past three years and 23.6 percent over the past five.) Another from Toyota Motor Corp., the 1988 MR2, bolsters the trend. Beloved in its day for a lightweight body and quick-shift five-speed gearbox, the car retains original fans who are nostalgic for its plucky demeanor. Millennials make up 45 percent of the quotes requested for the MR2, an unusual portion. “These are people just getting into the hobby, so there’s room to grow,” the report said. Throw the Toyota Supra Turbo into this group, too. Examples in good condition from model years 1994 to 1998 increased more than 6 percent in value from 2017 to 2018. The rise beat gains from such iconic models as a 2000s-era Porsche 911 Turbo and 2010 Ford Raptor. Then there’s the Subaru Impreza WRX STI. The first legal version of the WRX turbo came to the U.S. in 2002, buoyed by its notoriety in video games like “Gran Turismo.” They were rough-and-ready cars at the time, packed with a rally-race-perfected all-wheel-drive punch and used in northern climates to dominate snow and mud. That means few today have survived in perfect condition. If you do find one like new, it’ll be worth the price. Average values for one in good condition hover near $33,700 (just above the $32,000 sticker price bought new) and are expected to continue climbing. It’s a similar story with the Acura NSX, though that has a slightly more elite pedigree. Known as Japan’s sophisticated sports car, the NSX had an aluminum 3.0-liter V-6 engine when it came out in 1991; it had 270 horsepower and regularly beat Ferraris and Porsches in track-side comparisons. Plus, since it was made by parent company Honda Motor Co., it was incredibly reliable. Pininfarina SpA, Ayrton Senna and Bobby Rahal, the former race-car driver and team owner, were involved in its development. Jack Nicholson, Michael Jordan and Bill Gates famously owned them. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, known for lavishing gifts on his friends, once name-checked it in a 1993 email, offering to “buy an Acura NSX and anything else you want — a house in Woodside, a Gulf Stream jet, a Hope diamond …” Today, examples can sell for almost $100,000 if they’re in concours condition, but the average value for a 1991 model in good condition is closer to $43,000. In recent months, Bring a Trailer has seen them go for anywhere from $36,000 to $75,000. That’s a veritable steal compared with those smaller, underpowered Supras selling for as much as twice that these days. Either way, if market indicators—and those popular online sales—hold true, each one is a good bet.

toyota
honda
mazda
cars
subaru
social media
carmakers


French prosecutors open inquiry into Carlos Ghosn's lavish Versailles wedding party, source says

Abstract: NANTERRE, FRANCE - French prosecutors have begun an inquiry into the lavish wedding party at the Palace of Versailles for former Renault and Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn, part of which was billed to the French automaker, a legal source said. Renault SA disclosed last month that the chateau had waived the usual €50,000 (¥6.3 million) rental fee for the October 2016 party under a sponsorship fee signed a few months earlier. The waived bill could amount to the misuse of company resources, as well as tax evasion, if the benefit-in-kind was not declared to French authorities. Renault began sifting through Ghosn’s years at the helm after his shocking arrest in Tokyo last November on charges of underreporting billions of yen in salary as head of Nissan Motor Co., Renault’s alliance partner. His subsequent indictment on three charges of financial misconduct has led to renewed scrutiny of his management and lifestyle at both companies. Ghosn and his second wife, Carole, threw a Marie Antoinette-themed dinner and party at the former royal residence at Versailles, complete with entertainers in period costumes, on Oct. 8, 2016. In a statement, the Chateau de Versailles said Renault had signed a €2.3 million (¥288.516 million) sponsorship deal with the palace in June 2016. Under the terms of the deal, Renault could benefit in return from Versailles access and other services worth a maximum 25 percent of the deal, or around €575,000 (¥72 million), it said. Ghosn’s lawyer in France, Jean-Yves Le Borgne, said the executive “stands ready” to repay the money, saying his client was “not aware he owed it because he had not been billed. “He thought it was free,” Le Borgne said. Ghosn was released from Tokyo Detention House last week after more than 100 days in custody, following an unusual court decision allowing him to post bail of ¥1 billion. The executive, who turned 65 over the weekend, has strongly denied the charges of financial misdeeds. But he has been stripped of his chairmanships at Nissan and fellow alliance partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp., and removed as CEO of Renault, while awaiting trial.

carlos ghosn
france
renault
nissan
mitsubishi motors
scandals
carmakers


Venezuelan blackout hits oil exports as residents scramble for food and electricity rationing looms

Abstract: CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL, VENEZUELA - Much of Venezuela, including parts of the capital Caracas, remained without power on Monday for a fifth day, crimping vital oil exports and leaving people struggling to obtain water and food. President Nicolas Maduro, who has blamed the unprecedented blackout on sabotage by the United States at Venezuela’s Guri hydroelectric dam, ordered the suspension of classes and the working day, as he had on Friday. Sources in the oil sector, OPEC member Venezuela’s main source of foreign earnings and a vital generator of revenue for Maduro’s government, said that exports from the primary port of Jose had been halted by the blackouts. The opposition-controlled congress called an emergency session to discuss the power cuts, blaming negligence by Maduro’s socialist government. Maduro’s rule is being challenged by congress leader Juan Guaido, who in January invoked the constitution to assume the presidency after declaring Maduro’s 2018 re-election a fraud. Guaido has been recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by the United States and most Western countries, but Maduro retains control of the armed forces and state institutions. The blackout, which began Thursday afternoon, has heightened frustration among Venezuelans already suffering widespread food and medicine shortages, as the once-prosperous nation’s economy suffers a hyperinflationary collapse. Food has rotted in refrigerators, hospitals have struggled to keep equipment operating, and people have clustered on the streets of Caracas to pick up patchy telephone signals to reach relatives abroad. On Monday, people formed lines to fill containers with water from the streams cascading down the mountain overlooking Caracas. “This is driving me crazy,” said Naile Gonzalez in Chacaito, a commercial neighborhood of Caracas. “The government doesn’t want to accept that this is their fault because they haven’t carried out any maintenance in years.” Experts consulted by Reuters believe the nationwide blackout originated in transmission lines that transport energy from the Guri hydroelectric plant to the Venezuelan south. Venezuela’s electricity network has suffered from years of underinvestment and lack of maintenance. Restrictions on imports have affected the provision of spare parts, while many skilled technical personnel have fled the country amid an exodus of more than 3 million Venezuelans in recent years. Winston Cabas, the president of an electrical engineers’ professional association, told reporters that several of the country’s thermoelectric plants were operating at just 20 percent of capacity, in part due to lack of fuel. He said the government was rationing electricity, which explained why some parts of Caracas had power and others did not. The process of restoring service was “complex” and could take between five and six days, he said. “We once had the best electricity system in the world — the most vigorous, the most robust, the most powerful — and those who now administer the system have destroyed it.” A source at state oil company PDVSA also said the government had decided to ration electricity, in part to supply power to the Jose oil export terminal. The Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. The collapse in crucial crude exports comes after the United States slapped sanctions on PDVSA in January in a bid to cut off cash to the government and oust Maduro from power. On Monday, it imposed sanctions on a Russian bank over its dealings with PDVSA. “The United States will not stand idly by while foreign financial institutions facilitate illegitimate transactions that benefit Maduro and his cronies, and perpetuate the corruption that has devastated Venezuela,” U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton wrote on Twitter. The lack of electricity has aggravated a crisis in Venezuelan hospitals, already lacking investment and maintenance in addition to the shortage of medicines.

venezuela
oil
nicolas maduro
opec
juan guaido
energy
pdvsa


Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee urges users to seek 'complete control' of data

Abstract: GENEVA - World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee on Monday slammed the increasing commodification of personal information and appealed for internet users to strive to maintain “complete control” of their data. Berners-Lee, credited with creating the web in 1989, is on a mission to save his invention from a range of problems increasingly dominating online life, including misinformation and a lack of data protection. “You should have complete control of your data. It’s not oil. It’s not a commodity,” he told a small group of journalists gathered at Europe’s physics lab CERN, where he first came up with the idea for the web 30 years ago. When it comes to personal data, “you should not be able to sell it for money,” he said, “because it’s a right. Berners-Lee, who last year launched a development platform called “Solid” aimed at giving users control of their data, described a frightening future if we do not rise to the challenge of privacy protection. “There is a possible future you can imagine (in which) your browser keeps track of everything that you buy,” he said. In this scenario, “your browser actually has more information than Amazon does,” he said, warning against complacency in expecting no harm will come from this loss of control over one’s own data. “We shouldn’t assume that the world is going to stay like it is,” he said. People needed to do more to protect themselves and their data and not to simply expect that governments will look out for their best interests, he argued. Berners-Lee told a Washington Post event last week that he launched the Solid project in response to concerns about personal data being bought and sold without the consent of users. The platform aimed “to separate the apps from the data storage” so users could decide where and how they would share their personal information, he said. He acknowledged Monday that enforceable laws would be needed to protect the most sensitive personal data. “Sometimes it has to be legislation which says personal data, you know, genetic data, should never be used,” he said. In addition to his work advocating for data protection, Berners-Lee has launched a “Contract for the Web,” aimed at ensuring the integrity of online information. In a letter published Monday, he hailed the opportunities the web had created, giving marginalized groups a voice and making daily life easier. But he warned, “it has also created opportunity for scammers, given a voice to those who spread hatred, and made all kinds of crimes easier to commit. He was nevertheless optimistic that the problems could be fixed. “Given how much the web has changed in the past 30 years, it would be defeatist and unimaginative to assume that the web as we know it can’t be changed for the better in the next 30,” he wrote. “If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web.”

tim berners-lee
personal information
internet
cern
privacy
amazon.com


U.S. warns Germany against using 5G tech of China's Huawei and threatens to not share intel, reports WSJ

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The United States has told Germany that it will share less intelligence with its security agencies if the country’s wireless network uses China’s Huawei Technologies Co. to upgrade to 5G, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday in the first explicit U.S. warning to Germany of consequences for declining to shun Huawei. The U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, issued the warning in a letter dated Friday, the newspaper said. In Germany, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said on Thursday on a ZDF talk show that Germany did not want to ban Huawei but said that Berlin will change the law to ensure that all components used in the 5G networks will be secure. Grenell said in his letter that Chinese companies, under Chinese law, can be required to support China’s security agencies and that inspections of Huawei software could not ensure there were no vulnerabilities, the newspaper said. The battle with Huawei is one of many conflicts in Washington’s disputes with China. The United States and China spent most of 2018 slapping import tariffs on billions of dollars worth of each other’s goods. The year ended with the arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer in Canada at U.S. request, to the consternation of China.


