Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

UAE’s Hope Probe enters orbit in first Arab Mars mission

By Lisa Barrington

DUBAI (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates’ first mission to Mars reached the red planet and entered orbit on Tuesday after a seven-month, 494 million-km (307 million-mile) journey, allowing it to start sending data about the Martian atmosphere and climate.

The Mars program is part of the UAE’s efforts to develop its scientific and technological capabilities and reduce its reliance on oil. The UAE Space Agency, the fifth globally to reach the planet, even has a plan for a Mars settlement by 2117.

“Contact with #HopeProbe has been established again. The Mars Orbit Insertion is now complete,” said the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre, where the ruler of Dubai and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi were present to receive the news.

The attempt had a 50% chance of failing, Dubai’s ruler and UAE Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum had said. To enter Mars’ orbit, the probe needed to burn around half its 800 kg (1,760 lbs) of onboard fuel to slow down enough not to overshoot, the most dangerous part of the journey.

“Today is the start of a new chapter in Arab history … of trust in our capability to compete with other nations and people,” Sheikh Mohammed tweeted after the probe entered orbit. “The UAE will celebrate its Golden Jubilee with science, culture and inspiration because we aim to build a model of development.”

This year marks 50 years since independence from Britain and the founding of the UAE federation, which groups seven emirates, including Dubai. Mars probes launched by China and NASA just after the UAE’s lift-off in July are also set to reach the planet this month.

MARTIAN ATMOSPHERE

The Emirates Mars Mission, which has cost around $200 million, launched the Hope Probe from a Japanese space center. It aims to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere for the first time, studying daily and seasonal changes.

Minister of State for Advanced Technology and chair of the UAE Space Agency Sarah al-Amiri told Reuters it would take a few weeks to start collecting a mixture of data and images, which could be made publicly available as early as September.

“It’s an endeavor in developing capabilities and talent in the country, it is something that has never been done before in terms of utilizing a planetary exploration mission to do this,” she said.

The UAE first announced plans for the mission in 2014 and launched a National Space Program in 2017 to develop local expertise. Its population of 9.4 million, most of whom are foreign workers, lacks the scientific and industrial base of the big spacefaring nations.

Hazza al-Mansouri became the first Emirati in space in 2019 when he flew to the International Space Station.

To develop and build the Hope Probe, Emiratis and Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) worked with U.S. educational institutions.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Kevin Liffey and Alex Richardson)

GM extends vehicle production cuts due to global chip shortage

By Ben Klayman

DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co said on Tuesday it was extending production cuts at three North American plants until at least mid-March due to the global semiconductor chip shortage, while vehicles at two other factories would only be partially built.

GM, whose shares dipped 1.5% after the announcement, did not disclose the impact volumes or say which supplier and vehicle parts were affected by the chip shortage.

But it said it would focus on keeping production running at plants building its highest-profit vehicles: full-size pickup trucks and SUVs. GM said it intended to make up as much lost production as possible once the shortage chip eased.

“Semiconductor supply remains an issue that is facing the entire industry,” GM spokesman David Barnas said. “GM’s plan is to leverage every available semiconductor to build and ship our most popular and in-demand products.”

GM said it was extending downtime at its U.S. plant in Fairfax, Kansas; its Canadian factory in Ingersoll, Ontario; and its Mexican facility in San Luis Petosi until mid-March when it would reassess the situation, he said.

In addition, GM would build but leave incomplete for final assembly vehicles at Wentzville, Missouri, and its Mexican plant at Ramos Arizpe.

GM vehicles affected by the idled plants include the Chevrolet Malibu sedan, Cadillac XT4 SUV, Chevy Equinox, and GMC Terrain SUVs. Vehicles to be left incomplete for now included the Chevy Colorado, GMC Canyon pickups and Chevy Blazer SUV.

This week, GM had said it was idling the three factories where it has now extended downtime and said it would halve production at a plant in South Korea.

The shortage stems from a confluence of factors as auto manufacturers, which shut plants for two months during the COVID-19 pandemic last year, compete against the sprawling consumer electronics industry for chip supplies.

Consumers have stocked up on laptops, gaming consoles and other electronic products during the pandemic, leading to tight chip supplies. They have also bought more cars than industry officials expected last spring, further straining supplies.

