Day: December 17, 2019

The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to slap sanctions on companies working on Russia’s Nord Stream pipeline, sending a bill to President Donald Trump that is sure to antagonize European nations counting on the project’s natural gas.

The measure, inserted into a huge annual defense spending bill, passed 86 to eight after easily clearing the House of Representatives last week.

It aims to halt further construction of the $10.6 billion pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea and is set to double shipments of Russian natural gas to Germany.

The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce said last week the pipeline was important for the energy security of Europe and called for retaliatory sanctions on the US if the bill passes.

But U.S. lawmakers have warned it would send billions of dollars to Moscow and vastly increase President Vladimir Putin’s influence in Europe at a time of heightened tension.

The National Defense Authorization Act, a $738 billion package for 2020 that includes the sanctions, now heads to the White House, where Trump is expected to sign it.

The sanctions target pipe-laying vessels for Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, a Russia-Turkey pipeline, and include asset freezes and revocation of US visas for the contractors.

One major contractor that could be hit is Swiss-based Allseas, which has been hired by Russia’s Gazprom to build the offshore section.

The power of Gazprom and therefore the Russian state is at the center of concerns about the pipeline in the US and in eastern and central Europe.

Senator Ted Cruz has said halting Nord Stream 2 should be a major security priority for the United States and Europe alike.

“It’s far better for Europe to be relying on energy from the United States than to be fueling Putin and Russia and dependent on Russia and subject to economic blackmail,” he told the Senate last week.

But Senator Rand Paul, a fellow Republican, voted against the bill, objecting to its bid to “sanction NATO allies and potentially American energy companies,” Paul said of the project.

“The pipeline will be completed, and yet we want to jeopardize our relationship with our allies and with businesses both in Europe and America,” Paul said of the project.

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According to a United Nations study, the world produces enough food waste to feed as many as 2 billion people each year. A tech startup has a goal to get that food to those who need it. Matt Dibble reports.

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In Uganda, performance horse-riding, or equestrian sports, are known as a pastime for the rich. But in recent years, less well-off Ugandans have started to embrace equestrian sports with the hopes of competing internationally. Halima Athumani reports from Wakiso, Uganda.

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In conservative Pakistan, women’s sports still lag far behind their male counterparts. That has not stopped women who enjoy sports from pushing the boundaries and demanding change. In a poor neighborhood in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, young women are so passionate about football they have persisted despite the disapproval of their own families and society. But as Ayesha Tanzeem reports from Karachi, the young women still have doubts about a future in the sport.

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Stirring a giant vat in a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian Christian Maryam Salem prepares a special festive dish — not for Christmas, but the St Barbara’s Day festival.

It is celebrated every December 17 in Aboud, which residents believe is the last resting place of Saint Barbara, a third century woman killed for refusing to renounce her Christian faith.

The special dessert, named after Barbara and given to hundreds of people, looks a little like rice pudding but includes wheat, anise, fennel, cinnamon, almonds, raisins and sugar.

Salem says it takes several days to prepare, starting with soaking the wheat for 24 hours.

“We cook it and gradually add the rest of the ingredients and keep stirring until the ingredients are well mixed,” said Salem, who has been preparing the dish for the festivities for 12 years.

The exact details of Barbara’s story are disputed but the legend of the story is well-known.

The beautiful daughter of a pagan born in the third century, she secretly converted to Christianity.

Once her father found out she fled but was eventually caught.

Her furious father murdered her but was struck by lightning and died shortly after.

The pastor of Aboud’s Greek Orthodox Church, Father Emmanuel Awwad, said some accounts suggest the final scenes took place in the village, while others placed them in the city of Baalbek in modern day Lebanon.

Bagpipes

Celebrations began before sunset on Monday, with a special prayer held in the church in the village centre.

Afterwards the clergy and local residents, both Christian and Muslim, marched through the village down streets flanked by olive trees and cactuses, while a group of scouts played bagpipes and drums.

The march culminated at the saint’s tomb, located on a rocky hill where on a clear day you can see through Israeli territory to the Mediterranean Sea.

There families and visitors lit candles in the darkened room in honor of the saint.

“We ascend to the tomb with a march befitting the saint’s standing and greatness as a martyr,” Awwad said.

He said the march was “affirming their affiliation to the land,” referencing Israeli attempts to take control of the area.

More than 400,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, considered illegal under international law, alongside 2.7 million Palestinians.

