Verstappen wins in France after Leclerc crashes out

July 25, 2022 | 6:34 pm

RED Bull’s Max Verstappen won the French Grand Prix on Sunday and took a huge stride towards a second Formula One title after Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc made a costly mistake and crashed out while leading.

Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton finished second for Mercedes in his 300th grand prix, with team mate George Russell third to secure their first podium double of the campaign.

The victory on a hot afternoon at Le Castellet was Verstappen’s seventh in 12 races this season and 27th of his career.

It also left him a hefty 63 points — more than two race wins — clear of closest rival Leclerc at the top with 10 rounds remaining.

“I think we had really good pace from the start, I was putting pressure on Charles,” said the Dutch 24-year-old, who also won at the southern Circuit Paul Ricard last year.

“Following around here, with this heat, the tyres are overheating a lot so I could never really go for a move – only once.”

Leclerc had led away from pole position, with Verstappen needing six laps before he could get close enough to attempt a move.

While he pulled closer on the straights, Leclerc had an advantage through the corners and managed to remain just out of reach with the race shaping up as another private battle between the two.

The Ferrari then appeared to be pulling away and out of range, but with some concern about tyre wear, as Verstappen made his first pitstop on lap 16 and Leclerc stayed out. And then it all changed on lap 18.

The Ferrari driver screamed in rage and frustration over the radio after his car spun mid-corner and plunged into the tyre barrier at Le Beausset.

The Monegasque, unhurt, blamed himself for the unforced error.

Leclerc had led Verstappen by 46 points early in the season but this time his own hand helped push the pendulum further against him.

“I’ve been saying I think I’m performing at my highest level in my career but if I keep doing those mistakes then it’s pointless to perform at a very high level,” he told Sky Sports television. “I’m losing too many points.” (Full Story)

CAUGHT OUT
The safety car was deployed briefly but from then on Verstappen was able to do his race and look after the tyres without much trouble.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez lost out to both Mercedes drivers, Hamilton roaring past at the start and Russell catching him out three laps from the end as a virtual safety car period ended.

The Mexican complained over the radio that Russell had exceeded track limits, while the Mercedes driver felt Perez owed him the place.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff made a radio intervention, urging Russell to stay calm and assuring the driver he could “hunt him down”.

Carlos Sainz was fifth for Ferrari after starting at the back due to engine penalties and storming through the field to secure a bonus point for fastest lap. He was also voted Driver of the Day.

Sainz would have finished higher, having got himself up to third, but the Spaniard pitted a second time with 10 laps remaining in a strategy decision questioned by some.

He also served a five-second penalty for an unsafe release from an earlier stop.

Fernando Alonso was sixth for Renault-owned Alpine, who moved ahead of McLaren and into fourth place in the constructors’ standings.

McLaren’s Lando Norris was seventh and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon eighth after overtaking McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who finished ninth.

Canadian Lance Stroll took the final point in 10th for Aston Martin after fighting team mate Sebastian Vettel to the last corner. — Reuters

Aaron Judge crushes 37^th homer as Yankees blank Orioles

July 25, 2022 | 6:33 pm

AARON Judge smacked his major league-leading 37th home run, Jose Trevino had the first four-hit game of his career and Nestor Cortes pitched six scoreless innings in the New York Yankees’ 6-0 victory over the host Baltimore Orioles on Sunday.

Judge went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, two runs and a walk for the Yankees, who took two of the three games from the upstart Orioles. Baltimore has dropped four of its past six games.

After DJ LeMahieu gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead with an RBI double that scored Trevino with two outs in the third, Judge blasted Dean Kremer’s curveball 456 feet over the left field fence to extend the advantage to 3-0.

That’s all Cortes (8-3) needed, as the left-hander allowed just one Oriole to reach third base. He yielded just six hits and no walks with seven strikeouts before Clarke Schmidt relieved him to open the bottom half of the seventh.

