London Bridge Attack Aftermath
London police carry out more raids in connection with their investigation into Saturday’s attack that killed seven people and wounded more than 50 others.
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Malta’s PM Sworn in For 2nd term, Pledges Gay Marriage Law
Joseph Muscat was sworn in for a second term as Malta’s prime minister Monday, pledging to introduce gay marriage as law when Parliament convenes in the next few weeks.
Official results showed his Labour Party won 55 percent of the vote Saturday to the opposition National Force coalition’s 44 percent, the same margin as his first victory in 2013.
Muscat called the snap elections a year early to consolidate his government after the Panama Papers leak indicated his wife owned an offshore company. They deny wrongdoing.
The Panama Papers leak exposed identities of the rich and powerful around the world with offshore holdings in Panama, including also Muscat’s energy minister – who was re-elected in Saturday’s election – and chief of staff.
Socially conservative Malta introduced civil unions in 2014.
US Productivity Flat in First Quarter, While Labor Costs Up
The productivity of American workers was flat in the first three months of this year, while labor costs rose at the fastest pace since the second quarter of last year.
Productivity growth was zero in the January-March quarter after rising at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Labor Department reported Monday. It was the weakest performance since productivity had fallen at a 0.1 percent rate in the second quarter of last year but an improvement from an initial reading of a 0.6 percent decline.
Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, has been weak through most of the current recovery. Many analysts believe finding a way to boost productivity growth is the biggest economic challenge facing the country, but there is no consensus on the cause of the slowdown.
Labor costs rose at a 2.2 percent rate after having fallen at a 4.6 percent rate in the fourth quarter. It was the fastest gain since April-June of last year.
The revision in first quarter productivity had been expected because of the revision to first quarter gross domestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services. The government initially reported that GDP had risen by a tepid 0.7 percent rate in the January-March perio. But that was revised to show a slightly better reading of a 1.2 percent gain. The boost in output led to the better reading for productivity.
Since 2007, productivity increases have averaged just 1.2 percent. That’s less than half the 2.6 percent average annual gains turned in from 2000 to 2007, when the country was benefiting from increased efficiency from greater integration of computers and the internet into the workplace.
Rising productivity means increased output for each hour of work, which allows employers to boost wages without triggering higher inflation.
The effort to boost productivity back to the levels since before the Great Recession will likely be a key factor in determining whether President Donald Trump will achieve his goal of boosting overall growth from the weak 2.1 percent average seen since the recession. The economy’s potential for growth is a combination of increases in the labor force and growth in productivity.
During the campaign, Trump pledged to double growth to 4 percent or better. Trump last month released a budget that projects faster economic growth will produce $2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade but that forecasts expects growth to rise over the next few years to a sustained pace of 3 percent annual gains.
Putin Denies Ever Meeting With Trump
Russian President Vladimir Putin insists he has never met with U.S. President Donald Trump and wondered if the American media has “lost its senses.”
Putin was interviewed last week by NBC’s Megyn Kelly. Parts of their talk were broadcast Sunday night.
When asked if he had anything damaging on Trump, Putin called it “another load of nonsense.”
The president said hundreds of American business executives come to Moscow every year and that he rarely sees any of them, including Trump, who was a business magnate before entering politics.
Putin also denied any contacts with fired national security advisor Michael Flynn.
There is a widely-seen photograph of Flynn and Putin sitting at the same banquet table in Moscow in 2015 when the retired Army general was a Trump advisor.
Putin was at the dinner to give a speech. He told Kelly he barely spoke to Flynn and was only told later who Flynn was.
Trump fired Flynn for failing to disclose that he had met with Russian officials.
The Russian president again denied Kremlin interference in the U.S. election by hacking Democratic Party emails.
He said hackers can be anywhere and can skillfully shift the blame to Russia.
Putin said it makes no sense for Russia to interfere, because he says no matter who is president, the Russians know what to expect from a U.S. leader.
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In Shadow of Deadly Attacks, British Election Campaign Resumes
After a militant attack on a nightlife district of London this weekend, British Prime Minister Theresa May will resume campaigning on Monday just three days before a national election which polls show is much
tighter than previously predicted.
May said Britain must be tougher in stamping out Islamist extremism after three knife-wielding assailants rammed a hired van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed others nearby, killing seven people and injuring 48.
After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, May said Thursday’s election would go ahead. But she said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism.
“Violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process,” May said outside her Downing Street office, where British flags flew at half-staff.
Islamic State on Sunday night claimed responsibility for the attack via the militant group’s agency Amaq.
“A detachment of Islamic State fighters executed yesterday’s London attack,” a statement posted on Amaq’s media page, monitored in Cairo, said.
London police arrested 12 people in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack and raids were continuing there, the force said. Police have not released the names of the attackers.
It was not immediately clear how the attack would impact the election. The campaign was suspended for several days last month when a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert by Ariana Grande in Manchester.
Grande gave an emotional performance on Sunday at a benefit gig in the city for the victims of the attack, singing with a choir of local schoolchildren, including some who had been at her show.
Before the London Bridge attack, May’s gamble on a June 8 snap election had been thrust into doubt after polls showed her Conservative Party’s lead had collapsed in recent weeks.
Shadow of attacks
While British pollsters all predict May will win the most seats in Thursday’s election, they have given an array of different numbers for how big her win will be, ranging from a landslide victory to a much more slender win without a majority.
Some polls indicate the election could be close, possibly throwing Britain into political deadlock just days before formal Brexit talks with the European Union are due to begin on June 19.
In a sign of how much her campaign has soured just five days before voting begins, May’s personal rating turned negative for the first time in one of ComRes’s polls since she won the top job in the turmoil following the June 23 Brexit referendum.
May called the snap election in a bid to strengthen her hand in negotiations on Britain’s exit from the European Union, to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce and to strengthen her grip on the Conservative Party.
If she fails to beat handsomely the 12-seat majority her predecessor David Cameron won in 2015, her electoral gamble will have failed and her authority will be undermined both inside the Conservative Party and at talks with 27 other EU leaders.
May said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth.
Opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn criticized May, who was interior minister from 2010 to 2016, for cutting police numbers during her tenure in charge of the Interior Ministry.
“The mass murderers who brought terror to our streets in London and Manchester want our election to be halted. They want democracy halted,” Corbyn said in Carlisle, northern England.
“They want their violence to overwhelm our right to vote in a fair and peaceful election and to go about our lives freely.” “That is why it would be completely wrong to postpone next Thursday’s vote, or to suspend our campaigning any longer.”
When May stunned political opponents and financial markets by calling the snap election, her poll ratings indicated she could be on course to win a landslide majority on a par with the 1983 majority of 144 won by Margaret Thatcher.
But since then, May’s lead has been eroded, meaning she might no longer score the thumping victory over socialist Corbyn she had hoped for ahead of Brexit negotiations.
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Ariana Grande Returns to Manchester to Honor Victims With Concert
Ariana Grande returned to the city to pay tribute with an energetic, all-star concert featuring Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Liam Gallagher two weeks after a suicide bombing killed 22 of her fans and injured dozens of others in Manchester, England.
Grande was emotional and teary-eyed throughout the One Love Manchester concert Sunday, which the British Red Cross said raised more than 10 million pounds ($13 million) for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, created for those affected by the attack at Grande’s May 22 show.
She closed the three-hour-plus event with a cover of “Over the Rainbow,” crying onstage at the song’s end as the audience cheered her on.
