It’s an ‘American right to be paid equally for equal work’: Lilly Ledbetter on gender wage gaps

Lilly Ledbetter, center, an activist for workplace equality, is flanked by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., right, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act, left, speaks at an event to advocate for the Paycheck Fairness Act on the 10th anniversary of President Barack Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019. The legislation, a top tier issue for the new Democratic majority in the House, would strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and guarantee that women can challenge pay discrimination and hold employers accountable.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Lilly Ledbetter, an Equal Pay for Equal Work Activist, joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers and Sibile Marcellus to discuss women in the workforce, the barriers that prevent women from achieving wage parity, and possible solutions to start broaching gender disparities.

Gender pay gap creates ‘second class citizenship for women': Lilly Ledbetter

Kristin Myers
Thu, March 4, 2021, 

The gender pay gap causes women to have huge pay losses that continue through retirement, equal pay activist Lilly Ledbetter told Yahoo Finance.

“It's really a second class citizenship for women like myself for the rest of their life,” she said. “And that's what so many young women do not understand that's out there working today, that if you do not get equal pay or your rightful pay, it's gone forever because it affects your retirement, your 401Ks, your contributory retirements, and Social Security or any other program you might be involved in.”

The wage gap creates a knock on effect that impacts how much you get paid overtime (typically one and a half time an employee’s regular rate of pay), how much an employer will contribute to a retirement account (a percentage of an employee’s yearly salary) or how much is paid in pension.

Currently, gender pay gaps continue to persist, though they have narrowed over time. On average, women earn just under 82 cents to every dollar a man earns. But according to the Census Bureau, at the current rate, it will take until 2059 for women to achieve equal pay.

While all women are underpaid compared to their white male counterparts, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, gaps not only persist throughout time, they widen based upon race and ethnicity.

In analyzing median annual earnings, the Department of Labor found Black women earn roughly 61% of what white men earn. Hispanic women fare even worse; they earn just over half of what their white male counterparts earn. Asian women and white women were still underpaid but faced narrower gaps: 85% and 77%, respectively.

The gender gap, Ledbetter said, makes it “extremely difficult for so many women across this nation to stay independent.”
'American right to be paid equally for equal work'

Ledbetter was about to retire from the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in the late 1990s when an anonymous note given to her revealed she was earning less than her male colleagues. Ledbetter would go on to sue Goodyear in a case that went to the Supreme Court.

In her dissent, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg noted that the pay differences between Ledbetter and her colleague were large.

“Initially, Ledbetter’s salary was in line with the salaries of men performing substantially similar work,” the dissent stated. “Over time, however, her pay slipped in comparison to the pay of male area managers with equal or less seniority. By the end of 1997, Ledbetter was the only woman working as an area manager and the pay discrepancy between Ledbetter and her 15 male counterparts was stark: Ledbetter was paid $3,727 per month; the lowest paid male area manager received $4,286 per month, the highest paid, $5,236.”

The gap represented more than $18,000 each year.

Ledbetter ultimately lost her Supreme Court case, for statutory reasons: Goodyear cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act that “requires discrimination complaints to made within 180 days of the employer's discriminatory conduct.”

But while Ledbetter lost her case, it did inspire a new law: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 — the first act that former President Barack Obama would sign into law after taking office. The law strengthened workers’ rights and eliminated the time limit on when wage discrimination lawsuits could be filed. Instead of filing a lawsuit within 180 days from the first unfair paycheck, the law allowed for workers to sue for every unfair paycheck issued.

Ledbetter said missing out on equal pay for 19 years impacts her finances to this day.

“I have to do without them [the lost wages] and try to make ends meet for the rest of my life,” she explained. “And this is not right in this country. This is an American right to be paid equally for equal work.”
'A double standard'

But gender discrimination impacting pay isn’t the only hurdle facing women. Women must often contend with the “motherhood tax,” the amount that a woman’s salary falls after giving birth. Studies have found that 10 years after having children, American women’s salaries drop by roughly 40%, compared to their pre-birth wages.

Mothers, typically saddled with caregiving duties, often opt for reduced hours or for lower paying jobs that are more child-friendly. This makes them less competitive in the workplace than their male colleagues, who can work later hours, or attend events and outings.

“There is still a double standard today,” Ledbetter said. “What works for the man does not work for women. And this is not right because this is a hardship. And the women should not be penalized,”

Caregiving, Ledbetter explained, isn’t classified as work, which also impacts a woman’s Social Security payouts later in life.

Ledbetter shared with Yahoo Finance that the decade she stayed at home to raise her children slashed her Social Security payments by $500 a month — money she needs now after being underpaid compared to her male coworkers at Goodyear.