The chip shortage has affected many automakers, including Toyota, Volkswagen, Stellantis, Ford Motor Co, Renault, Subaru, Nissan, Honda and Mazda.

Asian chipmakers are rushing to boost production but say the supply gap will take many months to plug. German chipmaker Infineon said the shortage would worsen in the near term. The chip shortage is expected to cut global output in the first quarter by more than 670,000 vehicles and last into the third quarter, IHS Markit said.

AutoForecast Solutions on Tuesday updated its estimate for lost production this year, saying the global industry could lose almost 1.3 million vehicles. GM could lose an estimated 111,450 vehicles, the forecasting firm said.

Honda and Nissan said on Tuesday they would sell 250,000 fewer cars in total this financial year due to the chip shortage.

Ford said last week the shortage was hitting production of its highly profitable F-150 pickup trucks, saying it could lose 10% to 20% of planned first-quarter vehicle production and earnings could fall by $1 billion to $2.5 billion.

Stellantis said it would idle its Canadian minivan plant in Windsor, Ontario, for three weeks until the end of February.

Taiwan, home to the world’s largest contract chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), is at the center of efforts to resolve the shortage. U.S. officials discussed the issue with their Taiwanese counterparts last week.

Chinese officials said on Tuesday they had met with auto and chip companies, asking them to help ease the shortage. French state officials meet with auto and electronics industry leaders on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. job openings edge up in December, hiring declines

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. job openings increased marginally in December while hiring declined, pointing to a labor market that was treading water amid a raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, rose to 6.65 million on the last day of December from 6.572 million in the previous month, the Labor Department said on Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report. The job openings rate ticked up to 4.5% from 4.4% in November.

Hiring dropped to 5.54 million from 5.94 million in November. The hiring rate declined to 3.9% from 4.2% in November. Layoffs decreased to 1.81 million in December from 2.056 million in the prior month. That lowered the layoffs rate to 1.3% from 1.4% in November.

The JOLTS report followed on the heels of news last Friday that the economy created only 49,000 jobs in January after shedding 227,000 jobs in December. Employment is 9.9 million jobs below its peak in February 2020.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

Britain tightens travel restrictions with hotel quarantine and prison threat

By Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will require passengers arriving from countries where worrying coronavirus variants are spreading to pay for 10 days of quarantine in hotels, while rule-breakers will face heavy fines or jail terms, under tighter restrictions from next week.

The new travel rules add to restrictions that already ban travel abroad for holidays. The government said the stronger measures were needed to prevent new variants of the virus from thwarting Britain’s rapid vaccination program.

Airlines and travel companies called for more government aid, saying the new rules would deepen a crisis that has seen them lose nearly all their revenue.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said people could be sent to prison and fined up to 10,000 pounds ($14,000) if they break the rules which come into force on Feb. 15.

“Anyone who lies on the passenger locator form and tries to conceal that they’ve been in a country on the ‘red list’ in the 10 days before arrival here, will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years,” Hancock told parliament.

British and Irish nationals arriving in England who have been in high risk countries in the last 10 days would be required to pay 1,750 pounds ($2,400) to cover the cost of a minimum 10-day quarantine in a designated hotel, Hancock said.

All arrivals into the UK will also have to take further COVID-19 tests on day 2 and day 8 of their quarantines, he said, on top of a pre-departure test already required.

Britain has rolled out the fastest vaccination program of any large country. But there has been alarm in recent days after reports that the vaccines it is using may be less effective against some new variants of the virus, such as one that has spread rapidly in South Africa.

NO END IN SIGHT

The government, criticized in recent weeks for being slow to bring in tougher border measures, said the stricter rules could stay in place until it is sure vaccines work against new variants, or booster shots become available.

“Strong protections at the border are part of defending and safely allowing the domestic opening up,” Hancock said.

British airlines and airports issued a new cry for help, the latest of many, urging the government to provide more support to make sure the sector makes it through the year, and to issue a roadmap on how it will ease restrictions.

“Airports and airlines are battling to survive with almost zero revenue and a huge cost base, and practically every week a further blow lands,” aviation trade bodies said.

Hancock said the measures could not be in place permanently and would be replaced “over time with a system of safe and free international travel”.

