STOCKHOLM (AFP) – Sweden announced plans yesterday for a USD1.45 billion (EUR1.32 billion) subsidy package to help Swedes cope with soaring prices resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the heels of winter’s sky-high energy prices.
The proposed subsidies include a temporary reduction of petrol and diesel taxes, a one-time minimum payout of SEK1,000 (USD104) to car owners, a one-month extension through March of a winter electricity subsidy for homeowners in central and southern Sweden, and a temporary increase in housing subsidies for the poorest families.
Sweden has among the highest prices in the world for fuel due largely to its high taxes, at around SEK21 (USD2.20) per litre for petrol and SEK25 for diesel.
If approved by Parliament, the measures would come into effect on June 1.
“We are today presenting an exceptional package of measures to counter the price increases we are now seeing as a result of Russia’s invasion,” Finance Minister Mikael Damberg said in a statement.
“The situation is still uncertain and prices are very volatile, but we can see that we need to support consumers in this acute stage and at the same time take measures to reduce our fossil fuel dependency.”
Prices in February were up by 4.5 percent from a year earlier, Statistics Sweden said yesterday, the highest level since 1993 when the country was in deep economic crisis.
Electricity was 14 per cent higher than a year ago, while food prices rose by 3.6 per cent and clothes by five per cent.
Analysts noted that those increases in February did not include the effects of Russia’s invasion – which began on February 24 – and predicted further hikes to come.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – American comedian and actor Pete Davidson, who has made headlines recently for his new relationship with Kim Kardashian, is going to space as part of a six-member team on Blue Origin’s next flight next week, the company said yesterday.
The Saturday Night Live star will be the only non-paying guest on the voyage aboard the New Shepard rocket, which is set to blast off from the company’s Launch Site One in West Texas on March 23 at 8.30am local time.
It will be the fourth human flight for the company, which launched its billionaire founder and owner Jeff Bezos to space on its first crewed mission last summer.
Davidson, 28, has been in the news lately for dating reality-star-turned-entrepreneur Kardashian, whose contentious divorce from rapper Kanye West was finalised earlier this month.
West, legally known as Ye, has made no secret of his anger towards Davidson – burying alive a claymation version of the younger man in a new animated music video.
The other crewmates are CEO and investor Marty Allen; husband and wife Sharon and Marc Hagle, who run a non-profit and business, respectively; teacher and explorer Jim Kitchen, and George Nield, who founded a company that promotes commercial space activity.
The ticket prices remain a secret, as they have since the first flight.
Named after pioneering astronaut Alan Shepard, New Shepard is Blue Origin’s reusable, autonomously-flown suborbital rocket system that is capable of crossing the Karman Line, the internationally recognised boundary of space, 100 kilometers high.
A teenage boy on a bicycle, lost his life after he was struck by a vehicle in Kampong Perpindahan Lambak Kanan on Sunday.
According to the Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF), the 15-year-old was cycling alone when he made an abrupt exit at a junction and was subsequently knocked by a vehicle on the main road.
The victim was lying on the road when an ambulance was called. He was pronounced dead by paramedics.
A police investigation revealed that the vehicle driver was an 18-year-old man without a valid driving licence. Meanwhile the victim’s bicycle was found with missing safety features such as front and rear brake pedals.
According to sources close to the victim’s family, he had gone out on his bike and returned with food for his family. However, it was the second time the victim left the house when he met with tragedy.
No further information was available at press time as the investigation is on-going.
Meanwhile, images shared on social media showed the victim’s mother kneeling down in shock at the news of her son’s death.
A teacher of the victim speaking in anonymity said the victim was a bright, cheerful and bubbly youngster.
The police in an advisory urged the public to be aware of the surrounding while cycling or driving on the road.
“Always make sure that safety equipment used has not been compromised to avoid untoward incidents from taking place,” it said.
ABOVE & BELOW: The victim’s bicycle; and cracked windscreen from the impact. PHOTOS: RBPF
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA (AP) – A New York City man who needed to be rescued twice on consecutive days while hiking in a northern Arizona mountain range is urging others to pay more attention to the weather than he did.
