Puerto Rico’s Bankrupt Utility Strikes Tentative Deal With Bondholders

Michelle Kaske
Fri, August 11, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Puerto Rico’s bankrupt power utility reached a tentative agreement with a “substantial number” of its bondholders, according to a federal oversight board, and received another week to finalize a potential deal to reduce nearly $9 billion of debt.

US District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain on Thursday granted a request by the federally appointed board to postpone to Aug. 18 a deadline to file an amended debt-cutting plan. The board, which manages the bankruptcy, and some bondholders are working on the specific terms of a restructuring support agreement, according to the board’s motion seeking an extension.

A potential debt deal between Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, called Prepa, and its creditors would be a long-awaited and positive development in the utility’s six-year bankruptcy, which has been prolonged by hurricanes, the commonwealth’s own debt restructuring and the pandemic.

“The oversight board is pleased to report it has reached an agreement in principle with a substantial number of holders of Prepa bonds to settle their respective claims against Prepa,” lawyers for the board wrote in Thursday’s court filing.

Not all investors are on board yet. GoldenTree Asset Management says it hasn’t been invited to or participated in any settlement discussions, according to a statement it filed Thursday to the court following Swain’s approval of the Aug. 18 deadline. GoldenTree held $1 billion of Prepa debt as of Feb. 16, according to its most recent disclosure filing to the court.

“We believe that the efforts of the oversight board to cause the debtor to try to walk away from $8.4 billion of revenue bonds on a nonconsensual basis, and to buy plan support from some, but not all bondholders, through improper classification and disparate treatment, is wasteful and will not result in the timely or efficient conclusion of this process that all purport to desire,” lawyers for GoldenTree wrote in its filing Thursday.

GoldenTree has been part of an ad hoc group of Prepa bondholders, but it recently hired White & Case to represent it, an indication that the firm’s strategy may differ from the other investors in the group.

Negotiations between the oversight board and bondholders increased after Swain in June limited to $2.38 billion the amount of utility net revenue that bondholders have a claim to. That amount is a sliver of Prepa’s outstanding bonds.

Swain originally asked the board to submit its amended debt plan by July 14. She has postponed that deadline as the board has claimed that it continues to find agreement with creditors.

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QUEBEC INC.

Desmarais Family’s Sagard Pushes for Growth With Private Retail Funds

Derek Decloet
Fri, August 11, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Sagard Holdings, the alternative asset manager controlled by Canada’s billionaire Desmarais family, is working to boost sales of its private-asset funds to retail investors.

Sagard struck a deal last month to bring on Bank of Montreal and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ as minority investors in the firm. When complete, the transaction will dilute Power Corp. of Canada’s ownership of Sagard to just over 50%, the company disclosed Friday. But it will mean new avenues of growth, Power Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Orr said.

“The BMO partnership might help” with retail distribution, Orr told analysts on Friday. “I think a lot of the growth over the next decade is going to come not just from institutions, but it’s going to come from high net worth, ultra-high net worth and retail channels.”

Sagard and its sister company, Power Sustainable, offer a variety of investment strategies, including private equity, private credit, green energy and real estate funds. Sagard also has a venture capital arm that’s focused on financial-technology startups.

The two alternative managers remain a small part of Montreal-based Power, which derives the bulk of its profits from control of one of Canada’s largest insurance companies, Great-West Lifeco Inc., and from mutual fund and wealth-management firm IGM Financial Inc.

Read More: Billionaire Desmarais Family Quietly Reshapes a Financial Empire

Sagard and Power Sustainable had about C$22 billion ($16.4 billion) of assets under management, including unfunded commitments, as of June 30. It’s not large enough yet to be profitable; the firms posted a combined C$18 million operating loss in the second quarter.

But that will change as they draw in more outside investors, Orr said in response to analysts’ questions.

“We have said we are all about creating value — and, ultimately, profitability — in our investing platforms, but we were looking to do that through third-party capital,” he said.

Power shares rose as high as C$38.98 on Friday in Toronto, the highest price since April 2022.

Sagard is led by Paul Desmarais III, the grandson of the late Paul Desmarais, who took over Power more than 50 years ago and used it to gain control of Great-West, IGM and a large portfolio of financial, media and industrial assets. Power has a stock market value of about C$26 billion.

 Businessweek

Trucking Company Yellow Is Having an Odd Bankruptcy With New Loan Offers Pouring In

Jonathan Randles
Fri, August 11, 2023


(Bloomberg) -- As far as liquidations go, trucking company Yellow appears to be having a particularly good one.

