Top U.S. energy diplomat expects minerals initiative to continue under Biden

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s top energy diplomat said on Friday he expects an initiative aimed at securing supply chains for metals critical for the clean energy transformation will continue with President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.

“I have every expectation that it would continue,” Frank Fannon, the energy diplomat, told reporters. “Transitioning conversations are underway,” with the incoming Biden officials, Fannon said.

Biden’s inauguration is on Jan. 20. His transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ten countries, including Canada, Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru, joined the United States last year in forming the Energy Resource Governance Initiative, or ERGI, to share mining experience and help producer countries discover and develop minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt.

ERGI is part of effort to reduce global reliance on China for the materials, which are also used in weapons and other high-tech defense equipment.

The initative provides advice to help ensure mining and processing industries in rich and poor countries are attractive to international investors concerned about environment, human rights and governance.

The World Bank has said minerals demand for advanced batteries that allow more implementation of wind and solar power could grow up to 1,000% in 20 to 30 years if governments adopt strict rules on curbing climate change.

China currently dominates the critical minerals market. The Trump administration grew concerned about U.S. dependence on imports after Beijing suggested using them as leverage in the trade war between the world’s largest economic powers.

“If we are going to grow renewables and clean energy technologies the way we think they should be, in the way the market participants are demanding, then we have to create an alternative supply chain,” Fannon said.

He added China’s current dominance of mineral mining and processing creates a “bottleneck” to the current global system.

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Aurora Ellis

Boeing 'inappropriately coached' pilots in 737 MAX testing: U.S. Senate report

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing officials “inappropriately coached” test pilots during recertification efforts after two fatal 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people, according to a lengthy congressional report released on Friday.

The report from the Senate Commerce Committee Republican staff raised questions about testing this year of a key safety system known as MCAS tied to both fatal crashes was contrary to proper protocol.

The committee concluded Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing officials “had established a pre-determined outcome to reaffirm a long-held human factor assumption related to pilot reaction time ... It appears, in this instance, FAA and Boeing were attempting to cover up important information that may have contributed to the 737 MAX tragedies.”

The report citing a whistleblower who alleged Boeing officials encouraged test pilots to “remember, get right on that pickle switch” prior to the exercise that resulted in pilot reaction in approximately four seconds, while another pilot in a separate test reacted in approximately 16 seconds.

The account was corroborated during an FAA staff interview, the committee added.

Numerous reports have found Boeing failed to adequately consider how pilots respond to cockpit emergencies in its development of the 737 MAX.

Boeing said Friday it takes “seriously the committee’s findings and will continue to review the report in full.”

The FAA said Friday it was “carefully reviewing the document, which the committee acknowledges contains a number of unsubstantiated allegations.”

The agency added it is “confident that the safety issues that played a role in the tragic (737 MAX) accidents involving Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 have been addressed through the design changes required and independently approved by the FAA and its partners.”

Senate Commerce Committee chairman Roger Wicker said the report “details a number of significant examples of lapses in aviation safety oversight and failed leadership in the FAA.”

The committee also said “multiple independent whistleblowers contacted the committee to allege FAA senior management was complicit in determining the 737 MAX training certification level prior to any evaluation.”

Boeing resisted requiring simulator training for pilots before operating the 737 MAX but reversed course in January.

The report also noted Southwest Airlines was able to operate more than 150,000 flights carrying 17.2 million passengers on jets without confirmation that required maintenance had been completed.

The Senate report said the Southwest flights “put millions of passengers at potential risk.” Southwest said Friday it was aware of the report and added “we do not tolerate any relaxing of standards that govern ultimate safety across our operation.”

Boeing still faces an ongoing criminal probe into the MAX. The committee said its review was “constrained due to the continued criminal investigation”

Last month, the FAA approved the 737 MAX’s return to service and flights have resumed in Brazil. The first U.S. 737 MAX commercial flight with paying passengers is set for Dec. 29.

Last month, the Senate committee unanimously a bill to reform how FAA certifies new airplanes and grant new protections for whistleblowers, among other reforms, while the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a similar bill.

Apple puts supplier Wistron on notice after Indian factory violence

By Sankalp Phartiyal, Chandini Monnappa

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU (Reuters) -Apple Inc has placed supplier Wistron Corp on probation, saying on Saturday it would not award the Taiwanese contract manufacturer new business until it addressed the way workers were treated at its southern India plant.

