Month: June 2021

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World News

How Gojek and Tokopedia teamed up in Indonesia’s largest merger

How Gojek and Tokopedia teamed up in Indonesia's biggest merger

Kevin Aluwi and William Tanuwijaya recently made Indonesian history.

As founding members of the GoTo Group, the 30-year-olds are responsible for creating Indonesia’s newest and most valuable tech company after merging their ride-hailing and e-commerce startups into the country’s largest business ever.

The combined company will contribute 2% to Indonesia’s GDP through its various business units, including a powerful super app, according to the company. And that is just the beginning.

“Hopefully one day we’ll add 5 to 10%,” Tanuwijaya, co-founder and CEO of Tokopedia, told CNBC Make It.

But maybe you have never heard of it. What exactly is GoTo and how did it get so big?

Founding of Indonesia’s largest technology company

GoTo Group is an Indonesian tech giant founded in May 2021 through a blockbuster merger between two of the country’s largest startups: Gojek and Tokopedia.

Tokopedia was founded one year apart in the capital Jakarta and started as an e-commerce marketplace in 2009 to connect small traders with buyers, while Gojek was launched in 2010 as a ride-hailing platform for motorcycle taxis.

Both companies were started by a group of friends in their twenties who were responding to an emerging wave of Internet connectivity that swept the country at the time.

Indonesian technology company GoTo offers on-demand, e-commerce and digital payment services.

Go to

“There was something of a tipping point where people began to see the potential of the internet, especially with the advent of mobile devices,” said Aluwi, Gojek’s co-founder and CEO.

In a sprawling country with the fourth largest population in the world and a rapidly growing middle class, the founders were on the trail. In the years that followed, both companies ventured into digital payments and other services.

Imagine that Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, PayPal, Stripe are combined with each other.

William Tanuwijaya

Co-Founder and CEO, Tokopedia

Tokopedia has doubled in size to add new market segments such as parents and small stallholders to its ecosystem. In the meantime, Gojek has expanded its ride-hailing platform regionally and expanded its local super app, which offers users on-demand services from food to massages and manicures.

In 2015, the two began working together, using Gojek drivers to deliver Tokopedia products on the same day outside of rush hour.

“We were the first in the world to form a partnership between an on-demand platform and an e-commerce platform,” said Aluwi.

A localized super app

Six years later, amid growing competition from regional and global tech companies, the two agreed to officially merge last month into an $ 18 billion deal – Indonesia’s largest deal to date.

“Imagine that Amazon, DoorDash, Uber, PayPal and Stripe are combined,” said Tanuwijaya. “There is a saying that if you want to go fast you go alone; if you want to go far, you go together. GoTo basically means going far, going together. “

The Indonesian technology company GoTo Group comprises three business lines, Gojek, GoTo Financial and Tokopedia.

CNBC

In the new structure, Andre Soelistyo from GoJek will take over as CEO of GoTo Group and GoTo Financial, Patrick Cao from Tokopedia will become President, while Aluwi and Tanuwijaya will remain CEOs of Gojek and Tokopedia, respectively.

The combined company has over 100 million monthly active users, more than 11 million dealers and over 2 million drivers in an ecosystem that accounts for 2% of Indonesia’s $ 1 trillion GDP, the company said.

GoTo hopes to use it to capture more of the market in Indonesia and beyond.

Seize the opportunity in Southeast Asia

According to a recent study, Indonesia’s digital economy is expected to be worth $ 124 billion by 2025 as the value of the broader Southeast Asian online market triples to more than $ 309 billion.

“Indonesia remains very exciting because of the population in Southeast Asia, the enormous economic growth forecasts for the next 10 years or so and (and) a really consumer-oriented economy,” said Florian Hoppe, partner at Bain & Company and co-author of the study.

This is both a huge business opportunity and an area where we truly believe we can make a big difference.

Kevin Aluwi

Co-founder and CEO, Gojek

However, to expand, companies must target the 120 million Indonesians who live outside of urban areas in the more than 17,000 island archipelago.

“Much of the early growth was driven by major urban centers, was driven by Java,” he said. “The next half will be the really interesting story. How do you get there? Establishing logistics services there, integrating them for payments, really integrating them into the digital economy. ”

Southeast Asia’s digital economy is expected to triple in value by 2025.

CNBC

For GoTo, this includes providing payments and financial services in a country where 47 million adults do not have access to popular financial services and products, and 92 million people have never used a bank.

“It’s these people, with or without a bank account, where illness or economic shock can really make the difference between belonging to the middle class and falling back into poverty,” said Aluwi. “So this is both a huge business opportunity and an area where we really believe we can make a big difference.”

Target of the IPO in 2021

To date, neither Gojek nor Tokopedia are profitable.

GoTo is said to be planning another round of funding ahead of a public listing, likely in Jakarta and the US. The company already has an impressive list of investors including Softbank, Alibaba, Tencent, Facebook, and Google.

