Naked butts, crime confessions and bullying: What Facebook won't let you post
by Sara Ashley O'Brien @saraashleyo
April 24, 2018: 2:42 PM ET
Mark Zuckerberg's House testimony in two minutes
Facebook clarified exactly what you're not allowed to post on the platform, and the list is super-long and specific.
The company's 7,500 content moderators use Facebook's new 27-page content guidelines list when deciding what's acceptable content on the platform — and what should be taken down. It includes obvious bans like copyright and trademark infringement, credible threats of violence, and sexual exploitation. But it also sheds new light on how Facebook regulates "gray area" posts.
For instance, you're not allowed to post hate speech ... unless you're raising awareness about it. Facebook clarified that the onus is on users to make their intentions clear when sharing content.
Here is some of the content Facebook says isn't allowed on its platform.
Nude pictures of children -- even when posted by parents
"We know that sometimes people share nude images of their own children with good intentions; however, we generally remove these images because of the potential for abuse by others and to help avoid the possibility of other people reusing or misappropriating the images."
Facebook also says once a child outgrows the "toddler-age" uncovered female nipples in photos aren't allowed.
Most, but not all, female nipples are banned
"For example, while we restrict some images of female breasts that include the nipple, we allow other images, including those depicting acts of protest, women actively engaged in breast-feeding, and photos of post-mastectomy scarring."
The company also advises users not to share content that shows "squeezing naked female breast except in breastfeeding context."
Claiming that a victim of a tragedy is actually a liar, or being paid to lie
It's considered a form of harassment, according to Facebook's guidelines.
"Claims that a victim of a violent tragedy is lying about being a victim, acting/pretending to be a victim of a verified event, or otherwise is paid or employed to mislead people about their role in the event when sent directly to a survivor and/or immediate family member of a survivor or victim."
Confessions of crimes
Facebook isn't a place to come clean about crimes ranging from theft to sexual assault on the platform.
"We do, however, allow people to debate or advocate for the legality of criminal activities, as well as address them in a rhetorical or satirical way."
Seeking to buy, or sell, marijuana and other drugs
People cannot sell or buy marijuana, or pharmaceutical drugs on the platform. That includes stating interest in buying -- or asking if anyone is selling or trading the item.
When it comes to gun sales, Facebook does allow certain companies to sell firearms or firearm parts -- but it restricts visibility to adults 21 or over.
Being insensitive
Targeting someone's vulnerabilities could get your posts removed on Facebook.
The company advises not to post content that depicts real people and "mocks their implied or actual serious physical injuries, disease, or disability, non- consensual sexual touching, or premature death."
No nude butts, unless...
According to its guidelines "visible anus and/or fully nude close-ups of buttocks" aren't allowed on the platform "unless photoshopped on a public figure."
Calls for violence due to the outcome of election
Under a section about credible violence, Facebook explicitly states that "any content containing statements of intent, calls for action, or advocating for violence due to the outcome of an election," is not permitted on the platform.
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Finland is giving each citizen a universal basic income and it's changing lives - Independent
Finland is giving each citizen a universal basic income and it's changing lives
Posted on March 28, 2018 by Louis Doré in news
UPVOTE
In January 2017, Finland began paying a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58 a monthly 560 euros (£475).
There was no obligation to seek or accept employment during the two year trial ordered by the centre-right government, who run the country on austerity economics.
If they did take a job, they would continue to receive the same payment, regardless.
The trial is one of universal basic income (UBI), hoping that the payments would reduce overall social security costs and bring down the unemployment rate, incentivising people to take up paid work, or contribute to society as volunteers.
The scheme has received global media attention and is seen as a watershed for the progressive movement, should the results be positive.
Anecdotally, early indication are that they will be.
Marjukka Turunen, who heads the legal unit at Finland’s social security agency, Kela, told the Guardian:
One participant has said she is less anxious because she no longer has to worry over calls from the job centre offering a job she can’t accept because she is caring for her elderly parents.
We may be able to see from the trial data whether it has had unintended benefits – such as reduced medical costs.
Juha Jarvinen, one of the triallists who is 39 and married with six children and a dog, told the BBC:
I felt like a free man. I got out from jail and slavery...I felt I am back in society and I have my humanity back, so I was super happy.
Juha runs a business making drums that brings in around 1000 euros a month on top of the 560 he receives in UBI. He says without the UBI, he wouldn't have been able to get back to work.
Critics of the Finnish trial say that it only includes people who were unemployed, rendering it not "universal".
The Scottish government will start looking at similar trial proposals at the end of March 2018.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has previously said of UBI:
It might turn out not to be the answer, it might turn out not to be feasible.
But as work changes as rapidly as it is doing, I think its really important that we are prepared to be open-minded about the different ways that we can support individuals to participate fully in the new economy.
Posted on March 28, 2018 by Louis Doré in news
UPVOTE
In January 2017, Finland began paying a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people aged 25 to 58 a monthly 560 euros (£475).
There was no obligation to seek or accept employment during the two year trial ordered by the centre-right government, who run the country on austerity economics.
If they did take a job, they would continue to receive the same payment, regardless.
The trial is one of universal basic income (UBI), hoping that the payments would reduce overall social security costs and bring down the unemployment rate, incentivising people to take up paid work, or contribute to society as volunteers.
The scheme has received global media attention and is seen as a watershed for the progressive movement, should the results be positive.
Anecdotally, early indication are that they will be.
Marjukka Turunen, who heads the legal unit at Finland’s social security agency, Kela, told the Guardian:
One participant has said she is less anxious because she no longer has to worry over calls from the job centre offering a job she can’t accept because she is caring for her elderly parents.
We may be able to see from the trial data whether it has had unintended benefits – such as reduced medical costs.
Juha Jarvinen, one of the triallists who is 39 and married with six children and a dog, told the BBC:
I felt like a free man. I got out from jail and slavery...I felt I am back in society and I have my humanity back, so I was super happy.
Juha runs a business making drums that brings in around 1000 euros a month on top of the 560 he receives in UBI. He says without the UBI, he wouldn't have been able to get back to work.
Critics of the Finnish trial say that it only includes people who were unemployed, rendering it not "universal".
The Scottish government will start looking at similar trial proposals at the end of March 2018.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has previously said of UBI:
It might turn out not to be the answer, it might turn out not to be feasible.
But as work changes as rapidly as it is doing, I think its really important that we are prepared to be open-minded about the different ways that we can support individuals to participate fully in the new economy.
The brutal new memorial to the South’s dark side has left some in Alabama frustrated and angry at its insistence on confronting the past - Guardian
Lynching memorial leaves some quietly seething: 'Let sleeping dogs lie'
The brutal new memorial to the South’s dark side has left some in Alabama frustrated and angry at its insistence on confronting the past
Sam Levin in Montgomery, Alabama
@SamTLevin
Sat 28 Apr 2018 20.00 AEST Last modified on Sat 28 Apr 2018 20.01 AEST
One local resident called the memorial ‘a waste of money, a waste of space’.
Black men were lynched for “standing around”, for “annoying white girls”, for failing to call a policeman “mister”. Those are just a few of the horrific stories on display at a new national memorial to lynching victims in Montgomery, Alabama.
One mile away, another historical monument tells a very different tale about the American south: the First White House of the Confederacy celebrates the life of “renowned American patriot” Jefferson Davis, who served as the president of the Confederate states, while making virtually no mention of the hundreds of black people he and his family enslaved.
The contradictions of Montgomery’s historical narratives were on full display this week as thousands of tourists and progressive activists flocked to the city to mark the opening of the country’s first memorial to lynching victims – while some locals quietly seethed, saying they resented the new museum for dredging up the past and feared it would incite anger and backlash within black communities.
“It’s going to cause an uproar and open old wounds,” said Mikki Keenan, a 58-year-old longtime Montgomery resident, who was eating lunch at a southern country-style restaurant a mile from the memorial. Local residents, she said, feel “it’s a waste of money, a waste of space and it’s bringing up bullshit”.
“It keeps putting the emphasis on discrimination and cruelty,” chimed in her friend, who asked not to be named for fear that her child would disapprove of her remarks. The memorial, she added, could spark violence.
The angry and in some cases blatantly racist reactions to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and accompanying Legacy Museum provided a window into some white Americans’ deep resistance to confronting the nation’s brutal history of racial violence, from slavery to mass incarceration.
The sadism of white men: why America must atone for its lynchings
Read more
While celebrities and civil rights icons lauded the memorial as a powerful symbol of America’s shame and a turning point toward healing, some conservatives in Alabama rolled their eyes at the project, saying they were more concerned with saving Confederate monuments, now under threat by leftwing activists.
Alabama’s Republican governor Kay Ivey wasn’t present at the memorial launch, but did release a video promoting her efforts to preserve Confederate monuments a week prior.
A sculpture depicting the slave trade at the entrance of the National Memorial For Peace And Justice.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A sculpture depicting the slave trade at the entrance of the National Memorial For Peace And Justice. Photograph: Bob Miller/Getty Images
Seated at the front porch of the First White House on a sunny morning, curator Bob Wieland said he supported the Legacy Museum, but felt strongly that Confederate landmarks be preserved, especially as the city is changing and the “sleepy old cotton south falls away”. That means, he said, “keeping this museum just to have a positive taste, an old south taste, as the new comes up”.
Asked about criticisms that the state-funded museum “whitewashes” the evils of slavery, Wieland said, “We could certainly tone down the celebration [of Davis], but … it is part of Civil War history.” Discussing the lack of references to slavery, he said the museum is “more of a political military history” than a “social history”.
While some of the most vocal Alabama defenders of Confederate monuments said they broadly backed the concept of a lynching memorial, they also expressed anxiety about its impact, some reverting to racist stereotypes of African American rioters.
How I got 30 years on death row for someone else's crime
Read more
“Bring that stuff to light, and let it be there, but don’t dwell on it,” said Tommy Rhodes, a member of the Alabama Sons of Confederate Veterans. “We have moved past it … You don’t want to entice them and feed any fuel to the fire.”
Randall Hughey, another member who also owns a local radio station, emphasized his support of the museum – but also repeatedly questioned the veracity of its facts.
“They have every right to have the memorial, if it’s accurate,” he said, adding that he was perplexed by reports of more than 4,000 lynchings. “That seems pretty incredible to me that there would be that many documented lynchings … That was not the norm.”
Equal Justice Initiative, the group behind the memorial and lynching data, did six years of research and made extensive visits to southern sites.
Mary Massey, a 58-year-old nurse on her way to lunch in Montgomery, expressed disdain at the project: “We didn’t have nothing to do with that. I think they just need to leave it alone. It’s just stirring up something.”
Inside the lynching memorial, which features steel monuments dangling like bodies.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Inside the lynching memorial, which features steel monuments dangling like bodies. Photograph: USA Today Network/Sipa USA/REX/Shutterstock
Her husband, Jim, said he supported the memorial as a way to recognize a “horrible” piece of black history, but added: “It’s gone and won’t happen again.” He also said he suspected that for many in Montgomery, the reaction was: “Let sleeping dogs lay.”
Keenan, who is Native American, said she would never visit the memorial and was worried it would exacerbate “racism” in Montgomery: “It ain’t gonna change that. It’s going to get it started more.”
At the opening day of the memorial – which features hanging steel monuments dangling like bodies above the visitors – some black Alabamians said they felt optimistic.
“For so long, society has put a shadow over these things,” said Brittany Willie, a 19-year-old from Huntsville, Alabama, who found an engraving of the name of one of her ancestors. “People are going to see this and realize these people were innocent. They were killed for who they are.”
“This is something our children need to know, so they can understand the struggle,” added Victoria Dunn, a 40-year-old Montgomery resident, who came with her husband.
“This is going to be something embraced by everybody.”
The brutal new memorial to the South’s dark side has left some in Alabama frustrated and angry at its insistence on confronting the past
Sam Levin in Montgomery, Alabama
@SamTLevin
Sat 28 Apr 2018 20.00 AEST Last modified on Sat 28 Apr 2018 20.01 AEST
One local resident called the memorial ‘a waste of money, a waste of space’.
Black men were lynched for “standing around”, for “annoying white girls”, for failing to call a policeman “mister”. Those are just a few of the horrific stories on display at a new national memorial to lynching victims in Montgomery, Alabama.
One mile away, another historical monument tells a very different tale about the American south: the First White House of the Confederacy celebrates the life of “renowned American patriot” Jefferson Davis, who served as the president of the Confederate states, while making virtually no mention of the hundreds of black people he and his family enslaved.
The contradictions of Montgomery’s historical narratives were on full display this week as thousands of tourists and progressive activists flocked to the city to mark the opening of the country’s first memorial to lynching victims – while some locals quietly seethed, saying they resented the new museum for dredging up the past and feared it would incite anger and backlash within black communities.
“It’s going to cause an uproar and open old wounds,” said Mikki Keenan, a 58-year-old longtime Montgomery resident, who was eating lunch at a southern country-style restaurant a mile from the memorial. Local residents, she said, feel “it’s a waste of money, a waste of space and it’s bringing up bullshit”.
“It keeps putting the emphasis on discrimination and cruelty,” chimed in her friend, who asked not to be named for fear that her child would disapprove of her remarks. The memorial, she added, could spark violence.
The angry and in some cases blatantly racist reactions to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and accompanying Legacy Museum provided a window into some white Americans’ deep resistance to confronting the nation’s brutal history of racial violence, from slavery to mass incarceration.
