Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) subsidiary Google is under fire in the European Union for failing to alter its business practices even after it was fined, the Financial Times reported Sunday.
What Happened: A study commissioned by 25 shopping sites that looked at 10.5 billion clicks indicated that less than one percent of traffic through Google Shopping is being directed to rival sites such as Kelkoo and Idealo, according to FT.
The study, undertaken by Lademann & Associates, is the first such comprehensive empirical research that shows that Google still undermines competition, Thomas Hoppner, a lawyer advising the companies, told FT.
The analysis was reportedly conducted three years after Google made changes to its shopping search after the European Commission fined it $2.7 billion for favoring its own comparison shopping service and “demoting those of competitors.”
Olivier Guersent, who heads the EU’s Competition department, said officials were seeing “positive developments” after Google made changes in its shopping search.
Why It Matters: Hoppner alleged that Google’s main search results, a key source of traffic, remain unaffected by the changes. He claimed the remedy deployed by the Sundar Pichai-led company “has not improved the competitive situation at all.”
Google is contesting the fine and the European General Court’s decision is expected at the end of the year, FT noted.
In July, the Google parent was hit with a record $5.1 billion fine from the EU after the bloc alleged that it had used its Android operating system to establish the dominance of its own search engine.
The Mountain View, California-based company is also trying to fend off an antitrust investigation from the EU into its $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit Inc (NYSE: FIT).
Price Action: Alphabet Class A shares closed almost 1.1% higher at $1,439.06 on Friday. On the same day, the company’s Class C shares closed almost 1.2% higher at $1,444.96.
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)
Good morning.
We’re covering the takeaways from more than two decades of President Trump’s tax returns, the global death toll from the coronavirus and the death of a man who ate one to two large bags of black licorice a day for three weeks.
Image
President Trump and the Manhattan district attorney have been locked in a legal battle over the president’s tax returns for more than a year.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
In 2016, the year Donald Trump won the presidency, he paid $750 in federal income taxes. The following year, he paid another $750. And in 10 of the previous 15 years, he paid no income taxes at all — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
Response: Mr. Trump denied wrongdoing and attacked the I.R.S. in response to questions about the investigation, which he dismissed as “fake news.”
Timeline: Our interactive timeline charts the ebbs and flows of Mr. Trump’s finances, including huge losses, looming financial threats and a large, contested refund from the I.R.S. that could cost him more than $100 million.
In brief: Key findings from the investigation include the $70,000 spent on hairstyling, the 20 percent of income set aside across nearly all his projects for unexplained “consulting fees” and how his unprofitable companies help reduce his tax bill.
Editor’s note: “We are publishing this report because we believe citizens should understand as much as possible about their leaders and representatives,” writes Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times. “Every president since the mid-1970s has made his tax information public.”
A coronavirus victim laid to rest in New Delhi on Sunday. Credit…Sajjad Hussain/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
One million people have died from the coronavirus
The world is likely to pass a painful milestone in the coming 24 hours: more than one million deaths from Covid-19. India, the world’s second-most populous nation, leads in daily virus-related deaths. The U.S. is second, with Brazil and Mexico third and fourth. These four countries account for more than half the world’s total deaths from the virus.
As of this writing, at least 994,457 people have died, nearly 32 million people have been sickened, and the virus has been detected in nearly every country, according to a Times database. The World Health Organization said on Friday that the death toll could double if countries did not uniformly work to suppress the virus’s spread.
With seasons changing, some countries that were hit hard by the virus in the spring and summer are beginning to shed lockdown policies, raising fears of future surges. In Europe, second waves of infections have already hit Britain, Spain and France.
The French Open tennis tournament began in Paris despite a recent spike in coronavirus cases that restricted spectators on the grounds to 1,000 per day.
In Madrid, about 1,000 protesters took to the streets on Sunday to demand an end to a partial lockdown imposed by the regional government.
Without further restrictions, Britain could end up “caught in a cycle of epidemic waves,” a member of the government’s scientific advisory board warned.
