Taoiseach Simon Harris has insisted he is not aware that any member of his team tried to get RTE to take down a viral social media clip of a much-criticised encounter with a disability care worker. The Fine Gael leader was asked about the controversy in the first question posed during the second and final TV leaders’ debate of Ireland’s General Election campaign. Mr Harris apologised over the weekend for his handling of the discussion with Charlotte Fallon while canvassing in Kanturk in Co Cork on Friday evening. Tanaiste and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris with presenters Miriam O’Callaghan and Sarah McInerney during the final TV leaders’ debate at RTE studios in Donnybrook, Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) Mr Harris rang Ms Fallon on Saturday and said he unreservedly apologised for the way he treated her, however focus has since shifted to Fine Gael’s interactions with the national broadcaster about the social media video. At the outset of Tuesday’s TV debate, co-host Miriam O’Callaghan directly asked the Fine Gael leader whether a member of his party contacted RTE to ask for the clip to be taken down. “I have no knowledge of that whatsoever, because this clip was entirely appropriate,” said Mr Harris. “It was a very important moment on the campaign. “And RTE and indeed many media outlets have been with me throughout the campaign, covering many interactions that I’ve had with many, many people right across this country.” The Taoiseach said the approach by his team member was part of the “normal contact that happens between party politics and broadcasters on a daily basis”. Mr Harris’s partner-in-government in the last coalition, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin, said he was not aware of the approach to RTE by Fine Gael. Tanaiste and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin during the final TV leaders’ debate at RTE studios (Niall Carson/PA) “I think Simon has given his explanation to it. I’m not sure it’s as normal or as usual. I just get on with it every day. But, again, I think, you know, I’m not au fait with the details behind all of this, or the background to it. “The video didn’t come down, and it was seen by many, many people. “And I think it illustrates that out there, there are a lot of people suffering in our society. “Notwithstanding the progress we’ve made as a country, a lot of people are facing a lot of individual challenges, and our job as public representatives and as leaders in travelling the country is to listen to people, hear their cases, to understand the challenges that they are going through in their lives. “And when we go about in election campaigns, we have to open up ourselves to criticism and to people calling us to account.” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald had earlier in the day described reports of the Fine Gael approach to RTE as “chilling”. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris during the final TV leaders’ debate (Niall Carson/PA) Mr Harris previously branded the proposal a “dog whistle to conspiracy theorists” while Mr Martin said it was a “dangerous departure”. Ms McDonald defended the idea during the RTE Prime Time debate on Tuesday. “Politics and politicians should not try to influence editorial decisions or try and have clips taken down because they are inconvenient to them,” she said. “There has to be distance, there has to be objectivity. But I would say I am struck by the very defensive reaction from some to this (the review proposal). “The BBC, for example, a peer review looked at their coverage on migration. Politicians didn’t put their hands on it, and rightly so. “I think in a world where we have to rely on quality information, especially from the national broadcaster, which is in receipt of very substantial public funding, that has to be the gold standard of reliability. I think peer reviews like that are healthy.”Cook Inlet Region, Inc. Announces Purchase of OSC EdgeTFL Introduces New Way to Support Student-Athletes With NIL Seats
JAKARTA: When Mr Prabowo Subianto arrived for his inauguration at the Indonesian parliament complex in Jakarta on Oct 20, he was seen using a white Toyota Alphard multi-purpose vehicle (MPV). But by the time he emerged as Indonesia’s eighth president, a different ride was waiting for him at the lobby: a Maung Garuda. With its imposing size and boxy shape, the white tactical sport utility vehicle (SUV) – dubbed the RI1 – looked more at home in combat zones than the busy streets of Jakarta. The resemblance comes as no surprise as the Maung Garuda is produced by Pindad, a state-owned company that makes weapons, armaments and tactical vehicles for the Indonesian military and police force. Mr Prabowo has made the Maung Garuda his presidential car and a week after he took office, he instructed all ministers, vice-ministers, government agency chiefs and senior government officials to also make the SUV their official vehicle. The choice is a departure from the stretch Mercedes-Benz limousines used by previous presidents and the Toyota MPVs and SUVs favoured by ministers. Presidential spokesman Hasan Nasbi said on Oct 28 that Mr Prabowo, a former military general and defence minister, wanted his cabinet members to use locally-produced cars as opposed to imported ones. “(Mr Prabowo) is proud to be using Maung Garuda Limousine as his official car,” he said, as quoted by Detik news website. The president has also said that he wants Indonesia to be self-sufficient and push for a homegrown automotive industry, among other things. “To be honest, in my heart, I refuse to accept that the world’s fourth (most populous) nation, a nation blessed by God with tremendous (natural) wealth... cannot produce its own cars, cannot produce its own