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LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell forecast on Wednesday that this year's deadly Texas winter storm will cost the Anglo-Dutch energy giant up to $200 million in the first quarter.

That is equivalent to almost 170 million euros.

"The Texas winter storm had an impact on our operations and is expected to have an aggregate adverse impact of up to $200 million on adjusted earnings," Shell said in a statement.

Last year, Shell plunged into a net loss of $21.7 billion as factories shut and planes were grounded owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Texas storm was expected to curb production by between 10,000 and 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) during the three months to the end of March, the statement said.

Total production is expected to climb to between 2.4 and 2.475 million boepd, up from 2.371 million in the fourth quarter.

February's polar vortex storm killed dozens of people, left millions without electricity and water, caused billions of dollars of damage to the sector and forced several Texas electric firms to file for bankruptcy.

The freezing temperatures also caused outages at energy installations -- natural gas-fired power plants, wind turbines and nuclear plants -- which are not typically insulated as they are in other states with colder climates.

FRANKFURT — New car sales in Germany posted their worst first-quarter performance since national reunification in 1990 owing to the coronavirus pandemic, official data showed on Wednesday.

A total of 656,452 new cars were registered between January and March in Europe's largest car market -- down 6.4 per cent on the same period in 2020 and around 25 per cent lower than in 2019, the KBA transport authority said.

"The first quarter of 2021 was down 16 per cent" on the 10-year average, the VDIK car importers' federation said in a statement.

"There hasn't been a worse first quarter since we started compiling statistics," it added.

Compared with March 2020 when shutdown measures triggered a historic 37.7-per cent plunge in new car sales, registrations climbed last month 35.9 per cent to 292,349 -- still 15 per cent below the pre-crisis level.

"The growth in March only exists on paper," VDIK president Reinhard Zirpel said. 

"We have been confronted with an extremely weak market since the beginning of the year." 

Zirpel said the industry, which is central to the German economy, "did not at all expect the first quarter of 2021 to be even darker than the already extremely bad period the previous year".

Domestic production jumped 29 per cent to 373,900 units in March month-on-month, the VDA said. During the first quarter, it marked an eight-per cent decline.

Exports also decreased by nine per cent during the first quarter compared with the same period in 2020.

BEIRUT — Lebanese medical student Mohammad Sleiman travelled to Belarus to become the first doctor in his family, but he now fears his country’s economic crisis is going to get him expelled.

“I’ve got a future and I’m working towards it,” the 23-year-old said from his bedroom in the capital Minsk, a dream catcher hanging on the wall behind him

“But if they throw me out of university, my future will be lost. And it’ll be the Lebanese state’s fault.”

As Lebanese banks forbid depositors from transferring their own money abroad, thousands of students who went abroad to pursue studies they could not afford at home are among the hardest hit.

Students said they had moved into cheaper accommodation, taken on jobs or even cut back on meals. Some had been forced to fly home to Lebanon, with no idea how to return to their studies.

Sleiman said he was so stressed about money that he could hardly concentrate in class.

Back home, his family’s dollar savings have been trapped in the bank since 2019, and the 23-year-old has no idea how he will pay tuition fees when his father can barely borrow enough to send him rent.

Last month, he says his name appeared on a list with other Lebanese threatened with expulsion if they did not pay up.

Lebanon’s parliament passed a law last year to help students like him, but parents say banks systematically turn them away demanding more paperwork.

‘More debt’ 

In the south of Lebanon, Sleiman’s father said he had been to several protests by parents demanding help from the Lebanese authorities, but to no avail.

Without access to his savings, 48-year-old Mousa Sleiman has to buy $300 for his son each month on the black market at an exorbitant exchange rate.

But his earnings from his toy and cosmetics store, in Lebanese pounds now worth 85 per cent less at street value, cannot even begin to cover it.

“I’ve been so worried,” the father of eight said, with his eldest son’s April rent due. “I’m going to have to go and rack up more debt.”

One student activist said parents had also sold cars and gold jewellery to help their children.

Many pin blame for Lebanon’s worst financial crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war on political mismanagement and corruption.