“In terms of the timeframe, not just for going public but for all product development, my timeframe is always yesterday,” said Tanuwijaya. “But to be realistic for the team and so on, it’s as soon as possible. We hope we can try to get on the list hopefully by the end of this year.”

The potential is clearly there and I think international investors have recognized that.

Florian Hoppe

Partner, Bain & Company

In April, rival super app Grab completed a Nasdaq listing through the world’s largest “blank check merger” – a special-purpose acquisition company valued at nearly $ 40 billion. GoTo has a public market valuation target of $ 35 billion to $ 40 billion.

The GoTo and Grab IPOs will also serve as a litmus test for the region. If successful, it could pave the way for more tech startups as investor appetite grows.

“Historically, Southeast Asia has had a slightly more difficult time getting on the radar alongside China and India,” said Hoppe. “The last few years have shown that the digital economy is now at least competing with India. But the potential is clearly there and I think international investors have become aware of it.”

Prepare for global alignment

With the newly combined resources and thriving business in the new landscape, the company is now planning its expansion strategy, including an ambitious sustainability pledge.

“GoTo comes with a great responsibility,” said Tanuwijaya. “We’re trying to provide solutions to a problem we figured out a decade ago. But that solution will also create another problem: with millions of drivers, emissions, so many dealerships, packaging, and so on.”

GoTo is an Indonesian technology company that emerged in May 2021 from the merger of ridesharing giant Gojek and the e-commerce platform Tokopedia.

Go to

“That’s why we’re committed to truly zero waste and zero emissions by 2030 and become a company that can be a legacy for the next generation.”

The bold ambitions imply that the GoTo of 2030 could look very different than it is today. But as for the leaders, they’re just getting started.

“Our ambitions are without a doubt global,” said Aluwi. “We are not only active in Indonesia and we firmly believe that the future of our combined group is beyond one country.”

Don’t Miss: How 3 Friends From Indonesia’s Street Stalls Made A Billionaire Deal

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Categories
Politics

Colonial Pipeline paid $5M ransom someday after hack, CEO tells Senate

Colonial Pipeline paid $5M ransom one day after hack, CEO tells Senate

Joseph Blount, JR., President and Chief Executive Officer, Colonial Pipeline is sworn in as he attends a hearing to examine threats to critical infrastructure, focusing on examining the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2021.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | Reuters

WASHINGTON — Colonial Pipeline’s CEO told a Senate committee on Tuesday the company paid the $5 million ransom one day after Russian-based cybercriminals hacked its IT network, crippling fuel deliveries up and down the East Coast.

Joseph Blount Jr. told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in prepared remarks that the company learned of the attack shortly before 5 a.m. on May 7, when an employee discovered a ransom note on a system in the IT network.

The note said hackers had “exfiltrated” material from the company’s shared internal drive, and it demanded approximately $5 million in exchange for the files.

The company was attacked by a ransomware program created by DarkSide, a cyber criminal group believed to operate out of Russia.

Blount said that shortly after discovering the ransom note, the employee notified a supervisor and the decision was made to immediately shut down the entire pipeline.

“At approximately 5:55 A.M. employees began the shutdown process,” Blount wrote. “By 6:10 A.M., they confirmed that all 5,500 miles of pipelines had been shut down.”

The decision to shut down the entire pipeline was driven by “the imperative to isolate and contain the attack to help ensure the malware did not spread to the Operational Technology network, which controls our pipeline operations, if it had not already.”

The shutdown caused major disruptions to gas delivery up and down the East Coast, as trucks struggled to restock gas stations, and long lines developed at pumps, especially in the Southeast. Airline operations also were disrupted.

Blount’s testimony revealed just how quickly the company decided to suspend operations, and it provided new details about the first few days after the attack.

The company believes attackers “exploited a legacy virtual private network profile that was not intended to be in use,” Blount told senators.

But he admitted that the account was not protected by multifactor authentication, which is currently the company standard in most of its operations. Blount said the password was complicated, though. “It was not a ‘Colonial 123’-type password.”

Blount also testified about the approximately $5 million in ransom that the company paid to the DarkSide hackers. He revealed that Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom one day after the attack.

“I made the decision that Colonial Pipeline would pay the ransom to have every tool available to us to swiftly get the pipeline back up and running,” Blount said in his opening statement. “It was one of the toughest decisions I have had to make in my life.”

“At the time, I kept this information close hold because we were concerned about operational security and minimizing publicity for the threat actor,” he said.

In response to a question about whether the company paid ransom to an entity under U.S. sanctions, Blount said the company checked the sanctions list maintained by the Office of Foreign Asset Control before making the payment.

The day before Blount testified, U.S. law enforcement officials announced that they were able to recover $2.3 million in bitcoin from the hacker group.

Blount also told senators that the company contacted the FBI within hours of discovering the attack.

This story will be updated throughout the Senate hearing.

Categories
Health

Within the U.S., vaccines for the youngest are anticipated this fall.