A memorial at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris after the 2015 attack. Credit…Robert Deyrail/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images
Heart-wrenching testimony from survivors in Paris
In a Paris courthouse last week, survivors and families of the four victims of an attack on a kosher supermarket in January 2015 relayed their memories of the terrifying assault and how it left their personal lives in tatters. More than a dozen people are on trial, many facing charges of aiding the assailant, the Islamic extremist Amedy Coulibaly, who was killed after security forces stormed the grocery.
Because of the attacks, “no Jew in France can go to the synagogue or drop off their children at school without thinking that they are a target,” Francis Kalifat, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, told the court. “This trial must also be the trial of an anti-Semitism that kills.”
Charlie Hebdo: The 2015 attacks came just days after the massacre of cartoonists and journalists at the offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo. On Friday, two additional people were stabbed outside the former Paris office of the newspaper. A suspect in the stabbing has confessed, saying that his attack was directed at the publication because it had reprinted cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad.
If you have some time, this is worth it
How Amazon won over Italy — finally
Credit…Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times
Hampered by a lack of widespread broadband, an older population unused to shopping online and poor infrastructure for delivering packages, Amazon had long struggled to make inroads in Italy. But the country’s early, biting lockdown at the start of the pandemic has changed the equation for many Italians — possibly permanently.
Child labor: With schools closed because of the pandemic, children are taking illegal and often dangerous jobs in India and other developing countries, potentially rolling back years of progress in social mobility and public health.
Nagorno-Karabakh: Fighting broke out on Sunday on the long-disputed border of the breakaway province between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and quickly escalated to the largest clash since 2016. The neighboring countries described the events as “war.”
Uighurs: Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, described his policies in the autonomous region of Xinjiang as a “totally correct” success and vowed to do more to imprint Chinese national identity “deep in the soul” of Uighurs and other largely Muslim minorities.
Paternity leave: Switzerland is the last country in Western Europe to adopt a law mandating paternity leave, beating back strong conservative opposition to the proposal.
Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Snapshot: Above at the White House, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump’s pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. If confirmed, the 48-year-old judge’s almost uniformly conservative voting record suggests she would move the court to the right, potentially changing the right to abortion in the U.S.
Lives lived: The game-changing French chef Pierre Troisgros, whose unpretentious approach to seasonal cooking earned him fans, plaudits and Michelin stars, died at 92 on Wednesday at his home in Le Coteau, France.
Licorice: A new scientific journal article explores the death of a 54-year-old man from Massachusetts, who died after eating one to two large bags of black licorice a day for three weeks, eventually resulting in cardiac arrest.
What we’re reading: “In this powerful piece,” Marc Lacey, our National editor writes, “the Los Angeles Times reporter Greg Braxton confronts a former editor about a remark that has bothered him for nearly 30 years.”
Now, a break from the news
Credit…Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Read: Daniel Kraus’s “They Threw Us Away” and “Saucy,” by Cynthia Kadohata, are among a new crop of children’s books helping to revive the genre of richly illustrated novels.
Listen: The latest playlist from our pop critics features some sass and swing from Jennifer Lopez and Maluma, and Wizkid, an Afrobeats luminary from Nigeria.
It’s the start of a new week. Take some time to explore new ideas from our At Home collection on what to read, cook, watch and do while staying safe at home.
And now for the Back Story on …
Frame by frame: Inside our video investigations
Since the killing of George Floyd in May, The Times’s visual investigations unit has examined several cases involving police violence or scenes of protest in the U.S. The team of reporters, editors and producers tries to provide a more complete picture of an event. Our Times Insider series took a look at how they do it.
“Often there’s one video from these incidents that goes extremely viral for a variety of reasons: It’s intense, it’s graphic, it’s emotional for a lot of people. But very often, those single videos that go viral don’t tell the whole story of what happened,” said Haley Willis, a video producer on the team who worked on the report detailing the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.
The visual investigations team uses original recordings, explores open sources like social media, analyzes and authenticates audio components of a recording, reviews incident reports and applies traditional methods of tracking down sources and mapping out timelines.