Even though women have a right to be paid equally to their male counterparts, Ledbetter said many might not speak out for fear of retaliation.

“That's one of the reasons there have never, never been many cases like mine or anyone like myself that would pursue it all the way,” Ledbetter explained.

One of the hurdles facing women in the fight for equal pay is a lack of transparency in workplaces about salaries. Given the challenges, Ledbetter said women need to get their equal pay at the beginning of their careers.

Raises, she explained, “are generally percentages of what you’re making. So you need to start out with as much as you can get under the law.”

Kristin Myers is a reporter and anchor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.

How private equity squeezes cash from the dying U.S. coal industry





How private equity squeezes cash from the dying U.S. coal industry

FILE PHOTO: In U.S. coal country, workers forgive Trump for failed revival



Tim McLaughlin
Tue, March 2, 2021

BOSTON (Reuters) - Private equity firms are proving there’s still plenty of profit in the U.S. coal industry despite a decade of falling demand for the fossil fuel. They are spending billions of dollars buying coal-fired plants on the cheap - and getting paid even when they are not providing power.

Since the end of 2014, at least five U.S. private equity firms have bought coal plants in markets where regulators pay them to be on standby to provide emergency power when demand surges with extreme hot or cold weather, according to a Reuters review of U.S. regulatory disclosures and credit-rating agency reports.

The lucrative investments illustrate how fossil fuels will remain an important part of the energy mix - and continue spinning off cash for investors - even years after demand for them peaks as the world transitions toward cleaner energy sources.

The need for reserve power was on display during the utility crisis this month in Texas - the only U.S. grid system that operates without such an emergency system. A cold snap knocked out several of the state’s generating plants and triggered widespread blackouts, leaving a wake of human suffering including several dozen deaths.

The so-called capacity payments are given out in most U.S. power markets, and regulators tend to favor coal-fired generators that store heaps of coal on site when other power sources might be disrupted. In the Pennsylvania, Jersey, Maryland Power Pool (PJM), which has the largest standby market, capacity revenue payments average more than $100 per megawatt per day - an insurance policy that costs about $9 billion a year and aims to make sure the grid’s 65 million customers avoid blackouts during heat waves and Arctic blasts.

“The capacity power market is a certain source of revenue for coal plants that might otherwise be uneconomical,” said Sylvia Bialek, an economist at New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity.

The administration of former President Donald Trump, a Republican, encouraged capacity market incentives for coal-fired generators. But President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is likely to change those policies in the coming years as part of an effort to slash nearly all of the U.S. power sector’s reliance on fossil fuels by 2035.

In the meantime, private equity firms are in a good position to compete for capacity payments because traditional utilities are under pressure from activist shareholders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to limit debt.

The private equity owners of Ohio’s Gavin Power Plant in the PJM grid, for example, have squeezed hundreds of millions of dollars out of the facility since buying it four years ago, even though it only runs about 60% of the time.

Lightstone Generation LLC - a joint venture between Boston’s ArcLight Capital Partners LLC and New York-based Blackstone Group Inc - took on $2.1 billion in debt from Wall Street banks to buy the plant and three much smaller gas-fired units from American Electric Power Company Inc in 2017, according to term sheets viewed by Reuters.

From 2018 to 2020, Lightstone’s power plant operations produced about $1.1 billion in operating profit, according to estimates from Moody’s Investors Service. Up to 50% of Gavin’s cash flow comes from being on standby for emergency power, according to several economists and credit analysts.

About 18 months after the Gavin acquisition, ArcLight and Blackstone went back to Wall Street to finance most of a $375 million special dividend they paid to themselves, according to credit rating agencies. Such dividends are a way for private equity firms to lock in profits and shift risk to their debt-holders, which are often mutual funds. If the business does well, the debt gets paid off at a premium. But if the business fails, the debt-holders end up with equity stakes in plants of declining value.

ArcLight did not respond to requests for comment. Blackstone declined to comment.

The private equity firms' backers have also been making money on the investments, according to filings. The state of Connecticut’s retirement plan, for example, invested $85 million in ArcLight’s Energy Partners Fund VI, which holds stakes in the Gavin plant along with other energy investments, and has seen returns of about 8%.

Meanwhile, mutual funds that invested in Lightstone's debt are receiving payments pegged to a floating interest rate that has ranged from 4% to 6% - far higher than about 1.4% on the U.S. benchmark 10-year yield.

‘ABSOLUTELY VITAL’

Other private equity firms have also been betting on coal power capacity payments.

Atlas Holdings, for example, led a joint venture to buy New Hampshire’s Merrimack Station coal plant in 2018, the centerpiece of a $175 million acquisition of generators from New England-based utility Eversource Energy.

Atlas declined to comment.