In the U.S., vaccines for the youngest are expected this fall.

Coronavirus vaccines could be available to U.S. children 6 months and older this fall, drug makers say. Pfizer and Moderna are testing their vaccines on children under the age of 12 and are expected to have results for children ages 5 to 11 by September.

Compared to adults, children are significantly less likely to develop serious illnesses after being infected with the coronavirus. However, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly four million children in the United States have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began.

Doctors continue to see rare cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a disease related to Covid-19 that can affect multiple organs, including the heart. Vaccinating children should further help contain the virus by reducing its spread in communities.

Pfizer announced Tuesday that it would test its vaccine on children ages 5 to 12. It will begin testing the vaccine in infants as young as six months in the next few weeks.

The company hopes to apply to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency approval of the vaccine for children ages 5-11 in September. Kit Longley, a spokesman for Pfizer, could soon have results for children ages 2-5.

Data from the study for children between 6 months and 2 years old could arrive in October or November, followed by a possible filing with the FDA soon after, Longley added.

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was approved for use in children between the ages of 12 and 15 last month.

Based on data from a previous safety assessment study, Pfizer will give two doses of 10 micrograms each – one third of the dose given to adolescents and adults – in children aged 5 to 11 years and children aged 6. two doses of three micrograms each give months to 5 years.

“We are taking a conscious and careful approach to understanding the safety and tolerability of the vaccine in younger children,” said Dr. Bill Gruber, Senior Vice President at Pfizer.

The study will enroll up to 4,500 children at more than 90 clinical centers in the United States, Finland, Poland and Spain. Pfizer researchers plan to submit full data from the studies for publication in a peer-reviewed journal this summer.

In March, Moderna began testing different doses of its vaccine in younger children. This study aimed to enroll 6,750 healthy children in the United States and Canada. Results are not expected before the end of summer, and the vaccine will take longer to get approved by the FDA.

“I think it will be early autumn just because we have to age very slowly and carefully,” said Moderna boss Stéphane Bancel on Monday.

The company announced late last month that its vaccine was highly effective in 12-17 year olds and plans to apply to the FDA for approval in that age group. Last week, Moderna also asked the agency for full approval of its vaccine rather than the emergency use it is currently approved for.

The US won’t be the first country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine for young children. China has approved Sinovac’s vaccine for children aged 3 and over, the company’s chairman said. The approval was not officially announced.

Categories
Entertainment

Lyon Dance Biennale Begins, Lowered however Unbowed

Lyon Dance Biennale Begins, Reduced but Unbowed

LYON, France – One million euros cut from the budget. Big shows canceled. And an elaborate parade through the city – an event that had attracted around 250,000 people – was dramatically rethought. Despite these obstacles, the 19th Lyon Dance Biennale became France’s first summer festival on June 1, less than two weeks after the country relaxed its Covid-19-related rules – a bit.

“We still have reduced capacities, we still have a curfew at 9 p.m., we can still only eat and drink outside,” said Dominique Hervieu, director of the Biennale, one of the most important dance festivals in Europe. “But I was absolutely determined that if we even opened the festival would take place.” (Some of these restrictions are due to be relaxed on Wednesday; the biennale runs through June 16.)

Hervieu, who had to cancel the festival in September (when it normally happens), said it cut the duration and cut some of the more expensive and logistically complex programs. A priority is to keep a new project, “L’Expérience Fagor”: a dense compilation of free performances, workshops, dance classes and digital interactions in the 29,000 square meter Fagor factory, where washing machines were once made.

“People ask, ‘If you’ve lost money, why do something for free?'” Said Hervieu. (The Biennale budget was reduced from € 8 million to € 7 million or $ 8.5 million after sponsors withdrew and box office projections were dramatically reduced.) “But after Covid there are lessons about solidarity, about democratization art, about listening to young people at a time when society is in crisis. “

Most of the 32 companies in this year’s main program are based in Europe, but around 100 African artists took part – part of a nationwide program by the French Institute Africa 2020. Many came to take part in the parade, which this year had a theatrical format a street procession. Short plays inspired by Africa were presented by 12 groups to a limited audience over two days in the vast ancient theater of Fourvière, which dates back to 1 BC. (Roseyne Bachelot, the French Minister of Culture, sat on the stone seats in the opening lecture on Saturday afternoon).

The festival lost some premieres (including Angelin Preljocaj’s “Swan Lake”) to pandemic logistics, but gained more. Dimitris Papaioannous “Transverse Orientation” should have opened in the prestigious Cour d’Honneur at the Avignon Festival last year. Instead, its premiere, arguably the most important of the Biennale, took place in Lyon last week.

Papaioannou, who began his artistic life as a visual artist and worked with the director Robert Wilson, slowly gained international fame. “Lateral orientation” confirms that it is worthwhile.

