Day: October 12, 2017

US Proposes NAFTA Sunset Clause, Raising Tensions in Talks

Washington has increased tensions in talks to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement by insisting that any new deal be allowed to expire after five years, two officials familiar with the negotiations said on Thursday.

Canada and Mexico both strongly oppose the concept of a so-called sunset clause, a provision that had been floated earlier.

But the officials, who asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential, said the U.S. side formally proposed it late on Wednesday during the fourth of seven scheduled rounds to update the rules governing one of the world’s biggest trade blocs.

The Trump administration says the clause, causing NAFTA to expire every five years unless all three countries agree it should continue, is to ensure the pact stays up to date.

But Mexico and Canada insist there is no point updating the pact with such a threat hanging over it, arguing the clause would stunt investment by sowing too much uncertainty about the future of the agreement.

“It’s a source of total uncertainty,” said one of the NAFTA government officials familiar with details of the negotiations.

U.S. President Donald Trump says NAFTA, originally signed in 1994, has been a disaster for the United States and has frequently threatened to scrap it unless major changes are made.

Business and farm groups say abandoning the 23-year-old pact would wreak economic havoc, disrupting cross-border manufacturing supply chains and slapping high tariffs on agricultural products.

Trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico has quadrupled under NAFTA, now topping $1.2 trillion a year. As well as the sunset clause, the United States wants to boost how much North American content autos must contain to qualify for tax-free status and eliminate a dispute settlement mechanisms that Canada insists must stay.

Some trade observers said it is difficult to see how negotiators could reach an agreement given U.S. demands that many see as nonstarters.

The head of Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector labor union, said it was clear the United States did not want a deal.

“NAFTA is not going anywhere. This thing is going into the toilet,” Jerry Dias told reporters on Thursday.

Despite clear signs of impatience from Canada in particular, U.S. negotiators have yet to submit their proposal on rules of origin for the auto sector. That looked unlikely to come before Friday, another official familiar with the talks said.

Trump on Wednesday repeated his warnings that he might terminate the pact and said he was open to doing a bilateral deal with either Canada or Mexico if three-way negotiations fail.

He was speaking at the White House with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said Canada was “braced” for Trump’s unpredictability but taking a serious approach to the NAFTA talks.

Negotiators were also set to cover the difficult issue of government procurement on Thursday.

Canada and Mexico want their companies to be able to bid on more U.S. federal and state government contracts, but this is at odds with Trump’s “Buy American” agenda. U.S. negotiators have countered with a proposal that would effectively grant the other countries less access, people familiar with the talks say.

On automotive rules of origin, NAFTA negotiators face tough new U.S. demands to increase regional vehicle content to 85 percent from 62.5 percent, with 50 percent required from the United States, according to people briefed on the plan.

The rules of origin demands are among several conditions that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has labeled “poison pill proposals” that threaten to torpedo the talks.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday that he believed higher percentages for automotive content would be achieved, and “car companies will adapt themselves to it.”

However, a study released on Thursday by the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association, which represents U.S. auto parts makers, showed the higher content requirements would lead to the loss of up to 24,000 U.S. jobs, as some companies would forgo NAFTA’s tariff-free benefits and ship in more components from other countries.

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Bruno Mars Leads American Music Awards Nominations With 8

Bruno Mars topped the field of American Music Awards nominations announced Thursday, receiving eight nods, while The Chainsmokers, Drake, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and The Weeknd received five nominations apiece.

Mars, The Chainsmokers, Drake, Lamar and Sheeran received nominations for the artist of the year award, the top AMA prize.

Justin Bieber, Daddy Yankee and Luis Fonsi received four nominations each, including favorite pop/rock song for their hit collaboration Despacito. The video for Despacito, which set the record for most-watched clip on YouTube with more than 3 billion views, was also nominated for video of the year.

Keith Urban led country artists with three nominations. Nominees for the new artist of the year were James Arthur, Niall Horan, Julia Michaels, Post Malone and Rae Sremmurd.

Alessia Cara, Lady Gaga and Rihanna were nominated for the favorite female pop/rock artist award.

The awards show will air live from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on November 19 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC. The AMA winners are determined by a vote of fans.