As the country’s foreign reserves plummet, and amid reports of mass capital flight despite currency controls since 2019, they accuse the ruling class of having plundered their savings.

A law passed last year is supposed to allow parents to access $10,000 per student enrolled abroad in 2019 at the much cheaper official exchange rate. 

But parents say the banks don’t care.

“They take our requests and dump them in drawers because there’s no more money left to send. They stole it,” said Sleiman’s father.

A handful of parents or grandparents have filed lawsuits against their banks and won, the latest last month.

One of them was able last year to transfer funds to his sons in France and Spain so they could graduate.

Sleiman and fellow parents are looking into doing the same.

The International Union of Lebanese Youth, covering students in 20 countries, has started working with volunteer lawyers towards filing dozens more cases.

But lawyer and activist Nizar Sayegh said these cases were still rare and complicated by coronavirus lockdowns and banks filing appeals.

Many families also shy away from legal action for fear the banks would then close their account, he said.

‘Future abroad’ 

In Italy, 20-year-old Reine Kassis said she and fellow cash-strapped Lebanese flatmates were having to delay breakfast till lunch time.

“We eat toast and cheese, then study, study, study until supper,” said the mechanical engineering student in Ferrara.

She says she has received a little help in Italy.

But her brother, 23, had to return from Ukraine to Lebanon to continue studying online because he could not afford the rent.

Their father Maurice Kassis, a retired officer, said he was heartbroken.

“I only had two children so I could spoil them, and educate them properly,” the 54-year-old said in the eastern town of Zahle.

When he retired, he had enough savings stashed away in Lebanese pounds to cover both of them studying abroad.

But today, with the collapse of the Lebanese currency, those pounds would fetch just an eighth of their old value in dollars.

After he has paid off his home loan with his pension each month, he only has the equivalent of $50 left for the whole family.

“How do you educate your children with that?” he asked.

“I’m telling them to find themselves a future abroad.”

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple chief Tim Cook portrayed self-driving cars as an ideal match for the technology giant during an interview released on Monday by The New York Times.

Talk of an autonomous vehicle bearing the Apple brand has long been among rumors swirling around the iPhone maker, which has remained tight-lipped about its plans for the market.

“An autonomous car is a robot and so there are a lots of things you can do with autonomy; we will see what Apple does," Cook said during a Sway podcast with Kara Swisher.

"We love to integrate hardware, software and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that's where the magic occurs."

Cook hinted that an option could be for Apple to build an autonomous-driving technology platform used by auto makers.

He expressed admiration for electric car maker Tesla, which is among companies developing autonomous driving capabilities in vehicles.

"Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead but keeping the lead for such a long period of time in the electric vehicle space," Cook said.

Japanese auto maker Nissan and South Korea-based Hyundai in February denied reports of potential alliances with Apple on self-driving cars. Apple’s Project Titan is devoted to electric autonomous vehicles and has been in the works for several years — but details of the venture have been kept under wraps.

Apple first revealed its self-driving tech aspirations in 2016 and Cook has since then said he saw autonomous driving systems as a "core technology" for the future.

The interview with Cook touched on an array of hot topics, including clashes Apple is having with Facebook and Fortnite video game maker Epic about its tight control of the App Store.

US regulators are looking into whether Apple's control of the App Store, where it gets a commission on transactions, is an abuse of power since the shop is the sole venue for digital content for its mobile devices.

Apple has staunchly defended its control of the App Store as integral to protecting users from hackers, snooping, and other dangers.

"I think it's hard to argue that the App Store is not an economic miracle," Cook said.

"Apple has helped build an economy that's over a half-a-trillion-dollars a year, and takes a very small sliver of that for the innovation that it unleashed and the expense of running the store."

By Rob Lever
Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — The US Supreme Court on Monday handed Google a major win in a long-running copyright battle with Oracle, ruling that the use of the Java programming language for the Android mobile operating system was "fair use."

The 6-2 ruling had been closely watched as a key test of copyright in the digital era, and allows Google to avoid paying out billions to its technology rival.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the 39-page majority opinion that even if Google used copyrightable material, "the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use. Hence, Google's copying did not violate the copyright law".