“Warning: Unless you are an experienced alpine mountaineer, DO NOT attempt Humphreys Peak in the winter. There is so much snow that it’s difficult to follow the trail and very easy to fall off of it. Moreover, the wind is absolutely brutal,” Phillip Vasto said in an online post.
The 28-year-old Brooklyn man first called 911 a few weeks ago at about 7pm to say he got lost while hiking on Humphreys Trail in the San Francisco Peaks overlooking Flagstaff, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
The statement didn’t identify Vasto by name but he spoke to the Arizona Daily Sun, telling the newspaper in a story published recently that he was an experienced hiker but had underestimated the difficult conditions.
“I was thinking if I start early in the morning, I’ll have all the time in the world to reach the summit,” Vasto said of his second attempt.
The trail runs through some 8.9 kilometres of steep, rocky terrain between the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort and Humphreys Peak, the state’s highest point with an elevation of 3,851 metres.
During the first rescue, tracked vehicles from the ski resort that travel on snow drove Vasto off the mountain and he declined medical attention.
But at 5pm the next day, Vasto called 911 to say he needed help after injuring himself in a fall near a ridge on the Humphreys Trail.
An Arizona Department of Public Safety rescue helicopter was sent to pick up Vasto and another hiker who had stopped to help him.
Vasto was “provided with preventative search and rescue education about the conditions on the trail and the approaching winter storm and encouraged to not attempt the hike again”, the Sheriff’s Office statement said.
The other hiker who stopped to help Vasto, Phillip Wyatt, said it was “very apparent that he wasn’t prepared for the climate that he had gotten himself into”.
Wyatt decided to stay with Vasto and provided his number to the search and rescue team so that they could make contact in the likely scenario that Vasto’s phone ran out of battery life because he had been using it to check his route on a trail locater app.
“I really respect Phil’s perseverance,” Wyatt told the Daily Sun. “I hope that he’s able to make it to the top sometime.”
MUMBAI (AFP) – Paytm shares nosedived almost 13 per cent yesterday after Indian regulators banned the beleaguered payments platform from enrolling new customers and reports emerged that its founder was arrested for crashing into a police car.
The firm enjoyed India’s biggest initial public offering four months ago, with the backing of Chinese tycoon Jack Ma’s Ant Group and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
But it has since lost more than two-thirds of its market cap despite a commanding position in the local digital payments space, as investors fret over whether the perennial loss-maker will ever turn a profit.
India’s central bank demanded Paytm immediately stop enrolling new customers last Friday and ordered an audit of its IT systems, citing “certain material supervisory concerns observed in the bank”.
Shares in the firm closed 12.84 per cent lower in Mumbai after hitting record lows in yesterday’s trade.
Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma breaks down while giving a speech during his company’s IPO listing ceremony at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in Mumbai. PHOTO: AFP
Paytm said it “remains committed to working with the regulator to address their concerns as quickly as possible”.
The firm’s woes were compounded over the weekend after news broke that founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma had been briefly detained last month after crashing into a senior police officer’s car in the capital New Delhi and fleeing the scene.
Paytm downplayed the incident in a Sunday statement that characterised the accident as a “minor offence”.
Sharma, named India’s youngest billionaire in 2017, launched Paytm in 2010 and quickly made the platform synonymous with digital payments in a country traditionally dominated by cash transactions.
His enterprise has benefitted from government efforts to curb the use of hard currency – including the demonetisation of nearly all banknotes in circulation five years ago – and from the pandemic.
The platform had 350 million customers at the end of December, according to the company’s regulatory filing.
But the last few months have seen a dramatic reversal of fortunes for the platform and Sharma has seen his net worth written down by over USD1.5 billion since its November 2021 market debut.
Paytm’s parent One97 Communications reported a net loss of INR7.79 billion (USD102 million) for the December quarter.
MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM (AFP) – Cristiano Ronaldo gave Manchester United fans a glimpse of what they thought they were getting from his second coming at Old Trafford with a trio of thumping finishes to see off Tottenham 3-2 during the weekend.
The 59th career hat-trick of Ronaldo’s career was just his second for United and a first in 14 years as his second spell has failed to match the hype around his signing in August.