The government said it had contracted 16 hotels for an initial 4,600 rooms for hotel quarantine and would secure more as needed, with further details due to be published on Thursday.

Quarantines in hotels have been used by Australia and New Zealand as a strategy to sharply limit the spread of the coronavirus.

($1 = 0.7259 pounds)

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton, additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Editing by Paul Sandle, Michael Holden, Giles Elgood, Peter Graff)

COVID-19 vaccine chasers hunt, wait and hope in Los Angeles

By Norma Galeana

SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif. (Reuters) – Jose Luis Espinoza had been chasing a COVID-19 vaccine for more than three weeks.

He hadn’t hugged his 98-year-old father in a long time, and was hoping a vaccine would change that. Last week, he struck gold in Santa Fe Springs.

“It was the last dose they gave, and I was the lucky one,” the 68-year-old said.

The chase for leftover vaccine doses is widespread and competitive in Los Angeles. The wait can last for hours outside a clinic or vaccination site, and most people are turned away without a shot.

Clinics have leftover doses when people cancel their appointments at the last minute or don’t show up. Once opened, vaccine vials have an expiry date: 5 days for the Pfizer vaccine and 30 days for the Moderna one.

“We need to make sure if we’re going to pull out that vaccine, that we have the people signed up and the resources and the event scheduled,” said Will Baker, clinic manager for private ambulance service CARE Ambulance, stressing the importance of not wasting any of the precious doses.

‘NEVER GUARANTEED’

Vaccine chasers have been criticized for getting doses when it’s not their turn, perhaps taking it away from someone who might need it more.

“I’m here in the hope that there’s some that might be left over,” said Cynthia Perez, 48, the first to arrive when the Santa Fe Springs clinic opened at 2:00pm.

“So I’m not trying to jump the line. I’m just trying to take advantage of any vaccines or any doses that might be thrown away,” she said.

Perez said she had a child with asthma, and was in ill-health herself, adding, “I’m trying to get ahead of the curve a bit and stay healthy.”

As the evening wore on, the line of chasers outside the clinic grew, and Baker took down their details. Throughout the day, he counted the doses left at each vaccine station, revised the list of appointments, and did the math.

When the clinic closed at 6 p.m., and there was a single shot left over, he called Espinoza’s name.

“I went over the guidelines and I looked for anyone in the line that was 1A,” Baker explained, referring to the first category of vaccine allocation as recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We did have one person in the line that met the 1A criteria and we were able to get him a vaccine today,” he said.

Then Baker went outside and told the rest of the line there were no more doses for the day, apologizing and thanking everyone for their patience.

Perez picked up her bag and headed home, disappointed but not deterred.

“You can’t be upset. It’s never guaranteed,” she said.

(Reporting by Norma Galeana; Editing by Sandra Stojanovic, Karishma Singh and Gerry Doyle)

Biden believes U.S. teachers are priority for vaccinations, White House says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden believes America’s teachers should be a priority in getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, but he will listen to scientists’ recommendations on a comprehensive approach to reopening schools, the White House said on Tuesday.

“He believes that teachers should be a priority on the vaccination list – he has supported that,” White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said in an interview with MSNBC.

“He believes that teachers should get their vaccines, but he’s listening to the science, and there are a number of important steps that we need to take to ensure that schools can open and open safely,” she said. “Vaccines are one piece of it.”

Official guidance for reopening American schools will likely come later in the week from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Bedingfield said.

School reopenings have become a hot topic across the nation. District officials, teachers, parents and health professionals have been debating when and how to safely reopen for millions of students who have been taking classes remotely for 11 months since the pandemic closed schools last spring.

Educators in major cities, including Chicago and Philadelphia, on Monday called for strong COVID-19 safety protocols in their classrooms as those and other districts pushed to reopen.

“There are a number of important steps that we need to take to ensure that schools can open and open safely. Vaccines are one piece of it,” Bedingfield said. “There needs to be masking, there needs to be room for social distancing, so those mitigation measures are just as important.”

