An Iranian female soccer fan has died after setting herself on fire outside a court after learning she may have to serve a six-month sentence for trying to enter a soccer stadium, a semi-official news agency reported Tuesday.
The tragic death immediately drew an outcry among some soccer stars and known figures in Iran, where women are banned from soccer stadiums, though they are allowed at some other sports, such as volleyball.
Sahar Khodayari died at a Tehran hospital on Monday, according to the Shafaghna news agency. The 30-year-old was known as the “Blue Girl” on social media for the colors of her favorite Iranian soccer team, Esteghlal.
She set herself on fire last week, reportedly after learning she may have to go to prison for trying to enter a stadium in March to watch an Esteghlal match. She was pretending to be a man and wore a blue hairpiece and a long overcoat when the police stopped her.
Khodayari, who had graduated in computer sciences, then spent three nights in jail before being released pending the court case. No verdict had been delivered in her case so far.
Esteghlal issued a statement, offering condolences to Khodayari’s family.
Former Bayern Munich midfielder Ali Karimi – who played 127 matches for Iran and has been a vocal advocate of ending the ban on women – urged Iranians in a tweet to boycott soccer stadiums to protest Khodayari’s death.
Iranian-Armenian soccer player Andranik “Ando” Teymourian, the first Christian to be the captain of Iran’s national squad and also an Esteghlal player, said in a tweet that one of Tehran’s major soccer stadiums will be named after Khodayari, “once, in the future.”
The minister of information and communications technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, described the death as a “bitter incident.” Female lawmaker Parvaneh Salahshouri called Khodayari “Iran’s Girl” and tweeted: “We are all responsible.”
Malawi has crowned Ms. and Mr. Albinism during the country’s first ever beauty pageant for albinos, held in the capital Lilongwe. The Association of People with Albinism organized the event as part of efforts to destroy myths which have led to albino attacks in Malawi and other African countries. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.
Barcelona could cut deaths from air pollution and improve quality of life by implementing in full a plan to calm traffic and free up space for residents, researchers said Monday.
The compact Spanish city is home to more than 1.6 million people and is plagued by contaminants and noise largely due to heavy density of traffic, as well as lack of greenery.
A study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), published in the journal Environment International, found the city of Barcelona could prevent 667 premature deaths every year if it created 503 “superblocks” as first proposed.
The superblocks — which keep cars out of designated areas in the city and develop public space in streets — have been complex to roll out, with only six put in place so far.
“What we want to show with this study is that we have to go back and put the citizen at the center of … urban plans, because the health impacts are quite considerable,” said lead author and ISGlobal researcher Natalie Mueller.
As a city with the highest traffic density in Europe, Barcelona also needed to make it easier for people to commute in from the wider metropolitan area by public transport, she added.
The projected reduction in deaths from the superblocks plan would be achieved mainly as a result of a 24% decrease in air pollution from nitrogen oxide (NO2), along with lower traffic noise and urban heat, the study said.
Data released Friday from the Barcelona Public Health Agency showed air pollution accounted for 351 premature deaths in the city in 2018, around the same as in 2017.
Motor vehicles generated the main pollutant, with almost half the city’s population regularly exposed to NO2 levels above the safe limit set by the World Health Organization, the city council said.
From January 2020, Barcelona will implement low-emission zones on weekdays, keeping 125,000 vehicles out of the city.
The city council will also declare a climate emergency including a package of urgent measures to cut down on private vehicle use and boost public transport, among other actions.
It has already extended cycle paths and upgraded its shared bike scheme, while shrinking on-street parking.
‘Courage’ needed
Barcelona City Hall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it aimed to start drafting plans for three new superblocks shortly, as well as launching public consultations for others.
The ISGlobal study found that, besides reducing deaths, a full roll-out of the superblocks project would increase life expectancy by almost 200 days on average per inhabitant, and generate an annual economic saving of 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion).
The superblocks have sparked opposition in some local areas, notably among small traders who fear they could deter customers.
But Mueller said the concept was similar to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, which was initially unpopular but quickly accepted once people realized the benefits.
“Even if they don’t see it in the beginning, often in the end they are quite happy,” she said, noting the need for “courage” in public policy making.
The American Medical Association on Monday urged Americans to stop using electronic cigarettes of any sort until scientists have a better handle on the cause of 450 lung illnesses and at least five deaths related to the use of the products.
The AMA, one of the nation’s most influential physician groups, also called on doctors to inform patients about the dangers of e-cigarettes, including toxins and carcinogens, and swiftly report any suspected cases of lung illness associated with e-cigarette use to their state or local health department.
The recommendation followed advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday for people to consider not using e-cigarette products while it investigates the cause of the spate of severe lung illnesses associated with vaping.
Many, but not all, of the cases have involved those who used the devices to vaporize oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis.
CDC officials said some laboratories have identified vitamin E acetate in product samples and are investigating that as a possible cause of the illnesses.
Public health experts have not found any evidence of infectious diseases and believe the lung illnesses are probably associated with a chemical exposure.
Megan Constantino, 36, from St. Petersburg, Florida, quit vaping six days ago after hearing reports of the illnesses and deaths related to vaping.