“Manchester, I love you with all of my heart,” Grande said before the performance, and just after singing “One Last Time” with Miley Cyrus, Pharrell and more of the show’s performers standing behind her in solidarity.
Gallagher, formerly of Oasis, earned loud cheers from the audience as he emerged in his home town in surprise form. He sang and offered encouraging words to the crowd, who held inspirational signs in their hands.
One of the most powerful moments was when the Parrs Wood High School Choir performed Grande’s “My Everything” with the singer. The 23-year-old pop star held the young lead performer’s hand, both with tears in their eyes, as the rest of the singers joined in.
Perry also left a mark with her resilient performance: She sang a stripped down version of her hit, “Part of Me.” Backed by two singers and a guitarist, she delivered the song wearing all white, singing, “Throw your sticks and your stones, throw your bombs and your blows, but you’re not gonna break my soul.”
“I encourage you to choose love even when it’s difficult. Let no one take that away from you,” she said.
Bieber shared similar words onstage, even coming close to crying when he spoke about God and those who died at Grande’s show.
“[God] loves you and he’s here for you. I wanna take this moment to honor the people that were lost, that were taken,” he said. “To the families, we love you so much. … Everybody say, ‘We honor you, and we love you.’”
Coldplay were also a crowd favorite, performing well-known songs like “Viva La Vida” and “Fix You.”
Grande performed throughout the show, singing her hits from “Side to Side” to “Break Free.” She even collaborated with others onstage: She sang Fergie’s verse on the Black Eyed Peas hit, “Where Is the Love” along with the group; she performed a duet with Cyrus; and she sang her debut song, “The Way,” with rapper Mac Miller.
Cyrus said she was “so honored to be at this incredible event” and performed “Happy” alongside Pharrell, who also sang “Get Lucky.”
“I don’t feel or smell or hear or see any fear in this building. All we feel here tonight is love, resilience, positivity,” Williams said.
Take That, who are from Manchester, followed with fun energy that the crowd danced to.
“Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by this,” singer Gary Barlow said. “We want everyone to stand strong.”
Robbie Williams also performed, changing some of his lyrics of “Strong” to honor the Manchester victims.
“Manchester we’re strong … we’re still singing our song,” he sang with the audience of 50,000.
The Manchester concert came the day after attackers targeted the heart of London, killing seven people. Authorities have said the attack started with a van plowing into pedestrians and then involved three men using large knives to attack people in bars and restaurants at a nearby market.
The One Love Manchester concert aired across the globe. Other performers included Little Mix, Niall Horan, Imogen Heap and Victoria Monet.
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Oregon Wineries Branch Out to Legal Marijuana
Diversification is a growing trend in some sectors of the agriculture industry. Some winemakers in the northwestern state of Oregon are branching out into marijuana as a new business venture. Faith Lapidus reports.
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White House Looks at Sanctions on Venezuela’s Oil Sector
The Trump administration is considering possible sanctions on Venezuela’s vital energy sector, including state oil company PDVSA, senior White House officials said, in what would be a major escalation of U.S. efforts to pressure the country’s embattled leftist government amid a crackdown on the opposition.
The idea of striking at the core of Venezuela’s economy, which relies on oil for about 95 percent of export revenues, has been discussed at high levels of the administration as part of a wide-ranging review of U.S. options, but officials said it remains under debate and action is not imminent.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the United States could hit PDVSA as part of a “sectoral” sanctions package that would take aim at the OPEC nation’s entire energy industry for the first time.
Complicating factors
But they made clear the administration is moving cautiously, mindful that if such an unprecedented step is taken it could deepen the country’s economic and social crisis, in which millions suffer food shortages and soaring inflation. Two months of anti-government unrest has left more than 60 people dead.
Another complicating factor would be the potential impact on oil shipments to the United States. Venezuela is the third largest oil supplier for the U.S. after Canada and Saudi Arabia. It accounted for 8 percent of U.S. oil imports in March, according to U.S. government figures.
“It’s being considered,” one of the officials told Reuters, saying aides to President Donald Trump have been tasked to have a recommendation on oil sector sanctions ready if needed. “I don’t think we’re at a point to make a decision on it. But all options are on the table. We want to see the bad actors held to account.”
The U.S. deliberations on new sanctions come against the backdrop of the worst protests faced yet by socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who critics accuse of human rights abuses in a clampdown on the opposition.
Since Trump took office in January, he has stepped up targeted sanctions on Venezuela, including on the vice president, the chief judge and seven other Supreme Court justices. He has pressed the Organization of American States to do more to help resolve the crisis.
While Trump has taken a more active approach to Venezuela than his predecessor Barack Obama, he has so far stopped short of drastic economic moves that could hurt the Venezuelan people and give Maduro ammunition to accuse Washington of meddling.
The two administration officials said the United States is also prepared to impose further sanctions on senior officials it accuses of corruption, drug trafficking ties and involvement in what critics see as a campaign of political repression aimed at consolidating Maduro’s rule.
Oil sanctions big step
But broad measures against the country’s vital oil sector, for which the United States is the biggest customer, would significantly ratchet up Washington’s response. The United States has imposed sectoral sanctions against Russia’s energy, banking and defense industries over Moscow’s involvement in Ukraine’s separatist conflict.
The officials declined to specify the mechanisms under consideration and said the timing of any decision would depend heavily on developments on the ground in Venezuela.
Possibilities could include a blanket ban on Venezuelan oil imports and preventing PDVSA from trading and doing business in the United States, which would have a severe impact on PDVSA’s U.S. refining subsidiary Citgo.
A more modest approach, however, could be to bar PDVSA only from bidding on U.S. government contracts, as the Obama administration did in 2011 to punish the company for doing business with Iran. Those limited sanctions were rolled back after the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran.
The Venezuelan government and PDVSA did not respond to requests for comment.
U.S. officials recognize, however, that oil sanctions on Venezuela could exacerbate the suffering of the Venezuelan people without any guarantee of success against Maduro, who accuses Washington and Venezuelan opposition of fomenting an attempted coup.
Given the potential for regional spillover, any decision on oil sanctions would require consultation with Venezuela’s neighbors, the officials said.
“The concern we have is that it will be a very serious escalation,” one official said. “We’d have to be prepared to deal with the humanitarian consequences of essentially collapsing the government.”
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Aspiring Chefs Thrive at ‘Restaurant Incubator’
The restaurant business can cause serious heartburn. It’s a mixed salad of bureaucracy, money, and paperwork that keeps some chefs from ever selling that first plate of food. But there may be hope as “restaurant incubators” offer chefs an alternative menu for success. Arash Arabasadi reports from Washington.
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Terror Attack in London Leaves 6 Dead; Police Kill 3 Suspects
London police said early Sunday that six people and their three attackers died in the latest terror incident in Britain.
A large delivery van drove into pedestrians at high speed on London Bridge late Saturday evening, then drove to Borough Market where three men left the van and stabbed several people.
The police said the three attackers were shot dead by armed officers within eight minutes of the first call to emergency services. The police said that the canisters the attackers wore, making them look like suicide bombers, were fake.
The London Ambulance Service said via Twitter that it took 48 people to five hospitals across the city.
Authorities declared the incident a terrorist attack. The delivery van used was apparently rented from a do-it-yourself building chain store.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, denounced the attack and said he and British Prime Minister Theresa May would take part in an emergency meeting of the government’s crisis group. Campaigning ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary election in Britain has been suspended in the wake of the attack.