Japan eyes flexible fines for antitrust violators that cooperate with investigators

Abstract: The government approved a bill Tuesday that would allow for flexible fines to be handed down to antitrust violators who come forward to confess to wrongdoing, depending on the degree of their cooperation with investigations. The legislation, which the government aims to implement by the end of 2020 after gaining Diet approval, would give the country’s antitrust watchdog more leeway in offering lenient treatment. The aim is to encourage companies to cooperate with its investigations into practices such as bid-rigging and forming cartels. Under the bill, which would revise the antimonopoly law for the first time in six years, the government also plans to introduce an attorney-client privilege system under which companies can keep their communications with lawyers secret to make it easier for them to consult with legal experts. This kind of system, already widely recognized in Western countries, allows suspected antitrust violators to make documents on their communications with outside lawyers confidential and even exclude them from evidence to be submitted to court. “I’m expecting (the bill) to effectively do away with (antitrust) violations and enhance deterrence,” Mitsuhiro Miyakoshi, a minister overseeing the Fair Trade Commission, said at a news conference. Under the current system, the first company that voluntarily admits wrongdoing to the FTC in an antitrust probe is fully exempted from fines, while the second firm gets a 50 percent reduction and the third, fourth and fifth receive 30 percent cuts uniformly. For each case, only the first five companies that come forward are subject to such treatment. Under the envisioned amendment, the second company would get a cut of “between 20 and 60 percent” in fines, while the third to the fifth would receive reductions of “between 10 and 50 percent.” The 100 percent exemption for the first firm to come forward would remain unchanged. Also, the limitation on the number of companies subject to the fine reduction would be abolished, allowing as many firms as possible to confess to violations.


Stocks jump on Wall Street rally and Brexit optimism

Abstract: Stocks soared Tuesday as buying sentiment swelled following a Wall Street rebound and amid rising prospects for a deal for Britain’s exit from the European Union. The Nikkei 225 average surged 378.60 points, or 1.79 percent, to end at 21,503.69. On Monday, the key market gauge gained 99.53 points. The Topix, which covers all first-section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, finished 24.04 points, or 1.52 percent, higher at 1,605.48 after climbing 9.00 points Monday. Stocks surged from the outset as buying got a boost from both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq composite index snapping five-session losing streaks on Monday. The market was also supported by growing optimism that a no-deal Brexit can be avoided, after media reported that British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker agreed on a revised deal, brokers said. “A risk-on mood strengthened” also thanks to Shanghai stocks’ continued briskness, said Hiroaki Kuramochi, chief market analyst at Saxo Bank Securities Ltd. Tomoaki Fujii, head of the investment research division at Akatsuki Securities Inc., pointed out that behind Tuesday’s jump was futures-linked buying prompted by the Wall Street rally. Meanwhile, Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities Co., said, “Now that the Nikkei has topped 21,500, the market is likely to attract selling on a rally.” Profit-taking emerged toward the day’s closing, an official at a midsize securities firm said. Rising issues far outnumbered falling ones 1,893 to 185 in the first section, while 56 issues were unchanged. Volume grew to 1.231 billion shares from Monday’s 1.045 billion. Monotaro rose on buying spurred by the tool shopping website operator’s robust sales in February. Semiconductor-related issues and other technology names, including chipmaking gear manufacturer Tokyo Electron and electronic parts supplier Murata Manufacturing, buoyed across the board after U.S. technologies fared well Monday. Clothing store chain Fast Retailing and tech investment giant SoftBank Group were among other major winners. By contrast, automaker Suzuki, beverage producer Kirin Holdings and Zozo, the operator of online fashion mall Zozotown, sank on selective selling.

stocks
nikkei
topix
tokyo stock exchange


Dollar firms slightly to around ¥111.35 in Tokyo trading

Abstract: The dollar gained modest ground to trade at around ¥111.35 in Tokyo on Tuesday, helped by higher Japanese stock prices. At 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥111.36-36, up from ¥111.27-28 at the same time Monday. The euro was at $1.1266-1266, up from $1.1248-1249, and at ¥125.47-47, up from ¥124.16-16. The dollar rose above ¥111.40 in the morning after the Japanese currency weakened against the British pound amid growing optimism over a deal for Britain’s departure from the European Union. The Nikkei 225 stock average’s sharp advance also lent support to the dollar. In the afternoon, however, the greenback came under selling pressure. A currency broker said that the dollar was struggling for direction in late trading while players were sitting on the sidelines to “see the outcome of a Brexit vote” in the British Parliament later in the day. “Active trading was held in check before the release of the U.S. consumer price index for February,” a domestic bank official said.


Boeing shares, vanguard of the Dow, crushed after second 737 MAX crash

Abstract: BANGALORE, INDIA/NEW YORK - Boeing Co. shares fell by the most in three years on Monday after China, Indonesia and Ethiopia ordered airlines to ground their 737 MAX 8 planes following the second deadly crash of one of the jets in just five months. The drop — around 7 percent in late morning trade — wiped nearly $16 billion off Boeing’s market value, marking an abrupt reversal for a stock that had been the runaway top performer this year in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. With a stock price near $400 a share, it was by far the largest drag on the price-weighted blue chip index on Monday. A Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed minutes after takeoff from the country’s capital Addis Ababa on Sunday, killing all 157 on board. The same model, flown by Lion Air, crashed off the coast of Indonesia in October, killing all 189 on board. “The grounding of the 737 MAX by China, Indonesia, and Ethiopian are near-term reputational negatives for Boeing that could impact sales, particularly if the FAA follows suit and also grounds the plane,” Cai von Rumohr, analyst at Cowen & Co., said in a research note, referring to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. Still, von Rumohr and other analysts said the accident should not pose a long-term risk to a stock that has delivered the richest total return among the 30 stocks in the Dow over the 10 years of the current bull market. Since U.S. stocks began rebounding from the financial crisis in March 2009, Boeing shares have delivered a total return, including reinvested dividends, of nearly 1,600 percent, four times the performance of the full index. Indeed, many investors saw the initial drop in Boeing stock as an opportunity to pick up the shares at a sudden discount. After dropping by as much as 13.5 percent in the first 10 minutes of trading on Monday morning, by late morning they had recouped roughly half the loss and were down just 6.7 percent. Spreads on Boeing’s bonds, a measure of the added compensation investors demand for owning its debt, were also wider, data from Refinitiv showed. Its credit default swaps, a form of insurance against a Boeing default, rose sharply in price, according to IHS Markit. The company has about $13.8 billion of bonds issued. Boeing said on Monday the investigation into the Ethiopian Airlines crash is in its early stages and there was no need to issue new guidance to operators of its 737 MAX 8 aircraft based on the information it has so far. Wall Street has been overwhelmingly bullish on Boeing — 19 of the 24 brokerages covering the stock rate it “buy” or higher, while five have a “hold” rating. No brokerage has had a sell rating on the stock since July 2017. Even with Monday’s drop, it remained the Dow’s best performer so far this year with a gain of 21.6 percent compared with 9.45 percent for the full index. Morgan Stanley analyst Rajeev Lalwani said there would be concerns about safety, production, groundings and costs, but that those should all be manageable longer-term. He said he was not changing the bank’s positive “overweight” recommendation on Boeing shares, and that any corrective action the company has to take on its best-selling passenger plane will likely prove a longer-term buying opportunity. Investigators have found the black box from the fatal crash with both the cockpit voice recorder and digital flight data, Ethiopian state TV reported on Monday, which should shed light on the cause of the crash. Earlier in the day, China’s aviation regulator grounded nearly 100 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft operated by its airlines after the crash. Boeing’s shares lost 12 percent in the weeks following the Lion Air crash last year, but have more than recouped those declines. Shares of Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. — the biggest operator of the MAX 8 — fell 1.3 percent, while American Airlines Group Inc., which has 24 MAX 8 jets, was up 0.4 percent. Southwest and American said overnight they remained fully confident in the aircraft and were closely monitoring the investigation. Shares of Boeing’s European rival Airbus SE were up 1.3 percent in Paris. Boeing delivered 806 aircraft last year, missing its target by four jets, but still retaining the title of the world’s biggest plane-maker for the seventh straight year. European rival Airbus delivered 800 planes in 2018. The 737 MAX 8 uses LEAP-1B engines made by CFM International, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Safran SA. Shares in Safran fell 1.7 percent on Monday.