The case revolved around whether copyright protection should be extended to application software interfaces (APIs), the bits of code that allow programmes and apps to work together, and if so, whether Google's implementation was a "fair use" of copyrighted material.

The case drew interest across the spectrum of technology firms and creative industries, and heated debate on how much copyright protection should be afforded to bits of computer code.

Two separate jury trials ended with a determination that Google's "software interface" did not unfairly use Java code, saving the internet giant from a possible multibillion-dollar verdict.

But an appeals court in 2018 disagreed, saying the software interface is entitled to copyright protection, prompting Google to take the case to the highest US court.

Oracle, which in 2010 obtained the rights to Java when it acquired Sun Microsystems — which had supported Google's use of Java for Android — sought $9 billion in damages in its original complaint.

Threatening innovation? 

Google and many Silicon Valley allies have argued that extending copyright protection to APIs would threaten innovation in the fast-evolving digital world.

According to Google, a win for Oracle would "upend the longstanding expectation of software developers that they are free to use existing computer software interfaces to build new programmes". 

Others said Google would walk away with "intellectual property theft" in a court victory, arguing that it would make it hard to protect any digital property from Chinese misappropriation.

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, wrote that the court should have taken a narrower view of copyright in view of Google's copying of 11,500 lines of code.

"The court wrongly sidesteps the principal question that we were asked to answer: Is declaring code protected by copyright? I would hold that it is. Computer code occupies a unique space in intellectual property," Thomas wrote.

Breyer wrote that new technologies call for a broader view.

"The fact that computer programmes are primarily functional makes it difficult to apply traditional copyright concepts in that technological world."

Breyer wrote that Google "reimplemented a user interface, taking only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative programme".

Law professor Steven Vladeck of the University of Texas said on Twitter the ruling was "a win for Google, but the big issue got punted" because the justices failed to decide on whether this type of software code may be copyrighted.

Boston University law professor Tiffany Li meanwhile called the decision a "huge win for fair use and people who understand how coding works!"

HONG KONG — Tokyo's Nikkei led a rally in holiday-thinned trade in Asia on Friday following a record-breaking day on Wall Street with investors buoyed by Joe Biden's huge new infrastructure spending plan and growing optimism over the economic recovery.

With most equity and commodity markets in the region closed for Easter, business was light but the mood remained decidedly upbeat ahead of the release of key US jobs data that is expected to confirm that the world's top economy is getting back on its feet.

Confidence that global growth will soar as vaccines allow economies to open has for now overtaken worries that the rebound will fan inflation and force central banks to wind back their market-boosting monetary policies.

"Before you worry about inflation, there's reflation and I think that's the main theme in the market," Ed Campbell, at QMA, said.

Biden's $2.25 trillion rebuilding package — coming soon after the passage of his $1.9 trillion stimulus — has reinforced the view among investors that the US economy will run hot, with analysts saying its corporate tax implications were also being put aside for now.

With this in mind, and after a strong read on US March manufacturing, the S&P 500 broke the 4,000-point barrier for the first time, while the Nasdaq and Dow also enjoyed healthy gains.

The few markets in Asia that were open followed suit, with Tokyo up 1.6 per cent, Seoul almost 1 per cent higher and Shanghai also in positive territory along with Bangkok.

"The US equity market opened in the second quarter with a sonic boom ushering in a great Good Friday," said Axi Strategist Stephen Innes.

He added that equities likely had further to run higher as vaccines are administered around the world, and despite a pick-up in infections in parts of the world including France, which is facing another lockdown.

"Vaccine rollouts remain the game's name and drive the narrative, even with the EU lagging, as investors view this delay in the context that the catch-up is but a function of time," he said. 

WASHINGTON — Data affecting more than 500 million Facebook users that was originally leaked in 2019, including email addresses and phone numbers, has been posted on an online hackers forum, according to media reports and a cybercrime expert.

"All 533,000,000 Facebook records were just leaked for free," Alon Gal, chief technology officer at the Hudson Rock cybercrime intelligence firm, said Saturday on Twitter.