Like all pieces by Papaioannou, it is a meticulously crafted, intensely visual experience. The set (by Tina Tzoka and Loukas Bakas) is a plain white wall, interrupted by a narrow door and an intermittently flickering, humming neon light. This provides a blank canvas for painterly lighting (by Stephanos Droussiotis) in a range of delicate colors on which eight performers create an ever-changing and often breathtaking palette of images and tableaus – reminiscent of visual arts, myths and religion.

A man lies naked on a terrifyingly realistic bull that the other actors seem to control; another man’s penis appears to have been torn off; compound male-female bodies are formed and dissolved. A naked woman (the blissful Breanna O’Mara) framed in a shell-like cocoon looks like the goddess of Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” and shows a different kind of childbirth, while a slowly dripping bag is placed against hers Belly held, gradually deflated to reveal a newborn.

There is also humor in the large, wobbly figures that open up the work (later you do a little tap dance), in the assembled bodies, in the figures that are jostled by forces beyond their control. Occasionally the plot seems deliberately indistinct, like the tedious removal of the stage walls at the end, which expose a shallow lake that a man is trying to mop up – quite Pina Bausch. But “lateral orientation” with almost two hours is usually a long act of artistic magic that is created before our eyes by the extremely precise actors.

Precision is also a key element in Yuval Pick’s “Vocabulary of Need,” which is used for various recordings and revisions of Bach’s instructive “Partita No. 2 in D minor” by Max Bruckert. It’s ambitious to race any choreography against this score, and Pick – an Israel-born, Batsheva-trained choreographer and based in France – creates an eccentric, loosely tossed, hopping movement that at first doesn’t seem to make any attempt to match it. But gradually a visual complexity grows as the eight dancers rush unpredictably on and off the stage. With different ensemble groupings and solos (Bravo to Noémie De Almeida Ferreira and Julie Charbonnier), the piece slowly feels like a kinetic addition to the music – no small achievement.

At the beginning of the pandemic, the director of the Lyon Opera Ballet, Julie Guibert, decided to initiate a project; the creation of 30 solos for the 30 dancers of the company. Seven have already been seen and another five celebrated their premiere on Saturday in Les Subsistances, a cave-like cultural center on the banks of the Saône. (Despite cuts, this year biennial events will be held in 48 different theaters and 37 cities in the Lyon area, Hervieu said.)

The mood was rather gloomy. “Love”, a solo for Paul Vezin, by Marcos Morau, borrowed from circus and clown tropes, but took place in gloomy darkness. “La Venerina” by Nina Santes for Elsa Monguillot de Mirman was a boring mutant fantasy. The best pieces were Noé Soulier’s “Self Duet”, in which Katrien De Bakker tied herself into complex knots on her own body using ballet partnering techniques; Rachid Ouramdane’s “jours effaces” (“extinguished days”) for Léoannis Pupo-Guillen, a touching portrait of a man who seems to have lost touch with himself and the world; and Ioannis Mandafounis’ “Come and get your Antliz”, a happy festival of movement directed against the grain for the wonderful dancer Yan Leiva.

This biennial was not the densely layered, hectic event of the past few years. There was no hectic rush from one performance to the next, no post-performance conversations with artists, no chance for the many moderators and experts at the festival to network over a drink or meal. But the show went on. As Germaine Acogny, the grande dame of African dance, who performed her autobiographical solo “Somewhere at the Beginning” on Friday, wrote in the festival program: “Dare. Dream. To sing. To dance.”

Dance Biennale Lyon

Until June 16; labiennaledelyon.com.

Categories
Health

U.S. should vaccinate extra individuals earlier than Delta turns into dominant Covid variant

U.S. must vaccinate more people before Delta becomes dominant Covid variant

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, testifies during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing about the federal response to the coronavirus on Capitol Hill March 18, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Susan Walsh | Swimming pool | Getty Images

U.S. health officials are making efforts to get more Americans vaccinated to prevent the Delta variant, first identified in India, from spreading to the United States.

The variant has become the dominant variety in the UK, accounting for an estimated 60% of new cases. It’s now more common than the Alpha strain, formerly known as the B.1.1.7 strain and first identified in the UK, and transmission peaks in people between the ages of 12 and 20, said Dr. Anthony Fauci., White House chief medical officer, said at a news conference Tuesday.

In the US, the delta variant makes up more than 6% of the cases that scientists have been able to sequence, he said. The real number is likely higher since the US does the genetic sequence on a fraction of the time.

“In the UK, the Delta variant is quickly becoming the dominant variant … It replaces the B.1.1.7,” said Fauci. “We cannot allow that in the USA.”

President Joe Biden’s goal is to have at least one vaccination of 70% of all US adults by July 4th. It’s a bit of a chore, less than four weeks before it starts and 63.7% of the adult population got their first vaccination, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 53% of all adults in the United States are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

First discovered in October, the Delta variant has spread to at least 62 countries, the World Health Organization announced last week.

“We continue to see significantly increased transmissibility and a growing number of countries reporting outbreaks associated with this variant,” the WHO said last week of the Delta strain, noting that further studies were a high priority.