The coal plant hardly runs but has been eligible to receive up to $188 million in capacity payments from the New England ISO between 2018 and 2023, according to disclosures by regulators. Workers at Merrimack Station see their mission as a matter of life and death. They keep boilers warm and the plant in a constant state of readiness, said Tony Sapienza, business manager for Local 1837 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers.

"The capacity market is absolutely vital," Sapienza said. "And without Merrimack Station, people might die in the winter or during really hot weather. It's really that simple."

The reserve coal plants create good jobs. Private-equity owned coal plants can pay their staff about $100,000 a year for keeping the facilities on standby and firing them up when needed, according to Shawn Steffee, business agent for the Boilermakers Local 154 union in Pennsylvania. He said coal plants in the state "ran like a freight train" during the recent cold snap.

In another profitable investment, private equity firm Riverstone Holdings LLC paid $1.8 billion in late 2016 to buy the remaining stake in electricity producer Talen Energy Corp. The take-private deal included stakes in several coal plants, including ones receiving PJM capacity payments, an “important component” of gross profits, according to an SEC disclosure. About a year later, Talen paid its owners, including Riverstone, a special $500 million dividend. Riverstone did not return messages seeking comment.

WITH REWARD COMES RISK

Private equity ventures into coal-fired power don’t always turn out well, with some deals getting caught up in the broader decline of the coal industry. A credit fund run by private equity firm KKR & Co Inc in 2015, for example, took a big stake in Longview Power LLC - whose major asset is a West Virginia coal plant plugged into the PJM electric grid - as part of a bankruptcy restructuring.

But in April 2020, Longview filed for bankruptcy protection again, wiping out some $350 million in debt, as coronavirus lockdowns cut electricity demand. KKR declined to comment.

Analysts and economists expect Biden’s administration to crack down on rules that prolong the lifespan of dirty coal plants as part of sweeping measures to fight climate change. Biden has named Richard Glick, a Democrat, as the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Under a Republican majority on the commission, Glick had been critical of FERC rules he contends unfairly favor coal over renewable energy sources in capacity power markets, saying they "would have made the Kremlin economists in the old Soviet Union blush.”

FERC did not respond to requests for comment, and the White House declined to comment.

“I’m confident, in the next couple of years, FERC will order changes,” said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School.

Policy changes could make it harder for highly-leveraged private equity owners of coal plants, like Lightstone, to refinance their debts, according to Richard Donner, a credit analyst at Moody’s Investors Service. About $1.7 billion in the company’s debt comes due in 2024.

Even so, Lightstone’s creditors are the ones with the greatest risk, according to Peskoe.

“Somehow the private equity guys always make out OK,” Peskoe said. “It’s everyone else who doesn’t.”

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Brian Thevenot)

 

Bank to Canada’s Ailing Oil Heartland Gains From Diversifying

Kevin Orland

Wed, March 3, 2021, 5:30 AM

(Bloomberg) -- Canadian Western Bank is reaping the rewards from moving beyond its roots in the country’s ailing oil heartland.

Chief Executive Officer Chris Fowler is starting to see a payoff from years of transforming Canadian Western from an Alberta-focused commercial lender into a more geographically diversified, full-service bank targeting business owners. The Edmonton-based bank’s fiscal first-quarter earnings topped analysts’ estimates, helped by loan growth in Ontario and earnings from businesses that the bank has worked to bulk up, such as wealth management.

“We’ve got some very strong businesses in Ontario, where we see continued good growth opportunities and the opportunity for us to cross-sell into digital banking and wealth management,” Fowler said in an interview.

The company’s results for the three months through January, announced last week, gave the company’s shares their biggest gain in six months. The stock is up 17% this year, the best performance in the S&P/TSX Commercial Banks Index.

While the bank opened its first Ontario branch late last year, much of the diversification came from acquisitions that bolstered its offerings in Canada’s largest province, including equipment-leasing businesses and wealth manager iA Investment Counsel. Canadian Western had 31% of its loan portfolio in Alberta at the end of the fiscal first quarter, down from 48% in October 2010. Ontario now accounts for 24% of the loan book, up from 9%. The bank’s second-largest market, British Columbia, has remained stable at about a third.

That puts the bank within reach of a goal it set about four years ago of having Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario each account for about 30% of Canadian Western’s loan portfolio. The company generated loan growth of 14% in Ontario last quarter, compared with 5% in Alberta and 4% in British Columbia.

Alberta’s oil-focused economy has been hit by two major price declines in the past decade. The first started in 2014, about a year after Fowler became CEO, when OPEC increased production to fight back against the U.S. shale industry. Crude hadn’t fully recovered from that decline when the pandemic hammered prices again last year.

