BLM's Patrisse Cullors to step down from movement foundation

A co-founder of Black Lives Matter announced today that she is stepping down as executive director of the movement’s foundation.

Patrisse Cullors poses for a portrait to promote a film during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Source: Associated Press

She decried what she called a smear campaign from a far-right group, but said neither that nor recent criticism from other Black organisers influenced her departure.

Patrisse Cullors, who has been at the helm of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation for nearly six years, said she is leaving to focus on other projects, including the upcoming release of her second book and a multi-year TV development deal with Warner Bros.

Her last day with the foundation is tomorrow.

“I’ve created the infrastructure and the support, and the necessary bones and foundation, so that I can leave,” Cullors told The Associated Press. “It feels like the time is right.”

Cullors’ departure follows a massive surge in support and political influence in the U.S. and around the world for the BLM movement, which was established nearly eight years ago in response to injustice against Black Americans. The resignation also comes on the heels of controversy over the foundation’s finances and over Cullors’ personal wealth.

The 37-year-old activist said her resignation has been in the works for more than a year and has nothing to do with the personal attacks she has faced from far-right groups or any dissension within the movement.

“Those were right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don’t operate off of what the right thinks about me,” Cullors said.

As she departs, the foundation is bringing aboard two new interim senior executives to help steer it in the immediate future: Monifa Bandele, a longtime BLM organiser and founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in New York City, and Makani Themba, an early backer of the BLM movement and chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies in Jackson, Mississippi.

“I think both of them come with not only a wealth of movement experience, but also a wealth of executive experience,” Cullors said.

The BLM foundation revealed to the AP in February that it took in just over $90 million last year, following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man whose last breaths under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer inspired protests globally. The foundation said it ended 2020 with a balance of more than $60 million, after spending nearly a quarter of its assets on operating expenses, grants to Black-led organisations and other charitable giving.

Critics of the foundation contend more of that money should have gone to the families of Black victims of police brutality who have been unable to access the resources needed to deal with their trauma and loss.

“That is the most tragic aspect,” said the Rev. T. Sheri Dickerson, president of an Oklahoma City BLM chapter and a representative of the #BLM10, a national group of organisers that has publicly criticised the foundation over funding and transparency.


“I know some of (the families) are feeling exploited, their pain exploited, and that's not something that I ever want to be affiliated with," Dickerson said.


Cullors and the foundation have said they do support families without making public announcements or disclosing dollar amounts.


In 2020, the BLM foundation spun off its network of chapters as a sister collective called BLM Grassroots, so that it could build out its capacity as a philanthropic organisation. Although many groups use “Black Lives Matter” or “BLM” in their names, less than a dozen are considered affiliates of the chapter network.


Last month, Cullors was targeted by several conservative-leaning publications that falsely alleged she took a large annual salary from the foundation, affording her recent purchase of a southern California home.


In April, the foundation stated Cullors was a volunteer executive director who, prior to 2019, had “received a total of $120,000 since the organisation's inception in 2013, for duties such as serving as spokesperson and engaging in political education work.”


“As a registered 501c3 non-profit organisation, (the foundation) cannot and did not commit any organisational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer,” the foundation said in a statement. “Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is categorically false.”


In 2018, Cullors released, “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir,” which became a New York Times bestseller. She has also consulted on a number of racial justice projects outside of BLM, taking compensation for that work in her personal capacity.


She and the BLM movement have come a long way since its inception as a social media hashtag, following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida.


Cullors, along with BLM co-founders Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, pledged then to build a decentralised movement governed by consensus of a members’ collective. In 2015, a network of chapters was formed, while donations and support poured in. Garza and Tometi soon stepped away from day-to-day involvement in the network to focus on their own projects.


Cullors, who has arguably been the most publicly visible of the co-founders, became the foundation’s full-time executive director last year purely out of necessity, she said.


“We needed her,” said Melina Abdullah, who leads BLM Grassroots and co-founded, with Cullors, BLM’s first-ever official chapter in Los Angeles.


“George Floyd was killed and the whole world rose up,” Abdullah told the AP. “I would like her to be there forever, but I also know that that’s not feasible. The real test of any organisation is can it survive the departure of its founders. And I have no question that Black Lives Matter will survive and grow and evolve, even with the departure of our final co-founder in a formal role.”


On Oct. 5, St. Martin's Press will release Cullors’ latest book, titled “An Abolitionists Handbook,” which she says is her guide for activists on how to care for each other and resolve internal conflict while fighting to end systemic racism. Cullors is also developing and producing original cable and streaming TV content that centres on Black stories, under a multi-year deal with Warner Bros.


The first of her TV projects will debut in July, she said.


“I think I will probably be less visible, because I won’t be at the helm of one of the largest, most controversial organisations right now in the history of our movement,” Cullors said.


“I’m aware that I’m a leader, and I don’t shy away from that. But no movement is one leader.”

'Boggling' CRTC flip-flop on wholesale internet rates could mean higher prices for consumers: critics


© Provided by National Post

The CRTC decision caps off a two-year battle between large telecom companies and smaller internet service providers whose businesses rely on wholesale access to the networks of the big telecoms.

A decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission not to lower wholesale internet rates despite saying it would two years ago is a loss for Canadian consumers who will see their internet service prices go up, critics say.

On Thursday, the regulator said it would not implement the lower wholesale internet rates – the rates smaller internet service providers (ISPs) pay big telecoms for network access — after all.

Matt Stein, chair of the Competitive Network Operators of Canada, which represents smaller providers, said the decision came as a shock.

“It is boggling to think the CRTC chose to reverse the decision that they spent three years making,” he said.

Thursday’s reversal will lead “the rates that Canadians pay for internet to go up, in part because competitors in most cases have already forward priced in belief that there will be a substantial decline in rates,” Stein said. That will now have to change, and those increases will lead to rises in internet prices across the board, he predicted.

The decision caps off a two-year battle between large telecom companies and smaller internet service providers whose businesses rely on wholesale access to the networks of the big telecoms. It means the smaller, wholesale-based companies like TekSavvy and Distributel will have to keep paying essentially the same higher rates that preceded the 2019 decision to lower them.

National wireless providers must sell wholesale access to regional carriers for seven years, CRTC rules

Telcos threaten to pull rural internet investment after CRTC lowers wholesale rates

It’s a big win for large telecoms like Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Quebecor and Cogeco who fought the new rates through every avenue available to them, arguing lower rates would harm network investment, including in rural areas, where telecom infrastructure is often dated and inadequate. They filed court appeals, petitioned federal cabinet to overturn the decision and asked the CRTC itself to review the decision.

Last year, the Federal Court said the CRTC’s rates stand and though the big telecoms appealed at the Supreme Court, that court declined to hear the case. The Liberal government also declined to overturn or alter the decision.

That left the ball in the CRTC’s court, leaving it up to the regulator to decide whether to uphold the lower rates it established in August 2019. On Thursday, it said it would not, determining there was “substantial doubt as to the correctness” of the 2019 rates.

It said starting another process to review them would take too long, cause too much market uncertainty, and take too many resources away from establishing a new, “disaggregated” wholesale regime.

CRTC chairman Ian Scott said in an interview that the decision won’t lead prices to go up because the lower rates were never implemented, calling that a “false narrative.”

“Why would it go up?” he said. “I’m not buying this – not as a result of the establishment of these rates.” He added that the small telecoms that lowered their prices in anticipation knew the rates weren’t final, and that some of the companies have also raised them back up in the meantime.

“It is up to them to choose their pricing,” he said. “Presumably they all make contingency plans.”

That “disaggregated” regime the CRTC wants to move towards has been plagued by problems and seen no take-up from companies since it was introduced in 2015. Small ISPs said the regime had turned out to be “unworkable,” and the CRTC is currently in the process of reviewing it.

Scott said he couldn’t state when the disaggregated regime would be put in place, but indicated that the delay could be because smaller providers “prefer to have aggregated forever.”

Laura Tribe, executive director of advocacy group OpenMedia, said in an interview the decision’s focus on the disaggregated model is “really concerning,” given that the CTRC first started consulting on it in 2013, issued a decision in 2015 and “six years later we’ve yet to see a single wholesale connection over disaggregated wholesale rates.”

While Thursday’s decision is the final step in the appeal processes launched by the big telecoms in 2019, it doesn’t necessarily mean the fight over wholesale rates is over. Parties who are unhappy with the CRTC’s ruling have the option of filing another appeal in Federal Court, or turning to the federal government again.

How the Liberal government might respond is unclear, given that when cabinet declined to overturn the 2019 decision, then-innovation minister Navdeep Bains issued a statement sympathetic to the big telecoms’ arguments about investment that said the rates were too low.

But the Liberals also campaigned on internet service affordability in the 2019 election, Tribe pointed out. She said the decision “actively undermines” that.

A statement from current Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he “will be reviewing the decision and its implications to ensure they align with our policy priorities of affordability, competition and innovation in the sector.”

RIPPED OFF SERVICE CHARGES=PROFIT
How should we feel about soaring bank profits during a pandemic

© Carlos Osorio/Reuters

A man wearing a protective face mask last year in Toronto's financial district. 

Despite fears for the economy then, Canada's banks have roared back as if the pandemic never happened.

You can almost smell the simmering outrage against Canada's big banks in the comments at the bottom of a recent CBC Go Public story about rising bank fees.

But this week, as the banks revealed another round of stunning results, the news was a fresh reminder that despite the pandemic's disruption, the impact of COVID-19 did not lead to the economic catastrophe that so many feared at the time. Some say banks were partly responsible for that positive outcome.

And while the bank fee story was a magnet for online anger, comments beneath CBC's reports on bank profits were far more nuanced.

Love 'em and hate 'em

"You know, it's interesting. People seem to love and hate the banks at the same time," said Hilliard MacBeth, longtime Edmonton-based financial advisor and author of the gloomy book on Canadian real estate When the Bubble Bursts.

MacBeth has encountered many people dealing with Canada's financial institutions over his 42 years in the personal finance business. He says Canadians are surprisingly uncritical of banks so long as they get loans when they need them. He also thinks Canadians might be more critical if they were better informed.