“It scared me into quitting,” she said.
Like many users of vaping pens, Constantino picked up the device after quitting cigarette smoking three years ago, and said, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She added, “I threw the last cartridge away. I took a picture of it and I literally cried.”
Constantino said many people who vape have been “on pins and needles” for the investigation results, and she is concerned that the reports of a link to vaping THC may give people an excuse to ignore the warnings.
E-cigarettes are generally thought to be safer than traditional cigarettes, which kill up to half of all lifetime users, the World Health Organization says. But the long-term health effects of vaping are largely unknown.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has faced mounting pressure to curb a huge spike in teenage use of e-cigarettes, a trend that coincided with the rising popularity of Juul e-cigarettes.
“We must not stand by while e-cigarettes continue to go unregulated. We urge the FDA to speed up the regulation of e-cigarettes and remove all unregulated products from the market,” AMA president Dr. Patrice Harris, said in a statement.
Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, which advocates for cigarette smokers to switch to nicotine-based vaping devices, said the AMA should be “ashamed of themselves for playing politics with people’s health and protecting the profits of drug dealers.”
He criticized the AMA for “fearmongering about nicotine vaping products” while not mentioning “the very real risks of vaping illicit THC products.”
Juul Labs declined to comment. Altria Group Inc owns a 35 percent stake in Juul.
Britain’s parliament has for the second time rejected Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to hold early elections in an attempt to break the Brexit deadlock.
Johnson had lobbied for snap elections on October 15 in an effort to win a parliamentary majority to approve his Brexit plans ahead of an EU summit of the continent’s leaders.
Following Tuesday’s vote, Johnson carried out his controversial suspension of parliament for five weeks, until the queen gives her annual address to parliament outlining the government’s legislative plans for the upcoming year.
Parliament’s rejection of a new election came hours after Britain’s Queen Elizabeth gave her approval to legislation seeking to block Johnson from carrying out a no-deal Brexit, his plan to take the country out of the European Union on October 31 without spelling out the terms of the split.
Johnson insisted Monday that Brexit would take place in October despite the new law, which was passed by parliament last week, but did not say how he would accomplish that.
The prime minister has few options left to carry out Brexit by the end of October, including persuading EU leaders to reach a new deal at the October summit or convincing lawmakers to back no deal.
In another sign of acrimony, parliament members Monday passed a motion demanding the government publish all documents relating to its efforts to prepare for a “no deal” Brexit.
Before Johnson took office in July, parliament three times rejected Brexit plans advanced by former Prime Minister Teresa May. Lawmakers in the House of Commons, however, have been unable to reach an agreement on British trade practices with the EU after it leaves the 28-nation bloc and how to deal with cross-border passage between Britain’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.
Johnson’s no-deal Brexit plans have been opposed by a majority of parliamentarians, including 21 Conservative lawmakers, among them Winston Churchill’s grandson, who worked to thwart the Tory prime minister. Johnson booted them from the Conservative party.
Americans are addicted to snacks, and food experts are paying closer attention to what that might mean for health and obesity.
Eating habits in the U.S. have changed significantly in recent decades, and packaged bars, chips and sweets have spread into every corner of life. In the late 1970s, about 40 percent of American adults said they didn’t have any snacks during the day. By 2007, that figure was just 10 percent.
To get a better handle on the implications of differing eating patterns, U.S. health officials are reviewing scientific research on how eating frequency affects health, including weight gain and obesity. The analysis is intended to gauge the broader spectrum of possibilities, including fasting. But snacking, grazing and “mini meals” are likely to be among the factors considered, given how they have upended the three-meals-a-day model.
Findings could potentially be reflected in the government’s updated dietary guidelines next year, though any definitive recommendations are unlikely.
For public health officials, part of the challenge is that snacking is a broad term that can mean a 100-calorie apple or a 500-calorie Frappuccino. How people adjust what they eat the rest of the day also varies. Snacks may help reduce hunger and overeating at meals, but they can also just push up the total calories someone consumes.
While there’s nothing wrong with snacks per se, they have become much more accessible. It also has become more socially acceptable to snack more places: at work meetings and while walking, driving or shopping for clothes.
“We live in a 24/7 food culture now,” said Dana Hunnes, a senior dietitian at UCLA Medical Center.
To encourage better choices as global obesity rates climb, public health officials have increasingly considered government interventions, including “junk food” taxes.
In Mexico, which has among the highest obesity rates in the world, special taxes on sugary drinks and other foods including some snacks and candies went into effect in 2014.
Last week, a study in the medical journal BMJ said taxing sugary snacks in the United Kingdom could have a bigger impact on obesity rates than a tax on sugary drinks that went into effect last year. While sugary drinks account for 2 percent of average calories in the United Kingdom, sugary snacks like cakes and cookies account for 12 percent, the study said.
Complicating matters, snack options are also continuing to broaden beyond the standard chips and cookies.
“Manufacturers have tried to tap into Americans’ concern for health,” said Paula Johnson, curator of food history at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Beyond nutrition, health officials should also consider what emotional or mental health benefits might be lost when people move away from meals, said Sophie Egan, who writes about American food culture. Meals can be a time for socially connectivity, she said, while snacks are usually eaten alone. She also noted the growth in snacking may be fueled by the stress of busier lives.