The shocks have reduced investment in new projects and caused continued layoffs of energy-company workers. The province’s unemployment rate was 10.7% in January, exceeding the 9.4% national figure.

The industry may have a somewhat weaker recovery than after previous declines as limited pipeline capacity restrains local crude prices and output, Fowler said.

“Oil and gas won’t be the same engine that it was in the past,” said Fowler, who noted that less than 1% of his bank’s loans are in direct oil and gas production. “I don’t think we’ll see a lot of growth capex in terms of larger capacity being added to production,” he said, referring to capital expenditures.

Branch Deposits

Beyond geographic diversification, Canadian Western also has gotten a lift from reducing its dependence on higher-cost broker deposits and moving more heavily into branch deposits that it pays lower interest on. That strategy has expanded net interest margin -- the difference between what the bank earns on loans and what it pays on deposits -- a key measure of profitability.

CIBC Capital Markets analyst Paul Holden upgraded Canadian Western’s shares to the equivalent of a buy last week after its net interest margin beat expectations for the second straight quarter, and because of the prospects that the improving economy will bolster loan growth.

“We think management guidance is conservative and that the shift in funding mix could lead to more net interest margin expansion,” Holden said in a note last week.

Canadian Western is working to keep the growth going with tools for bringing in new business clients entirely online, following last year’s roll-out of digital on-boarding for personal banking customers. The bank also plans to introduce in the second half of this year a cash-management tool for small- and medium-size businesses that will integrate with their accounting software and help them manage payables, receivables, inventory and payroll.

“We’re a growth-focused bank, and our goal is to find more clients and build our business by targeting business owners as our core market,” Fowler said. “We spend a lot of time and effort to make sure that we can be that full-service bank for our clients.”

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After the fall of the Roman empire, the mausoleum lost its relevance as a burial site and like other Roman monuments was put to a variety of uses by the generations that followed Filippo

Issued on: 04/03/2021

Rome (AFP)

A newly renovated colossal mausoleum for the founder of the Roman empire Augustus has reopened to the public in the Italian capital after centuries of neglect.

"Until now we have always known it as a ruin, but it is one of the most important monuments of antiquity," explained Alessia, a masked guide taking a small group of visitors on the labyrinthine route through five concentric enclosures.

"It was so majestic, they had never seen anything like this in Rome."

The mausoleum was built on the banks of the River Tiber between 28 and 23 BC.

It is a vast, towering monument to Augustus, the great-nephew of Julius Caesar who built the Roman empire during his 40-year rule.

The cylindrical base has a diameter of 90 metres, on top of which was planted a mound of cypress trees. On the summit, a bronze statue of the emperor stood guard, taking the total height to 45 metres.

At the centre of the mausoleum, originally clad in white marble and travertine, was a burial chamber reserved for Augustus and his wife Livia, while around them were further rooms reserved for members of their dynasty.

But it had fallen into such a state of disrepair, in ruins and overgrown with weeds, that modern-day Romans described it as a "rotten tooth".

Mayor Virginia Raggi rejoiced at seeing "a masterpiece of Roman antiquity, a priceless treasure, restored to its full splendour".

- Buffalo arena -

After the fall of the Roman empire, the mausoleum lost its relevance as a burial site and like other Roman monuments was put to a variety of uses by the generations that followed.

It was a fortress in the Middle Ages, then a Renaissance garden, an arena for bulls and buffalo fighting, and in the early 1900s a concert hall was built over it.

The mausoleum was brought back into public display in the 1930s by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who sought to present his regime as the heir of the ancient Roman empire.

As a result of all these conversions, only 30 percent of the original monument remains, and the spoils of Augustus and his family have long disappeared.

But the restoration of the square in front of the building, which currently lies seven metres below ground level, has made it more visible -- ensuring it finally gets the attention it deserves.

The mausoleum was closed in 2007 and the restoration works are not yet complete, as evidenced by the crane overhanging the site and the swarms of contractors bustling around like ants.

Such is the scale of the building that experts believe Augustus was probably inspired by the tomb of Alexander the Great in Alexandria in Egypt, or the mausoleum of Halicarnassus, now in Turkey, which was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Gianluca Carli, a 38-year-old Roman, was overwhelmed after his first visit.

"It's a lot of emotion, as a Roman in love with his city, the idea of regaining possession of a part of my heritage," he told AFP.

"I feel a bit like the guardian of this city. So to be able to set foot again in such a mausoleum, so beautiful."

Rome is deserted of tourists thanks to coronavirus restrictions, but tickets for the mausoleum -- only accessible online -- are already booked up until the end of June.