motorcycles, cannot produce its own computers,” Mr Prabowo told a regional leaders’ convention on the outskirts of Jakarta on Nov 7. One of Mr Prabowo’s campaign promises is to create 19 million jobs during his presidency and a way to do that is to boost Indonesia’s manufacturing sector. “A president prioritising the use of local brands is a positive step,” said Dr Tauhid Ahmad, a senior researcher at the Jakarta-based think tank Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF). “This is not only about national pride. Maximising the use of local brands can also invigorate the domestic industry and ultimately create a multiplier effect which spurs growth in multiple sectors.” Pindad has sourced 70 per cent of Maung components locally, according to Presidential Chief of Staff Anto Mukti Putranto, as quoted by news outlet The Jakarta Post. Remaining parts including the chassis, engine and base frame are sourced from foreign companies including South Korea’s Ssangyong, Japan’s Toyota and Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, it reported. Although electric vehicles (EVs) are catching on in Indonesia, the company mainly produces internal combustion engine military vehicles and does not have experience in making EVs. The road to a viable national car industry will be strewn with challenges, analysts warned, and many countries have tried and failed to build products that can compete with more established global brands. Can a munitions company with little experience in the car industry live up to these challenges? A HISTORY OF FAILED VENTURES Mr Prabowo is not the only Indonesian president with dreams of building a local car brand. Indonesia’s first president Sukarno, for example, established PT Industri Mobil Indonesia in 1962 with the goal of producing Indonesia’s first national car. However, before production began, Indonesia descended into a widespread civil unrest in 1965 which saw the killing of more than 500,000 members and sympathisers of the Indonesian Communist Party. Attempts to produce a national car were revived under Suharto, who in the 1990s offered tax exemptions for cars that were entirely built domestically. The move was panned both at home and abroad as Indonesian car brands that enjoyed the exemption were found to be rebranded versions of popular models developed by foreign companies. After Suharto stepped down in 1998, Indonesia made several attempts at producing a national car. Most stopped at the prototype stage. After Suharto, there has been very little support given to Indonesian companies developing their own cars, said Mr Bebin Djuana, an automotive industry expert. “These companies need the government’s support. If these companies are told to fend for themselves amid stiff competition from more established brands, they are done for,” said Mr Bebin, a retired car company executive who has written several books on Indonesia’s car industry. He said other countries have been giving local players anything from fiscal incentives and better access to loans and subsidies, to fast-tracking permit issuance and certification. They also created demand for the products before they successfully developed their national car industry. Malaysia, for example, provided RM13.9 billion (US$3.1 billion) in research and development grants, stimulus packages and tax incentives to Proton since its establishment between 1983 and 2017. These benefits allowed Proton to develop new models at prices lower than its competitors, which had to pay import taxes for fully assembled units or parts shipped from overseas. “Some countries give huge subsidies to first-time car owners if they buy local brands. Some governments buy the cars produced by local companies and use them as official cars and operational vehicles,” Mr Bebin told CNA. These government incentives remain available through regime changes, something that is missing in Indonesia, where leaders tend to focus on their own policies instead of continuing their predecessors’ legacies. “These countries remain consistent (in their support) particularly during the critical early stages of these local companies. Without (consistency) these companies would collapse and they would have to start from scratch,” Mr Bebin said. The Malaysian government continued to provide grants and tax incentives after Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional divested its Proton stake to conglomerate DRB-HICOM for RM1.29 billion in 2012. However, the benefits stopped after the latter sold its 49.9 per cent Proton stake to Chinese manufacturer Zhejiang Geely Automobile Holdings in 2017. Dr Tauhid of INDEF believed that Pindad will enjoy similar support from the Indonesian government. “As a state-owned company, it will have the full support of the government in terms of regulatory protection (from competition) and various incentives. It will have access to government funding or low interest loans from state-owned banks,” he said. “This is what sets Pindad apart from private companies of the past which tried to develop their own car brands.” It is still not clear what financial support Indonesia will provide to Pindad, which can currently only produce a small batch of several thousand cars a year, in order to become a well-established car brand. “The government needs to formulate a long-term strategy to help Pindad grow. So far, we haven’t seen such a strategy,” Dr Tauhid said. COMPLEX CHALLENGES But government support alone does not guarantee success in the cut-throat automotive business. “Building a car involves a complex supply chain of parts and raw material. It involves acquiring cutting-edge technologies and production techniques which may be patented,” said Dr Piter Abdullah, director of the think tank Segara Research Institute. Building a car also takes years of