The sadism of white men: why America must atone for its lynchings
Read more
While celebrities and civil rights icons lauded the memorial as a powerful symbol of America’s shame and a turning point toward healing, some conservatives in Alabama rolled their eyes at the project, saying they were more concerned with saving Confederate monuments, now under threat by leftwing activists.
Alabama’s Republican governor Kay Ivey wasn’t present at the memorial launch, but did release a video promoting her efforts to preserve Confederate monuments a week prior.
A sculpture depicting the slave trade at the entrance of the National Memorial For Peace And Justice.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A sculpture depicting the slave trade at the entrance of the National Memorial For Peace And Justice. Photograph: Bob Miller/Getty Images
Seated at the front porch of the First White House on a sunny morning, curator Bob Wieland said he supported the Legacy Museum, but felt strongly that Confederate landmarks be preserved, especially as the city is changing and the “sleepy old cotton south falls away”. That means, he said, “keeping this museum just to have a positive taste, an old south taste, as the new comes up”.
Asked about criticisms that the state-funded museum “whitewashes” the evils of slavery, Wieland said, “We could certainly tone down the celebration [of Davis], but … it is part of Civil War history.” Discussing the lack of references to slavery, he said the museum is “more of a political military history” than a “social history”.
While some of the most vocal Alabama defenders of Confederate monuments said they broadly backed the concept of a lynching memorial, they also expressed anxiety about its impact, some reverting to racist stereotypes of African American rioters.
How I got 30 years on death row for someone else's crime
Read more
“Bring that stuff to light, and let it be there, but don’t dwell on it,” said Tommy Rhodes, a member of the Alabama Sons of Confederate Veterans. “We have moved past it … You don’t want to entice them and feed any fuel to the fire.”
Randall Hughey, another member who also owns a local radio station, emphasized his support of the museum – but also repeatedly questioned the veracity of its facts.
“They have every right to have the memorial, if it’s accurate,” he said, adding that he was perplexed by reports of more than 4,000 lynchings. “That seems pretty incredible to me that there would be that many documented lynchings … That was not the norm.”
Equal Justice Initiative, the group behind the memorial and lynching data, did six years of research and made extensive visits to southern sites.
Mary Massey, a 58-year-old nurse on her way to lunch in Montgomery, expressed disdain at the project: “We didn’t have nothing to do with that. I think they just need to leave it alone. It’s just stirring up something.”
Inside the lynching memorial, which features steel monuments dangling like bodies.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Inside the lynching memorial, which features steel monuments dangling like bodies. Photograph: USA Today Network/Sipa USA/REX/Shutterstock
Her husband, Jim, said he supported the memorial as a way to recognize a “horrible” piece of black history, but added: “It’s gone and won’t happen again.” He also said he suspected that for many in Montgomery, the reaction was: “Let sleeping dogs lay.”
Keenan, who is Native American, said she would never visit the memorial and was worried it would exacerbate “racism” in Montgomery: “It ain’t gonna change that. It’s going to get it started more.”
At the opening day of the memorial – which features hanging steel monuments dangling like bodies above the visitors – some black Alabamians said they felt optimistic.
“For so long, society has put a shadow over these things,” said Brittany Willie, a 19-year-old from Huntsville, Alabama, who found an engraving of the name of one of her ancestors. “People are going to see this and realize these people were innocent. They were killed for who they are.”
“This is something our children need to know, so they can understand the struggle,” added Victoria Dunn, a 40-year-old Montgomery resident, who came with her husband.
“This is going to be something embraced by everybody.”
EU votes for a permanent ban on bee-harming pesticides - Al Jazeera
April 28, 2018
EU votes for a permanent ban on bee-harming pesticides
The European Union has voted for a permanent ban on pesticides that are harmful to bees.
by Neave Barker
Palestinians in Europe set to hold conference on right of return
today
Recreating death for a living: Inside Bosnia's War Hostel
today
Germany moving to limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey
today
UK: Chagos Islands descendants seek citizenship
today
The European Union has voted for a permanent ban on pesticides that are harmful to bees.
Campaigners call it a 'tremendous victory' for the environment, while pesticide company Bayer calls it a sad day for Europe and its farmers.
Fruit and vegetable crops are pollinated by bees and other insects, but modern farming techniques have been blamed for a steady decline in their numbers.
Al Jazeera's Neave Barker reports.
EU votes for a permanent ban on bee-harming pesticides
The European Union has voted for a permanent ban on pesticides that are harmful to bees.
by Neave Barker
Palestinians in Europe set to hold conference on right of return
today
Recreating death for a living: Inside Bosnia's War Hostel
today
Germany moving to limit arms sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey
today
UK: Chagos Islands descendants seek citizenship
today
The European Union has voted for a permanent ban on pesticides that are harmful to bees.
Campaigners call it a 'tremendous victory' for the environment, while pesticide company Bayer calls it a sad day for Europe and its farmers.
Fruit and vegetable crops are pollinated by bees and other insects, but modern farming techniques have been blamed for a steady decline in their numbers.
Al Jazeera's Neave Barker reports.
5 ways to be more productive, according to an email Elon Musk sent staff - Independent
April 22, 2018
5 ways to be more productive, according to an email Elon Musk sent staff
by Narjas Zatat in discover
UPVOTE
Elon Musk is CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, he also founded The Boring Company and put a car into space.
And that’s just the beginning.
The inventor is a poster boy for productivity, and in email allegedly from him to his Tesla staff about increasing productivity to manufacture more Model 3 cars, he outlined some of the best strategies the company should use to be productive.
The email, obtained by jalopnik, says:
First, congratulations are in order! We have now completed our third full week of producing over 2000 Model 3 vehicles. The first week was 2020, the second was 2070 and we just completed 2250 last week, along with 2000 Model S/X vehicles.
Thanks for being such a kickass team and accomplishing miracles every day. It matters. We are burning the midnight oil to burn the midnight oil.
Here are five ways Elon Musk thinks companies - and you - can be more productive:
1. Get rid of frequent meetings.
Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
Additionally, unless it’s an “urgent matter”, you don’t need to go to frequent meetings.
2. In fact, walk out of a meeting if you're done with it.
Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
3. Don't use acronyms.
The Tesla CEO doesn’t like them.
Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorise a glossary just to function at Tesla.
4. Stop communicating via "chain of command".
Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.
5. Use common sense.
In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a 'company rule' is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.
Musk is reportedly sleeping at the Tesla factory in an effort to fix production delays with the Model 3 electric car, and the email tells employees that Tesla will switch to 27/7 shifts to push for 6,000 cars per week by June.
5 ways to be more productive, according to an email Elon Musk sent staff
by Narjas Zatat in discover
UPVOTE
Elon Musk is CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, he also founded The Boring Company and put a car into space.
And that’s just the beginning.
The inventor is a poster boy for productivity, and in email allegedly from him to his Tesla staff about increasing productivity to manufacture more Model 3 cars, he outlined some of the best strategies the company should use to be productive.
The email, obtained by jalopnik, says:
First, congratulations are in order! We have now completed our third full week of producing over 2000 Model 3 vehicles. The first week was 2020, the second was 2070 and we just completed 2250 last week, along with 2000 Model S/X vehicles.
Thanks for being such a kickass team and accomplishing miracles every day. It matters. We are burning the midnight oil to burn the midnight oil.
Here are five ways Elon Musk thinks companies - and you - can be more productive:
1. Get rid of frequent meetings.
Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short.
Additionally, unless it’s an “urgent matter”, you don’t need to go to frequent meetings.
2. In fact, walk out of a meeting if you're done with it.
Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.
3. Don't use acronyms.
The Tesla CEO doesn’t like them.
Don’t use acronyms or nonsense words for objects, software or processes at Tesla. In general, anything that requires an explanation inhibits communication. We don’t want people to have to memorise a glossary just to function at Tesla.
4. Stop communicating via "chain of command".
Communication should travel via the shortest path necessary to get the job done, not through the “chain of command”. Any manager who attempts to enforce chain of command communication will soon find themselves working elsewhere.
5. Use common sense.
In general, always pick common sense as your guide. If following a 'company rule' is obviously ridiculous in a particular situation, such that it would make for a great Dilbert cartoon, then the rule should change.
Musk is reportedly sleeping at the Tesla factory in an effort to fix production delays with the Model 3 electric car, and the email tells employees that Tesla will switch to 27/7 shifts to push for 6,000 cars per week by June.
China’s HNA reports debts have soared to $94bn - Financial Times
April 28, 2018
China’s HNA reports debts have soared to $94bn
Figures reveal full extent of pressures that led to sell-offs to cover buying spree
© Reuters
Lucy Hornby in Beijing
Total debts of Chinese finance to aviation conglomerate HNA soared in 2017 to Rmb598bn ($94bn), its annual report showed, revealing the full extent of the financial pressures behind its asset sales in recent months.
The annual report of the company’s Shanghai-listed flagship unit gives the greatest visibility into the state of HNA’s finances since signs of liquidity problems emerged in the second half of 2017. However, the company did not provide updated figures to reflect the roughly $13bn in assets it has sold so far this year. The company, once China’s most active in terms of overseas investments is still selling off its purchases as it attempts to pay down debt.
Borrowing costs surged to about $5bn for the full year, up from $2bn in the first half of 2017, triggering the liquidity crisis that rippled through the conglomerate between November to late January. Borrowing costs exceeded its earnings before interest and taxes, and topped the ranks of non-financial companies in Asia during that period, according to Bloomberg data.
Net revenue rose to Rmb592 in 2017 compared with Rmb194 in 2016, HNA said. Net income rose to Rmb2.6bn, from Rmb1.5bn the year before.
HNA weathered a severe liquidity strain when yields on some of its bonds soared above 20 per cent in January. But Chinese banks have turned the taps back on since early February, and its asset sales have accelerated since then.
In March, a key subsidiary, Hainan Airlines, said it would take over HNA Group’s stakes in two local airlines and five other businesses as part of the asset reorganisation.
Scrutiny of HNA’s finances and ultimate ownership has scuttled two planned initial public offerings of aircraft service firms in Switzerland, depriving the company of billions of dollars in hoped-for returns.
Concerns over HNA’s access to financing date from China’s crackdown, last summer, on risky financing practices by its largest and most acquisitive private conglomerates.
Controversy over its ownership was triggered by exiled businessman Guo Wengui, who alleged on social media last year that the in-laws of China’s then anti-corruption tsar Wang Qishan had improperly benefited from undeclared ties to the company.
The Financial Times has not been able to verify those claims, but inconsistencies and rapid shifts in HNA’s declared ownership have triggered regulatory reviews in several countries. Some planned acquisitions, including that of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, have fallen through or been delayed indefinitely.
Mr Wang retired from the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s elite ruling body, in October, but reappeared on the political scene in late January. He is currently the vice-president of China.
Mr Guo, meanwhile, has been accused of violating US campaign finance laws, in the latest of a string of attempts by Beijing to repatriate him from his Manhattan apartment. In a lawsuit against a Florida man, Mr Guo has said he had never donated to any US campaign.
Twitter: @HornbyLucy
China’s HNA reports debts have soared to $94bn
Figures reveal full extent of pressures that led to sell-offs to cover buying spree
© Reuters
Lucy Hornby in Beijing
Total debts of Chinese finance to aviation conglomerate HNA soared in 2017 to Rmb598bn ($94bn), its annual report showed, revealing the full extent of the financial pressures behind its asset sales in recent months.
The annual report of the company’s Shanghai-listed flagship unit gives the greatest visibility into the state of HNA’s finances since signs of liquidity problems emerged in the second half of 2017. However, the company did not provide updated figures to reflect the roughly $13bn in assets it has sold so far this year. The company, once China’s most active in terms of overseas investments is still selling off its purchases as it attempts to pay down debt.
Borrowing costs surged to about $5bn for the full year, up from $2bn in the first half of 2017, triggering the liquidity crisis that rippled through the conglomerate between November to late January. Borrowing costs exceeded its earnings before interest and taxes, and topped the ranks of non-financial companies in Asia during that period, according to Bloomberg data.
Net revenue rose to Rmb592 in 2017 compared with Rmb194 in 2016, HNA said. Net income rose to Rmb2.6bn, from Rmb1.5bn the year before.
HNA weathered a severe liquidity strain when yields on some of its bonds soared above 20 per cent in January. But Chinese banks have turned the taps back on since early February, and its asset sales have accelerated since then.
In March, a key subsidiary, Hainan Airlines, said it would take over HNA Group’s stakes in two local airlines and five other businesses as part of the asset reorganisation.
Scrutiny of HNA’s finances and ultimate ownership has scuttled two planned initial public offerings of aircraft service firms in Switzerland, depriving the company of billions of dollars in hoped-for returns.
Concerns over HNA’s access to financing date from China’s crackdown, last summer, on risky financing practices by its largest and most acquisitive private conglomerates.
Controversy over its ownership was triggered by exiled businessman Guo Wengui, who alleged on social media last year that the in-laws of China’s then anti-corruption tsar Wang Qishan had improperly benefited from undeclared ties to the company.
The Financial Times has not been able to verify those claims, but inconsistencies and rapid shifts in HNA’s declared ownership have triggered regulatory reviews in several countries. Some planned acquisitions, including that of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, have fallen through or been delayed indefinitely.
Mr Wang retired from the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s elite ruling body, in October, but reappeared on the political scene in late January. He is currently the vice-president of China.
