Israel was swearing in its newly elected parliament on Thursday for what could be a very short term after the country’s second inconclusive election of the year left it with no new government on the horizon.

The normally festive event also takes place in parallel to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s high-profile pre-indictment hearing on corruption charges, which have threatened to end his political career and contributed to the current paralysis of the country’s political system.

Neither Netanyahu nor his chief rival Benny Gantz has been able to build a parliamentary majority with his natural allies. They now depend on each other for a unity government as the only likely alternative to an unprecedented third election in less than a year.

Talks between the two sides appear to have stalled, though, with Netanyahu insisting on remaining prime minister and holding on to his ultra-Orthodox and nationalist partners. Gantz’s centrist Blue and White party is sticking to its election campaign vow not to sit with Netanyahu because of his perilous legal standing.

“The right thing for the citizens of Israel, especially at this time, is that the prime minister be busy with them and not with his indictments,” Gantz said at his party faction meeting. “I call on Netanyahu: don’t entrench yourself in your position. We’ll take it from here and lead the country.”

For the sake of unity, his deputy Yair Lapid announced he was forgoing their previous arrangement to share the premiership should they come to power. “It’s far more important to me that there’s unity in the country. That there won’t be another election. That this country begins a healing process,” he said.

At his party faction, Netanyahu said it was the “will of the people” to form a unity government and he had no intention of stepping down. “We need to go together,” he said. “This is what the voter decided upon and this is what is right at this time.”

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has recommended that Netanyahu be indicted on fraud, breach of trust and bribery charges in three separate cases. Under Israeli law, Netanyahu is entitled to plead his case at a hearing in a last-ditch attempt to persuade prosecutors to drop their case.

For a second day in a row, Netanyahu’s team of lawyers held a marathon session at the Justice Ministry in Jerusalem trying to get the looming charges nixed. The first two days so far have focused on the most damaging case against Netanyahu: suspicions that he promoted regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel’s Bezeq telecom company in return for favorable coverage in Bezeq’s subsidiary news site, Walla.

Netanyahu has long promised he’d clear his name in the hearing, and his lawyers say they will prove that no quid pro quo was involved. If formal charges are filed, Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, could come under heavy pressure to step down.

In the meantime, Netanyahu is desperately trying to stay in power. He’s headed a caretaker government for much of the year after failing to build a coalition government following the initial elections in April.

The previous Israeli parliament had the shortest stint in history, lasting just over four months before it was dissolved. There’s no guarantee the current one will be any longer.

The repeat vote last month left Netanyahu even more weakened, with Gantz’s Blue and White finishing first with 33 seats in the 120-seat parliament, just ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud with 32 seats. However, Netanyahu edged Gantz 55-54 in the number of lawmakers who recommend him as prime minister and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin therefore tasked him first with trying to form a coalition.

Netanyahu has up to six weeks to do so, but he has indicated he will give up before then if he feels he can’t reach a deal with Gantz. The former military chief would then likely be given a chance to try so himself, though his odds of success appear equally slim. After that, Rivlin can either task an alternative lawmaker or, more likely, call new elections again.

Both Netanyahu and Gantz have both expressed general support for a unity government between their parties as a way out of the deadlock but they remain far apart on who should lead it and what smaller parties would join them.

Netanyahu still maintains strong support within his Likud party despite his legal woes. His office suggested he was considering calling an internal Likud party primary to solidify his leadership amid opposition calls that he be ousted. In a first sign of potential discord, though, his top Likud rival Gideon Saar said he would be “ready” for such a vote.

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A group representing French-American taxpayers said Thursday it had filed a suit against France with the European Commission, hoping to avoid strict US compliance rules that could see them blacklisted by French banks starting in January.

The “Accidental Americans” association has been battling for years to be exempt from a US demand that all its citizens overseas file bank details along with yearly tax returns.

The group says thousands of French and other foreigners are deemed Americans because they were born in the US, even though they may have lived there only a few months or years when they were young.

They want to be freed from the annual filing requirements with the Internal Revenue Service, and from seeing their banks forced to hand over their banking details to the US taxman.