After meme traders piled into the stock just as the firm was cratering, investment funds and a rival trucker are sparring for the opportunity to finance its wind-down.

While the nearly 100-year-old firm’s core shipping business has collapsed, it still boasts lucrative assets worth an estimated $2.1 billion — helping Yellow get the kind of financing bids that it struggled to raise before a recent Chapter 11 filing.

Yellow is scheduled to update the bankruptcy court on its efforts to secure alternative financing at a Friday hearing.

Its loan from existing lenders led by Apollo Global Management carries a beefy 17% interest rate. Yellow could also be on the hook for $32 million in fees if the sale drags on for months. The loan has another provision to further protect about $501 million in outstanding debt owed to Apollo and other lenders.

The good news for the trucker: Hedge fund MFN Partners LP, its largest shareholder, has offered to loan the same amount of money at the same interest rate but lower fees, according to Yellow lawyer Patrick J. Nash. Rival trucking firm Estes Express Lines has floated a proposal on more favorable terms, offering up-to $230 million at 2% lower-interest and lower fees, Nash said.

Nash said he was “cautiously optimistic” that Yellow could be close to finalizing an alternative financing by Friday.

“The prospect of multiple bids is a good thing, in my view, despite the irony that they’re funding a business that’s completely shutting down,” said David Skeel, a professor at University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Lucrative Assets

The trucker is in demand thanks to its substantial real estate portfolio with about 300 service centers, 42,000 trailers and 12,700 tractors — assets Yellow told a bankruptcy judge should fetch more than enough to fully repay its lenders. It famously has a $700 million loan from the US government during the pandemic rescue.


Nash said the company’s service centers are located throughout the country, many in fully-developed urban areas, where such terminals are no-longer being built. Industry experts have described the bankruptcy as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to secure such a large volume of these types of assets, Nash said.

Prospects are so promising that Yellow should also be able to repay additional debt to fund the Chapter 11 case, he said.

Still, existing lenders expressed doubt Wednesday over whether alternative financing will come to fruition. An Apollo lawyer said the firm hadn’t reviewed Estes’ proposal and expressed concern that Yellow might draw out the liquidation and negatively impact the value of its collateral.

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Meloni Muscles In on KKR’s Telecom Italia Deal, Taking Stake

Daniele Lepido and Alessandra Migliaccio
Fri, August 11, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- The Italian government agreed with US private equity firm KKR & Co. to take a stake of up to 20% in Telecom Italia SpA’s network business as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asserts greater state oversight of strategic assets.

The U.S. private equity firm signed a preliminary deal to include the government in its €23 billion ($25.3 billion) bid for the former phone monopoly’s network, the finance ministry said a statement late Thursday. A decree will complete the process.

The announcement — Meloni’s second surprise intervention in a week after she imposed a windfall tax on banks — was seen as a positive news by Telecom Italia’s largest shareholder, Vivendi SE, who had earlier opposed the sale.

The opening of a serious dialog with Vivendi is necessary to reach a feasible solution, according to people close to the French media-conglomerate. For Vivendi, a discussion is now essential to find the best possible outcome, the people added. The French media conglomerate has valued the network at about €30 billion.

The government’s “direct and active” intervention makes explicit “the strong and broad political support for the transaction,” Alberto Gegra, an analyst at Equita, wrote in a note to clients.

Telecom Italia shares rose as much as 5.6% in Milan trading to their highest since April, boosting the company’s market value to €6.2 billion.

Meloni has signaled that she considers Telecom Italia’s network a strategic asset that must retain a degree of public oversight. The government has the right to veto deals involving such assets, and Rome’s desire to safeguard the company’s 40,000 employees means that any offer without state backing would face significant hurdles.

The deal with KKR will provide “a decisive role for the government in defining strategic choices,” the economy ministry said in its statement.

KKR is also adding infrastructure fund F2i SGR SpA to its bidding group, boosting the numbers of Italian investors in the consortium.


Telecom Italia put its network business up for sale earlier this year in an effort to reduce its gross debt of more than €30 billion. The business has been grappling with a complex mix of high labor costs and the need for ever-growing investments to modernize its network infrastructure.