"I don't think the public is very aware of this," he said. "They just hear 'you're approved for that loan' and they're happy."

Certainly some of the people loving the Canadian banks this week include those who invest in them. And whether you know it or not, odds are you too are an investor. Canada and Quebec's pension plans have big stakes in the banks. So do mutual funds, life insurance companies and other financial groups that promise future payouts based on the money you set aside today.

Bank shares have rebounded from pandemic lows

Strictly from an investor's point of view, Jim Shanahan, a financial equities analyst with Edward Jones, said the banks have demonstrated their merit, bouncing off last year's lows to attain new highs. As you can see by clicking on the graph above, it was as if the pandemic never happened. He said taxpayers should be grateful.

"Patient, long-term investors have been rewarded by holding the shares and they are mostly trading at or near all-time highs," Shanahan said.

He works out of the Edward Jones headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., where Canadian banks have a reputation for conservative risk management. That paid off in the 2008 financial crisis, when they did not need U.S.-style bailouts, and also during the crisis brought on by the pandemic.

Solid backstop

"I think that Canadian taxpayers and businesses and other stakeholders should be pleased with the performance of the banks, which provided a very solid backstop during a very weak Canadian economy and performed exceptionally well," he said in a phone interview.

Despite wall-to-wall advertising pointing out how much they love you, banks are not your mom. Like every other profit-making company, they are in it for the bottom line. That does not mean they ignore criticism on fees or other things we complain about if we complain loud enough. And certainly, as people who spoke to Go Public pointed out, raising fees at the same time as making astonishing profits does not look especially good to their valued customers.

Readers' frequent suggestions that disgruntled customers switch to credit unions or to one of the (big-bank owned) low-fee alternatives illustrate how people determined to stick it to the big banks have options. The fact that we keep using them seems to back up MacBeth's position that Canadians remain tolerant of the banks' behaviour.

"The only way that Canadians would lose their love affair with the banks right now is if the banks started to foreclose on homes and also to put people in bankruptcy over their credit cards and their HELOCS and all that stuff," MacBeth said. "That doesn't seem to be happening."


© Don Pittis/CBC

One of the reasons for increased bank profits is the government support for real estate lending, which may not be good for the economy in the long run.

Some people complain about excessive government payouts during the pandemic, fearing they will bring tax increases. But MacBeth believes without that support, Canada was really close to that kind of meltdown.

"It was on the verge of happening a year ago, and then the government of Canada came in with massive transfers of income and dollars to the households which essentially, if you think about it, is a transfer to the banks," he said.

As the banks reported this week, their loan losses were negligible as Canadians paid off non-mortgage debt.

Taxpayers get some credit

As many banking experts will point out, Canadian banks are successful not just because they are so cautious and so wise. It's also because taxpayers have their backs and because government regulators keep them in line.

As Shanahan observed, Canadian banks had much higher reserve requirements than their U.S. equivalents to help them, and borrowers, survive the downturn. He said that as those requirements lift, expect increased dividends and share buybacks. Executive bonuses will be back on the table.

But as with so much at the heart of the Canadian economy these days, the banks have been riding a wave of rising house prices as Canadians borrow and spend on real estate, even as they pay off other loans. Many Canadian don't think much beyond the bank that lent them the money to buy, but once again, the taxpayer is there for the banks with what are effectively mortgage subsidies.

"In Canada, the CMHC is the primary risk taker and the bank just gets to keep all the profits," MacBeth said. "They're taking loans away from something that might be productive and giving more loans to households who are buying real estate they can't really afford."

And as many, including our central bankers, have said in the past, if that trend continues, diverting so much of our wealth to inflating the price of unproductive real estate may not be the best thing for Canada, or for its banks, once the pandemic is over. By comparison the effects of rising fees, while evidently annoying, are of small economic consequence.

Follow Don Pittis on Twitter @don_pittis

Germany will pay Namibia $1.3bn as it formally recognizes colonial-era genocide


BERLIN, GERMANY - AUGUST 29: Namibian tribal chiefs and guests attend a ceremony at Frenzosische Dom in Berlin held for the victims of Namibian genocide, on August 29, 2018 in Berlin, Germany. Germany on Wednesday handed over the remains of some 20 Herero and Nama people murdered in the early 20th century by German colonial troops in Namibia. (Photo by Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

More than 100 years after the crimes committed by the German colonial power in what is now Namibia, Germany has formally recognized the atrocities committed against the Herero and Nama ethnic groups as genocide.

Germany will support Namibia and the descendants of the victims with €1.1 billion for reconstruction and development and ask for forgiveness for the "crimes of German colonial rule," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement on Friday.

"Our goal was and is to find a common path to genuine reconciliation in memory of the victims. This includes naming the events of the German colonial period in what is now Namibia, and in particular the atrocities in the period from 1904 to 1908, without sparing or glossing over them. We will now also officially call these events what they were from today's perspective: a genocide," Maas said.

The Namibian government saw the formal acceptance of the atrocities as genocide as a key step in the process of reconciliation and reparation, Namibian presidential press secretary Alfredo Hengari told CNN on Friday.