In 2017, Washington accepted a partial moratorium on the rule, known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), set up to battle offshore tax evasion.

But the exemptions expire at the end of this year, and the French banking federation FBF has warned that 40,000 accounts could be closed come January if no accord is reached on the filing requirements.

In refusing to hand over information required by the United States, French banks would expose themselves to penalties.

Accidental Americans considers that a Franco-American agreement from 2013 which allows for FATCA’s application in France, “violates EU laws on data protection” by authorising “the transmission and storage of huge amounts of personal data in the United States,” it said in a statement Wednesday.

As a result, the advocacy group says French nationals with dual American citizenship face de facto discrimination, even though “most of these people have no links with the United States.”

It says the European Commission has a year to decide if it will launch any proceedings against Paris on the issue.

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Australia’s ban on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei’s involvement in its future 5G networks and its crackdown on foreign covert interference are testing Beijing’s efforts to project its power overseas.

In its latest maneuver, China sent three scholars to spell out in interviews with Australian media and other appearances steps to mend the deepening rift with Beijing — a move that appears to have fallen flat.

In a recent press conference at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, Chen Hong, the head of Australian studies at East China Normal University, accused Australia of acting as a “pawn” for the United States in lobbying other countries against Huawei’s involvement in the nascent 5G networks.

“Australia has been in one way or another, so to speak, pioneering this kind of anti-China campaign, even some kind of a scare and smear campaign against China,” Chen said. “That is definitely not what China will be appreciating, and if other countries follow suit, that is going to be recognized as extremely unfriendly,” he said.

After meetings in Beijing last week, Richard Marles, the opposition’s defense spokesman, assessed the relationship as “terrible.”

A growing number of Australians are convinced that Beijing has been using inducements, threats, espionage and other clandestine tactics to influence their politics — methods critics believe Beijing might be honing for use in other western democracies.

“Australia is seen as a test bed for Beijing’s high-pressure influence tactics,” said Clive Hamilton, author of “Silent Invasion,” a best seller that focuses on Chinese influence in Australia.

“They are testing the capacity of the Australian democratic system to resist,” he said.

Still, Australian officials have downplayed talk of a diplomatic freeze. They must balance a growing wariness toward China and their desire for strong ties with the U.S. with the need to keep relations with their resource-rich country’s largest export market on an even keel.

Australia relies on China for one-third of its export earnings. Delays in processing of Australia exports of coal and wine at Chinese ports have raised suspicions of retaliation by Beijing.

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared to side with President Donald Trump on the issue of China’s trade status during a recent visit to Washington, he sought to temper suggestions by Trump that he had expressed “very strong opinions on China” in their closed-door meeting.

“We have a comprehensive, strategic partnership with China. We work well with China,” Morrison replied.

Trump and Morrison did agree that China has outgrown trade rule concessions allowed to developing nations, advantages it insists it should still be able to claim.

Australia also chose to side with the U.S, in shutting Huawei, the world’s biggest telecom gear producer, out of its next generation 5G rollout on security grounds.

Huawei, and the Chinese government, objected to that, saying the security concerns were exaggerated for the sake of shutting out competition. But Huawei still renewed a sponsorship deal with an Australian rugby team, saying it hopes the ban will be lifted.

Morrison, the prime minister, has won praise from the Chinese Communist Party newspaper Global Times for standing up for Gladys Liu, the first Chinese-born lawmaker to be elected to Australia’s Parliament, when she was attacked for her associations with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, whose mission is to exert influence overseas.

Hong Kong-born Liu, a conservative, was elected in May to represent a Melbourne district with a large population of ethnic Chinese voters. She says she has resigned from such organizations and any honorary positions she might have held, some possibly without her “knowledge or consent.”

Morrison accused her critics of smearing the 1.2 million Chinese living in Australia.

That was a “decent gesture,” the Global Times said. But while it seeks to control damage from the tensions with Beijing, the Australian government has been moving to neutralize its influence by banning foreign political donations and all covert foreign interference in domestic politics.

Opposition lawmakers likened Liu’s situation to that of Sam Dastyari, who resigned as a senator in 2017 over his links to Chinese billionaire political donor Huang Xiangmo.

