New car sales in the European Union fell steeply in January, hitting a record low for the month as coronavirus-related restrictions weighed, according to data published Wednesday.
Across the EU, new car registrations–a reflection of sales–fell 24% to 726,491 vehicles in January, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA. The figure is the lowest total for January on record, with pandemic-related restrictions continuing to affect sales. Most markets also had one less business day than the previous January.
A majority of countries in the bloc posted double-digit decreases in January, with Spain hardest hit at a decline of more than 50% on the year. In Germany sales were down 31%, and those in Italy fell 14%. France was the best-performing major market with a drop of 5.8%, while in Sweden sales were up 23%, making it the only EU country where the figure was positive.
Meanwhile, all major European auto makers saw sales decline on-year in January. Volkswagen AG experienced a decline of 27%, while two other German companies, Daimler AG and Bayerische Motoren Werken AG, recorded drops of 14% each. Sales at France’s Renault SA fell 22%, and sales at recently-formed Stellantis NV dropped 26%, based on comparable figures from last year for its constituent companies Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot.
Uber Technologies Inc. today called on European Union officials to implement new rules to regulate “gig economy” platforms such as its ride-hailing and food delivery apps.
The company also published a lengthy paper outlining its positions on the matter.
The move comes as the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, prepares to weigh whether regulatory reforms should be implemented to enhance the working conditions provided by Uber and other gig economy apps. A draft version of the new rules could be ready before year’s end, Reuters reported today.
One of the central topics in the discussion around the gig economy has been how to classify gig economy workers. Uber and tech companies with similar business models, such as Lyft Inc., classify their drivers as independent contractors. There have been legislative efforts aimed at requiring the firms to reclassify their drivers as full-time employees and provide them employment benefits such as overtime pay, paid sick leave and family leave.
“We believe a new approach is possible — one where having access to protections and benefits doesn’t come at the cost of flexibility and of job creation,” Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi wrote in a blog post today.
In California, voters last year approved a ballot measure called Proposition 22 that allows companies such as Uber to continue classifying drivers as independent contractors but requires them to provide expanded benefits.
In the EU, new rules are needed to “standardise and improve access to protections and benefits for independent workers,” Khosrowshahi wrote. “This could include helping platform workers pay into existing public social protection schemes. Or it could mean an industry-funded portable benefits fund, allowing platform workers to accrue funds to access the protections and benefits they want.”
The new rules should be implemented in the form of “industry-wide standards that all platform companies must provide for independent workers,” the CEO elaborated. “Critically, whatever the model, there must be an industry level playing field to ensure all independent workers have consistent earnings whichever app they choose to work on.”
The European Commission will reportedly hold a consultation on Feb. 24 to seek feedback from workers and employers’ representatives on gig economy working conditions. The commission will first seek input on whether new rules are needed and then decide the content of the legislation.
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France is reportedly pushing to expand regulations that would give European Union member states more power to punish large tech companies’ bad behavior.
The changes France wants to see concern the Digital Services Act, proposed legislation that was designed to reduce anticompetitive behavior by tech companies and provide more online protections for consumers. If companies are found to have transgressed, the fines would be heavy.
France would also like to see countries have the power to force companies to remove content from their platforms that’s deemed problematic. Effectively, France is calling for individual states rather than the EU to be responsible for weeding out “illegal content.”
As it stands, EU member countries don’t have this ability unless the said tech companies have servers located in their country. Apple Inc., Google LLC, Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. currently have servers in Ireland and Luxembourg.
According to the Financial Times, Cedric O, France’s minister for the digital economy, has been meeting over the last few weeks with various members of the European parliament to discuss the matter. “Getting these laws passed is a major objective of ours for when France next holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council next year,” he told the Times. “They touch on vitally important subjects both for our economies and democracies.”
The proposition makes some EU officials worried. They told the Times that such a move would “fragment” the single market, saying that if 27 countries are each allowed to make such decisions, the outcome would turn “the single market into a nightmare.”
O also wants member countries to be able to police what it called “harmful content and disinformation,” not just illegal content. “We think the text needs to be broadened to include other types of problematic content,” he said. “If there is no legal framework, there is nothing to stop Twitter or Facebook from censoring speech they do not like.”
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PARIS, Feb 15: The European Union will this week kick off a new programme to study mutations in the COVID-19 virus, in a bid to prepare for the next generation of vaccines that might be needed, the European Commission’s president told Les Echos.
The programme, dubbed “HERA incubator,“ will bring together health authorities and laboratories and have its own funding, Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview with the French financial newspaper. It will be launched on Wednesday.
“As of now, and in parallel to the efforts being made on the current vaccines, we have to help industrial companies develop production capacities for second generation vaccines,“ von der Leyen was quoted as saying.