--With assistance from Antonio Vanuzzo and Chiara Remondini.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

Opinion: Wall Street predators destroyed Toys 'R' Us. Now they're coming for Simon & Schuster

Aliya Sabharwal
Fri, August 11, 2023 

When new owners drove Toys 'R' Us into bankruptcy for a quick profit, they cost 33,000 workers their jobs.

The venerable publishing house Simon & Schuster will soon be owned by one of the nation’s biggest private equity firms, KKR. For a glimpse of their future — and tips on how to fight back — Simon & Schuster authors and employees might want to chat with the former workers of Toys ‘R’ Us. There are 33,000 of them, and their company was driven into bankruptcy five years ago by a clutch of Wall Street firms led by KKR.

That’s a common script. Private equity is a 40-year-old Wall Street creation that thrives on cost-cutting, wealth extraction, short time horizons, and financial engineering. It bought, sold, and liquidated its way through the American retail sector years ago, and is now jumping into traditional book publishing, a business that demands patience, an appetite for risky new authors and deft marketing. Can Simon & Schuster survive, as KKR is infamously known, the “barbarians at the gate”?

Read more: Op-Ed: How to stop hedge funds from wrecking local news

The private equity model is to loot and flip, not to invest or run companies well — an ominous history for any acquisition, but especially for a business requiring long-term commitments, like book publishing. That said, there are policy options for change, from Washington to Sacramento, and models for workers to fight back.

Private equity firms raise money from pension funds, endowments and wealthy individuals and use a slice of that money plus a lot of leverage to buy companies that are then saddled with the debt. The Simon & Schuster transaction will leave the publisher $1 billion in hock, ratcheting up pressure to repay the debt — and turn a profit.

Those former Toys ‘R’ Us employees can attest to how that goes. When a group led by KKR bought Toys ‘R’ Us for $6.6 billion in 2005, it used $5 billion in debt. Then it kept squeezing. The new owners eliminated positions and offloaded responsibilities onto other employees, while pressuring workers to sign up customers for high-margin sweeteners like credit cards and “payment protection plans.”

Read more: Opinion: Why do I hoard more books than I could possibly read? An investigation

KKR and its partners sold off Toys ‘R’ Us real estate, pocketed the money and forced the retailer to lease back its buildings. Along the way, KKR and the other firms paid themselves $250 million in “management fees” and big bonuses to hand-picked executives — right before Toys ‘R’ Us entered bankruptcy.

KKR’s story tracks the march of private equity through the American economy. Retail proved lucrative for KKR and other private equity firms, but 52,000 workers paid the price in California alone.

Healthcare has also proved a juicy target; KKR bankrupted Envision Healthcare, a staffing service for emergency rooms, with a heavy debt load. KKR, Blackstone and others have contributed to the housing crisis through their ownership of single-family homes, further excluding, especially, Black Americans from homeownership. An investigation of KKR ownership of care facilities for disabled people revealed appalling conditions, including at its California locations, part of a broader problem of private equity in the care economy.

Read more: Op-Ed: What do artists and their fans owe each other?

Wall Street is no stranger to the creative industries. Blackstone, a private equity rival to KKR, has wrangled with recording artists over its ownership of companies that pay royalties. If KKR seeks a bigger slice of the income pie at Simon & Schuster — as opposed to growing the pie with new authors and titles — pressure on authors could go the same way.

Because debt both lubricates the private equity machine and raises pressure to slash costs and curb investment, any solution must realign incentives so that executives who load up a company with debt end up responsible for it. The Stop Wall Street Looting Act, introduced in 2018, would pierce the liability shield between private equity firms and the companies they purchase, giving creditors recourse to recover debt from Wall Street dealmakers.

Other measures could curb the worst abuses. Proposals in Congress would eliminate tax deductions for big corporate landlords to reduce incentives to bid up the cost of housing. Measures by health industry regulators could limit reimbursements to private equity-owned providers to deter harmful ownership forms. More states could also pass mandatory severance laws — New Jersey has led the way — to cushion the impact of mass layoffs. Minnesota’s state attorney general, Keith Ellison, is suing a private equity-owned home rental company for failing to maintain its properties.

Read more: A map of 1,001 novels to show us where to find the real America

And workers can fight back. Former employees of Toys ‘R’ Us won a $20-million severance fund after its bankruptcy through an astute mix of people power and political pressure. Tenants are organizing in San Diego to combat abuses by Blackstone, which has tried to outflank rent stabilization laws by driving existing tenants out through eviction or neglect.

