BRUSSELS/BREGANA BORDER CROSSING BETWEEN CROATIA AND SLOVENIA, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Croatia got the green light on Thursday to join Europe’s open travel zone, but Bulgaria and Romania were kept out because of opposition led by Austria over concerns about unauthorised immigration.
From 2023, people will not have to stop for border checks as they pass between Croatia and the rest of the so-called Schengen area – the world’s largest free-travel area seen as one of the main achievements of European integration.
It will “shorten the journey and the wait, thank God,” driver Nenad Benic said as he queued to cross the Bregana border point from Croatia into Slovenia on Thursday.
Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said he was disappointed and would apply to enter the zone again. “We regret and honestly do not understand the inflexible position taken by Austria,” he said.
Bulgaria would also try again, its foreign minister said.
Croatia got the go-ahead to become the zone’s 27th member after tense talks between the bloc’s interior ministers in Brussels.
“To the citizens of Croatia: welcome, congratulations!,” European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, said.
“To the citizens of Romania and Bulgaria – you deserve to be full members of Schengen, to have access to the free movement… I share the disappointment with the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania.”
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said he had opposed Romania and Bulgaria because of security concerns.
“It is wrong that a system that does not work properly in many places would get expanded at this point,” he said.
Austria, he added, had recorded 100,000 illegal border crossings so far this year, including 75,000 people who had not been previously registered in other Schengen countries as they should have been.
Accession needs unanimous backing from all members – 22 EU nations as well as Lichtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
The Netherlands also opposed granting access to Bulgaria, citing concerns over corruption and migration.
Immigration has been a hot button issue in Europe since 2015 when more than a million people arrived across the Mediterranean Sea, mostly on smugglers’ boats, prompting the EU to tighten its borders and asylum laws.
U.N. data shows some 145,000 people have made the sea crossing this year while more than 1,800 perished trying to reach Europe’s shores, numbers way lower than in 2015.
But the EU’s border police Frontex said last month that 281,000 irregular entries had been recorded throughout the bloc in the first 10 months of 2022, up 77% from a year before and the highest since 2016.
With the Western Balkans route currently the most active, and the EU welcoming several million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war, worries about immigration have returned to the fore.
Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska, additional reporting by Bart Meijer and Clement Rossignol, Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Crispian Balmer and Andrew Heavens
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Tesla ships first Semi to PepsiCo five years after unveiling it
No details on orders or capacity for electric truck
Semi uses existing Tesla motors, to feature new Supercharger
Dec 1 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk delivered the company’s first heavy-duty Semi on Thursday to PepsiCo (PEP.O) without offering updated forecasts for the truck’s pricing, production plans or how much cargo it could haul.
Musk, who appeared onstage at an event at Tesla’s Nevada plant, said the battery-powered, long-haul truck would reduce highway emissions, outperform existing diesel models on power and safety and spin-off a fast-charging technology Tesla would use in its upcoming Cybertruck pickup.
“If you’re a trucker and you want the most badass rig on the road, this is it,” Musk said, noting that it was five years since Tesla had announced it was developing the all-electric truck. Still, industry experts remain skeptical that battery electric trucks can take the strain of hauling hefty loads for hundreds of miles economically.
At Musk’s first Tesla reveal since taking over Twitter – an acquisition some investors worry has become a distraction – the company did not announce pricing for the Semi, provide details on variants of the truck it had initially projected or supply a forecast for deliveries to PepsiCo or other customers. Tesla said it would begin using the Semi to ship parts to its plant in Fremont, California.
In 2017, Tesla had said the 300-mile range version of the Semi would cost $150,000, and the 500-mile version $180,000, but Tesla’s passenger electric vehicle prices have increased sharply since then.
Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla, recently said the automaker might produce 100 Semis this year. Musk has said Tesla would aim to produce 50,000 of the trucks in 2024.
PepsiCo, which completed its first cargo run with the Tesla truck to deliver snacks for those attending the Nevada launch event, had ordered 100 trucks in 2017.
Brewer Anheuser-Busch (ABI.BR), United Parcel Service Inc (UPS.N) and Walmart Inc (WMT.N) were among other companies that had reserved the Semi. Tesla did not provide details on orders or deliveries to customers, nor an estimate on what the total cost of ownership for future buyers would be compared to diesel alternatives.
‘NOT IMPRESSIVE’
Musk said the Semi has been doing test runs between Tesla’s Sparks, Nevada factory and its plant in Fremont, California. Tesla said it had completed a 500-mile drive on a single charge, with the Semi and cargo weighing in at 81,000 pounds in total.
Tesla did not disclose the weight of an unloaded Semi, one key specification analysts had hoped to learn and an important consideration for the efficiency of electric trucks.
Musk has spoken in the past about the prospect of fully autonomous trucks. Tesla did not provide details on how Tesla’s driver assistance systems would function in the Semi it unveiled on Thursday or future versions.
[1/5] Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk waves near Tesla Semi electric trucks during a live-streamed unveiling in Nevada, U.S. December 1, 2022, in this still image taken from video. Tesla/Handout via REUTERS
The Semi delivery presentation ended without Musk taking questions, as he often does at Tesla events.