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Richard Branson Takes Another Bet on Future with Hyperloop One

British billionaire Richard Branson on Thursday placed another bet on the future with an investment in Hyperloop One, which is developing super high-speed transportation systems.

Hyperloop One said Branson’s Virgin Group would take the company global and rebrand itself as Virgin Hyperloop One in the near future.

Branson has joined the board of Hyperloop One, which aims to develop pods that will transport passenger and mixed-use cargo at speeds of 250 miles per hour (402 km per hour).

The pod lifts above a track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to low aerodynamic drag.

The company did not disclose the size of the investment.

Hyperloop One was originally conceptualized by Elon Musk. In July, Musk said he had received verbal approval to start building the systems that would link New York and Washington, cutting travel time to about half an hour.

Last month, Hyperloop One raised $85 million in new funding, bringing the total financing raised to $245 million since it was founded in 2014.

Hyperloop One’s co-founders, executive chairman Shervin Pishevar and president of engineering Josh Giegel, have previously worked at Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic is Branson’s space company, which in 2016, was granted an operating license to fly its passenger rocket ship with the world’s first paying space tourists once final safety tests are completed.

“Virgin Hyperloop One will be all-electric and the team is working on ensuing it is a responsible and sustainable form of transport,” Virgin Group said in a statement.

Hyperloop One is also working on projects in the Middle East, Europe, India and Canada, according to the statement.

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US World Cup Absence Could Have Wide-ranging Effects

The 2018 World Cup will be a unique test of soccer’s appeal in the United States.

Will Americans still watch if their national team isn’t there? Fox certainly is hoping so.

The U.S. failed to qualify for next year’s World Cup in Russia when it lost at Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night, and the effects of that defeat may be felt for quite some time. The team, and indeed the whole U.S. Soccer Federation, faces a period of soul searching – but broadcasters, sponsors and tournament organizers also could feel the impact of the Americans’ absence.

Fox, which broadcasts next year’s World Cup, offered only a brief statement Wednesday – which did provide some insight as to how the network likely will promote a World Cup without the U.S.

 

“Last night’s World Cup qualifying results do not change FOX Sports’ passion for the world’s biggest sporting event,” the statement said. “While the U.S. was eliminated, the biggest stars in the world from Lionel Messi to Cristiano Ronaldo stamped their tickets to Russia on the same day, and will battle teams ranging from Mexico to England that have massive fan bases in America.”

 

Fans in the U.S. are familiar with stars like Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar. Top European club teams now have American followings, which suggests that soccer in the U.S. can withstand a short-term slump for the national team.

 

An estimated 26.5 million people in the U.S. watched Germany’s victory over Argentina in the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil, and the 2018 final figures to be a major draw as well. But a U.S.-Portugal match in the group stage of the 2014 tournament had 24.7 million viewers – and that’s the type of interest that might be absent from earlier games in 2018.

 

“It’s going to hurt a little bit,” said Austin Karp, an assistant managing editor of SportsBusiness Daily. “You’re not going to have any buildup there toward the summer, with the U.S. team playing either friendlies – or talk about how the U.S. team is going to do, promotion of the U.S. team on Fox properties like baseball or other spring stuff they might have. … The U.S. matches were some of the strongest audiences for ESPN-ABC the last couple of iterations of the tournament. The final will still be OK.”

 

Fox broadcast the Women’s World Cup in 2015, but next year will be its first time carrying the men’s tournament since winning U.S. English-language World Cup rights back in 2011. Now Fox’s 2018 tournament won’t have the Americans, and ratings for the 2022 event in Qatar could be affected by the fact that it is set to be held in November and December to avoid the searing summer desert heat, instead of its usual calendar spot midway through the year.

 

The U.S. team’s failure to qualify for 2018 dented shares of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. on Wednesday. The stock fell 66 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $26.11. But concerns over Fox’s outlook may be overblown, according to a report from Pivotal Research Group. According to the group’s study, the U.S. team accounted for about 20 percent of ESPN’s total viewing for the 2014 tournament – a significant figure but not an overwhelming one. Fox certainly will miss having the Americans in 2018, but the U.S. played only four games in Brazil last time.