Hanna Khoury, head of the village council, recalled how in 2002 during the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, Israeli forces blew up the site under the pretext it was being “used to prepare for commando operations.”

The army later apologized, saying it had not realized the religious significance of the site.

Muslims also eat the Barbara dish after a six-day fast and on other occasions, noted Hamzah al-Aqrabawi, a researcher in Palestinian heritage.

“Barbara is a popular ritual that Palestinian peasants have had for 2,000 years,” he said.

Eight-year-old Riad Zaarour was wrapped in a traditional Palestinian kuffiyeh, or scarf, as he waited for the dish.

“The best thing in the festival is Barbara. We eat it and celebrate. I feel happy.”

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Boeing Co. said Monday that it will temporarily stop producing its grounded 737 Max jet starting in January as it struggles to get approval from regulators to put the plane back in the air.

The Chicago-based company said production would halt at its plant with 12,000 employees in Renton, Washington, near Seattle. But it said it didn’t expect to lay off any workers “at this time.”

The move amounts to an acknowledgement that it will take much longer than Boeing expected to win approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other global regulators to fly the planes again.

Grounded since March

The Max is Boeing’s most important jet, but it has been grounded since March after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed total of 346 people. The FAA told the company last week that it had unrealistic expectations for getting the plane back into service. Boeing has missed several estimates of a return date for the plane, and the company didn’t give a date on Monday.

Even if no employees are laid off, ceasing production still will cut into the nation’s economic output because of Boeing’s huge footprint in the nation’s manufacturing sector. Through October of this year, the U.S. aerospace industry’s factory output has fallen 17% compared with the same period last year, to $106.4 billion, in part due to previous 737 Max production cuts.

The shutdown also is likely to ripple through Boeing’s vast network of 900 companies that make engines, bodies and other parts for the 737, and layoffs are likely.

Richard Aboulafia, an aircraft industry analyst at the Teal Group, said the shutdown would probably hinder the economy in the coming months and could worsen the nation’s trade balance.

“This is the country’s biggest single manufactured export product,” Aboulafia said.

Government regulators 

In a statement, Boeing said it will determine later when production can resume, based largely on approval from government regulators.

“We believe this decision is least disruptive to maintaining long-term production system and supply chain health,” the statement said.

Boeing said some of the Renton plant’s workers could be reassigned to 737 or other programs elsewhere in the Seattle area. Some could also help to prepare the 400 Max planes Boeing has built and stored, so they’re ready whenever approval comes to return to the skies.

Investigators have found that flight control software designed to stop an aerodynamic stall was a major factor in the crashes, and Boeing is updating the software, making it less aggressive. But regulators have yet to approve the changes.

Jeff Windau, industrials analyst for Edward Jones, said the 400 planes that Boeing has built but can’t deliver likely were a major factor in the decision to halt production. This comes “both in consideration of storage space and how efficiently can you get them delivered once the plane is ready to return to service,” he said.

Production halt a negative

Boeing has made progress on some FAA requirements to get the Max back in service, Windau said, but he still views the production halt as a negative for the company.

“The flight control system is complex and there are still unknowns with the timing of regulator reviews and approvals,” Windau wrote in an email. He also wrote that it may be difficult to restart an idled factory once production ramps back up.

Boeing will likely face some tough negotiations with suppliers about what level of payments it will provide during the production hiatus. The company will want to avoid any layoffs or shutdowns by suppliers that would keep it from quickly restarting production once its safety is approved.

“It’s really in Boeing’s interest to identify who needs payments to keep workers and capabilities in place for when the ramp up eventually happens,” Aboulafia said.

The production halt means that it will take longer than expected to get FAA approval, he said.

“If they had gotten some information quietly, behind the scenes from the FAA, that things were looking good for January or February, they wouldn’t have done this,” he said.

Cash flow problems

Boeing already is having cash flow problems. In October, the company reported that free cash flow went from $4.1 billion a year ago to a negative $2.9 billion in the third quarter, worse than analysts had expected.

The company’s stock came under pressure Monday after reports surfaced about the production halt. It closed down $14.67, or 4.3%, at $327.

The stock slipped another 1% in after-hours trading following the company’s announcement that it would stop Max production. It has fallen 23% since the March 10 crash of a Max flown by Ethiopian Airlines, which followed the crash of a Lion Air Max off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018.