Credit…By The New York Times. Image: Brendan Gutenschwager, via Storyful
For the team, achieving accuracy is always a must. But at a time when these viral events can quickly become politicized, another priority is presenting the information in a way that’s tonally sensitive and responsible.
“We never want to just show something graphic just to show it,” said Whitney Hurst, a senior producer. “We always want to be able to bring the analysis to the table that can really push the story forward.”
The utmost responsibility of each investigation, Ms. Hurst said, isto uncover and convey the facts — whether thattakes a few hours, a few days or even a few months — and to present the findings in a visual way that offers insight into that news.
More often than not, Ms. Willis said, the responses to their workhave a common thread: “I thought I knew what happened. But I didn’t.”
That’s it for this morning’s briefing. See you tomorrow.
— Natasha
Thank you To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].
P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on the push to reform policing in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Piece of soap” (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The word “pornomime” — a neologism meaning a mime that acts out sexual scenarios — first appeared in The Times on Sunday, according to the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said. • The Times put together useful information for Americans voting from abroad in the Nov. 3 election.
The appeal will send the case to Europe’s highest court where a final decision will be made.
The case focuses on whether a deal made between Apple and Irish tax authorities was illegal, with the EC alleging that the deal granted Apple €13 billion in unlawful tax advantages.
The EU’s second-highest court disagreed with these allegations, however, ruling in July that there was not enough evidence to demonstrate that the tech giant broke EU competition rules.
“The General Court annuls the contested decision because the Commission did not succeed in showing to the requisite legal standard that there was an advantage for the purposes of Article 107(1) TFEU,” the judgment [PDF] said.
In announcing the appeal, the commission said it believed the General Court had made a “number of errors of law” when making its judgment.
“We have to continue to use all tools at our disposal to ensure companies pay their fair share of tax. Otherwise, the public purse and citizens are deprived of funds for much-needed investments — the need for which is even more acute now to support Europe’s economic recovery,” European Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.
"If Member States give certain multinational companies tax advantages not available to their rivals, this harms fair competition in the European Union in breach of State aid rules," Vestager added.
The EC originally made these allegations against Apple back in 2016, after a two-year investigation had found that Ireland issued two tax rulings to “substantially and artificially” lower Apple’s tax bills.
The deal allegedly saw Apple attribute all profits from two of its incorporated companies to a “head office” in Ireland, which had no employees and “could not have generated such profits”, the EC said at the time.
Zurich, Sep 28 (IANS) Swiss voters have rejected a proposal to end an accord with the EU allowing the free movement of people.
With all referendum votes counted, nearly 62 per cent said they wanted to keep free movement, while 38 per cent were against, the BBC reported.
Switzerland is not a member of the EU but has a series of interdependent treaties with Brussels which allow it to access to Europe’s free trade area.
The move to rein in immigration was proposed by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), but opposed by the government.
A similar initiative to introduce quotas on immigrants from the EU to Switzerland narrowly passed in a 2014 referendum, damaging Swiss-EU relations.
Swiss people are given a direct say in their own affairs under the country’s system of direct democracy. They are regularly invited to vote on various issues in national or regional referendums.
Supporters of the anti-free movement plan said it would allow Switzerland to control its borders and select only the immigrants it wants.
Opponents argued it would plunge a healthy economy into recession at an uncertain time and deprive hundreds of thousands of Swiss citizens of their freedom to live and work across Europe.
A landlocked country that has observed neutrality for centuries, Switzerland has over time veered between seeking closer engagement with the EU, and preferring a more isolationist course.
Sunday’s referendum could have forced the Swiss government to unilaterally void its free movement agreement with the EU by invoking a so-called guillotine clause.
This clause would have impacted other bilateral deals on transport, research and trade with the EU, disrupting economic activity.
The president of the right-wing SVP, Marco Chiesa, conceded that his campaign had struggled to garner enough support for a proposal which was opposed by the government, parliament and tradio unions.
Given that opposition, Chiesa framed the campaign as a “fight between David and Goliath”. “But we will continue to fight for the country and take back control of immigration,” he said.