“We don’t yet know the full details,” the mayor said, “but this was a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners and visitors.
“I condemn it in the strong possible terms,” Khan added. “There is no justification whatsoever for such barbaric acts.”
Third attack since March
The Saturday night carnage on London Bridge and in the nearby Borough Market neighborhood was the third terrorist attack in Britain since March, following a similar assault on pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and a suicide-bomb explosion less than two weeks ago in Manchester that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 100.
London police at first suspected another stabbing attack in south London might have been linked to the Borough Market and London Bridge attacks. A later statement, however, confirmed there were two separate terrorist incidents, and the stabbing in the Vauxhall neighborhood was unrelated.
US offers help
The White House said late Saturday that President Donald Trump offered America’s “full support” in investigating the “brutal terror attacks” in London during a telephone call with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
The U.S. State Department said it “condemns the cowardly attacks targeting innocent civilians in London.” The statement continued, “We understand UK police are currently treating these as terrorist incidents. The United States stands ready to provide any assistance authorities in the United Kingdom may request.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was in close contact with British authorities.
“At this time,” an official statement said, “we have no information to indicate a specific, credible terror threat in the United States” as a result of the London attack.
In Washington, Trump sent a message of support and help to Britain, but he also tweeted that the attacks emphasized the correctness of his strict policies on immigration. Other users of social media, both in the U.S. and in Britain, criticized Trump.
Initial chaos
Few details of what occurred were confirmed officially in the chaotic first hours.
It was after 10 p.m. in London when the first alarms sounded about a wild driver steering his vehicle deliberately into pedestrians on London Bridge, and most of the accounts that followed for several hours came from multiple sources on the ground — witnesses, bystanders and journalists.
Most witnesses said they saw a white van heading toward Borough Market veer off the roadway at high speed, probably in excess of 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph), and drive into pedestrians; about five to eight people who had been walking across the bridge were hit and thrown to the pavement.
Several witnesses had said it appeared that the attackers had escaped after knocking over the pedestrians. Other witnesses said they saw at least two people who had been stabbed in a restaurant close to Borough Market.
London Bridge crosses the River Thames between central London and the South London neighborhood known as Borough Market, which lies several hundred meters from the bridge itself.
Saturday’s incident came less than two weeks after the terror attack in Manchester, England, killed 23 people following a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. The pop star was scheduled to return to Manchester Sunday to perform a benefit concert for victims of the suicide attack and their families.
VOA’s Luis Ramirez, Jamie Dettmer and Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
IN PHOTOS: Van Hits Pedestrians on London Bridge
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Putin: US Could Have Hacked Election, Blamed Russia
American hackers could have planted false evidence that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying by NBC News Saturday.
U.S. intelligence officials have said Russia tried to interfere in the U.S. election by hacking the Democratic Party to sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
In an interview with NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, a preview of which was released to media, Putin said hackers in the United States could have made it look like Russia was behind the hack for political reasons.
“Hackers can be anywhere. They can be in Russia, in Asia … even in America, Latin America,” Putin said. “They can even be hackers, by the way, in the United States, who very skillfully and professionally, shifted the blame, as we say, on to Russia.
“Can you imagine something like that? In the midst of a political battle. By some calculations it was convenient for them to release this information, so they released it, citing Russia. Could you imagine something like that? I can.”
Speaking at Russia’s flagship St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, Putin said the hacking accusations were no more than “harmful gossip” and any evidence cited by U.S. intelligence could easily have been faked.
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London Attack, June 3, 2017
An unmarked van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge, striking a number of people. There also were reports of stabbings nearby.
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Perry Staying Busy, Gaining in Enthusiasm at Energy Department
Rick Perry twice ran for president and appeared as a contestant on TV’s Dancing with the Stars.
But since becoming President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Perry has kept a low profile and rarely has been seen publicly around Washington. Comedian Hasan Minhaj joked at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that Perry must be “sitting in a room full of plutonium waiting to become Spider-Man. That’s just my hunch.”
In truth, Perry has been busy — but far away from the capital.
He has toured Energy Department sites around the country, represented the Trump administration at a meeting in Italy and pledged to investigate a tunnel collapse at a radioactive waste storage site in Washington state.
Perry has visited a shuttered nuclear waste dump at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain and cautiously began a yearslong process to revive it.
Asia trip
On Thursday, Perry embarked on a nine-day trip to Asia, where he planned to check on the progress made since a 2011 nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help decontaminate and decommission damaged nuclear reactors. Perry also was to represent the United States at a clean-energy meeting in Beijing.
The former Texas governor says he’s having the time of his life running an agency he once pledged to eliminate. Perry has emerged as a strong defender of the department’s work, especially the 17 national labs that conduct cutting-edge research on everything from national security to renewable energy.
“I’m telling you officially the coolest job I’ve ever had is being secretary of energy … and it’s because of these labs,” Perry, 67, told an audience last month at Idaho National Laboratory, one of several he has visited since taking office in March.
“If you work at a national lab … you are making a difference,” Perry said.
The energy chief soon will have a chance to back up those words when he and other officials head to Capitol Hill to defend a budget proposal that slashes funding for science, renewables and energy efficiency.
Paris accord
Perry probably will be asked to defend Trump’s decision to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate accord. Perry said Thursday that the U.S. remains committed to clean energy and that he was confident officials could “drive economic growth and protect the environment at the same time.”
The administration has called for cutting the Office of Science, which includes 10 national labs, by 17 percent. The proposed budget would reduce spending for renewable and nuclear energy, eliminate the popular Energy Star program to enhance efficiency and gut an agency that promotes research and development of advanced energy technologies.
Perry, who served 14 years as Texas governor, likened the spending plan to an opening offer that he expects to see significantly changed in Congress.
“I will remind you this is not my first rodeo when it comes to budgeting,” he said during a recent tour of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. “Hopefully we will be able to make that argument to our friends in Congress — that what DOE is involved with plays a vital role, not only in the security of America but the economic well-being of the country as we go forward.”
Energy lobbyist Frank Maisano said Perry’s actions show instincts honed in his tenure as Texas’s longest-serving governor.
“He’s trying to find out what he needs to find out — hearing about these issues from the front lines,” Maisano said.
While Perry will never match the scientific expertise of his most recent predecessors at the Energy Department, nuclear physicists Steven Chu and Ernest Moniz, his political skills may offset that knowledge gap, Maisano said.
Renewable energy support
During his Oak Ridge visit, Perry pledged to be “a strong advocate” for Oak Ridge and other labs. He has spoken out in favor of renewable energy, such as wind and solar power, noting that while he was governor, Texas maintained its traditional role as a top driller for oil and natural gas while emerging as the leading producer of wind power in the United States and a top 10 provider of solar power.
Abigail Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said she had “a very positive conversation” with Perry at a meeting in April.
“He was very interested in our technology and how it can be utilized,” she said in an interview.
Perry also “knew exactly where Texas was in solar installation,” Hopper said — No. 9 in the nation, compared with its top ranking among wind-producing states.
Hopper, a former Interior Department official under President Barack Obama, said she and Perry did not discuss her federal service — but did talk about how national labs can boost the solar industry.
“It was good to make that connection between the research and how it translates into the marketplace,” she said. “He gets it.”
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Malta Votes in Election Tied to Panama Papers Scandal
Maltese voters went to the polls a year early Saturday in a snap election called by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat following an official investigation into allegations his wife owned a company related to the Panama Papers scandal.