Early findings of an Apple audit in the wake of violence at the Wistron plant in India’s Karnataka state showed violations of its ‘Supplier Code of Conduct’, the Cupertino, California-based tech giant said in a statement.

Contract workers angry over unpaid wages destroyed property, gear and iPhones on Dec. 12, causing millions of dollars in losses to Wistron and forcing it to shut the plant.

Apple said Wistron had failed to implement proper working hour management processes, which “led to payment delays for some workers in October and November”.

Wistron on Saturday admitted some workers at the plant in Karnataka’s Narasapura had not been paid properly or on time, and it was removing a top executive overseeing its India business.

Apple said it will continue to monitor Wistron’s progress on corrective action.

“Our main objective is to make sure all the workers are treated with dignity and respect, and fully compensated promptly,” Apple said, adding that it continued to investigate issues at the plant, which is located some 50 km outside of the southern tech hub of Bengaluru and assembles one iPhone model.

“This is a new facility and we recognise that we made mistakes as we expanded,” Wistron said in a statement. “Some of the processes we put in place to manage labor agencies and payments need to be strengthened and upgraded.”

Wistron said it is re-structuring its teams and setting up 24-hour hotlines for employees to make anonymous complaints.

“Apple has sent a strong message to its suppliers, telling them unequivocally that they need to adhere to its standards,” Neil Shah of Hong Kong-based tech researcher Counterpoint said.

“In the long-run it should make suppliers more cautious and likely create fewer such public-relations headaches for Apple.”

MANUFACTURING SETBACK

The Apple probation will delay Wistron’s smartphone production and hurt its manufacturing push in India where it had committed to invest some 13 billion rupees ($177 million) over the next five years as part of New Delhi’s production-linked incentive plan for smartphone manufacturing.

FILE PHOTO: Men wearing protective face masks walk past broken windows of a facility run by Wistron Corp, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer for Apple, in Narsapura near the southern city of Bengaluru, India, December 14, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo

Wistron had plans to make another iPhone model at the Narasapura plant and was planning to hire up to 20,000 workers in a year’s time, a source told Reuters previously.

But it could not cope with the rapid scaling up of manpower and breached several laws, Karnataka state officials found after an inspection of the plant following the violence.

The number of workers rose to 10,500 from the permitted 5,000 in a short span of time, the Karnataka factories department said in a report, which was reviewed by Reuters.

“The HR department has not been adequately set up with personnel of sound knowledge of labour laws,” the report of the inspection, which was conducted on Dec. 13, concluded.

Wistron did respond to emails from Reuters seeking comment on the violations listed.

Other violations highlighted in the report included underpayment of wages to contract workers and housekeeping staff, and making female staff work overtime without legal authorisation.

The findings of this inspection, and another preliminary government audit, confirm the grievances over unpaid wages and poor attendance recording systems recounted in interviews to Reuters by at least half a dozen Wistron workers.

The Wistron probation will likely also dent Apple’s plans to scale up in India, a market it has bet on to expand its manufacturing base beyond China.

Apple began the assembly of its first iPhone model in India via Wistron in 2017. It has now ramped up assembly operations, with Foxconn in southern India and another top supplier Pegatron is set to begin local operations.

($1 = 73.5700 Indian rupees)


Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru and Sankalp Phartiyal in New DelhiEditing by Shri Navaratnam and Alexander Smith

Apple supplier Wistron could not manage scaled up India plant, government report says


By Chandini Monnappa, Sankalp Phartiyal

BENGALURU/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Apple supplier Wistron’s Indian factory in Karnataka state could not cope up with the rapid scaling up of manpower and breached several laws, a government inspection has revealed following violence at the site last weekend.

Several thousand contract workers at Wistron angered over alleged non-payment of wages destroyed property, factory gear and iPhones at the plant early on Dec. 12, causing millions of dollars in losses to the Taiwanese contract manufacturer and forcing it to shut the plant.

The manpower at this plant, which assembles one iPhone model and became operational earlier this year, rose to 10,500 workers from the permitted 5,000 in a short span of time, according to a Karnataka factories department report, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters.

“Though 10,500 workers are employed in the factory the HR department has not been adequately set up with personnel of sound knowledge of labour laws,” said the report of the inspection conducted on Dec. 13.

The report said there is a wide gap between practices followed at the factory and legal requirements.

Wistron did not respond to a request for comment.


Apple, which is conducting it’s own audit at the factory, also did not comment.