boeing
dow
stocks
ethiopian airlines
southwest airlines
airbus
air accidents


Olympus whistleblower Michael Woodford wins pension suit brought by Japan firm's U.K. subsidiary

Abstract: LONDON - The former CEO of Olympus, who blew the whistle in 2011 on a massive accounting scandal at the medical equipment maker, has won a London court battle over alleged wrongdoing linked to his £64 million (¥9.4 billion) pension. The Olympus U.K. subsidiary KeyMed sued Michael Woodford and former company director Paul Hillman in 2016, alleging they had breached their duties as directors and trustees of a defined benefit pension plan and conspired to maximize their pension benefits by unlawful means. London High Court Judge Marcus Smith said Monday he saw no evidence of dishonest or improper conduct by the company veterans, adding that any failings identified by KeyMed could be attributable to “an innocent failure of process” in a busy company. “In these circumstances, I find that the defendants acted honestly and did not breach the duties … dishonestly or at all,” he said in a judgment. Woodford, who joined KeyMed as a 20-year-old salesman in 1981 and rose through the ranks to become Olympus’ first foreign chief executive in 2011, was fired two weeks into the top job after persistently querying unexplained payments. He then alerted global authorities and the media. Olympus initially said Woodford was fired for failing to understand its management style and Japanese culture. But the company later admitted it had used improper accounting to conceal investment losses, and restated years of financial results. In September 2012, the company and three former executives pleaded guilty in Japan to cover-up charges. Woodford and Hillman, described in the judgment as Woodford’s “right-hand man” and who also left the company in 2011 after a 33-year career, said in a joint statement that they felt completely vindicated. KeyMed, a surgical products maker in southern England, said it was disappointed and was considering its legal options. “When KeyMed discovered that Mr. Woodford was entitled to a pension transfer of over £64 million, we had a duty to our stakeholders to investigate the circumstances in which such a large entitlement had arisen,” it said in a statement. Woodford has said his annual pension benefit rose to £993,000 at the end of his 30-year Olympus career. This was converted into a capital sum of £64.5 million and transferred to a Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), a U.K. government-approved scheme, with the approval of Olympus approval in 2014. The company’s European headquarters in Germany did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment sent after hours.

olympus
michael woodford
scandals
courts
u.k .


Tokyo Gas gets green light for Philippine LNG terminal project

Abstract: MANILA - Tokyo Gas Co. and a major power producer of the Philippine conglomerate Lopez Group have obtained governmental approval for the construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal in Batangas province. Tokyo Gas plans to hold a 20 percent stake in the project, aiming to commence operations in 2023 with First Gen Corp., Tokyo Gas spokesman Noriyoshi Ibara said. Japan’s largest gas utility and First Gen submitted the LNG terminal plan to the Department of Energy last December. Although the consortium gained the permit, “we have yet to make a final investment decision,” the spokesman said without elaborating. The new terminal will have an annual capacity of 5.26 million tons, according to Rino Abad, director of the department’s oil industry management bureau. Local media said investment costs are estimated at $10 billion (¥1.1 trillion). The Philippine government has so far approved two other LNG hubs development projects, but the Tokyo Gas-First Gen venture is the largest in capacity size. First Gen operates four gas-fired power plants in the province, south of Manila, by sourcing natural gas from the Malampaya gas field off the coast of Palawan Island. First Gen, which is also the Philippines’ largest natural gas buyer, has decided to build the gas import terminal as local supplies are feared to become depleted as early as 2024. First Gen aims to firm up contractors, costs and other arrangements “within the year” to proceed with the plan by next year, President Francis Giles Puno was quoted by BusinessMirror as saying.


Calling for 'renewed sense of urgency,' Toshiba activist investor King Street to nominate new directors

Abstract: NEW YORK - Toshiba Corp. investor King Street Capital Management plans to nominate a slate of independent directors to replace a majority of the manufacturer’s board, ratcheting up the hedge fund’s first public activist campaign. Among the nominees will be Brian Higgins, co-founder of the fund, which manages about $20 billion. King Street owns about 5.4 percent of Toshiba and is its fourth-largest shareholder. The stock rose as much as 2.5 percent in Tokyo on Tuesday. In a letter to Chief Executive Officer Nobuaki Kurumatani dated Monday, New York-based King Street said Toshiba needs new independent directors to “fully maximize its industrial strengths and empower the innovative potential of its employees.” It added that the board “must provide a renewed sense of urgency, assertive decision-making and a profitable growth mindset to unlock Toshiba’s value.” “The structuring of the board and candidate selection has been done appropriately,” Toshiba said in an emailed response. The company said it plans to respond flexibly to changes in the environment to ensure it can deliver shareholder value. In October, King Street urged the company to buy back at least ¥1.1 trillion ($9.9 billion) of shares as quickly as possible. King Street also released a 100-plus page presentation outlining ways the company could increase its profit margins in the next 12 to 24 months. Toshiba has been raising capital and selling assets to restore its finances and profitability following an accounting scandal and losses tied to its nuclear-power business. Hong Kong-based Argyle Street Management previously criticized the Tokyo-based company over the ¥2 trillion sale of the memory unit to a group led by Bain Capital, saying it was undervalued. Toshiba agreed in June to a ¥700 billion buyback, an amount King Street said was too small, given that the conglomerate is sitting on about ¥1.8 trillion in cash. King Street said it would drop its proposal if it can reach a resolution with management. Otherwise it plans to submit directors’ names in time for the annual meeting.


The obscure firm making iPhones better: Japan's Lasertec masters extreme ultraviolet lithography

Abstract: After two decades in development, chipmakers are making a costly bet on a technology that will cram even more transistors onto silicon. Their success may hinge on a little-known company in Yokohama. Lasertec Corp. is the world’s sole maker of equipment that tests glass squares slightly bigger than a CD case that act as a stencil for chip designs. By shining light through the squares, circuits smaller than the width of a few strands of DNA are imprinted onto silicon wafers in a process called lithography. These templates have to be perfect: Even a tiny defect can make every single chip in the batch unusable. Consumers take it for granted that gadgets will keep getting slimmer, more powerful and cheaper, but the chip companies are running out of ways to etch ever smaller circuit patterns onto silicon. After years of setbacks, the industry has settled on extreme ultraviolet lithography, which uses plasma as the light source to draw lines smaller than 7 nanometers. That’s the size seen in Apple Inc.’s A12 Bionic chip, featured in the iPhone XS and XR. In 2017, Lasertec solved the final piece of the puzzle when it created a machine that can test blank EUV masks for internal flaws, giving it a monopoly. The company’s stock has tripled since then. Lasertec has already received orders for ¥4 billion machines that test EUV blanks, according to President Osamu Okabayashi. The company may see additional sales as soon as this summer, depending on how quickly Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. ramp up mass production, he said. “We spent six years developing this equipment,” Okabayashi said in an interview. “At this point it’s become an industry standard and it would be very difficult for somebody else to enter the space.” An EUV mask, a sandwich of about 80 alternating layers of silicon and molybdenum, can fetch as much as ¥11 million. Only two companies — glassmakers Hoya Corp. and AGC Inc., both in Japan — manufacture the blanks. Lasertec’s machines can spot problems early on, which is critical to making the technology cost competitive. “For EUV, masks have to be perfect,” Okabayashi said. EUV lithography is so complex and expensive that so far only Samsung and TSMC have said they will use it to move to 7-nanometer chipmaking. Intel Corp. has delayed its introduction, while difficulties in making EUV economically viable have prompted Globalfoundries Inc. to reportedly abandon it altogether. Samsung has said that the move lets it use chip area 40 percent more efficiently, improves performance by 20 percent and halves power consumption. Apple’s 7-nanometer processor is manufactured by TSMC and is specialized for machine-learning applications. In the past few months, Qualcomm Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co. unveiled a 7-nanometer chip that will power 5G devices. “It used to be that chip demand was completely dependent on product cycles for personal computers,” Okabayashi said. “But then came smartphones and pretty soon we’ll be able to add AI, IOT (‘internet of things’) and 5G to the list of applications driving demand.” It will take a while for the impact from new orders to show up in earnings, because EUV blank testers take about two years to build. Lasertec is forecasting that sales will climb 32 percent to ¥28 billion in the year to June 30, while operating income will grow 14 percent. Revenue may jump about 50 percent next fiscal year and profit could double, according to analyst estimates. The company’s shares have climbed more than 50 percent this year, approaching the ¥4,590 record high set in March 2018. Of the eight analysts tracked by Bloomberg, six recommend buying the shares. “Earnings have a lot of room to grow because we haven’t even seen the spending on 5 nanometer process yet,” said Yasuo Imanaka, an analyst at Rakuten Securities Inc. “This is a very good company.”

iphones lasertec semiconductors smartphones


Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi seek fresh start after Carlos Ghosn era with new joint board