Don’t worry about the folks at KKR. Its founders, Henry Kravis and George Roberts, are each worth about $11 billion after long careers on Wall Street. But based on their track record, the outlook for Simon & Schuster, publisher of important authors like Ernest Hemingway, Siddhartha Mukherjee and Doris Lessing, darkened considerably this week.

Aliya Sabharwal is a campaigns manager for private equity at Americans for Financial Reform and a former organizer of laid-off Toys ‘R’ Us employees.

If it’s in the news right now, the L.A. Times’ Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Paramount to sell Simon & Schuster to KKR for $1.62 billion


Toy figures of people are seen in front of the displayed Paramount + logo, in this illustration

Mon, August 7, 2023 
By Samrhitha A and Dawn Chmielewski

(Reuters) -Paramount Global said it would sell Simon & Schuster to private-equity firm KKR & Co for $1.62 billion in cash, ending a year-long attempt to sell the marquee book publisher.

Shares of the media company rose 4% in extended trading after Paramount also beat estimates for second-quarter earnings, riding on strong growth in its streaming business.

Paramount has been trying to offload Simon & Schuster, the publisher of authors such as Stephen King and Hillary Clinton, since a federal judge blocked its $2.2 billion sale to Penguin Random House last year.

"Simon Schuster is a fantastic asset, but ... it's not core," CEO Bob Bakish said on a post-earnings call.

Bakish did not provide an update on the sale of other company assets. The company is exploring the sale of a majority stake in BET Media Group, which includes the BET cable network.

Paramount will receive gross proceeds of $2.2 billion from the sale of Simon & Schuster, including a $200 million termination fee paid by Penguin Random House and the cash flow it received during the process. It expects to use the proceeds to pay down debt.

The move comes at a time when the company is striving to bolster its streaming service, Paramount+, in a fiercely competitive industry dominated by Netflix and Disney+.

Revenue in the direct-to-consumer unit, home to Paramount+ and PlutoTV, grew 39% in the second quarter, helping offset a 29% decline in the filmed entertainment business

Total revenue was $7.62 billion, above estimates of $7.43 billion, according to Refinitiv data. Adjusted profit of 10 cents per share was also better than expectations for the company to break even.

Finance chief Naveen Chopra promised "significant earnings improvement" in the streaming business next year and projected a 20% rise in average revenue per user on Paramount+ in 2024.

The company implemented the first price increase for Paramount+ and launched the integrated Paramount+-Showtime service during the quarter. Its streaming unit's operating loss narrowed to $424 million from $445 million a year ago.

Still, the company faces risks from the ongoing strikes by Hollywood writers and actors, which have disrupted the production of scripted series for the fall TV season and halted work on films.

As production of most scripted series has stopped, Bakish said CBS would fill its fall lineup with hits such as "Yellowstone" and streaming shows such as "SEAL Team."


It also licensed the rights to the U.K. version of "Ghosts," to pair with the U.S. version of the show.

"Strikes do present some marketing challenges, though the film slate for the rest of the year is stacked," Bakish said, adding that it was too soon to predict its impact on 2024 films.

Upcoming film releases include "Killers of the Flower Moon," which will be released in theaters in October before coming to Apple TV+, as well as "Mean Girls" the musical.

(Reporting by Samrhitha Arunasalam in Bengaluru and Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

Belgium is celebrating flowers and surrealism. And nothing is what it seems



Fri, August 11, 2023

BRUSSELS (AP) — If elephants are really known for their sense of direction, what are nine of them doing in the heart of Brussels, seemingly lost between the gothic and baroque houses lining the UNESCO-protected Grand Place?

As of Friday, nothing is quite what it seems as the Belgian capital celebrates the nation's love of surrealism.

The nine life-sized wooden elephants were brought in from the Verbeke art center about an hour's drive north of Brussels to be the prime attraction of Flowertime, a biennial festival highlighting the nation's fling with flowers.


Only this time, surrealism adds a twist. And no symbol more potent than Rene Magritte's pipe, subtitled, “This is not a pipe.” It is a painting of a pipe, after all — and it has come to define Belgian surrealism ever since.

Now a similar non-pipe — a sculpture of a pipe — graces the interior yard of City Hall, which for the occasion has been renamed, “This is not a city hall.” On the pipe sculpture, flowers hang over the edges of the pipe's bowl, like smoke billowing out.

Back on the adjacent Grand Place, the elephants are to draw the visitors in. Their imaginary footprints on the cobblestones are made of white flowers.