Wistron introduced 12-hour shifts from the earlier eight-hour shifts at the plant in October but failed to properly address “the confusion in the minds of the workers” about their new wages inclusive of overtime, the report noted.

The company also did not inform the factories department of the new work shifts, it said.

Wistron, which also changed its attendance system in October, did not fix for two months a glitch which caused employees’ presence to be incorrectly registered, the probe found.

Some other violations highlighted in the report included underpayment of wages to contract workers and housekeeping staff, and making women staff work overtime without legal authorisation.

An earlier government audit of the factory, just hours after the rampage, had also found “several labour law violations”, Reuters previously reported.

Karnataka state, home to India’s showpiece software services sector and global firms such as Bosh and Volvo, has previously tried to soothe investors by condemning the violence and assuring Wistron of its support.

“The company has started an internal audit, which should help it improve systems,” said Gaurav Gupta, the top government official at Karnataka’s Industries Department.

“We expect it will bring up solutions to improve relationships with workers and pave the way for starting operations soon.”

Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru and Sankalp Phartiyal in New Delhi; Editing by Shri Navaratnam

Ginza shoppers clean hands, phones with high-tech wash stations

By Chris Gallagher, Hideto Sakai

DECEMBER 18, 2020


TOKYO (Reuters) - Shoppers washed their hands and sterilised their smartphones in the streets of Tokyo’s posh Ginza district on Saturday using handwashing stations that a Japanese start-up hopes will revolutionise access to clean water and better hygiene.

WOTA Corp set up 20 of its WOSH machines near popular Ginza stores in an initiative with a district association aimed at encouraging shoppers to wash their hands to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The machines don’t require connection to running water and don’t use fresh and waste water tanks. Instead they recycle the water through a three-stage process of membrane filtration, chlorine and deep ultraviolet irradiation.

They also have a device that cleans smartphones through 20-30 seconds of ultraviolet light exposure while users are washing their hands, since touching a dirty smartphone would otherwise negate their handwashing efforts.

The firm had already been developing the machine in part to alleviate long lines at rest rooms when the COVID-19 crisis hit early this year, Chief Executive Yosuke Maeda told Reuters.

“Amid the impact of COVID-19 we thought we had to implement this as soon as possible,” Maeda said. “So we sped up development and got things moving to have it in December in time for the third wave of the coronavirus.”

On average 20 litres of water provides around 500 washes, while the filters should be changed after about 2,000, he said.

The machine, however, needs connection to a power supply.

WOTA has now begun shipments within Japan of roughly 4,000 units. It aims to expand internationally next year, with many inquiries coming from the United States.

Maeda hopes the smartphone feature in particular will transform hygiene habits.

“We thought if it had the smartphone sterilisation function, maybe people who never wash their hands will start doing so,” he said.


Reporting by Chris Gallagher and Hideto Sakai; Editing by Michael Perry

Landslide at Vale mine near 2019 disaster site kills one in Brazil


RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A landslide at a mine owned by Brazil’s Vale SA near the site of the 2019 Brumadinho dam disaster buried and killed a worker on Friday, the company told Reuters in a statement.

According to the company, the worker, who was employed by a Vale contractor, was in a bulldozer when the side of a pit collapsed at the Corrego do Feijao mine.

The mine shares the name of the Corrego do Feijao hamlet, which is part of the town of Brumadinho and was partially destroyed in January 2019 when a Vale-owned tailings dam collapsed, killing 270 people.

Vale said it “deeply lamented” the accident and would support the family of the worker.

“The companies are supporting the authorities who are attending to the case and investigating the causes of the accident,” Vale said.

“Maintenance activities in the area will be suspended for new studies and evaluations of the security conditions.”

Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Two smuggled Sumatran orangutans flown home from Thailand

By Juarawee Kittisilpa

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Two critically endangered orangutans smuggled into Thailand three years ago were returned to Indonesia on Thursday, where they will undergo rehabilitation before being released into the wild.

Ung Aing and Natalee, both four-year-old Sumatran orangutans, were taken from a wildlife rescue centre in Ratchaburi province to Bangkok’s airport, before being put on a flight to Indonesia where they will initially stay at a rehabilitation centre in Jambi Province on Sumatra island.

Before being put on the flight, the pair were fed with bananas and green apples, and cleared of having COVID-19 after taking a test, said Suraphong Chaweepak, a director at the Thai division to protect wild fauna and flora.