Surveys showed Labour Party’s Muscat was likely to win a second, five-year term. But polls indicated one-fifth of voters were undecided, giving the National Force made up of the Nationalist Party and newly formed Democratic Party a slight chance.
The Panama Papers scandal, which detailed offshore companies and other financial data of the rich and powerful, exposed Malta’s energy minister and Muscat’s chief of staff as having acquired a company in Panama.
Muscat called new elections and ordered a magisterial inquiry midway through Malta’s first-ever stint at the presidency of the European Council after allegations surfaced in April that his wife also owned a company in Panama. The Muscats deny the allegations.
Setting up an offshore company is not illegal or evidence of illegal conduct, but shell companies can be used to avoid taxes or launder money.
After the publication of the Panama Papers last year, Muscat was criticized for retaining Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri, whose names figured in the document dump. They acknowledged that they acquired the companies but deny wrongdoing.
Since then, two other magisterial inquiries have been opened after money laundering and kickback allegations were made against Schembri by opposition Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil. Schembri denies any wrongdoing.
None of the investigations had finished before Saturday’s vote.
During the campaign, Busuttil, Muscat’s prime challenger, charged that accusations of corruption had hurt Malta’s financial services industry and would continue to damage the island’s reputation.
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Many Businesses Critical of Trump Decision to Leave Climate Accord
Dozens of U.S. companies spoke out against President Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. Analysts say the improving economic case for renewables has boosted support for green energy in the once-skeptical business community; but, as VOA’s Jim Randle reports, some coal companies supported the president’s action.
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This Year, No US Pressure to Avoid Russia’s Davos
For three years after Russia annexed Crimea, Washington officials quietly cautioned major U.S. firms about attending the annual St. Petersburg forum, where investors mingle with President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants.
This year, the first forum since Donald Trump became U.S. president, such cautions were not issued, according to four people familiar with preparations for U.S. companies to attend.
Washington’s policy toward Russia is essentially unchanged under Trump, with the United States committed to maintaining sanctions on Moscow unless it complies with international demands about Ukraine.
Change in tone
But its approach this year to the St. Petersburg event — often described as Russia’s version of the Davos forum in Switzerland — reveals a change in tone, according to some people who follow U.S.-Russia trade relations.
Daniel Russell, the head of the U.S.-Russia business council, when asked if U.S. companies were feeling less pressure from the administration to stay away, said: “I think that’s right.
“Some of the companies, particularly in 2015, received calls from the U.S. government not to attend and I think that attitude has certainly changed,” he said.
The change in tone fits with promises Trump made during his election campaign to pursue friendlier ties with Russia.
Any sign of warming toward the Kremlin is highly sensitive for the White House, since Congress and the FBI are conducting inquiries into whether members of the Trump team had improper contacts with Russian officials before Trump’s inauguration.
Trump has denied doing anything wrong.
Asked about contacts with companies planning to attend the forum, a State Department spokesperson said: “We have an open dialogue with the business community, and ultimately companies are free to make their own decisions, in line with applicable laws and regulations.”
The forum in St Petersburg was in its second day Friday and there were signs of a more substantial U.S. presence than in previous years since the March 2014 annexation of Crimea.
US ambassador attends
U.S. ambassador to Russia John Tefft was at the forum, though he did not have a speaking slot. No U.S. ambassador attended in 2014, 2015 or 2016.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said his attendance was a routine part of his ambassadorial duties.
Major U.S. companies who sent senior executives, including oil major Exxon, Boeing, Chevron and JPMorgan, were represented at a similar level to last year, but several delegates at the forum said they estimated the U.S. presence to be numerically bigger than in previous years.
“We see a much larger number of people from the U.S., Canada,” said Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a state body that works with foreign investors.
“There is a better understanding (among foreign investors) that sanctions really did not work, the Russian economy continues to grow, Russia represents an attractive market and people should work with Russia,” he told Reuters.
Russian economy growing
Several U.S. delegates said that, politics aside, they were drawn to the forum by the fact the Russian economy had returned to growth after a slowdown.
The forum is a prestige project for Putin, a native of St. Petersburg. Foreign executives typically use their presence to signal to the Kremlin their enthusiasm for investing in Russia.
In 2014, when the Ukraine crisis first started, U.S. Cabinet officials including Secretary of State John Kerry made personal calls to chief executives of U.S. firms asking them not to attend, said a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The next year, senior U.S. officials below Cabinet level were charged with persuading American executives not to attend, and in 2016, U.S. officials brought up the issue in a low-level manner, the former official said.
The account of those conversations was confirmed by a second former official who served in the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama.
The guidance in later years was not necessarily to stay away, but that executives who did attend should keep their presence low-key, said several other people familiar with the discussions.
Ian Colebourne, who is CEO for Deloitte in the Commonwealth of Independent States and sits on the U.S.-Russia business council, said he was aware of officials giving guidance to executives in previous years, but added: “I haven’t heard anything this year.”
Two other sources familiar with the preparations for U.S. companies to attend also said there had been no guidance before this year’s forum, in contrast to previous years.
Green light?
The lack of contact from the U.S. government this year is being interpreted among business executives as meaning: “You can go,” said one of the two sources.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did not receive any guidance from the administration about whether or not to participate in the event, a source with the Chamber said.
Still, some companies that did attend exercised caution, keeping a low profile.
The head of U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil, Darren Woods, did not join the table of panelists at the main oil session of the forum. It was chaired by the head of Kremlin oil major Rosneft, Igor Sechin, who is on the U.S. sanctions list.
Like his predecessor as Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, now Trump’s Secretary of State, Woods made only brief remarks from the floor in a discussion about the energy industry.
Among other U.S. companies at the forum, JPMorgan Chase & Co., sent Daniel Pinto, Chief Executive Officer of its corporate and investment business, while Boeing sent Bertrand-Marc Allen, president of its international arm.
U.S. oil major Chevron sent its vice president for business development, Jay Pryor. He was also at the forum last year. A company representative did not reply to questions about any guidance from the administration.
“Let’s say the seniority of some of the teams is more senior this year, certainly compared to some prior years and that’s a positive sign,” Deloitte’s Colebourne said of the U.S corporate presence.
Robert Dudley, chief executive of BP, a British company with substantial business in the United States, said his impression was that this year there were more representatives of U.S. companies at the forum than previously.
“That would suggest they are not feeling that kind of pressure,” to curb their presence, he said.
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What’s Truly Italian? Food Fight Foils ‘Made in Italy’ Plan
For the Italian government, it seemed like a recipe for success: create an official “Made in Italy” logo to defend the country’s finest food exports from an army of foreign impersonators.
On supermarket shelves worldwide, a star-shaped logo would mark out real Italian cheeses, hams, pasta and sparkling wines from those that only look or sound Italian, such as Parmesan made in New Zealand or Prosecco bottled in Brazil.
But Rome has discovered that even the simplest recipe can go wrong. Instead of unifying Italy’s food industry against a common enemy that is bagging billions of euros in sales, the government’s proposal for a Made in Italy certification quickly created bitter divisions.
A row has erupted over what it means to be truly Italian — should every single raw ingredient be made in Italy, for example — and now the project could be ditched altogether for lack of an industry consensus, according to two industry ministry sources who declined to be named as talks with food firms are ongoing.
“For now there is no final decision on whether to go ahead with the Made in Italy sign, we are studying it, we are doing technical checks,” said one of the sources, an industry ministry official who is working on the project.