“Not very impressive – moving a cargo of chips (average weight per pack 52 grams) cannot in any way be said to be definitive proof of concept,” said Oliver Dixon, senior analyst at consultancy Guidehouse.
Tesla had initially set a production target for 2019 for the Semi, which was first unveiled in 2017. In the years since, rivals have begun to sell battery-powered trucks of their own.
Daimler’s (MBGn.DE) Freightliner, Volvo (VOLVb.ST), startup Nikola (NKLA.O) and Renault (RENA.PA) are among Tesla’s competitors in developing alternatives to combustion-engine trucks.
Walmart (WMT.N), for instance, has said it has been testing Freightliner’s eCascadia and Nikola’s Tre BEV trucks in California.
‘LIKE A CHEETAH’
The Semi is capable of charging at 1 megawatt and has liquid-cooling technology in the charging cable in an updated version of Tesla’s Supercharger that will be made available to the Cybertruck, Musk said. The Cybertruck is scheduled to go into production in 2023.
Trucks in Semi’s category represent just 1% of U.S. vehicle sales but 20% of overall vehicle emissions, Tesla said.
Tesla said other, future vehicles would use powertrain technology developed for the Semi without providing details. The Semi uses three electric motors developed for Tesla’s performance version of its Model S, with only one of them engaged at highway speed and two in reserve for when the truck needs to accelerate, a feature that makes the truck more energy-efficient, Musk said.
“This thing has crazy power relative to a diesel truck,” Musk said. “Basically it’s like an elephant moving like a cheetah.”
In a slide displayed as part of Musk’s presentation, Tesla showed an image of a future “robotaxi” in development with a mock-up of the future car covered under a tarp.
The presentation took place after Tesla shares closed at $194.70. The stock has fallen about 45% so far this year, losing about $500 billion in market capitalisation, down to about $615 billion.
Among factors cited by investors have been Musk’s sales of Tesla shares to finance his takeover of Twitter, signs that a slowing global economy has started to cut into demand for Tesla’s premium-priced cars, and a warning by the company that it might not meet its target to grow deliveries by 50% this year.
Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Ukrainians brace for winter with little or no heating
Temperatures in several areas already below freezing
Kherson residents can express interest in moving elsewhere
Ukraine security service raids famous Kyiv monastery
KYIV, Nov 22 (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to Ukrainians to conserve energy amid relentless Russian strikes that have already halved the country’s power capacity, as the United Nations’ health body warned of a humanitarian disaster in Ukraine this winter.
Authorities said millions of Ukrainians, including in the capital Kyiv, could face power cuts at least until the end of March due to the strikes. Citizens in the recently liberated southern city of Kherson may apply to be relocated to areas where heating and security problems are less acute, they said.
Temperatures have been unseasonably mild this autumn, but are starting to dip below zero and are expected to drop to -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) or even lower in some areas during the winter months.
Russia has been targeting Ukrainian power facilities with rocket strikes after a series of battlefield setbacks that have included withdrawing its forces from Kherson city to the east bank of the mighty Dnipro River that bisects the country.
“The systematic damage to our energy system from strikes by the Russian terrorists is so considerable that all our people and businesses should be mindful and redistribute their consumption throughout the day,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
“Try to limit your personal consumption of electricity.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said hundreds of hospitals and healthcare facilities lacked fuel, water and electricity to meet people’s basic needs.
“Ukraine’s health system is facing its darkest days in the war so far. Having endured more than 700 attacks, it is now also a victim of the energy crisis,” Hans Kluge, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said in a statement after visiting Ukraine.
BLANKETS
Workers were racing to repair damaged power infrastructure, Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which provides energy for Kyiv, said on Monday.
“Stock up on warm clothes, blankets, think about options that will help you get through a long outage,” Kovalenko said. “It’s better to do it now than to be miserable.”
In a Telegram message for Kherson residents – especially the elderly, women with children and those who are ill or disabled – Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk posted a number of ways residents can express interest in leaving.
“You can be evacuated for the winter period to safer regions of the country,” she wrote, citing both security and infrastructure problems.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the blackouts and Russia’s strikes on energy infrastructure were the consequences of Kyiv being unwilling to negotiate, the state TASS news agency reported late last week.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia was bombarding Kherson from across the Dnipro River, now that its troops had fled.
“There is no military logic: they just want to take revenge on the locals,” he tweeted late on Monday.
[1/5] A woman walks past a statue in the central sqaure after Russia’s military retreat from Kherson, Ukraine November 21, 2022. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Ukraine’s Suspilne news agency reported fresh explosions in Kherson city on Tuesday morning.
Moscow denies intentionally targeting civilians in what it calls a “special military operation” to rid Ukraine of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities.
Kyiv and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked war of aggression.
The nine-month war has killed tens of thousands, uprooted millions and pummelled the global economy, driving up food and energy prices. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said on Tuesday the world’s worst energy crisis since the 1970s would trigger a sharp slowdown, with Europe hit hardest.