Mr Guo, meanwhile, has been accused of violating US campaign finance laws, in the latest of a string of attempts by Beijing to repatriate him from his Manhattan apartment. In a lawsuit against a Florida man, Mr Guo has said he had never donated to any US campaign.
Twitter: @HornbyLucy
‘It’s not a done deal’: inside the battle to stop Brexit - Guardian
‘It’s not a done deal’: inside the battle to stop Brexit
With less than a year remaining, the opponents of Brexit are mobilising. Could a second referendum be forced by people who won’t take go for an answer?
by Dorian Lynskey
Sat 28 Apr 2018 18.00 AEST
Mark Malloch-Brown is drawing me a picture. He first saw a version of it 28 years ago, while working on Mario Vargas Llosa’s presidential campaign in Peru. In a Lima bar one night, Malloch-Brown’s fellow consultant Rob Shepardson flipped over a beer mat and drew two intersecting axes that, he said, summed up all political campaigns. In Malloch-Brown’s version, the vertical axis runs from “change” to “status quo” and the horizontal from “distrusted elites” to “people like me”.
“Where was the Brexit campaign? Up here.” He marks a cross in the top right corner. “And where was the remain campaign? Down here.” Another cross, bottom left. “How do we reverse that position? How do we make remain – the very word is a status quo word – the change cause, and find spokespeople to deliver that message? Our whole campaign is about how to get to here.”
We’re meeting in London on 8 February, hours after the Daily Telegraph published an inflammatory front-page story about a £400,000 donation made by the investor and activist George Soros to Best for Britain, the anti-Brexit organisation Malloch-Brown chairs. After a hectic day of interviews, he appears serenely unflustered. “One shouldn’t overreact to the drama of things like this,” he says, leaning back and opening a can of Coke.
He’s seen worse. The Labour peer’s CV includes the UN, the Foreign Office and election campaigns in “lots of very strange places where massive disruptive forces were at work”. He joined Best for Britain last September, charged with uniting the anti-Brexit movement, and went public on 17 December, promising “a much more coordinated campaign and a more coherent, consistent message”. On 1 February, the Labour MP Chuka Umunna formally announced the existence of the grassroots coordinating group (GCG), a regular Wednesday morning gathering of organisations, activists and sympathetic MPs. Two weeks ago, GCG members launched the People’s Vote, calling for a referendum on the final Brexit deal.
One GCG member describes Malloch-Brown’s intervention as an accelerant rather than a catalyst – discussions about a united front had been ongoing for months – but to most remainers, 18 months after the referendum the movement still appeared frustratingly diffuse. The plethora of groups with overlapping names – Best for Britain, Open Britain, Britain for Europe, the European Movement – inspired frequent references to Monty Python’s People’s Front of Judea. Nick Clegg complained: “It is frankly a gift to the Brexiters the way so much anti-Brexit energy is being dissipated in so many disorganised ways.”
Mark Malloch Brown of Best for Britain, photographed at his office in London
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Mark Malloch-Brown of Best for Britain: ‘There’s a volatility about British politics.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian
That is no longer the case. The new arrangement, which Malloch-Brown describes as a “ragged army” or “wild garden”, pools resources around a shared message, while allowing space for different opinions and achieving the broadest possible reach. This alliance has been achieved not a moment too soon. On 29 March 2019, under the terms of article 50, the UK is set to leave the EU, beginning a 21-month transition period. Having all but abandoned the sunlit uplands, the government’s most powerful argument now is grim inevitability: like it or not, it has to happen. The anti-Brexit movement insists this is not true, and it has only months to prove it. “If this was Britain in a more traditional, settled moment in its political rhythm, it wouldn’t be enough time,” Malloch-Brown says. “But there’s a volatility about British politics at the moment which is quite novel.”
Thwarting the most divisive and disruptive development in modern British history would be an extraordinary achievement. This is how the anti-Brexit movement plans to do it.
Thursday 23 June 2016 was one of the roughest nights of James McGrory’s life. As a seasoned Liberal Democrat operative, he had grown accustomed to disappointing nights, but this was the first time it had fallen to him, as chief spokesman for Britain Stronger in Europe, to address the defeated troops. There were tears. Alcohol was required. The nearest pub that was open at dawn was the Hope, opposite Smithfield meat market in central London. “If the irony of drinking somewhere called the Hope wasn’t enough, all these lads were coming in from their shift covered in blood,” he remembers. “There was a lot of gallows humour.”
Post-ballot analysis is a game of winner takes all. The losers’ shrewd decisions are swept aside along with the winners’ mistakes. The truth is more nuanced, but it is generally agreed the remain campaign was too conservative and establishment-dominated, while the leave campaign was more passionate and agile. “They were very good at characterising us: the elites and Project Fear,” McGrory says over coffee and cigarettes in the plaza outside Millbank Tower in Westminster, the anti-Brexit movement’s new riverside nerve centre.
With the country exhausted and divided by the referendum, McGrory had to decide what to do next. Under election law, dissolving Stronger In would have meant discarding its database of half a million email addresses. “It would have been silly to throw the greatest pro-European asset that has ever been established in this country in the bin,” he says. “The question was: how do we keep the flame alive?”
One demo, ironically named Unite for Europe, almost fell apart, split by personality clashes and fights over strategy
McGrory and his colleague Joe Carberry (who has since moved on) morphed Stronger In into Open Britain. Launching in August 2016 with six staff (since expanded to 11), the campaign group aimed to “seek common ground between voters on both sides” by advocating a Brexit so soft, one journalist dubbed it “the Mr Whippy of Brexits”. McGrory calls it the best argument available at the time. “We couldn’t just come out and say we didn’t agree with Brexit, because we’d just been beaten and it would have lacked credibility. Second, it wasn’t where the country was. And third, there was zero appetite in parliament.”
Advertisement
Still, Open Britain’s position struck many remainers as defeatist. Early attempts at unity were derailed by heated exchanges between people who immediately sought to reverse Brexit and those who favoured a more cautious, long-term strategy. There was friction at the grassroots, too. Although several regional groups coalesced into Britain for Europe, others butted heads. “There was a lot of chaos and a lot of new entries,” says Dr Mike Galsworthy, co-founder of Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU. “Because it was such a confusing landscape, different people’s strategies were hard to line up and would change over time.” One major demonstration in March 2017, the ironically named Unite for Europe, almost fell apart when the organisers fractured into two groups due to personality clashes and fights over strategy. “That got very toxic,” Galsworthy says. “When the march finally happened, everyone breathed a massive sigh of relief and said, we don’t want to go back to that again.”
“That year was a bit of a desert for us,” says Hugo Dixon, the activist who runs anti-Brexit factchecking website infacts.org. “We went into a vicious cycle. We lost almost all our parliamentary and media support. ‘Stop fighting, get real,’ was the message I would get. It became almost impossible to raise money; people thought, ‘What’s the point of backing a lost horse?’ As a result, the pro-European activists lost heart.” He brightens. “Then Theresa May did this wonderful thing of calling an election.”
When May sought a mandate for hard Brexit on 18 April 2017, Best for Britain was eight days away from its official launch. “We thought, ‘Crikey, either we pop our plans in the freezer and see if they’re still relevant on 9 June, or we engage,’” the campaign director Eloise Todd says. We’re sitting in Best for Britain’s central London meeting room, surrounded by unnervingly large satirical portraits of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Tony Blair. “We felt we had little choice but to engage.”
During the referendum campaign, Todd had been global policy director for the One campaign, the anti-poverty coalition co-founded by Bono. Before that, she worked in and around the EU, becoming friends with the late Jo Cox, another Yorkshirewoman who worked in Brussels and anti-poverty NGOs. “I was known for getting governments to agree to ambitious things they didn’t really want to do,” she says. “Being a gamekeeper turned poacher, you learn what changes politicians’ minds.”
Eloise Todd of Best for Britain, photographed at their office in London
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Eloise Todd of Best for Britain: ‘I don’t mind looking a bit foolish.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian
Shortly after the referendum, the Labour MP David Lammy called Todd to ask for advice because he believed “Brexit would be a massive mistake” and “the remain campaign was on its knees”. He introduced her to people who were looking to set up a more robust alternative to the continuity remain campaign, including the former health minister Alan Milburn and the economist Anatole Kaletsky. She started work in January 2017. “There seemed to be a clear gap in the market, a democratic way through this,” Todd says. “We said, the government’s got a mandate to negotiate, but not to sign it off.”
Todd’s first attempts to ally with other groups fizzled out. “There was not a huge appetite; people wanted their own patch.” (“I don’t recognise that assessment,” McGrory says.) But Best for Britain and Open Britain launched tactical voting initiatives to topple pro-Brexit MPs and boost remainers. It looked like a tall order. Best for Britain’s private polling predicted a walloping Tory majority. “A senior pollster told me, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not going to work,’” Todd remembers. “I said, ‘I agree it looks very grim, but I don’t mind looking a bit foolish, because the alternative is not to try at all.’”
If the expected Tory landslide had materialised, Todd says, “We would have shut up shop and gone home.” Instead, May lost her majority altogether. “OK,” Todd thought. “Game on.”
On election night, Chuka Umunna was “elated” by the implications for Brexit. May’s mandate for a hard Brexit had been emphatically rebuffed and it was now arithmetically possible to defeat the government in the Commons. A few days later, he met with Anna Soubry, the Tories’ remainer-in-chief and a close ally since the referendum campaign, and said, “Look, we’ve got to get organised.”
The result liberated Umunna, who had been mooted as a challenger to Jeremy Corbyn in the event of a Tory landslide. “A few people saw my involvement in the pro-EU movement partly through the prism of internal Labour party politics,” he says, drinking tea in his office at Portcullis House. “This is nothing to do with the Labour leadership. Brexit is bigger than that.”
MPs Layla Moran (Lib Dem), Chuka Umunna (Labour) and Anna Soubry (Conservative) at the launch of the People’s Vote in London, UK, on 15th April 2018.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
MPs Layla Moran (Lib Dem), Chuka Umunna (Labour) and Anna Soubry (Conservative) at the launch of the People’s Vote earlier this month. Photograph: Vickie Flores/Alamy Live News
Umunna is passionately pro-European. “I am a quarter Irish, I have a Danish niece, nephew and brother-in-law, a French aunt and Spanish nationals in my family,” he says. “I feel intensely not just British and Nigerian, but European. When I tell people this, they say, ‘I understand now why you bang on about it so much.’” Following the referendum, however, he was a voice of caution. “What we were picking up in our constituencies was fatigue with the whole Brexit issue. If you were going to try to steer the country on to a different trajectory, it was not going to be possible in the immediate aftermath. Shouting about something isn’t necessarily going to get you where you need to get to.” He made his case on 5 September 2016, during a House of Commons debate: “I believe that if the deal that is reached at the end of this process is substantially and materially different from that that many of the leave voters believed they were promised, we could legitimately ask for a second referendum, but the fact is that we have not got to that point yet.”
The election shook the kaleidoscope. Umunna immediately proposed an ambitious amendment to the Queen’s speech, demanding the government guarantee Britain’s place in the single market. Though doomed to defeat, it was designed to “flush out the fiction that you can get all the economic benefits of EU membership while outside its economic structures” and jolt the Labour frontbench into breaking with the government. “I got a lot of flak for that amendment, but it brought out into the open the fact that basically we were pegged to the Tory position.” A month later, he and Soubry formed the all-party parliamentary group on EU relations, which includes the Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson.
That summer, Umunna was approached to take a leading role in coordinating the anti-Brexit forces. “I have to be honest, I was quite hesitant,” he says. But he believed the movement needed unity if it were to succeed. “I said, ‘Look, I want to stop Brexit as much as anyone else, but the question is how?’ My very strong view was that seeking to divide the movement between whether you were pure no-Brexit or soft Brexit was totally unhelpful.”
It’s a bit like a football team. You get a win and the crowd’s on your side again. When we work together, we're stronger
Last autumn, the GCG began to coalesce, formalising months of smaller meetings, conference calls, email chains and collaborations. Simultaneously, the former Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott began chairing Where Next for Brexit?, a separate but overlapping talking shop whose heavyweight attendees included Gina Miller, Alastair Campbell, Lord Adonis and AC Grayling. “It got to the point where everyone was saying, ‘Why don’t all these campaigns work together?’” Galsworthy says. “And actually we were – now we just had to communicate that.”
The fantasy of one dynamic saviour to become the face of anti-Brexit had been widely rejected. “It’s just a bit 90s, as if we’ve still got four channels on the telly,” Todd says. “We need different people to speak to different audiences, and the trick is making sure the right ears connect with the right voice.” Malloch-Brown calls it “a two-front fight: the Westminster front is all about day-to-day battles; the country-facing front uses a different set of spokespeople.”
On 13 December, anti-Brexit MPs finally bagged their first victory. Passing by a whisker, amendment 7 to the withdrawal bill required a separate act of parliament to approve the final deal: the crucial “meaningful vote”. Several MPs told McGrory that activists’ letters, surgery visits and social media pressure had influenced their decision. “It’s a bit like a football team,” McGrory says. “You get a win and suddenly the crowd’s on your side again. It was a shot in the arm for two reasons. First, when we work together, we are stronger. Second, this isn’t a done deal.”
***
The ideal scenario for the anti-Brexit movement goes like this. In October or November this year, the government will conclude negotiations and present the final Brexit deal to parliament. Under pressure from their constituents and opinion polls, MPs will vote to reject it and pass legislation for another referendum with a “No Brexit” option on the ballot. Remain will swing enough voters to win the referendum. The government will ask the EU to revoke article 50 before 29 March. RIP Brexit.
