Film, pop stars line up for global COVID-19 fundraising gig

LONDON - International music and film stars will headline a globally televised and streamed fundraising concert on Saturday to help fight COVID-19 as part of a joint initiative by the advocacy group Global Citizen and the European Commission.

The initiative, called “Global Goal: Unite For Our Future,” is aiming to raise billions of dollars in private and public donations to help lessen the impact of the pandemic on marginalised communities.

Speaking at an online panel ahead of the event, pop star Miley Cyrus said the pandemic was hitting the world’s poor and marginalised people the hardest. She urged donors committing funds for tests, treatments and vaccines to ensure they are developed in ways that everyone everywhere has access to them.

Researchers and drugmakers across the globe are working on more than 100 potential vaccines against COVID-19, which has so far killed more than 463,000 people.

Hosted by actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the virtual concert will feature Cyrus, Chloe x Halle, Christine and the Queens, Coldplay and Shakira and others, and include actors Charlize Theron and Hugh Jackman as well as retired soccer star David Beckham.

“We need our world leaders to commit the billions of dollars needed to develop and equitably deliver testing, treatments and vaccines,” said Hugh Evans, Global Citizen’s chief executive.

European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen said the concert would coincide with a pledging summit, at which artists, scientists and world leaders will “commit to helping the world end coronavirus, while leaving no one behind.”

The EU is increasingly taking a role as a champion of global cooperation in efforts to control and end the pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus, while the United States and China are focused more on national initiatives.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Peter Cooney)

-reuters-

EU to check how Facebook, Google use personal data

The European Commission said Monday it had begun a "preliminary investigation" into how Facebook and Google collect personal data and what they do with it.

"The Commission has sent out questionnaires as part of a preliminary investigation into Google’s and Facebook’s data practices," a Commission spokeswoman told AFP.

"These investigations concern the way data is gathered, processed, used and monetized including for advertising purposes," she added.

The Commission did not say who exactly the questionnaires were sent to. It is a step that could lead to a formal investigation.

Facebook vice president Nick Clegg was asked about the probe during a press conference in Brussels but did not answer directly.

Facebook faces investigations worldwide, he said.

Clegg nonetheless warned EU regulators not to let themselves get misled by faulty reasoning when it comes to data.

"This phrase you often hear that data is oil is deeply unhelpful because data is nothing like oil," Clegg said.

"It's not something that you suck out of the ground and burn in a vehicle engine and that's it. Data is infinitely divisible and infinitely sharable," he added.

"Data is something that you can both share and keep at the same time," Clegg noted.

"For a data intensive companies like FB we would urge regulators and legislators not to be trapped by analog parallels which don’t apply to the digital world," he said.

A Google spokesman said in an e-mail to AFP: "We use data to make our services more useful and to show relevant advertising, and we give people the controls to manage, delete or transfer their data. 

"We will continue to engage with the Commission and others on this important discussion for our industry."

In September 2016, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager warned that she would keep a close eye on companies that collect and use data such as Facebook, WhatsApp or Google.

Since she began working at the commission in November 2014, Vestager has hit Google with three major fines for abusing its dominant market position in different sectors.

Vestager has been promoted to vice president in the new European Commission and still holds the competition portfolio in addition to a new one on regulation of the digital sector.

Meanwhile on Monday, Facebook announced a new tool for Irish users to easily transfer photos and video footage towards Google Photos, which is owned by its competitor.

Facebook said it would extend the service at some point to other countries and internet platforms.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Europeans press for digital tax at G20 meeting

BUENOS AIRES - European finance leaders called for progress on global rules to tax the digital economy at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers in Argentina on Sunday, putting them at odds with US counterparts.

The final communique reaffirmed a commitment to address the impacts of the shift to a digital economy on the international tax system by 2020, without giving more details.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, proposed rules earlier this year to make digital companies pay more tax, with US tech giants such as Alphabet's Google, Facebook and Amazon set to foot a large chunk of any bill.

Some 200 companies would fall within the scope of the new tax, European officials said at the time, estimating additional annual revenues of about 5 billion euros ($6 billion).

Major digital companies had "to pay their fair share of tax, because basically what we are talking about here is fairness," European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici told reporters at the G20 meeting.

He said he was calling for a turnover tax to be adopted before the end of the year as an interim solution.

However, some EU members have voiced concerns their companies could be affected by such a tax and international partners may respond with retaliatory measures.