Opponents of the proposal said the result was an expression of Swiss support for open, bilateral relations with the EU. They said voters were worried about the economic cost of ending free movement during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The bilateral path is the right one for Switzerland and for the EU,” Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter told reporters. “The Swiss people have confirmed this path again today”.
“Today is a great day for the relations between the European Union and Switzerland,” tweeted European Council President Charles Michel. “The Swiss people have spoken & sent a clear message: together we have a great future ahead of us.”
South African church leaders heard that corruption in their country kills when they organized for a campaign against the latest version of pillaging during the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The South African Council of Churches organized a nationwide campaign against corruption during September, Heritage Month in their country.
It is under the banner “Corruption is not our heritage” which highlights the human and monetary costs of corruption involving government officials and people in the private sector.
“People often speak about corruption is an abstract matter of rands [dollars] and cents, or irregular expenditure,” said University of Pretoria political science lecturer Dr. Sithembile Mbete in a webinar organized by the SACC on Sept. 9 to launch the campaign.
“And people have died because of the COVID-19 disease from having incorrect personal protective equipment and other issues that are related to the kind of corruption that we’ve seen around this issue.
“So, this isn’t just a high-level political issue but something about how we live as a society and whether people survive living in South Africa,” said Mbete, who moderated the session.
CREATING A FUTURE
Ziphozihle Siwa, presiding bishop of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and president of the South African Council of Churches led prayers at the beginning of the webinar.
“We pray Oh Lord that we use this time as we create a future. We know that future may be created by the actions of each and every citizen of this country,” he said.
Before the campaign began, Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town had addressed the nation’s president and other leaders about pandemic corruption.
“Mr. President, this is not only stealing. It is annihilating the very lives of the poorest; it is almost genocidal in effect.
“Corrupt bigwigs who have joined your party, not to serve the common good but to enrich themselves, act with impunity – their attitudes are debilitating, life-drenching.”
Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches, cited Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former South African Anglican leader Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu writing on the humanity-based philosophy of “ubuntu.”
“We know we belong in a greater whole diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, and others are tortured or oppressed — in this case, by COVID corruption and greed,” said Mpumlwana.
Also speaking at the webinar was South Africa’s auditor general, Kimi Makwetu.
He had released a scathing report earlier revealing that in some cases personal protective equipment was bought for five times more than the price the national treasury had advised.
Makwetu’s report had tracked the spending of 500 billion rands ($26 billion) equivalent to 10 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
“A lot of the effort that we put into this on the detection side of things has revealed a number of frightening findings that require to be followed up very quickly,” he said at a press conference.
‘ONLY SPENT MONEY HAS VALUE’
Mbete quoted the auditor general’s words at the webinar that the money in the national coffers, “does not have value until it is spent on the people for whom it is intended.”
Prof. William Gumede, a Witwatersrand University governance assistant professor, said, “I understand these gangsters; I grew up with gangs in the Cape Flats,” a crime-and poverty-ridden area of Cape Town.
“Real gangsters are setting up political parties, so we need to have a tightening of the rules for people who set up these political parties and for people who get elected.”
Gumede noted, “We need to bar companies found guilty of corrupt practices,” and their actions need to be made public.
At the end of the webinar, Mbete said, “I hope to take this as a real clarion call for us to build the kind of South Africa, that we intended to in 1994,” when Nelson Mandela became president of the country. The future is defined by justice and a better life for all of us.”
SACC leader Bishop Mpumlwana on Sept. 15 launched the nationwide silent prayers campaign against corruption in all South Africa’s nine provinces
“We are calling it a ‘performance of silence’ because the churches are speechless at this level of revolting fraud,” said Mpumlwana.
The campaign followed the moral call against COVID-19 corruption issued on Aug. 7, by a group of six organizations who call themselves the Moral Call Collective.
The collective is made up of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, Foundation for Human Rights, Nelson Mandela Foundation, and South African Council of Churches.
“We are saying as the churches, and active citizens, that we refuse for our nation’s culture and heritage to be one of stealing, and defrauding of public resources,” said Mpumlwana.