“You don’t expect to find elephants here in the city center of Brussels on the Grand Place, it’s unbelievable. So that’s a bit surrealistic of course,” said artist Dennis Van Der Meer, who was busy giving the wooden animals a floral skin.

Flowers also run riot inside City Hall too. Leila Floral, her professional name, is taking care of the stairs and uses the surroundings as much as she can to produce a cascade. “My flowers will fall down like a waterfall,” she said.

Close by, under a sign reading, “This is not death,” florists have littered the floor of a marble corridor with coffins, and added flowered casks for good measure.

Even the mayor's personal office had a floral makeover. Stacks of unpaid bills and invoices are held together by an equally chaotic flower arrangement. The bills suggest that perhaps some realism did seep into the show.

One thing is sure about the show: Because flowers wilt, it will be over on Tuesday.

Raf Casert And Mark Carlson, The Associated Press

St. Louis activists praise Biden's support for compensation over Manhattan Project contamination


Fri, August 11, 2023 

ST. LOUIS (AP) — St. Louis-area activists have been fighting for years to get government compensation for people with cancer and other serious illnesses potentially connected to Manhattan Project nuclear contamination. This week marked a major victory, with support coming from the president.

Uranium was processed in St. Louis starting at the onset of World War II as America raced to develop nuclear bombs. In July, reporting as part of an ongoing collaboration between The Missouri Independent, the nonprofit newsroom MuckRock and The Associated Press cited thousands of pages of documents indicating decades of nonchalance and indifference for the risks posed by uranium contamination. The government documents were obtained by outside researchers through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with the news organizations.

Since the news reports, bipartisan support has emerged to compensate those in St. Louis and elsewhere whose illnesses may be tied to nuclear fallout and contamination. On Wednesday, that support extended to President Joe Biden.

“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” Biden said during a visit to New Mexico.

Dawn Chapman and Karen Nickel, who lead the activist group Just Moms STL, said they’re optimistic but not letting up.

“It’s a great day,” Chapman said. “We feel incredible. But we don’t take the time to celebrate it. For us, it’s like we have a strong wind at our back. Now who do we push? We don’t let up for a moment.”

The push for compensation has united politicians with virtually nothing else in common. Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, of Missouri, is an ardent supporter. So is U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat.

Hawley introduced legislation last month to expand an existing compensation program for exposure victims. The Senate endorsed the amendment, but the proposed changes to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act are not yet included in a House-approved defense bill amid negotiations toward final legislation.

St. Louis is far from alone in suffering the effects of the geographically scattered national nuclear program. Advocates have been trying for years to bring awareness to the lingering effects of radiation exposure on the Navajo Nation, where millions of tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activities.

Months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in St. Louis began processing uranium into a concentrated form that could be further refined elsewhere into the material that made it into weapons.

By the late-1940s, the government was trucking nuclear waste from the Mallinckrodt plant to a site near Lambert Airport. It was there that the waste was dumped into Coldwater Creek, contaminating a waterway that was a popular place for kids to play. Just last year, Jana Elementary School, which sits near the creek, was shut down over possible contamination, even though studies conducted by the Army Corps of Engineers found none.

In 1966, the Atomic Energy Commission demolished and buried buildings near the airport and moved the waste to another site, contaminating it, too. Documents cited by AP and the other news organizations showed that storage was haphazard and waste was spilled on roads but that mistakes were often ignored.

Uranium waste also was illegally dumped in West Lake Landfill, near the airport, in 1973. It's still there.

Cleanup in St. Louis County has topped $1 billion, and it's far from over.

Meanwhile, uranium was processed in neighboring St. Charles County starting in the 1950s, creating more contamination. The government built a 75-footmound, covered in rock, to serve as a permanent disposal cell, and the area is considered remediated.

Some experts are skeptical about the connection between diseases and the contamination. Tim Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, told the AP in July that the biggest risk factor for cancer is age and that local radiation’s contribution would be so low as to be hard to detect.

Still, in 2019, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry issued a report that found people who regularly played in Coldwater Creek as children from the 1960s to the 1990s may have a slight increased risk of bone cancer, lung cancer and leukemia. The agency determined that those exposed daily to the creek starting in the 2000s, when cleanup began, could have a small increased risk of lung cancer.

Many of those with direct connections to illnesses are far more convinced. Kyle Hedgpeth's young daughter and niece both were diagnosed with cancer in 2020, within a month of each other. Both have since recovered.