The Yankees extended their lead in the sixth. After Kremer opened the frame by hitting Anthony Rizzo with a pitch and getting Gleyber Torres to fly out to right, he was relieved by Keegan Akin.

Akin gave up a single to Matt Carpenter and struck out Aaron Hicks before faltering, allowing a run-scoring single to Isiah Kiner-Falefa that scored Rizzo. Trevino followed with a double to right to plate Carpenter for a 5-0 lead.

Kremer (3-2) allowed four runs on five hits with a walk and six strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings.

Hicks capped the scoring in the ninth, when his single to center scored Judge.

Schmidt allowed just two hits to go along with three strikeouts and two walks over the final three innings to pick up his first save of the season.

Trevino, who played in his first All-Star Game last week, went 4-for-4 with an RBI and a run for the Yankees, who also got a pair of hits from Hicks and Torres.

Adley Rutschman and Tyler Nevin each had two hits for the Orioles.

Judge, the major league leader in home runs and RBIs, had a monster series against the Orioles, going 8-for-13 with eight RBIs, three home runs, two doubles and four runs.

Judge has hit four home runs in the Yankees’ five games since the All-Star break. — Reuters

Tony Finau comes from behind to win 3M Open

July 25, 2022 | 6:31 pm

TONY Finau rolled in four birdies on the back nine, including three in a row, to break away from the pack Sunday and win the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities in Blaine, Minn.

Finau’s 4-under-par 67 lifted him to a 72-hole score of 17-under 267. South Korea’s Sungjae Im (68) and Argentina’s Emiliano Grillo (71) tied for second three back at 14-under 270.

Scott Piercy, who held at least a share of the lead after each of the first three rounds and a four-stroke lead entering Sunday, stumbled to a 5-over 76. He finished in a three-way tie for fourth.

That left the door wide open for Finau to collect his third PGA Tour victory.

“I was playing great and every time I looked up, it seemed like I was four, five shots back really all day,” Finau said on the CBS broadcast. “I really got things going in the middle of our back nine.”

Finau was 1 under through 10 holes before making birdie at Nos. 11, 14, 15 and 16. He found himself in the lead after he birdied the 14th and Piercy, playing one group behind, made triple bogey at the same hole.

When Finau sank a downhill, right-to-left birdie putt from 31 feet away at No. 15, he’d gone from behind by three shots to ahead by two in a matter of two holes.

“Once I took control of the golf tournament, it was a whole different mindset trying to seal the deal,” Finau said.

Finau nearly found water off the tee at the par-3 17th, but narrowly missed a chip-in birdie and saved par. His tee shot at No. 18 did find the water and he settled for bogey, but by then he was out of reach.

Im played a clean round of three birdies and no bogeys to grab a share of second. Conversely, Grillo had five birdies offset by two bogeys and a triple bogey at the par-4 seventh, where he had to take a penalty stroke for a drop in the rough behind the green and still couldn’t get out with his fourth shot.

“Tony pressed really hard on the gas and he just made it very hard for everybody,” Grillo said. “You know, I gave myself a chance and he just got away and I didn’t — I left every putt short.”

James Hahn tied for fourth at 13 under with Tom Hoge (70) and Piercy.

Hahn’s 6-under 65 featured a hole-out eagle from the fairway at the par-5 12th hole. He later had three straight birdies at Nos. 14-16.

“Magical, that’s what it felt like,” Hahn said. “Yeah, I was just playing really smart, hit a lot of good shots on the front nine. Only came away with two birdies, but I felt like I was hitting it really good. Then the chip-in eagle on 12, that started everything.”

Piercy, 43, was hunting for his fifth career win on tour and his first since 2018. He birdied two of his first six holes but went bogey-bogey to finish the front nine. A disastrous back nine included four bogeys and a triple bogey at the par-4 14th, where he drove into a bunker, couldn’t get out on his second shot and sent his third shot from sand to water. — Reuters

Marcos vows farm and tax overhauls in address to nation

July 25, 2022 | 5:22 pm

BBM-Marcos-sona — PHILIPPINE STAR/KRIZ JOHN ROSALES

MANILA – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr pledged on Monday to overhaul his country’s tax system and make it a destination for investment and tourism, promising also a big agriculture overhaul to boost output and reduce its heavy import reliance.