“We will launch it only if it fully meets the requests of producers,” he said, adding that the food industry was split into several groups with conflicting views on the project.
The ministry announced the project at the end of last year, and began consultations with food producers in March, in response to industry complaints that foreign-made foods masquerading as Italian produce were costing the country billions of euros in lost export sales.
A logo guaranteeing Italian origin would enable exporters to grab some of the roughly 60 billion euros ($67 billion) in annual global sales generated by foreign imitations, according to Italy’s food producers’ lobby, Federalimentare.
Marketing experts agree. Brand Finance, a global consultancy that compiles an index of the world’s most valuable brands, estimates it could add up to 5 percent to the enterprise value of small- and medium-sized Italian food companies.
“Domestic companies would surely gain from such a logo given that Italy has a high reputation in the food sector and many of them are not well known outside the country,” said Massimo Pizzo, Italy managing director for Brand Finance.
However, Federalimentare’s members could not agree on a definition of Italian-made. Some took a hard line, insisting products be made entirely in Italy from ingredients sourced at home, while others argued for a less stringent approach.
‘If we open the door’
The consortium of producers of Parmigiano Reggiano, the king of Italian cheeses, insists on rigid standards for everyone.
“If we open the door to products with foreign ingredients, we are not talking of real Made in Italy … this is not the kind of help we are looking for,” said Riccardo Deserti, chairman of the consortium.
Under the consortium’s rules, recognized across the European Union, cheese can only be marketed as Parmigiano Reggiano, or by its English name Parmesan, if it is made according to a precise method within a restricted area around the town of Parma.
The consortium of Prosecco wine producers takes a similar stance, rejecting the idea of being put in the same authenticity category as products made with foreign raw materials.
On the other hand, some firms believe traditional Italian production methods should be enough to qualify for the logo.
Barilla, the world’s biggest pasta maker, wants to carry the Made in Italy logo though 16 of its 30 plants are abroad, including in the United States and Russia.
“We are Italian, we pay taxes in Italy and we run our foreign plants following the rules of the Italian quality,” Paolo Barilla, vice chairman of the family-owned business, told a food conference in March. A Barilla spokesman declined to make any further comment for this story.
One of Italy’s most identifiable food brands, the high-end food chain Eataly, draws a finer line on the issue.
It recently opened its first store in Moscow where an embargo on some European food imports forced it to make some cheeses from local ingredients. It sells mozzarella and burrata made in Russia, but not Parmigiano.
Olive and oak
Italian food producers can at least agree on one thing: Foreign rivals are competing unfairly by marketing distinctly Italian products, using words and symbols that suggest an Italian origin but listing the real provenance in fine print.
They point the finger at goods such as New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra’s Perfect Italiano range of Parmesan and Mozzarella cheeses or Garibaldi Prosecco made in Brazil by the Garibaldi Winery Cooperative.
“I totally agree with the idea of a Made in Italy sign,” Eataly founder Oscar Farinetti told Reuters at the inauguration of the store, but did not say whether he sided with the Italian-made purists or the likes of Barilla.
Contacted by Reuters, a Fonterra spokesperson said the group markets the two cheeses using their Italian names and featuring the Italian flag because they were launched by Natale Italiano, an Italian who migrated to Australia in the 1920s.
“While the brand is proud of its heritage, its packaging is evolving away from featuring the Italian flag,” Fonterra said.
The group did not disclose the turnover of the Perfect Italiano products.
Garibaldi Winery did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
The Rome government had proposed a Made in Italy logo employing the symbols of the Italian republic: a star framed by olive and oak branches.
The project, however, was constrained by EU rules.
The government planned to include products if their last “significant transformation” happened in Italy, the ministry official said — meaning, for example, sausages produced in Italy using imported meat would qualify for the label while ham made in a foreign plant of an Italian producer would not.
This would bring the logo into line with the European Customs Code governing country-of-origin labeling, but the plan satisfied neither side in the food fight; the purists balked at the idea of foreign ingredients being allowed, while other firms argued the rules were too stringent.
Hence the impasse that threatens the project.
“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t use a different standard from the one used in Europe,” said the source.
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Scientists Say Evidence Clearly Shows Climate is Changing
Reacting to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, leading scientific organizations say evidence clearly shows the world’s climate is changing and urgent measures must be taken to slow the warming of the planet.
The organizations say the scientific evidence is clear that human activity is behind the changing climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an independent scientific assessment body, warned that without additional efforts beyond those already in place, warming by the end of the century will lead to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts.
IPCC spokesman Jonathan Lynn said the scientific body finds that limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which together with adaptation can limit climate change risks.
“In its analysis of decision-making to limit climate change and its effects, the IPCC noted that climate change is a problem of the commons, requiring collective action at the global scale,” he said. “Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual players advance their own interests independently. … It is not clear at this stage how the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will affect future emissions.”
Deon Terblanche, head of the Atmospheric Research and Environment department at the World Meteorological Organization, said global warming will continue for as long as the world emits greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere
“Even a reduction in the emissions will not lead to a reduction in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because there is a cumulative effect and CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years,” said Terblanche. “… The climate will continue to warm in any case.”
In a worst-case scenario, he warned the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could result in an additional warming of the atmosphere of 0.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
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White House May Return Diplomatic Compounds Seized From Russia
The Trump administration is considering handing back two Russian diplomatic compounds along the U.S. East Coast after they were seized last year as punishment against the country, according to a report.
The compounds, one in coastal New York and the other along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, were believed by the Obama administration to have been used for intelligence purposes and were vacated on December 29 when former president Barack Obama sanctioned Russia for its alleged role in trying to sway the 2016 presidential election.
President Donald Trump is now deciding whether to return the two compounds to Moscow in exchange for certain concessions from Russia, according to reports in The Washington Post and Reuters.
According to several unnamed sources cited in the reports, Trump administration officials have spoken to Moscow about returning the compounds if Russia lifts a freeze on the construction of a U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg and stops harassing American diplomats in Russia.
The deal-making process is still in its early stages, though, and R.C. Hammond, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, told the Post that “the U.S. and Russia have reached no agreements.”
Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Wednesday Russia may try to take back the property through legal action “if these steps are not somehow adjusted by the U.S. side.”
The next senior-level meeting between the two sides will come later in June, and the issue is expected to be prominent on the agenda.
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UK Police Search Car in Manchester Attack investigation
British police investigating the Manchester Arena attack cordoned off an area around a car significant to the investigation as they hunted Friday for clues about the suicide bomber’s movements.
Officers put a 100-meter (100-yard) cordon in place around a white Nissan Micra in southern Manchester. They want to piece together Salman Abedi’s preparations for the attack at the Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people — and to learn whether others helped him.
“This is potentially a significant development in the investigation,” Detective Chief Superintendent Russ Jackson said. “We are very interested in anything people can tell us about the movements of this car, and who was in it, over the past months.”
Police were also interested in “who may have had access to the car or who may have gone to and from it.”
As a precaution, people were being evacuated from the nearby Ronald McDonald House, which offers accommodation for families with children who are being treated in the hospital. A local hospital remained working as usual and even managed to host a visit by Prince William, who met with children wounded in the attack.
The second-in-line to the throne later visited Manchester Cathedral, where he praised the grit of the city and those who responded to the attack.
“Manchester’s strength and togetherness is an example to the world,” he wrote in a book of condolence. “My thoughts are with all those affected.”