research and development, he continued, and such workers need to be attracted with big salaries and bonuses. Vietnam’s VinFast was able to overcome these challenges because it has the backing of the country’s biggest conglomerate Vingroup and its founder, Vietnam’s richest man Pham Nhat Vuong. Since its inception in 2017, VinFast has received capital injections totalling US$13.5 billion from its parent company, Mr Vuong and his affiliates. VinGroup has pledged to invest US$3.4 billion more over the next two years. The huge investment allowed the company to become a key player in Vietnam’s electric car market in a short period of time. The company also expanded its reach beyond the domestic market and now has a presence in North America, Europe and several Asian countries. But even after the investment and aggressive expansion, VinFast is still operating at a loss. According to a December 2023 filing with the United States’ Security Exchange Commission, the Nasdaq-listed company reported net losses of US$2.4 billion last year, up 14.7 per cent from 2022. Losing money is a risk Indonesia has to take if it wants to realise its national car ambition through a munitions company with little experience in selling consumer vehicles. “It is not easy to build a car that sells, especially given the fact that it has to compete with other foreign brands which have dominated the market for decades,” Mr Bebin said. To do this, Pindad must either recruit people with deep understanding of what the mass market wants, or partner with more established manufacturers. Before a 49.9 per cent stake of Malaysia’s Proton was sold to Chinese manufacturer Geely in 2017, it engaged in manufacturing and components sharing partnership with Mitsubishi and a co-branding deal with Suzuki. Meanwhile, Malaysia’s second national car manufacturer Perodua is currently partnering with Daihatsu for the production and sales of one of its compact SUV models. BABY STEPS There are only four Maung Garuda SUVs roaming Indonesia’s streets today: Two belonging to Mr Prabowo and two used by vice-president Gibran Rakabuming Raka. The presidential vehicles are equipped with an armoured body capable of stopping a 7.62mm round and a set of anti-flat tires along other amenities such as two 12-inch flat screen televisions and electric footsteps for easy access. According to Pindad’s website, the Maung Garuda weighs 2.9 tonnes. It is 5.1 metres long, 2 metres wide and 1.8 metres tall. Its 2.5-litre engine is capable of producing 199 horse power with a top speed of 100kph. It is not known how much the vehicle costs, although several media outlets predicted that the presidential version should cost at least 1.2 billion rupiah (US$75,310). It is not known if Pindad is keeping the same specification for the 10,000 or so cars to be produced for ministers and senior government officials. Pindad president director Abraham Mose said he is grateful Mr Prabowo has chosen the Maung Garuda as the official vehicle for himself and his officials. “President Prabowo Subianto has shown his commitment to local industry by providing Pindad with the opportunity to enter the automotive industry,” Mr Abraham said in a statement on Nov 3. On top of the 10,000 units commissioned by the presidential office, the defence ministry has also placed an order of 4,600 Maung Garuda vehicles for its operational needs. Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises minister Erick Thohir said at its current production capacity, it would take Pindad two years to meet these orders. “(Pindad’s) production line needs managing,” he said on Nov 3, as quoted by CNBC Indonesia, adding that the government is ready to give Pindad what it needs to upgrade its production capacity. While the orders will keep Pindad busy for the next two years, Pindad needs to constantly improve its product if it wants to one day sell its vehicles to the general public. The Maung Garuda is its only civilian car model, while the rest of its line-up comprises specialised military and police vehicles with thick metal platings and machine gun mounts and turrets. In March, Detik reported that Pindad had struck a deal with a Jakarta-based car dealership to exclusively sell the Maung Garuda but it is not yet known when the SUV will be available to the general public. The only other Indonesian car brand in production today is Solo Manufaktur Kreasi, better known as Esemka. The company produces vans and small pick-up trucks which are rebrands of China’s Shangan and Shineray. “Pindad will get feedback from their users on what features to add or how their product compares to Japanese or European cars. With improvements and adjustments, Pindad will in time be ready to enter the public market,” Dr Tauhid of INDEF said. “But first, it needs to keep making cars and be profitable, and the government needs to keep the orders coming.”None
Harris has ‘no knowledge’ anyone tried to get RTE to take down viral clipWaterloo council hikes city taxes, water bills by 6.3 per cent
WASHINGTON — FBI Director Christopher Wray told the bureau workforce Wednesday he plans to resign at the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January, an announcement that came a week and a half after President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel for the job. Wray said at a town hall meeting that he would step down “after weeks of careful thought,” three years short of the completion of a 10-year term marked by high-profile and politically charged investigations, including that those led to two separate indictments of Trump last year. Wray’s intended resignation is not unexpected considering that Trump settled on Patel to be director and repeatedly aired his ire at Wray. By stepping down rather than waiting to be fired, Wray is trying to avert a collision with the new Trump administration that he said would have further entangled the FBI “deeper into the fray.” Wray was put in the job by Trump and began the 10-year term — a length meant to insulate the agency from the political influence of changing administrations — in 2017, after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