Abstract: YOKOHAMA - Leaders of the scandal-hit global auto alliance between Nissan Motor Co., Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Tuesday they will strive for a balanced and stronger partnership to excel against rival carmakers. In an apparent effort to outline the structure of the post-Carlos Ghosn alliance, the three companies said the entity will establish a new joint management board designed to be operated with a fair balance of power. “This is a very special day for the alliance,” Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said during a news conference at Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama. “We have decided to join our forces again to enhance the strength of our collaboration,” Senard said. “We want to be instantly in a position to improve, significantly, our efficiency.” The three companies have agreed on several points, including simplifying the alliance management structure by creating the new board. They said it will be the sole governing body of the alliance. Currently, the alliance is managed by a Nissan-Renault venture and a Nissan-Mitsubishi Motors venture. The new board will consist of four members, including Senard, Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa, Renault CEO Thierry Bollore and Mitsubishi Motors Chairman Osamu Masuko. All three attended Tuesday’s news conference. Saikawa stressed the importance of respecting fairness, with the previous alliance’s operational structure not having been balanced from Nissan’s standpoint. “Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi — these three companies — will work under a consensus-based and win-win spirit. This is a real equal-partnership body … this is very efficient and starting something like this has a very significant meaning,” Saikawa said. Previously, the decision-making was up to the head of the Renault-Nissan joint venture board, which was headed by an executive from Renault, meaning Nissan did not have ultimate power to control alliance policies, according to Nissan. But the chairman of the new board won’t have such authority, the firm said. Some Japanese media outlets have also reported that too much power was held by Ghosn, the former Nissan and Renault chief who also doubled as head of the three-way alliance. Saikawa said they agreed that the custom of the Renault chairman assuming the Nissan chairmanship will not apply to Senard, highlighting this change as another example of Nissan’s independence being respected. Nissan and Renault announced that their Amsterdam-based joint venture called Renault-Nissan B.V., which was overseeing the operation of the alliance, will continue to exist and function as a backup alliance operation body for the new board. Renault and Nissan said they are not considering a review of the power balance in the cross-shareholding partnership at this point. Ghosn, who came onboard to save struggling Nissan in 1999, was the architect of the alliance. He had reportedly been eyeing a merger between Nissan and Renault under one holding company while respecting their independence. Nissan was reluctant to accept the merger plan out of concern that its autonomy would be undermined. Asked whether Ghosn was really planning such a merger, Senard said he was not able to confirm that and added that a merger, or shareholding power balance, “is not the point of today.” “I am just taking the situation as it is and looking at the future,” he said. Renault holds 43 percent of Nissan shares while Nissan holds 15 percent of Renault shares. While the fate of the alliance was the focus of attention, reporters also asked a number of questions regarding its former chief. Ghosn, who was released on bail last week from the Tokyo Detention House after more than 100 days, had requested permission from the Tokyo District Court to attend Tuesday’s Nissan board meeting. The court rejected his request, citing the risk of evidence being destroyed if Ghosn communicated with Nissan executives, according to some reports in the Japanese media. Junichiro Hironaka, an attorney on Ghosn’s legal team, said Ghosn is still a board director and so hoped to fulfill his professional duty. Nissan opposed his attendance out of concern that the meeting would not run smoothly, he told reporters in an exchange that was aired on TV. The Nissan board ousted Ghosn from the position of chairman in November after his arrest on Nov. 19, but he remains a board director. To appoint or remove someone from a directorship, the firm needs approval at a shareholders meeting. Nissan plans to hold an extraordinary general shareholders meeting next month to relieve Ghosn and his aide, Greg Kelly, a former Nissan representative director who was also arrested along with Ghosn, of their directorship positions. The 65-year-old Brazilian-born French auto executive’s first arrest in the case, on suspicion of underreporting his income, was made by Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office at Haneda airport. The prosecutors subsequently arrested him again on two additional counts of financial misconduct, including for allegedly understating his income on another occasion and an alleged incident of aggravated breach of trust involving the transfer of private investment losses to Nissan during the global financial crisis in 2008. Ghosn has denied all of the allegations. Senard declined to comment on the allegations against Ghosn, saying that by principle he considers people innocent until a legal verdict is handed down.

nissan
renault
carlos ghosn
mitsubishi motors
carmakers
france
scandals


Warring sides blame each other as at least 20 are civilians killed, including children, in north Yemen

Abstract: DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - At least 20 civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a village in northern Yemen, Saudi and Houthi media reported on Monday, in an attack both sides blamed on the other. The Houthis’ Al Masirah television said airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition killed 23 civilians in Kushar district. Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV said the Houthis had killed several members of the Hajour tribes who had begun an uprising against the movement. It quoted unnamed sources as saying 20 women and children from two families were killed. Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. Neither said when the attack took place. The war has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 2 million and driven the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country to the verge of famine. Iran-aligned Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014, saying they were fighting a revolution against corrupt politicians and Gulf powers in thrall to the West. The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015 to try to restore the internationally-recognised government to power.


U.N. mourns loss of 21 staff members in Ethiopian jetliner crash

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS - Flags flew at half-staff at the United Nations on Monday after 21 U.N. staff members were killed in an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said marked a “sad day” for the world body. Guterres lead delegates at the opening of the annual gathering on women’s rights at the General Assembly in observing a moment of silence in honor of the victims. “A global tragedy has hit close to home — and the United Nations is united in grief,” he said at the Commission on the Status of Women. U.N. ambassadors opened a Security Council meeting on Afghanistan by standing in silence for the victims of Flight ET302, which crashed Sunday shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa. All 157 people on board were killed. Among the dead were many traveling to a UN environment conference in Nairobi. The World Food Program, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration and the U.N. Environment agency all lost staff in the crash.

ethiopian airlines
antonio guterres
u.n .
air accidents


Sniper fire and land mines slow U.S.-backed force's advance in ruins of Islamic State's Syrian territory

Abstract: BAGHOUZ, SYRIA - U.S.-backed fighters are moving slowly into Islamic State’s final pocket in eastern Syria to avoid losses in the face of sniper fire and land mines, a commander said on Monday. Warplanes flew above Baghouz, a cluster of houses on the banks of the Euphrates at the Iraqi border where Islamic State fighters still hold out, and smoke rose from the area along with the sound of intermittent clashes. The defeat of Islamic State at Baghouz will mark a milestone in the campaign against the jihadi group, ending its control of populated territory in the area straddling Iraq and Syria where it suddenly expanded in 2014 and declared a caliphate. However, it has already shown it will continue to mount a potent security threat, with a string of insurgent attacks in both countries. Pro-Syrian government forces hold the opposite bank of the Euphrates across from Baghouz and Iraqi militias are stationed at the border, cutting off any easy escape route for the jihadis. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has made “modest advances” since resuming its assault late on Sunday, killing and wounding many jihadi fighters said Adnan Afrin, a senior commander in the U.S.-backed militia. The SDF pressed on with operations on Monday along with coalition airstrikes, but Afrin said advances were slow because the SDF wanted to complete the campaign with minimal losses. Islamic State fighters attempted four suicide attacks but the SDF captured an arms dump, said militia spokesman Mustafa Bali. One SDF fighter was killed and four wounded. The SDF has held off from a full assault for most of the past few weeks as many thousands of people poured from the enclave, including surrendering fighters, Islamic State supporters, other civilians and some of the group’s captives. By Sunday evening, no more people had come out, prompting the SDF to start its attack. Inside Baghouz, a squalid area of makeshift shelters, garbage and trenches filmed by Reuters TV on Sunday showed the harsh conditions in the ruins of Islamic State’s “caliphate.” Amid palm trees and scrubby patches of vegetation in front of dry bluffs, rusting cars stood among the bivouacs made by stringing blankets from rope. Oil drums and plastic barrels lay scattered around. The SDF has shipped most people fleeing the wreckage of Islamic State’s rule over recent weeks to al-Hol in northeast Syria where some 65,000 people now live in a camp that the U.N. says was built to house 20,000. The obdurate support voiced by many of them for Islamic State, particularly among foreigners, has posed a complex security, legal and moral challenge for both the SDF and their own governments. Those issues were underscored on Friday with the death of the newborn son of Shamima Begum, a British woman who left to join Islamic State when she was a schoolgirl. On Monday, the head of the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF said there were about 3,000 children from 43 countries living in al-Hol, along with many more Syrian and Iraqi children, in “extremely dire conditions. “Since the 1st of January 2019, every single day, a child has died fleeing the fight against ISIS,” said the UNICEF head, Geert Cappelaere, at a news conference in Beirut.

islamic state
syria
baghouz
syrian democratic forces
conflict
u.s .
terrorism


Runaway Islamic State teen loses third child in Syria refugee camp as her mom asks for 'mercy' from U.K.

Abstract: LONDON - The mother of a London girl who ran away to join the Islamic State group in Syria urged the U.K. government on Monday to reinstate the teenager’s British citizenship after she lost her third child. A lawyer representing Shamima Begum’s family wrote to interior minister Sajid Javid, pleading with him to reverse his Feb. 19 decision to strip her of her British citizenship “as an act of mercy. Begum, now 19, had asked to return home after giving birth to a son last month in a refugee camp in northeastern Syria, but London refused. The 3-week-old baby, Jarrah, has since died from pneumonia. She has told British media that her two other children died in infancy in Syria. Begum’s fate has sparked heated debate in Britain, which like other countries is facing a dilemma over whether to allow jihadis and IS sympathizers home to face prosecution, or stop them from returning at all. She was 15 when she left east London for Syria with two other schoolgirls in 2015. She was found by journalists in a refugee camp after fleeing fighting between the jihadi group and U.S.-backed forces. She is married to Dutch IS fighter Yago Riedijk, 27, who is now being held in a Kurdish-run detention center in northeast Syria. Urging Javid to reverse his decision, Begum’s mother “requests this reconsideration, as an act of mercy,” following Jarrah’s death, said the letter from law firm Farooq Bajwa and Co. “It is extremely unlikely that Shamima will be in a fit state to make any rational decisions.” The letter said the family have not been able to contact Begum directly and their request for help from the British government to contact her was refused in writing by the Home Office on March 5. “There are immediate fears for Shamima’s health and safety, and the matter is urgent,” the letter said, asking for a response within 24 hours. The letter was posted on Twitter by lawyer Tasnime Akunjee. In the wake of the baby’s death, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said officials were working on how to rescue British children born to IS runaways. Hunt said the death of Begum’s third child was “an incredibly distressing and sad situation” but that it was too dangerous to dispatch officials to the war zone. “Shamima knew when she made the decision to join Daesh (IS) she was going to a country where there’s no embassy, where there’s no consular assistance,” he told BBC television on Sunday. “And I’m afraid those decisions, awful though it is, they do have consequences.”

islamic state
syria
refugees
shamima begum
terrorism
u.k .