“Who knows how much food is a Band-Aid for those issues,” Egan said.
For their part, food companies have moved to capitalize on Americans’ love of snacks and stretched the definition of the word. Dunkin Donuts’ former CEO has said the chain’s sandwiches should be considered snacks, not lunch. When Hershey bought a meat jerky company, the candy company said it wanted to expand its offerings across the ”snacking continuum ” to include more nutritious options.
Health experts’ recommendations on snacking vary. Children may need more snacks and to eat more frequently. For adults, many dietitians saying what works for one person might not for another.
Hunnes, the UCLA dietitian, recommends sticking to minimally processed options like fruit or nuts when snacking. But she acknowledged the advice could sound like it’s coming from an ivory tower, given the prevalence of packaged snacks.
“They’re just there, and they have a great shelf life,” she said.
Small-scale farmers in Ghana are using drones for crop surveillance in a bid to increase yields and incomes. Farmers’ cooperatives embrace the technology as a step toward efficiency. Some however, feel the technology is too expensive and may shut out poor farmers. Sarah Kimani has the story from Accra.
Jacqueline Stewart has been named host of Turner Classic Movies’ silent movie program “Silent Sunday Nights,” making her the network’s first African American host in its 25 year history.
TCM on Monday announced the hiring of Stewart, a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago who has specialized in the racial politics of film preservation. She will make her TCM debut on Sunday.
“I hope that as a host at TCM that my presence there will interest a greater diversity of viewers to see what there is to watch,” Stewart said in an interview. “If my presence on TCM gets people interested in film history, especially young people of color, to look at a body of work that they might not think would resonate with them, that’s really important.”
For years after the network’s founding in 1994, Robert Osborne was the sole host on TCM. In 2003, Ben Mankiewicz joined the network. But only recently has TCM expanded the number of personalities that introduce and give context to the classic films that air on its commercial-less network. Last year, Alicia Malone became the first female host on TCM. Also added in recent years were “Noir Alley” hosts Eddie Muller and Dave Karger.
Pola Changnon, senior vice president of marketing, studio production and talent for TCM, says that as TCM has expanded its operations to include an annual film festival and classic movie-themed cruise, the network has needed “a deeper bench” of talent. Changnon said Stewart’s deep knowledge of film history and her engaging way of talking about it made her a natural fit.
“For us, it’s a chance to learn from her, too,” said Changnon. “With classic movies, there are certain assumptions about who got to tell the stories and who was featured in these movies. With Jacqueline’s guidance, we’re going to do more to attend to the Oscar Micheauxs of the world.”
Among the first films Stewart will host on TCM will be 1920’s “Symbol of the Unconquered” by Micheaux, the pioneering African American filmmaker. Also planned is 1912’s “Cleopatra” by the Helen Gardner Picture Players. Gardner was the first actor, male or female, to create her own production company in the U.S.
Stewart, a Chicago native, has dedicated her research toward expanding an understanding and appreciation of film history outside of the largely white lens it is often seen through _ something TCM has sometimes been criticized for contributing to. She has served on the National Film Preservation Board where she is chair of its diversity task force.
Stewart’s 2005 book “Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity” told the often overlooked history of the first black filmmakers. Her South Side Home Movie Project collected an archive of more than 300 home movies from families in the Chicago neighborhood as a way of intimately capturing local African American history.
“It’s important for all viewers of TCM to recognize that expertise comes in many different forms, many different colors,” said Stewart. “I’m especially excited about the kinds of conversations that can emerge because of the unique perspective that I can bring as a host.”
Officials in northern Burkina Faso say at least 29 people were killed in two separate incidents Sunday.
Government spokesman Remis Dandjinou said, in a statement, at least 15 people were killed when a truck carrying people and goods “rode over an improvised explosive device in the Barsalogho area.”
Fourteen people were killed when a food convoy of trucks came under attack in Sanmatenga province, according to the spokesman.
The French news agency AFP reports that locals sources said many of the dead in the convoy were the drivers of the vehicles carrying provisions for people displaced by fighting.
“Military reinforcements have been deployed and a thorough search in under way,” said Dandjinou.
Millions of people in Burkina Faso are facing an unprecedented humanitarian emergency because of growing hunger, instability and displacement, the World Food Program warned recently.
The United Nations reports escalating fighting, some fueled by ethnic and religious beliefs, has forced more than 237,000 people to flee their homes.
Jihadists have frequently launched attacks on Burkina’s military.
A former French colony, Burkina Faso in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China and any form of secessionism “will be crushed,” state media said on Monday, a day after demonstrators rallied at the U.S. consulate to ask for help in bringing democracy to city.
The China Daily newspaper said Sunday’s rally in Hong Kong was proof that foreign forces were behind the protests, which began in mid-June, and warned that demonstrators should “stop trying the patience of the central government”.
Chinese officials have accused foreign forces of trying to hurt Beijing by creating chaos in Hong Kong over a hugely unpopular extradition bill that would have allowed suspects to be tried in Communist Party-controlled courts.