NoneOVERLAND PARK, Kan., Dec. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- TFL, a live event ticketing and technology company, is excited to introduce a new way for fans to support student-athletes through their name, image and likeness (NIL). NIL Seats, TFL's latest technology development, provides schools and NIL collectives with a branded e-commerce marketplace that offers tickets to live events, including concerts, games and shows nationwide. Fifty percent of the order proceeds on the website will go to the school or collective to benefit the student-athletes. "Ever since the NCAA's NIL policy went into effect more than three years ago, fans have looked for new ways to support student-athletes," said Adam Rossbach, TFL president. "With the introduction of NIL Seats, fans can now support students financially on their own time and budget." The 1870 Society, the first NIL collective supporting Ohio State University, is the first to join the NIL Seats platform. "We're excited about this relationship for a number of reasons, but the core of it is that these are purchases Buckeye fans are going to make anyway," said Mark Stetson, founder and board member of The 1870 Society. "We're able to facilitate those transactions on a trusted best-in-breed platform while allowing them to help Ohio State student-athletes." To learn more about NIL Seats, visit https://tflgroup.com/nil-seats/ . About TFL Founded in 2004, TFL is one of the fastest-growing event distribution companies in North America and the leading Midwest ticket marketplace for sports and entertainment. TFL's success is rooted in its ability to provide an easy ticket-buying experience to its customers with no service fees at checkout ( www.ticketsforless.com ). TFL also offers technology solutions to employee and customer loyalty platforms and partners with rightsholders throughout the industry to maximize revenue ( www.tflgroup.com ). Contact: Abigail Gentrup, abigailgentrup@tflgroup.com View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tfl-introduces-new-way-to-support-student-athletes-with-nil-seats-302326453.html SOURCE TFLUS lawmakers voted Wednesday after fraught negotiations to move forward with a contentious 2025 defense budget that raises troops' pay but blocks funding of gender-affirming care for some transgender children of service members. The centerpiece of the $884 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) -- which was green-lit by the Republican-led House of Representatives but still needs Senate approval -- is a 14.5 percent pay increase for junior enlisted service members and 4.5 percent for other personnel. But talks over the 1,800-page-plus text were complicated by a last-minute Republican intervention to prevent the military's health program from covering gender-affirming care for children of service members if it results in "sterilization." "Citizens don't want their tax dollars to go to this, and underaged people often regret these surgeries later in life," Nebraska Republican Don Bacon told CNN. "It's a bad hill to die on for Democrats." Gender-affirming health care for children is just one of multiple fronts in the so-called "culture wars" that polarize US politics and divide the country, with Republicans using the issue as a cudgel against Democrats in November's elections. The funding block angered progressives, and prompted the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee to come out against the legislation. "As I said a few days ago, blanketly denying health care to people who need it -- just because of a biased notion against transgender people -- is wrong," Adam Smith, who represents a district in Washington state, said in a statement. "The inclusion of this harmful provision puts the lives of children at risk and may force thousands of service members to make the choice of continuing their military service or leaving to ensure their child can get the health care they need." Smith slammed House Speaker Mike Johnson for pandering to "the most extreme elements of his party" by including the transgender provision. The must-pass NDAA -- a bill that Congress has sent to the president's desk without fail every year since 1961 -- cleared the chamber in a 281-140 vote and now moves to the Senate, with final passage expected next week. The topline figure is one percent above last year's total and, with funding from other sources, brings the total defense budget to just under $900 billion. Some foreign policy hawks on the Republican side of the Senate wanted $25 billion more for the Pentagon but they are still expected to support the bill. "The safety and security of the American people is our top priority, and this year's NDAA ensures our military has the resources and the capabilities needed to remain the most powerful fighting force on the planet," Johnson told reporters. ft/mlm