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Supporters of Lebanon’s two main Shi’ite groups Hezbollah and Amal clashed with security forces and set fires to cars in the capital early Tuesday, apparently angered by a video circulating online that showed a man insulting Shi’ite figures.

Police used tear gas and water cannons trying to disperse them.

It was the third consecutive night of violence, and came hours after Lebanon’s president postponed talks on naming a new prime minister, further prolonging the turmoil and unrest in the Mediterranean country.

President Michel Aoun postponed the binding consultations with leaders of parliamentary blocs after the only candidate — caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri — failed to win the backing of the country’s largest Christian groups amid a worsening economic and financial crisis.

The postponement followed a violent weekend in the small nation that saw the toughest crackdown on demonstrations in two months.

Lebanese security forces repeatedly fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesters in downtown Beirut in the worst violence since demonstrations against the political elite erupted in mid-October.

On Monday night, a group of young men clashed with security forces in downtown Beirut after a video began circulating online in which a man insulted Shi’ite political and religious figures, heightening sectarian tensions. The group, apparently supporters of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, set at least three cars on fire and hurled stones and firecrackers at riot police.

Police responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Postponement request

Aoun had been scheduled to meet with the heads of parliamentary blocs to discuss the naming of the new prime minister. Those consultations are binding, according to the constitution, and Hariri, who resigned under pressure Oct. 29, was widely expected to be renamed.

The presidential palace said the consultations would be held instead on Thursday, based on a request from Hariri.

The U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, had warned that because of the collapsing economy, such postponements are “a risky hazard both for the politicians but even more so” for the people.

Lebanon is enduring its worst economic and financial crisis in decades with a massive debt, widespread layoffs and unprecedented capital controls imposed by local banks amid a shortage in liquidity.

Hariri resigned after protests began earlier in October over widespread corruption and mismanagement. The palace said Hariri had asked Aoun to allow for more time for discussions among political groups before official consultations.

Earlier, the country’s main Christian groups said they refused to back Hariri, who has served as premier three times.

His office said in a statement that he is keen for national accord, adding that had he been named to the post, it would have been “without the participation of any of the large Christian blocs.”

Power-sharing system

Under Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the prime minister has to be a Sunni Muslim, the president a Maronite Christian and the parliament speaker from the Shi’ite community. Hariri has emerged as the only candidate with enough backing for the job, but he is rejected by protesters who demand a Cabinet of independent technocrats and an independent head of government not affiliated with existing parties.

Although the protests had united all sectarian and ethnic groups against the ruling elite, tensions had surfaced from the start between protesters and supporters of the Shi’ite groups Hezbollah and Amal, after the latter rejected criticism of its leaders.

Hariri had asked the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for help developing a reform plan to address the economic crisis.

Moody’s Investors Service said that without technical support from the IMF, World Bank and international donors, it was increasingly likely that Lebanon could see “a scenario of extreme macroeconomic instability in which a debt restructuring occurs with an abrupt destabilization of the currency peg resulting in very large losses for private investors.”

Its currency has been pegged at 1,507 Lebanese pounds to the dollar since 1997, but in recent weeks it has reached more than 2,000 in the black market. Lebanon’s debt stands at $87 billion or 150 percent of GDP.
 

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A judge on Monday sentenced a woman to 10 months in prison for her role in a business that helped pregnant Chinese women travel to the United States to give birth to children who would automatically receive U.S. citizenship.

U.S. District Judge James Selna issued the sentence in Santa Ana, to Dongyuan Li, who wiped away tears with her hand several times during the hearing.

Selna said he expected her to be released from custody later Monday due to time served.

Federal prosecutors opposed the sentence and said they believed Li should be sentenced to years in prison to deter others from helping women lie on visa applications and hide pregnancies in these so-called birth tourism schemes.

Li pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiracy and visa fraud for running a birth tourism company in Southern California known as “You Win USA.”

Federal authorities said the company helped more than 500 Chinese women travel to the United States to deliver American babies, and that Li used a cluster of apartments in Irvine, California, to receive them.

Authorities said the company coached the women to lie on their visa applications and to hide their pregnancies when passing through customs in U.S. airports.

In a letter to the court, Li said she has taken English and music lessons and read books and exercised daily while in custody.

“I am very sorry for the mistakes that I have made,” she wrote in the Dec. 1 letter filed with the court. “I truly sincerely apologize for any harm that I have caused to the American society.”
 

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