RAID ON MONASTERY
Ukraine’s SBU security service and police raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv early on Tuesday as part of operations to counter suspected “subversive activities by Russian special services”, the SBU said.
The sprawling Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex – or Monastery of the Caves – is a Ukrainian cultural treasure and the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that falls under the Moscow Patriarchate.
Russia’s Orthodox Church condemned the raid as an “act of intimidation”.
Battles continued to rage in the east, where Russia has sent some of the forces it moved from around Kherson in the south, pressing an offensive of its own along a stretch of frontline west of the city of Donetsk held by its proxies since 2014.
“The enemy does not stop shelling the positions of our troops and settlements near the contact line (in the Donetsk region),” the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on Tuesday.
“Attacks continue to damage critical infrastructure and civilian homes.”
Four people were killed and four others wounded in Ukraine-controlled areas of Donetsk region over the past 24 hours, regional governor Pavlo Kyryleno said on Telegram messaging app.
Russian shelling also hit a humanitarian aid distribution centre in the town of Orihiv in southeastern Ukraine on Tuesday, killing a volunteer and wounding two women, the regional governor said.
Orihiv is about 110 km (70 miles) east of the Zaporizhizhia nuclear power station which has been shelled again in the past few days, with Russia and Ukraine trading blame for the blasts.
Experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) toured the site on Monday. The agency, which has repeatedly called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the area to avoid a major disaster, said the experts found widespread damage but nothing that compromised the plant’s essential systems.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that no substantive progress had been made towards creating a security zone around the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest.
Reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar and Maria Starkova in Kyiv, Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Ronald Popeski in Winnipeg; Writing by Shri Navaratnam and Gareth Jones; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
IAEA chief warns: ‘You’re playing with fire!’ after blasts
Russia, Ukraine trade blame for shelling
President Zelenskiy says eastern region hit by heavy artillery
‘Fiercest battles’ in Donetsk region, Zelenskiy says
LONDON/LVIV, Ukraine, Nov 21 (Reuters) – The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog has warned that whoever fired artillery at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “playing with fire” as his team prepared to inspect it on Monday for damage from the weekend strikes.
The attacks on Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in the south of Ukraine came as battles raged in the east, where Russian forces pounded Ukrainian positions along the front line, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
The shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station follows setbacks for Russian forces in the Kherson region in the south and a Russian response that has included a barrage of missile strikes across the country, many on power facilities.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said more than a dozen blasts shook the nuclear plant late on Saturday and on Sunday. IAEA head Rafael Grossi said the attacks were extremely disturbing and completely unacceptable.
“Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” Grossi said in a statement.
Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the shelling of the facility, as they have done repeatedly in recent months after attacks on it or near it.
Citing information provided by plant management, an IAEA team on the ground said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment, but none of them critical for nuclear safety and security.
The team plans to conduct an assessment on Monday, Grossi said, but Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom said there would be curbs on what the team could inspect.
“If they want to inspect a facility that has nothing to do with nuclear safety, access will be denied,” Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Rosenergoatom’s CEO, told the Tass news agency.
Repeated shelling of the plant has raised concern about a grave accident just 500 km (300 miles) from the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
The Zaporizhzhia plant provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s invasion, and has been forced to operate on back-up generators a number of times. It has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235.
The reactors are shut down but there is a risk that nuclear fuel could overheat if the power driving the cooling systems is cut. Shelling has repeatedly cut power lines.
Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine fired shells at power lines supplying the plant but Ukraine’s nuclear energy firm Energoatom accused Russia’s military of shelling the site, saying the Russians had targeted infrastructure necessary to restart parts of the plant in an attempt to further limit Ukraine’s power supply.
A view shows Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from the town of Nikopol, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine November 7, 2022. Picture taken through glass. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/File Photo
‘FIERCEST BATTLES’
In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces battered Ukrainian front-line positions with artillery fire, with the heaviest attacks in the Donetsk region, Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Russia withdrew its forces from the southern city of Kherson this month and moved some of them to reinforce positions in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, an industrial area known as the Donbas.
“The fiercest battles, as before, are in the Donetsk region. Although there were fewer attacks today due to worsening weather, the amount of Russian shelling unfortunately remains extremely high,” Zelenskiy said.
“In the Luhansk region, we are slowly moving forward while fighting. As of now, there have been almost 400 artillery attacks in the east since the start of the day,” he said.
Ukraine’s military in an early Monday update confirmed heavy fighting over the previous 24 hours, saying its forces had repelled Russian attacks in the Donetsk region while Russian forces were shelling in the Luhansk region in the east and Kharkiv in the northeast.
In the south, Zelenskiy said troops were “consistently and very calculatedly destroying the potential of the occupiers” but gave no details.
Kherson city remains without electricity, running water or heating.
Ukraine said on Saturday that about 60 Russian soldiers had been killed in a long-range artillery attack in the south, the second time in four days that Ukraine has claimed to have inflicted major casualties in a single incident.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that up to 50 Ukrainian servicemen were killed the previous day along the southern Donetsk front line and 50 elsewhere.