“Corruption, especially this blatant looting of COVID-19 funds that has been reported, is criminal and continues to cost us lives and livelihoods as a country.”
September 27, 2020 (KHARTOUM) – The European Union and the World Bank Saturday signed a partnership agreement to manage $110 million to fund Sudan Family Support Programme (SFSP) provided by the European countries.
This European support is critical for the Sudanese government to implement tough economic reforms including the end of commodities subsidies which would affect poor families.
“The signed agreement allocates a total amount of EUR 92.9 million (USD 110 million) to the Sudan Transition and Recovery Support (STARS) Multi-Donor Trust Fund administered and managed by the World Bank,” said a statement released by the EU office in Khartoum.
The trust fund is the primary financing mechanism for the government-led and implemented Sudan Family Support Program.
At the occasion, the ambassadors of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden also announced their support, summing up to $78.2 million USD, bringing the total Team Europe contribution to the SFSP to $186.6 million.
The Sweden Ambassador said in a tweet after the signing ceremony that her country signed bilateral support to the programme of almost $25 million, through the World Bank.
The signing ceremony was held at the Prime Minister’s Office in the presence of Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, the Ministers of Labour and Social Development, Culture and Information, the Acting Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, European Ambassadors and UN officials.
The agreement was signed by Ambassador of the European Union to Sudan, Robert van den Dool and Ousmane Dione, Country Director for Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Sudan of the World Bank.
Hamdok commended the efforts made by the World Bank, the exemplary cooperation with the EU and its member states and the steps in following on the pledges made in the Berlin Conference.
Today’s ceremony marks “an important step in enabling the civilian-led Transitional Government to provide the much-needed assistance to the most vulnerable Sudanese as the cabinet accelerates its urgent economic reforms,” he said.
For his part, EU Ambassador Robert van den Dool said that the European Union is making good on its pledge at the Berlin conference in June 2020, to support the transitional government in its efforts to launch economic reforms.
“Together with the contributions announced today by EU member states, we have also shown that this Team Europe Approach allows us to join forces very effectively with our partners to make an even bigger difference for Sudan and its people,” den Dool added.
He also, disclosed that the European Union has also helped in triggering the World Bank to consider contributing substantially with resources which will be decided by its Board in the coming days.
The Sudan Family Support Programme is led and implemented by the Sudanese government. The Programme is being implemented by the Ministries of Finance and Economic Planning, Labour and Social Development, and Interior, along with other relevant agencies, and will be executed by the Digital Economy Agency.
The pilot phase is being launched in October 2020 and the program will be gradually scaled up over the next few months, starting with the states of Khartoum, Red Sea, South Darfur and Kassala.
The second phase will roll out to the other most affected states.
According to news reports, at least 16 people have been killed along the line of contact in the worst fighting between the two former Soviet Republics in four years.
Secretary-General @antonioguterres voices extreme concern over the fresh resumption of hostilities along the line of contact in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, calling on the sides to immediately stop fighting.
“He condemns the use of force and regrets the loss of life and the toll on the civilian population”, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.
This latest skirmish between the two countries, which fought a war in the 1990s as the Soviet Union was dissolving, has heightened fears of instability in the South Caucasus, a region that provides crucial transit routes for gas and oil to world markets.
Both States have declared martial law and Armenia ordered the total mobilization of its military, according to media reports.
“The Secretary-General strongly calls on the sides to immediately stop fighting, de-escalate tensions and return to meaningful negotiations without delay”, Mr. Dujarric said, adding that the UN chief would be speaking to both the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia.
Back and forth
Armenia accused Azerbaijan of carrying out early morning air and artillery attacks on the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
The two fought a six-year war over the region until a 1994 truce, but over the years, both countries have blamed the other for ceasefire violations in the enclave and along the border, including in July.
In recent months, more than a dozen soldiers and civilians have been killed in the struggle.
Mr. Dujarric underscored that the Secretary-General reiterated his “full support” for the important role of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs and urged the sides to “work closely with them for an urgent resumption of dialogue without preconditions”.