United go into tonight’s (Wednesday 4am Brunei time) finely balanced Champions League last-16 tie against Atletico Madrid, after a 1-1 draw in the Spanish capital, knowing European glory is their only remaining chance of silverware this season.
Ronaldo has tended to save his best for the Champions League this season, scoring six goals in the group stage just to ensure United did not suffer the ignominy of a group stage exit for the second consecutive season.
However, his subdued performance as a frustrated and isolated figure up front the Wanda Metropolitano three weeks ago was more reflective of the problems Ralf Rangnick has faced during his interim spell as United manager.
The German is credited as the Godfather of the high-energy, pressing style of play that has inspired the likes of Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel to go on to be Champions League winners as coaches.
Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo celebrates after scoring his third goal during the English Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur. PHOTO: AP
Rangnick has not been able to implement the same verve to United, much of which has been blamed on a 37-year-old Ronaldo’s inability or unwillingness to press.
The Portuguese has also been pointed at as the source for stories of dressing room disquiet that seem to leak out after every poor result.
Amid reports he was set to be dropped for last weekend’s Manchester derby, Ronaldo jetted back to his homeland to rehab a hip injury that was given as the official reason for missing a 4-1 thrashing at the Etihad.
Rangnick joked that maybe he should sanction that trip more regularly after Ronaldo returned to Manchester in scintillating form to put Spurs to the sword.
But he also did not hold back in his assessment of Ronaldo’s work off the ball in recent weeks.
“Today he showed for sure that he is physically capable to do that,” Rangnick said of Ronaldo’s defensive contribution.
“We also have to admit that it has not always been like that in the past weeks and months.
“Today showed exactly that he is still in physical shape to perform at that level.”
Ronaldo’s performance impressed the watching Tom Brady as the seven-time Super Bowl winner told his fellow superstar to “keep playing” as they embraced on the Old Trafford pitch after the game.
Whether he stays for the second year of his contract at United will depend heavily on if the Red Devils make it into the Champions League next season.
Into the twilight years of his career, he can ill afford a season off the biggest stage where he shines brightest.
Atletico know that only too well. Between 2014 and 2019, Ronaldo was on the opposite side for all five of their exits in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, twice inflicting the ultimate blow in final defeats to Real Madrid.
Ronaldo’s treble on Saturday set another goalscoring record as he now has the most goals in men’s professional football according to FIFA’s records with 807.
Only Sevilla have suffered more in that total than the 25 Atletico have conceded.
As United’s struggles have laid bare, Ronaldo may not be the force he once was.
But he is still the one Diego Simeone’s men will fear most coming back to haunt them on the big occasion.
AFP – A Lima zoo announced recently the birth in captivity of four American crocodiles, an endangered species, after a successful artificial incubation.
The crocodile hatchlings were born in mid-January after 78 days of incubation from the eggs of a pair of adult crocodiles that live in the Huachipa Zoological Park, east of Lima.
“We have now shown these crocodile pups that were just born 45 days ago at the zoo,” Jose Flores, head of the zoo’s reptile area, told AFP.
“Any birth of any species that is threatened and (in) danger of extinction must be considered an achievement,” he stressed.
The hatchlings live in a special fish tank, measure 26 centimetres and weigh between 70 and 90 grammes each.
They have the traditional olive green colour of the species and protruding eyes. They feed on small pieces of chicken and fish.
A 45-day-old American crocodile hatchling is measured during its periodic control at the Huachipa Zoo, Peru. PHOTO: AP
In Peru, they are known as ‘Tumbes crocodiles’ because their natural habitat is the mangroves of Tumbes, on the border with Ecuador.
“This species, in Peru, is in danger of extinction mainly due to the destruction of its natural habitat,” explained Flores, 39.
The small reptiles belong to the Crocodylus Acutus species and are the only ones that survived from the 25 eggs that the mother incubated.
At 195 kilogrammes, the father crocodile is five metres long while the mother is 2.5 metres long and weighs 85 kilogrammes. They are both 20 years old.
This species is found in the southern United States, Mexico and Venezuela, but in countries such as Peru and Ecuador it is critically endangered.