"These are very positive developments in light of a very long process that has been accelerated over the past five years. People will never forget this genocide; they live with it. And this is an important process in terms of healing those wounds," he said.
A bloody conflict

German troops killed up to 80,000 of Herero and Nama people in the southern African country between 1904 and 1908 in response to an anti-colonial uprising, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

According to historians, the bloody conflict happened when the Herero indigenous people revolted against colonial troops over land seizures. Germany, which today gives development aid to Namibia, offered its first formal apology for the conflict in 2004.

Both countries had been in talks since 2015 to negotiate compensation for the massacre by German colonial forces. Maas said in his statement that representatives of the Herero and Nama communities were "closely involved" in the negotiations on the Namibian side.

"The crimes of German colonial rule have long burdened relations with Namibia. There can be no closing of the book on the past. However, the recognition of guilt and our request for apology is an important step towards coming to terms with the crimes and shaping the future together," Maas said.

German media is reporting that an official request for forgiveness will be made by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a ceremony in the Namibian parliament.

"A decision on a possible trip by the Federal President will be made after the governments have reached a formal agreement and in close consultation with the Namibian side," a spokesperson at the office of the Federal President told CNN.

The announcement comes a day after French President Emmanuel Macron publicly acknowledged France's "overwhelming responsibility" in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and said only the survivors could give "the gift of forgiveness."

In 1994, around 800,000 mainly ethnic Tutsis were killed by Hutu militias supported by the Rwandan government. France has been accused of failing to prevent the genocide and of supporting the Hutu regime, even after the massacres had started.


© Jürgen Bätz/picture alliance/Getty ImagesA memorial to the genocide of the Herero and Nama (1904-1907) committed by German colonial troops in the Namibian capital Windhoek. The inscription translates: "Your blood nourishes our freedom."

Germany's colonial-era massacre of Namibia's indigenous tribes


© GIANLUIGI GUERCIA

Schoolgirls in Windhoek walk past a memorial to victims of Germany's colonial-era massacre in Namibia

Germany on Friday took a historic step by acknowledging that the massacre of Namibia's indigenous Herero and Nama peoples by colonial-era troops was an act of genocide.

Here is background into the event, which some historians describe as the first genocide of the 20th century:

- Rebellion -

Germany ruled what was then called German South West Africa as a colony from 1884 to 1915.

Angered by German settlers stealing their women, land and cattle in their remote desert territory, the Herero tribe launched a revolt in January 1904. Its warriors killed 123 German civilians over several days.


© Thorsten EBERDING Namibia

The smaller Nama tribe joined the uprising in 1905.

- Extermination order -

The Germans responded ruthlessly, defeating the Herero in a decisive battle at Waterberg, northwest of the capital city of Windhoek, on August 11, 1904.

With German troops in pursuit, some 80,000 people fled towards Botswana, including women and children, across what is now called the Kalahari Desert -- one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet. Only 15,000 survived.

In October 1904 German General Lothar von Trotha, under the direct command of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin, signed a notorious "extermination order" against the Herero.

"Within the German boundaries, every Herero, with or without a gun, with or without livestock, will be shot dead," he said.

Survivors were sent to concentration camps, decades before those in which Jews, dissidents and gays perished during the Nazi period.

An estimated 60,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama people were killed from 1904 to 1908.

From 40 percent at the start of the 20th century, the Herero now only make up seven percent of the Namibian population.

- Bones for 'experiments' -

Hundreds of Herero and Nama were beheaded after their deaths and their skulls handed to researchers in Berlin for since-discredited "scientific" experiments framed to prove the racial superiority of whites over blacks.

In 1924 a German museum sold some of the bones to an American collector, who donated them to New York's Museum of Natural History.

In 2008 Namibia's ambassador in Berlin demanded that the bones be returned, saying it was a question of reclaiming "our dignity".

Germany has since 2011 formally handed back dozens of the skulls, many of which were stored at universities and clinics.

- Recognition and reparations -

Germany long refused to take the blame for the episode, only accepting responsibility on the 100th anniversary of the massacres in 2004, when a government minister said the "atrocities... would today be called genocide".

Berlin also repeatedly refused to pay reparations to descendants of the Nama and Herero victims.

Negotiations between the two countries to reach an agreement that combined an official apology and development aid began in 2015.

In 2018 Germany returned bones of members of the two tribes, with junior foreign minister Michelle Muentefering asking for "forgiveness from the bottom of my heart".

On Friday, as it recognised it had committed genocide, Berlin also promised financial support worth more than one billion euros to aid projects in the African nation.

The sum will be paid over 30 years, according to sources close to the negotiations, and must primarily benefit the descendants of the Herero and Nama.

ang/eab/fec/ri

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M #BIGPHARMA

Exclusive: U.S. opens criminal probe into alleged lapses at Eli Lilly plant - sources


© Reuters/Mike Blake

 Eli Lilly logo is shown on one of their offices in San Diego

By Marisa Taylor, Mike Spector and Dan Levine

(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into Eli Lilly and Co focused on alleged manufacturing irregularities and records tampering at a factory in Branchburg, New Jersey, that produces the pharmaceutical giant's COVID-19 therapy and other drugs, three people familiar with the matter said.