Anger over the bill grew into sometimes violent protests calling for more freedoms for Hong Kong, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a “one country, two systems” formula.
Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam formally scrapped the bill last week as part of concessions aimed at ending the protests.
“Hong Kong is an inseparable part of China – and that is the bottom line no one should challenge, not the demonstrators, not the foreign forces playing their dirty games,” the China Daily said in an editorial.
“The demonstrations in Hong Kong are not about rights or democracy. They are a result of foreign interference. Lest the central government’s restraint be misconstrued as weakness, let it be clear secessionism in any form will be crushed,” it said.
State news agency Xinhua said in a separate commentary that the rule of law needed to be manifested and that Hong Kong could pay a larger and heavier penalty should the current situation continue.
Nissan Motor Co’s nominating committee will discuss Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa’s resignation and possible successors at a meeting on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Saikawa has expressed his desire to resign from the troubled automaker and is not “clinging to his chair”, the source said, declining to be identified because the information has not been made public.
The Nikkei newspaper earlier reported that Saikawa told reporters on Monday he wanted to “pass the baton” to the next generation as soon as possible. The executive has come under pressure since admitting last week to being improperly compensated.
A charity ship run by humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean spent a rainy Sunday searching open waters for a fragile rubber boat overloaded with migrants before finally plucking 50 people to safety not far off Libya’s coast.
The Norwegian-flagged Ocean Viking, which is operated jointly by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, sent its own boats to pick up a pregnant woman close to full term, 12 minors and 37 men, all from sub-Saharan Africa.
“God bless you!” one of the men told the rescuers as they passed life vests to the wet and barefoot passengers.
At least two people feeling ill collapsed upon arrival on the Ocean Viking, while three others were soaked in fuel and two were suffering from mild hypothermia. The operation was witnessed by an Associated Press journalist aboard the ship, which found the migrant boat some 14 nautical miles (16 statute miles) from Libya.
The rescue occurred 14 hours after the Ocean Viking as well as Libyan, Italian and Maltese authorities, the United Nations’ refugee agency and Moonbird, a humanitarian observation plane, received an email by Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants. It was an urgent call seeking help for the rubber boat carrying 50 people without a working engine.
The Ocean Viking, which was already in the Libyan search and rescue zone of the central Mediterranean, informed all authorities that it was beginning an active search for the migrant boat. Throughout the morning, the charity ship chased several objects spotted on the horizon, including what turned out to be a floating palm leaf tangled with fishing gear and an empty small fishing boat.
Throughout the morning, the ship tried to contact Libyan officials without success. The AP journalist witnessed at least three phone calls to the Libyan Joint Rescue and Coordination Center that went unanswered.
The blue rubber boat jammed with the migrants was finally spotted on the horizon near a fishing boat at 1:30 p.m. The fishing boat did not respond to radio contact by the Ocean Viking, which then launched its rescue boats.
At 2:30 p.m., the Libyan Coastguard finally answered the phone and the Ocean Viking reported that its crew was in the process of rescuing the migrants.
A European Union plane taking part in the Operation Sophia anti-human trafficking operation flew over the Ocean Viking, the migrant boat and the fishing boat multiple times shortly before the people were rescued.
As required by maritime law, the ship asked Libyan authorities responsible for rescue coordination in that part of the Mediterranean to provide a place of safety to disembark the rescued migrants, but it also made the same request to Italian and Maltese officials. There was no immediate response.
International migration and human rights bodies say Libya is not a place of safety, and Doctors Without Borders does not consider any North African country safe for disembarkation of the migrants.
But for more than a year, migrant rescues performed by non-governmental groups have frequently led to sometimes weeks-long standoffs trying to get European authorities to allow migrants to be landed.
World War II veteran Henry Ochsner, who landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day and later received the French government’s highest honor for his service, has died. He was 96.
Family friend Dennis Anderson says Ochsner died Saturday at his home in California City of complications from cancer and old age.
As part of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division — known as the “Screaming Eagles” — Ochsner also fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
In 2017 Ochsner and nine other veterans were awarded France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor during a ceremony at Los Angeles National Cemetery.
Ochsner married Violet Jenson in 1947. He is survived by his wife, their four daughters and two granddaughters. Funeral plans are pending.
More than 2,000 people – including the U.S. ambassador and several other Western diplomats – marched in Sarajevo Sunday for Bosnia’s first-ever gay pride parade.
There were nearly as many riot police and other security forces at the march as participants after conservative Muslims and other religious groups demanded it be canceled.
The marchers waved the universal gay pride rainbow flag, beat drums, and chanted slogans.
“We demand a society which we will together fight against violence, hatred, isolation, and homophobia.” one marcher said while others decried the official non-recognition of same sex partnerships in Bosnia.
While the Bosnian government outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation, civil unions and other rights such as adoption are still not formally allowed.
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman on Sunday replaced the energy minister with one of his sons, state media said, in a major shakeup as the OPEC kingpin reels from low oil prices.
The appointment of Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, half-brother to de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, marks the first time a royal family member has been put in charge of the all-important Energy Ministry.