Speaking before Congress in his first state of the nation address, Marcos, who won a May election in a landslide, said it was vital to implement reforms to bring in tourism and investment and maintain what was currently firm growth momentum.

His administration would implement solid fiscal policy management and was targeting 6.5% to 7.5% gross domestic product growth this year, he said, while warning of challenges ahead in keeping prices stable.

Marcos, the son of the late strongman ousted from power in a 1986 uprising, said it was critical that the Philippines, a major importer of rice and other commodities, can boost its farm output and become more resilient to climate change.

Among the measures he would introduce was a moratorium on farmers’ debts to allow them to channel resources into improving output.

“It will unburden farmers of their dues and be able to focus on improving farm productivity,” he said, while stressing the need for an “infusion of fresh and new blood”, and use of scientific farming by a new breed of farmers.

Marcos also promised to improve education, healthcare and working conditions for doctors and nurses and boost infrastructure in the nation of more than 7,000 islands, including modernising airports. — Reuters

Dell reports record year of remote work support for PHL partners

July 25, 2022 | 3:02 pm

Digital transformation efforts led to a record year for remote work support, according to information technology (IT) service provider Dell Technologies.

“We don’t have specific numbers, but the fiscal year of 2022 for the Philippines is a record year for us,” said country general manager Ronnie Latinazo, at a media roundtable on June 22 in Dell’s newly renovated local office in Bonifacio Global City.

“It’s a strong year and we posted high growth. In fact, the Philippines posted even better growth rates than international, in practically all key drivers,” he added.

In Asia Pacific and Japan, the Partner Program saw order revenues grow by up to 12% year-on-year as of the first quarter of 2022. Dell also reported that distribution revenue and rebate payouts increased by 12% and 38% respectively.

Tiang-Hin Ang, Dell’s channel general manager for South Asia, shared that this growth was due to customers realizing that hybrid work is the future, entailing the need for collaboration, security, and performance whether working onsite or online.

“Partners’ strategies are now focused on how to differentiate themselves as experts,” he said. “They’re adapting their business models to address evolving customer needs.”

This data-driven mindset is the reason for the 24% rise in storage revenue, he added.

Dell’s clientele includes solution providers, cloud service providers, and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners. — Brontë H. Lacsamana

China Belt & Road spending dips in H1, with no investment in Russia — research

July 25, 2022 | 2:32 pm

construction-silhouette-(1) — JCOMP-FREEPIK

SHANGHAI — China’s finance and investment spending in Belt and Road countries fell slightly in the first half compared to a year earlier, with no new coal projects and investments in Russia, Egypt, and Sri Lanka falling to zero, new research showed.

Saudi Arabia was the biggest recipient of Chinese investments over the period, with about $5.5 billion, according to the Shanghai-based Green Finance and Development Center (GFDC) in research published on Sunday.

Total financing and investment stood at $28.4 billion over the period, down from $29.6 billion a year earlier, bringing total cumulative Belt and Road spending to $932 billion since 2013, GFDC said.

President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 aiming to harness China’s strengths in financing and infrastructure construction to “build a broad community of shared interests” throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

But it has come under scrutiny for the debt burden it places on countries and other issues such as environmental degradation. Some countries have also renegotiated their investment projects with China, highlighting the debt risks.

No new coal projects received Chinese support over the period after a pledge made at the United Nations General Assembly by Xi last September to put an end to overseas coal financing.

However, a Chinese developer won a bid to build a thermal power plant in Indonesia in February, and there are still 11.2 gigawatts of capacity that have already secured financing though are yet to begin construction, according to GFDC, part of Shanghai’s Fudan University.

China has continued to provide support to other fossil fuel projects in Belt and Road countries, with oil and gas amounting to around 80% of China’s overseas energy investments and 66% of its construction contracts, GFDC said.