The probe represents a significant escalation of the government scrutiny on Lilly. The pharmaceutical company, one of the world's largest, has been under examination for more than a year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over alleged manufacturing and records violations at the Branchburg factory.

Reuters questioned Lilly about the criminal inquiry on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, the company disclosed in a securities filing that it had received a subpoena from the Justice Department in May seeking documents related to the Branchburg factory.

The company did not disclose anything more about the nature or focus of the investigation and said it was cooperating fully in the matter.

Lilly said it had previously engaged external counsel to conduct an independent investigation of certain allegations relating to the Branchburg plant. The company submitted the same information Thursday to Reuters in response to the news agency’s questions.

"Lilly is deeply committed to manufacturing high-quality medicines for patients who need them, and the safety and quality of our products is our highest priority," the company said.

The Justice Department inquiry follows a Reuters report in March that a Lilly human resources officer alleged she had been forced out of her job

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-elililly-special-report/special-report-insider-alleges-eli-lilly-blocked-her-efforts-to-sound-alarms-about-u-s-drug-factory-idUSKBN2B31K5 

at the factory after undertaking internal investigations of employee complaints about manufacturing lapses, falsified or destroyed records and staff shortages.

In April, employees accused a factory executive of altering FDA-required documents in order to downplay problems, according to an unsigned internal complaint reviewed by Reuters

 https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/exclusive-lilly-hit-by-staff-accusations-fda-scrutiny-covid-drug-factories-2021-05-05/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter.

The company previously told Reuters that none of the issues flagged by FDA inspectors affected the quality of medicines released to doctors and patients. Lilly also has denied retaliating against any employees.

The Justice Department inquiry, which involves U.S. prosecutors and other officials in New Jersey and Washington, began in recent weeks, the three people said. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is participating in the probe, they said.

A spokesman for the New Jersey U.S. attorney's office declined to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. Justice Department and FDA representatives in Washington had no immediate comment on the probe. The FBI declined to comment.

The investigation is in its earliest stages, the three people told Reuters, and the Justice Department has not accused Lilly or any of its employees of wrongdoing. The department could ultimately pursue criminal charges, seek civil sanctions or close the probe without taking action.

Investigators have not zeroed in on specific legal violations that could form the backbone of a case, one of the sources said.

Steven Lynn, a former head of the FDA's Office of Manufacturing and Product Quality, said the federal government rarely seeks criminal charges stemming from manufacturing violations unless those lapses are extremely serious and the company does little to fix them.

“This is a big deal,” Lynn said of the Justice Department decision to launch a criminal probe of Lilly, echoing three industry and regulatory experts interviewed by Reuters.

‘OFFICIAL ACTION INDICATED’

In November 2019, FDA inspectors arrived at the Branchburg plant for an inspection and found that quality control data had been deleted and not appropriately audited, Reuters has reported. The plant produced blockbuster diabetes drug Trulicity as well as several cancer medications.

Federal documents show the FDA cited the problems in March 2020 as “Official Action Indicated,” or OAI, which is its most serious category of violation. If not addressed, an OAI can lead to a prohibition on the sale of drugs from a facility, regulatory experts say. The FDA has not taken further public action.

Inspectors returned in July and found several more problems. Among them: Batches of drugs had been discarded because of manufacturing mistakes and quality control problems were not being properly investigated by the company to prevent recurrence.

In response to a Reuters open records request, the FDA in May released two Lilly memos responding to the problems that the agency’s inspectors found in New Jersey. Lilly told the FDA it takes the agency’s findings “very seriously” and understands “the criticality of data integrity across the entirety of our operations,” a September 2020 Lilly memo said.

The FDA declined to release additional records about the New Jersey plant, saying it is “information compiled for law enforcement purposes” and disclosure could interfere with such proceedings.

In October, the Trump administration ordered $375 million worth of Lilly’s COVID-19 antibody therapy bamlanivimab, which is manufactured in Branchburg. Shortly afterward, the FDA authorized the drug’s use on an emergency basis to help curb the pandemic. Bamlanivimab is now combined with a second Lilly drug, called etesevimab, to treat COVID-19.

A condition of the emergency authorization was that an outside auditor inspect batches of bamlanivimab to ensure they met FDA standards. Lilly and the FDA have not responded to questions from Reuters about whether this requirement was met.

Reuters reported in March that a former Lilly human resources officer, Amrit Mula, had identified internally some of the same violations later documented by the FDA. Mula was forced out of the company in early 2019 after Lilly executives sought to downplay her findings, according to a letter demanding compensation for damages that her attorneys sent to the company in December 2019. The attorneys argued the company retaliated against Mula for raising legitimate concerns as part of her job.

In April, a group of Lilly employees in New Jersey asserted in an internal complaint that a top quality executive at the Branchburg factory, Lydia Wible, rewrote findings by Lilly technical experts to make the conclusions appear more favorable to the company. Wible did not respond to a request for comment sent Wednesday.