He denounced what he called the "absolute negligence" of Facebook.

Some of the data appeared to be current, according to a report in Business Insider which AFP was unable to confirm independently. It said some of the leaked phone numbers still belong to the owners of Facebook accounts.

"This means that if you have a Facebook account, it is extremely likely the phone number used for the account was leaked," Gal said. 

But Facebook said the reports were old news.

"This is old data that was previously reported on in 2019," a company spokesperson said. "We found and fixed this issue in August 2019."

Close to 32 million American accounts and 20 million French accounts were among those affected, Gal tweeted in January, when the person holding the data was trying to sell it. 

The data include phone numbers, complete names, birthdates and, for some accounts, email addresses and relationship status.

"Bad actors will certainly use the information for social engineering, scamming, hacking and marketing," Gal said on Twitter.

This is not the first time leaks or use of data from the world's largest social network — with nearly two billion users — has embroiled Facebook in controversy.

In 2016, a scandal around Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to target political ads, cast a shadow over the social network and its handling of private information.

WASHINGTON — The World Bank adopted a new Climate Change Action Plan that will boost financing aimed at reducing emissions to align its policies with the Paris climate agreement, the bank said on Friday.

"Our collective responses to climate change, poverty and inequality are defining choices of our age," World Bank President David Malpass said in a statement announcing the decision.

"To deliver on our twin goals of reducing poverty and boosting shared prosperity, it is critical that the World Bank Group helps countries fully integrate climate and development."

The development lending organisation's plan will ensure that 35 per cent of overall World Bank financing over the next five years will have climate "co-benefits", including 50 per cent of financing through its lending and international development bodies going to support adaptation and resilience.

That is an increase from an average of just 26 per cent with climate benefits from 2016 through 2020.

The bank also pledged to align new operations with the objectives of the Paris Agreement by July 2023.

The move comes in the wake of US President Joe Biden's announcement to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, reversing the decision of his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw from the pact.

The United States is the world's second-biggest carbon emitter after China and the biggest shareholder of the World Bank.

The bank also will develop new metrics to measure greenhouse gas emissions, assist countries in developing national climate strategies, and support a "just transition" out of coal production that includes job-training skills for workers in the sector.

The plan aims to make the World Bank's operations "climate compatible", said Stephane Hallegatte, lead economist for the World Bank's climate group.

"It's really important because what we don't want is to use 35 per cent of our resources on climate and to have the rest of actions completely disconnected and not even looking into the questions," Hallegatte said.

"The goal has been to mainstream completely the climate questions into development and that's what the Paris Accord alignment means."

BEIRUT — Officials from Beirut and Baghdad signed a preliminary agreement on Friday that would see Lebanon trade its medical expertise for Iraqi fuel supplies, Lebanese state media reported.

Lebanon's state-run electricity company faces dire cash shortages as the country grapples with its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Oil-rich Iraq, which has seen COVID-19 cases soar in recent weeks, suffers from a chronic lack of drugs and medical care, and decades of war and poor investment have left its hospitals in bad shape.

Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan and his Iraqi counterpart Hassan Al Tamimi signed "a framework agreement... that includes [the supply of] oil in exchange for medical and hospital services," Lebanon's National News Agency said.

Under the accord, inked in Beirut, Lebanon would receive 500,000 tonnes of Iraqi oil annually, or a sixth of its needs, said caretaker Lebanese energy minister Raymond Ghajar.

Hassan said the agreement included cooperation in training and hospital administration, with Lebanese experts and specialised teams to be involved in managing new facilities in Iraq.

Lebanon was once dubbed "the hospital of the Arab world", with advanced private facilities and doctors trained in Europe and the United States. 

But hundreds of medics are now fleeing the country's political and economic crises and even basic medication has gone out of stock.

Power cuts have been common in the country for decades, but Ghajar warned in March that Lebanon would plunge into "total darkness" by the end of the month if no money was secured to buy fuel for power stations.

Lebanon's parliament this week approved $200 million in emergency funding to keep the lights on.