"One of the big challenges is that taxation of the digital economy is mostly of course a taxation of American companies - because they are the key players in the world - so the United States feel that this is an attack concerning their digital economy, which it isn't really," European Council representative to the G20 Hubert Fuchs said on the sidelines of the meeting.

The US delegation was not immediately available for comment. U. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement earlier this year that he "firmly opposes proposals by any country to single out digital companies," noting that those companies were key contributors to the US economy.

POT OF GOLD

Australia Treasurer Scott Morrison said the G20 discussions were useful because they established the root of the problem: that "no one knows" how to measure for tax purposes the value of the data users of social media services like Facebook create outside of the countries where those companies are based.

He said if those technical issues were not resolved, more countries would start taking "interim measures."

"We're not convinced at this point about the efficacy of those interim measures - which is basically a sales tax on digital advertising," Morrison said. "It is more important to focus on those technical issues rather than the pot-of-gold approach, which is how much revenue can be raised."

The European Commission wants a long-term, global solution based on a new method of calculating tax rates but has pushed in the meantime for the revenue tax to recoup revenues lost by EU states to large digital firms, officials said.

Implementing "fair taxation of digital giants" would also be a way of "proving that Europe is united and strong" at a time when the region's leaders feel pressured by the administration of US President Donald Trump, a senior European official said on the sidelines of the G20 meeting.

"We cannot accept that our SMEs (small and medium enterprises) have a level of taxation 40 points higher than the level of taxation of internet giants," said the official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the talks.

The EU's proposed levy on corporate turnover would be a major shift from existing rules, whereby companies are charged on their profits and pay no tax if they report losses.

"Taxation should be where the moneymaking is and if the digital economy is making the money all over the world it doesn't really make sense if they only will declare their income in the United States," said Fuchs, who is also Austria's state secretary for finance. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Another trade war looms with US... on Spanish olives

LA RODA DE ANDALUCIA, Spain - The US flag still flutters next to others in front of the AgroSevilla factory, the world's biggest exporter of black olives based in southern Spain.

But the cooperative in Andalusia may soon have to take down the Stars and Stripes if a rise of more than 20 percent in duties on black table olives recently imposed by the United States, its number one client, becomes permanent.

Far from just concerning Spain, the decision could snowball into the US imposing duties on other European products such as French cheese or Italian wine.

Since the winter and the sudden rise in levies, "we have lost many contracts and we have had to let people go for the first time ever," says Gabriel Redondo, president of a grouping of 4,000 farmers who all own a small share of the factory, the world's biggest for black olives.

Set at the heart of huge olive plantations between Seville and Granada in the south, the factory treats, cures and slices olives, which are picked green.

They are then put in jars and cans and dispatched to 72 countries where they are sold to pizzerias, sandwich shops and salad bars - all expanding markets, particularly in the United States.

'RE-ORGANIZING EVERYTHING'

AgroSevilla exports 25 percent of its annual production to the US.

But within the space of a few months, the clouds have gathered for the cooperative and the entire sector, which employs 8,000 people on full-time contracts and ensures the survival of 16,000 farms in Andalusia.

In 2017, 2 Californian companies filed a complaint against their Spanish competitors to the US commerce department, accusing them of dumping, or selling their products too cheaply in the United States by profiting from EU subsidies.

The department opened a probe, as did the International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency that investigates trade-related issues.

The final decision is due on mid-July, but the United States has already slapped temporary duties of more than 20 percent this winter on Spanish olives.

The conflict comes amid fears of a wider trade war after US President Donald Trump's administration raised customs duties on steel and aluminium, even if Europe is for the moment exempt from these.

For farmers in Andalusia, the move to raise levies came as a total surprise.

The sector as a whole exports 40 percent of its production to the United States for some 70 million euros ($86 million) a year.

Even before the final decision, some US buyers have suspended their contracts, which are now too expensive thanks to the temporary duties..

In the factory, "we're re-organising everything," says Redondo, who fears they will lose market share to Morocco or Egypt.

Out of 450 employees at the factory, 30 have already lost their jobs. If the situation drags on, this could rise to 80.

EU POLICY CHALLENGED

Paradoxically, the Californian complaint only targets finished products and not imports of untreated olives that have just been picked.

The United States, which only produces 20 percent of the olives it consumes, will therefore continue buying the unprocessed olive fruit from Spain.