Huang successfully sued Australian media outlets for defamation over the allegations of his involvement in Chinese political interference. But he lost his Australian permanent residency after it was discovered that his company had paid Dastyari’s personal legal bills. Huang also appeared with him at a news conference for Chinese media where Dastyari supported Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, contradicting Australia’s bipartisan policy.

Chen and the other two Chinese scholars recently dispatched to Australia to try to sway public opinion insisted China was without blame.

“If we’re talking about Australia-China relations, I think the responsibility totally is on the Australian side,” Chen said. “China always promotes friendship and mutual benefits between our two countries.”  

The Chinese scholars singled out for criticism Hamilton and another Australian author, John Garnaut, who has described Australia as the canary in the coal mine of Chinese Communist Party interference.     

 Hamilton’s book was published last year, but only after three publishers backed out, fearing retaliation from Beijing. It became a top seller. 

Hamilton told a U.S. congressional commission last year that Beijing was waging a “campaign of psychological warfare” against Australia, undermining democracy and silencing its critics.  

In separate testimony, Garnaut, a former government security adviser, told the House of Representatives Arms Services Committee that China was seeking to undermine the U.S.-Australian security alliance.                   

In 2016, the government commissioned Garnaut to write a classified report that found the Chinese Communist Party has been seeking to influence Australian policy, compromise political parties and gain access to all levels of government.                 

He has said Australia is reacting to a threat that other countries are only starting to grapple with.                  

“This recognition has been assisted by the sheer brazenness of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s drive for global influence and by watching Russian President Vladimir Putin and his agents create havoc across the United States and Europe,” Garnaut wrote.                 

“In the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, it is far more difficult to dismiss foreign interference as a paranoid abstraction,” he added.     
              
Garnaut, whose friend Chinese-Australian writer Yang Hengjun has been detained in Beijing since January on suspicion of espionage, declined to comment to The Associated Press.                  

China wants to make an example of Australia, said Chinese-born Sydney academic Feng Chongyi, who was detained for 10 days and interrogated about his friend Garnaut’s investigation while visiting China in 2017.                   

“For the last two decades, Australia has been taken for a soft target because of this myth of economic dependence on China, so they believe they have sufficient leverage to force Australia to back off,” said Feng, a professor of China studies at the University of Technology in Sydney.                 

“They are extremely upset that Australia somehow in the last two years has taken the lead in what we call the democratic pushback” against Chinese interference, he said.

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The EU’s incoming president Ursula von der Leyen plans to live in a tiny flat attached to her Brussels office rather than rent an apartment, her staff told AFP on Thursday.

The president of the European Commission has no official residence, a fact that irked von der Leyen’s predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker, who complained to a German newspaper that he was forced to live in a hotel suite at a cost of 3,250 euros ($3,560) a month.

Instead von der Leyen is having a 25-square-metre (270-square-foot) room next to her office on the 13th floor of the commission’s Berlaymont building converted so she can sleep there during the week.

She followed a similar practice as German defense minister, staying in her Berlin office and returning to her family home near Hanover at weekends.

Main residence in Germany

An official close to von der Leyen said living in the highly-secured Berlaymont would save the cost of guarding a separate apartment. It would also mean she would not be caught up in Brussels’ notorious rush-hour traffic and risking being late for work.

“We can confirm that the President-elect would like to use an existing personal retreat next to the president’s office to stay overnight during her days in Brussels,” the official said, confirming a report in the German newspaper Die Welt.

Her “main residence was always and remains Hanover” in Germany, the official said.

On top of her 28,000-euro monthly salary as commission president, von der Leyen receives an accommodation allowance of 4,185 euros. It was not immediately clear if she would continue to claim this while living in her office.

Von der Leyen starts her job at the helm of the European Commission in November. One of her top priorities is moving Europe towards a carbon-neutral future.

Earlier this year Juncker lamented his lack of official residence in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, saying he could not invite world leaders back and talk to them “sitting on the bed” in his hotel.

The former Luxembourg premier said NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg would sometimes invite him and EU Council President Donald Tusk to stay in his grace and favor residence “when we need a rest.”