 

“While it might make a difference for the lay viewer who is only going to watch the U.S. games, that’s just a small subset of the total viewing,” said Brian Wieser, a senior research analyst for Pivotal Research Group.

 

So the show must go on for broadcasters – and sponsors are trying to make the best of the situation as well.

 

“Like all American soccer fans, we are disappointed the team will not be participating in the World Cup, but still recognize the huge growth opportunity for soccer in the U.S.,” said Ricardo Marques, a vice president of marketing for Budweiser. “As the official beer of the World Cup and a longtime FIFA partner, Budweiser will continue to tap into our fans’ passion for soccer here and globally.”

Over in Russia, meanwhile, the reaction to the U.S. ouster was muted. American fans have attended the World Cup in droves recently – more than 200,000 tickets for games in Brazil were purchased by U.S. residents. FIFA said Tuesday that the U.S. was among the top 10 countries for ticket applications so far for 2018, along with other non-qualifiers like China and Israel. Some applications by U.S. residents are likely to have been made by supporters of other teams, such as Mexico.

 

Still, many in Russia focused instead on the failure to qualify of neighboring Ukraine, which occasionally had threatened to boycott the tournament over Russia’s backing for separatist groups in eastern Ukraine. Vyacheslav Koloskov, the Russian Football Union honorary president, said the United States’ absence was a missed opportunity to improve Russia-U.S. relations.

 

“The non-participation of the U.S. reduces the chances of players, and indirectly of American fans, to see the transformations taking place in our country,” he told Russian agency R-Sport.

 

Koloskov added that the U.S. team was “nothing special” and so its absence “won’t have any effect on our World Cup in a sporting sense.”

 

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Coach Cleared of Administering EPO to Banned Runner Jeptoo

The former coach of banned marathon runner Rita Jeptoo has been acquitted in a Kenyan court of charges that he helped administer the banned blood-booster EPO to her.

 

Italian national Claudio Berardelli was cleared of charges of conspiring to harm Jeptoo’s career by administering a banned substance. An assistant coach who worked with Berardelli and a pharmacist were also cleared of the charges in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

 

They were arrested and released on bail more than a year ago.

 

Jeptoo, a three-time Boston Marathon and two-time Chicago Marathon winner, tested positive for EPO in an out-of-competition test in September 2014, just before she was due to claim a $500,000 prize as the top marathon runner in the world.

 

She was initially banned for two years but the sanction was increased to four years last year.

 

The Kenyan court ruled that prosecutors failed to prove that Berardelli and his co-accused were responsible for providing and administering the EPO while they were working with Jeptoo.

 

The three went on trial in Kenya despite a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling last year that found Jeptoo received the EPO in an injection or injections from an unnamed doctor and hid her doping from her coaching team.

 

 

 

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Mystery Surrounding Ancient Easter Island People Deepens

The massive brooding stone figures peering from Easter Island’s hillsides are emblematic of the enigmatic people who once thrived on the dot of land in the middle of the Pacific. New genetic research only deepens the mystery around these people.

Scientists said on Thursday an analysis of DNA from ancient skeletal remains ruled out the likelihood that Easter Island’s inhabitants intermixed with South Americans before the arrival of Europeans on the island in 1722.

A 2014 genetic study had indicated interbreeding between the people of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, and native people in South America occurred roughly between 1300 and 1500. The new research, studying the DNA of three Rapa Nui people from the 1400s and 1500s and two from the 1800s, found no evidence of such mingling.

The research underscored the isolation of these people, who lived on an outpost some 2,300 miles (3,700 km) west of South America and 1,100 miles (1,770 km) from the nearest island.

“Our study shows that there is no simple scenario of population exchange and migration between Rapa Nui and the Americas as suggested by many archaeologists, historians, population geneticists and even adventurers,” said archaeologist Cat Jarman of the University of Bristol in Britain.

Jarman said the study, published in the journal Current Biology, confirmed a growing body of evidence that Easter Island was settled by Polynesians who crossed the open ocean.

“We were surprised that we didn’t find any Native American admixture in our ancient Rapa Nui individuals,” Jarman added.