Forgotten mausoleum of Roman emperor Augustus reborn 

The mausoleum had been closed since 2007 but the restoration works are not yet complete, as evidenced by the crane overhanging the site and the swarms of contractors bustling around like ants

© 2021 AFP

Climate disasters prompt Australia's first platypus refuge


Issued on: 04/03/2021 - 

A baby platypus at Taronga Zoo in Australia GREG WOOD AFP

Sydney (AFP)

The world's first dedicated platypus refuge will be established to rescue the unique Australian animals from climate change-fuelled crises, as bushfires and drought increasingly threaten their habitat.

Taronga Zoo announced it will build the facility in Dubbo, five hours northwest of Sydney, to provide emergency care to the river-dwelling, duck-billed mammals when disasters strike.

With capacity to house up to 65 platypuses, it will also be used as a research facility to study the reproductive biology of the egg-laying animals, which are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.

Phoebe Meagher, a wildlife conservation officer at Taronga, said the project was prompted by a prolonged drought and Australia's 2019-2020 "Black Summer" of bushfires that devastated platypus habitats.

"We were just inundated with phone calls and emails asking us to come and help rescue platypus," she told AFP.

"The drought and bushfires hit New South Wales really hard and there was just nowhere for these platypus to go."

Scientists have estimated three billion animals died in the bushfires.

Even before that, platypuses were under threat.

A January 2020 survey estimated the total platypus population has plummeted by 50 percent since European settlement of Australia two centuries ago.

An earlier study published in November 2018 estimated the population had fallen by 30 percent over that period, to around 200,000.

Meagher said Taronga was able to save and later release seven of the monotremes back into the wild, but hopes the purpose-built refuge will allow larger-scale rescues in the future to help protect the species from extinction.

"We will hold them for as long as conditions mean that we have to... we can hold for years if we have to (but) that's not what we want to have to do," she said.

The refuge, which will also be used as an aquatic rehabilitation facility, is due to be completed by 2022.

© 2021 AFP

'It's over': Macron risks losing left in Le Pen battle

One recent leaked poll suggested that head of the far-right National Rally Marine Le Pen could get 48 percent in a presidential election 

Issued on: 04/03/2021

Paris (AFP)

A leading French daily has rattled the ruling party and sparked intense speculation about next year's presidential election by suggesting that voters won't come to Emmanuel Macron's aid if he finds himself in a rematch with the far-right.

Votes from the left propelled centrist Macron to power in 2017 in a run-off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, just as they had helped Jacques Chirac in the 2002 election against Le Pen's father Jean-Marie.

The report in Liberation newspaper, based on accounts from hundreds of readers, said many left-leaning voters would no longer support Macron to prevent Le Pen taking power.

"I've blocked (the far right) in the past and this time it's over," read Liberation's shock front-page headline on Saturday -- a quote from one of the voters who told the paper they could no longer bring themselves to vote for Macron, whatever the cost.

Polls predict the 2022 election coming down to another duel between the two politicians who fought it out on a globalist-versus-nationalist platform in 2017.

But this time, they show Le Pen far closer to the halls of power, with a Harris Interactive poll, which was never published but was leaked to the media last month, showing the National Rally leader taking 48 percent of the vote in a run-off with the incumbent.

A survey by Ipsos-Steria in early February showed that her chances would be significantly boosted by a mass stayaway by left-wing voters in the event she faced Macron.

Following Socialist Francois Hollande's single-term presidency -- which ended in 2017 with him so unpopular he decided not to stand again -- the left is currently not tipped to make the run-off, with its vote split between Socialists, Greens and the hard-left France Unbowed.

- 'Hurt and humiliated' -

Some of Liberation's readers accused the president, who campaigned as a centrist but has been accused of tacking to the right, of acting as a "president of the rich" -- a label dating from his decision early in his presidency to cut wealth taxes.

Others attacked his attempts to get the French to work longer before being eligible for a full pension as well as his crackdown on anti-government "yellow vest" protests in 2018-2019 and his government's tough rhetoric on immigration and radical Islam.

"Left-wing voters feel hurt and humiliated. They feel they are being forced to vote for a candidate who has not respected them," Remi Lefebvre, professor of political science at Lille University, told AFP.

Faced with the rise of the anti-immigrant, anti-EU National Rally (formerly National Front) over the past two decades, mainstream French parties have regularly formed electoral pacts to bar the party winning office.

The pressure to join the "Republican front" against the far-right peaked in 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen trumped leftwinger Lionel Jospin for a spot in the final against centre-right candidate Chirac.

Le Pen's breakthrough sent shockwaves through France and prompted left-wing voters to swing en masse behind Chirac, who won the run-off by a landslide.

But by 2017 the "everyone against Le Pen" strategy had already begun to unravel, with hard-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon notably refusing to endorse investment banker Macron against Marine Le Pen after he himself was knocked out of the running for president.