The Delta Tribe has India in a stranglehold, causing a surge in infections and deaths that has clogged hospital systems. The Indian government announced Monday that the country will shortly begin making Covid-19 vaccines available to all adults in the country free of charge.

Fauci also said the Delta variant is more contagious and could be associated with a higher risk of hospitalization than the original “wild-type” Covid-19 strain.

Studies also show that two doses of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca shots are effective against the Delta strain, according to the National Institutes of Health.

According to NIH data, two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were found to be 88% effective against the Delta variant, while two doses of the AstraZeneca shot were 60% effective against the strain.

Fauci emphasized the importance of receiving two doses after NIH studies showed that three weeks after administration, just one dose of either vaccine provided only 33% effectiveness against the Delta variant.

Categories
Politics

Wealthy Individuals Like Bezos, Musk, Buffett Prevented Earnings Tax

Rich Americans Like Bezos, Musk, Buffett Avoided Income Tax

Lawmakers like Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, have advocated the idea of ​​taxing a person’s net worth over $ 50 million at a two percent tax – including the value of stocks, houses, boats, and everything else a person has owns after all debts have been deducted. In an interview on Tuesday, Ms. Warren described the tax revelations as “deeply shocking” and said it reinforces the fact that lawmakers should think of wealth over income when writing tax policy.

“A 2 or 10 percent increase in income tax is not going to make any real difference to these multibillionaires,” Ms. Warren said. “The real action in America is in wealth, not income.”

Although she praised some of Mr. Biden’s proposals, such as increasing taxes on investment income and targeting “real” corporate profits, Ms. Warren said she would like a more ambitious White House.

“I want the Biden government to enforce property taxes,” said Ms. Warren.

Mr Biden and his advisors found the idea of ​​a wealth tax impracticable. Instead, the president wants an additional $ 80 billion over 10 years to bolster the Internal Revenue Service so it is better equipped to prosecute tax fraud. And he has proposed doubling the tax on capital gains – the proceeds from the sale of an asset like a stock or a boat – for anyone who makes more than $ 1 million.

“We know more needs to be done to ensure that companies with the highest incomes pay more of their fair share,” said Ms. Psaki.

At a New York Times DealBook event in February Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said a wealth tax “is something that has very difficult implementation problems.” She suggested that other tax changes that would increase taxes on wealth carried over upon death could have a similar effect. In March, however, Ms. Yellen suggested being open to a wealth tax.

“Well, we haven’t decided that yet,” Ms. Yellen told ABC News before pointing out other tax ideas that would affect the rich as well.

Categories
World News

Israel’s Parliament to Vote on New Authorities on Sunday

Israel’s Parliament to Vote on New Government on Sunday

JERUSALEM — The immediate political future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is set to be decided on Sunday, after the speaker of Israel’s Parliament said that lawmakers would hold a vote of confidence in a new coalition government that afternoon.

If the fragile coalition can hold together until then, it will be the first time in 12 years that the country will be led by someone other than Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

The announcement, by the Parliament speaker, Yariv Levin, on Tuesday, clears the way for Mr. Netanyahu to be replaced by Naftali Bennett, a former high-tech entrepreneur and settler leader who opposes a Palestinian state and believes Israel should annex much of the occupied West Bank.

If confirmed by Parliament, Mr. Bennett will lead an ideologically varied alliance that ranges from the far left to the hard right and includes — for the first time in Israeli history — an independent Arab party.

The fragility of the alliance and its wafer-thin majority — if no one drops out, it will command 61 of Parliament’s 120 seats — have left many wondering whether it will last until the vote, let alone its full four-year term. If the coalition lasts until 2023, Mr. Bennett has agreed to cede the premiership to Yair Lapid, a centrist former television host.

Mr. Netanyahu and his party, Likud, have pledged to do all they can to peel off wavering hard-right members of the coalition before the confidence vote.

In a speech reminiscent of President Trump’s rhetoric after the 2020 United States election, Mr. Netanyahu accused Mr. Bennett’s alliance on Sunday of subverting the will of the people.

“We are witnessing the biggest election fraud in the country’s history,” he told lawmakers from Likud before giving his blessing to protesters pressuring Mr. Bennett’s party.

“Nobody will silence us,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “When a huge public feels that it has been deceived, when the national camp is vehemently opposed to a dangerous left-wing government, it is their right and their duty to express protest in all legal and democratic means.”

For weeks, Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters have tried to stop the formation of an alternative government by accusing its would-be members — particularly those from the political right — of betraying the country.

That rhetoric has risen significantly since Wednesday, when opposition leaders announced that they had formed a coalition, pending a confidence vote.

Over the weekend, Likud tweeted the home address of a leading opposition lawmaker. And hundreds of supporters of Mr. Netanyahu have picketed the homes of several coalition members whom they deem vulnerable to pressure.

“It seems that Netanyahu hasn’t forgotten or learned anything since the Rabin assassination,” Nahum Barnea, a prominent columnist, wrote on Monday in Yedioth Ahronoth, a centrist newspaper.