NoneSwimmer Summer McIntosh voted The Canadian Press female athlete of the year for 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — What a wonderful year 2024 has been for investors. U.S. stocks ripped higher and carried the S&P 500 to records as the economy kept growing and the Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates. The year featured many familiar winners, such as Big Tech, which got even bigger as their stock prices kept growing . But it wasn't just Apple, Nvidia and the like. Bitcoin , gold and other investments also drove higher. Here's a look at some of the numbers that defined the year. All are as of Dec. 20. Remember when President Bill Clinton got impeached or when baseball's Mark McGwire hit his 70th home run against the Montreal Expos? That was the last time the U.S. stock market closed out a second straight year with a leap of at least 20%, something the S&P 500 is on track to do again this year. The index has climbed 24.3% so far this year, not including dividends, following last year's spurt of 24.2%. The number of all-time highs the S&P 500 has set so far this year. The first came early, on Jan. 19, when the index capped a two-year comeback from the swoon caused by high inflation and worries that high interest rates instituted by the Federal Reserve to combat it would create a recession. But the index was methodical through the rest of the year, setting a record in every month outside of April and August, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. The latest came on Dec. 6. The number of times the Federal Reserve has cut its main interest rate this year from a two-decade high, offering some relief to the economy. Expectations for those cuts, along with hopes for more in 2025, were a big reason the U.S. stock market has been so successful this year. The 1 percentage point of cuts, though, is still short of the 1.5 percentage points that many traders were forecasting for 2024 at the start of the year. The Fed disappointed investors in December when it said it may cut rates just two more times in 2025, fewer than it had earlier expected. That’s how many points the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by the day after Election Day, as investors made bets on what Donald Trump’s return to the White House will mean for the economy and the world . The more widely followed S&P 500 soared 2.5% for its best day in nearly two years. Aside from bitcoin, stocks of banks and smaller winners were also perceived to be big winners. The bump has since diminished amid worries that Trump’s policies could also send inflation higher. The level that bitcoin topped to set a record above $108,000 this past month. It's been climbing as interest rates come down, and it got a particularly big boost following Trump's election. He's turned around and become a fan of crypto, and he's named a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to digital currencies as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing someone who critics said was overly aggressive in his oversight. Bitcoin was below $17,000 just two years ago following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. Story continues below video Gold's rise for the year, as it also hit records and had as strong a run as U.S. stocks. Wars around the world have helped drive demand for investments seen as safe, such as gold. It's also benefited from the Fed's cut to interest rates. When bonds are paying less in interest, they pull away fewer potential buyers from gold, which pays investors nothing. It's a favorite number of Elon Musk, and it's also a threshold that Tesla's stock price passed in December as it set a record. The number has a long history among marijuana devotees, and Musk famously said in 2018 that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share . Tesla soared this year, up from less than $250 at the start, in part because of expectations that Musk's close relationship with Trump could benefit the company. That's how much revenue Nvidia made in the nine months through Oct. 27, showing how the artificial-intelligence frenzy is creating mountains of cash. Nvidia's chips are driving much of the move into AI, and its revenue through the last nine months catapulted from less than $39 billion the year before. Such growth has boosted Nvidia's worth to more than $3 trillion in total. GameStop’s gain on May 13 after Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty,” appeared online for the first time in three years to support the video game retailer’s stock, which he helped rocket to unimaginable heights during the “ meme stock craze ” in 2021. Several other meme stocks also jumped following his post in May on the social platform X, including AMC Entertainment. Gill later disclosed a sizeable stake in the online pet products retailer Chewy, but he sold all of his holdings by late October . That's how much the U.S. economy grew, at annualized seasonally adjusted rates, in each of the three first quarters of this year. Such growth blew past what many pessimists were expecting when inflation was topping 9% in the summer of 2022. The fear was that the medicine prescribed by the Fed to beat high inflation — high interest rates — would create a recession. Households at the lower end of the income spectrum in particular are feeling pain now, as they contend with still-high prices. But the overall economy has remained remarkably resilient. This is the vacancy rate for U.S. office buildings — an all-time high — through the first three quarters of 2024, according to data from Moody's. The fact the rate held steady for most of the year was something of a win for office building owners, given that it had marched up steadily from 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2019. Demand for office space weakened as the pandemic led to the popularization of remote work. That's the total number of previously occupied homes sold nationally through the first 11 months of 2024. Sales would have to surge 20% year-over-year in December for 2024's home sales to match the 4.09 million existing homes sold in 2023, a nearly 30-year low. The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. A shortage of homes for sale and elevated mortgage rates have discouraged many would-be homebuyers.
Federal judge slaps down Automattic, granting temporary injunction to WP Engine in ongoing WordPress squabble