- 'Recycling the programme' -

A former economy minister under Hollande, Macron has given key cabinet posts to allies of former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy, such as Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Prime Minister Jean Castex.

In the past few weeks, his government has been accused of openly courting right-wing voters, with Darmanin criticising Marine Le Pen in a debate over her "softness" on Islamists.

Higher Education Minister Frederique Vidal warned about the spread of "Islamo-leftism" in French universities, a term often used by the far-right to demonise leftists who defend Muslims.

"Whether on social policy, civil liberties or political rhetoric, people have the impression, I think justifiably, that Macron is recycling the programme of the National Rally," Eric Coquerel, an MP for France Unbowed, told AFP.

Coquerel voted for Macron in the run-off of the 2017 election but said "quite frankly, if it were to be done again I think I would have the same reaction as these voters (who say they will not support him again)".

Gilles Finchelstein, director of the left-leaning Jean Jaures thinktank, said left-wing voters were "fed up" being asked to vote for the right or centre-right.

But if the election did produce another Macron-Le Pen face-off, "some of the left-wing voters who say today they will not go to vote will probably nonetheless vote for Macron," he predicted.

© 2021 AFP

After Sarkozy, ex-French PM Balladur in dock for corruption

Prosecutors have called for Balladur to be sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term and a fine of 50,000 euros 

Issued on: 04/03/2021 -

Paris (AFP)

A French court is set to hand down a verdict on former prime minister Edouard Balladur on Thursday over a decades-old campaign financing scandal, days after ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption.

Balladur, 91, is accused of using kickbacks from 1990s arms deals with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to help finance a presidential bid in a case that has already seen six people sentenced to prison terms.

Balladur's former defence minister Francois Leotard, 78, was also put on trial. Both men deny the charges.

Prosecutors have called for Balladur to be sentenced to a one-year suspended prison term and a fine of 50,000 euros ($60,000).

Balladur and Leotard, both right-wingers, were charged in 2017 with "complicity in the misuse of corporate assets" over the sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia between 1993 and 1995.

Investigators discovered an estimated 13 million francs in kickbacks from the deals, now worth some 2.8 million euros after accounting for inflation.

A large chunk of the money is suspected to have been funnelled to Balladur's unsuccessful 1995 presidential bid, which he mounted while serving as prime minister in the final years of Francois Mitterrand's presidency.

The case is known in France as the "Karachi affair".

It came to light during an investigation into a 2002 bombing in Karachi, Pakistan, that targeted a bus transporting French engineers.

Fifteen people were killed, including 11 engineers working on the submarine contract, and the Al-Qaeda terror network was initially suspected of the attack.

But the focus later shifted to the submarines deal as investigators considered whether the bombing may have been revenge for former President Jacques Chirac's decision to halt commission payments for the arms deals shortly after he beat Balladur in the presidential vote.

Leotard is accused of having created an "opaque network" of intermediaries for the contracts signed with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

On Monday, former president Sarkozy was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to a three-year prison term in a decision that stunned France.

He was found to have formed a "corruption pact" with his lawyer Thierry Herzog to convince a judge to obtain and share information about an inquiry into the financing of Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign.

Sarkozy, 66, denies the charges and has vowed to clear his name with an appeal.

In two interviews Wednesday, he lambasted the verdict and said he was mulling filing a complaint with Europe's top rights court.

"I never betrayed the trust of the French people," France's president from 2007 to 2012 told TF1 channel in a primetime interview on Wednesday evening.

Sentenced for corruption, Sarkozy goes on media offensive

Issued on: 04/03/2021 - 

French former president Nicolas Sarkozy reacts as he is interviewed by journalist Gilles Bouleau (unseen) in the studio set of French television channel TF1's evening news on March 3, 2021 in Boulogne Billancourt, on the outskirts of Paris. © AFP

France’s former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday vowed to “go all the way” to clear his name, two days after being handed a three-year sentence for corruption following a trial he portrayed as a travesty of justice.

A Paris court ruled that the 66-year-old right-winger had formed a “corruption pact” with his lawyer Thierry Herzog to convince a judge to obtain and share information about an inquiry into the financing of Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign.

Sarkozy, who in December became France’s first modern head of state to appear in the dock, has announced plans to appeal.

In two interviews Wednesday he lambasted the verdict and said he was mulling filing a complaint with Europe’s top rights court.

“I never betrayed the trust of the French people,” France’s president from 2007 to 2012 told TF1 channel in a primetime interview, noting that the French court had convicted him of corruption despite concluding that “not a cent” had changed hands and that no favours had been granted.


With three other legal cases pending against him, Monday’s conviction deals a blow to any hope Sarkozy has of making another political comeback after a failed bid to win a presidential nomination in 2016.