Lilly confirmed the existence of the internal complaint about Wible to Reuters, and said it had referred the matter for investigation to an outside party. It did not name that entity.

An internal Lilly response to the employee complaint, reviewed by Reuters, shows that the company hired the Washington-based law firm Covington & Burling LLP to investigate the matter.

Gerald Masoudi, a Covington partner who once served as FDA’s chief counsel, is collecting information from employees, the document shows. He did not respond to questions from Reuters.

(Marisa Taylor reported from Washington, D.C.; Mike Spector reported from New York; Dan Levine reported from San Francisco. Editing by Michele Gershberg and Julie Marquis)

UN alarmed at soldiers detaining displaced from Tigray camps


© Reuters/BAZ RATNERFILE PHOTO: Tsehaye school, which was turned into a shelter for displaced people in the town of Shire, Tigray region

GENEVA (Reuters) -The United Nations refugee agency voiced deep concern on Friday at reports of soldiers taking hundreds of people away from displacement camps in the Tigray region of Ethiopia earlier this week, saying such sites should be a safe haven.

Three aid workers and a doctor told Reuters this week that Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers forcibly detained more than 500 young men and women from four camps for displaced people in the town of Shire in the northern region on Monday night.

"We reiterate our call on all parties to ensure the protection of civilians including the forcibly displaced. It is crucial that all parties to the conflict recognise the civilian and humanitarian character of the displacement sites," Babar Baloch, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Geneva news briefing.

Some had been released after UNHCR raised the matter with Ethiopian authorities, he said, providing no figure.

"The situation is traumatic and distressing not only for the relatives of the missing but for all the displaced communities residing in Shire," he added.

It was not immediately clear where the remaining youth were being detained, he added.

Thousands of people have been killed since the conflict erupted, 2 million have been forced from their homes and 91% of the population of nearly 6 million are in need of aid, according to the latest report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge; Editing by William Maclean)

Explainer: How will China's latest oil probe affect the world's biggest crude importer?


© Reuters/Damir SagoljA logo of Sinochem is seen outside an office building of Sinochem in Beijing

By Chen Aizhu

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - This year China's government has been gradually ramping up scrutiny of its sprawling oil industry, reinforcing its authority with new taxes on refined products while investigating crude imports by state energy giants and independent refiners.

Last Tuesday, the country's top economic planning agency gave five state-owned companies just two days to report on their historic use of imported oil, part of a broader effort by the world's largest oil importer to control inbound shipments as domestic supplies swell.

HOW IMPORTANT IS CHINA IN GLOBAL OIL MARKETS?

China is the world's largest crude oil importer and the No. 2 consumer after the United States. China's crude imports surged 7.3% in 2020 - the only major market where oil demand grew during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Strong economic growth, new refining capacity and changes in fuel taxes could spur crude imports 7.2%, or 775,000 barrels per day, higher this year, said Seng Yick Tee, SIA Energy analyst.

(Graphic: China’s record crude oil imports have surpassed domestic needs & generated rising fuel exports: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/jznvnwdllpl/ChinaCrudeimportsvsFuelExports.png)

But the country's refining sector is saddled with overcapacity and excess fuel supplies which Beijing is keen to tackle. Authorities also aim to clamp down on tax evasion, as well as the blending and sale of fuels that do not meet emission standards.

Guangdong province, China's top oil-consuming region, led the probe into illicit trades of blending fuels in February and detained several people in connection with the investigation.

WHAT IS THE CRUDE IMPORT INVESTIGATION ABOUT?

Beijing is looking into whether Sinopec Group, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), Sinochem Group, ChemChina, and China North Industries Group - which together make up more than 60% of China's total imports - have resold oil to other companies in the country. Also under examination is whether their imports have been processed at refineries under a tolling scheme that reduces the companies' tax burden.

The information request is part of a broader probe the Beijing began early this year into a growing domestic fuel surplus and lost tax revenues, partly because of unchecked flows of imported crude oil to refiners that are outside the country's official quota system.

It follows a separate inspection by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)in April of independent refiners in the eastern province of Shandong that had pledged to close ageing, inefficient facilities in return for winning import quotas.

(GRAPHIC: Change in China crude runs by refiner in 2020: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/xlbpgkrjxpq/ChinaCrudeRunsByrefinerin2020.png)

That inspection also covered usage of import quotas. Several independent plants in Shandong were found to have sold quotas to other refiners who not qualified to process imported crude.

WHAT IS THE QUOTA SYSTEM?

China has since late 2015 allowed more than 40 independent refiners to process imported crude under a quota system. But smaller plants have been found by the government to be sourcing additional crude oil, and other feedstocks such as diluted bitumen, beyond quota limits, leading to a domestic fuel glut.

Beijing to start levy hefty taxes on imports of light cycle oil (LCO), mixed aromatics and diluted bitumen from June 12, a move that is expected to curb fuel imports and improve local refiners' domestic sales and profits.

HOW WILL THESE PROBES IMPACT OIL MARKETS?

China is expected to release a second batch of crude import quotas in the coming months, and these probes may prompt Beijing to reduce allocated volumes to independent companies.