Relentless hunting for their skins reduced numbers dramatically in the 1960s. There are now restrictions controlling the trade in crocodiles and their skins.
BERLIN (AFP) – German prosecutors said yesterday they have charged Wirecard’s former chief executive Markus Braun and two other high-ranking managers for the colossal commercial fraud that led to the collapse of the payment company.
The trio are accused of market manipulation, embezzlement and gang fraud on a commercial scale, said prosecutors in Munich, noting that the indictment itself runs to 474 pages.
The German fintech company, once touted as a shining star of innovative start-ups, crashed in June 2020 after admitting that a missing EUR1.9 billion (USD2.1 billion) from its balance sheets likely didn’t exist.
The time it took for prosecutors to file formal charges underlined the intricate and complex web of fraudulent transactions implicating Wirecard subsidiaries and third-party companies that took investigators across the world to unravel.
Among victims of the fraud were banks that had provided credit of EUR1.7 billion to Wirecard. Bonds worth EUR1.4 billion had also been issued and are unlikely to be repaid.
“All the accused group members were acting in an industrial fashion in these six cases of fraud, because that is how they secured their own salaries, including partially profit-related portions,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Markus Braun, the former chief executive of disgraced payments giant Wirecard, waiting to face a public grilling by German lawmakers over the massive accounting fraud that brought down his firm. PHOTO: AFP
Braun for instance, received at least EUR5.5 million in dividends, they said.
The other two accused are chief accountant Stephan von Erffa and director of Wirecard’s Dubai subsidiary Oliver Bellenhaus.
Prosecutors said they risk “several years” in prison if found guilty.
The trio had presented “incorrect” accounts for the financial years 2015-2018 by allegedly including revenues from so-called third party acquirer (TPA) businesses – companies that do not have their own licences to operate payment services or because they are involved in high-risk activities.
However, the proceeds reported as arising from the TPAs – three companies in Dubai, the Philippines and Singapore – actually “did not actually exist”, said prosecutors.
The funds held allegedly in the Singapore TPA which were accounted as reaching almost a billion euros, “never existed at any time”.
Balance sheet confirmations were falsified by the alleged third-party trustee or by Bellenhaus on the orders of von Erffa, said prosecutors.
Founded in 1999, the Bavarian start-up Wirecard rose from a company piping cash to high risk companies to a respectable electronic payments provider that edged traditional lender Commerzbank out of the DAX 30 index.
Hailed as a champion of the burgeoning financial technology scene, it boasted a market valuation of more than EUR23 billion at one point – outweighing even giant Deutsche Bank.
Wirecard’s troubles began in January 2019 with a series of articles in the Financial Times (FT) alleging accounting irregularities in its Asian division, headed by chief operating officer Jan Marsalek.
But the company was able, at that time, to repeatedly fend off the claims and the FT’s journalists themselves came under investigation over the reports.
The huge scam unravelled in June 2020 when auditors EY said they were unable to find EUR1.9 billion of cash in the company’s accounts.
The sum, which made up a quarter of the balance sheet, was supposedly held to cover risks in trading carried out by third parties on Wirecard’s behalf and was meant to be sitting in trustee accounts at two Filippino banks.
But the Philippines’ central bank has said the cash never entered its monetary system and both Asian banks, BDO and BPI, denied having a relationship with Wirecard.
While key figures in the company have since been detained, including Braun, the company’s former COO Marsalek, who is wanted by German prosecutors, remains at large.
Prosecutors said efforts to hunt down Marsalek are “ongoing”.
The scandal, described by then finance minister Olaf Scholz as “unparalleled” in Germany, sparked an overhaul of market oversight by regulator Bafin.
The Sultanate received a set of facial recognition equipment from the Japanese government through the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) yesterday.
Present to accept the contribution on behalf of the Government of His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah ibni Al-Marhum Sultan Haji Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien Sa’adul Khairi Waddien, Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam was Permanent Secretary (Security, Enforcement and Law) at the PMO Dato Paduka Haji Sufian bin Haji Sabtu from Ambassador-Designate of Japan to Brunei Darussalam Maeda Toru.