On Saturday, the tenor of the discourse appeared to prompt Nadav Argaman, the director of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, to publicly call for restraint.

Understand Developments in Israeli Politics

    • Key Figures. The main players in the latest twist in Israeli politics have very different agendas, but one common goal. Naftali Bennett, who leads a small right-wing party, and Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the Israeli opposition, have joined forces to form a diverse coalition to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
    • Range of Ideals. Spanning Israel’s fractious political spectrum from left to right, and relying on the support of a small Arab, Islamist party, the coalition, dubbed the “change government” by supporters, will likely mark a profound shift for Israel.
    • A Common Goal. After grinding deadlock that led to four inconclusive elections in two years, and an even longer period of polarizing politics and government paralysis, the architects of the coalition have pledged to get Israel back on track.
    • An Unclear Future. Parliament still has to ratify the fragile agreement in a confidence vote in the coming days. But even if it does, it remains unclear how much change the “change government” could bring to Israel because some of the parties involved have little in common besides animosity for Mr. Netanyahu.

Without mentioning any politicians by name, Mr. Argaman asked Israelis to avoid statements that are “liable to be interpreted by certain groups or by individuals as one that permits violent and illegal activity that is liable, heaven forbid, to reach mortal injury.”

Analysts and commentators have also warned that several of the circumstances that set off the recent Gaza conflict have yet to be extinguished and could boil over again before the confidence vote.

On Monday, the attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, declined to intervene in a high-profile eviction case in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian residents face expulsion from their homes in favor of Israeli settlers.

The case in Sheikh Jarrah was cited by Hamas as one of the reasons for its decision to fire rockets toward Jerusalem on May 10, at the start of the recent conflict with Israel. Mr. Mandelblit’s decision means that the eviction, currently under judicial appeal, could be finalized in the coming days — raising tensions with Hamas once more.

There are also fears of violence if a far-right Jewish march through Palestinian areas of East Jerusalem is allowed to go ahead.

The march was originally planned for May 10 and was another reason given by Hamas for firing rockets that day. It was aborted after the militants began their attack, leading its organizers to try to reschedule it for this week.

The police initially canceled the rescheduled march, but Mr. Netanyahu’s security cabinet decided Tuesday to go ahead with it on June 15, on a route to be agreed on with the police.

Myra Noveck contributed reporting.

Categories
Health

A U.N. Declaration on Ending AIDS Ought to Have Been Simple. It Wasn’t.

A U.N. Declaration on Ending AIDS Should Have Been Easy. It Wasn’t.

The United Nations on Tuesday adopted new targets for ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, a target that most countries could seemingly easily agree to. But consensus was elusive.

In early negotiations on what is known as the Political Declaration, the United States and the European Union fought to outlaw policies and laws that stigmatize or even criminalize high-risk groups – and drastically scaled back measures to relax patent protection for HIV drugs .

The UN Declaration sets priorities for the global fight against AIDS and guides national policy. There are also opportunities for global health groups and civil society organizations to put pressure on governments to honor their commitments.

After several days of intensive work by delegates from some countries and skilful negotiations by others, the member countries adopted a final version of the declaration on Tuesday morning. The final draft includes an important new goal of having most nations reform discriminatory laws so that less than 10 percent of the world’s countries would take action that unfairly targets people at risk of or living with HIV

“These laws drive the most severely affected by HIV away from HIV prevention and treatment,” said Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Politics Initiative at Georgetown University. “This could be a vital tool to get the world back on track to end AIDS.”

On Monday, Dr. Kavanagh and colleagues have a new piece of work showing that countries that criminalize same-sex relationships, drug use, and sex work have had far less success in fighting HIV

But the declaration does not move the needle to patent protection. The United States was among the nations whose delegates significantly watered down or shortened the language to relax patents to provide better access to affordable HIV medicines in low and middle income countries, an attitude endorsed by the Biden government directly contradicted patent waiver for Covid vaccines.

“The mixed messages from the government in the face of recent support for the waiver of Covid-19 vaccine patents are confusing and disappointing,” said Annette Gaudino, director of policy at the Treatment Action Group, an advocacy group in New York. “This would by far not be the first time the US has put drug company profits above people and public health.”

The UN brings together heads of state, health ministers and non-governmental organizations to set priorities for the fight against the HIV pandemic every five years. At a similar meeting in 2016, member countries agreed to aim for less than 500,000 new HIV infections per year, less than 500,000 AIDS-related deaths and the eradication of HIV-related discrimination by 2020.

The world did not achieve these goals: in 2020 around 1.5 million people became infected with HIV and around 690,000 died.

Ending AIDS by 2030 was an ambitious goal adopted by the UN in 2015 as part of a broader agenda for sustainable development. But without more advanced policies and laws, the goal is not achievable, said Dr. Kavanagh.