Iranian human rights lawyer newly sentenced to 38 years and 148 lashes, husband says

Abstract: GENEVA - Nasrin Sotoudeh, an internationally renowned human rights lawyer jailed in Iran, was handed a new sentence Monday that her husband said comprised 38 years in prison and 148 lashes. Sotoudeh, who has represented opposition activists including women prosecuted for removing their mandatory head scarves, was arrested in June and charged with spying, spreading propaganda and insulting Iran’s supreme leader, her lawyer said. She was jailed in 2010 for spreading propaganda and conspiring to harm state security — charges she denied — and was released after serving half her six-year term. The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov human rights prize. Speaking at a revolutionary court in Tehran on Monday, Judge Mohammad Moqiseh said that Sotoudeh had been sentenced to five years for assembling against national security and two years for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, wrote on Facebook that the sentence was decades in jail and 148 lashes, unusually harsh even for Iran, which cracks down hard on dissent and regularly imposes death sentences for some crimes. The news comes days after Iran appointed a new head of the judiciary — Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line cleric who is a protege of Supreme Leader Khamenei. The appointment is seen as weakening the political influence of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate. Iran, often accused of human rights abuses, said on Monday it had allowed U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore to visit last week at the head of a “technical” mission. The visit, confirmed by a U.N. official, appeared to be the first in many years by U.N. human rights investigators who have been denied access by the government. The U.N. investigator on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, raised Sotoudeh’s case at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, saying that last week she “was reportedly convicted of charges relating to her work and could face a lengthy prison sentence.” “Worrying patterns of intimidation, arrest, prosecution, and ill-treatment of human rights defenders, lawyers, and labor rights activists signal an increasingly severe state response,” Rehman said.


U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant pleads not guilty to arms and drug charges in alleged plot to kill Democrats and TV journalists

Abstract: LOS ANGELES - A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant accused of stockpiling weapons and plotting to attack Democratic politicians and TV journalists pleaded not guilty to weapon and drug charges on Monday in a federal courtroom in Maryland. Authorities arrested Christopher Paul Hasson, 49, on Feb. 15 and seized his stash of 15 firearms and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from his residence in Silver Spring, Maryland. Hasson pleaded not guilty to the drug and weapon charges before a federal magistrate judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, according to court records, and was sent back to jail ahead of his trial. Prosecutors later said Hasson, who was assigned to the Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, was a self-described white supremacist with a list of potential targets, including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and MSNBC television host Joe Scarborough. But so far, prosecutors have not brought charges directly accusing Hasson of plotting an attack. The initial criminal complaint listed weapon and drug charges. A federal grand jury, in a follow-up indictment on Feb. 27, charged Hasson with two counts of unlawful possession of firearm silencers, one count of unlawful possession of pain medication tramadol and one count of unlawful possession of firearms by an addict of a controlled substance. A public defender for Hasson could not be reached for comment late on Monday. A different public defender, Julie Stelzig, told a court hearing last month that Hasson’s gun collection was not extraordinarily large. He formerly served in the U.S. Marine Corps. Hasson could receive a maximum sentence of 31 years in prison if convicted of all the charges against him, said Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Murphy declined to comment on whether Hasson will face more charges related to accusations he plotted an attack.

democrats
weapons
christopher paul hasson
nancy pelosi
u.s .
murder
u.s. coast guard


Robert Mueller's Russia probe said already financed through September

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Special counsel Robert Mueller and the team he assembled to investigate U.S. President Donald Trump and his associates have been funded through the end of September 2019, three U.S. officials said on Monday, an indication that the probe has funding to keep it going for months if need be. The operations and funding of Mueller’s office were not addressed in the budget requests for the next government fiscal year issued by the White House and Justice Department on Monday because Mueller’s office is financed by the U.S. Treasury under special regulations issued by the Justice Department, the officials said. “The special counsel is funded by the Independent Counsel appropriation, a permanent indefinite appropriation established in the Department’s 1988 Appropriations Act,” a Justice Department spokesman said. There has been increased speculation in recent weeks that Mueller’s team is close to winding up its work and is likely to deliver a report summarizing its findings to Attorney General William Barr any day or week now. Mueller’s office has not commented on the news reports suggesting an imminent release. Representatives of key congressional committees involved in Trump-related investigations say they have received no guidance from Mueller’s office regarding his investigation’s progress or future plans. The probe, which began in May 2017, is examining whether there were any links or coordination between the Russian government led by Vladimir Putin and the 2016 presidential campaign of Trump, according to an order signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Critics of the probe, including Trump allies, have suggested the investigation is a misuse of taxpayer funds and should be wrapped up quickly. Justice Department documents show that Mueller’s office reported spending around $9 million during the fiscal year that ran from Oct. 1, 2017, to Sept. 30, 2018. No figures are available for the current fiscal year. Ninety days before the beginning of a federal government fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1, special counsels such as Mueller “shall report to the Attorney General the status of the investigation and provide a budget request for the following year,” according to the regulations. Department officials said that under these regulations, a special counsel should request funding for the next fiscal year by the end of June. It is not known if Mueller is preparing such a request for fiscal year 2020. Russia has denied meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has said there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, and has labeled Mueller’s investigation a “witch hunt.”

robert mueller
russia probe
donald trump
u.s .


U.S. aviation agency to declare Boeing 737 Max 8 airworthy but will act on any safety concerns

Abstract: WASHINGTON - The United States will tell international carriers later Monday that the agency believes the Boeing 737 MAX 8 is airworthy but officials emphasized they will “take immediate action” if regulators identify any safety issue following Sunday’s fatal crash in Ethiopia. U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said on Monday the Federal Aviation Administration would issue a Continued Airworthiness Notification to the International Community, or CANIC, for Boeing 737 MAX 8 operators at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT). “If the FAA identifies an issue that affects safety, the department will take immediate and appropriate action,” Chao told reporters. “I want people to be assured that we take these incidents, these accidents very seriously.” Boeing Co. did not immediately comment Monday. Canada is taking a similar approach and its transport minister said he will not hesitate to act once the cause of the crash is known. An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board and raising questions about the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new model that also crashed and killed 189 people in Indonesia in October. FAA chief Dan Elwell on Monday said the notification basically “informs the international community where we are and sort of a one answer to the whole community.” He dubbed it a “broadcast to the world about where we are.” The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are both on scene in Ethiopia, Chao said. Boeing’s share price dropped 10 percent in early trading on Monday at the prospect that two such crashes in such a short time could reveal flaws in its new plane. They were down 5.8 percent in the late-afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The 737 line, which has flown for more than 50 years, is the world’s best-selling modern passenger aircraft and viewed as one of the industry’s most reliable. China ordered its airlines to ground the jet, a move followed by Indonesia and Ethiopia. Other airlines, from North America to the Middle East, kept flying the 737 MAX 8 on Monday after Boeing said it was safe.

boeing 737 max 8
elaine chao
canic
ethiopian airlines
u.s .
air accidents


Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells Washington Post 'I'm not for impeachment' as Trump's 'just not worth it'

Abstract: WASHINGTON - No effort should be made to impeach President Donald Trump unless the reasons are overwhelming and bipartisan, given how divisive it would be for the country, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a Washington Post interview published on Monday. “I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi, the top U.S. Democrat, said in the interview, which was conducted last week. “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” she said. “He’s just not worth it.” Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and whether there was any collusion between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government. He also is looking into whether Trump has attempted to obstruct the investigation. Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the probe a witch hunt. Mueller is expected to send a report soon to Attorney General William Barr outlining his findings. If there is evidence of wrongdoing, that could prompt Congress to take action against the president. Several panels in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives are also investigating the president. Although Pelosi said she believed it would be too divisive to try to impeach Trump, she characterized the president as unfit to hold office. “No, I don’t think he’s fit to be president of the United States,” Pelosi told the Post, adding that he was “ethically unfit, intellectually unfit, curiosity-wise unfit.”

nancy pelosi
washington post
impeachment
donald trump
robert mueller
congress
u.s .
russia probe


Trump budget boosts military and Mexico border wall but targets vital social services that help poor and elderly