>> Explainer: After guilty verdict, Sarkozy faces more trials and tribulations

Sarkozy, a polarising presence who is a hate figure for many on the left but remains popular on the right, told TF1 he had “turned the page” on his political career.

Despite being given a three-year jail term Sarkozy is not expected to serve time: two of the three years were suspended by the court with the remaining year set to be served at home with an electronic bracelet.

‘Painful for me’

Handing down the sentence, the court said Sarkozy’s crime was “particularly serious having been committed by a former president who was the guarantor of the independence of the judiciary”.

In an interview with Le Figaro daily Sarkozy, a trained lawyer, said the ruling was “riddled with inconsistencies” and was based on “a bunch of circumstantial evidence”.

“Perhaps it will be necessary to take this battle to the (Strasbourg-based) European Court of Human Rights,” he said.

“It would be painful for me to have my own country condemned, but I am ready because that would be the price of democracy.”

The judgement is far from marking the end of Sarkozy’s legal woes.

On March 17, the ex-president is scheduled to face a second trial over accusations of fraudulently overspending in his failed 2012 re-election bid.

In a strongly-worded editorial, the newspaper Le Monde urged Sarkozy to put an end to his confrontation with the French legal system and stop whipping up the anger of his supporters towards judges.

“Today, he is reaping what he has sowed and must consider the advisability of continuing this populist excess, which has not only become a trap for him but a risk for the country,” it said.

But Le Parisien newspaper voiced sympathy for Sarkozy in an editorial by its director condemning the “relentless intransigence” of the judiciary towards the ex-politician.

Staff at the newspaper distanced themselves from the editorial.

‘Play politics’

Right-wing allies of Sarkozy have rushed to his defence, portraying him as the victim of a witch hunt by France’s national financial prosecutors.

“When some judges start to play politics, the role of lawmakers is to strongly denounce it,” Guillaume Peltier, the deputy leader of right-wing opposition party The Republicans, told LCI television.

>> Sarkozy conviction triggers right-wing backlash against ‘judges’ republic’

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, a former member of Sarkozy’s Republicans party who was poached by President Emmanuel Macron, also expressed support for the defendant.

“I know he’s an honest man,” Darmanin declared.

Before his conviction, Sarkozy’s name had been floated as the ideal candidate to unite the right against Macron in 2022 presidential polls.

In 2016 he was beaten to the presidential nomination of the Republicans by his former prime minister Francois Fillon, who later crashed out of the race after being charged with fraud. 

Sarkozy has also been charged over allegations he received millions of euros from the late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi for his 2007 election campaign.

And in January, prosecutors opened another probe into alleged influence-peddling by Sarkozy over his advisory activities in Russia. 

(AFP)

Russia's Sputnik V vaccine takes key step to EU approval

Leaders in Europe have been warming to the idea of deploying the Russian-developed vaccine 

Issued on: 04/03/2021 -

The Hague (AFP)

Europe's drug regulator launched an in-depth review of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, putting it on course to be the first non-Western jab used across the 27-nation EU.

Russia, which has pushed for a speedy approval, quickly said it was ready to provide jabs for 50 million Europeans as soon as the shot gets the green light from the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency.

Leaders in Europe have been warming to the idea of deploying the Russ

"EMA has started a rolling review of Sputnik V, a Covid-19 vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology," the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency (EMA) said in a statement.

The watchdog said its decision was based on clinical studies and lab tests which "indicate that Sputnik V triggers the production of antibodies and immune cells that target the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and may help protect against Covid-19."

"EMA will assess Sputnik V’s compliance with the usual EU standards for effectiveness, safety and quality," it added.

The timeline for possible approval should "take less time than normal" due to the work already done during the rolling review, it said.

Concerns were initially raised about Sputnik after a fast-track procedure that saw it approved for use in Russia last August and deployed in December ahead of large-scale clinical trials.

But the Lancet medical journal published results in February showing Sputnik V to be 91.6 percent effective, based on third-phase trials with more than 20,000 volunteers.

Hungary has meanwhile broken ranks and become the first EU country to approve and order the vaccine, while the Czech Republic and Slovakia have also ordered Sputnik stocks.

- 'Inspection process' -

The three approved for use in the bloc so far are the US-German Pfizer-BioNTech jab, US firm Moderna's shot, and the vaccine developed by British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca with Oxford University.

US-based Johnson & Johnson has also applied for authorisation while Novavax and CureVac are under rolling review.

Russia and the EMA have rowed in recent weeks about the authorisation process for Sputnik.

Sputnik's makers insisted in February that they had applied for the start of a rolling review, urging the watchdog to hurry up. But the EMA said at the time that it had received no such application.