“To end AIDS by 2030, governments must commit to taking a people-centered, rights-based approach to HIV, working on policy and legal reform, engaging and supporting communities, and ending inequalities,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director from executive UNAIDS said in an email statement.

The original draft of the April 28 statement included a commitment to end “criminal laws, policies and practices, stigma and discrimination based on HIV status, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Delegates from a few countries, including the Africa Group, China, Russia and Iran, tried to erase allusions to sexual or gender identity or to sex education for girls. This has only partially succeeded: the current text calls for prevention approaches that are tailored to risk groups, including sex workers, men who have sex with men, drug users and transgender people.

Delegates from African countries have successfully inserted a language in which they reaffirm “the sovereign rights of member states” and emphasize that the commitments in the declaration would be implemented “in accordance with national laws, national development priorities and international human rights”. About half of the countries where homosexuality is illegal are in Africa.

The declaration in its current form also calls on countries to “empower women and girls to take care of their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights,” a section that Saudi Arabia, Russia and the Holy See attempted remove the text.

Representatives from Belarus, China and Russia also deleted a section calling on member countries to recognize citizens’ autonomy in matters of sexuality; its replaced text encouraged “responsible sexual behavior, including abstinence and fidelity”. The final document has been reverted to the original text.

Including language through high-risk groups is critical to success, some experts said. Gays and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs, and female sex workers are almost 30 times more likely to have HIV than the general population.

If these groups don’t have access to preventive therapy, clean needles, condoms, or education, “we will undermine the possibility of actually ending AIDS by 2030,” said Eric Sawyer, an advocate for people living with HIV and long-term survivors.

An early draft of the declaration also contained a longer section aimed at relaxing patent protection. Under the current global rules, only the 50 least developed countries are allowed to delete patents on pharmaceutical products in order to distribute them to citizens.

The draft called for “an indefinite moratorium on international intellectual property regulations for drugs, diagnostics and other health technologies”. Representatives from the United States and Switzerland deleted this section. A representative from the European Union said: “This is not the place to discuss these general issues.”

The United States also added language to the reduced version to recognize the “importance of the intellectual property rights regime in contributing to a more effective AIDS response.”

Activists said an anti-patent waiver stance was perfectly consistent for the European Union, which also spoke out against waiving patents on Covid vaccines. Vaccine manufacturers have argued that patent protection is essential to fuel innovation.

Citing the urgent need for vaccines, however, Biden government officials have said they would support a patent waiver that would allow companies to manufacture cheaper versions of the vaccines for the rest of the world.

Given this trend, “it would be really inconsistent” for the US to oppose a relaxation of patent protection for HIV drugs, said Brook Baker, law professor at Northeastern University and senior policy analyst with the Health Global Access Project, an advocacy group.

“Why in the world should the US be talking on a seemingly almost identical subject from two sides of the mouth?”

Categories
Health

Biogen faces robust questions on $56Okay-a-year worth of latest Alzheimer’s drug

Biogen faces tough questions on $56K-a-year price of new Alzheimer's drug

A person skates past Biogen Inc. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday, June 7, 2021.

Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Biogen faced tough questions from Wall Street analysts Tuesday about the annual cost of $ 56,000 for its newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm – a price that executives call “fair” and “responsible”.

Biogen’s shares rose 38% Monday after the FDA announced it had approved the company’s drug scientifically known as aducanumab. It’s the first drug approved by U.S. regulators to slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s, and the first new drug for the disease in nearly two decades.

The biotech company said it is charging $ 56,000 for an annual course of the new treatment, more than the $ 10,000-25,000 price some Wall Street analysts expected. This is the wholesale price, and the cost that patients actually pay depends on their health insurance plan.

Some analysts and stakeholders immediately questioned how the company could justify the price – about five times higher than expected – especially as medical experts continue to debate whether there is enough evidence that the drug actually works and the industry has been criticized for drug prices .

The FDA departed from the advice of its independent panel of external experts, which unexpectedly declined to approve the drug last fall, citing inconclusive data.

“Our only concern here is the annual cost of aducanumab and whether the sticker shock at $ 56,000 a year (we were at $ 10,000) could further stimulate drug price reviews,” Stifel analyst Jeff Preis told investors Monday in a note.

On a call to investors Tuesday morning, Evercore ISI analyst Umer Raffat congratulated the Massachusetts-based company on US approval of the drug before asking executives to explain the price.

“I think there is a discrepancy between some of the words you shared in your press releases like responsibility, access, health equity, and price, especially given the basic care population,” he told executives.

JP Morgan analyst Cory Kasimov later asked executives how much the state health insurance program Medicare is likely to pay for the drug and how concerned executives are about the “backlash” the industry will face on pricing.

Biogen executives said the overall price of the new treatment is “underpinned” by the value it is expected to bring to patients, caregivers and society. They insisted that the price was “responsible” and stated that the disease costs the US billions each year.

The Alzheimer’s Association estimates that more than 6 million Americans are living with the disease. The company said it currently has the capacity to deliver the drug to 1 million patients annually, with more than 900 locations in the U.S. poised to launch the new drug.