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

COVID may have taken ‘convoluted path’ to Wuhan, WHO team leader says

By Josh Horwitz and David Stanway

WUHAN, China (Reuters) – The head of a World Health Organization-led team probing the origins of COVID-19 said bats remain a likely source and that transmission of the virus via frozen food is a possibility that warrants further investigation, but he ruled out a lab leak.

Peter Ben Embarek, who led the team of independent experts in its nearly month-long visit to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak first emerged at a seafood market in late 2019, said the team’s work had uncovered new information but had not dramatically changed their picture of the outbreak.

“The possible path from whatever original animal species all the way through to the Huanan market could have taken a very long and convoluted path involving also movements across borders,” Embarek told a nearly three-hour media briefing.

Embarek said work to identify the coronavirus’s origins points to a natural reservoir in bats, but it is unlikely that they were in Wuhan.

Investigators were also looking for Chinese blood samples that could indicate that the virus was circulating earlier than first thought, he said.

“In trying to understand the picture of December 2019 we embarked on a very detailed and profound search for other cases that may have been missed, cases earlier on in 2019,” he said.

“And the conclusion was we did not find evidence of large outbreaks that could be related to cases of COVID-19 prior to December 2019 in Wuhan or elsewhere.”

The possibility the virus leaked from a lab – which has been the subject of conspiracy theories – was extremely unlikely and did not require further study, Embarek said.

Liang Wannian, head of China’s expert panel on the outbreak, said there was evidence of coronavirus infections that could have preceded the first detected case by “several weeks”.

“This suggests that we cannot rule out that it was circulating in other regions and the circulation was unreported,” he told the briefing.

FROZEN ANIMALS?

Embarek said the team had identified market vendors selling frozen animal products including farmed wild animals.

“So there is the potential to continue to follow this lead and further look at the supply chain and animals that were supplied to the market,” he said.

China has pushed the idea that the virus can be transmitted by frozen food and has repeatedly announced findings of coronavirus traces on imported food packaging.

“We know the virus can survive in conditions that are found in these cold, frozen environments, but we don’t really understand if the virus can transmit to humans” or under which conditions, Embarek told the briefing.

The team arrived in Wuhan on Jan. 14 and after two weeks of quarantine, visited key sites including the Huanan seafood market, the location of the first known cluster of infections, as well as the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been involved in coronavirus research.

Members of the team sought to rein in expectations for the mission, with infectious disease expert Dominic Dwyer saying it would probably take years to fully understand the origins of COVID-19.

The United States said China needed to be more open when it comes to sharing data and samples as well as allowing access to patients, medical staff and lab workers. Beijing subsequently accused Washington of politicizing a scientific mission.

(Reporting by Josh Horwitz in Wuhan and David Stanway in Shanghai; Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Gareth Jones and Nick Macfie)

Honduran president target of U.S. investigation, court filings show

By Laura Gottesdiener

(Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors are investigating Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, according to a new court filing, piling pressure on a leader who prosecutors have already accused of participation in the nation’s bloody narcotics trade.

In a document filed Friday night in the Southern District of New York in the case of Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez, an alleged Honduran drug-trafficker, federal prosecutors said Hernandez himself was the target of an investigation, along with other “high-ranking officials.”

They did not say what the investigation concerned. But in the filing they accused Hernandez, who has been president since 2014, of using Honduran law enforcement and military officials to protect drug traffickers as part of a plan “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras.”

Last month, U.S. prosecutors said in a court filing related to the same case that Hernandez had by 2013 “accepted millions of dollars in drug-trafficking proceeds and, in exchange, promised drug traffickers protection from prosecutors, law enforcement, and (later) extradition to the United States.”

The prosecutors said that assistance from the Honduran government in its investigations “has hardly been forthcoming,” accusing the Honduran government of providing “limited records” and not honoring extradition requests for potential witnesses against the president.

The Honduran government did not respond to requests for comment. Hernandez has repeatedly denied any ties to drug cartels.

The Honduran president has been a key U.S. ally in the region and the investigation could complicate the Biden administration’s efforts to invest $4 billion in Central America, including Honduras, to address the causes of migration.

Last month, thousands of Hondurans joined one of the largest-ever migrant caravans hoping to reach the United States, with many citing rampant violence, government corruption, and worsening poverty as their reasons for leaving the country.

Dana Frank, an expert on Honduras and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said the revelations raised difficult questions for the new U.S. government of President Joe Biden.