Reuters was not able to immediately verify any battlefield reports.
Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” its neighbour, though Kyiv and its allies say the invasion is an unprovoked war of aggression.
Oleh Zhdanov, a military analyst in Kyiv, said that according to his information, Russian offensives were taking place on the Bakhmut and Avdiivka front line in the Donetsk region, among others.
“The enemy is trying to break through our defences, to no avail,” Zhdanov said in a social media video. “We fight back – they suffer huge losses.”
Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in London, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Caleb Davis in Gdansk and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne;
Writing by Guy Faulconbridge, David Ljunggren and Shri Navaratnam;
Editing by Robert Birsel
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BERLIN/PARIS, Nov 18 (Reuters) – France, Germany and Spain have reached agreement on starting the next phase of development of a new fighter jet dubbed FCAS, Europe’s largest defence project at an estimated cost of more than 100 billion euros($103.4 billion), the German government said on Friday.
The Defence Ministry said in a statement that an industrial agreement was achieved after intense negotiations, confirming an earlier Reuters story saying the three countries and their respective industries had struck a deal.
The ministry said it was agreed at the highest government level that a cooperative approach on an equal footing would be pursued in the project, which is under overall French responsibility.
The Spanish Defence Ministry said Madrid would spend 2.5 billion euros ($2.58 billion) on the project, of which 525 million euros ($542 million) would be paid in 2023. The ministry said that the cabinet agreed to this expenditure but did not give other details.
“The political agreement on FCAS is a great step and – especially in these times – an important sign of the excellent Franco-German-Spanish cooperation,” German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said.
“It strengthens Europe’s military capabilities and secures important know-how not only for our, but also for the European industry.”
Previously, sources had said that the next development phase for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) was expected to cost about 3.5 billion euros, to be shared equally by the three countries.
France’s Dassault (AM.PA), Airbus (AIR.PA) and Indra (IDR.MC) – the latter two representing Germany and Spain, respectively – are involved in the scheme to start replacing French Rafale and German and Spanish Eurofighters from 2040.
“Now, a number of formal steps in the respective countries have to be taken in order to allow a speedy contract signature which we will have to adhere to,” Airbus said in e-mailed comments.
French President Emmanuel Macron and then German Chancellor Angela Merkel first announced plans in July 2017 for FCAS, which will include a fighter jet and a range of associated weapons, including drones.
Lately, the project – originally meant to unify Europeans after the migration crisis and Britain’s decision to leave the European Union – has been a source of tension between the two countries.
Last month, Macron cancelled a joint Franco-German ministerial meeting over disagreements with Berlin on a wide range of issues including defence and energy projects.
Both sides had been struggling for more than a year to agree the next stage of FCAS’s development, although the French and German government broadly agreed on the project.
Some sources saw the blame lying with Dassault, as the company had refused to budge in a long-running row over intellectual property rights.
Other sources blamed Airbus for pushing for a bigger workshare of the Dassault-led project, insisting it should be given “equal footing” with the French company.
($1 = 0.9675 euros)
Writing by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Kirsti Knolle, Christoph Steitz, Louise Heavens and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
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DOHA Nov 18 (Reuters) – Alcoholic beer will not be sold at Qatar’s World Cup stadiums, world soccer governing body FIFA said on Friday, a last minute reversal which raised questions among some supporters about the host country’s ability to deliver on promises to fans.
The announcement comes two days before Sunday’s kickoff of the World Cup, the first to be held in a conservative Muslim country with strict controls on alcohol, the consumption of which is banned in public.
“Following discussions between host country authorities and FIFA, a decision has been made to focus the sale of alcoholic beverages on the FIFA Fan Festival, other fan destinations and licensed venues, removing sales points of beer from Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 stadium perimeters,” a FIFA spokesperson said in a statement.
England’s Football Supporters’ Association said the decision raises concerns about Qatar’s ability to fulfil its promises to visiting fans on “accommodation, transport or cultural issues.”
For years, Qatar’s tournament organisers have said that alcohol would be widely accessible to fans at the tournament.
“Some fans like a beer at the match, and some don’t, but the real issue is the last-minute U-turn which speaks to a wider problem — the total lack of communication and clarity from the organising committee towards supporters,” the association said in a statement on Twitter.
Qatar, the smallest country to host a World Cup, is bracing for the expected arrival of 1.2 million fans during the month long tournament, more than a third of the Gulf Arab state’s 3 million population.
Budweiser, a major World Cup sponsor, owned by beer maker AB InBev, was to exclusively sell alcoholic beer within the ticketed perimeter surrounding each of the eight stadiums three hours before and one hour after each game.
“Some of the planned stadium activations cannot move forward due to circumstances beyond our control,” AB InBev said in a statement.
Someone at the company had summed the situation up in a pithier fashion. “Well, this is awkward…” read a post on Budweiser’s official Twitter account. The comment, subsequently deleted, was broadcast as a screengrab by the BBC.