While this could curb independent buyers' appetite for more supplies, the state-run firms, which are not subject to quota management, are expected to lead the purchases.

In December last year, China issued the first batch of crude import quotas for non-state companies at 122.59 million tonnes in 2021, up 18% from the first round for 2020.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu and Shu Zhang; Writing by Florence Tan; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

Headwinds: Offshore wind will take time to carry factory jobs to U.S.


© Reuters/Stephane MaheFILE PHOTO: A technician stands near a section of an offshore wind turbine during a visit at the General Electric offshore wind turbine plant in Montoir-de-Bretagne

By Isla Binnie, Susanna Twidale and Nichola Groom

(Reuters) - When U.S. President Joe Biden's administration approved the country’s first major offshore wind farm this month, it billed the move as the start of a new clean energy industry that by the end of the decade will create over 75,000 U.S. jobs.

Industry executives and analysts do not contest that claim, but they make a clarification: For the first several years at least, most of the manufacturing jobs stemming from the U.S. offshore wind industry will be in Europe.

Offshore wind project developers plan to ship massive blades, towers and other components for at least the initial wave of U.S. projects from factories in France, Spain and elsewhere before potentially opening up manufacturing plants on U.S. shores, according to Reuters interviews with executives from three of the world’s leading wind turbine makers.

That is because suppliers need to see a deep pipeline of approved U.S. projects, along with a clear set of regulatory incentives like federal and state tax breaks, before committing to siting and building new American factories, they say – a process that could take years.

"For the first projects, it's probably necessary" to ship across the Atlantic, said Martin Gerhardt, head of offshore wind product management at Siemens Gamesa, the global offshore wind market leader in a comment typical of the group.

That underscores an uncomfortable truth for the Biden administration as it seeks to show political opponents that a transition away from fossil fuels to fight climate change can be good for the economy: many of the clean energy jobs he aims to create to offset losses in drilling and mining may not materialize until well after his time in the White House ends.

The administration has unveiled a goal to install 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power capacity in U.S. waters by 2030 – roughly the amount that already exists in Europe’s two-decade old industry – a plan that it estimates will create 77,000 U.S.-based jobs while combating global climate change.

More than 2,000 turbines will be needed to meet the 30-GW target, according to Shashi Barla, an analyst at consultancy Wood Mackenzie. But U.S.-based factories probably will not materialize until 2024 or 2025, he said.

After that, Barla said he expects the U.S. supply chain to develop rapidly and to make around 70% of major components for the industry by 2030.

A White House official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A FACTORY IN EVERY STATE

This month, Washington took a big step toward its goal of launching the offshore wind industry by approving the Vineyard Wind project off the coast of Massachusetts, jointly owned by Avangrid Inc and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

That project, the first major offshore wind farm to get federal approval in the United States after more than a decade of stops and starts, is expected to produce enough electricity to power 400,000 homes in New England by 2023.

Vineyard Wind alone will create 3,600 U.S. jobs, according to company officials, though most of the project’s components will be manufactured in Europe due to the lack of an existing domestic supply chain.

U.S. company General Electric's renewable division, GE Renewable Energy, will supply Vineyard Wind with 62 turbines. The major parts for those turbines, which are twice the height of the Statue of Liberty, including rotor blades and gear boxes, will be made in its factories in France.

Iberdrola, Avangrid’s Spanish parent company, says the contract to make the turbine foundations, meanwhile, will create around 400 jobs at the Windar Renovables factory in Spain.

Several other U.S. offshore wind project proposals have also been preparing orders from companies like GE and Siemens Gamesa, but they are awaiting federal regulatory approval before moving forward.

The manufacturers told Reuters they need those orders to become solid and reliable before contemplating investments in a U.S.-based supply chain for offshore wind.

Opening a factory is costly and time-consuming: they require permits and large amounts of space near the coast, said Christy Guthman, GE Renewables commercial leader of U.S. offshore.

"We definitely want to maximize our local content wherever possible, but we need to have that sustained volume year over year to look at potential investments in the U.S," Guthman said.

Developers also need to navigate complex state-level demands on the industry, as governors compete to ensure that any future factories supplying the offshore wind industry are built within their borders.

New Jersey, for example, has asked bidders on its offshore wind supply contracts to specify how they will help the state become an industry hub, while a recent New York solicitation said investments that create sustainable in-state jobs would be given preference.

"We cannot have a factory in every state, that is not economic," Siemens Gamesa Chief Executive Andreas Nauen said in an interview.

Nauen’s company is still deliberating over whether to open a specialized facility on the East Coast to service a proposed project for Dominion Energy in Virginia, having been named preferred supplier back in January 2020.

Siemens Gamesa, GE and Vestas already produce parts for smaller, onshore turbines in the United States, but locations including landlocked Kansas, Iowa, North Dakota and Colorado put them too far from the windy coasts to be of much use for larger offshore pieces.

Orsted and Equinor, meanwhile, have said they plan to open manufacturing for some parts to service U.S. offshore projects they have proposed, though many major parts would likely still be derived from established plants in Europe.