Engagements in gas projects stood at $6.7 billion in the first half, compared with $9.5 billion over the whole of last year, it said.

Green energy and hydropower transactions fell 22% from a year earlier. Investment rose to $1.4 billion from $400 million, but green energy-related construction spending fell to $1.6 billion, less than half the level a year earlier. — Reuters

China’s population expected to start to shrink before 2025

July 25, 2022 | 2:09 pm

HONG KONG — China’s population has slowed significantly and is expected to start to shrink ahead of 2025, the state backed Global Times reported, citing a senior health official.

Birth data released late on Sunday showed that the number of new births in 2021 was the lowest in decades in several provinces.

The number of births in central Hunan province fell below 500,000 for the first time in nearly 60 years, the Global Times said. Only China’s southern Guangdong province has had more than 1 million new births, it said.

China is battling to reverse a rapid shrinkage in natural population growth as many young people opt not to have children due to factors including the high cost and work pressure.

China’s population is expected to start to shrink in 2021–2025, the Global Times said, citing Yang Wenzhuang, head of population and family affairs at the National Health Commission.

A change in China’s laws last year to allow women to have three children has not helped, with many women saying the change comes too late and they have insufficient job security and gender equality. — Reuters

‘God, give us rain’ — Romanian monastery prays for end to drought

July 25, 2022 | 1:44 pm

DRAGANESTI-VLASCA, Romania — Iulia Coleasa, an 81-year-old who relies on her small plot for food, traveled 15 kilometers in searing heat to a monastery in southern Romania on Sunday to join a service praying for rain.

Temperatures have spiked above 40 Celsius in the country this week and the drought has left hundreds of Romanian villages with rationed water. Crops are being decimated in the country which is an exporter of grains.

Romania’s Orthodox Church has asked clerics to perform traditional rain prayers. At the Pantocrator monastery in the southern Romanian county of Giurgiu, Ms. Culeasa joined roughly 100 people in prayer.

She said the weather had never been this bad.

“I haven’t seen drought like this until now,” she said.

“We have children, we have cattle. We make an effort to plant tomatoes in the garden and they dry out and we have nothing to eat. God, give us rain, don’t abandon us.”

More than 40% of Romania’s population of 20 million live in the countryside and many rely on subsistence agriculture on small plots of land. The country has massive investment needs in infrastructure, including roads, running water and irrigation.

Romania’s weather agency issued temperature warnings for Sunday, adding torrential storms would follow, although it said temperatures would remain abnormally high. Water levels on the river Danube were three times lower than usual.

“The drought period is fairly cruel, not just for this place, but for the entire country,” said Father Justinian, one of several priests who held the service at the Pantocrator. The priests prayed in a field of harvested wheat across from the monastery, with sunflower and maize fields withering nearby.

The scorching heat is part of a global pattern of rising temperatures, attributed by scientists to human activity. Pope Francis earlier this month called on world leaders to heed the Earth’s “chorus of cries of anguish” stemming from climate change, extreme weather and loss of biodiversity. — Octav Ganea and Luiza Ilie/Reuters

US economy slowing, but recession not inevitable, Yellen says

July 25, 2022 | 1:08 pm

1440px-U.S._Treasury_Building_and_Albert_Gallatin_Statue — WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

WASHINGTON — US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Sunday that US economic growth is slowing and she acknowledged the risk of a recession, but she said a downturn was not inevitable.

Ms. Yellen, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, said strong hiring numbers and consumer spending showed the US economy is not currently in recession.

US hiring remained robust in June, with 372,000 jobs created and the unemployment rate holding at 3.6%. It was the fourth straight month of job gains in excess of 350,000.

“This is not an economy that is in recession,” said Ms. Yellen. “But we’re in a period of transition in which growth is slowing and that’s necessary and appropriate.”

Still, data last week suggested the labor market was softening with new claims for unemployment benefits hitting their highest point in eight months.