Budweiser has been a World Cup sponsor since 1985, the year before the event was held in Mexico. For 2022, it has launched its biggest ever campaign, with activities for Budweiser and other brands in more than 70 markets and at 1.2 million bars, restaurants and retail outlets.
The World Cup typically boosts beer consumption and the Belgium-based maker of brands such as Stella Artois and Corona clearly want to profit from the millions of dollars it pays to be a sponsor.
[1/3] Soccer Football – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 – Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium, Doha, Qatar – November 18, 2022 Budweiser tents are pictured outside the stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 REUTERS/Hannah Mckay
However, it has said those profits will come less from consumption at the event’s location but from fans watching on television.
“Tournament organisers appreciate AB InBev’s understanding and continuous support to our joint commitment to cater for everyone during the FIFA World Cup,” the statement said.
LONG-TERM NEGOTIATIONS
The stadium reversal comes after long-term negotiations between FIFA president Gianni Infantino, Budweiser, and executives from Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), which is organising the World Cup, a source with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The SC did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment and FIFA did not confirm Infantino’s involvement.
“A larger number of fans are attending from across the Middle East and South Asia, where alcohol doesn’t play such a large role in the culture,” the source said.
“The thinking was that, for many fans, the presence of alcohol would not create an enjoyable experience.”
Alcohol will continue to flow freely inside stadium VIP suites, which FIFA’s website advertises as offering a selection of beers, Champagne, sommelier-selected wines, and premium spirits.
Budweiser will sell its non-alcoholic beer throughout the stadium precincts for $8.25 per half-litre, the statement said.
Questions have swirled around the role alcohol would play at this year’s World Cup since Qatar won hosting rights in 2010. While not a “dry” state like neighbouring Saudi Arabia, consuming alcohol in public places is illegal in Qatar.
Visitors cannot bring alcohol into Qatar, even from the airport’s duty free section, and most cannot buy alcohol at the country’s only liquor store. Alcohol is sold in bars at some hotels, where beer costs around $15 per half-litre.
Budweiser will still sell alcoholic beer at the main FIFA Fan Fest in central Doha, the source said, where it is offered for about $14 per half-litre. Alcohol will also be sold in some other fan zones whereas others are alcohol-free.
“Fans can decide where they want to go without feeling uncomfortable. At stadiums, this was previously not the case,” the source said.
Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha with contributions from Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Manasi Pathak in Doha; Writing by Andrew Mills; Editing by Jan Harvey and Christian Radnedge
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
FTX bought a 10% stake in IEX with an option to acquire 100%
FTX spent $2 billion on ‘acquisitions for regulatory purposes’
Documents show FTX saw its regulatory status as a way of luring new capital from major investors
Nov 18 (Reuters) – Before it collapsed this month, FTX stood apart from many rivals in the largely unsupervised crypto industry by boasting it was the “most regulated” exchange on the planet and inviting closer scrutiny from authorities.
Now, company documents seen by Reuters reveal the strategy and tactics behind founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s regulatory agenda, including the previously unreported terms of a deal announced earlier this year with IEX Group, the U.S. stock trading platform featured in Michael Lewis’s book “Flash Boys” about fast, computer-driven trading.
As part of that deal, Bankman-Fried bought a 10% stake in IEX, with an option to buy it out completely in the next two and half years, according to a June 7 document. The partnership gave the 30-year-old executive the opportunity to lobby IEX’s regulator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, on crypto regulation.
That deal and others referenced in the documents, which include business updates, meeting minutes and strategy papers, illuminate one of FTX’s broader goals: quickly crafting a congenial regulatory framework for itself by acquiring stakes in companies that already had licenses from authorities, shortcutting the often drawn-out approval process.
FTX spent some $2 billion on “acquisitions for regulatory purposes,” the FTX documents seen by Reuters from a Sept 19 meeting show. Last year, for example, it bought LedgerX LLC, a futures exchange, which gave it three Commodity Futures Trading Commission licenses in one swoop. The licenses gave FTX access to U.S. commodities derivatives markets as a regulated exchange. Derivatives are securities that derive their value from another asset.
FTX also saw its regulatory status as a way of luring new capital from major investors, the documents show. In documents to support its ask for hundreds of millions of dollars in funds, it held out its licenses as a key competitive advantage. The “regulatory moats,” it said, created barriers for rivals and would give it access to lucrative new markets and partnerships beyond the reach of unregulated entities.
“FTX has the cleanest brand in crypto,” the exchange proclaimed in a June document presented to investors.
Bankman-Fried did not respond to a request for comment on questions about FTX’s regulatory strategy. FTX did not respond to requests for comment.
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment for this article. The CFTC also declined to comment.
In a text exchange this week with Vox, Bankman-Fried made an about-face on regulatory matters. Asked if his prior praise of regulations was “just PR,” he said in a sequence of texts: “yeah, just PR… fuck regulators… they make everything worse… they don’t protect customers at all.”
An IEX spokesperson declined to confirm details of the transaction with FTX, except to say that FTX’s “small minority stake” in IEX cannot be sold to a third party without its consent. “We are currently evaluating our legal options with respect to the prior transaction,” the spokesperson said.