POLITICAL TURBULENCE

Suppliers have reason to be cautious. Clean energy expansion in the United States relies heavily on political will – which can shift from administration to administration.

Federal incentives for renewable energy projects have expired or experienced eleventh-hour extensions in Congress multiple times over the last decade. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, meanwhile, had cancelled Vineyard Wind's permit application during his term, throwing the entire industry into doubt until Biden revived the process.

That turbulence resounded in the supply chain. Vineyard Wind initially chose Vestas as its turbine supplier in 2018, but that contract expired as federal permitting dragged on.

The Biden White House has said it is aware that suppliers need airtight commitments to make investments in local manufacturing, and points out the administration has pledged $3 billion in public financing for offshore wind and transmission developers and component suppliers. It will also fund $230 million of port infrastructure projects to help encourage the industry.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, meanwhile, has imposed tariffs on imported wind towers from certain countries including Spain. While the move came at the request of two domestic producers of towers for the U.S. onshore wind industry, the tariffs would apply to offshore towers as well, increasing the economic incentive to open U.S. factories.

"We know that we need to create greater certainty for offshore wind projects," U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Amanda Lefton said on a call with reporters on May 11.

Lefton has also acknowledged that competing state demands could be an obstacle for the industry.

"There's been this healthy competition among states for who is the most aggressive," Lefton said in an interview with Reuters. "But we stand to gain a lot more now by... rowing in the same direction on establishing the supply chain here."

(Reporting by Isla Binnie in Madrid, Nichola Groom in Los Angeles, Susanna Twidale in London; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Marguerita Choy)

Europe's ports will need $7.9 billion of investment to support offshore wind expansion, report says

Anmar Frangoul 

As countries attempt to reduce emissions and move away from fossil fuels, offshore wind looks set to play a key role.

This expansion will, according to a report published on Thursday, will require substantial investment in European ports.


© Provided by CNBC

This photo shows wind turbine parts at a port in Ostend, Belgium.

European ports will require new infrastructure and significant investment over the next few years to cope with the growth of the region's offshore wind sector, according to a new report from industry body WindEurope.

In its report, published on Thursday, the Brussels-based organization said Europe's ports would have to invest 6.5 billion euros (around $7.9 billion) by 2030 in order "to support the expansion of offshore wind."

In a statement accompanying the report's publication, WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson described ports as being "essential for offshore wind."

"They're a vital part of the supply and logistics chain that's needed for the installation, assembly, operation and maintenance of offshore wind farms," he added. "We can't expand offshore without also expanding and upgrading Europe's port infrastructure."

As countries attempt to reduce emissions and move away from fossil fuels, offshore wind looks set to play a key role. The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, has previously said it wants offshore wind capacity to hit at least 60 gigawatts by 2030 and 300 GW by the middle of the century.

The U.K., which left the EU at the end of January 2020, wants its offshore wind capacity to reach 40 GW by 2030. According to WindEurope's report: "Government commitments across Europe add up to 111 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030."

Alongside this expansion of capacity, the physical size of turbines is also set to grow. GE Renewable Energy's Haliade X turbine, for example, will have a tip-height of 260 meters (853 feet), 107-meter long blades and a 220-meter rotor. Elsewhere, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy is working on the SG 14-222 DD, which will boast 108 meter blades and a rotor diameter of 222 meters.

WindEurope's report addressed this new reality and the effect it could have in relation to ports and infrastructure. "Upgraded or entirely new facilities are needed to host larger turbines and a larger market," it said.

"They will need to cater for operating and maintaining of a larger fleet (including training facilities), for upcoming decommissioning projects and to host new manufacturing centres for bottom-fixed and floating offshore wind," it added.

Further to this, ports would need to "expand their land, reinforce quays, enhance their deep-sea harbours and carry out other civil works."

WindEurope called upon the European Commission to put together what it described as "a clear strategy for port development." In addition, it said the Commission needed to "recognise the high societal value of investing in ports."
Port projects

The importance of ports was illustrated by a number of announcements this week. On Thursday, Norwegian energy major Equinor said it had acquired a site at the Polish port of Łeba.

The firm — better known for its production of oil and gas — said the site would be used as an "operations and maintenance … base" for offshore wind developments located in the Polish Baltic Sea.

A few days earlier, port operator Forth Ports announced plans for a "renewable energy hub" at the Port of Leith in Scotland. The proposed hub, which would be backed by £40 million ($56.76 million) of private investment, is slated to cover 175 acres if built.

According to those behind the project, it would offer a "riverside marine berth capable of accommodating the world's largest offshore wind installation vessels."

In a statement, Forth Ports chief executive Charles Hammond listed a number of factors that he believed made the project an attractive one.

He said: "Leith's proximity to the North Sea, which is set to become home to many more offshore wind developments, coupled with the natural deep waters of the Firth of Forth, makes this an ideal location to support not only those developments already planned, but the pipeline of projects that are sure to follow."

Scientists drill deepest hole ever and extract samples of Earth's core

Duration: 00:50 

Scientists aboard the Kaimei research vessel have just drilled the deepest hole by the Japan Trench. The research team extracted samples of Earth's core to study earthquakes.