William also met with police officers, expressing his gratitude for the actions of those first on the scene of the blast. Among them was 47-year-old police constable Michael Buckley, who treated the wounded even as he frantically searched for his own child.
Buckley was off duty and waiting for his 15-year-old daughter Stephanie when the bomb exploded. He found himself in an arena’s foyer, which he described as a scene of “absolute devastation.”
“I knew my daughter was in there somewhere,” he said.
Even so, he tried to help others and kept trying to contact her in the confusion. She had suffered a concussion and some crush injuries.
“I eventually met her in a hotel in the early hours of the morning,” Buckley said. “She just ran to me and grabbed hold of me but I couldn’t hold her because I was covered in other people’s blood.”
In a city traumatized by the events of last week, police have released new security camera images of the Manchester bomber’s last moments, hoping to jog the memories of the public to see if someone might remember something.
Even those who knew Abedi struggled to explain his actions. His cousins, Isaac and Abz Forjani, expressed shock in a BBC interview.
“It’s not easy being connected to 22 lost, innocent lives,” Isaac Forjani said. “The fact that the person that did this is related to us by blood is something that’s going to stay with me for the rest of my life.”
The two brothers were arrested by police after the attack and released without charge.
Ten men, aged between 18 and 44, remain in custody on suspicion of terrorism offences in connection with the attack. Six others, including a 15-year-old boy, have been released without being charged.
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US Trade Deficit Rises to Highest Level Since January
The U.S. trade deficit rose in April to the highest level since January. The politically sensitive trade gap with China registered a sharp increase.
The Commerce Department said Friday that the U.S. trade gap in goods and services climbed 5.2 percent to $47.6 billion in April from March. Exports dropped 0.3 percent to $191 billion, pulled down by a drop in automotive exports. Imports rose 0.8 percent to $238.6 billion as Americans bought more foreign-made cellphones and other consumer goods.
So far this year, the trade deficit is up 13.4 percent from a year earlier to $186.6 billion. Exports are up 6.1 percent to $765.6 billion this year, but imports are up more _ 7.5 percent to $952.2 billion. So far in 2017, the United States is running a $268.7 billion deficit in goods and an $82.1 billion surplus in services such as banking and tourism.
The deficit in goods with China rose by 12.4 percent to $27.6 billion in April.
The Trump administration has vowed to reduce the trade deficit, blaming the gap between exports and imports on abusive practices by America’s trading partners.
President Donald Trump recently has singled out Germany for criticism, saying it is unfairly benefiting from a weak euro. When a country’s currency is weak, its products enjoy a price advantage in foreign markets. The trade deficit with Germany rose 4.3 percent in April to $5.5 billion.
Investors Bet Trump Climate Withdrawal to Boost US Drilling
The price of oil has fallen sharply as investors bet that President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate agreement will increase the country’s oil and gas production.
The cost of a barrel of crude slumped 2.4 percent, or $1.18, to $47.18 in electronic trading in New York on Friday, hours after Trump said the U.S. would immediately stop implementing the Paris deal. He said his administration could try to renegotiate the existing agreement or try to create a new one that is more favorable to the U.S.
The deal would have required the U.S. to reduce polluting emissions by more than a quarter below 2005 levels by 2025, potentially limiting the growth of high-emissions industries like oil and gas production. Economists, however, say that the climate deal would likely help create about as many jobs in renewable energy as it might cost in polluting industries.
U.S. oil production has already been increasing in recent months since the price of crude came off lows last year, making expensive shale oil extraction more economically viable.
“Now that U.S. President Trump has announced that the U.S. will be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, it is expected that the U.S. will expand its oil production even more sharply,” said analysts at German bank Commerzbank.
The increase in U.S. production is neutralizing the efforts of the OPEC cartel and other major oil-producing nations, like Russia, to support prices by limiting their output. OPEC and 10 other countries led by Russia agreed last week to extend for nine months, to March, a production cut of 1.8 million barrels a day initially agreed on in November.
On Friday, the head of Russia’s state-controlled Rosneft oil giant said that that a rise in shale oil output in the U.S. would likely offset the effect from the OPEC and Russian production cuts.
Speaking at an economic forum in St.Petersburg, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said that the OPEC and Russian cuts fall short of “systemic measures that would lead to long term stabilization.”
He said that thanks to increasing efficiency, U.S. shale oil producers would likely deliver an additional 1.5 million barrels of crude a day to the market in 2018.
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Has India’s Currency Ban Stopped Its Economic Momentum?
The heated debate over India’s cash ban continues, with critics saying it slowed an economy that was growing, while the government says economic momentum was barely affected.
Critics say the scrapping of 86 percent of the country’s currency last November cost India its status as the world’s fastest growing economy.
According to data released this week, from January to March, growth plunged to 6.1 percent – lower than China’s 6.9 percent growth in the same period.
Overall growth for the last financial year, which began in April 2016 and ended in March 2017, however, stood at 7.1 percent.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has tried to distance the disappointing economic numbers from the currency ban, citing other factors.
“There was some slowdown visible, given the global and domestic situation, even prior to demonetization in the last year,” he told reporters.
The slowdown affected almost all sectors of the economy, with farming, manufacturing and services all taking a hit. With people scrambling to get access to new notes, consumption slowed sharply, impacting both small shopkeepers and large businesses.
The government, however, is encouraged by forecasts that the economy is expected to recover swiftly on the back of monsoon rains, which are expected to be plentiful, and a slew of major reform measures.
As economists estimated growth this year will rebound to 7.4 percent, the government pointed out that India’s economy is still among the world’s top performers. Jaitley said given the global scenario, “7 to 8 percent growth, which at the moment is the Indian normal, is fairly reasonable and by global standards very good.”
There are widespread expectations of a major economic boost from India’s most ambitious tax reform action since independence – the launch of a nationwide tax that will replace a plethora of levies starting July 1.
The World Bank said this week the reform would lower the cost of doing business for firms and reduce logistics costs.
In the coming year, “we actually have very strong fundamentals of the Indian economy, GDP growth being up, exports have revived and there has been continued reform momentum,” said Frederico Gil Sander, a senior economist at the World Bank in New Delhi.
And while demonetization undoubtedly left its imprint on India by slowing down the economy, the government is optimistic there will be long-term gains because the move would help clean up an economy where many businesses and professionals evade taxes, resulting in the generation of what is known as “black money.”
“The message has gone loud and clear and it continues to this day that it is no longer safe to deal in cash,” said Jaitley.
Skeptics say only improved tax collections in the coming years will demonstrate whether that is true, or whether tax evasion remains a challenge in a country where cash transactions are the norm in large sectors of the economy.
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Russian Prosecutor Urges Guilty Verdict in Nemtsov Killing
The prosecutor at the trial of five men charged with killing Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2015 has urged jurors to find them guilty.
Wrapping up the state’s case Thursday, Maria Semenenko said their guilt was undisputed.
She also told the official Itar-Tass news agency that investigators had used special equipment during a re-enactment of the crime that placed the defendants’ mobile phones at the site of Nemtsov’s death when the shots were fired.
“Step by step, using the process of elimination, the investigators uncovered the entire chain of the crime, thanks to that expertise,” she told Itar-Tass.
The defense argued that no one could prove a motive for the killing.
Nemtsov was gunned down just steps from the Kremlin in February 2015. He was a popular opposition leader and a strong critic of Russian support for the rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Five suspects from Chechnya or Ingushetia were arrested. One of them confessed but later recanted, claiming he had been tortured.
