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Jimmy Carter’s critics turned his name into a synonym for weakness over the Iranian hostage crisis. But by any measure, he also scored major achievements on the world stage through his mix of moralism and painstaking personal diplomacy. The 39th president of the United States, who died at age 100 on Sunday, transformed the Middle East by brokering the Camp David Accords, which established an enduring and once inconceivable peace between Israel and its most serious adversary at the time, Egypt. Carter again brought a sense of righteousness and nearly obsessive attention to detail to negotiate the return of the Panama Canal to Panama, defying furor by US conservatives. In two decisions with lengthy reverberations, Carter followed up on Richard Nixon’s opening by recognizing communist China, and he began arming jihadists in Afghanistan who fought back against the Soviet Union, which would collapse a decade later. But Carter was crushed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election in no small part due to foreign affairs after religious hard-liners toppled Iran’s shah and seized US embassy staff, whose 444 days in captivity were broadcast nightly on US television. Carter ordered an aborted rescue mission in which eight US troops died in a helicopter crash. Asked at a 2015 news conference about his biggest regret, Carter replied: “I wish I’d sent one more helicopter to get the hostages — and we would have rescued them and I would have been reelected.” – Nagging ‘weak’ attack – The Iran debacle led to attacks that Carter was “weak,” an image he would struggle to shake off as Republicans cast him as the archetypal contrast to their muscular brand of foreign policy. The former peanut farmer’s public persona did little to help, from a widely panned speech pleading for shared sacrifice to an incident that went the pre-internet version of viral in which Carter shooed away a confrontational rabbit from his fishing boat. Robert Strong, a professor at Washington and Lee University who wrote a book on Carter’s foreign policy, said the late president had been inept in public relations by allowing the “weak” label to stick. “The people who worked with Carter said exactly the opposite — he was stubborn, fiercely independent and anything but weak,” Strong said. “That doesn’t mean he was always right, but he wasn’t someone who held his finger in the wind allowing whatever the current opinion was to win.” Strong said that Carter defied his political advisors and even his wife Rosalynn by pushing quickly on the Panama Canal, convinced of the injustice of the 1903 treaty that gave the meddlesome United States the zone in perpetuity. “Every president says, ‘I don’t care about public opinion, I’ll really do what’s right,'” Strong said. “Most of the time when they say that, it’s not true. To a surprising extent with Carter, it was true.” – Carter and Iran – Carter, a devout Christian, vowed to elevate human rights after the cold realpolitik of Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Years after the fact, he could name political prisoners freed following his intervention in their cases, and took pride in coaxing the Soviet Union to let thousands of Jewish citizens emigrate. But the rights focus came to a head on Iran when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — a Western ally whose autocratic rule by decree brought economic and social modernization — faced growing discontent. Reflecting debate throughout the administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s more hawkish national security advisor, believed the shah should crush the protests — a time-tested model in the Middle East. Secretary of state Cyrus Vance, who would later quit in opposition to the ill-fated helicopter raid, wanted reforms by the shah. Stuart Eizenstat, a top adviser to Carter, acknowledged mistakes on Iran, which the president had called an “island of stability” on a New Year’s Eve visit a little more than a year before the revolution that ultimately saw the shah flee the country. But Eizenstat said Carter could not have known how much the shah had lost support or that he was to die from cancer within months. “It was the single worst intelligence failure in American history,” Eizenstat said in 2018 as he presented a book assessing Carter as a success. – Peacemaker legacy – Uniquely among modern US presidents, much of Carter’s legacy came after he left the White House. He won the Nobel Peace Prize more than two decades after his defeat at the polls. The Carter Center, which he established in his home state of Georgia, has championed democracy and global health, observing elections in dozens of countries and virtually eradicating guinea worm, a painful infectious parasite. Carter also took risks that few others of his stature would. He paid a landmark visit to North Korea in 1994, helping avert conflict, and infuriated Israel by asking if its treatment of the Palestinians constituted “apartheid.” But the accusations of weakness never went away. Conservative academic William Russell Mead, in a 2010 essay in Foreign Policy magazine, called on then-president Barack Obama to avoid “Carter Syndrome,” which he described as “weakness and indecision” and “incoherence and reversals.” Carter personally responded in a letter that listed accomplishments on the Camp David accords, China, the Soviet Union and human rights, while describing the fall of Iran’s shah as “obviously unpredictable.” “Although it is true that we did not become involved in military combat during my presidency, I do not consider this a sign of weakness or reason for apology,” he wrote. With 2,400 staff representing 100 different nationalities, AFP covers the world as a leading global news agency. AFP provides fast, comprehensive and verified coverage of the issues affecting our daily lives.