He replaces veteran official Khalid al-Falih as the world’s top crude exporter accelerates preparations for a much-anticipated stock listing of state-owned oil giant Aramco, expected to be the world’s biggest.
“Khalid al-Falih has been removed from his position,” the official Saudi Press Agency said, citing a royal decree.
“His royal highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is appointed minister of energy.”
Since his appointment as oil minister in 2016, Falih has been the face of Saudi energy policy but the veteran technocrat had seen his portfolio shrink in recent weeks.
His ouster comes just days after he was removed as chairman of Aramco and replaced by Yasir al-Rumayyan, governor of the kingdom’s vast Public Investment Fund.
Falih’s powers were diminished last month when the world’s top oil exporter announced the creation of a new ministry of industry and mineral resources, separating it from his energy ministry.
It was widely speculated that top officials were dissatisfied with Falih as oil prices sagged ahead of the Aramco IPO.
Economic uncertainty fanned, by an ongoing US-China trade war, has dragged Brent crude prices to around $60 a barrel in recent weeks, well below the $85 mark that experts say is needed to balance the Saudi budget.
‘Seasoned veteran’
The OPEC petroleum exporters’ cartel and key non-OPEC members are scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi on Thursday to review their strategy on limiting production to halt a slide in prices.
Cartel kingpin Saudi Arabia, which pumps around a third of OPEC’s oil, has resorted to massive production cuts to lift prices since the market crash in mid-2014.
It was unclear whether there would be a change in policy under Prince Abdulaziz, who joined the oil ministry in the 1980s and has held a variety of senior roles.
“Prince Abdulaziz is a very seasoned veteran of Saudi and OPEC policy making,” Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, told Bloomberg News.
“He won’t have a learning curve. I don’t expect any big rupture in current Saudi oil policy.”
His appointment further concentrates power within the king’s family. His other son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, controls the major levers of power and is heir to the Arab world’s most powerful throne.
A younger son, Prince Khalid bin Salman, is deputy defense minister.
Aramco is stepping up efforts to float around five percent of the company, seeking to raise up to $100 billion based on a $2 trillion valuation of the whole firm.
But low oil prices have left some investors in doubt that Aramco is really worth that much.
Failure to reach a $2 trillion valuation as desired by Saudi rulers is widely considered the reason the IPO, earlier scheduled for 2018, was delayed.
The planned IPO forms the cornerstone of a reform program envisaged by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to wean the Saudi economy off its reliance on oil.
Saudi Aramco has not announced where the listing will be held, but London, New York and Hong Kong have all vied for a slice of the much-touted IPO.
Top oil producers will consider fresh output cuts at a meeting this week, but analysts are doubtful they will succeed in bolstering crude prices dented by the U.S.-China trade war.
The OPEC petroleum exporters’ cartel and key non-OPEC members want to halt a slide in prices that has continued despite previous production cuts and US sanctions that have squeezed supply from Iran and Venezuela.
Analysts say the OPEC+ group’s Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee, which monitors a supply cut deal reached last year, has limited options when it meets in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.
UAE Energy Minister Suheil al-Mazrouei said Sunday the group would do “whatever necessary” to rebalance the crude market, but admitted that the issue was not entirely in the hands of the world’s top producers.
Speaking at a press conference in Abu Dhabi ahead of the World Energy Congress, to start Monday, he said the oil market is no longer governed by supply and demand but is being influenced more by U.S.-China trade tensions and geopolitical factors.
The minister said that although further cuts will be considered at Thursday’s meeting, they may not be the best way to boost declining prices.
“Anything that the group sees that will balance the market, we are committed to discuss it and hopefully go and do whatever necessary,” he said.
“But I wouldn’t suggest to jump to cuts every time that we have an issue on trade tensions.”
While cuts could help prices, they could also mean producers lose further market share, analysts say.
“OPEC has traditionally resorted to production cuts in order to shore up the prices,” said M. R. Raghu, head of research at Kuwait Financial Centre (Markaz).
“However, this has come at the cost of reduction in OPEC’s global crude market share from a peak of 35 percent in 2012 to 30 percent as of July 2019,” he told AFP.
The 24-nation OPEC+ group, dominated by the cartel’s kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC production giant Russia, agreed to reduce output in December 2018.
That came as a faltering global economy and a boom in US shale oil threatened to create a global glut in supply.
Previous supply cuts have mostly succeeded in bolstering prices.
But this time, the market has continued to slide — even after OPEC+ agreed in June to extend by nine months an earlier deal slashing output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd).
Trade war
The new factor is the trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies, whose tit-for-tat tariffs have created fears of a global recession that will undermine demand for oil.
Saudi economist Fadhl al-Bouenain said the oil market has become “highly sensitive to the US-China trade war”.
“What is happening to oil prices is outside the control of OPEC and certainly stronger than its capability,” Bouenain told AFP.
“Accordingly, I think OPEC+ will not resort to new production cuts” because that would further blunt the group’s already shrunken market share, he said.
European benchmark Brent was selling at $61.54 per barrel Friday, in contrast with more than $75 this time last year but up from around $50 at the end of December 2018.
The deliberations also coincide with stymied production from Iran and Venezuela and slower growth in U.S. output, meaning that supplies are not excessively high.