Ms. Yellen said inflation “is way too high” and recent Federal Reserve interest rates hikes were helping to bring soaring prices back in check.

In addition, the Biden administration is selling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which Ms. Yellen said has already helped lower gas prices.

“We’ve seen gas prices just in recent weeks come down by about 50 cents (a gallon) and there should be more in the pipeline,” she said.

Ms. Yellen, who previously served as chair of the Federal Reserve, hopes the Fed can cool the economy enough to bring down prices without triggering a broad economic downturn.

“I’m not saying that we will definitely avoid a recession,” Ms. Yellen said. “But I think there is a path that keeps the labor market strong and brings inflation down.”

US gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic health, shrank at a 1.6% annual rate in the first quarter, and a report on Thursday is expected to show a gain of just 0.4% in the second quarter, according to economists polled by Reuters.

Ms. Yellen said that even if the second-quarter figure is negative, it would not signal that a recession has taken hold, given the strength in the job market and strong demand.

“Recession is broad-based weakness in the economy. We’re not seeing that now,” she said.

Journalists, some economists and analysts have traditionally defined a recession as two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction. But the private research group that is the official arbiter of US recessions looks at a broad range of indicators instead, including jobs and spending.

Brian Deese, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Twitter on Sunday that the upcoming second-quarter figures would be “backward looking,” which he called important context. “Hiring, spending, and production data look solid,” he said. — Reuters

Ukraine works to resume grain exports, flags Russian strikes as risk

July 25, 2022 | 12:34 pm

KYIV — Ukraine pressed ahead on Sunday with efforts to restart grain exports from its Black Sea ports under a deal aimed at easing global food shortages but warned deliveries would suffer if a Russian missile strike on Odesa was a sign of more to come.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced Saturday’s attack as “barbarism” that showed Moscow could not be trusted to implement a deal struck just one day earlier with Turkish and United Nations (UN) mediation.

The Ukrainian military, quoted by public broadcaster Suspilne, said the Russian missiles did not hit the port’s grain storage area or cause significant damage. Kyiv said preparations to resume grain shipments were ongoing.

“We continue technical preparations for the launch of exports of agricultural products from our ports,” Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a Facebook post.

According to the Ukrainian military, two Kalibr missiles fired from Russian warships hit the area of a pumping station at the port and two others were shot down by air defense forces.

Russia said on Sunday its forces had hit a Ukrainian warship and a weapons store in Odesa with its high-precision missiles.

The deal signed by Moscow and Kyiv on Friday was hailed as a diplomatic breakthrough that would help curb soaring global food prices by restoring Ukrainian grain shipments to pre-war levels of 5 million tonnes a month.

But Mr. Zelenskyy’s economic advisor warned on Sunday the strike on Odesa signaled that it could be out of reach.

“Yesterday’s strike indicates that it will definitely not work like that,” Oleh Ustenko told Ukrainian television.

He said Ukraine could export 60 million tonnes of grain over the next nine months, but it would take up to 24 months if its ports’ operations were disrupted.

WAR ENTERS SIXTH MONTH

As the war entered its sixth month on Sunday there was no sign of a let-up in the fighting.

The Ukrainian military reported Russian shelling in the north, south and east, and again referred to Russian operations paving the way for an assault on Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region.

The military said in a Sunday evening briefing note that the Russians continue efforts to assert control of the area around the Vuhlehirsk power plant, which is 50 kilometers (31 miles) north-east of Donetsk. The note also listed several dozen settlements along the entire front line which it said had been shelled by Russia in the past 24 hours.

Four Russian Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea and aimed at the western Khmelnytskiy region were shot down on Sunday, the Ukrainian air command reported.

While the main theater of combat has been the Donbas, Ukraine’s military said its forces have moved within firing range of Russian targets in the occupied eastern Black Sea region of Kherson where Kyiv is mounting a counter-offensive.

Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

Mr. Zelenskyy in his nightly video address on Sunday adopted an upbeat tone ahead of a new national holiday being celebrated on July 28.