And that's a concern for Spanish farmers.

"We don't want to deliver olives without transforming them" as the untreated fruit is sold half the price of the finished product, says Juan de Dios Segura, who farms 100 hectares of olive trees nearby.

He's waiting anxiously for the July decision in the US, as he has already bought all the necessary fertilizer and machines for this year.

The sector says it has already spent 5 million euros in lawyers' fees in the United States, and it feels forgotten by the European Union.

"Europe deployed all its diplomatic energy (on steel duties) but left us by the wayside. It's condescending as the sector is small," says Redondo.

By arguing that European subsidies are creating unfair competition, the US complaint "is calling into question the legality of the entire European agriculture policy," says Antonio de Mora, head of Asemesa, the association of table olive producers.

The European parliament is concerned too.

Fearing a "spiral of defense investigations" on agricultural products, it voted last month on a resolution asking the European Commission "to study the possibility of challenging any final US decision before the WTO (World Trade Organization)."

The commission, meanwhile, says it will "take action" when necessary and considers "there is no base for anti-subsidy measures."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Google fined in India for abusing dominant position

NEW DELHI - Google has been fined more than $21 million in India for "search bias" and abuse of its dominant position, competition regulators said Thursday. 

The US internet giant was deemed to have favored its own services when customers ran searches according to a report from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) 6 years after it began investigations into the company.

"Google was found to be indulging in practices of search bias and by doing so, it causes harm to its competitors as well as users," an order from the CCI said.

"(The Commission) finds it appropriate to impose a penalty on Google at the rate of 5 percent of their average total revenue generated from India operations from different business segments for the financial years 2013, 2014 and 2015."

The order said the company had 60 days to pay the fine for "for infringing antitrust conduct".

Complaints in India were lodged against Google in 2012, including by online matrimonial site Bharat Matrimony and the nonprofit consumer protection group Consumer Unity and Trust Society.

An unnamed Google spokesperson told the Press Trust of India that the company was reviewing the order. 

"The CCI has confirmed that, on the majority of issues it examined, our conduct complies with Indian competition laws. 

"We are reviewing the narrow concerns identified by the Commission and will assess our next step," the company official said. 

The law firm representing Bharat Matrimony said that the CCI's order provided welcome closure after a six-year long battle with the internet behemoth.

"The Google decision is a landmark decision," Naval Satarawala Chopra, a partner at the firm, said in a statement.

"Its (CCI) investigation report finding Google to be dominant and to have abused its dominance preceded that of any authority. Its final order is in line with the order of the European Commission".

source: news.abs-cbn.com

EU investigates Ikea's Dutch tax deals

BRUSSELS - The EU on Monday opened an in-depth investigation into Swedish furniture giant Ikea's tax deals in the Netherlands, in the latest salvo by Brussels against the tax affairs of multinationals.

With the probe, the European Commission is taking a close look at the ways Ikea allegedly used a Dutch subsidiary to slash its tax bill on revenue from megastores around the world.

The case is the most ambitious one yet by Brussels against a multinational from Europe, and follows similar cases against US heavyweights Apple, Amazon and McDonald's.

They all come amid a wave of revelations such as the "Paradise Papers" and "LuxLeaks" that have turned the spotlight on how multinationals and the world's super rich use legal means to avoid paying tax.

"All companies, big or small, multinational or not, should pay their fair share of tax," the EU's anti-trust commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

"Member states cannot let selected companies pay less tax by allowing them to artificially shift their profits elsewhere," she said.

The commission put no figure on its latest allegations against Ikea, but a report by the Green party in European Parliament last year said Ikea avoided one billion euros ($1.2 billion) in EU taxes between 2009 to 2014.

Privately held since its creation in 1943, the Ikea group has a complex corporate structure and is run by various foundations that has allowed it to stay clear of Sweden's high taxes.

'BIGGEST TAX HAVENS'

The commission's probe concerns 2 tax agreements brokered between the Netherlands and Inter Ikea, a Dutch-based unit of the retail giant that receives franchise fees from Ikea shops worldwide.

In the first tax ruling, between 2006 and 2011, Inter Ikea was allowed by the Netherlands to pay a hefty license fee to another Ikea unit in Luxembourg, thereby shifting revenue to a jurisdiction where it remained untaxed.