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo agreed on the importance of protecting the rights of Christian minorities in the Middle East during a meeting at the Vatican on Thursday, the U.S. State Department said.

Pompeo, whose trip to Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia and
Greece has been overshadowed by an impeachment inquiry at home targeting President Donald Trump, met the pope for about a half an hour.

“They reaffirmed the United States and Holy See commitment
to advancing religious freedom around the world, and in
particular, protecting Christian communities in the Middle
East,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said.

Ancient Christian communities face persecution or harassment
in some Middle Eastern countries, and many Christians have left
to build new lives in the West.

The Vatican did not issue a statement on the contents of the
meeting. It usually does so only when the pope meets heads of
state.

On Wednesday Pompeo attended a Vatican conference on
religious freedom where he blasted China over its treatment of
Uighur Muslims.

Pompeo has already met Italian leaders and is due to visit
his ancestral home in the rugged Abruzzo region northeast of
Rome before leaving Italy.
 

…

Iran’s state TV says the constitutional watchdog has ratified a bill granting citizenship to children of Iranian mothers but non-Iranian fathers.

Wednesday’s ratification came after parliament approved the bill in May following decades-long demands by rights activists.

Under the new law, children born to Iranian mothers will be eligible for Iranian citizenship.

Until now, more than 100,000 children of Iranian women who had married foreign nationals, mostly Afghans and Iraqis but also men of other nationalities, weren’t recognized as Iranian citizens in the eyes of the law.

The new law is expected to go into effect in less than a month, guaranteeing these children the right to education, health care and other social benefits.

Hard-liners have long opposed the bill, saying it paves the way for foreign influence in Iran.

…

A new video that shows people casually discussing gene editing and designer babies is making waves because of who posted it: the government-funded group leading efforts to set standards for the ethically dicey science.

The National Academy of Sciences posted the video earlier this week. It also sent a tweet that it removed after criticism arose. The tweet asked, “Do you dream of having a top student or star athlete?” And it said gene editing might eventually make this possible.

Most scientists and the academy itself oppose altering the DNA of embryos to bestow such traits.

Last year, a Chinese researcher’s claim to have edited the genes of twin girls was widely denounced and led to new calls for oversight. The academy has formed a scientific panel to consider that.
 

…

…

A former North Carolina NAACP leader has softened his denial of sexual misconduct accusations.

In a written statement given to The Associated Press, the Rev. Curtis Gatewood says he never intentionally harassed anyone, but realizes his actions “may have been received as sexual.”

Gatewood says in the statement issued Tuesday that he’s “deeply sorry,” but denies committing any kind of sexual assault. No criminal charges have been filed.

Courtney Sebring of Durham told the AP that she was a 17-year-old summer intern in 2014 when Gatewood’s stares, comments and touches made her so uncomfortable that she told her parents and asked the NAACP for help.

Last week, former employee Jazmyne Childs said Gatewood sexually harassed her in 2017. The national NAACP has suspended Gatewood’s membership.
 

…

At the edge of an ancient lava flow where jagged black rocks meet the Pacific, small off-the-grid homes overlook the calm blue waters of Papa Bay on Hawaii’s Big Island — no tourists or hotels in sight. Here, one of the islands’ most abundant and vibrant coral reefs thrives just below the surface.
 
Yet even this remote shoreline far from the impacts of chemical sunscreen, trampling feet and industrial wastewater is showing early signs of what’s expected to be a catastrophic season for coral in Hawaii.  
 
Just four years after a major marine heat wave killed nearly half of this coastline’s coral, federal researchers are predicting another round of hot water will cause some of the worst coral bleaching the region has ever experienced.  

“In 2015, we hit temperatures that we’ve never recorded ever in Hawaii,” said Jamison Gove, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “What is really important — or alarming, probably more appropriately — about this event is that we’ve been tracking above where we were at this time in 2015.”
 
Researchers using high-tech equipment to monitor Hawaii’s reefs are seeing early signs of bleaching in Papa Bay and elsewhere caused by a marine heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring to record highs for months. June, July and parts of August all experienced the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded around the Hawaiian Islands. So far in September, oceanic temperatures are below only those seen in 2015.
 