“Even the occupiers admit we will win. We hear it in their conversations all the time. In what they are telling their relatives when they call them,” he said.

SAFE PASSAGE

The strikes on Odesa drew condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, Britain, Germany and Italy.

Russian news agencies quoted Russia’s defense ministry as saying a Ukrainian warship and US supplied anti-ship missiles were destroyed.

Friday’s deal aims to allow safe passage in and out of Ukrainian ports, blocked by Russia’s Black Sea fleet since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion, in what one UN official called a “de facto ceasefire” for the ships and facilities covered.

Ukraine and Russia are major global wheat exporters and the blockade has trapped tens of millions of tonnes of grain, worsening global supply chain bottlenecks.

Along with Western sanctions on Russia, it has stoked food and energy price inflation, driving some 47 million people into “acute hunger,” according to the World Food Programme.

Moscow denies responsibility for the food crisis, blaming the sanctions for slowing its food and fertilizer exports and Ukraine for mining the approaches to its ports.

Ukraine has mined waters near its ports as part of its war defenses but under Friday’s deal pilots will guide ships along safe channels.

A Joint Coordination Center staffed by members of the four parties to the agreement will monitor ships passing the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosporus Strait and on to world markets. All sides agreed on Friday there would be no attacks on them.

Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the war a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing Ukraine and rooting out dangerous nationalists. Kyiv and the West call this a baseless pretext for an aggressive land grab. — Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder/Reuters

Udenna denies debt default as shares in Philippine-listed units slide

July 25, 2022 | 11:21 am

MANILA (UPDATE) – Philippine conglomerate Udenna Corp, owned by a close associate of former President Rodrigo Duterte, said on Monday it has received a notice of declaration of default from lenders, sending shares in related companies sharply down in early trade.

DITO CME fell as much as 9%, Chelsea Logistics sank 16%, Phoenix Petroleum dropped 6% and PH Resorts retreated as much as 7.5% in the first 30 minutes of trade. The broader index fell as much as 1.6%.

The four companies are owned by unlisted Udenna, which has pursued a debt-fuelled acquisition and expansion spree since 2016.

“There has been, in fact, no event of default or, at the very least, no irremediable event of default,” Udenna said in a statement on Monday.

The four listed companies were working to “immediately resolve” the matter on Monday, ahead of a July 27 deadline to pay a $4 million liability, they said in separate disclosures to the stock exchange. “There should be no effect on the business, financial condition, and operations,” they added.

Under existing loan terms, a default in one debt could mean a default in other liabilities.

Udenna chairman Dennis Uy, 48, was among Duterte’s top campaign donors. Uy oversaw the conglomerate quadrupling its portfolio to more than 100 firms in the first four years of Duterte’s presidency, in sectors ranging from gaming, shipping, education and construction to fast food, ferries, tourism, telecoms and sports cars.

Uy has since sold some of the companies, including a controlling stake in a South China Sea gas field, to trim debts.

Udenna’s total liabilities rose by nearly half to P254 billion ($4.5 billion) in 2020 from P171 billion in 2019, the latest available data from the corporate regulator showed. — Reuters

[B-SIDE Podcast] The future is electric

July 25, 2022 | 11:08 am

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The mainstream adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is expected to gain traction after the previous Congress passed a law that seeks to develop the Philippines’ EV industry.

The law facilitates a shift to EVs by imposing a 5% EV fleet quota for industries that operate vehicles — such as cargo logistics, food delivery companies, tour agencies, and utilities providers — within a timeline that will be set by regulators.

In this B-Side episode, Terry L. Ridon, an investment analyst and convener of InfraWatchPH, speaks with BusinessWorld reporter Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza about the potential of EVs.

Cost is the number one concern, according to Mr. Ridon. For EVs to be adopted by average consumers, their prices have to be comparable to their gas-powered counterparts.

Recorded remotely in June 2022. Produced by Joseph Emmanuel L. Garcia and Sam L. Marcelo.

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