Members of InFacts, Healthier IN the EU, the European Movement, Our Future, Our Choice and Open Britain at their shared offices in Millbank Tower. From left: Rob Davidson, Aurora Lyngstad, Hugo Mann, Hugo Dixon, James MacCleary, Lara Spirit, Alex Clifford and Rachel Franklin
Members of InFacts, Healthier IN the EU, the European Movement, Our Future, Our Choice and Open Britain at their shared offices in Millbank Tower. From left: Rob Davidson, Aurora Lyngstad, Hugo Mann, Hugo Dixon, James MacCleary, Lara Spirit, Alex Clifford and Rachel Franklin. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Guardian
Advertisement
That’s a simple way of describing a fiendishly tricky and unpredictable chain of events. First, success in the Commons depends on Labour both rejecting the deal and supporting another referendum. (“Frankly, if Labour puts its head in the sand and tries to ignore the anti-Brexit effect on our vote in 2017, we will be punished when the next general election comes,” Umunna says.) The next hurdle is passing legislation for a referendum, which would normally take a year. Then the anti-Brexit cause would need to win that referendum. The latest polling by YouGov and ICM gives remain a slim lead, but ComRes and ORB favour leave. Finally, it’s unclear whether the EU27 would be sympathetic to an 11th-hour change of heart. “We could be in a level of constitutional uncertainty I’ve never seen in politics,” McGrory says. “To try to game-theory this is really hard.” He’s a realistic optimist. “Well, you’d like longer, wouldn’t you? It’s by no means unachievable, but it’s unquestionably a stiff task.”
Preparations have escalated dramatically. In the first week of March, eight key groups moved into shared offices at Millbank Tower – on the same floor, coincidentally, as the website brexitcentral.com. When I visit a week later, the main office still has an ad hoc feel, with nothing on the three banks of desks apart from laptops, papers and a communal bowl of sweets. Each organisation’s sector of the office is marked by a colourful banner or cardboard display.
Open Britain has the largest following – 550,000 email subscribers and 553,000 Facebook followers – and the strongest connections with the media and MPs; Lord Mandelson is a founding board member. Britain for Europe and the European Movement maintain branches around the country, keeping the conversation alive and preparing to spring into action the moment a referendum is announced. Scientists For EU and Healthier IN the EU are maestros of social media. InFacts is an unrivalled data resource. The wittily acronymed Our Future, Our Choice (Ofoc) and For our Future’s Sake (FFS) speak to younger voters. Meanwhile, Best for Britain, which maintains separate offices, uses its war chest to fund polling, advertising and regional “barnstorms”, inspired by Barack Obama’s campaigns, that teach activists how to get out of their echo chambers and talk to wavering leavers. Between them, they cover the waterfront.
Campaign group Our Future, Our Choice’s Femi Oluwole, photographed in Darlington, 19 April, 2018
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Femi Oluwole of Our Future, Our Choice: ‘The will of the people has an expiration date.’ Photograph: Mike Pinches for the Guardian
“We need ruthless pragmatism,” says Dr Rob Davidson, who co-founded Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU with Galsworthy. “No group is big enough on its own. We’ve all tried working with different combinations of people. There have been fallings out, there have been splits. What we’ve found here is people who are willing to be pragmatic.”
The Millbank move was a precursor to the launch of the People’s Vote on 15 April – the campaign seeks to establish the democratic legitimacy of a vote on the deal. “It’s the most significant thing that’s happened on our side of the argument since the referendum,” McGrory says. “It’s what everyone’s wanted for ages. Why don’t you have a single campaign with a very clear ask? Well, there is one now.”
A recent YouGov poll found that only 38% of voters backed a vote (the unpopular term “second referendum” is verboten), with 45% opposed, although the gap is narrowing. “It feels like a Jedi mind trick has gripped the country, like ‘the will of the people’ was only 23 June,” Todd sighs. “It’s important for us to normalise debate and make people feel like it’s OK to say, ‘You know what, I don’t think this Brexit thing is going that well. Maybe we should look at it again.’”
One argument is that there was no form of Brexit on the ballot paper and that campaign promises have been broken. “When will we know what we voted for?” asked Best for Britain’s recent billboards. Another argument is demographic: there are already half a million new voters since June 2016, and multiple studies predict the British electorate will be firmly pro-remain by 2021. “The will of the people has an expiration date,” Ofoc’s co-founder Femi Oluwole says.
James MacCleary, the campaign director for the 69-year-old pressure group European Movement UK, thinks the campaign would be fought over “quite a small section of persuadables: probably 10%. We’re trying to identify the motivations, values and identity politics of people in that available group, and find ways to address issues they’re concerned about.”
Advertisement
The pro-EU cause seems to be shifting into the right corner of Malloch-Brown’s diagram. Umunna calls it a role reversal, with the leavers now in government and the remainers the fleet-footed rebels. “We think Brexit is being driven by elites,” says Tom Brufatto, chair of Britain for Europe. “Nigel Farage is a career politician – a failed one, but still a career politician. Arron Banks is a multimillionaire. They’re just a different type of establishment. We see an opportunity to brand ourselves as the change campaign that provides real solutions to the factors that led to Brexit.”
The challenge is formidable, but morale, support and fundraising are at their highest since the referendum, with even Farage admitting “the remain side are making all the running”.
***
It’s a bright, chilly March morning in Leeds. Thousands of people have gathered outside the Art Gallery for the Great Northern March, one of several simultaneous Stop Brexit protests designed to show that opposition is growing around the country. Drums are pounded, flags are waved, placards are held high, among them one that reads “Stop pretending this is a good idea!”
Anti-Brexit campaigners inside the Best for Britain offices
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Inside the Best for Britain offices. Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian
Eloise Todd scrutinises the expressions on bystanders’ faces to see if the issue is resonating with the public. At Best for Britain’s barnstorms, activists are sternly told that things that galvanise remainers, such as flags and Bollocks to Brexit stickers, are counterproductive when it comes to swaying the unconverted. A middle-aged man comes over to lend his support. “An enthusiastic northerner!” Todd says. They exchange a few words. “Oh,” she says. “He’s Dutch.”
The march concludes with a rally. Brufatto is here, as is Oluwole, whose bright red T-shirt reads: “I’m Femi, talk to me about Brexit.” “The mood is hopeful,” he says. “We’re out on the streets saying that you’re not alone if you think this is a disaster and you want things to change.”
Alongside marquee names such as Adonis and Grayling, the speakers include a Labour MEP, a Lib Dem peer, a former Tory councillor, a union official, a Spanish-born nurse and an Ofoc member who regrets voting leave. The voices are diverse, but they all hit the same notes: new facts have emerged; the negotiations aren’t delivering what was promised; a people’s vote is a democratic necessity; Brexit is not inevitable. Three weeks later, they will announce the People’s Vote.
“The people of this country are not daft,” Todd says from the stage. “Especially not in Yorkshire.” She raises her voice for a final rallying cry, triggering a cascade of cheers and applause. “Let’s do it!” But Todd knows that rallying the base is the easy part. The real fight is just beginning.
With less than a year remaining, the opponents of Brexit are mobilising. Could a second referendum be forced by people who won’t take go for an answer?
by Dorian Lynskey
Sat 28 Apr 2018 18.00 AEST
Mark Malloch-Brown is drawing me a picture. He first saw a version of it 28 years ago, while working on Mario Vargas Llosa’s presidential campaign in Peru. In a Lima bar one night, Malloch-Brown’s fellow consultant Rob Shepardson flipped over a beer mat and drew two intersecting axes that, he said, summed up all political campaigns. In Malloch-Brown’s version, the vertical axis runs from “change” to “status quo” and the horizontal from “distrusted elites” to “people like me”.
“Where was the Brexit campaign? Up here.” He marks a cross in the top right corner. “And where was the remain campaign? Down here.” Another cross, bottom left. “How do we reverse that position? How do we make remain – the very word is a status quo word – the change cause, and find spokespeople to deliver that message? Our whole campaign is about how to get to here.”
We’re meeting in London on 8 February, hours after the Daily Telegraph published an inflammatory front-page story about a £400,000 donation made by the investor and activist George Soros to Best for Britain, the anti-Brexit organisation Malloch-Brown chairs. After a hectic day of interviews, he appears serenely unflustered. “One shouldn’t overreact to the drama of things like this,” he says, leaning back and opening a can of Coke.
He’s seen worse. The Labour peer’s CV includes the UN, the Foreign Office and election campaigns in “lots of very strange places where massive disruptive forces were at work”. He joined Best for Britain last September, charged with uniting the anti-Brexit movement, and went public on 17 December, promising “a much more coordinated campaign and a more coherent, consistent message”. On 1 February, the Labour MP Chuka Umunna formally announced the existence of the grassroots coordinating group (GCG), a regular Wednesday morning gathering of organisations, activists and sympathetic MPs. Two weeks ago, GCG members launched the People’s Vote, calling for a referendum on the final Brexit deal.
One GCG member describes Malloch-Brown’s intervention as an accelerant rather than a catalyst – discussions about a united front had been ongoing for months – but to most remainers, 18 months after the referendum the movement still appeared frustratingly diffuse. The plethora of groups with overlapping names – Best for Britain, Open Britain, Britain for Europe, the European Movement – inspired frequent references to Monty Python’s People’s Front of Judea. Nick Clegg complained: “It is frankly a gift to the Brexiters the way so much anti-Brexit energy is being dissipated in so many disorganised ways.”
Mark Malloch Brown of Best for Britain, photographed at his office in London
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Mark Malloch-Brown of Best for Britain: ‘There’s a volatility about British politics.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian
That is no longer the case. The new arrangement, which Malloch-Brown describes as a “ragged army” or “wild garden”, pools resources around a shared message, while allowing space for different opinions and achieving the broadest possible reach. This alliance has been achieved not a moment too soon. On 29 March 2019, under the terms of article 50, the UK is set to leave the EU, beginning a 21-month transition period. Having all but abandoned the sunlit uplands, the government’s most powerful argument now is grim inevitability: like it or not, it has to happen. The anti-Brexit movement insists this is not true, and it has only months to prove it. “If this was Britain in a more traditional, settled moment in its political rhythm, it wouldn’t be enough time,” Malloch-Brown says. “But there’s a volatility about British politics at the moment which is quite novel.”
Thwarting the most divisive and disruptive development in modern British history would be an extraordinary achievement. This is how the anti-Brexit movement plans to do it.
Thursday 23 June 2016 was one of the roughest nights of James McGrory’s life. As a seasoned Liberal Democrat operative, he had grown accustomed to disappointing nights, but this was the first time it had fallen to him, as chief spokesman for Britain Stronger in Europe, to address the defeated troops. There were tears. Alcohol was required. The nearest pub that was open at dawn was the Hope, opposite Smithfield meat market in central London. “If the irony of drinking somewhere called the Hope wasn’t enough, all these lads were coming in from their shift covered in blood,” he remembers. “There was a lot of gallows humour.”
Post-ballot analysis is a game of winner takes all. The losers’ shrewd decisions are swept aside along with the winners’ mistakes. The truth is more nuanced, but it is generally agreed the remain campaign was too conservative and establishment-dominated, while the leave campaign was more passionate and agile. “They were very good at characterising us: the elites and Project Fear,” McGrory says over coffee and cigarettes in the plaza outside Millbank Tower in Westminster, the anti-Brexit movement’s new riverside nerve centre.
With the country exhausted and divided by the referendum, McGrory had to decide what to do next. Under election law, dissolving Stronger In would have meant discarding its database of half a million email addresses. “It would have been silly to throw the greatest pro-European asset that has ever been established in this country in the bin,” he says. “The question was: how do we keep the flame alive?”
One demo, ironically named Unite for Europe, almost fell apart, split by personality clashes and fights over strategy
McGrory and his colleague Joe Carberry (who has since moved on) morphed Stronger In into Open Britain. Launching in August 2016 with six staff (since expanded to 11), the campaign group aimed to “seek common ground between voters on both sides” by advocating a Brexit so soft, one journalist dubbed it “the Mr Whippy of Brexits”. McGrory calls it the best argument available at the time. “We couldn’t just come out and say we didn’t agree with Brexit, because we’d just been beaten and it would have lacked credibility. Second, it wasn’t where the country was. And third, there was zero appetite in parliament.”
Advertisement
Still, Open Britain’s position struck many remainers as defeatist. Early attempts at unity were derailed by heated exchanges between people who immediately sought to reverse Brexit and those who favoured a more cautious, long-term strategy. There was friction at the grassroots, too. Although several regional groups coalesced into Britain for Europe, others butted heads. “There was a lot of chaos and a lot of new entries,” says Dr Mike Galsworthy, co-founder of Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU. “Because it was such a confusing landscape, different people’s strategies were hard to line up and would change over time.” One major demonstration in March 2017, the ironically named Unite for Europe, almost fell apart when the organisers fractured into two groups due to personality clashes and fights over strategy. “That got very toxic,” Galsworthy says. “When the march finally happened, everyone breathed a massive sigh of relief and said, we don’t want to go back to that again.”
“That year was a bit of a desert for us,” says Hugo Dixon, the activist who runs anti-Brexit factchecking website infacts.org. “We went into a vicious cycle. We lost almost all our parliamentary and media support. ‘Stop fighting, get real,’ was the message I would get. It became almost impossible to raise money; people thought, ‘What’s the point of backing a lost horse?’ As a result, the pro-European activists lost heart.” He brightens. “Then Theresa May did this wonderful thing of calling an election.”