In 2011, after Brussels forced a law change in Luxembourg, Inter Ikea arranged a second ruling with the Netherlands, this time involving a complex loan arrangement with an Ikea unit in Liechtenstein, and again the Swedish company successfully shifted taxable revenue to a low tax jurisdiction.

"The Netherlands fully supports the Commission's work," said a senior Dutch EU official, adding that the government would have to look at the details of the case.

The move against Ikea came at the urging of the Greens party in European Parliament which mounted a major campaign to put the spotlight on Ikea.

"This is a huge success for the Greens as it comes from our initial complaint. Europe works," MEP Sven Giegold told AFP.

"It is shocking that the Netherlands, a founding member of the EU, is one of the biggest tax havens in the world," he said.

'BRING CLARITY'

Ikea in a statement insisted that its tax deals in the Netherlands did not breach EU laws.

"It is good if the investigation can bring clarity and confirm that," the company added.

Many of the Brussels probes came in the wake of the "LuxLeaks" scandal which revealed details of tax breaks given by the wealthy duchy to dozens of major US firms.

The revelations came as a particular embarrassment for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who was prime minister of Luxembourg at the time when the tax deals were made.

In a similar Dutch case, the EU decided against coffee-shop chain Starbucks in the Netherlands and ordered the latte and espresso-maker to pay roughly 30 million euros in back taxes.

In accordance with Vestager's blockbuster 2015 decision against Apple, Ireland said earlier this month it would begin collecting the 13 billion euros in back taxes owed by the US-based iPhone-maker.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

2 dead, 8 wounded in knife attack in Finland

TURKU, Finland - A man with a knife killed two people and wounded eight others in a stabbing rampage in a market square in the Finnish city of Turku on Friday, police said.

Police shot the suspected attacker in the leg and arrested him. They said they had yet to establish the identity of the man who was of foreign origin, or his motive.

A witness told Reuters she had seen a man stabbing a woman and other people sobbing at what they had seen after running away in terror.

Police warned people to stay away from the city and reinforced security nationwide, with increased patrols and more surveillance, in case more people were involved. People were allowed to return to the city center a few hours later.

"At this stage, there is only one suspect and we are investigating whether there are more people involved ... but it looks likely (he was alone)," Markus Laine from the National Bureau of Investigation said.

"For now we do not investigate this (as a terrorist attack) but the possibility has not been ruled out," he told a news conference.

Police said they would hold the next news conference in Turku on Saturday at 1100 GMT.

People laid candles and flowers at the scene of the attack in the evening.

Laura Laine, who saw the stabbing from a nearby outdoor cafe, also returned to the square.

"First thing we heard was a young woman, screaming like crazy. I thought it's just kids having fun ... but then people started to move around and I saw a man with a knife in his hand, stabbing a woman," she told Reuters.

"Then a person ran towards us shouting 'he has a knife', and everybody from the terrace ran inside."

"Next, a woman came in to the cafe. She was crying hysterically, down on her knees, saying someone's neck has been slashed open."

The eight wounded were taken to hospital, police said.

"The act is utterly deplorable and an exceptionally serious violent offence in the Finnish context – it is deeply shocking for us all," Prime Minister Juha Sipila said in a statement after holding a conference call with his government.

Finland is usually peaceful but the Security Intelligence Service raised the terrorism threat level in June to elevated from low, saying it had become aware of terrorism-related plans in Finland.

The government has grown more concerned about attacks, partly since an Uzbek man killed four people in neighbouring Sweden in April by driving a hijacked truck into crowd in central Stockholm.

On Thursday, a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds in Barcelona, Spain, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: "It is with great concern that I have learnt of the violent attacks in Turku, Finland. While details are still emerging, we strongly condemn this unprovoked attack which comes only 24 hours after the horror that unfolded in Spain."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Contaminated eggs scandal spreads from Europe to Asia

A scandal involving eggs contaminated with insecticide spread to 15 EU countries, Switzerland and as far away as Hong Kong on Friday as the European Commission called for a special meeting on the growing crisis.

Ministers and food safety chiefs from around the European Union are set to meet on September 26 in a bid to get countries to stop "blaming and shaming" each other over the scare involving the chemical fipronil.

Millions of eggs have been pulled from supermarket shelves across Europe and dozens of poultry farms closed since the discovery of fipronil, which can harm human health, was made public on August 1.


The issue has sparked a row between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the three countries at the epicentre of the crisis, about how long they knew about the problem.