Hedgpeth's wife and her brother grew up near a creek that flows from the St. Charles County site. He believes they picked up something from exposure to the creek and passed it down to their girls.

“It seems all too coincidental,” Hedgpeth said. “I just think there's too many red flags literally putting it in their backyard to ignore it.”

Jim Salter, The Associated Press

More than 1 million barrels of oil removed from deteriorating tanker moored off Yemen, UN says

The Canadian Press
Fri, August 11, 2023



NEW YORK (AP) — The transfer of more than a million barrels of oil from an aging tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen has been completed, avoiding an environmental disaster, the United Nations said Friday.

In a statement, Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the operation had prevented “monumental environmental and humanitarian catastrophe.”

An international team began siphoning the oil from the dilapidated vessel known as SOF Safer on July 25. All of the oil is now aboard a replacement tanker called MOST Yemen.

Before the transfer, the Safer carried four times as much oil as was spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska, one of the world’s worst ecological catastrophes, according to the U.N.

International organizations and rights groups warned for years of the potential for a spill or an explosion involved the tanker, which has not been maintained and has seawater in its engine compartment and damaged pipes.

It is moored 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from Yemen’s western Red Sea ports of Hodeida and Ras Issa, a strategic area controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who are at war with the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

The warring sides blamed each other for blocking a salvage operation to remove the oil until a U.N.-led initiative succeeded in accessing the ship and raising money from international donors.

The transfer marks a major milestone in a plan that needs additional funding to transport the oil away and to move the SOF Safer. The U.N. said a small amount of oil remains inside the Safer's hull and that the salvage team needs to install a secure system for mooring the replacement tanker in deep water.

“As much of the 1.14 million barrels has been extracted as possible,” the U.N. statement said. “However, less than 2% of the original oil cargo remains mixed in with sediment that will be removed during the final cleaning of the Safer.”

David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that during the cleaning phase a sea water wash will be applied in a bid “to extract as much liquid oil as possible.” It remains unclear how long this next phase will take.

The United States welcomed the news of the operation's success and called on other countries to contribute to see the job through to the end.

“The U.N. urgently needs the international community and private sector’s financial support to fill the remaining $22 million funding gap needed to finish the job and address all remaining environmental threats,” U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said.

The tanker, a Japanese-made vessel built in the 1970s, was sold to the Yemeni government during the 1980s to store for export up to 3 million barrels pumped from oil fields in eastern Yemen's Marib province. The ship is 360 meters (1,181 feet) long with 34 storage tanks.

Peter Berdowski, CEO of maritime services company Boskalis, said the Safer's former cargo was now inside a “modern double-hulled tanker.” The U.N. contracted a Boskalis subsidiary, SMIT Salvage, to remove the oil.

He congratulated the company's salvage team for "carrying out the work under very challenging conditions in the Red Sea.”

Yemen’s ruinous civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, intervened the following year to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.

“In the midst of a conflict zone, remarkable things become possible. Many thought this was an impossible salvage operation,” said Adam Steiner, chief of the U.N. Development Program.

Edith M. Lederer And Jack Jeffery, The Associated Press

Federal government releases new draft regulations on clean electricity


Thu, August 10, 2023

OTTAWA — Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault released draft regulations Thursday that are designed to clean Canada's electricity grid in an affordable way by 2035.

The regulations would drive up the cost of energy slightly, but federal officials say that would be offset by the savings expected to come from moving away from fossil fuels.

The government has set a target of making the electricity grid net-zero by 2035, and the regulationsare meant to help guide the way.


The Environment and Climate Change Department estimates the average household energy bill will increase by $35 to $61 per year by 2040 if the regulations are adopted, but only two per cent of that increase will come as a result of the regulations.

The government plans to cover up to half of the cost of the regulations through tax credits, low-cost financing and other funds, which could mean even less cost is passed on to consumers, Guilbeault said at a press conference in Toronto.

The minister also said he expects increases to be offset as people move away from fossil fuels to heat their homes, cook food or power vehicles.

Overall, Canadians are expected to spend 12 per cent less on energy by 2050, government estimates show.

"Shifting to clean electricity saves households on their energy bills, away from the shocks of yo-yo-ing gas and oil prices," Guilbeault said.

Conservatives are highly critical of the 2035 target and the potential cost it represents to consumers.