PATCHWORK OF REGULATORS
FTX collapsed last week after a futile bid by Bankman-Fried to raise emergency funds. It had come under some regulatory oversight through the dozens of licenses it picked up via its many acquisitions. But that didn’t protect its customers and investors, who now face losses totaling billions of dollars. As Reuters reported, FTX had been secretly taking risks with customer funds, using $10 billion in deposits to prop up a trading firm owned by Bankman-Fried.
Four lawyers said the fact that Bankman-Fried was courting regulators while taking massive risks with customer funds without anyone noticing exposes a yawning regulatory gap in the cryptocurrency industry. “It’s a patchwork of global regulators — and even domestically there are huge gaps,” said Aitan Goelman, an attorney with Zuckerman Spaeder and former prosecutor and CFTC enforcement director. “That’s the fault of a regulatory system that has taken too long to adjust to the advent of crypto.”
A person familiar with the SEC’s thinking on crypto regulation said the agency believes crypto firms are illegally operating outside of U.S. securities laws and instead lean on other licenses that provide minimal consumer protection. “Those representations, while nominally true, don’t cover their activity,” the person said.
Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics
‘STEP 1: LICENSES’
Bankman-Fried had big ambitions for FTX, which by this year had grown to more than $1 billion in revenues and accounted for about 10% of trading in the global crypto market, from a standing start in 2019. He wanted to build a financial app, where users could trade stocks and tokens, transfer money and bank, according to an undated document titled, “FTX Roadmap 2022.”
“Step 1” toward that goal, the “Roadmap” document said, “is to become as licensed as reasonably possible.”
“Partially this is to make sure that we’re regulated and compliant; partially this is to be able to expand our product offering,” the document said.
That’s where FTX’s acquisition spree came in, according to the documents. Instead of applying for every license, which can take years and sometimes uncomfortable questions, Bankman-Fried decided to buy them.
But the strategy also had its limits: At times, the companies it acquired didn’t have the precise licenses it needed, the documents show.
One of FTX’s goals, according to the documents, was to open up the U.S. derivatives markets to its customers in the country. It estimated the market would bring additional trading volume to the tune of $50 billion a day, generating millions of dollars in revenue. To do that, it needed to persuade the CFTC to amend one of the licenses held by LedgerX, FTX’s newly acquired futures exchange.
The application process went on for months, and FTX had to pony up $250 million for a default insurance fund, a standard requirement. FTX anticipated the CFTC could ask it to increase the fund to $1 billion, according to minutes of a March meeting of its advisory board.
FTX collapsed before it could get the approval, and has now withdrawn its application.
Buying companies for licenses also had other advantages, the documents reviewed by Reuters demonstrate: It could give Bankman-Fried the access he desired to regulators.
A prime example is the IEX deal, which was announced in April. In a joint interview to CNBC, Bankman-Fried and IEX CEO Brad Katsuyama said they wanted “to shape regulation that ultimately protects investors.” What matters the most here, Bankman-Fried added, is that “there is transparency and protection against fraud.”
Reuters could not determine how much FTX paid for the stake.
Bankman-Fried was invited to meet SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and other SEC officials along with Katsuyama in March.
A source close to IEX said the purpose of the meeting was to let the SEC know in advance about its deal with FTX, which had not been publicly announced at that point, and to discuss the possibility of IEX creating a trading venue in digital assets, such as bitcoin. FTX’s role was to provide the crypto-trading infrastructure, the source said.
SEC officials outright rejected their initial plan because it would have involved the creation of a non-exchange trading venue that is more lightly regulated, something the agency opposes for cryptocurrencies, the source familiar with the SEC’s thinking said.
Reuters could not determine the extent of Bankman-Fried’s involvement in subsequent conversations with the SEC. In their mind, SEC officials had agreed to meet with Katsuyama in March, and Bankman-Fried was just tagging along, the source familiar with the SEC’s thinking said. He kept mostly silent during the meeting, with Katsuyama in the “driver’s seat,” the source added.
Whatever his involvement, FTX talked up its discussions to its investors. In a September meeting of its advisory board, FTX said talks with the SEC were “extremely constructive.”
“We are likely to have pole position there,” it said, according to the meeting minutes.
The person familiar with the SEC’s thinking said they would dispute FTX was in the “pole position.” Anything the SEC did to regulate crypto trading would be open to all market participants, the source said.
The source close to IEX said the exchange never entered into any operational agreements with FTX, adding that it never got to that point.
A May FTX document provides a rundown of FTX’s contacts with individual regulators. The document, which has not been previously reported, shows how in most cases FTX was able to resolve the issues that cropped up.
In February, for example, South African authorities published a warning to consumers that FTX and other crypto exchanges were not authorized to operate there. So FTX entered into a commercial agreement with a local exchange to continue providing the services. “FTX is now fully regularised in respect of its current activities in South Africa,” FTX said.
The regulator, South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority, did not respond to a request for comment.