When May sought a mandate for hard Brexit on 18 April 2017, Best for Britain was eight days away from its official launch. “We thought, ‘Crikey, either we pop our plans in the freezer and see if they’re still relevant on 9 June, or we engage,’” the campaign director Eloise Todd says. We’re sitting in Best for Britain’s central London meeting room, surrounded by unnervingly large satirical portraits of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Tony Blair. “We felt we had little choice but to engage.”
During the referendum campaign, Todd had been global policy director for the One campaign, the anti-poverty coalition co-founded by Bono. Before that, she worked in and around the EU, becoming friends with the late Jo Cox, another Yorkshirewoman who worked in Brussels and anti-poverty NGOs. “I was known for getting governments to agree to ambitious things they didn’t really want to do,” she says. “Being a gamekeeper turned poacher, you learn what changes politicians’ minds.”
Eloise Todd of Best for Britain, photographed at their office in London
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Eloise Todd of Best for Britain: ‘I don’t mind looking a bit foolish.’ Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian
Shortly after the referendum, the Labour MP David Lammy called Todd to ask for advice because he believed “Brexit would be a massive mistake” and “the remain campaign was on its knees”. He introduced her to people who were looking to set up a more robust alternative to the continuity remain campaign, including the former health minister Alan Milburn and the economist Anatole Kaletsky. She started work in January 2017. “There seemed to be a clear gap in the market, a democratic way through this,” Todd says. “We said, the government’s got a mandate to negotiate, but not to sign it off.”
Todd’s first attempts to ally with other groups fizzled out. “There was not a huge appetite; people wanted their own patch.” (“I don’t recognise that assessment,” McGrory says.) But Best for Britain and Open Britain launched tactical voting initiatives to topple pro-Brexit MPs and boost remainers. It looked like a tall order. Best for Britain’s private polling predicted a walloping Tory majority. “A senior pollster told me, ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. It’s not going to work,’” Todd remembers. “I said, ‘I agree it looks very grim, but I don’t mind looking a bit foolish, because the alternative is not to try at all.’”
If the expected Tory landslide had materialised, Todd says, “We would have shut up shop and gone home.” Instead, May lost her majority altogether. “OK,” Todd thought. “Game on.”
On election night, Chuka Umunna was “elated” by the implications for Brexit. May’s mandate for a hard Brexit had been emphatically rebuffed and it was now arithmetically possible to defeat the government in the Commons. A few days later, he met with Anna Soubry, the Tories’ remainer-in-chief and a close ally since the referendum campaign, and said, “Look, we’ve got to get organised.”
The result liberated Umunna, who had been mooted as a challenger to Jeremy Corbyn in the event of a Tory landslide. “A few people saw my involvement in the pro-EU movement partly through the prism of internal Labour party politics,” he says, drinking tea in his office at Portcullis House. “This is nothing to do with the Labour leadership. Brexit is bigger than that.”
MPs Layla Moran (Lib Dem), Chuka Umunna (Labour) and Anna Soubry (Conservative) at the launch of the People’s Vote in London, UK, on 15th April 2018.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
MPs Layla Moran (Lib Dem), Chuka Umunna (Labour) and Anna Soubry (Conservative) at the launch of the People’s Vote earlier this month. Photograph: Vickie Flores/Alamy Live News
Umunna is passionately pro-European. “I am a quarter Irish, I have a Danish niece, nephew and brother-in-law, a French aunt and Spanish nationals in my family,” he says. “I feel intensely not just British and Nigerian, but European. When I tell people this, they say, ‘I understand now why you bang on about it so much.’” Following the referendum, however, he was a voice of caution. “What we were picking up in our constituencies was fatigue with the whole Brexit issue. If you were going to try to steer the country on to a different trajectory, it was not going to be possible in the immediate aftermath. Shouting about something isn’t necessarily going to get you where you need to get to.” He made his case on 5 September 2016, during a House of Commons debate: “I believe that if the deal that is reached at the end of this process is substantially and materially different from that that many of the leave voters believed they were promised, we could legitimately ask for a second referendum, but the fact is that we have not got to that point yet.”
The election shook the kaleidoscope. Umunna immediately proposed an ambitious amendment to the Queen’s speech, demanding the government guarantee Britain’s place in the single market. Though doomed to defeat, it was designed to “flush out the fiction that you can get all the economic benefits of EU membership while outside its economic structures” and jolt the Labour frontbench into breaking with the government. “I got a lot of flak for that amendment, but it brought out into the open the fact that basically we were pegged to the Tory position.” A month later, he and Soubry formed the all-party parliamentary group on EU relations, which includes the Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas and the Liberal Democrat deputy leader Jo Swinson.
That summer, Umunna was approached to take a leading role in coordinating the anti-Brexit forces. “I have to be honest, I was quite hesitant,” he says. But he believed the movement needed unity if it were to succeed. “I said, ‘Look, I want to stop Brexit as much as anyone else, but the question is how?’ My very strong view was that seeking to divide the movement between whether you were pure no-Brexit or soft Brexit was totally unhelpful.”
It’s a bit like a football team. You get a win and the crowd’s on your side again. When we work together, we're stronger
Last autumn, the GCG began to coalesce, formalising months of smaller meetings, conference calls, email chains and collaborations. Simultaneously, the former Tory MEP Edward McMillan-Scott began chairing Where Next for Brexit?, a separate but overlapping talking shop whose heavyweight attendees included Gina Miller, Alastair Campbell, Lord Adonis and AC Grayling. “It got to the point where everyone was saying, ‘Why don’t all these campaigns work together?’” Galsworthy says. “And actually we were – now we just had to communicate that.”
The fantasy of one dynamic saviour to become the face of anti-Brexit had been widely rejected. “It’s just a bit 90s, as if we’ve still got four channels on the telly,” Todd says. “We need different people to speak to different audiences, and the trick is making sure the right ears connect with the right voice.” Malloch-Brown calls it “a two-front fight: the Westminster front is all about day-to-day battles; the country-facing front uses a different set of spokespeople.”
On 13 December, anti-Brexit MPs finally bagged their first victory. Passing by a whisker, amendment 7 to the withdrawal bill required a separate act of parliament to approve the final deal: the crucial “meaningful vote”. Several MPs told McGrory that activists’ letters, surgery visits and social media pressure had influenced their decision. “It’s a bit like a football team,” McGrory says. “You get a win and suddenly the crowd’s on your side again. It was a shot in the arm for two reasons. First, when we work together, we are stronger. Second, this isn’t a done deal.”
***
The ideal scenario for the anti-Brexit movement goes like this. In October or November this year, the government will conclude negotiations and present the final Brexit deal to parliament. Under pressure from their constituents and opinion polls, MPs will vote to reject it and pass legislation for another referendum with a “No Brexit” option on the ballot. Remain will swing enough voters to win the referendum. The government will ask the EU to revoke article 50 before 29 March. RIP Brexit.
Members of InFacts, Healthier IN the EU, the European Movement, Our Future, Our Choice and Open Britain at their shared offices in Millbank Tower. From left: Rob Davidson, Aurora Lyngstad, Hugo Mann, Hugo Dixon, James MacCleary, Lara Spirit, Alex Clifford and Rachel Franklin
Members of InFacts, Healthier IN the EU, the European Movement, Our Future, Our Choice and Open Britain at their shared offices in Millbank Tower. From left: Rob Davidson, Aurora Lyngstad, Hugo Mann, Hugo Dixon, James MacCleary, Lara Spirit, Alex Clifford and Rachel Franklin. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Guardian
Advertisement
That’s a simple way of describing a fiendishly tricky and unpredictable chain of events. First, success in the Commons depends on Labour both rejecting the deal and supporting another referendum. (“Frankly, if Labour puts its head in the sand and tries to ignore the anti-Brexit effect on our vote in 2017, we will be punished when the next general election comes,” Umunna says.) The next hurdle is passing legislation for a referendum, which would normally take a year. Then the anti-Brexit cause would need to win that referendum. The latest polling by YouGov and ICM gives remain a slim lead, but ComRes and ORB favour leave. Finally, it’s unclear whether the EU27 would be sympathetic to an 11th-hour change of heart. “We could be in a level of constitutional uncertainty I’ve never seen in politics,” McGrory says. “To try to game-theory this is really hard.” He’s a realistic optimist. “Well, you’d like longer, wouldn’t you? It’s by no means unachievable, but it’s unquestionably a stiff task.”
Preparations have escalated dramatically. In the first week of March, eight key groups moved into shared offices at Millbank Tower – on the same floor, coincidentally, as the website brexitcentral.com. When I visit a week later, the main office still has an ad hoc feel, with nothing on the three banks of desks apart from laptops, papers and a communal bowl of sweets. Each organisation’s sector of the office is marked by a colourful banner or cardboard display.
Open Britain has the largest following – 550,000 email subscribers and 553,000 Facebook followers – and the strongest connections with the media and MPs; Lord Mandelson is a founding board member. Britain for Europe and the European Movement maintain branches around the country, keeping the conversation alive and preparing to spring into action the moment a referendum is announced. Scientists For EU and Healthier IN the EU are maestros of social media. InFacts is an unrivalled data resource. The wittily acronymed Our Future, Our Choice (Ofoc) and For our Future’s Sake (FFS) speak to younger voters. Meanwhile, Best for Britain, which maintains separate offices, uses its war chest to fund polling, advertising and regional “barnstorms”, inspired by Barack Obama’s campaigns, that teach activists how to get out of their echo chambers and talk to wavering leavers. Between them, they cover the waterfront.
Campaign group Our Future, Our Choice’s Femi Oluwole, photographed in Darlington, 19 April, 2018
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Femi Oluwole of Our Future, Our Choice: ‘The will of the people has an expiration date.’ Photograph: Mike Pinches for the Guardian
“We need ruthless pragmatism,” says Dr Rob Davidson, who co-founded Scientists for EU and Healthier IN the EU with Galsworthy. “No group is big enough on its own. We’ve all tried working with different combinations of people. There have been fallings out, there have been splits. What we’ve found here is people who are willing to be pragmatic.”
The Millbank move was a precursor to the launch of the People’s Vote on 15 April – the campaign seeks to establish the democratic legitimacy of a vote on the deal. “It’s the most significant thing that’s happened on our side of the argument since the referendum,” McGrory says. “It’s what everyone’s wanted for ages. Why don’t you have a single campaign with a very clear ask? Well, there is one now.”
A recent YouGov poll found that only 38% of voters backed a vote (the unpopular term “second referendum” is verboten), with 45% opposed, although the gap is narrowing. “It feels like a Jedi mind trick has gripped the country, like ‘the will of the people’ was only 23 June,” Todd sighs. “It’s important for us to normalise debate and make people feel like it’s OK to say, ‘You know what, I don’t think this Brexit thing is going that well. Maybe we should look at it again.’”
One argument is that there was no form of Brexit on the ballot paper and that campaign promises have been broken. “When will we know what we voted for?” asked Best for Britain’s recent billboards. Another argument is demographic: there are already half a million new voters since June 2016, and multiple studies predict the British electorate will be firmly pro-remain by 2021. “The will of the people has an expiration date,” Ofoc’s co-founder Femi Oluwole says.
James MacCleary, the campaign director for the 69-year-old pressure group European Movement UK, thinks the campaign would be fought over “quite a small section of persuadables: probably 10%. We’re trying to identify the motivations, values and identity politics of people in that available group, and find ways to address issues they’re concerned about.”
Advertisement
The pro-EU cause seems to be shifting into the right corner of Malloch-Brown’s diagram. Umunna calls it a role reversal, with the leavers now in government and the remainers the fleet-footed rebels. “We think Brexit is being driven by elites,” says Tom Brufatto, chair of Britain for Europe. “Nigel Farage is a career politician – a failed one, but still a career politician. Arron Banks is a multimillionaire. They’re just a different type of establishment. We see an opportunity to brand ourselves as the change campaign that provides real solutions to the factors that led to Brexit.”
The challenge is formidable, but morale, support and fundraising are at their highest since the referendum, with even Farage admitting “the remain side are making all the running”.
***
It’s a bright, chilly March morning in Leeds. Thousands of people have gathered outside the Art Gallery for the Great Northern March, one of several simultaneous Stop Brexit protests designed to show that opposition is growing around the country. Drums are pounded, flags are waved, placards are held high, among them one that reads “Stop pretending this is a good idea!”
Anti-Brexit campaigners inside the Best for Britain offices
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Inside the Best for Britain offices. Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Guardian
Eloise Todd scrutinises the expressions on bystanders’ faces to see if the issue is resonating with the public. At Best for Britain’s barnstorms, activists are sternly told that things that galvanise remainers, such as flags and Bollocks to Brexit stickers, are counterproductive when it comes to swaying the unconverted. A middle-aged man comes over to lend his support. “An enthusiastic northerner!” Todd says. They exchange a few words. “Oh,” she says. “He’s Dutch.”
The march concludes with a rally. Brufatto is here, as is Oluwole, whose bright red T-shirt reads: “I’m Femi, talk to me about Brexit.” “The mood is hopeful,” he says. “We’re out on the streets saying that you’re not alone if you think this is a disaster and you want things to change.”