"This government has already increased the carbon tax and poured billions of dollars of fuel on the inflationary fire; now, they are going to ratchet up the cost of the electricity that is a necessity for families and businesses across Canada to literally keep the lights on," Conservative environment critic Gérard Deltell said in a written statement Thursday.

Electricity infrastructure expenses are expected to increase significantly over the next several decades. It's estimated infrastructure maintenance and increased demand will cost $400 billion by 2050.

The country's grid is already nearly 85 per cent clean, but demand is expected to double by 2050 as things like cars, buses and trains become electric, and homes and buildings switch away from fossil-fuel heating sources.

"Why not make sure that this build-out is clean and affordable?" Guilbeault posited.

The government expects the draft regulations would decrease greenhouse-gas emissions by 342 million tonnes between 2024 and 2050.

Provincial governments in Alberta and Saskatchewan say they can't meet the 2035 goal, preferring to set the target for 2050.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the draft regulations unconstitutional and irresponsible.

"They will not be implemented in our province – period," Smith vowed in a statement Thursday.

Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz said the rules set the stage for an astronomically expensive and ultimately unreliable power supply.

In an interview Thursday afternoon, Guilbeault said he believes the department struck a "good balance" after consulting with provinces, territories, private and public utilities, investors, sector experts and Indigenous groups.

The federal government has been seeking feedback on the regulatory framework for nearly a year and will consult on the draft regulations for 75 days, with a final version expected to be published in January 2025.

They won't come into effect until 2035, but given the long lead time needed to build new electricity infrastructure, Guilbeault said the government wants to give the industry plenty of notice.

"One thing we've heard from investors, from energy companies, is: 'Tell us what the rules are, and we will comply with them,'" he said of the consultations so far.

Guilbeault said the draft regulations are designed to be affordable and achievable with technology that is already being used across the country.

"Clean electricity is already the most cost-effective in Canada, even after accounting for its variability," said Jason Dion, senior research director with the Canadian Climate Institute.

"There are many ways to ensure the grid remains reliable as the share of wind and solar electricity grows, including flexible electricity demand, battery storage and greater provincial interconnection."

The regulations are also intended to show some flexibility, the minister said, and would allow electricity that doesn't meet the new net-zero standard to support the power grid during periods of peak demand.

Electricity Canada has asked for more information about how that will work, among other clarifications.

Schulz dismissed the proposal to allow gas-powered plants to backstop peak energy demand.

"Alberta's natural gas power plants cannot simply be kept in the cupboard and brought out to turn on and off whenever they're needed," Schulz told reporters in Calgary.

She also rejected a proposed regulation to allow power plants operating in 2025 to be exempt from greenhouse gas emissions caps for 20 years, in effect allowing some to go past the 2035 deadline.

"Who’s going to build that plant with a lifespan of 20 years?" she asked.

"It's a bait-and-switch. It's not going to work for Albertans or quite frankly, a number of other provinces across the country."

Guilbeault said the regulations are still a draft, and the consultations will continue.

"If there are things that aren't clear, if there are some clarifications that are needed, we will certainly provide that in the coming months," he said.

The regulations also exempt remote communities that aren't part of the power grid.

Federal and provincial governments are working together on plans and projects to reduce and eliminate the dependence on fossil fuels in remote communities, the minister said.

"We understand we're not there yet, which is why we've decided to ensure that the regulations wouldn't apply to them," he said.

He would not say if they have a timeline in mind to make clean electricity more accessible to those areas.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 10, 2023.

-- With files from Dean Bennett in Edmonton.

Laura Osman, The Canadian Press

Ontario premier refuses to back away from plans to build on protected Greenbelt

The Canadian Press
Fri, August 11, 2023 



MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he will not back away from plans to build on the protected Greenbelt despite a damning auditor general report and experts saying his housing targets can be met by building elsewhere.

Ford says no one received preferential treatment in the process to open the Greenbelt to housing construction, despite Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk concluding the process was biased and favoured certain developers with ties to the housing minister.

Last year, the Ford government opened up 7,400 acres of the Greenbelt to development while adding about 9,400 acres elsewhere as part of its bid to build 1.5 million homes.

Local planners in the three regions where the land was removed along with the province's housing task force say the land is not needed to meet housing construction targets.

The Integrity Commissioner of Ontario is reviewing a request from Ford to look into Housing Minister Steve Clark's chief of staff, Ryan Amato.

Lysyk found that developers who had access to Amato at a housing conference dinner last September wound up with 92 per cent of the land that was removed from the Greenbelt.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2023.

The Canadian Press