A former Chechen security official, Ruslan Mukhudinov, is accused of paying the suspects to kill Nemtsov. He is at large.
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Treasury Chief ‘Confident’ Congress Will Raise US Debt Limit
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday he was confident that Congress would raise the federal debt limit “before there’s an issue” with U.S. creditworthiness, and he pledged that the Trump administration’s tax reform plans would be paid for.
“We’re going to get it increased,” Mnuchin told Fox Business Network about the debt limit. “The credit of the United States is the utmost. I’ve said to Congress they should do it as quickly as they can. But we are very focused on working with them and I’m confident we’ll get there before there’s an issue.”
Mnuchin said last week that he wanted a “clean” debt ceiling increase before the start of Congress’ summer recess in early August.
Mnuchin said that it “makes no sense” to view the Trump administration’s tax reform plans through a “static” budget analysis that does not account for economic growth effects. He has previously pledged that increased economic growth would generate more revenue to offset lower tax rates.
“We’re about creating economic growth, we’re about broadening the base and we’re going to make sure that this is tax reform, not just tax cuts, and that they’re paid for,” Mnuchin said.
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Europe Leaders React Angrily to Trump Climate Pact Decision
European leaders expressed dismay and anger in equal measure Thursday at President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States, the world’s second-worst polluter, from the landmark Paris climate accord.
They saw it as rebuke and warned it would make it harder to slow the pace of climate change. Government officials in several major European capitals said the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 agreement would further strain a Western alliance they worry is unraveling.
Others said the move would affect America’s standing in the world and undermine the country’s traditional global leadership role as it breaks with virtually every other nation on the issue of climate change.
The European Union’s climate change commissioner, Miguel Arias Cañete, said the announcement “has galvanized us rather than weakened us, and this vacuum will be filled by new, broad, committed leadership. Europe and its strong partners all around the world are ready to lead the way.”
The president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, said: “It is a matter of trust and leadership. This decision will hurt the U.S. and the planet.”
‘Small’ America
Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the liberal group of lawmakers in the European Parliament, tweeted a report on the impact of rising sea levels on Hawaii, adding: “Make America small again.”
And Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, tweeted that the city hall there “will be illuminated with green to affirm our will to implement” the Paris Agreement.
Environmental NGOs were scathing in their reaction. Greenpeace said: “By withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, Trump has turned the U.S. from a climate leader into a climate deadbeat.”
The leaders of Germany, France and Italy issued a joint statement expressing “regret” at the decision.
European leaders lobbied Washington with mounting urgency in recent weeks, imploring the Trump administration not to break with the agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Ever since Trump blasted the accord during the 2016 presidential campaign, saying it would cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars with no tangible environmental benefit, European leaders have been bracing themselves for him to fulfill his pledge to break with the Paris pact.
They made strenuous efforts to dissuade Trump last month at the Group of Seven summit in Sicily, where a frustrated German Chancellor Angela Merkel highlighted the isolation of the U.S. in climate change discussions as a matter of 6-1.
Economic argument
In March, European leaders pursued a new tactic — with Canadian and U.S. business support — by making an economic argument, warning that if the U.S. withdrew, it would miss out on commercial opportunities in clean growth and lose out in energy innovation and clean-energy job creation.
Even at the 11th hour, efforts to dissuade Trump continued. Senior European policymakers tweeted to him, asking him not to break with the pact. And alarmed lawmakers in the European Parliament warned “climate change is not a fairy tale.”
Just before Trump’s withdrawal announcement Thursday, a Vatican official, Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, warned the break would be a “disaster for everyone,” but would be seen by the pontiff as a “slap in the face.”
“Saying that we need to rely on coal and oil is like saying that the Earth is not round,” the bishop said. He and some other European officials blamed the fossil fuel industry in the U.S., saying it has an outsized influence on the Trump administration.
At their first ever meeting last month, Pope Francis handed Trump a signed copy of his 2015 encyclical calling for protection of the environment from the effects of climate change.
The accord, agreed on by nearly 200 countries in 2015, aims to cut emissions blamed for global warming. The United States committed to reducing by 2025 its own emissions by 26 to 28 percent compared with 2005 levels. Scientists have said a U.S. withdrawal from the pact could speed up the effects of climate change.
Chinese officials said the move would damage trust among leading powers in multilateral negotiations. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said his country would honor its commitments on climate change. “China will continue to implement the promises made in the Paris accord,” Li said.
Legal response
Some European policymakers are now turning their focus to how they could obstruct the U.S. withdrawal by pursuing legal avenues.
On Wednesday, Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president and a lawyer, said at a conference of the Confederation of German Employers in Berlin that “the Americans can’t just get out of the agreement,” adding that “it takes three to four years” to pull out.
Other European policymakers want to explore ways of enticing American energy innovators and climate researchers to relocate to Europe, using tax advantages and government subsidies to attract them. And some are advocating the imposition of carbon taxes on U.S. exports to EU nations.
But leaders of Europe’s nationalist populist parties cheered the abandonment of the pact. Britain’s Nigel Farage tweeted: “Trump keeps election promise to ditch the Paris climate accord and everyone is shocked. It’s called democracy.”
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US Withdrawal From Paris Climate Deal Disappoints Many Businesses
President Donald Trump is moving the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, signed by nearly 200 other nations.
Trump said Thursday that the Paris agreement hurts U.S. economic growth, costs millions of American jobs and puts U.S. firms at a disadvantage. However, his decision contrasted with the views of hundreds of American business leaders who urged him to continue participating in the climate agreement.
While the president said Washington would stop implementing the Paris accord immediately, he added that he would begin negotiations aimed at rejoining the Paris accord or a similar agreement on terms more advantageous to the United States.
“We will see if we can make a deal that’s fair,” Trump said. An audience at the White House Rose Garden warmly applauded his announcement.
Among the many corporations that opposed the move to bow out of the Paris Agreement were Mars, Nike, Levi Strauss and Starbucks. Their top corporate officers signed a letter to Trump several months ago, arguing that failing to build a low-carbon economy would put U.S. “prosperity at risk.”
WATCH: Trump: US ‘Will Cease All Implementation’ of Paris Climate Accord
Trump: ‘Fortune’ at stake
Trump said the climate agreement, as presently written, would cost U.S. businesses “a vast fortune” and lead to the loss of 7 million jobs by 2025.
Tesla founder Elon Musk tried to persuade the president to stay in the accord and said Wednesday that he would quit the White House business advisory council if Washington left the Paris Agreement.
GE chief Jeff Immelt has written that customers, partners and countries are demanding technology that generates electric power while improving energy efficiency and cutting costs.
Oil companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil recently argued that the Paris Agreement gives their firms a more predictable future, and therefore more manageable one. The oil companies and some coal firms also say remaining part of the accord helps maintain U.S. influence over future talks.
Earlier this week, more than 60 percent of Exxon shareholders voted to require that the firm do more analysis and disclosure of the likely impact of tougher climate policies on company revenue. Previous efforts to force such disclosures failed to get a majority of votes from shareholders.
Some other business, Republican and conservative groups agreed with Trump’s action. The Heritage Foundation, for example, said the accord produces “devastating” economic costs and “zero” environmental benefits.
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Stars Added to Grande’s Manchester Concert
The Black Eyed Peas and Robbie Williams will join Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and other stars at a charity concert Sunday in Manchester, England.
Live Nation said Thursday that girl group Little Mix had also been added to the show being held in response to the Manchester bombing that took place at Grande’s concert in the city last week. Twenty-two people died at the show.