Alongside marquee names such as Adonis and Grayling, the speakers include a Labour MEP, a Lib Dem peer, a former Tory councillor, a union official, a Spanish-born nurse and an Ofoc member who regrets voting leave. The voices are diverse, but they all hit the same notes: new facts have emerged; the negotiations aren’t delivering what was promised; a people’s vote is a democratic necessity; Brexit is not inevitable. Three weeks later, they will announce the People’s Vote.
“The people of this country are not daft,” Todd says from the stage. “Especially not in Yorkshire.” She raises her voice for a final rallying cry, triggering a cascade of cheers and applause. “Let’s do it!” But Todd knows that rallying the base is the easy part. The real fight is just beginning.
Visa Jumps on Debit Spending by Credit-Averse Millennials - Bloomberg
Visa Jumps on Debit Spending by Credit-Averse Millennials
By Jennifer Surane
April 26, 2018, 6:22 AM GMT+10 Updated on April 26, 2018, 8:17 AM GMT+10
Debit spending continued to grow at faster clip than credit
Visa CFO: Consumers look ‘pretty strong’ as they spend more
Visa Jumps on Debit Spending by Millennials
You can thank the millennials.
Spending on Visa Inc. debit cards -- the favored plastic of the younger set -- continues to grow at a faster clip than on credit. Spending on the firm’s debit cards jumped 16.3 percent in this year’s first three months, helping the firm raise its financial outlook for 2018. Credit-card spending rose 13.7 percent.
“Every aspect of the debit business looked very good this quarter,” Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu said On a conference call with analysts. It “attests to a pretty strong consumer profile in terms of propensity to spend.”
Younger consumers prefer to pay with debit cards or cash after cultivating an aversion to credit while coming of age during the financial crisis. They also don’t typically qualify for top credit cards until becoming older. Visa, the world’s largest payment network, generates more-lucrative fees from credit-card use yet has a larger debit business than rival Mastercard Inc.
Total spending on Visa’s network climbed 14.9 percent to $2 trillion in the first three months of the year, topping the $1.98 trillion average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That helped boost revenue to $5.1 billion, a 13 percent increase compared with a year ago, exceeding estimates of $4.82 billion.
Higher Forecast
Prabhu also said the firm’s results benefited from a weaker U.S. dollar in the first three months of the year. Cross-border payment volumes rose 11 percent.
“Revenue growth was better than anticipated and many of our key business drivers accelerated compared to the first quarter, including strong growth in cross-border and payments volume,” Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said in the statement announcing results for the fiscal second quarter.
Visa raised its forecast for full-year, earnings-per-share growth rate to the “low 60s” from the mid-50s and it now expects adjusted EPS growth in the “high 20s.”
The stock rose 3.1 percent to $125 at 5:50 p.m. in late trading in New York. It had climbed 6.3 percent this year through the close of trading on Wednesday, compared with the 1.8 percent advance of the S&P 500 Information Technology Index.
Here are other metrics to watch:
Net income jumped to $2.6 billion, or $1.11 a share, from $430 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier, when the company incurred extra costs from reorganizing its legal entity in Europe. That topped analysts’ $1.02 average estimate.
Operating expenses climbed 4 percent to $1.74 billion, the company said, primarily driven by an increase in personnel and marketing costs. That topped the $1.61 billion average of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Visa spent $1.29 billion on incentives for banks to issue cards on its network in the quarter. That came in lower than the $1.39 billion analysts expected.
By Jennifer Surane
April 26, 2018, 6:22 AM GMT+10 Updated on April 26, 2018, 8:17 AM GMT+10
Debit spending continued to grow at faster clip than credit
Visa CFO: Consumers look ‘pretty strong’ as they spend more
Visa Jumps on Debit Spending by Millennials
You can thank the millennials.
Spending on Visa Inc. debit cards -- the favored plastic of the younger set -- continues to grow at a faster clip than on credit. Spending on the firm’s debit cards jumped 16.3 percent in this year’s first three months, helping the firm raise its financial outlook for 2018. Credit-card spending rose 13.7 percent.
“Every aspect of the debit business looked very good this quarter,” Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu said On a conference call with analysts. It “attests to a pretty strong consumer profile in terms of propensity to spend.”
Younger consumers prefer to pay with debit cards or cash after cultivating an aversion to credit while coming of age during the financial crisis. They also don’t typically qualify for top credit cards until becoming older. Visa, the world’s largest payment network, generates more-lucrative fees from credit-card use yet has a larger debit business than rival Mastercard Inc.
Total spending on Visa’s network climbed 14.9 percent to $2 trillion in the first three months of the year, topping the $1.98 trillion average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That helped boost revenue to $5.1 billion, a 13 percent increase compared with a year ago, exceeding estimates of $4.82 billion.
Higher Forecast
Prabhu also said the firm’s results benefited from a weaker U.S. dollar in the first three months of the year. Cross-border payment volumes rose 11 percent.
“Revenue growth was better than anticipated and many of our key business drivers accelerated compared to the first quarter, including strong growth in cross-border and payments volume,” Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said in the statement announcing results for the fiscal second quarter.
Visa raised its forecast for full-year, earnings-per-share growth rate to the “low 60s” from the mid-50s and it now expects adjusted EPS growth in the “high 20s.”
The stock rose 3.1 percent to $125 at 5:50 p.m. in late trading in New York. It had climbed 6.3 percent this year through the close of trading on Wednesday, compared with the 1.8 percent advance of the S&P 500 Information Technology Index.
Here are other metrics to watch:
Net income jumped to $2.6 billion, or $1.11 a share, from $430 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier, when the company incurred extra costs from reorganizing its legal entity in Europe. That topped analysts’ $1.02 average estimate.
Operating expenses climbed 4 percent to $1.74 billion, the company said, primarily driven by an increase in personnel and marketing costs. That topped the $1.61 billion average of 12 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Visa spent $1.29 billion on incentives for banks to issue cards on its network in the quarter. That came in lower than the $1.39 billion analysts expected.
Russian lawyer from Trump Tower meeting claims to be an 'informant' - Independent
April 28, 2018
Russian lawyer from Trump Tower meeting claims to be an 'informant'
'I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,' Natalia Veselnitskaya says
Emily Shugerman New York @eshugerman
The Russian lawyer who attended at a controversial meeting with Trump campaign members has reportedly called herself “an informant” who is in communication with Russia's chief prosecutor.
Attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was one of eight people present at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, which was organised after an intermediary promised to give Donald Trump Jr incriminating information about his father’s election rival, Hillary Clinton.
Ms Veselnitskaya has previously claimed that she was acting independently during the meeting with Trump campaign officials. But her recent comments suggest she may have been more involved with the Russian government than she let on.
Trump's Jr took Russian lawyer to meet his father, claims Steve Bannon
“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she told NBC News in an interview set to air Friday night, according to the New York Times.
She added: “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”
The comments square with earlier New York Times reporting, which suggested Ms Veselnitskaya had spoken with Russia’s prosecutor general about the memos she intended to deliver to the Trump team.
The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation
17
show all
The Times also reviewed emails which appear to show Ms Veselnitskaya working closely with the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, on a 2014 case involving the US Department of Justice.
According to emails obtained by former Russian tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, and seen by the Times, Ms Veselnitskaya helped Mr Chaika respond to the US’s request for help in a civil fraud case. The Russian government provided little help in the case, according to an American judge, and the Justice Department eventually agreed to settle.
The emails, and Ms Veselnitskaya’s recent comments, contrast with her statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, in which she claimed to operate "independently of any governmental bodies”.
“I have no relationship with Mr Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer,” she told the committee in November.
Russian lawyer says Trump Jr 'badly' wanted dirt on Clintons
The Trump Tower meeting drew scrutiny last year, after the Times reported that Ms Veselnitskaya had attended the meeting with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Mr Trump Jr and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Mr Trump Jr claimed the meeting – which friend and former business partner Rob Goldstone helped arrange – was “nothing” and "a wasted 20 minutes”.
He later released emails revealing that Mr Goldstone had offered him “official documents and information" that would incriminate Ms Clinton, from someone he referred to as the “Crown prosecutor of Russia”.
Russia does not have a crown prosecutor. The closest role is Mr Chaika’s – the prosecutor general.
Mr Trump Jr and his father have both repeatedly denied colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Russian lawyer from Trump Tower meeting claims to be an 'informant'
'I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,' Natalia Veselnitskaya says
Emily Shugerman New York @eshugerman
The Russian lawyer who attended at a controversial meeting with Trump campaign members has reportedly called herself “an informant” who is in communication with Russia's chief prosecutor.
Attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was one of eight people present at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, which was organised after an intermediary promised to give Donald Trump Jr incriminating information about his father’s election rival, Hillary Clinton.
Ms Veselnitskaya has previously claimed that she was acting independently during the meeting with Trump campaign officials. But her recent comments suggest she may have been more involved with the Russian government than she let on.
Trump's Jr took Russian lawyer to meet his father, claims Steve Bannon
“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she told NBC News in an interview set to air Friday night, according to the New York Times.
She added: “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”
The comments square with earlier New York Times reporting, which suggested Ms Veselnitskaya had spoken with Russia’s prosecutor general about the memos she intended to deliver to the Trump team.
The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation
17
show all
The Times also reviewed emails which appear to show Ms Veselnitskaya working closely with the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, on a 2014 case involving the US Department of Justice.
According to emails obtained by former Russian tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, and seen by the Times, Ms Veselnitskaya helped Mr Chaika respond to the US’s request for help in a civil fraud case. The Russian government provided little help in the case, according to an American judge, and the Justice Department eventually agreed to settle.
The emails, and Ms Veselnitskaya’s recent comments, contrast with her statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year, in which she claimed to operate "independently of any governmental bodies”.
“I have no relationship with Mr Chaika, his representatives and his institutions other than those related to my professional functions as a lawyer,” she told the committee in November.
Russian lawyer says Trump Jr 'badly' wanted dirt on Clintons
The Trump Tower meeting drew scrutiny last year, after the Times reported that Ms Veselnitskaya had attended the meeting with Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Mr Trump Jr and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Mr Trump Jr claimed the meeting – which friend and former business partner Rob Goldstone helped arrange – was “nothing” and "a wasted 20 minutes”.
He later released emails revealing that Mr Goldstone had offered him “official documents and information" that would incriminate Ms Clinton, from someone he referred to as the “Crown prosecutor of Russia”.
Russia does not have a crown prosecutor. The closest role is Mr Chaika’s – the prosecutor general.
Mr Trump Jr and his father have both repeatedly denied colluding with Russia to win the 2016 election.
Five things you might be surprised affect weight - BBC News
April 28, 2018
Five things you might be surprised affect weight
By Kirstie Brewer
BBC News
People might think battling obesity is down to sheer willpower, but medical research says otherwise. Here are five potentially surprising factors that can affect your weight, as unearthed by The Truth About Obesity .
1. Gut microbes
Gillian and Jackie are twins - but one weighs over six stone (41kg) more than the other.
Prof Tim Spector has been tracking their progress over 25 years, as part of the Twins Research UK study.
He believes a lot of their weight differences are down to the tiny organisms - microbes - that live deep in the gut.
"Every time you eat anything, you're feeding a hundred trillion microbes. You're never dining alone," he says.
A stool sample from each twin revealed Gillian, the thinner of the two, had a very diverse range of microbes, whereas Jackie had very few species living in her gut.
"The greater the diversity, the skinnier the person. If you're carrying too much weight, your microbes aren't as diverse as they should be," says Prof Spector, who found the same pattern in a study of 5,000 people.
Having a healthy and varied diet, rich in different sources of fibre, has been shown to create a more diverse range of gut microbes.
Prof Spector warns most Britons eat only half the fibre they should.
Good sources of dietary fibre include:
wholegrain breakfast cereals
fruits, including berries and pears
vegetables, such as broccoli and carrots
beans
pulses
nuts
2. The gene lottery
Why do some people diligently follow diets and exercise regularly but still struggle to see results, while others do very little and don't pile on the pounds?
Scientists at Cambridge University believe 40-70% of the effect on our weight is down to variation in the genes we inherit.
"It is a lottery," says Prof Sadaf Farooqi.
"It is now very clear that genes are involved in regulating our weight, and if you have a particular fault in some genes that can be enough to drive obesity."
Particular genes can affect a person's appetite, how much food they want to eat and what type of food they might prefer. Genes can also affect how we burn calories and whether our bodies can efficiently handle fat.
There are at least 100 that can affect weight, including one called MC4R.
It is thought about one in every 1,000 people carries a defective version of the MC4R gene, which works in the brain to control hunger and appetite. People with a fault in this gene tend to be more hungry and crave higher fat foods.
Prof Farooqi says: "There's not really anything you can do about your genes, but for some people, knowing that genes may increase their chances of gaining weight can help them to deal with changes in diet and exercise."
If you can't see the calculator tap or click here.
Can we trust BMI to measure obesity?
3. What time it is
There's some truth to the old saying: "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and dinner like a pauper," but not for the reasons you might think.
Obesity expert Dr James Brown says the later we eat, the more likely we are to gain weight. Not because we're less active at night, as is commonly believed, but because of our internal body clocks.
"The body is set-up to handle calories much more efficiently during the daytime period when it's light than it is at night when it's dark" he says.
For that reason, people who do shift-work and erratic hours might face a particular battle to stave off weight gain.
During the night our bodies struggle to digest fats and sugars so eating the bulk of calories before about 19:00 can help you lose weight or prevent you from gaining it in the first place.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
"Go to work on an egg" isn't a bad idea
Over the past decade, the average dinnertime in Britain has moved from 17:00 to around 20:00, and this has contributed to rising obesity levels, according to Dr Brown.