The Rapa Nui people formed a unique culture best known for the 900 monumental head-and-torso stone statues known as moai erected around Easter Island. The culture flourished starting around 1200.

The study did not rule out some type of cultural contact between Easter Island and South America. “However, if it did take place, the new evidence suggests that it was infrequent or, at least, that it did not leave a discernible genetic trace,” Jarman said.

University of California-Santa Cruz anthropologist Lars Fehren-Schmitz said evidence like the presence of sweet potatoes, a South American staple, in Polynesia indicates some cultural exchange occurred between the Americas and Polynesia before the impact of European colonization.

“Many researchers suggest Rapa Nui as kind of the best point of contact because it is closest to South America, but an exchange could have also been initiated on other islands, if it happened,” Fehren-Schmitz added.

Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Jonathan Oatis.

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Poll: Americans Blame Wild Weather on Global Warming

After hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria blitzed the nation, most Americans think weather disasters are getting more severe and see global warming’s fingerprints.

 

A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 68 percent of Americans think weather disasters seem to be worsening, compared to 28 percent who think they are staying the same and only 4 percent who say they are less severe.

 

And 46 percent of those who think it’s getting worse blame man-made climate change mostly or solely for the wild weather, while another 39 percent say it’s a combination of global warming and natural variability.

 

“Just with all the hurricanes that are happening this year … it just seems like things are kind of mixed up,” said Kathy Weber, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mom from Menomonie, Wisconsin.

When Hurricane Nate washed ashore in the Gulf Coast earlier this month, it was one of the first storms that Greg Thompson did not evacuate for. Thompson, a retired pest control researcher in New Orleans, said “it’s pretty irrational” that people and politicians can deny global warming when the Gulf of Mexico is so much hotter than decades ago and storms seem so much more powerful.

 

“When so many things are happening and so many of them [storms] are intense and so many of them are once-in-500-year levels and they’re all occurring, it’s a pretty good sign global warming is having an effect,” Thompson said.

 

Susan Cutter, who directs the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute at the University of South Carolina, said she’s not surprised by the poll results.

 

“How can you not” notice it, Cutter said. “The public sees the connection because they see it happening to their neighbors, themselves. They see it on television. And they’re not responding to a particular political constituency.”

 

Cutter and other experts say from a science perspective, it is clear that the United States is getting more extreme weather and climate change plays a role.

 

This year so far has seen 15 weather disasters that cost $1 billion or more, tied for the most in the first nine months of the year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

An analysis of 167 years of federal storm data by The Associated Press finds that no 30-year period in history has seen this many major hurricanes, this many days of those storms spinning in the Atlantic, or this much overall energy generated by those powerful storms.

Even though she went down to help Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas as a missionary and midwife, Gwendolyn Posey of Oklahoma just doesn’t see any increase in extreme weather.

 

“I don’t think it’s man-made climate change,” Posey said. “It’s always changing one way or another. It’s always in flux.”

 

Posey points to a record 12-year period during which no major hurricane hit the United States. During that time period, Atlantic hurricanes were still more active than normal, but didn’t hit the mainland United States.

 “Anytime the government starts ramming things down my throat, I immediately think it’s wrong,” said Posey, a mother of 10, farmer and doctor of natural medicine. “Truth speaks for itself.”

 

According to the new poll, 63 percent of Americans think both that climate change is happening and that the government should address it, but there’s little sign that those feelings have strengthened since surveys conducted before this year’s run of hurricanes.

 

Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling climate change. That’s similar to his approval rating overall.

 

Thompson said he will take climate change into account when he casts his ballot.

 

 “If there is somebody who actually says global warming isn’t happening, that’s a sign that they are too stupid, too crazy or too dishonest to get my vote,” Thompson said.

 

Many Americans, like Posey, say they’ve taken part in charitable activities in response to the recent storms, including 55 percent who gave money, clothing or other items to charity, 11 percent who did extra volunteer work and 9 percent who donated blood or tried to do so.  

 

The AP-NORC poll of 1,150 adults was conducted Sept. 28-Oct. 2 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

 

Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.