Abstract: WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump in his 2020 budget on Monday called for overhauls of social programs that help poor and elderly Americans, while boosting military spending and funding a U.S.-Mexico border wall, in the opening gambits of his next funding fight with the U.S. Congress. The Republican president’s $4.7 trillion budget was immediately panned by Democrats in Congress, who rejected his push last year for wall funding in a standoff that led to a five-week partial shutdown of the federal government. Like past presidential budget proposals, Trump’s spending plan was highly unlikely to become law — especially with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives — but it does serve as an early manifesto of the policy priorities he will bring to his 2020 re-election campaign. “President Trump has somehow managed to produce a budget request even more untethered from reality than his past two,” said Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that Trump’s plan “is not worth the paper it is printed on.” This year, the stakes for a deal are higher than in past years. An Oct. 1 deadline to keep the government running coincides with a deadline to lift the debt limit. Without an increase in the limit the U.S. government would risk a default, which could shock the world economy. Trump’s budget includes politically volatile proposals for overhauling Medicare, Medicaid and other costly social programs that form the American social safety net and help the poor and underprivileged. It asks for $8.6 billion to build a wall on the border with Mexico. That figure is more than six times what Congress gave Trump for border projects in each of the past two fiscal years, and 6 percent more than he has corralled by invoking emergency powers this year after failing to get the money he wanted. Trump also calls for defense spending to rise more than 4 percent to $750 billion, using the emergency Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account — derided by conservatives as a slush fund — to skirt spending caps set out in a 2011 fiscal restraint law. Nondefense spending was held below those caps, thanks to steep proposed funding cuts to the State Department (23 percent) and Environmental Protection Agency (31 percent), among others. Even with the cuts, which the White House said would add up to $2.7 trillion in savings over a decade, the budget office said the Trump plan would not balance until 2034, exceeding the traditional 10-year outlook. Tax cuts have been a priority for the Republican White House and Congress in recent years, rather than deficit reduction. The deficit ran to $900 billion in 2019 and the national debt has ballooned to $22 trillion. The Committee for a Responsible Budget said Trump’s budget would add $10.5 trillion to the debt over a decade, and criticized the White House for what it called a “fantasy assumption” of 3 percent economic growth over that time frame — higher than the 2 percent average used by independent forecasters. Unless the White House and Congress reach an agreement, the automatic spending caps from the 2011 law will kick in on Oct. 1 and add another level of urgency to the fall deadlines. The White House wants to shake up the practice of pairing increases in defense spending with a corresponding increase in nondefense spending, a method that has been used to secure contentious funding deals in the past. “We are signaling in this budget that the paradigm of a dollar of nondefense increase for every dollar of defense is no longer — and hasn’t been for some time — affordable for this country,” said a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

budget
military
border wall
donald trump
republicans
medicare
medicaid


May says she has won 'legally binding changes' to Brexit deal from EU

Abstract: STRASBOURG, FRANCE - British Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday she had won “legally binding changes” to the planned Brexit deal and called on Parliament in London to back it. “MPs were clear that legal changes were needed to the backstop. Today we have secured legal changes.” May told reporters, sitting alongside EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. “Now is the time to come together, to back this improved Brexit deal, and to deliver on the instruction of the British people,” she said.

brexit
eu
theresa may
jean-claude juncker
u.k. parliament


Trump ally GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham says Golan should stay in Israeli hands

Abstract: JERUSALEM - An influential U.S. senator allied to President Donald Trump toured the occupied Golan Heights on Monday and vowed to work to have Washington recognize Israeli sovereignty over the strategic plateau. Lindsey Graham’s pledge was a boost to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who toured the Golan with him, ahead of April 9 Israeli elections. Netanyahu has been pushing for the United States and other countries to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel later annexed the 1,200 sq. km (460 sq. miles) it seized, in a move never recognized by the international community. “Strategically, I am standing on one of the most important pieces of ground in the state of Israel, and who would you give it back to?” Graham asked, standing alongside Netanyahu and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. “You’re going to give it to Assad? I think not. You might as well give it to Iran,” Graham said, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is backed by Iran and Russia. “You’re going to give it to Russia? I think not. So, the idea of this territory going to somebody else is off the table.” Graham is a Washington ally of Trump, who has given strong backing to Netanyahu, and said he would work to have the United States recognize the Golan as part of Israel “now and forever. In November, the United States voted for the first time against an annual U.N. resolution condemning Israel’s occupation of the Golan. Netanyahu has argued in his re-election campaign that his close relationship with Trump is a major benefit to Israel. Trump handed a huge victory to Israel in 2017 when he recognized Jerusalem as its capital and decided to move the U.S. Embassy to the disputed city despite Palestinian anger.

lindsey graham
donald trump
golan heights
benjamin netanyahu
syria
israel
bashar assad
u.s .
republicans


Britain to make unilateral declaration that backstop won't apply if talks break down, says May

Abstract: LONDON - Britain will make a unilateral statement that nothing can prevent it from pulling out of an Irish border backstop if talks about a future relationship with the European Union after Brexit break down, Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday. In a news conference in Strasbourg, France, May said that in addition to a joint instrument and a joint statement announced earlier in Parliament, Britain would also make a Unilateral Declaration on the so-called backstop — an insurance policy aimed at avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland. If the backstop comes into force and talks on the future relationship break down with no prospect of an agreement, May said the declaration would make clear: “it is the position of the United Kingdom that there would be nothing to prevent the U.K. instigating measures that would ultimately dis-apply the backstop.”

brexit
theresa may
ireland
eu
u.k .
u.k. parliament


Trump wants clocks pegged at daylight savings time

Abstract: WASHINGTON - Americans pushing for an end to the annual ritual of losing an hour’s sleep on changing clocks to daylight savings time got a new ally Monday: President Donald Trump. U.S. clocks go forward by an hour each spring and back an hour in November, ahead of winter. The switch, which took place at 2:00 a.m. in Washington on Sunday, now means more daylight in the evenings. Left groggy by the disruption, critics say the back-and-forth of the clock is unnecessary and maybe even dangerous. Trump seems to agree. “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!” he wrote on Twitter. Political momentum for leaving the clocks on summer schedule year-round is building in state legislatures from California to Florida. The U.S. Congress would have to give a final approval.

daylight savings time
donald trump
congress
u.s .


U.K. suspends Boeing 737 Max from airspace after Ethiopian Airlines crash

Abstract: LONDON - The U.K. on Tuesday joined a growing number of nations to suspend flights by Boeing 737 Max aircraft over their territory, after an Ethiopian Airlines plane of that model crashed on Sunday, killing 157 people. “The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority has been closely monitoring the situation, however, as we do not currently have sufficient information from the flight data recorder we have, as a precautionary measure, issued instructions to stop any commercial passenger flights from any operator arriving, departing or overflying U.K. airspace,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority’s safety directive will be in place until further notice.” Malaysian authorities also announced all flights by the Boeing aircraft into and out of the country have been suspended following two fatal crashes, including the Ethiopian Airlines crash, involving the jet in less than five months.

boeing
ethiopian airlines
aviation
airplanes
air accidents


Ethiopian jetliner smoked, strewed debris and shuddered before death plunge, say witnesses

Abstract: GARA-BOKKA, ETHIOPIA - The Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed killing all 157 people aboard was making a strange rattling noise and trailed smoke and debris as it swerved above a field of panicked cows before hitting earth, according to witnesses. Flight 302 took off from the Ethiopian capital on Sunday morning bound for Nairobi with passengers from more than 30 countries. All on board the Boeing 737 MAX 8 died. The pilot had requested permission to return, saying he was having problems — but it was too late. Half a dozen witnesses interviewed by Reuters in the farmland where the plane came down reported smoke billowing out behind, while four of them also described a loud sound. “It was a loud rattling sound. Like straining and shaking metal,” said Turn Buzuna, a 26-year-old housewife and farmer who lives about 300 meters (328 yards) from the crash site. “Everyone says they have never heard that kind of sound from a plane and they are under a flight path,” she added. Malka Galato, 47, a barley and wheat farmer whose field the plane crashed in, also described smoke and sparks from the back. “The plane was very close to the ground and it made a turn. … Cows that were grazing in the fields ran in panic,” he said. Tamirat Abera, 25, was walking past the field at the time. He said the plane turned sharply, trailing white smoke and items like clothes and papers, then crashed about 300 meters away. “It tried to climb but it failed and went down nose first,” he said. “There was fire and white smoke which then turned black.” As the plane had only just taken off, it was loaded with fuel. At the site, Red Cross workers in masks sifted gently through victims’ belongings. Children’s books — Dr Seuss’s “Oh The Thinks You Can Think” and “Anne of Green Gables” — lay near a French-English dictionary burnt along one edge. A woman’s brown handbag, the bottom burnt, lay open next to an empty bottle of perfume. The aircraft was broken into small pieces, the largest among them a wheel and a dented engine. The debris was spread over land roughly the size of two football fields. “When it was hovering, fire was following its tail, then it tried to lift its nose,” said another witness, Gadisa Benti. “When it passed over our house, the nose pointed down and the tail raised up. It went straight to the ground with its nose, it then exploded.” Local resident Nigusu Tesema helped gather victims’ scattered identity papers to hand to police. “We are shocked and saddened,” he said.