Von der Leyen last week acknowledged failings in the EU’s approval and rollout of vaccines against COVID-19 and said the bloc had learned lessons in the process after criticism of the slow roll-out of vaccines. –Reuters
Ahold Delhaize reports Q4 results; strengthens position as industry-leading local omnichannel retailer in 2021 and beyond – Book Publishing Industry Today – EIN Presswire
On December 21, 2020 –just four days before Christians everywhere would celebrate the birth of their Savior– the Vatican’s doctrinal office (The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a statement alleging that it is “morally acceptable” for Catholics to take the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the fact that aborted fetal cells were used in the development of the vaccine. The doctrinal office pointed to the “grave danger” of the COVID-19 pandemic, reasoning that the threat posed to life on earth outweighs the inherent immorality of profiting from the murder of innocent life in the womb.
The office continued…
When ethically irreproachable COVID-19 vaccines are not available … it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses in their research and production process.
Let’s just start with the easy part: the Vatican is WRONG, dead wrong (quite literally, as they are advocating that Christians seek to gain a profit from death itself). It is never morally permissible to commit evil acts, even for the sake of some “greater good.” That is absolutely and unequivocally at odds with Catholic teaching, and faithful Catholics (not just the kind that are more than happy to conceal the image of God with a mask in the house of the Lord) know this already.
It is also never morally permissible to profit from the evil of others. As The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) tells us…
A good intention (for example, that of helping one’s neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation. CCC 1753 (emphasis added).
…
It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it. CCC 1756 (emphasis added).
…
“An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means. CCC 1759 (emphasis added).
Were we to follow the Vatican’s reasoning to its natural and logical conclusion, it would be morally permissible for one to willfully slaughter a child in exchange for a terrorist’s promise that he would spare the lives of 10 hostages if you did so. After all, in that dreadful scenario, the ratio of life preserved to life lost would be 10:1, so your act of murder actually saved 10 lives. Given the threat that all 10 of those hostages would be killed if you chose not to kill the child, you really had no “ethically irreproachable” option, right? I hope it is patently obvious that this is a rhetorical question.
But you know what? It really doesn’t matter what they say, because their “opinion” is irrelevant. For the purposes of the First Amendment, if you hold a sincere personal religious belief that it is immoral to use or receive a product that was procured through the death of innocents, you can legitimately claim a religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine (or any other vaccine produced using aborted fetal cells, like the measles/mumps/rubella, or MMR, vaccine), regardless of your church’s official (or unofficial) position on the subject.
The Supreme Court of the United States, while never precisely defining “religion,” has clearly stated that a law violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment if it gives preference to objections founded in theistic beliefs over those that stem from one’s moral, ethical, or philosophical beliefs. See Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 356-61 (1970).
As Justice Tom C. Clark so eloquently stated in United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 184 (1965),
The validity of what he believes cannot be questioned. Some theologians, and indeed some examiners, might be tempted to question the existence of the registrant’s ‘Supreme Being’ or the truth of his concepts. But these are inquiries foreclosed to Government.
Those of us involved in the ongoing struggle for medical freedom in this country have heard time and again politicians dismissing their constituents’ religious beliefs as “invalid” simply because they do not align with a tenet or the official position of one’s stated religious affiliation. This would seem to fit squarely within the ambit of the line of inquiries “foreclosed to Government.”
Government officials have absolutely no right to tell you that your beliefs aren’t valid. Politicians are not the arbiters of our faith. We are a nation of free persons, and nowhere does that freedom manifest itself more dearly than in our religious beliefs. Just as it was reprehensible for governors and mayors to pick “winners and losers” among our businesses through illogical and unconstitutional lockdown orders, it is even more reprehensible for state actors to decide which beliefs are worthy of protection.
The Framers of our Constitution agreed, and so gifted us the First Amendment. God bless them, and God bless the brave men and women who have fought so valiantly to defend it. We will not stand idly by while these godless tyrants try to tear that precious document to shreds, besmirching the memory and the honor of those who died for its sake. Stand tall. Stand proud. Stand together, one nation, under God.
<h3>15 February 2021</h3>
The European Union has released its Winter 2021 Economic Forecast, which says that Brexit will dent UK economic growth considerably, and more than for the European Union, despite the new free trade deal between the two parties.
The free trade deal between the UK and the EU provides for zero tariffs and zero quotas on all goods trade that complies with the appropriate rules of origin. However, the report highlights that non-tariff barriers have increased substantially for both imports and exports from and to the UK.
“In sum, while the FTA improves the situation as
compared to an outcome with no trade agreement
between the EU and the UK, it cannot come close
to matching the benefits of the trading relations
provided by EU membership,” the report says.
The report estimates that, for the EU, on average, the exit of the UK from the European Union under the FTA will generate a loss of GDP of 0.5 percent by 2022. The UK, meanwhile, will see a 2.25 percent drop in GDP over the same period.
Compared to a scenario where the EU and the UK failed to agree an FTA, the FTA has cut the negative economic impact on the EU by about a third and for the UK by about a quarter. The report says those member states with a larger share of goods trade with the UK benefit
relatively more from the FTA than those
with a higher share of trade in services.