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Facebook Chief Absolutely’ Supports Releasing Russia-linked Advertisements

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Thursday she “absolutely” supports the public release of all advertisements produced by a Russia-linked organization during the 2016 presidential election.

Sandberg said the company is “working on transparency” following the revelation last month that a group with alleged ties to the Russian government ran $100,000 worth of ads on Facebook promoting “divisive” causes like Black Lives Matter.

“Things happened on our platform that shouldn’t have happened,” she said during the interview with Axios’s Mike Allen.

Later Thursday, Sandberg is set to meet with Congressional investigators who are looking into what role the advertisements which began running in 2015 and continued through this year may have played in the 2016 presidential election.

The $100,000 worth of ads represent a very small fraction of the total $2.3 billion spent by, and on behalf of, President Donald Trump and losing-candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaigns during the election.

Multiple congressional investigations have been launched, seeking to determine what effect alleged Russian meddling may have played in the election.

In addition, Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is conducting a criminal probe, including whether President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian operatives during the election season. Trump has denied working with the Russians.

Facebook had previously agreed to disclose the thousands of Facebook ads to congress. Sandberg said Thursday she thinks “it’s important that [the investigators] get the whole picture and explain that to the American people.”

In response to the Russian ad buys, Sandberg said Facebook is hiring 4,000 new employees to oversee ads and content. She said the company is also using “machine learning and automation” to target fake accounts that spread fake news.

She defined fake news as “things that are false hoaxes” and said Facebook is working to stamp out the bad information by teaming up with third-party fact checkers and warning users before they share news deemed fake by Facebook.

She said it is important to be cautious when going after fake news because “a lot of what we allow on Facebook is people expressing themselves” and “when you cut off speech for one person, you cut off speech for all people.”

“We don’t check the information posted on Facebook before people post it, and I don’t think people should want us to,” she said.

Hundreds of fake accounts were used to distribute the Russia-linked advertisements, Sandberg said. But had those ads been posted by legitimate users, “we would have let them run,” she said.

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WHO Urges Action to Stop Animal TB, Its Spread to Humans

The World Health Organization (WHO) is urging action to stop the spread of tuberculosis from animals to humans. The health agency warns zoonotic TB, as it is called, infects about 150,000 people and kills more than 12,000 every year.  

The WHO says TB in animals has been neglected for too long and it is time to put an end to that. So, for the first time, the organization is issuing a road map to combat animal tuberculosis and its transmission to humans.

Anna Dean, technical officer for Zoonotic and Drug Resistant Tuberculosis at the WHO, told VOA zoonotic TB is a global problem, with the disease thriving mainly in Africa and to a lesser extent in the Asia region.

“It is mainly transmitted to people through food; dairy products and milk that have not been heat-treated is the most common route.  Less commonly, it can also be transmitted through the consumption of improperly prepared meat from diseased animals,” Dean said.  

Besides posing a major risk to food safety and human health, the WHO notes bovine TB threatens people’s livelihoods and results in major economic and trade barriers.

Dean said the best way to eliminate bovine TB is to slaughter diseased animals. She says that is generally not a hardship for wealthy countries such as the United States, where cattle herders tend to be compensated for their lost animals. Dean pointed out that in other parts of the world, doing so poses a challenge.

“It is not the case obviously in African countries. To implement these animal health interventions requires a lot of economic – a lot of financial investment.  So, I think to stop, to prevent TB in people, you need to first of all control the disease in animals,” she said.  

Dean added that improving food safety, which can be easily done, is also essential. For example, she says, boiling untreated milk is enough to kill TB and other important bacteria that can cause illness in people.

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World Cup Bribery Case Opened Against PSG President, Valcke

The Qatari president of one of Europe’s most glamorous soccer clubs, Paris Saint-Germain, is under investigation by Swiss prosecutors for suspected bribery of a top FIFA executive to get World Cup broadcasting rights.

 

Criminal proceedings against Nasser Al-Khelaifi, PSG president and CEO of Qatar-owned BeIN Media Group, former FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke, and an unnamed “businessman in the sports rights sector” was announced by the office of Switzerland’s attorney general on Thursday.