TO REPORT SCORES Coaches or team representatives, please report results as soon as possible after games by emailing sports@caledonian-record.com . Please submit with a name/contact number. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.ZURICH (AP) — Saudi Arabia scored a major win in its campaign to attract major sports events to the kingdom when it was formally appointed as the 2034 World Cup host on Wednesday. Still, many questions remain about the tournament as well as the 2030 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with three games in South America. Here are some of the key issues that need to be answered over the next decade: Saudi Arabia proposes 15 stadiums — eight still on paper — in five cities: Eight in the capital Riyadh, four in the Red Sea port city Jeddah, and one each in Abha, Al Khobar and Neom, the planned futuristic mega-project. Each would have at least 40,000 seats for World Cup games. The opening game and final are set for a 92,000-seat venue planned in Riyadh. Some designs are vivid . In Neom, the stadium is planned 350 meters (yards) above street level and one near Riyadh is designed to be atop a 200-meter cliff with a retractable wall of LED screens. Saudi Arabia aims to host all 104 games, though there has been speculation that some games could be played in neighboring or nearby countries. Surely not in the traditional World Cup period of June-July, when temperatures in Saudi Arabia routinely exceed 40 Celsius (104 degrees). FIFA moved the Qatar-hosted World Cup to November-December 2022, though those dates were not loved by most European clubs and leagues whose seasons were interrupted. Also, that slot is complicated in 2034 by the holy month of Ramadan through mid-December and Riyadh hosting the multi-sport Asian Games. January 2034 could be a possibility even though that would be just before the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The International Olympic Committee has signaled it won’t be opposed to back-to-back major events. In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Saudi World Cup bid official Hammad Albalawi said the precise dates of the tournament are up the world soccer body. “That’s a decision by FIFA. We stand ready to be part of this conversation. But ultimately it’s a FIFA decision together with the confederations,” Albalawi said. Giving more rights and freedoms to women in a traditionally conservative society is fundamental to Saudi messaging around the modernization program known as Vision 2030. The kingdom decided in 2017 to let women attend sports events, initially in major cities and in family zones separate from men-only sections. By 2034, at the promised pace of social reforms, female fans should not be restricted. Saudi Arabia launched a women’s professional soccer league in 2022 with players joining from clubs in Europe. They face no restrictions playing in shorts and with hair uncovered. The Saudi prohibition of alcohol is clear and understood before FIFA signs any sponsor deals for 2034. But will there be any exceptions? The alcohol issue was problematic for the World Cup in Qatar because the expectation was created that beer sales would be allowed at stadiums even before Qatar won its bid in 2010. One year later, FIFA extended a long-time deal to have Budweiser as the official World Cup beer through 2022. Qatar then backtracked on that promise three days before the first game, causing confusion and the sense of a promise broken. In Qatar, alcohol was served only at luxury suites at the stadiums. Visitors could also have a drink in some hotel bars. But Saudi Arabia has even stricter rules on alcohol — and there is no indication that will change. Albalawi noted that Saudi Arabia has successfully hosted dozens of sports events where alcohol wasn't served. “We’re creating a safe and secure family environment for fans to bring their families into our stadiums,” he said. Saudi promises to reform and enforce labor laws, and fully respect migrant workers, have been accepted by FIFA but face broad skepticism from rights groups and trade unions. A formal complaint is being investigated by the U.N.-backed International Labor Organization. Protecting the migrant workers needed to build stadiums and other tournament projects — a decade after it was a defining issue for Qatar — looms as a signature challenge for Saudi Arabia. Saudi-Israeli relations had been improving when FIFA all but gave the 2034 World Cup to the kingdom on Oct. 4 last year. Three days later Hamas attacked Israel and diplomacy got more complicated. Any soccer federation bidding to host a FIFA tournament accepts a basic principle that whichever team qualifies is welcome. That did not stop Indonesia putting up barriers last year to Israel coming for the men’s Under-20 World Cup. Indonesia does not have formal diplomatic relations with Israel which had qualified through a European tournament nine months before the issue flared. FIFA moved the entire tournament to Argentina and the Israeli team reached the semifinals. Israel played at the 1970 World Cup but has never advanced through qualifying in Europe, where it has been a member of UEFA for 30 years. Europe should have 16 places in the 48-team World Cup in Saudi Arabia. Most of the attention at the FIFA Congress on Wednesday was on the Saudi decision, but the soccer body and its members also formally approved the hosts of the 2030 World Cup — the most spread out and longest ever. One game each in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, the original host in 1930, will be played from June 8-9. The tournament resumes four days later for the other 101 games shared between Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Six countries, three continents, multiple languages and currencies. Fans traveling on planes, trains, automobiles and boats across about 14 kilometers (10 miles) of water between Spain and Morocco. The final is due on July 21, 2030 and a decision on where it will be played could cause some tension between the host countries. Morocco wants it in the world’s biggest soccer venue — the planned 115,000-seat King Hassan II Stadium in Casablanca. Spain, meanwhile, has proposed to host the final in either of the remodeled home stadiums of club giants Real Madrid or Barcelona. Associated Press writer Baraa Anwer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report.Alberta aiming to create test site to support new drilling technologies