As it would be the first non-Western developed vaccine deployed in the EU, officials have said that Sputnik production sites outside the bloc would need to be inspected.

"They are not producing in Europe, so of course there should be an inspection process on the production sites," European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said on February 17.

Brussels has been wary of Russian and Chinese vaccines, concerned that Moscow and Beijing would use them as soft power tools.

Von der Leyen herself raised questions about why Moscow was so keen to push the vaccine on the EU.

"Overall I must say, we still wonder why Russia is offering theoretically millions and millions of doses while not sufficiently progressing in vaccinating their own people," she said.

burs-dk/jhe/ach

© 2021 AFP

SCHADENFRUEDE

SpaceX unmanned rocket makes soft landing before exploding on ground

Issued on: 04/03/2021

This screengrab made from SpaceX's live webcast shows the Starship SN10 prototype during the second attempted test flight of the day at SpaceX's South Texas test facility near Boca Chica Village in Brownsville, Texas, March 3, 2021. © Jose Romero / SPACEX / AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Third time's a charm? Not so for SpaceX, whose unmanned rocket exploded on the ground Wednesday after carrying out what had seemed to be a successful flight and landing – fresh on the heels of two fiery crashes.

It was yet another flub involving a prototype of the Starship rocket, which SpaceX hopes one day to send to Mars.

"A beautiful soft landing," a SpaceX commentator said on a live broadcast of the test flight, although flames were coming out at the bottom and crews were trying to put them out.

The rocket exploded a few minutes later, lurching into the air and crashing back to the ground.

No explanation was immediately provided.

"Starship SN10 landed in one piece!" Musk tweeted jokingly about an hour after the explosion.

"SpaceX team is doing great work! One day, the true measure of success will be that Starship flights are commonplace," he said in a second tweet.

The latest prototype, named SN10, for serial number 10, took off a little before 2320 GMT from Boca Chica, Texas.

The rocket rose into the sky and progressively shut down its three engines as it reached a height of six miles (10 kilometers) and assumed a horizontal position before becoming vertical again and returning to Earth.

As seen on SpaceX video, it appeared to have otherwise landed properly after its flight. Then came the explosion.

To Mars or the Moon

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been developing the next-generation Starship rocket for the purpose of going to Mars - though two prototypes (SN8 and SN9) blew up in spectacular fashion on their test runs in December and early February.

The tests take place in a nearly deserted area leased by SpaceX in South Texas near the border with Mexico and Gulf of Mexico - the area is vast and empty enough that an accident or explosion would not likely cause damage or fatalities.

Apart from Mars, the rocket, if it becomes operational, could also prove useful for closer trips, especially to the Moon.

On Wednesday, Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa, who paid an undisclosed sum for a SpaceX lunar spaceship trip expected to launch in 2023 at the earliest, threw open the application process for eight people from around the world to join him.

He announced the move in a video posted on Twitter in which Musk tells potential applicants: "I'm highly confident that we will have reached orbit many times with Starship before 2023 and that it will be safe enough for human transport by 2023. It's looking very promising."

The mission will be the first private space flight beyond Earth's orbit, Musk said.

(AFP)

Female doctor killed in eastern Afghanistan after murder of media workers

Issued on: 04/03/2021 - 

Jalalabad (Afghanistan) (AFP)

A female doctor was killed in a bomb blast in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad in what appeared to be another targeted hit, officials said Thursday, just days after three women media workers were gunned down in the area.

Journalists, religious scholars, activists and judges have all been victims of a recent wave of political assassinations across Afghanistan, forcing many into hiding -- with some fleeing the country.

In the latest incident, the doctor was killed after a magnetic bomb was attached to the vehicle she was travelling in, according to a spokesman from the provincial governor’s office. A child was also injured by the explosion.

“She was commuting in a rickshaw when the bomb went off,” the spokesman told AFP.

Another spokesman from a provincial hospital also confirmed the incident and toll.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast.

The attack comes two days after three female media workers were gunned down in Jalalabad in separate attacks that were just minutes apart.

The local Islamic State group affiliate said its gunmen carried out the killing of what it called "journalists working for one of the media stations loyal to the apostate Afghan government".

Afghan and US officials have blamed the Taliban for the wave of violence, but the group has denied the charges.

The assassinations have been acutely felt by women, whose rights were crushed under the Taliban's five-year rule, including being banned from working.

Intelligence officials have previously linked the renewed threat against female professionals to demands at the peace talks for their rights to be protected.

The attacks come as speculation is rife over America's future in Afghanistan after the administration of President Joe Biden announced plans to review the withdrawal agreement signed with the Taliban last year that paved the way for foreign troops to leave the country by May.

© 2021 AFP