 

The case involves the award of broadcast rights for the next four World Cups from 2018 through 2030.

 

The proceeding against Al-Khelaifi is one of the first direct links to Qatar in sweeping investigations by federal law enforcement authorities in Switzerland, the United States, and France of FIFA, international soccer, and the 2018-2022 World Cup bidding contests.

 

The Paris offices of BeIN Sports were searched by two magistrates from the French financial prosecutor’s office, the federal agency said. They were assisted by investigators from an anti-corruption unit.

 

Properties were also searched in Greece, Italy, and Spain while Valcke was questioned in Switzerland, the Swiss federal prosecution office said. It cited cooperation from a European Union criminal investigation agency.

 

“Multiple premises were searched, assets were seized and interviews were conducted as a result of this joint operation,” the EU body known as Eurojust said in a statement.

 

PSG declined to comment.

 

No suspect was detained on Thursday, said Swiss prosecutors whose work investigating FIFA and suspected money laundering linked to World Cup hosting bids began in November 2014.

 

Then, FIFA gave the Swiss federal office a report and evidence from its then-ethics prosecutor – former U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia – into the dual World Cup bidding contest won by Russia and Qatar.  

 

Al-Khelaifi is alleged to have offered “undue advantages” to Valcke – FIFA’s CEO-like secretary general from 2007 until his firing in January 2016 – for the award of media rights in “certain countries” for the 2026 and 2030 World Cup.

 

Al-Khelaifi and Valcke previously negotiated a deal for the 2018 and 2022 rights weeks after Qatar won the 2022 hosting vote. In January 2011, FIFA announced that Al Jazeera Sports – which later became BeIN – secured the rights for 23 territories across the Middle East and North Africa, including Saudi Arabia.

FIFA has never announced if BeIN also secured any 2026 and 2030 World Cup rights.

 

Swiss prosecutors also allege Valcke received “undue advantages” from a businessman who was not identified to award certain media rights for four World Cups from 2018 through 2030.

 

The criminal proceeding was opened on March 20, but announced only on Thursday, the Swiss federal office said.

 

Al-Khelaifi’s profile has risen in recent weeks as PSG pursued and sealed a world record transfer of Brazil star Neymar from Barcelona for 222 million euros ($260 million).

 

Since FIFA’s much-discredited executive committee picked Russia and Qatar in December 2010, the gas-rich emirate has bought up PSG with sovereign wealth and installed Al-Khelaifi as president. BeIN has also acquired a broad portfolio of rights including from European soccer body UEFA for the Champions League and national team matches.

 

The latest case stemming from the wider investigation of FIFA’s business also saw criminal proceedings opened against Valcke in March 2016.

 

Valcke was the right-hand man to then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter for more than eight years until a swathe of senior executives at soccer’s world body were removed from office in fallout from a U.S. Department of Justice indictment revealed in May 2015.

 

Valcke, a French former TV presenter, was in Switzerland on Wednesday to testify at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in his appeal hearing against a 10-year ban by FIFA for financial wrongdoing and abuse of expenses.

 

FIFA said on Thursday it “fully supports the investigation” by Swiss and other authorities.

 

“FIFA has constituted itself as a damaged party in this investigation,” the Zurich-based organization said.

FIFA is seeking a share of more than $200 million held by the U.S. Department of Justice which secured forfeits from soccer and marketing officials in its ongoing investigation. The DoJ has indicted or secured guilty pleas from more than 40 people.

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Paris Hopes to Ban Gas-powered Cars in City by 2030

In the future, the noise of car engines revving around the streets of Paris might become just a memory.

 

In its latest initiative to reduce air pollution, Paris City Hall wants gasoline-powered cars off the roads by 2030. The controversial move announced Thursday follows Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s plan to ban all diesel cars from the city by 2024, when Paris will host the Summer Olympics.

 

Speaking on France Info radio, the Paris deputy mayor in charge of transport, Christophe Nadjovski, said “we have planned the end of thermic vehicle use, and therefore of fossil energies, by 2030.”

 

Many Parisians don’t own a car but Hidalgo still has angered many of them with her efforts to make Paris a greener city, notably by adding cycling paths that have slowed vehicle traffic along the Seine River. Her detractors have accused her of waging a war against cars.