“US shale output growth does not have the same momentum as in previous cycles, and OPEC production is at a 15-year low, having fallen by 2.7 million barrels per day over the past nine months,” Standard Chartered said in a commentary last month.
“We think that the oil policy options for key producers are limited, for the moment,” the investment bank said.
No decisions will be taken at Thursday’s meeting, but it should produce recommendations ahead of an OPEC+ ministerial meeting in Vienna in December.
Rapidan Energy Group said the alliance might need to cut output by an additional one million bpd to stabilise the market.
But the problem will be deciding which member countries will shoulder the burden of any new cuts.
Saudi Arabia, which is the de facto leader of OPEC and pumps about a third of the cartel’s oil, took on more than its fair share last time around.
FILE – In this photo taken July 01, 2019, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khaled al-Falih (R) and Saudi Deputy Oil Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz talk to the press on the sidelines of an oil meeting in Vienna, Austria.
It has also undergone a major shake-up in its oil sector, announcing the replacement of energy minister Khalid al-Falih with Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman in the early hours of Sunday morning ahead of a much-anticipated stock listing of state oil giant Aramco.
Bouenain said he believes that Riyadh is likely to resist taking on further cuts, given the impact on the kingdom’s revenues.
Raghu said that “without a favorable resolution to the dispute, OPEC’s production cuts will not result in a sizeable uptick of oil prices.”
Turkish and U.S. troops conducted their first joint ground patrol in northeastern Syria Sunday as part of a planned so-called “safe zone” that Ankara has been pressing for in the volatile region.
Turkey hopes the buffer zone, which it says should be at least 30 kilometers (19 miles) deep, will keep Syrian Kurdish fighters, considered a threat by Turkey but U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State group, away from its border.
Associated Press journalists in the town of Tal Abyad saw about a dozen Turkish armored vehicles with the country’s red flag standing along the border after crossing into Syria, and American vehicles about a mile away waiting. The two sides then came together in a joint patrol with American vehicles leading the convoy.
At least two helicopters hovered overhead. The Turkish Defense Ministry confirmed the start of the joint patrols and said unmanned aerial vehicles were also being used.
Washington has in the last years frequently found itself trying to forestall violence between its NATO ally Turkey and the Kurdish fighters it partnered with along the border to clear of IS militants.
An initial agreement between Washington and Ankara last month averted threats of a Turkish attack. But details of the deal are still being worked out in separate talks with Ankara and the Kurdish-led forces in Syria known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
Turkey, which has carried out several incursions into Syria in the course of the country’s civil war in an effort to curb the expanding influence of the Kurdish forces, carried out joint patrols with U.S. troops in the northern town of Manbij last year.
Sunday’s joint patrol is the first one taking place east of the Euphrates River, where U.S. troops have more presence, and as part of the safe zone that is being set up.
Anadolu Agency said six Turkish armored vehicles crossed into Syria on Sunday from the border town of Akcakale, opposite from Syria’s Tal Abyad, and joined U.S. vehicles for their first joint patrol of an area east of the Euphrates river.
AP reporters in Tal Abyad said the patrol was headed to a Kurdish-controlled base apparently to inspect it, apparently to ensure that trenches and sand berms had been removed. U.S. troops had inspected the base on Saturday during patrols with the SDF during which some of the berms Turkey had complained about were removed.
For Turkey, a “safe zone” is important because it is hoping some of the Syrian refugees it has been hosting for years could be resettled there, although it is not clear how that would work.
On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that Turkey could “open its gates” and allow Syrian refugees in the country to move toward Western countries if a safe zone is not created and Turkey is left to shoulder the refugee burden alone. Turkey hosts 3.6 million refugees from Syria.
Rather than calling it a safe zone, Washington and the Kurdish-led forces have said a “security mechanism” is taking shape to diffuse tensions in northeastern Syria
The director of a prestigious research lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology resigned Saturday, and the school’s president ordered an independent investigation amid an uproar over the lab’s ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Joi Ito, director of MIT’s Media Lab, resigned from both the lab and from his position as a professor at the Cambridge school, university President L. Rafael Reif said. The resignation was first reported by The New York Times.
Ito’s resignation comes after The New Yorker reported late Friday that Media Lab had a more extensive fundraising relationship with Epstein than it previously acknowledged and tried to conceal the extent of the relationship.
FILE – Financier Jeffrey Epstein looks on during a bail hearing in his sex trafficking case, in this court sketch in New York, July 15, 2019.
Epstein suicide
Epstein killed himself in jail Aug. 10 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Federal prosecutors in New York had charged the 66-year-old with sex trafficking and conspiracy, alleging he sexually abused girls over several years in the early 2000s.
In a letter to the MIT community Saturday, Reif called the allegations in The New Yorker “deeply disturbing.”
“Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation,” Reif wrote. “This morning, I asked MIT’s General Counsel to engage a prominent law firm to design and conduct this process.”
Reif said last month that the university took about $800,000 from Epstein over 20 years. That announcement followed the resignation of two prominent researchers from Media Lab over revelations the lab and Ito took money from Epstein after he served time a decade ago for sex offenses involving underage girls.