ethiopia
ethiopian airlines
boeing
boeing 737 max 8
air accidents


Deadly plane crash a setback for Ethiopia's rise

Abstract: The crown jewel in Ethiopia’s transformation to a continental power in recent years has been its state-owned airline that calls itself “the new spirit of Africa.” Sunday’s crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet that killed 157 people has set back those grand designs that were undertaken by a reformist new leader who has vowed to hold free and fair elections next year. Now, Africa is mourning not only the victims of the aviation disaster but also a symbol of the continent’s rise. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time for Ethiopian Airlines,” Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement, mindful that his own country, Africa’s largest economy, has no national carrier. “Like every other African leader, I am proud of the fact that Ethiopian Airlines represents one of Africa’s success stories.” Africa’s only profitable carrier, the airline is the symbol of a country shaking off a decades-old image of devastating poverty and famine. Thanks in part to financing from China, Ethiopia has ambitious projects in infrastructure and industry that have facilitated some of Africa’s fastest rapid economic growth. These include one of the continent’s few metro rail services, a massive hydropower dam on the Nile and numerous projects linking the landlocked nation with the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. “Many Ethiopians see yesterday. I see tomorrow,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Africa’s youngest head of government, told The Financial Times last month in his first major interview. Abiy, who took power in the country of some 110 million people nearly a year ago, has freed opposition figures from jail, welcomed home exiles and made peace with neighboring Eritrea. These are startling changes that he hopes to continue in business, opening the airline and other state-owned sectors to the world. As more countries and investors reach out to Africa, their gateway increasingly is Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa, where the crash occurred. The dead came from 35 countries. “Ethiopian Airways is a key player in linking Africa to Gulf relations and a signature project of Ethiopia’s internal capacity,” said Angelo Izama, a regional analyst based in the United Arab Emirates. “So the wider community basically took the crash as a shock to Ethiopia and its status as a potential hegemon in the Horn (of Africa) and in East Africa.” In January, Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport inaugurated a passenger terminal equipped to handle 22 million visitors a year, tripling its capacity in a city that is a diplomatic hub with the headquarters of the African Union continental body. The opening was a dramatic pushback against the long-held image of African air travel as chaotic and dangerous on a bustling continent of more than 1 billion people. Before Sunday, no major aviation accident had occurred in more than two years. Ethiopian Airlines appears determined to spread its success, reaching out to other African airlines for partnerships and investment. Many African carriers have collapsed in the last few decades, often because of mismanagement. In its push for dominance, Ethiopian Airlines continues to open new international routes, flying to nearly 120 destinations. In January, it opened a route to Moscow and announced plans for nonstop flights to Houston. The company has been among the first buyers of commercial jets hitting the market. In 2012, it became the first in Africa, and one of the first around the globe, to take delivery of Boeing’s flagship Dreamliner jet. The purchase was celebrated with fanfare at home as a source of immense pride. Ethiopian Airlines’ latest headline purchase was the Boeing 737 Max 8, the newest version of the best-selling airliner in history. The airline ordered 30 of them last year, and one of the planes was delivered in mid-November. On Sunday, six minutes after takeoff, it crashed. No one yet knows why. Within hours, both the prime minister and the airline’s CEO went to the crash site to pay their respects.

ethiopia
ethiopian airlines
boeing
air accidents


U.N. says 2018 deadliest year yet for Syrian children, with 1,106 killed

Abstract: BEIRUT - Last year was the deadliest yet for children in Syria, with more than 1,100 killed by fighting, the United Nations said on Monday, ahead of the bloody conflict entering its ninth year. U.N. children’s agency UNICEF said it had been able to verify 1,106 child deaths from the fighting in 2018 — the highest annual toll since war broke out in 2011 — but that the true figure was likely to be much higher. “Today there exists an alarming misconception that the conflict in Syria is drawing quickly to a close — it is not,” said executive director Henrietta Fore in a statement. “Children in parts of the country remain in as much danger as at any other time during the eight-year conflict.” The biggest cause of child casualties was unexploded ordnance, which accounted for 434 deaths and injuries last year, UNICEF said. Syria’s war has killed an estimated half a million people and driven about 5.6 million people out of the country. Another 6.6 million people still in the country have lost or fled their homes. Turkey and Russia, one of the Syrian government’s staunchest allies, brokered a deal in September to create a demilitarized zone in the northwest Idlib region that would be free of all heavy weapons and jihadist fighters. The deal helped avert a government assault on the region, the last major bastion of opponents of President Bashar al-Assad. But Fore said she was concerned about the intensification of violence in Idlib, where 59 children have been reported killed in recent weeks. “UNICEF again reminds parties to the conflict and the global community that it is the country’s children who have suffered most and have the most to lose. Each day the conflict continues is another day stolen from their childhood,” said Fore. Since January about 60 children have died trying to get to the al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, which is now home to more than 65,000 people fleeing Islamic State, according to the U.N. Thousands have flooded the al-Hol camp as the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) lay siege to the last vestige of Islamic State’s territorial rule at the village of Baghouz near the Iraqi border. “Syria is still one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child, with ongoing violence, insecurity and displacement,” said Caroline Anning, spokeswoman for Save the Children. “Even where conflict has subsided, the risk from explosive remnants of war like landmines and cluster munitions is growing,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an emailed statement.

syria
children
conflict
islamic state
syrian democratic forces
terrorism


'I'm an Aussie': Refugee soccer player Hakeem al-Araibi granted Australian citizenship

Abstract: SYDNEY - A refugee soccer player who fled Bahrain and was held in a Thai prison for months during a tense extradition standoff between Australia and the Gulf state was granted Australian citizenship on Tuesday. Hakeem al-Araibi, 25, left Bahrain in 2014 after he was accused of crimes committed during the Arab Spring protests of 2011, which he denied. He was granted refugee status in Australia but after an Interpol notice requesting his arrest was made by Bahrain, he was apprehended by Thai authorities in November when he flew to Bangkok for a honeymoon. “I’m an Aussie now,” he told reporters in Melbourne after a citizenship ceremony on the banks of the Yarra River that flows through the city. “I’m very happy to be safe.” Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who lobbied for his release from detention in Thailand, met al-Araibi after the citizenship ceremony and handed him the Australian flag lapel pin from his jacket. “I had a little badge I was going to give you today, but I’m going to give you mine,” Morrison said. “I think this is a tremendous day that we welcome you, absolutely, into the Australian family.” Hundreds of supporters cheered “Welcome home, Hakeem!” when he arrived at Melbourne’s airport following his release from jail in Bangkok a month ago. He was among more than 200 people from 44 countries who, having passed a citizenship exam, pledged loyalty to Australia and were granted citizenship at the ceremony, the Australian Associated Press reported. Pascoe Vale, the semi-professional team he plays for in Melbourne, congratulated Araibi. “A moment we all have been waiting for,” the club said on Twitter. “Finally, no country can follow me now because I am Australian,” Araibi told the Guardian newspaper. “Bahrain, please don’t follow me. I am now 100 percent safe in this country.”

refugees
soccer
hakeem al-araibi
australia
bahrain
thailand
immigration
terrorism


China lawmakers urge easing of family planning curbs to 'liberate fertility' as birth rates plunge

Abstract: SHANGHAI - Delegates to China’s parliament are urging the overhaul or even scrapping of controversial family planning rules and say radical steps are needed to “liberate fertility” and reverse a decline in births and a rapidly shrinking workforce. With its population aging as a result of longer lifespans and a dwindling number of children, the world’s most populous nation decided in 2016 to allow all couples to have a second child, relaxing a tough one-child policy in place since 1978. But birth rates plummeted for the second consecutive year last year. Policymakers now fret about the impact a long-term decline in births will have on the economy and its strained health and social services. In proposals submitted at the National People’s Congress, delegates from across the country urged leaders to improve health care and maternity benefits, offer tax breaks, and provide more free public education. Some went further, saying China should forget about trying to control births and even remove all references to family planning from the constitution. “Continued control over fertility will inevitably defeat the purpose and make it even harder to resolve ingrained population problems,” Guangdong province delegate Li Bingji said in a proposal that described population as China’s number-one priority for the next four decades. The number of live births per 1,000 people fell to 10.94 in 2018, official data showed, less than a third of the 1949 level. Liaoning in the northeast, which has seen its population decline in recent years, has a birth rate of 6.49 per thousand. The estimated number of children each Chinese mother will have in their lifetime is 1.6, down from 5.18 in 1970. The global average is 2.45. Think tanks expect China’s population to peak at 1.4 billion in 2029 and then begin an “unstoppable” decline that could reduce the workforce by as much as 200 million by 2050. They also forecast that over-60s will account for 25 percent of the population by 2035, up from 17.3 percent in 2017. More than a third of China’s population could be over 60 by the middle of the century. According to Steven Mosher, president of the U.S.-based Population Research Institute which opposes government attempts to control population, China is entering a “low-birthrate recession.” “China has set up a deadly demographic trap for itself, condemning itself to low or no growth for years to come, regardless of how many babies they can, using persuasion or compulsion, get young women to bear,” he said. By Tuesday, the phrase “comprehensive liberation of fertility” had appeared in five proposals submitted to parliament, suggesting a groundswell of opinion in favor of a radical overhaul of family planning rules. Some delegates, including Xiong Sidong of Jiangsu province, even urged the state to remove “family planning” from the constitution. “To drop the requirement that all couples plan their births from the constitution would be a major shift in thinking, as the planning of human production nationwide has, since the mid-1970s, been deemed as vital to China’s modernization as the planning of material production,” said Susan Greenhalgh, research professor at Harvard University, who has studied the one-child policy. The original restrictions were aimed at curbing runaway population growth, and required the establishment of family planning offices in every village across the country. Critics said the policy was enforced through compulsory abortions and violated human rights. It also created gender imbalances as poor rural families chose to abort or abandon baby girls. The government has defended the program, saying it allowed the country to limit population growth by around 400 million and thereby tackle entrenched poverty. Researchers warn of a demographic time bomb, with a dwindling workforce unable to pay the health care bills of the elderly, but after four decades, the policy adjustments could prove too little too late. “Virtually no country in the world has been able to coax birth rates up for a significant period of time after childbearing rates have dropped with modernization,” said Greenhalgh. “If the government were to encourage unmarried women in their 30s, or same-sex couples, to have a child, that might make a difference, but such changes seem unlikely given the social conservatism of the current regime.”