But today's working patterns and hectic lifestyles aside, there are things we can do that will make a difference to our waistlines.
Skipping breakfast or just having a piece of toast is a no-no in Dr Brown's book.
Instead, eating something with lots of protein and some fat, as well as carbohydrates - such as eggs on wholegrain toast - will make you feel fuller for longer.
Follow that up with a substantial nutritious lunch, and have something lighter at dinnertime.
4. Tricking your brain
The Behavioural Insights Team suggests Britons are bad at keeping track of how much they eat, and that calorie consumption is being underestimated by 30-50% as a result.
Behavioural scientist Hugo Harper suggests a number of ways to subconsciously change your eating behaviour, rather than rely on calorie counting.
For example, removing visual temptations might be more effective than relying on conscious willpower.
So don't have unhealthy snacks out on the kitchen counter - put a fruit bowl or healthy snacks in reach instead.
Don't sit down with a whole packet of biscuits in front of the television, put the number you plan to eat on a plate and take that through instead.
Dr Harper also encourages substitution behaviours - swapping to lower calorie alternatives of favourite foods rather than trying to banish them all together.
Opt for diet versions of soft drinks, for example. And reducing portion sizes can also be more effective than trying to cut out that ritual afternoon tea with a chocolate biscuit (or is that just us?).
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
Not now Fido!
"People don't tend to notice a difference when their portion sizes are reduced by 5-10%," Dr Harper says.
There is a tendency to eat without thinking about it, so following the serving suggestions on food packets and using a smaller plate when dishing up dinner can prevent someone absent-mindedly chomping through excess calories.
5. Hormones
The success of bariatric surgery isn't just down to creating a smaller stomach, but the change in hormones it creates.
Our appetites are controlled by our hormones and it has been discovered that bariatric surgery - the most effective treatment of obesity - makes the hormones that make us feel full increase and the ones that make us feel hungry drop in number.
But its a major operation that involves reducing the size of the stomach by up to 90% and is only carried out on people with a BMI of at least 35.
Researchers at Imperial College London have recreated the gut hormones that cause appetite changes after bariatric surgery and are using this for a new clinical trial.
A mixture of three hormones are given to patients as an injection every day for four weeks.
"Patients are feeling less hungry, they're eating less and they're losing between 2-8kg (4-17lb) in just 28 days," says Dr Tricia Tan.
If the drug is proven safe, the plan is to use it until the patients reach a healthy weight.
Five things you might be surprised affect weight
By Kirstie Brewer
BBC News
People might think battling obesity is down to sheer willpower, but medical research says otherwise. Here are five potentially surprising factors that can affect your weight, as unearthed by The Truth About Obesity .
1. Gut microbes
Gillian and Jackie are twins - but one weighs over six stone (41kg) more than the other.
Prof Tim Spector has been tracking their progress over 25 years, as part of the Twins Research UK study.
He believes a lot of their weight differences are down to the tiny organisms - microbes - that live deep in the gut.
"Every time you eat anything, you're feeding a hundred trillion microbes. You're never dining alone," he says.
A stool sample from each twin revealed Gillian, the thinner of the two, had a very diverse range of microbes, whereas Jackie had very few species living in her gut.
"The greater the diversity, the skinnier the person. If you're carrying too much weight, your microbes aren't as diverse as they should be," says Prof Spector, who found the same pattern in a study of 5,000 people.
Having a healthy and varied diet, rich in different sources of fibre, has been shown to create a more diverse range of gut microbes.
Prof Spector warns most Britons eat only half the fibre they should.
Good sources of dietary fibre include:
wholegrain breakfast cereals
fruits, including berries and pears
vegetables, such as broccoli and carrots
beans
pulses
nuts
2. The gene lottery
Why do some people diligently follow diets and exercise regularly but still struggle to see results, while others do very little and don't pile on the pounds?
Scientists at Cambridge University believe 40-70% of the effect on our weight is down to variation in the genes we inherit.
"It is a lottery," says Prof Sadaf Farooqi.
"It is now very clear that genes are involved in regulating our weight, and if you have a particular fault in some genes that can be enough to drive obesity."
Particular genes can affect a person's appetite, how much food they want to eat and what type of food they might prefer. Genes can also affect how we burn calories and whether our bodies can efficiently handle fat.
There are at least 100 that can affect weight, including one called MC4R.
It is thought about one in every 1,000 people carries a defective version of the MC4R gene, which works in the brain to control hunger and appetite. People with a fault in this gene tend to be more hungry and crave higher fat foods.
Prof Farooqi says: "There's not really anything you can do about your genes, but for some people, knowing that genes may increase their chances of gaining weight can help them to deal with changes in diet and exercise."
If you can't see the calculator tap or click here.
Can we trust BMI to measure obesity?
3. What time it is
There's some truth to the old saying: "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and dinner like a pauper," but not for the reasons you might think.
Obesity expert Dr James Brown says the later we eat, the more likely we are to gain weight. Not because we're less active at night, as is commonly believed, but because of our internal body clocks.
"The body is set-up to handle calories much more efficiently during the daytime period when it's light than it is at night when it's dark" he says.
For that reason, people who do shift-work and erratic hours might face a particular battle to stave off weight gain.
During the night our bodies struggle to digest fats and sugars so eating the bulk of calories before about 19:00 can help you lose weight or prevent you from gaining it in the first place.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
"Go to work on an egg" isn't a bad idea
Over the past decade, the average dinnertime in Britain has moved from 17:00 to around 20:00, and this has contributed to rising obesity levels, according to Dr Brown.
But today's working patterns and hectic lifestyles aside, there are things we can do that will make a difference to our waistlines.
Skipping breakfast or just having a piece of toast is a no-no in Dr Brown's book.
Instead, eating something with lots of protein and some fat, as well as carbohydrates - such as eggs on wholegrain toast - will make you feel fuller for longer.
Follow that up with a substantial nutritious lunch, and have something lighter at dinnertime.
4. Tricking your brain
The Behavioural Insights Team suggests Britons are bad at keeping track of how much they eat, and that calorie consumption is being underestimated by 30-50% as a result.
Behavioural scientist Hugo Harper suggests a number of ways to subconsciously change your eating behaviour, rather than rely on calorie counting.
For example, removing visual temptations might be more effective than relying on conscious willpower.
So don't have unhealthy snacks out on the kitchen counter - put a fruit bowl or healthy snacks in reach instead.
Don't sit down with a whole packet of biscuits in front of the television, put the number you plan to eat on a plate and take that through instead.
Dr Harper also encourages substitution behaviours - swapping to lower calorie alternatives of favourite foods rather than trying to banish them all together.
Opt for diet versions of soft drinks, for example. And reducing portion sizes can also be more effective than trying to cut out that ritual afternoon tea with a chocolate biscuit (or is that just us?).
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
Not now Fido!
"People don't tend to notice a difference when their portion sizes are reduced by 5-10%," Dr Harper says.
There is a tendency to eat without thinking about it, so following the serving suggestions on food packets and using a smaller plate when dishing up dinner can prevent someone absent-mindedly chomping through excess calories.
5. Hormones
The success of bariatric surgery isn't just down to creating a smaller stomach, but the change in hormones it creates.
Our appetites are controlled by our hormones and it has been discovered that bariatric surgery - the most effective treatment of obesity - makes the hormones that make us feel full increase and the ones that make us feel hungry drop in number.
But its a major operation that involves reducing the size of the stomach by up to 90% and is only carried out on people with a BMI of at least 35.
Researchers at Imperial College London have recreated the gut hormones that cause appetite changes after bariatric surgery and are using this for a new clinical trial.
A mixture of three hormones are given to patients as an injection every day for four weeks.
"Patients are feeling less hungry, they're eating less and they're losing between 2-8kg (4-17lb) in just 28 days," says Dr Tricia Tan.
If the drug is proven safe, the plan is to use it until the patients reach a healthy weight.
Abba announce first new music since 1982 - BBC News
Abba announce first new music since 1982
By Mark Savage
BBC Music reporter
27 April 2018
470 comments Share this with Facebook Share this with Twitter Share this with Messenger Share this with Email Share
Pop group Abba have returned to the studio to record their first new music since the 1980s.
The Swedish quartet said the new material was an "unexpected consequence" of their recent decision to put together a "virtual reality" tour.
"We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the studio," the band said on Instagram.
"And it was like time stood still."
No release date has been set for the new songs - but one of them, titled I Still Have Faith In You, will be performed in December on a TV special broadcast by the BBC and NBC.
Skip Instagram post by abbaofficial
Report
End of Instagram post by abbaofficial
Abba's spokesperson Gorel Hanser told the BBC the atmosphere in the studio was "magic".
"It was like no time had passed at all," she said. "It was like the olden days. They were happy, it was easy and warm-hearted, and it was actually quite moving. I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes."
But she said said the group would not perform live, other than as holograms in the forthcoming Abba Avatar tour.
"It's a studio moment, I can promise you," she said. "Don't expect too much."
Skip Twitter post by @BBCPM
BBCPM
✔
@BBCPM
“They were happy... it was actually quite moving... and I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes.” #ABBA manager Görel Hanser tells @bbcpaddy about being in the studio whilst the group recorded their first new music for 35 yrs. #bbcpm
4:24 AM - Apr 28, 2018
99
48 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Report
End of Twitter post by @BBCPM
The band have resisted pressure to reform since they stopped recording together in 1982, despite a reported $1bn (£689m) offer to tour in 2000.
In an interview with the BBC in 2013, Agnetha Faltskog said she preferred to leave the band in the past.
"It was such a long time ago, and we are getting older, and we have our different lives," she explained.
News of the new material comes in a bumper year for Abba fans. An immersive exhibition based on the band's career is running on London's South Bank, while Chess, the musical Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote with Sir Tim Rice, is being revived in the West End.
Will Abba's new music ruin their legacy?
Abba give first performance in 30 years
6 shocks from the Mamma Mia 2 trailer
Abba's Agnetha comes out of retirement
A sequel to the film version of Mamma Mia!, starring Amanda Seyfried, Lily James and Cher, will be released on 20 July.
Speaking to BBC News, Rod Stephen, founder of Abba tribute act Bjorn Again, described the new material as "a whole new beginning".
Bjorn, Anni-Frid, Agnetha and Benny pictured at the Swedish production of Mamma Mia in 2016
"I heard about Abba releasing new songs and I was instantly, like everyone else in the Abba community, really excited to know what the songs were and how they're going to sound. Will it have that 1970s sound or will it be up to date?
"It's brilliant really, because we love Abba's music to death. I just hope they're great songs, I hope they're equivalent to Dancing Queen or Mamma Mia."
He added: "I know Benny and Bjorn wouldn't release something in this way unless they were good songs."
Speaking to the BBC's Adam Fleming last week, Ulvaeus had hinted that there could be new material. Here's what he said:
Media captionBjorn Ulvaeus hints there could be new ABBA material
How did the Abba avatar idea come about?
We were introduced to an idea by Simon Fuller who is, as you know, an entertainment entrepreneur - [creator of] the format of American Idol and manager of the Spice Girls and so forth.
He came to Stockholm and he presented this idea to us that we could make identical digital copies of ourselves of a certain age and that those copies could then go on tour and they could sing our songs, you know, and lip sync. I've seen this project halfway through and it's already mind-boggling.
What does it actually look like? Does it look like a younger you?
Yes. Real. And they say once it's finished you'll never see that it's not a human being. And what attracted me personally to this is of course I'm always curious, scientifically-curious and this is new technology and we are pioneers. So I thought, 'Yeah let's go for it,' and you know the other three went for it as well.
What is the actual format of the tribute show going to be? Is it going to be these Abba-tars all the way though?
No, other people as well. And as for the format I'm not entirely sure what it's going to look like but some sort of tribute show with these Abba-tars for want of a better word as the kind of centrepiece.
Will you write new material for it?
We don't know what the Abba-tars will sing yet but there's lots to choose from of the old stuff and yeah, I'm not ready to say that yet.
So there could be new songs…
I'm… it's up in the air.
Stay tuned…
Yeah.
Why not reform and have a reunion? The real you, rather than the virtual ones.
Yeah, why not? Well… it never seemed like a good idea. It's not that we haven't had offers over the years. But somehow we always thought that the Abba that people have in their minds are the once-young and energetic group from the '70s. And we just never felt the urge to go on tour, I guess.
On the whole we toured very little. We had like 10 years together and of those 10 years maybe we toured, like, seven months. Not more than that. So to go on tour as a geriatric, I don't know!
Formed in 1972, Abba were essentially a Swedish supergroup, consisting of songwriters Ulvaeus and Andersson from The Hep Stars and singers Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who had scored success as solo artists.
But their joint project completely eclipsed their previous successes. After winning the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974, the band sold almost 400 million singles and albums around the world.
Mamma Mia!, the musical based on their hits and produced by Ulvaeus and Andersson, has been seen by more than 50 million people.
During their most successful period, the band survived marriage break-ups between Ulvaeus and Faltskog, and Lyngstad and Andersson, but they finally called it a day in 1983.
Their final recording sessions, in 1982, produced the hits Under Attack and The Day Before You Came, which featured on the compilation album The Singles.
Their last public performance came three years later, on the Swedish version of TV show This Is Your Life, which honoured their manager Stig Anderson.