According to the permanent secretary, the NeoFace Watch System from NEC Corporation Japan “has been installed at the Brunei International Airport”.
Dato Paduka Haji Sufian also highlighted in his speech the contribution being a reflection of the robust and long-standing ties between the two countries.
“The idea behind the project was initially discussed during a courtesy call from Ambassador Eiji Yamamoto in 2019,” he said. “Since then and in spite of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Japan and the UNODC have made significant effort to turn the idea into reality.”
In his capacity as Director of Internal Security Department, the permanent secretary believes that the cutting-edge equipment will go a long way in helping the department develop the expertise to fully optimise the facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence in addressing new and emerging threats in today’s security landscape, including terrorism.
He added, “We are using a whole-of-government approach to ensure that the other enforcement agencies based at the Brunei International Airport will benefit from the early detection capabilities offered by the NeoFace Watch System.”
Permanent Secretary (Security, Enforcement and Law) at the Prime Minister’s Office Dato Paduka Haji Sufian bin Haji Sabtu and Ambassador-Designate of Japan to Brunei Darussalam Maeda Toru. PHOTO: ROKIAH MAHMUD
Dato Paduka Haji Sufian expressed hope that the project marks the starting point for collaboration in other areas of mutual importance, such as maritime security, in a bid to achieving a safe, secure and prosperous future.
Meanwhile, the envoy said Japan has been promoting counter-terrorism cooperation with Brunei Darussalam and other countries in the region.
“Terrorism cannot be prevented by individual efforts because its activities often go beyond the borders,” he said. “Counter-terrorism requires coordinated efforts of many countries involved.”
Thus, he added, the facial recognition system by NEC is “one of the most sophisticated and trusted systems today” as it “identifies suspicious terrorists, notifies the authorities of their information and helps to prevent the terrorists from crossing the borders”.
Ambassador-Designate Toru expressed hope that the system will upgrade the Sultanate’s border control capabilities and contribute to enhanced security of the country as well as the region.
The handover ceremony also saw pre-recorded messages from Director of the Global Maritime Crime Programme at the UNODC Siri Bjune and General Manager of the Global Relations Division of NEC Corporation Maekawa Kentaro.
BEIJING (AFP) – All 17 million people in the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen began their first full day under lockdown yesterday, as restrictions spread across Shanghai and other major cities to combat an outbreak challenging the nation’s zero-tolerance COVID strategy.
The southern city of Shenzhen imposed the measure on Sunday to counter an Omicron flare-up in factories and neighbourhoods linked to nearby Hong Kong, which is recording scores of daily deaths as the virus runs rampant. Major Apple supplier Foxconn suspended its operations in Shenzhen, the company said yesterday, as the lockdown bit hard into economic activity across the factory hub.
Shenzhen is one of 10 cities nationwide to have locked down all residents, though the measure was taken yesterday in some parts of other major hubs including Dalian, Nanjing and Tianjin, which neighbours the capital.
Health officials have warned tighter restrictions could be on their way, as concerns mount over the resilience of China’s “zero-COVID” approach in the face of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant.
Authorities reported 2,300 new virus cases nationwide yesterday and almost 3,400 a day earlier, the highest daily figure in two years.
A delivery man sorts out parcels for delivery to a community under lockdown. PHOTO: AP
“There have been many small-scale clusters in urban villages and factories,” Shenzhen city official Huang Qiang said at a briefing yesterday.
“This suggests a high risk of community spread, and further precautions are still needed.”
Photos shared with AFP by a Shenzhen resident showed housing compound entrances blocked by large plastic barriers, as residents swapped jokes on social media about their rush to grab laptops from offices before the lockdown.
Tech stocks plummeted on the Hong Kong exchange yesterday, as concerns over the impact of the virus spread in Shenzhen – home to hubs for Foxconn, as well as Huawei and Tencent – spooked investors.
In Shanghai, China’s most populous city, residential areas and offices in some neighbourhoods remained sealed yesterday as city authorities try to avoid a full lockdown.
The metropolis reported around 170 new virus cases yesterday, enough to seed anxiety among businesses over the economic pain ahead.