“This is the fifth repatriation of orangutans back to Indonesia since 2006,” Prakit Vongsrivattanakul, an official at Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation said at the airport. A total of 71 orangutans have now been repatriated to Indonesia from Thailand.

The two great apes were seized on the Thai-Malaysian border in 2017 and after the smugglers were prosecuted, Thailand agreed to send them back to Indonesia, according to a joint statement from Thailand’s wildlife and conservation ministry and Indonesia’s embassy in Bangkok.

Orangutans are poached illegally from forests for food, to obtain infants for the domestic and international pet trade, or for traditional medicine.

There are only estimated to be around 100,000 Bornean orangutans left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund, while only about 7,500 Sumatran orangutans are thought to remain.

In addition to illegal poaching, populations have crashed because of habitat destruction due to large-scale logging and replacement of forests with cash crops such as palm oil.


Writing by Ed Davies; Editing by Karishma Singh

Armenians march to mourn war victims as PM faces calls to resign


YEREVAN (Reuters) - Thousands of Armenians marched through the capital Yerevan on Saturday to commemorate the soldiers killed in a six-week conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in which Azerbaijan made significant territorial gains.

The conflict and the fatalities on the Armenian side have increased pressure on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom the opposition accuses of mishandling the conflict by accepting a Russian-brokered ceasefire last month, to resign.

Pashinyan led the march, held on the first of three days of mourning, driving up to the Yerablur military cemetery to light incense on the graves of fallen soldiers along with other senior officials.

Although his supporters filled the cemetery to its brink, footage published on Armenian television showed Pashinyan’s critics shouting “Nikol is a traitor!” as his convoy passed by, escorted by heavy security.

Armenia’s opposition has called on its supporters to join a national strike on Dec. 22, at the end of the three-day mourning period, to pressure Pashinyan to resign over the losses incurred in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabkh.

Pashinyan, who swept to power in a peaceful revolution in May 2018, has rejected calls to resign.

Ethnic Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh accused Azeri forces on Wednesday of capturing several dozen of their troops, putting further strain on a ceasefire deal that brought an end to the fighting last month.

The two sides have nonetheless begun exchanging groups of prisoners of war as part of an “all for all” swap mediated by Russia.

Moscow has deployed peacekeepers to police the ceasefire, but skirmishes have nonetheless been reported.


Writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber

AL JAZEERA REPORT AND BACKGROUNDERS WITH VIDEOS

Thousands protest in Sudan in call for faster reform


KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Thousands of Sudanese protesters took to the streets of the capital Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman on Saturday, demanding an acceleration of reforms on the second anniversary of the start of an uprising that ousted Omar al-Bashir.

The veteran leader was deposed by the military in April 2019 after months of mass protests against poor economic conditions and Bashir’s autocratic, three-decade rule.

Many Sudanese are unhappy with what they see as the slow or even negligible pace of change under the transitional government that has struggled to fix an economy in crisis.

The government was formed under a three-year power sharing agreement between the military and civilian groups which is meant to lead to fair presidential and parliamentary elections.

Sudan’s state TV aired footage of thousands of protesters gathering outside the presidential residence in Khartoum which now hosts the sovereign council, a joint military-civilian ruling body.

The country also has a civilian cabinet of technocrats led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.

“We have come out today, not to celebrate the anniversary or to congratulate the transitional government. This government, unfortunately, over the past two years has not made any progress in the retribution file for our martyrs,” protester Waleed El Tom told state TV in Khartoum.

Hundreds of Sudanese civilians were killed in protests before and after the former president’s ouster.

On Saturday, thousands more protesters gathered outside the abandoned parliament building in Omdurman, across the river Nile from the capital. Small protests took place in other cities across the country, state media said.

At the top of the protesters’ demands is the formation of a long-awaited transitional parliament, part of the power sharing deal, to pass the necessary legislation for building a democratic state.

Others called for the dissolution of the sovereign council, the cabinet and the ruling coalition.

Sudan’s economy has worsened since Bashir’s removal, as the weak transitional government has failed to kick-start reforms and halt a fall in the Sudanese pound on the black market.

“The Sudanese people had hopes that their revolution would be great, that it would achieve things, but today the Sudanese people are standing in bread lines,” a protester told state TV.

Hamdok on Saturday vowed to answer the demands of protesters.

“We pledge to spur the pace to fulfil all the demands of the revolution, and improving the living conditions and the economy are among the priorities in which we will do everything we can to overcome the challenges,” he said on Twitter.

Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, head of the ruling council, said on Twitter the army would remain “the guarantor and protector of the revolution and its gains”.

Security was tightened in Khartoum and Omdurman but no major incidents of violence or casualties were reported.

Social media users shared pictures and videos of protesters burning tyres and security forces firing tear gas. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the images.

Sudan’s government has signed peace deals with most of the rebel groups that caused unrest during Bashir’s rule, and it hopes that the United States’ recent decision to remove the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism will help the ailing economy.


Reporting by Nadeen Ebrahim, Nafisa Eltahir, Hesham Abdul Khalek and Ali Mirghani; Writing by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Ros Russell and David Evans


Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

#NAMASTE

From bows to handshakes, how Macron let social distancing slip

PARIS (Reuters) - Once an early adopter of the coronavirus-proof ‘namaste’ greeting, French President Emmanuel Macron was showing signs of letting his guard down almost a year into the pandemic.

On Monday, three days before his office said he had tested positive for COVID-19, Macron greeted OECD chief Angel Gurria with a warm hand clasp in the Elysee palace courtyard, pulling the 70-year-old into a loose embrace, a Reuters picture shows.

They were wearing masks, but Macron broke his government’s no.1 pandemic rule: stick to what the French call “barrier gestures” and avoid handshakes, hugs and kisses.

“You know them, they save lives: barrier gestures are not an option!” Macron said in a tweet on July 12.

His office recognised Macron had made an “unfortunate” mistake in shaking Gurria’s hand. “It’s a mistake, he had this gesture, there is no denying it,” an official told Reuters, adding that the president was nonetheless constantly washing his hands and asking guests to do the same.

Macron was always very tactile before the pandemic, sharing hugs with leaders like U.S. President Donald Trump and kissing and patting members of the public on the back.

In the past couple of weeks, the French leader fist-bumped EU counterparts at a summit in Brussels and greeted EU chief Charles Michel and Spanish leader Pedro Sanchez at the Elysee with pats on the back and elbows, TV footage shows.

Now Sanchez, Michel and Gurria are self-isolating.

Macron also hosted a lunch at the Elysee on Tuesday with about 20 parliamentary leaders and dined with a dozen lawmakers on Wednesday, parliamentary sources said, despite his government recommending no more than six guests at the table during end-of-year holidays.



That contrasted with his careful following of social-distancing guidelines earlier in the pandemic.

In March, days before he put the nation on lockdown, he replaced the traditional handshake with the Indian-style namaste when he greeted Spain’s king and queen in Paris, pressing his palms together and bowing slightly.

He repeated the namaste greeting with Britain’s Prince Charles on June 18 and maintained social distance outside 10 Downing Street with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

But on Oct. 28, when he announced a second lockdown, he included himself among those who had let social distancing slip.

“We should all have respected barrier gestures more, especially with family and friends,” he said on TV. “Is now the time for regrets?”

Reporting by Michel Rose; additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alexandra Hudson

UN rights office calls on Thailand to amend  

ELIMINATE royal insult law


GENEVA (Reuters) -The United Nations human rights office called on Thailand on Friday to amend its lese majeste law which it said had been used against at least 35 activists, one as young as 16, in recent weeks.

It said Thailand should stop using the law, which bans insulting the monarchy, and other serious criminal charges against protesters, noting that criminalising such acts violates freedom of expression.

Prosecutions, which had stopped in 2018, restarted after protesters broke longstanding taboos by calling for reforms to curb the powers of King Maha Vajiralongkorn during months of street demonstrations. Those found guilty under the royal insult law face three to 15 years in prison.

The spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that charges had also been filed against protesters for sedition and computer crimes offences.

“We call on the Government of Thailand to stop the repeated use of such serious criminal charges against individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told a news briefing in Geneva.

The office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urged Thailand to change the lese majeste law to bring it in line with the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

In response, a Thai foreign ministry spokesman said the law was not aimed at curbing freedom of expression and was similar to libel laws.

“In the past couple of months, protestors have not been arrested solely for the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” Tanee Sangrat said in a statement.

“Those arrested had violated other Thai laws and admittedly the majority have been released.”

Youth-led protests began in July to call for the removal of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former junta leader, and for the drafting of a new constitution.

They later called for reforms to the monarchy: seeking the king to be more clearly accountable under the constitution and the reversal of changes that gave him control of royal finances and some army units among other demands.

Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Additional reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in Bangkok; Editing by Matthew Tostevin, William Maclean and Richard Chang