Wary of those critics, Paris City Hall issued a statement Thursday insisting the 2030 deadline isn’t a proper ban but “a feasible and realistic” goal. The statement added that Paris officials would keep discussing the issue with residents and car makers in the coming months.

 

Paris has faced rising air pollution in the last few years. Some pollution spikes have been so bad they forced City Hall to bar half of all cars from traveling and to make public transportation free for several days.

 

Hidalgo has been seeking to reduce pollution with a series of measures. She has launched a program banning traffic from the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue once a month, introduced rental bicycles in the streets as well as a fleet of electric cars to encourage residents to leave their polluting vehicles at home.

 

In September 2016, Paris authorities decided to close a 3.5 kilometer (2.2- mile) downtown road and transform it into a promenade. A year later, the body measuring air pollution said the move had no significant impact on residents’ exposure to carbon emissions across the whole city.

 

With her ambition of taking gasoline-powered cars off the Paris roads by 2030, Hidalgo wants to go faster than the French government. Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot has said he wants to banish from France all fossil fuel cars by 2040.

 

“This government goal affects the whole French territory, rural zones included,” the Paris City Hall statement said. “If we want to achieve this, it implies that the end of diesel and gasoline should take place several years in advance in urban areas, and particularly in big cities.”

 

 

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EU Says Little Progress Made in Brexit Talks With Britain

The European Union’s Brexit negotiator said Thursday that that little progress was made with the U.K. in a fifth round of talks on the country’s departure from the EU in 2019, and that he cannot yet recommend broadening negotiations to include trade.

 

Michel Barnier said that despite the “constructive spirit” shown in this week’s negotiations in Brussels, “we haven’t made any great steps forward.” On the question of how much Britain has to pay to settle its financial commitments, he said: “We have reached a state of deadlock, which is disturbing.”

 

Barnier said he would not be able to recommend to EU leaders meeting next week that “sufficient progress” has been made to broaden the talks to future EU-British relations like trade.

 

The leaders meet in Brussels on Oct. 19-20, and it had been hoped they would agree to widen the talks.

 

The EU says this can only happen when there has been progress on the issues of the financial settlement, the rights of citizens affected by Brexit and the status of the Northern Ireland-Ireland border.

 

But Britain says these issues are closely intertwined with their future relations like trade and must be discussed together.

 

“I hope the member states will see the progress we have made and take a step forward” next week, British Brexit envoy David Davis told reporters.

 

“We would like them to give Michel the means to broaden the negotiations. It’s up to them whether they do it. Clearly I think it’s in the interests of the United Kingdom and the European Union that they do,” Davis said.

 

Barnier said the two sides would work to achieve “sufficient progress” in time for a subsequent meeting of EU leaders in December.

 

Britain must leave the EU on March 29, 2019, but the negotiations must be completed within about a year to leave time for EU states’ national parliaments to ratify the Brexit agreement.

 

Barnier reaffirmed that parting with “no deal will be a very bad deal.”

 

“To be clear, on our side, we will be ready to face any eventualities, and all the eventualities,” he said.

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Report: Waymo Demands at Least $1 Billion to Settle Uber Suit

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo sought at least $1 billion in damages and a public apology from Uber Technologies Inc as conditions for settling its high-profile trade secret lawsuit against the ride-services company, sources familiar with the proposal told Reuters.

The Waymo self-driving car unit also asked that an independent monitor be appointed to ensure Uber does not use Waymo technology in the future, the sources said.

Uber rejected those terms, said the sources, who were not authorized to publicly discuss settlement talks.

The precise dollar amount requested by Waymo and the exact time the offer was made could not be learned.

Waymo’s tough negotiating stance reflects the company’s confidence in its legal position after months of pretrial victories in a case that may help to determine who emerges in the forefront of the fast-growing field of self-driving cars.

The aggressive settlement demands also suggest that Waymo is not in a hurry to resolve the lawsuit, in part because of its value as a distraction for Uber leadership, said Elizabeth Rowe, a trade secret expert at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

Waymo recently persuaded a San Francisco federal judge to delay a trial to decide the dispute from October to early December, citing the need to investigate evidence Uber had not disclosed earlier.