“We want to ensure that Aduhelm is affordable for patients and sustainable for health systems,” said one executive.

The company has pledged not to increase the price of the new drug over the next four years. However, executives said they were “open-minded” and suggested reconsidering the price as the company assesses demand over the next few years.

Michel Vounatsos, CEO of Biogen, joined CNBC on Monday and said the drug’s price will allow the company to continue investing in its pipeline of drugs for other diseases. He added that the company works closely with Medicare as well as private insurers.

Categories
Politics

James Murdoch spent $100 million to fund political causes throughout 2020 election

James Murdoch spent $100 million to fund political causes during 2020 election

James Murdoch, co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox Inc.

Christophe Morin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

James Murdoch, one of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s sons, quietly invested $100 million into his nonprofit foundation, which then used a large chunk of the money to fund political groups during the 2020 election cycle.

CNBC found the enormous contribution from James Murdoch and his spouse, Kathryn Murdoch, after reviewing the 501c3 group’s 990 tax return from 2019, which the foundation provided. The Murdochs launched the foundation, called Quadrivium, in 2014.

The $100 million donation marks the couple’s largest known contribution to their foundation or any political effort. It came as James and Kathryn Murdoch were building their own political operation. They have largely backed nonpartisan and Democratic-leaning causes. Kathryn Murdoch has previously criticized former President Donald Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Murdoch family, headed by Rupert Murdoch, is worth over $22 billion, according to Forbes. The family controls Fox Corp. and News Corp. James’ brother Lachlan Murdoch is the CEO of Fox, which has multiple assets including the conservative Fox News cable network.

It was previously known that James and Kathryn Murdoch backed President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. But it was unknown until now just how much they were spending behind the scenes to impact the election. Combined with the millions they gave to campaigns and political action committees, the $100 million donation would make the couple one of the top donors in the last election cycle.

The 2019 tax document shows that of the $100 million given to the foundation, over $25 million went toward grants, including for several political causes. The $25 million also represents the most the Murdoch couple has spent through their foundation on political causes such as fighting climate change and helping people vote.

Yet, according to a person close to the family, that $25 million two years ago was only part of massive Murdoch investments through the 2020 election cycle. This person declined to be named in order to speak freely about the situation.

Since 2019, Quadrivium directed over $43 million to climate-related groups. Over $38 million, including $14 million in Quadrivium donations and $24 million in individual contributions from the couple, went toward election organizations, including those dedicated to protecting voting rights.

The Murdoch couple also donated over $20 million to both Biden’s campaign, groups supporting him and opposing Trump, and organizations dedicated to disrupting online threats and extremism. They also donated to groups dedicated to getting out the vote during the Georgia Senate runoff elections in January. Democrats won both of those seats.

A spokeswoman for James and Kathryn Murdoch declined to comment.

According to the 2019 tax document, the Quadrivium foundation had more than $100 million on hand going into 2020, just as the primary and caucus season was beginning.

The Murdochs’ $100 million donation came the same year James was the CEO of 21s Century Fox before Disney bought the bulk of the company for $71 billion. He was also on the board of the family-owned News Corp. at the time.

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The $100 million contribution to the foundation came in the form of Disney stock, and it was made the same day that the Fox-Disney deal was completed. James Murdoch made a reported $2.1 billion from the transaction.

Murdoch would later step down from the News Corp. board citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.” News Corp. includes The New York Post and Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Both newspapers have conservative opinion sections.

The Murdochs’ foundation in 2019 donated to several organizations it had supported in the past, although nonprofits received significantly more funds that year than other groups. Quadrivium supports issue-based groups that fight against climate change and try to improve access to voting.

The Murdochs’ support for voting rights groups comes as Republicans in states such as Georgia and Texas are passing laws that critics say restrict people ability to vote. James Murdoch was one of hundreds of executives and corporations that signed a public statement opposing “any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.”

Democracy Works Inc., a nonprofit that promotes itself as having tools to help people register to vote, received $2.5 million from the Murdoch-run foundation.

The education fund for Represent.Us, which claims to be nonpartisan and says it works to “pass powerful state and local laws that fix our broken elections and stop political bribery,” saw $2 million from the Murdochs in 2019. The group includes a cultural council of celebrities, including J.J. Abrams, Michael Douglas and Jennifer Lawrence. The Represent.Us fund, according to its website, “made grants to Represent.Us to support public education activities and dedicated cross-partisan outreach activities.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, which also calls itself nonpartisan, saw $1 million from the Murdochs two years ago. The Brennan Center has become a resource for voters and reporters to keep up on various bills that the organization deems restrictive. The group’s website notes that state legislatures have introduced over 380 bills in 48 states that are considered restrictive.

As for fighting climate change, Kathryn Murdoch has been a trustee at the Environmental Defense Fund for years. That organization saw $11 million in 2019 from Quadrivium.