Reiterates Commitment to Investing in America to Lower Grocery Prices, Raise Associate Wages, and Support Local Communities Highlights Resilience of Value Creation Model and Strong Momentum to Drive Long-term, Sustainable Growth Board of Directors Authorizes $7.5B Share Repurchase Program including $5B Accelerated Share Repurchase CINCINNATI , Dec. 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today terminated its merger agreement with Albertsons after the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon granted the Federal Trade Commission's request for a preliminary injunction to block the proposed merger. After reviewing options, the company determined it is no longer in its best interests to pursue the merger. "Kroger is moving forward from a position of strength. Our go-to-market strategy provides exceptional value and unique omnichannel experiences to our customers which powers our value creation model. We look forward to accelerating our flywheel to grow our alternative profit businesses and generate increased cash flows. The strength of our balance sheet and sustainability of our model allows us to pursue a variety of growth opportunities, including further investment in our store network through new stores and remodels, which will be an important part of our 8 – 11% TSR model over time," said Rodney McMullen , Kroger's Chairman and CEO. America's Grocer is Committed to Lowering Grocery Prices & Investing in Associates "Kroger has an extraordinary track record of investing in America," said McMullen. "We are at our best when we serve others – our customers, associates, and communities – and we take seriously our responsibility to provide great value by consistently lowering prices and offering more choices. When we do this, more customers shop with us and buy more groceries, which allows us to reinvest in even lower prices, a better shopping experience and higher wages. We know this model works because we've been doing it successfully for many years, and this is exactly what we will continue to do." Kroger's ongoing investments in America include: "I appreciate our associates who remained focused on taking care of our customers, communities and each other throughout the merger process," added McMullen. Share Repurchase Program Including Accelerated Share Repurchases Now that Kroger has terminated the merger agreement, the company is ready to deploy its capacity. With its strengthened balance sheet, Kroger will resume share repurchases after a more than two-year pause. Since announcing the merger, Kroger used its strong free cash flow and debt financing to build meaningful balance sheet capacity while maintaining its investment-grade rating. Kroger's Board of Directors approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the repurchase of up to $7.5 billion of common stock. The new repurchase authorization replaces Kroger's existing $1 billion authorization which was approved in September 2022 . Kroger intends to enter an accelerated share repurchase ("ASR") agreement for the repurchase of approximately $5 billion of common stock. "Our strong balance sheet and free cash flows position us to deliver on our commitment to grow the business and return capital to shareholders, maintaining capacity to invest in lower prices and higher associate wages," McMullen said. Kroger expects to continue to generate strong free cash flow and remains committed to its capital allocation priorities including maintaining its current investment grade debt rating, investing in the business to drive long-term sustainable net earnings growth, and returning excess free cash flow to shareholders via share repurchases and a growing dividend over time, subject to board approval. Looking forward, Kroger plans to host an Investor Day event in late spring of 2025 to share an update on its strategic priorities, future growth prospects and long-term financial outlook. Merger Debt Redemption In connection with the termination of the merger agreement, Kroger will begin the process of redeeming the $4.7 billion of its senior notes issued on August 27, 2024 , that include a special mandatory redemption provision in accordance with their terms. The notes will be redeemed at a redemption price equal to 101% of their principal amount, plus accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the special mandatory redemption date. Termination of Exchange Offers In connection with the termination of the merger agreement, Kroger has also elected to terminate its previously announced offers to exchange (collectively, the "Exchange Offers") any and all outstanding notes (the "ACI Notes") issued by Albertsons Companies, Inc., New Albertsons, L.P., Safeway Inc., Albertson's LLC, Albertsons Safeway LLC and American Stores Company, LLC (collectively, the "ACI Issuing Entities"), for up to $7,441,608,000 aggregate principal amount of new notes to be issued by Kroger and cash. Kroger has also elected to terminate the related solicitation of consents (the "Consent Solicitation" and, together with the Exchange Offer, the "Exchange Offer and Consent Solicitation") on behalf of the ACI Issuing Entities to adopt certain proposed amendments to the