The May document also shows that FTX had a brush with the SEC. The SEC had conducted inquiries earlier this year into how crypto companies were handling customer deposits. Some firms were offering interest on deposits, which the SEC said could make them securities and should be registered under its rules. In the list of its regulatory interactions, FTX noted that the inquiry was looking at whether those assets were being “lent out or otherwise used for operational purposes.”
This month, as Reuters has reported, it emerged that FTX had done just that, moving billions of dollars in client funds to Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research.
In the May document, FTX said the SEC’s exam staff, which scrutinizes market practices that could present a risk to investors, was concerned about a different matter: a rewards program that it offered to customers, under which it paid interest on crypto deposits.
According to the document, FTX told the regulator it did not have the same issues as products from other providers that the agency had investigated.
“We confirmed these were solely rewards based and do not involve lending (or other use) of the deposited crypto,” FTX wrote. The SEC wrote back, saying it had completed its “informal inquiry” and did not need further information “at this time.”
The SEC had no comment on the inquiry. In an email to Reuters, Bankman-Fried wrote: “FTX’s response there was accurate; FTX US’s rewards program did not involve lending out any assets.”
Reporting by Chris Prentice and Hannah Lang in Washington, Angus Berwick in London; editing by Megan Davies, Paritosh Bansal and Chris Sanders
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
AMSTERDAM, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Dutch judges convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian man in absentia of murder for their role in the shooting down of Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of 298 passengers and crew, and handed them life sentences.
Ukraine welcomed the ruling, which will have implications for other court cases Kyiv has filed against Russia, while Moscow called the ruling “scandalous” and said it would not extradite its citizens.
Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 departed from Amsterdam and was bound for Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of this year’s conflict.
The ruling came as a relief to victims’ family members, more than 200 of whom attended the court in person, wiping away tears as the judgement was read.
“Only the most severe punishment is fitting to retaliate for what the suspects have done, which has caused so much suffering to so many victims and so many surviving relatives,” Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said.
The three men convicted were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.
The three were all found to have helped to arrange the transport into Ukraine of the Russian military BUK missile system that was used to shoot down the plane, though they were not the ones that physically pulled the trigger.
They are fugitives and believed to be in Russia. A fourth former suspect, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges.
The incident in 2014 left the plane’s wreckage and victims’ remains scattered across fields of corn and sunflowers.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed the Donetsk province where the plane was shot down.
“The families of victims wanted the truth and they wanted justice to be done and those responsible to be punished and that is what happened. I am pretty satisfied,” Piet Ploeg, who heads a foundation representing victims, told Reuters. Ploeg’s brother, his brother’s wife and his nephew died on MH17.
Meryn O’Brien of Australia, who lost her 25-year old son Jack, said she felt relieved. “Everyone was relieved the process has come to an end, and it is very fair, and it has been meticulous.”
“There’s no celebration,” said Jordan Withers of Britain, whose uncle Glenn Thomas died. “Nothing is going to bring any of the victims back.” They came from 10 different countries.
The judgment included a 16 million euro damages award.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed the first sentences handed down over MH17 as an “important decision” by the court in The Hague.
[1/6] Lawyers attend the judges’ inspection of the reconstruction of the MH17 wreckage, as part of the murder trial ahead of the beginning of a critical stage, in Reijen, Netherlands, May 26, 2021. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw/Pool
“But it is necessary that those who ordered it also end up in the dock because the feeling of impunity leads to new crimes,” he wrote on Twitter. “We have to dispel this illusion. Punishment for all Russian atrocities – both then and now – will be inevitable.”
The ruling found that Russia had “overall control” over the forces of the Donetsk People’s Republic in Eastern Ukraine from mid May 2014.
“This is groundbreaking,” said Marieke de Hoon, assistant professor of international law at Amsterdam University. The ruling was “authoritative” and would likely boost Ukraine’s other international cases against Russia relating to the 2014 conflict.
‘NO REASONABLE DOUBT’
Judge Steenhuis said there was ample evidence from eyewitness testimony and photographs which tracked the missile system’s movements into and back out of Ukraine to Russia.
“There is no reasonable doubt” that MH17 was shot down by a Russian missile system, Steenhuis said.
Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine.
In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said “throughout the trial the court was under unprecedented pressure from Dutch politicians, prosecutors and the media to impose a politically motivated outcome”.
“We deeply regret that the District Court in The Hague disregarded the principles of impartial justice in favour of the current political situation, thus causing a serious reputational blow to the entire judicial system in the Netherlands,” it added.
Prosecutors had charged the four men with shooting down an airplane and with murder in a trial held under Dutch law, as more than half of the victims were Dutch. Phone call intercepts that formed a key part of the evidence suggested the men believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet.
Steenhuis said that, while that counted for something in terms of lessening the severity of their criminal responsibility, they still had a murderous intent and the consequences of their actions were huge.
Of the suspects, only Pulatov had pleaded not guilty via lawyers he hired to represent him. The others were tried in absentia and none attended the trial.
The police investigation was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.
Thursday’s ruling is not the final word on holding people accountable for MH17, Dutch and Australian authorities said.