“Will the Biden administration, despite this further evidence, continue to shore up and fund Hernandez, including his corrupt police and military that protect drug shipments at his beck and call?” she said.

References to Hernandez, who is referred to as CC-4, have frequently appeared in the U.S. court filings against Fuentes Ramirez, as well as in a successful drug-trafficking case against the president’s brother, Tony Hernandez.

Previous court filings also show that, around 2013, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began investigating Hernandez and others for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Friday’s filing appeared to be the first confirmation from U.S. prosecutors that the Honduran president was currently under investigation by the United States.

(Reporting by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Dave Graham and Rosalba O’Brien)

Congressional Democrats set to back more than $50 billion for transportation sector

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats in the U.S. Congress are to release a sweeping plan on Monday to provide more than $50 billion in additional assistance to U.S. airlines, transit systems, airports and passenger railroad Amtrak and create a $3 billion program to assist aviation manufacturers with payroll costs, according to documents seen by Reuters and sources briefed on the matter.

The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief proposal will provide $30 billion to transit agencies, $14 billion for passenger airlines, $8 billion to U.S. airports, $1 billion for airline contractors and $1.5 billion to Amtrak, the draft legislation says. U.S. House committees are set to vote on the legislation on Wednesday.

Airline stocks rose sharply on news of the new funding, with American Airlines up 4.2%, while United Airlines gained 5% and Southwest Airlines jumped nearly 6%.

President Joe Biden had proposed $20 billion for struggling U.S. transit agencies – and nothing for airlines – while Democrats had pushed for more transit help, citing the collapse in travel demand as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transit agencies have previously been awarded $39 billion in emergency assistance by Congress. New York’s Metropolitan Transit Agency says daily subway travel has recently been down 70% or more.

U.S. airlines have been awarded $40 billion in payroll support since March and airline unions had asked Congress for another $15 billion to keep thousands of workers on the payroll past March 31, when the current round of funding expires. The additional $14 billion will keeping nearly 30,000 airline workers on the job through Sept. 30.

A summary of the $14 billion airline payroll proposal from the House Financial Services Committee seen by Reuters noted airlines lost over $35 billion in 2020 and “airlines do not expect to return to profitability until midway through 2021.

The $3 billion aviation manufacturing program would provide a 50% government subsidy to cover costs of pay, benefits and training for employees at risk of being furloughed or who were furloughed due to the pandemic. The grants cover up to 25% of a company’s U.S. workforce.

U.S. airplane manufacturer Boeing and suppliers have cut thousands of manufacturing jobs over the last year as demand for new planes has shrunk amid the collapse in airline travel.

Boeing said last year it recorded severance costs for 26,000 employees in 2020, with 18,000 having left last year and the remainder expected leave in 2021. Boeing did not immediately comment on the program.

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) President Robert Martinez urged lawmakers to back the effort to provide payroll assistance to “help this critical workforce and supply chain weather the storm of this historic pandemic.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Dan Grebler)

U.N. envoy, Iran’s Zarif discuss how to end war in Yemen

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) – United Nations Yemen mediator Martin Griffiths and Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed on Monday how to make progress toward a nationwide ceasefire and reviving the political process in Yemen, a U.N. spokesman said.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015, backing government forces fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis. The more than six-year long conflict is widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

It is Griffiths first visit to Iran since becoming the U.N. envoy three years ago.

Zarif and Griffiths “exchanged views on Yemen and how to make progress towards a resumption of the political process,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“Mr. Zarif and Mr. Griffiths further discussed the urgent need to make progress towards a nationwide ceasefire, the opening of Sanaa airport and the easing of restrictions on Hodeidah ports.”

He added that Griffiths welcomed Iran’s expression of support for the U.N. efforts to end the conflict in Yemen.

While Griffiths office said the visit to Iran had been planned for some time, it comes after new U.S. President Joe Biden declared last week that the war in Yemen “has to end” and said Washington would halt support for the Saudi Arabia-led military campaign against the Houthis.

The United States also said on Friday it intends to revoke its terrorist designation of the Houthis to avoid worsening Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, with 80% of its people in need and millions on the verge of famine.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Alex Richardson)