Katy Perry, Coldplay, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Take That and Niall Horan also will perform. The event, “One Love Manchester,” will take place at Emirates Old Trafford.
Tickets went on sale Thursday. Proceeds will go to an emergency fund set up by the city of Manchester and the British Red Cross.
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Investors Pick Tesla’s Promise Over GM’s Steady Profits
When General Motors CEO Mary Barra introduced the Chevrolet Bolt at the CES gadget show last year, she took a shot at Tesla.
Buyers can be confident because Chevy has 3,000 U.S. dealers to service the new electric vehicle, she said. The implication was that Tesla, with just 69 service centers nationwide, can make no such promise.
The uncharacteristic insult from Barra was designed to highlight the difference between 108-year-old GM and Tesla, a disruptive teenager. It also acknowledged a budding rivalry that could help determine whether Detroit or Silicon Valley sets the course for the future of the auto industry.
The tale of the tape favors GM. It has made billions in profits since returning to the public markets in 2010. GM got the Bolt, a $36,000 car that goes 238 miles per charge, to market before Tesla’s Model 3. Tesla, the 14-year-old company led by flamboyant CEO Elon Musk, has never posted an annual profit.
Yet, as both CEOs face shareholders for annual meetings Tuesday, it is Barra who must explain to skeptical investors why GM’s future is as bright as Tesla’s.
GM’s stock is trading around the $33 price of its initial public offering seven years ago. During that time, Tesla shares have soared more than tenfold to $335. Wall Street now values Tesla at about $55 billion, compared to around $50 billion for GM.
Despite efforts to paint themselves as technology companies, automakers can’t shake their giant, capital-intensive global manufacturing operations. The huge investment needed to build vehicles yields low profit margins compared with tech companies that make software or cell phones, says Michael Ramsey, an analyst with Gartner. GM’s net profit margin in 2016 was 5.7 percent. By comparison, Alphabet Inc., parent of Google, had a 22 percent margin.
Although it’s an automaker, Tesla started in the tech bucket and remains there in the eyes of investors and buyers, Ramsey says.
Tesla’s electric cars are the envy of the industry, and its semi-autonomous technology is among the most advanced on the road. Musk says Tesla’s California assembly plant – which used to be GM’s – will soon be among the most efficient in the world. And it’s branching into areas with potential for bigger returns, including solar panels, energy storage and trucking.
Tesla is absurdly overvalued if based on the past, but that’s irrelevant. A stock price represents risk-adjusted future cash flows,” Musk tweeted in April.
Still, Musk can’t risk any missteps as Tesla pivots from a niche manufacturer of 84,000 high-priced cars per year. The Model 3 sedan, Tesla’s first mainstream car, is due out later this year, but previous launches have been plagued with delays. Tesla has yet to prove it can build high-volume vehicles with quality and reliability, as GM does. Musk aims to make 500,000 vehicles per year in 2018; GM made more than 10 million cars and trucks last year.
GM, too, is stretching into new areas. Its Maven car-sharing service has 35,000 members in 17 North American cities, and it’s providing cars for ride-hailing services. GM is developing autonomous cars with Cruise Automation, a software company purchased last year. Its SuperCruise semi-autonomous driving system, due out this year, is designed to be safer than Tesla’s.
And GM isn’t the only automaker with a stagnant stock price. Of the seven best-selling carmakers in the U.S., only Toyota and Fiat Chrysler have seen significant growth in seven years. Ford, Honda and Hyundai all have lost value.
“Investors and the financial markets are much more interested in investing in the potential of what might be huge than in the reality of what’s already profitable and likely to remain so for years to come,” says Sam Abuelsamid, a senior analyst with Navigant Research.
Abuelsamid says GM could better trumpet its technology achievements. For instance, it scarcely markets the Bolt. By contrast, Musk builds hype with nightclub-like events for Tesla owners and Twitter banter with 8.8 million followers.
“The only way you can get people to perceive you in the same light as a company like Tesla is to demonstrate it,” Abuelsamid says.
Musk is crucial to Tesla’s success. The risk-taking billionaire founded PayPal and rocket company SpaceX before taking over Tesla. He espouses big ideas like Hyperloop high-speed transportation and colonizing Mars.
Barra, on the other hand, is a methodical engineer who rarely strays from script. She has only 29,500 Twitter followers. She’s a GM lifer who earned a company-paid MBA from Stanford; Musk left a Stanford graduate physics program after just two days to form a publishing startup.
“Mary is like a normal high-level performing executive,” Ramsey says. “Elon Musk is like an almost unrivaled superstar, even in comparison to Silicon Valley executives.”
Still, the big changes in the auto industry are in the early stages. Electric vehicles make up less than 1 percent of global auto sales and fully self-driving cars are years away. The economy can falter and company fortunes can shift. Already this year, sales in the U.S. and China are slowing, and GM pulled out of the European and Indian markets because they weren’t profitable.
GM knows the ups and downs of auto sales, but Tesla will have to learn to manage them. If the Model 3 is late and Tesla sales fall, its stock price could drop and reduce Tesla’s access to cheap capital, Ramsey says.
“I don’t think they’re completely immune to economic cycles,” he says. “That will be when we really know if Tesla can maintain this out-of-whack share value with their fundamentals.”
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Canada Threatens to Cancel Boeing Order Over Trade Complaint
Canada’s defense minister repeated a threat Wednesday to cancel the purchase of 18 fighter jets from Boeing Co. because of the company’s trade complaint against Canadian plane maker Bombardier.
Harjit Sajjan said Boeing’s action against Bombardier is “unfounded” and not the behavior of a “trusted partner.” He said buying the Super Hornet fighter jets “requires a trusted industry partner.”
Sajjan urged Boeing to withdraw the complaint. Canada’s foreign minister has also threatened to block the order.
“Our government — and I stress this — our government is disappointed in the action of one of our leading industry partners,” he said.
Complaint could mean duties
Chicago-based Boeing’s trade complaint prompted a U.S. Commerce Department anti-dumping investigation that could result in duties being imposed on Bombardier’s new larger C Series passenger aircraft. Boeing insists the plane receives Canadian government subsidies that give it an advantage internationally.
Canada’s threat is coming amid increasing trade disputes with the U.S.
Scott Day, a spokesman for Boeing, noted that Sajjan also recognized Boeing as a strong partner in the past and for the future. Day defended the company’s trade action.
“This is a commercial matter that Boeing is seeking to address through the normal course for resolving such issues,” Day said in an email.
Boeing petitioned the U.S. Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate subsidies of Montreal-based Bombardier’s C Series aircraft. Boeing says Bombardier has received more than US $3 billion in government subsidies that let it engage in “predatory pricing.”
Brazil has also launched a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization over Canadian subsidies to Bombardier. Sao Paolo-based Embraer is a fierce rival of Bombardier.
Government investment
The Quebec government invested US $1 billion in exchange for a 49.5 percent stake in the C Series last year. Canada’s federal government also recently provided a US $275 million loan to Bombardier, which struggled to win orders for its new medium-size plane. But Bombardier won a 75-plane order for the C Series from U.S.-based Delta Air Lines in 2016. Bombardier said its planes never competed with Boeing in the sale to Delta.
The Canadian government said late last year it would enter into discussions on buying 18 Super Hornet jet fighters from Boeing on an interim basis and hold an open competition to buy more planes over the next five years. Canada remains part of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.