Andy Kraag, the head of the police investigation, said research was continuing into possible suspects higher in the chain of command. Investigators are also looking at the crew of the missile system which launched the fatal rocket.
The Dutch and Australian governments, which hold Russia responsible, have started a proceeding against the Russian Federation at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Reporting by Toby Sterling, Stephanie van den Berg and Bart Meijer; Editing by Jon Boyle, Alex Richardson, Toby Chopra, Alexandra Hudson
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) – A deadly explosion occurred in NATO member Poland’s territory near its border with Ukraine on Tuesday, and the United States and its allies said they were investigating unconfirmed reports the blast had been caused by stray Russian missiles.
The explosion, which firefighters said killed two people, raised concerns of Russia’s war in Ukraine becoming a wider conflict. Polish authorities said it was caused by a Russian-made rocket, but Russia’s defense ministry denied involvement.
If it is determined that Moscow was to blame for the blast, it could trigger NATO’s principle of collective defense known as Article 5, in which an attack on one of the Western alliance’s members is deemed an attack on all, starting deliberations on a potential military response.
As a possible prelude to such a decision, however, Poland has first requested a NATO meeting on Wednesday under the treaty’s Article 4, European diplomats said. That is a call for consultations among the allies in the face of a security threat, allowing for more time to determine what steps to take.
The following is an explanation of Article 5 and what might occur if it is activated:
WHAT IS ARTICLE 5?
Article 5 is the cornerstone of the founding treaty of NATO, which was created in 1949 with the U.S. military as its powerful mainstay essentially to counter the Soviet Union and its Eastern bloc satellites during the Cold War.
The charter stipulates that “the Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”
“They agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area,” it says.
AND WHAT IS ARTICLE 4?
Article 4 states that NATO members “will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”
Within hours of the blast in Poland on Tuesday, two European diplomats said that Poland requested a NATO meeting under Article 4 for consultations.
[1/4] Zuzana 155 mm gun howitzer of NATO Enhanced Forward Presence battle group takes position before live fire exercise, during Iron Spear 2022 military drill in Adazi, Latvia November 15, 2022. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
HOW COULD THE UKRAINE WAR TRIGGER ARTICLE 5?
Since Ukraine is not part of NATO, Russia’s invasion in February did not trigger Article 5, though the United States and other member states rushed to provide military and diplomatic assistance to Kyiv.
However, experts have long warned of the potential for a spillover to neighboring countries on NATO’s eastern flank that could force the alliance to respond militarily.
Such action by Russia, either intentional or accidental, has raised the risk of widening the war by drawing other countries directly into the conflict.
IS INVOKING ARTICLE 5 AUTOMATIC?
No. Following an attack on a member state, the others come together to determine whether they agree to regard it as an Article 5 situation.
There is no time limit on how long such consultations could take, and experts say the language is flexible enough to allow each member to decide how far to go in responding to armed aggression against another.
HAS ARTICLE 5 BEEN INVOKED BEFORE?
Yes. Article 5 has been activated once before – on behalf of the United States, in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked-plane attacks on New York and Washington.
WHAT HAS BIDEN SAID ABOUT ARTICLE 5 COMMITMENTS?
While insisting that the United States has no interest in going to war against Russia, President Joe Biden has said from the start of Moscow’s invasion that Washington would meet its Article 5 commitments to defend NATO partners.
“America’s fully prepared with our NATO allies to defend every single inch of NATO territory. Every single inch,” Biden said at the White House in September.
He had declared earlier that there was “no doubt” that his administration would uphold Article 5.
Reporting by Matt Spetalnick;
Editing by Kieran Murray, Grant McCool and Bradley Perrett
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
AMSTERDAM, Nov 5 (Reuters) – More than 100 environmental activists wearing white suits stormed into an area where private jets are kept at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Saturday and stopped several aircraft from departing by sitting in front of their wheels.
The protest was part of a day of demonstrations in and around the airport organised by environmental groups Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion to protest over greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution caused by the airport and aviation industry.
No delays to commercial flights were reported as of the early afternoon.
“We want fewer flights, more trains and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets,” said Greenpeace Netherlands campaign leader Dewi Zloch.
The environmental group says Schiphol is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands, emitting 12 billion kilograms annually.
[1/5] Climate activists protest against environmental pollution from aviation at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, in Schiphol, Netherlands November 5, 2022. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Hundreds of other demonstrators in and around the airport’s main hall carried signs saying “Restrict Aviation” and “More Trains”.
Responding to the protest, Schiphol said it aims to become an emissions-free airport by 2030 and supports targets for the aviation industry to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Military police tasked with airport security said in a statement they had “made a number of detentions of persons who were on airport property without being allowed”.
The Dutch government announced plans in June for a cap on annual passengers at the airport at 440,000, around 11% below 2019 levels, citing air pollution and climate concerns.
Transportation Minister Mark Harbers told parliament last month his office could not control growing private jet traffic, and the government is considering whether to include the issue in its climate policy.
Reporting by Toby Sterling
Editing by Toby Chopra and Helen Popper
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.