No further settlement talks are scheduled, the sources said. The judge overseeing the case mandated that the companies enter mediation with a court-appointed magistrate.

Amy Candido, a Waymo attorney, declined to comment on any settlement talks, but said the company’s reasons for suing Uber are “pretty clear.”

“Waymo had one goal: to stop Uber from using its trade secrets,” she said. “That remains its goal.”

An Uber spokesperson declined to comment.

Waymo sued Uber in February, claiming that former engineer Anthony Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 confidential files before leaving to set up a self-driving truck company, called Otto, which Uber acquired soon after.

Uber denied using any of Waymo’s trade secrets.

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Dutch Team Wins 7th Australian Solar-Powered Car Race

A Dutch team won a solar-powered car race across Australia for a seventh time on Thursday, with a University of Michigan car likely to take second place in the biennial event.

The Nuon team’s Nuna 9 car averaged more than 80 kph (50 mph) to reach the World Solar Challenge finish line in the southern coastal city of Adelaide after five days of racing across 3,022 kilometers (1,878 miles) of Outback highway from Darwin in the north.

The Delft University of Technology-based team has competed eight times.

The U.S. car Novum had yet to finish but was in second place followed by the Punch Powertrain team from Belgium, Tokai University from Japan and Solar Team Twente from the Netherlands.

Nuon team engineer Marten Arthens described the win as the “best feeling ever.”

“We’re going to celebrate, but first I’m going to take a shower. I haven’t done that a week,” Arthens said.

This year’s race attracted 95 teams from more than 20 countries.

The event marks 30 years since the first World Solar Challenge in 1987.

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Evergrande Property Magnate Seizes Top Spot On China Rich List

China has a new richest man, according to the annual Hurun rich list of the country’s top movers and shakers.

Xu Jiayin, the chairman of developer China Evergrande Group, has seized top spot – beating out more familiar faces such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Jack Ma and rival property magnate Wang Jianlin of Dalian Wanda Group.

Xu’s reported $43 billion wealth – a gain of around $30 billion against last year – comes on the back of a surge in Evergrande’s shares, up over 450 percent so far this year amid plans to cut debt and focus on profit over scale.

The Hurun Report, established in 1999, is the leading China-based organization ranking the wealth of the country’s rich and famous, and its list gives a temperature check on the winners and losers in China.

Growth in China stabilized this year, but while the world’s second largest economy averted a hard landing, some major corporations have buckled under the weight of their debt or been sanctioned by authorities over risky investments overseas.

Wanda’s Wang – who took top spot for the last two years – dropped to fifth in the list after Wanda sold off much of the firm’s hotel and theme park assets to rivals in July, after coming under regulatory scrutiny over its high leverage.

Close behind Evergrande’s Xu were China’s top tech titans – Alibaba’s Jack Ma and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s Pony Ma, who has seen his firm’s value rise on the popularity of its WeChat messaging app and its popular online games.

The list also underlined those who have fallen from grace in corporate China.

Jia Yueting, founder of sprawling conglomerate LeEco that once looked to rival both Tesla Inc and Netflix, dropped to 1,978th place from 31st last year.

Yang Kai, chairman of embattled Huishan Dairy – 66th last year – dropped off the list entirely as his firm fights off creditors amid billions of dollars of unpaid debt.

On the up was Wuxi Pharma Tech’s Li Ge and his wife, propelled by China’s push towards drug innovation, Zhang Lei of fast-growing online news portal Toutiao and Li Shufu of carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd.

“It has been a good year for manufacturing, cars, education, TMT and healthcare,” Hurun founder Rupert Hoogewerf said.

While many of those on the 2,000-strong list were members of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, only a few were delegates at the upcoming five-yearly Party Congress that begins next week.

These included corn magnate Li Denghai, alcohol billionaire Wu Shaoxun and Pan Gang of dairy giant Yili.

The list, with a combined wealth of $2.6 trillion, saw average wealth rising 12.5 percent – faster than broader economic growth – pointing to the growing financial muscle of China’s super-rich elite.

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