The New Yorker reports Epstein arranged at least $7.5 million in donations, including $2 million from Microsoft founder Bill Gates and $5.5 million from investor Leon Black.
Although MIT listed Epstein as “disqualified” in its donor database, the Media Lab did not stop taking gifts from him and labeled his donations as anonymous, The New Yorker reported, citing emails and other documents it obtained.
Last week, Ito said Epstein gave him $525,000 for the Media Lab and another $1.2 million for his own investment funds.
Florida deal
Epstein’s July 6 arrest drew national attention, particularly focusing on a deal that allowed him to plead guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida and avoid more serious federal charges.
Epstein was a wealth manager who hobnobbed with the rich, famous and influential, including presidents and a prince.
He owned a private island in the Caribbean, homes in Paris and New York City, a New Mexico ranch and a fleet of high-price cars.
Phone and email messages seeking comment were left for Ito and Media Lab representatives Saturday.
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is expected to file for bankruptcy after settlement talks over the nation’s deadly overdose crisis hit an impasse, attorneys general involved in the talks said Saturday.
The breakdown puts the first federal trial over the opioid epidemic on track to begin next month, likely without Purdue, and sets the stage for a complex legal drama involving nearly every state and hundreds of local governments.
Purdue, the family that owns the company and a group of state attorneys general had been trying for months to find a way to avoid trial and determine Purdue’s responsibility for a crisis that has cost 400,000 American lives in the past two decades.
Family rejects two offers
An email from the attorneys general of Tennessee and North Carolina, obtained by The Associated Press, said that Purdue and the Sackler family had rejected two offers from the states over how payments under any settlement would be handled and that the family declined to offer counterproposals.
“As a result, the negotiations are at an impasse, and we expect Purdue to file for bankruptcy protection imminently,” Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein wrote in their message, which was sent to update attorneys general throughout the country on the status of the talks.
Purdue spokeswoman Josephine Martin said, “Purdue declines to comment on that in its entirety.”
FILE – Purdue Pharma offices in Stamford, Conn., May 8, 2007.
Bankruptcy case
A failure in negotiations sets up one of the most tangled bankruptcy cases in the nation’s history. It would leave virtually every state and some 2,000 local governments that have sued Purdue to battle it out in bankruptcy court for the company’s remaining assets. Purdue threatened to file for bankruptcy earlier this year and was holding off while negotiations continued.
It’s not entirely clear what a breakdown in settlement talks with Purdue means for the Sackler family, which is being sued separately by at least 17 states.
Those lawsuits are likely to continue but face a significant hurdle because it’s believed the family — major donors to museums and other cultural institutions around the world — has transferred most of its multibillion-dollar fortune overseas.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who was one of the four state attorneys general negotiating with Purdue and the Sacklers, said Saturday he intends to sue the Sackler family, as other states have.
“I think they are a group of sanctimonious billionaires who lied and cheated so they could make a handsome profit,” he said. “I truly believe that they have blood on their hands.”
A gate protects the entrance of the Rooksnest estate near Lambourn, England, Aug. 6, 2019. The manor is the domain of Theresa Sackler, widow of one of Purdue Pharma’s founders and, until 2018, a member of the company’s board of directors.
In March, Purdue and members of the Sackler family reached a $270 million settlement with Oklahoma to avoid a trial on the toll of opioids there. The Sacklers could not immediately be reached for comment Saturday.
Under one earlier proposed settlement, Purdue would enter a structured bankruptcy that could be worth $10 billion to $12 billion over time. Included in the total would be $3 billion from the Sackler family, which would give up its control of Purdue and contribute up to $1.5 billion more by selling another company it owns, Cambridge, England-based Mundipharma.
Shapiro said the attorneys general believed what Purdue and the Sacklers were offering would not have been worth the reported $10 billion to $12 billion.
In their latest offers, the states also sought more assurances that the $4.5 billion from the Sacklers would actually be paid, according to the message circulated Saturday: “The Sacklers refused to budge.”
Nearly 2,000 lawsuits
In their message, Tennessee’s Slatery and North Carolina’s Stein said the states have already begun preparations for handling bankruptcy proceedings.
“Like you, we plan to continue our work to ensure that the Sacklers, Purdue and other drug companies pay for drug addiction treatment and other remedies to help clean up the mess we allege they created,” they wrote.
The nearly 2,000 lawsuits filed by city and county governments — as well as unions, hospitals, Native American tribes and lawyers representing babies who were born in opioid withdrawal — have been consolidated under a single federal judge in Cleveland.
Most of those lawsuits also name other opioid makers, distributors and pharmacies in addition to Purdue, some of which have been pursuing their own settlements.
Purdue also faces hundreds of other lawsuits filed in state courts and had sought a wide-ranging deal to settle all cases against it.
Maker of OxyContin
The company has been the most popular target of state and local governments because of its OxyContin, the prescription painkiller many of the government claims point to as the drug that gave rise to the opioid epidemic. The lawsuits claim the company aggressively sold OxyContin and marketed it as a drug with a low risk of addiction despite knowing that wasn’t true.