By Mark Savage
BBC Music reporter
27 April 2018
470 comments Share this with Facebook Share this with Twitter Share this with Messenger Share this with Email Share
Pop group Abba have returned to the studio to record their first new music since the 1980s.
The Swedish quartet said the new material was an "unexpected consequence" of their recent decision to put together a "virtual reality" tour.
"We all four felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the studio," the band said on Instagram.
"And it was like time stood still."
No release date has been set for the new songs - but one of them, titled I Still Have Faith In You, will be performed in December on a TV special broadcast by the BBC and NBC.
Skip Instagram post by abbaofficial
Report
End of Instagram post by abbaofficial
Abba's spokesperson Gorel Hanser told the BBC the atmosphere in the studio was "magic".
"It was like no time had passed at all," she said. "It was like the olden days. They were happy, it was easy and warm-hearted, and it was actually quite moving. I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes."
But she said said the group would not perform live, other than as holograms in the forthcoming Abba Avatar tour.
"It's a studio moment, I can promise you," she said. "Don't expect too much."
Skip Twitter post by @BBCPM
BBCPM
✔
@BBCPM
“They were happy... it was actually quite moving... and I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes.” #ABBA manager Görel Hanser tells @bbcpaddy about being in the studio whilst the group recorded their first new music for 35 yrs. #bbcpm
4:24 AM - Apr 28, 2018
99
48 people are talking about this
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Report
End of Twitter post by @BBCPM
The band have resisted pressure to reform since they stopped recording together in 1982, despite a reported $1bn (£689m) offer to tour in 2000.
In an interview with the BBC in 2013, Agnetha Faltskog said she preferred to leave the band in the past.
"It was such a long time ago, and we are getting older, and we have our different lives," she explained.
News of the new material comes in a bumper year for Abba fans. An immersive exhibition based on the band's career is running on London's South Bank, while Chess, the musical Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote with Sir Tim Rice, is being revived in the West End.
Will Abba's new music ruin their legacy?
Abba give first performance in 30 years
6 shocks from the Mamma Mia 2 trailer
Abba's Agnetha comes out of retirement
A sequel to the film version of Mamma Mia!, starring Amanda Seyfried, Lily James and Cher, will be released on 20 July.
Speaking to BBC News, Rod Stephen, founder of Abba tribute act Bjorn Again, described the new material as "a whole new beginning".
Bjorn, Anni-Frid, Agnetha and Benny pictured at the Swedish production of Mamma Mia in 2016
"I heard about Abba releasing new songs and I was instantly, like everyone else in the Abba community, really excited to know what the songs were and how they're going to sound. Will it have that 1970s sound or will it be up to date?
"It's brilliant really, because we love Abba's music to death. I just hope they're great songs, I hope they're equivalent to Dancing Queen or Mamma Mia."
He added: "I know Benny and Bjorn wouldn't release something in this way unless they were good songs."
Speaking to the BBC's Adam Fleming last week, Ulvaeus had hinted that there could be new material. Here's what he said:
Media captionBjorn Ulvaeus hints there could be new ABBA material
How did the Abba avatar idea come about?
We were introduced to an idea by Simon Fuller who is, as you know, an entertainment entrepreneur - [creator of] the format of American Idol and manager of the Spice Girls and so forth.
He came to Stockholm and he presented this idea to us that we could make identical digital copies of ourselves of a certain age and that those copies could then go on tour and they could sing our songs, you know, and lip sync. I've seen this project halfway through and it's already mind-boggling.
What does it actually look like? Does it look like a younger you?
Yes. Real. And they say once it's finished you'll never see that it's not a human being. And what attracted me personally to this is of course I'm always curious, scientifically-curious and this is new technology and we are pioneers. So I thought, 'Yeah let's go for it,' and you know the other three went for it as well.
What is the actual format of the tribute show going to be? Is it going to be these Abba-tars all the way though?
No, other people as well. And as for the format I'm not entirely sure what it's going to look like but some sort of tribute show with these Abba-tars for want of a better word as the kind of centrepiece.
Will you write new material for it?
We don't know what the Abba-tars will sing yet but there's lots to choose from of the old stuff and yeah, I'm not ready to say that yet.
So there could be new songs…
I'm… it's up in the air.
Stay tuned…
Yeah.
Why not reform and have a reunion? The real you, rather than the virtual ones.
Yeah, why not? Well… it never seemed like a good idea. It's not that we haven't had offers over the years. But somehow we always thought that the Abba that people have in their minds are the once-young and energetic group from the '70s. And we just never felt the urge to go on tour, I guess.
On the whole we toured very little. We had like 10 years together and of those 10 years maybe we toured, like, seven months. Not more than that. So to go on tour as a geriatric, I don't know!
Formed in 1972, Abba were essentially a Swedish supergroup, consisting of songwriters Ulvaeus and Andersson from The Hep Stars and singers Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who had scored success as solo artists.
But their joint project completely eclipsed their previous successes. After winning the Eurovision Song Contest with Waterloo in 1974, the band sold almost 400 million singles and albums around the world.
Mamma Mia!, the musical based on their hits and produced by Ulvaeus and Andersson, has been seen by more than 50 million people.
During their most successful period, the band survived marriage break-ups between Ulvaeus and Faltskog, and Lyngstad and Andersson, but they finally called it a day in 1983.
Their final recording sessions, in 1982, produced the hits Under Attack and The Day Before You Came, which featured on the compilation album The Singles.
Their last public performance came three years later, on the Swedish version of TV show This Is Your Life, which honoured their manager Stig Anderson.
Koreas summit: North Korean media hail 'historic' meeting - BBC News
April 28, 2018
Koreas summit: North Korean media hail 'historic' meeting
Welcoming Kim Jong-un with pomp and ritual
Friday's summit between the leaders of North and South Korea was a "historic meeting" paving the way for the start of a new era, North Korea's media say.
The North's Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agreed to work to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.
In a rare move, state-run TV and the official KCNA news agency hailed the talks and the leaders' commitment to seek "complete denuclearisation".
The summit came just months after warlike rhetoric from the North.
It saw Mr Kim become the first North Korean leader to set foot in South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The two men warmly shook hands and then stepped symbolically over the military demarcation line to the North Korean side.
For years, Pyongyang has insisted that it would never give up its nuclear arsenal, which it claims it needs to defend itself against aggression from the US.
Seeing even a small mention of denuclearisation in a public newspaper will be perceived as a breakthrough by South Korean officials, says the BBC's Laura Bicker in Seoul.
What is in the agreement?
The two leaders said they would pursue talks with the US and China to formally end the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with a truce, not total peace.
The commitment to denuclearisation does not explicitly refer to North Korea halting its nuclear activities but rather to the aim of "a nuclear-free Korean peninsula".
The statement talks about this taking place in a phased manner, but does not include further details.
Many analysts remain sceptical about the North's apparent enthusiasm for engagement.
Profile: Kim Jong-un
North Korea crisis in 300 words
Media captionKim Jong-un issues his pledge for peace with South Korea
Previous inter-Korean agreements have been abandoned after the North resorted to nuclear and missile tests and the South elected more conservative presidents.
Mr Kim said the two leaders had agreed to work to prevent a repeat of the region's "unfortunate history" in which progress had "fizzled out".
Other points the leaders agreed on in a joint statement were:
An end to "hostile activities" between the two nations
Changing the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that divides the country into a "peace zone" by ceasing propaganda broadcasts
An arms reduction in the region pending the easing of military tension
To push for four-way talks involving the US and China
Organising a reunion of families left divided by the war
Connecting and modernising railways and roads across the border
Further joint participation in sporting events, including this year's Asian Games
Will the summit lead to peace?
By Dr John Nilsson-Wright, Chatham House and University of Cambridge
Mr Kim's bold decision to stride confidently into nominally hostile territory reflects the young dictator's confidence and acute sense of political theatre and expertly executed timing.
Media captionThe moment Kim Jong-un crossed into South Korea
His clever, seemingly spontaneous gesture to President Moon to reciprocate his step into the South by having him join him for an instance in stepping back into the North was an inspired way of asserting the equality of the two countries and their leaders.
It also, by blurring the boundary between the two countries, hinted at the goal of unification that both Seoul and Pyongyang have long sought to realise.
The rest of the day was full of visual firsts and a set of cleverly choreographed images of the two leaders chatting informally and intimately in the open air - deliberately advancing a powerful new narrative of the two Koreas as agents of their own destiny.
Read full analysis from Dr John Nilsson-Wright
What did China and the US say?
China, North Korea's ally, and the United States both welcomed the outcome of the talks.
President Donald Trump said "good things are happening" but pledged continue to exert maximum pressure on North Korea, as he prepares to meet Mr Kim in the coming weeks.
"We're not going to be played, OK?" he said.
US officials are still deciding where to hold the summit but Mongolia and Singapore are understood to be two countries on the shortlist.
Korea summit sparks cold noodle craze
Diplomacy on the menu: How food can shape politics
Mr Kim travelled in a car surrounded by jogging bodyguards
How did we get here?
Few had predicted a development like this, as North Korea continued its nuclear and missile tests and stepped up its rhetoric through 2016 and 2017.
The rapprochement began in January when Mr Kim suggested he was "open to dialogue" with South Korea.
Did the Winter Olympics repair relations?
North and South set up hotline ahead of summit
The following month the two countries marched under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, held in the South.
Many South Koreans were overcome with emotion as they saw the historic moment on TV
Mr Kim announced last week that he was suspending nuclear tests.
Chinese researchers have indicated that North Korea's nuclear test site may be unusable after a rock collapse.
Koreas summit: North Korean media hail 'historic' meeting
Welcoming Kim Jong-un with pomp and ritual
Friday's summit between the leaders of North and South Korea was a "historic meeting" paving the way for the start of a new era, North Korea's media say.
The North's Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agreed to work to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.
In a rare move, state-run TV and the official KCNA news agency hailed the talks and the leaders' commitment to seek "complete denuclearisation".
The summit came just months after warlike rhetoric from the North.
It saw Mr Kim become the first North Korean leader to set foot in South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The two men warmly shook hands and then stepped symbolically over the military demarcation line to the North Korean side.
For years, Pyongyang has insisted that it would never give up its nuclear arsenal, which it claims it needs to defend itself against aggression from the US.
Seeing even a small mention of denuclearisation in a public newspaper will be perceived as a breakthrough by South Korean officials, says the BBC's Laura Bicker in Seoul.
What is in the agreement?
The two leaders said they would pursue talks with the US and China to formally end the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with a truce, not total peace.
The commitment to denuclearisation does not explicitly refer to North Korea halting its nuclear activities but rather to the aim of "a nuclear-free Korean peninsula".
The statement talks about this taking place in a phased manner, but does not include further details.
Many analysts remain sceptical about the North's apparent enthusiasm for engagement.
Profile: Kim Jong-un
North Korea crisis in 300 words
Media captionKim Jong-un issues his pledge for peace with South Korea
Previous inter-Korean agreements have been abandoned after the North resorted to nuclear and missile tests and the South elected more conservative presidents.
Mr Kim said the two leaders had agreed to work to prevent a repeat of the region's "unfortunate history" in which progress had "fizzled out".
Other points the leaders agreed on in a joint statement were:
An end to "hostile activities" between the two nations
Changing the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that divides the country into a "peace zone" by ceasing propaganda broadcasts
An arms reduction in the region pending the easing of military tension
To push for four-way talks involving the US and China
Organising a reunion of families left divided by the war
Connecting and modernising railways and roads across the border
Further joint participation in sporting events, including this year's Asian Games
Will the summit lead to peace?
By Dr John Nilsson-Wright, Chatham House and University of Cambridge
Mr Kim's bold decision to stride confidently into nominally hostile territory reflects the young dictator's confidence and acute sense of political theatre and expertly executed timing.
Media captionThe moment Kim Jong-un crossed into South Korea
His clever, seemingly spontaneous gesture to President Moon to reciprocate his step into the South by having him join him for an instance in stepping back into the North was an inspired way of asserting the equality of the two countries and their leaders.
It also, by blurring the boundary between the two countries, hinted at the goal of unification that both Seoul and Pyongyang have long sought to realise.
The rest of the day was full of visual firsts and a set of cleverly choreographed images of the two leaders chatting informally and intimately in the open air - deliberately advancing a powerful new narrative of the two Koreas as agents of their own destiny.
Read full analysis from Dr John Nilsson-Wright
What did China and the US say?
China, North Korea's ally, and the United States both welcomed the outcome of the talks.
President Donald Trump said "good things are happening" but pledged continue to exert maximum pressure on North Korea, as he prepares to meet Mr Kim in the coming weeks.
"We're not going to be played, OK?" he said.
US officials are still deciding where to hold the summit but Mongolia and Singapore are understood to be two countries on the shortlist.
Korea summit sparks cold noodle craze
Diplomacy on the menu: How food can shape politics
Mr Kim travelled in a car surrounded by jogging bodyguards
How did we get here?
Few had predicted a development like this, as North Korea continued its nuclear and missile tests and stepped up its rhetoric through 2016 and 2017.
The rapprochement began in January when Mr Kim suggested he was "open to dialogue" with South Korea.
Did the Winter Olympics repair relations?
North and South set up hotline ahead of summit
The following month the two countries marched under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, held in the South.
Many South Koreans were overcome with emotion as they saw the historic moment on TV
Mr Kim announced last week that he was suspending nuclear tests.
Chinese researchers have indicated that North Korea's nuclear test site may be unusable after a rock collapse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