While the UK and the EU have agreed to impose no tariffs on goods trade, new non-tariff barriers are considerable, equal to a tax of 10.9 percent for EU imports and 8.5 percent for UK imports, the report says.
Horizon Europe is to allocate €5 million for projects aimed at understanding the benefits and risks of genome editing technologies in agriculture over the next two years, according to a leaked draft work programme.
The move is in support of the ‘Farm to Fork’ plan to reduce the use of fertilisers by 30 per cent and turn 25 per cent of agricultural land over to organic farming. To reach these objectives, the Commission says the EU needs to “enable major advances in the life sciences and biotechnology, in new genomic techniques, such as gene/genome editing.”
Plans for the €5 million call come after EU agriculture ministers called on the Commission last October to enable the use of “new innovative ingredients and techniques” to boost sustainable food production, once they are shown to be safe for humans, animals and the environment. The headline figure for the call is only indicative, and the Commission could fund proposals that go beyond this figure.
Also last October, French scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, and her collaboration partner Jennifer Doudna, were awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry “for the development of a method for genome editing.”
But as things stand, precision breeding of plants with gene editing technologies cannot be used in the EU, following a 2018 ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which founds genome editing is subject to the 2001 EU directive banning genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
In an early post-Brexit move, the UK last month launched an industry consultation on gene editing, as it seeks to move away from EU regulations on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Depending on the outcome, there will be a second consultation on changing the definition of a GMO. The UK government view is that organisms produced by gene editing or by other genetic technologies, should not be regulated as GMOs if they could have been produced by traditional breeding methods.
The proposed €5 million for genome editing research is a small part of a total of €1.83 billion that is to be spent in 2021 and 2022 on Horizon Europe’s sixth cluster on food, bioeconomy natural resources, agriculture and environment, the draft work programme from December 2020 has revealed.
The European Commission is expected to publish the official work programmes with final funding figures and deadlines for application by the end of April. However, many research stakeholders have had access to draft versions of the documents posted online. Science|Business has published a trove of such documents, which offer researchers a detailed insight of how the €95.5 billion funding programme will be organised.
Call to lift gene editing ban
Research stakeholders have been calling on the EU to lift restrictions on genetically modified crops, to allow the use of genome editing, which need not involve the introduction of foreign genes. In 2020, in a report by the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, researchers in 120 institutions across Europe appealed to the Commission to help reverse the ECJ ruling.
According to the report, the policy change would help Europe develop more productive, climate-friendly, and resilient crops, and bring the EU up to date with recent scientific developments. “These new technologies may contribute to a reduction of the environmental footprint of agriculture,” the researchers said.
While agriculture ministers expect the Commission to complete a study of the status of novel genomic techniques under EU legislation by April, the Horizon call is still asking researchers to align their proposals with existing EU laws, including the infamous ECJ ruling of 2018.
Proposals are expected to advance “new genomic techniques in bio-based innovation” and to “assess potential critical impacts and bottlenecks with respect to the EU and international governance frameworks.”
Other priorities
According to the draft work programme, the Commission is planning to allocate €404 million over the next two years for research projects supporting its Farm to Fork strategy.
The Commission is also looking for proposals to explore the evolution and spread of microbiomes in the wild and their relationship with biodiversity loss and the growing risk of epidemics.
A €15 million call will be reserved for projects developing innovative digital tools tailored to the needs of small- and medium-sized farms. The Commission wants farmers to increase their uptake of digital technologies and prevent an increased digital divide between small and large farms.
The Commission is also planning to allocate €230 million over the next two years on projects addressing the EU’s push for a ‘circular economy’, by significantly reducing waste and promoting continuous recycling of natural resources.
The projects are expected to improve material selection and product design, but also to promote new value chains and business models focused on the upgrade, refurbishment and remanufacturing, of products to reduce waste.
Some calls will be dedicated to projects that seek to make EU’s industry more sustainable and reduce its dependence on resources, by lowering the use of primary non-renewable raw materials.
By ANI
NEW DELHI: Delhi Police Commissioner SN Shrivastava on Tuesday said they did not discriminate on the basis of religion and confirmed that nearly 1,800 people were arrested in connection with the northeast Delhi violence.
“We conducted an impartial investigation in northeast Delhi violence using technology and evidence. One constable lost his life while many personnel got injured. Didn’t discriminate on the basis of religion and registered 755 cases. Nearly 1,800 were arrested,” said Delhi Police Commissioner, speaking at the 74th Raising Day of Delhi Police.
At least 53 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured in the violence that took place in northeast Delhi between February 24 and 26 last year sparked by clashes between groups supporting and opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Shrivastava further said the Delhi Police tackled the COVID-19 lockdown in a commendable manner, earning the title of ‘Dil Ki Police’.
“Home Minister Amit Shah also lauded the efforts of the police force. We lost 34 police personnel during this period,” added SN Shrivastava.