The impasse in the talks comes about six weeks before the scheduled start of the first federal trial under the Cleveland litigation, overseen by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster. That trial will hear claims about the toll the opioid epidemic has taken on two Ohio counties, Cuyahoga and Summit.
A bankruptcy filing by Purdue would most certainly remove the company from that trial.
The bankruptcy judge would have wide discretion on how to proceed. That could include allowing the claims against other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacies to move ahead while Purdue’s cases are handled separately. Three other manufacturers have settled with the two Ohio counties to avoid the initial trial.
“Grandpa Wong” holds a cane above his head as he pleads with riot police to stop firing tear gas — an 85-year-old shielding protesters on the front lines of Hong Kong’s fight for democracy.
Despite his age, Wong is a regular sight at Hong Kong’s street battles, hobbling toward police lines, placing himself in between riot officers and hardcore protesters, hoping to de-escalate what have now become near daily clashes.
“I’d rather they kill the elderly than hit the youngsters,” he told AFP during a recent series of skirmishes in the shopping district of Causeway Bay, a gas mask dangling from his chin.
“We’re old now, but the children are the future of Hong Kong,” he added.
“Grandpa Wong,” center left, 85, shields protesters from the police by stepping between them along with other “silver hair” volunteers in the Tung Chung district in Hong Kong, Sept. 7, 2019.
Youth lead, but all march
The three months of huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese city are overwhelmingly youth-led.
Research by academics has shown that half of those on the streets are between 20 and 30 years old, while 77 percent have degrees.
But the movement maintains widespread support across the public with lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers and civil servants all holding recent solidarity rallies, even as the violence escalates.
Groups of elderly people — dubbed “silver hairs” — have also marched.
But Wong and his friend “Grandpa Chan,” a comparatively spry 73-year-old, are among the most pro-active of this older generation.
The two are part of a group called “Protect the Children,” made up of mostly senior citizens and volunteers.
Almost every weekend, they come out to try to mediate between police and demonstrators, as well as buy protesters time when the cops start to charge.
A pair of swimming goggles dangle from the neck of “Grandpa Wong,” 85, as he rides an MTR train to the Tung Chung district in Hong Kong, Sept. 7, 2019.
‘Stay peaceful’
As another volley of tear gas bounded down a boulevard in Causeway Bay, a street lined with luxury malls and fashion retailers, Chan gripped Wong’s hand tightly, stopping his old comrade from rushing back into the crossfire.
“If we die, we die together,” yelled Chan, who eschews helmets and instead always wears an eye-catching red hat daubed with slogans.
While “Protect the Children” turn up primarily to defend the youth, Wong said he tries to warn protesters not to provoke police.
“It’s wrong to throw stones, that’s why the police beat them up,” he lamented. “I hope that police won’t hit them and the children won’t throw stuff back.”
“Everyone should stay peaceful to protect the core values of Hong Kong,” he added.
As Hong Kong’s summer of rage has worn on, the violence on both sides has only escalated.
Each weekend has brought increasingly violent bouts, with a minority of black-clad protesters using molotovs, slingshots and bricks.
Police have also upped their violence, deploying water cannons and resorting to tear gas and rubber bullets with renewed ferocity.
More than 1,100 people have been arrested, ranging from children as young as 12 to a man in his mid-70s. Many are facing charges of rioting, which carry 10 years in jail.
“Grandpa Wong,” center, 85, leans on his walking stick with other “silver hair” volunteers after intervening in a confrontation between protesters and riot police in the Tung Chung district in Hong Kong, Sept. 7, 2019.
Fears have risen for the fate for one veteran protester Alexandra Wong, known as “Grandma Wong,” who attended dozens of protests waving a large British flag.
She lives in Shenzhen, a city across the border on the Chinese mainland but has not been seen at the protests since mid-August when she appeared in videos looking injured after clashes with police inside a subway station.
‘Let the elderly look after you’
Grandpa Wong says he understands why youngsters feel they have no choice but to protest.
He has watched over the decades as mainland China has grown more wealthy and powerful while remaining avowedly authoritarian.
“If the Chinese Communist Party comes to Hong Kong, Hong Kong will become Guangzhou,” Wong sighed, referring to a nearby mainland city.
“The authorities can lock you up whenever they want,” he said.
Hong Kong’s protests were sparked by a controversial bill that would allow extradition to China, raising concerns over unfair trials given the mainland’s record of rights abuses.
But it soon morphed into a wider movement calling for democratic reform and police accountability.
“Grandpa Wong,” 85, speaks with a riot police officer along with other “silver hair” volunteers in the Tung Chung district in Hong Kong, Sept. 7, 2019.
Roy Chan, who organizes the “Protect the Children” group, says he respects what the elderly citizens do but is disappointed they feel they need to come out.
“They should have a good life at home during the last years of their lives,” he said. “But they are in a war and protecting the youth.”
Grandpa Wong’s presence at the Causeway Bay protest came to an end as riot police eventually cleared the usually bustling shopping district.
But the next day he was right back at it, this time at a protest near the city’s airport.
“Go home kiddos,” he hollered, brimming with renewed energy. “Let the elderly look after you.”