china
family planning
population
children


U.N. investigating North Korea sanctions violations in 20 countries, document shows

Abstract: UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON - U.N. experts say they are investigating possible violations of United Nations sanctions on North Korea in about 20 countries, from alleged clandestine nuclear procurement in China to arms brokering in Syria and military cooperation with Iran, Libya and Sudan. The expert panel’s 66-page report to the Security Council, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, also detailed the appearance in North Korea of a Rolls-Royce Phantom, Mercedes-Benz limousines and Lexus LX 570 all-wheel drive luxury vehicles in violation of a ban on luxury goods. And it noted a trend in North Korea’s evasion of financial sanctions “of using cyberattacks to illegally force the transfer of funds from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.” The report’s executive summary, which was obtained in early February, said North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs “remain intact” and its leaders are dispersing missile assembly and testing facilities to prevent “decapitation” strikes. The full report said “the Yongbyon nuclear complex remained active,” noting that satellite imagery through November showed excavation of water channels and construction of a new building near the reactors’ water discharge facilities. Satellite imagery also “indicates possible operation of the radiochemical laboratory and associated steam plant,” it said. The panel said it continues monitoring uranium concentration plants and mining sites in the country. It also has “surveyed, confirmed and reported ballistic missile activity sites and found evidence of a consistent trend” by North Korea “to disperse its assembly, storage and testing locations,” the report said. In addition to using civilian facilities, the panel said North Korea is using “previously idle or sprawling military-industrial sites as launch locations” — some close to, and some up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the assembly or storage sites. As examples of this trend, it cited the test launch of Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missiles from the Panghyon aircraft factory on July 4, 2017, and a launch from Mupyong-ni 24 days after that. It said Pyongyang’s Sunan International Airport, the country’s largest civil-military airfield, was used to launch Hwasong-12 missiles on Aug. 29 and Sept. 15 of that year. As for trade sanctions, the experts said they continue to investigate two Chinese companies on the U.N. sanctions blacklist — Namchogang Trading Corp. and Namhung Trading Corp. — and associated front companies and their representatives “for nuclear procurement activities.” The panel said it is also currently surveying the world’s manufacturers of nuclear “choke point” items such as “pressure transducers,” focusing on their end-use delivery verification methods. The experts said they also were continuing “multiple investigations into prohibited activities” between North Korea and the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad. These include Syrian nationals reported to be engaged in arms brokering on behalf of North Korea “to a range of Middle Eastern and African states, reportedly offering conventional arms and, in some cases, ballistic missiles, to armed groups in Yemen and Libya,” the panel said. They also include North Koreans working for sanctioned “entities” and for Syrian defense factories, it said. The experts said a country, which they didn’t identify, had informed them that Iran “was one of the two most lucrative markets” for North Korean military cooperation and that both the Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. and Green Pine Associated Corp. offices in the country “are active.” The unnamed country also indicated that North Koreans in Iran were being used as cash couriers, the report said. The Iranian government replied to the panel that the only North Koreans in the country were diplomats, and they have not violated U.N. sanctions, the report said. The panel said it is continuing investigations into “multiple attempts at military cooperation” between North Korea and various Libyan authorities and sanctioned “entities” and foreign nationals working on their behalf. The experts said they are also continuing investigations into military cooperation projects between North Korea and Sudan, including information on activities involving a Syrian arms trafficker and technology for “anti-tank and man-portable air defense systems.”

north korea
sanctions
u.s .
kim jong un
u.n .
nuclear weapons
north korea nuclear crisis
donald trump


North Korean election sees 99.99% turnout, state media says

Abstract: PYONGYANG - Turnout in North Korea’s single-candidate elections hit 99.99 percent this year, state media said Tuesday — up from a seemingly unimprovable 99.97 percent the last time they were held. With participation figures that Western democracies would never achieve, millions of North Koreans head to nationwide polls every five years to elect members of the rubber-stamp legislature known as the Supreme People’s Assembly. But with only one approved name on each voting slip in the isolated country, which is ruled with an iron grip by Kim Jong Un’s Workers’ Party, the result is never in doubt. This year’s turnout fell just short of 100 percent as those “abroad or working in oceans” were unable to take part, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported. Like in 2014, results for the nationwide election held on the weekend came in 100 percent in favor of all named candidates. “All the electors participated as one in the election to cement our people’s power as firm as a rock,” KCNA said, citing a report released by the Central Election Committee. “One hundred percent of them cast their ballots for the candidates for deputies to the SPA registered in relevant constituencies,” it added. A detailed list of the 687 candidates was not immediately available. But Kim’s younger sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong was among the newly elected according to the South’s Yonhap news agency, citing Pyongyang state media. Critics say the North’s election — with its total absence of electoral competition — is largely a political rite for enabling the authorities to claim a mandate from the people while reinforcing loyalty to the government and social unity.


15 years after activists' disappearance in Bangkok, family of missing Thai lawyer still 'waiting for justice'

Abstract: BANGKOK - The wife of a lawyer who vanished after being snatched off the streets of Bangkok 15 years ago urged Thailand on Tuesday to toughen laws to end impunity of officials accused of carrying out enforced disappearances. Rights groups say 30 human rights activists have disappeared or been murdered in Thailand since 2001. While local officials have been accused of being involved in some cases, they are rarely held accountable in a country where the police and courts are warped by power and influence. A draft law on preventing enforced disappearances is currently in parliament. But the bill must be toughened up as it currently is focused “on protecting government officials,” said Angkhana Neelapaijit of Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission. “The state must stand with the victims.” Angkhana is the wife of prominent Muslim human rights lawyer Somchai, who disappeared on this day 15 years ago when he was bundled into a car off the streets of Bangkok, according to eyewitnesses. Well-known for representing clients accused of insurgency-related violence in Thailand’s deep south, Somchai’s abduction came while he was defending suspected Islamic militants who had accused authorities of torturing them while in custody. Five police officers — one of whom was briefly jailed — were eventually acquitted in Thailand’s Supreme Court, a verdict that is a stain on the country’s law enforcement record. “Bringing perpetrators to justice … cannot be ignored, no matter the level of the government official,” Angkhana said during a memorial event at the Netherlands Embassy in Bangkok. “The families of the disappeared — including myself — are still waiting for justice.” The event Tuesday was attended by family members of other missing activists around the region, including Shui-Meng Ng, whose husband, environmental campaigner Sombath Somphone, went missing in 2012 in Laos. Speaking to a sombre crowd, Shui-Meng urged the Thai government to give closure to Somchai’s family, saying she “stands in unity with your pain … with your anger and indignity.” Somchai’s unsolved case is one of at least 82 cases of enforced disappearances in Thailand since 1980 recorded by the United Nations.

disappearences
bangkok
thailand
human rights
corruption
activism


Japan's 'Olympic ojiisan' hopes to complete 56-year odyssey at 2020 Tokyo Games

Abstract: For most people, going to watch the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but for 92-year-old superfan Naotoshi Yamada it has become a quadrennial ritual over the last five and a half decades. Yamada, known to his Japanese compatriots as “Olympic ojiisan ” (“Olympic Grandad”), first experienced the Summer Games when Tokyo last hosted the gathering in 1964, and he has been there for every minute of every one since. “Mexico, Munich, Montreal, Los Angeles, Moscow. Japan did not even participate at the Moscow Olympics but I went to see that games,” said Yamada, speaking in Tokyo. “Moscow, Seoul, Barcelona, Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London. I went to all games from the opening to the closing ceremony … There is no other such person like me. I am the only one on the earth.” With his distinctive gold top hat, red jacket and beaming smile, Yamada has become one of the most familiar and colorful figures at the games, regularly followed by television cameras and cheered by other fans. Now, as the nation marks on Tuesday the 500 days to go until the formal start of next year’s Tokyo Olympics, he has one final wish — to live long enough to witness that sporting spectacle. “It will be the culmination of all my years cheering at the Olympics,” said Yamada. Yamada was a relative stripling of 38 when he attended his first Olympics, hoping not just to witness the sporting spectacle but also to sate an earlier desire to experience the world that was inspired by a speech given at his university by Emperor Hirohito, who is posthumously called Emperor Showa. “The Emperor said he wanted the young generation to rebuild our country,” Yamada said. “I felt that I wanted to do something for my country. I think that it is one of the reasons why I started to attend the Olympics.” Yamada’s first games outside Japan was Mexico City, in 1968, where he paired his classic Haori Hakama kimono with a Mexican sombrero. Yamada said it was impossible for him to choose a favorite from the 14 Olympics he has attended. “If you have … different colors of crayons and someone asks which color is the favorite one? Black? Red? Blue? Green? … Each color has its own character,” said Yamada, a wide grin etched across his face. “So I cannot say which is my favorite one. Each of the Olympics were fascinating.” Yamada loves the international nature of the Olympic Games and has a vast collection of souvenirs he has collected over the years, some of them acquired through swaps with other fans. His haul of flags, stamps, photographs and other items are on display at a gallery in his hometown of Nanto, Toyama Prefecture. “The Olympics is the only international festival for all humankind,” said Yamada. “Athletes and tourists from more than 200 countries will gather at one place. “For the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, so many people want to come to Japan. “I think that 2020 will be amazing event.”

olympics
olympic ojiisan
naotoshi yamada
2020 tokyo olympics