"Blaming and shaming will bring us nowhere and I want to stop this," Vytenis Andriukaitis, the European Commissioner for health and food safety, told AFP as he announced the meeting.

"We need to work together to draw the necessary lessons and move forward instead."

European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said that "this is not, let's be clear, a crisis meeting" and it is being held next month to get "distance to the events".

Fipronil is commonly used to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks from animals but is banned by the European Union from use in the food industry.

The EU insists there is no threat to human health, but the World Health Organization (WHO) says that when eaten in large quantities it can harm people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.

- Dutch admit 'errors' -

Brussels said the 15 affected EU countries were Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden, Britain, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Denmark, along with non-EU Switzerland.

But in a sign the crisis is going global, Brussels also announced that Hong Kong had received some tainted eggs from the Netherlands, with the southern Chinese city becoming the first place in Asia known to be affected.

As well as dealing with the immediate food safety issue, the EU is also seeking to calm tempers over the egg row after a series of divisive crises in the bloc in recent years, from Brexit to migration.

Belgium earlier this week accused the Netherlands of knowing about the fipronil eggs since November 2016 and failing to notify other countries.

On Thursday Dutch Health Minister Edith Schippers admitted the government had made "errors" but denied a cover-up.

"We were well aware of a report of the presence of fipronil in the pens of egg-laying hens in November 2016, but there was no indication at the time that fipronil itself was found in the eggs," said Schippers.

A Dutch whistleblower separately said he had told the authorities that Chickfriend, the Dutch company at the centre of the scandal, was illegally using fipronil in the treatment of lice in chicken pens in The Netherlands.

"I am the anonymous whistleblower," Nick Hermens told the NPO public broadcaster.

A Belgian company, Poultry Vision, has said it provided Chickfriend with the chemical.

Dutch and Belgian investigators carried out coordinated raids on several premises on Thursday, arresting two people at Chickfriend.

However, Belgium itself has been forced to admit that it knew about fipronil in eggs back in June but kept it secret for nearly two months because of a criminal investigation.

- Fresh discoveries -

Fresh discoveries of contaminated eggs have continued daily.

Denmark said on Friday it had found two tonnes of fipronil-tainted scrambled eggs, bringing the total of contaminated eggs to 22 tonnes, mainly from Belgium.

Poland said it had discovered about 40,000 eggs imported from Germany.

French Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert said that since April the country had sold nearly 250,000 contaminated eggs, imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, but the risk for consumers was "very low" given French eating habits.

The food scare is one of the biggest to hit Europe since the 2013 horsemeat scandal when equine meat was falsely labelled and mis-sold.

Previous food scandals include contamination of chickens and eggs by dioxin in 1999, which began in Belgium, and mad-cow disease -- cattle feed contaminated by the ground-up carcasses of animals infected with a deadly brain disorder -- which ran from roughly 1986-1998 and started in Britain.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Lagarde: A new Greece program needs debt restructure

WASHINGTON. United States - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Wednesday that a new program to prop up Greece's finances would require creditors to restructure debt.

In addition to the reforms Athens needs to undertake, she said, "the other leg is debt restructuring, which we believe is needed in the case of Greece for it to have debt sustainability."

"Greece is in a situation of acute crisis which needs to be addressed," she told a conference in Washington.

Despite the fact that Greece defaulted on its debt to the IMF on June 30, Lagarde assured that the institution "remains fully engaged in order to help find a solution."

In a report last week the IMF said Greece's official EU creditors should double the payback period for Greece's debts and stump up another 36 billion euros ($40 billion) to ensure the country's finances remain sustainable.

But the European Commission and the European Central Bank are pressing the country hard to accept a package of austere fiscal and policy adjustments that Athens has so far refused to accept.

Lagarde said the numbers themselves "will have to be revisited," but added that Greece, which no longer has access to IMF resources since its default, should not benefit from any special treatment.

"It is certainly my view that the IMF has to follow its rules, should not bend its rules and should be always even-handed."

She justified the Fund's continued participation in new aid talks for Greece even if Athens has been a severe critic of the institution.

"I have heard talk here and there in France saying, 'but what is the IMF doing in this situation? It should be handled by the Europeans,'" she told reporters.

"At the time when I was (France's) finance minister I also supported this viewpoint."

But, she said, the IMF is involved "because the IMF was asked by Greece to be involved."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com