indentures governing the ACI Notes (the "ACI Indentures"). As a result of the Exchange Offer being terminated, the total consideration, including any consent fee, will not be paid or become payable to holders of the ACI Notes who have validly tendered and not validly withdrawn their ACI Notes for exchange in the Exchange Offer, and the ACI Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn for exchange pursuant to the Exchange Offer will be promptly returned to the tendering holders. As a result of the Consent Solicitation being terminated, the proposed amendments to the ACI Indentures and the supplemental indentures previously entered into reflecting such proposed amendments will not become operative. About the Exchange Offers Global Bondholder Services Corporation served as exchange agent and information agent for the now terminated Exchange Offer and Consent Solicitation. You should direct questions and requests for assistance to Global Bondholder Services Corporation at (855) 654-2015 (toll-free) or (212) 430-3774 (banks and brokers), or by email at contact@gbsc-usa.com . About Kroger At The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR), we are dedicated to our Purpose: to Feed the Human SpiritTM. We are, across our family of companies nearly 414,000 associates who serve over eleven million customers daily through a seamless digital shopping experience and retail food stores under a variety of banner names , serving America through food inspiration and uplift, and creating #ZeroHungerZeroWaste communities. To learn more about us, visit our newsroom and investor relations site. Forward Looking Statements This press release contains certain statements that constitute "forward-looking statements" about Kroger's financial position and the future performance of the company. These statements are based on management's assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it. Such statements are indicated by words or phrases such as "achieve," "committed," "confidence," "continue," "deliver," "expect," "future," "guidance," "model," "outlook," "strategy," "target," "trends," "well-positioned," and variations of such words and similar phrases. Various uncertainties and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These include the specific risk factors identified in "Risk Factors" in our annual report on Form 10-K for our last fiscal year and any subsequent filings, as well as the following: Kroger's ability to achieve sales, earnings, incremental FIFO operating profit, and adjusted free cash flow goals may be affected by: the termination of the merger agreement and our proposed transaction with Albertsons and related divestiture plan; labor negotiations; potential work stoppages; changes in the unemployment rate; pressures in the labor market; changes in government-funded benefit programs; changes in the types and numbers of businesses that compete with Kroger; pricing and promotional activities of existing and new competitors, and the aggressiveness of that competition; Kroger's response to these actions; the state of the economy, including interest rates, the inflationary, disinflationary and/or deflationary trends and such trends in certain commodities, products and/or operating costs; the geopolitical environment including wars and conflicts; unstable political situations and social unrest; changes in tariffs; the effect that fuel costs have on consumer spending; volatility of fuel margins; manufacturing commodity costs; supply constraints; diesel fuel costs related to Kroger's logistics operations; trends in consumer spending; the extent to which Kroger's customers exercise caution in their purchasing in response to economic conditions; the uncertainty of economic growth or recession; stock repurchases; changes in the regulatory environment in which Kroger operates, along with changes in federal policy and at regulatory agencies; Kroger's ability to retain pharmacy sales from third party payors; consolidation in the healthcare industry, including pharmacy benefit managers; Kroger's ability to negotiate modifications to multi-employer pension plans; natural disasters or adverse weather conditions; the effect of public health crises or other significant catastrophic events; the potential costs and risks associated with potential cyber-attacks or data security breaches; the success of Kroger's future growth plans; the ability to execute our growth strategy and value creation model, including continued cost savings, growth of our alternative profit businesses, and our ability to better serve our customers and to generate customer loyalty and sustainable growth through our strategic pillars of fresh, our brands, personalization, and seamless; the successful integration of merged companies and new strategic collaborations; and the risks relating to or arising from our proposed nationwide opioid litigation settlement, including our ability to finalize and effectuate the settlement, the scope and coverage of the ultimate settlement and the expected financial or other impacts that could result from the settlement. Our ability to achieve these goals may also be affected by our ability to manage the factors identified above. Our ability to execute our financial strategy may be affected by our ability to generate cash flow. Kroger assumes no obligation to update the information contained herein unless required by applicable law. Please refer to Kroger's reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a further discussion of these risks and uncertainties. View original content to download multimedia: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kroger-reiterates-its-commitment-to-lower-prices-and-initiates-new-7-5b-share-buyback-program-302329493.html SOURCE The Kroger Co.
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