Forecasters expect high temperatures in the north Pacific will continue to pump heat into Hawaii’s waters well into October.  
 
“Temperatures have been warm for quite a long time,” Gove said. “It’s not just how hot it is. It’s how long those ocean temperatures stay warm.”
 
Coral reefs are vital around the world as they not only provide a habitat for fish — the base of the marine food chain — but food and medicine for humans. They also create an essential shoreline barrier that breaks apart large ocean swells and protects densely populated shorelines from storm surges during hurricanes.
 
In Hawaii, reefs are also a major part of the economy: Tourism thrives largely because of coral reefs that help create and protect iconic white sand beaches, offer snorkeling and diving spots, and help form waves that draw surfers from around the world.

Stressed corals

Ocean temperatures are not uniformly warm across the state, Gove noted. Local wind patterns, currents and even features on land can create hot spots in the water.  

“You have things like two giant volcanoes on the Big Island blocking the predominant trade winds,” making the island’s west coast, where Papa Bay sits, one of the hottest parts of the state, Gove said. He said he expects “severe” coral bleaching in those places.
 
“This is widespread, 100% bleaching of most corals,” Gove said. And many of those corals are still recovering from the 2015 bleaching event, meaning they are more susceptible to thermal stress.
 
According to NOAA, the heat wave’s causes include a persistent low-pressure weather pattern between Hawaii and Alaska that has weakened winds that otherwise might mix and cool surface waters across much of the North Pacific. What’s causing that is unclear: It might reflect the atmosphere’s usual chaotic motion, or it could be related to the warming of the oceans and other effects of human-made climate change.

Beyond this event, oceanic temperatures will continue to rise in the coming years, Gove said. “There’s no question that global climate change is contributing to what we’re experiencing,” he said.

For coral, hot water means stress, and prolonged stress kills these creatures and can leave reefs in shambles.
 
Bleaching occurs when stressed corals release algae that provide them with vital nutrients. That algae also gives the coral its color, so when it’s expelled, the coral turns white.

Gove said researchers have a technological advantage for monitoring and gleaning insights into this year’s bleaching, data that could help save reefs in the future.
 
“We’re trying to track this event in real time via satellite, which is the first time that’s ever been done,” Gove said.

Big picture

In remote Papa Bay, most of the corals have recovered from the 2015 bleaching event, but scientists worry they won’t fare as well this time.

“Nearly every species that we monitor has at least some bleaching,” said ecologist Greg Asner, director of Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, after a dive in the bay earlier this month.

Asner told The Associated Press that sensors showed the bay was about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit above what is normal for this time of year.

He uses advanced imaging technology mounted to aircrafts, satellite data, underwater sensors and information from the public to give state and federal researchers like Gove the information they need.

“What’s really important here is that we’re taking these [underwater] measurements, connecting them to our aircraft data and then connecting them again to the satellite data,” Asner said. “That lets us scale up to see the big picture to get the truth about what’s going on here.”

Scientists will use the information to research, among other things, why some coral species are more resilient to thermal stress. Some of the latest research suggests slowly exposing coral to heat in labs can condition them to withstand hotter water in the future.

“After the heat wave ends, we will have a good map with which to plan restoration efforts,” Asner said.

Educating tourists

Meanwhile, Hawaii residents like Cindi Punihaole Kennedy are pitching in by volunteering to educate tourists. Punihaole Kennedy is director of the Kahalu’u Bay Education Center, a nonprofit created to help protect Kahalu’u Bay, a popular snorkeling spot near the Big Island’s tourist center of Kailua-Kona.

The bay and surrounding beach park welcome more than 400,000 visitors a year, she said.
 
“We share with them what to do and what not to do as they enter the bay,” she said. “For instance, avoid stepping on the corals or feeding the fish.”
 
The bay suffered widespread bleaching and coral death in 2015.
 
“It was devastating for us to not be able to do anything,” Punihaole Kennedy said. “We just watched the corals die.”
 

…

The United States has blocked the import of goods suspected to have been made with forced labor from five countries, including clothing from China and diamonds from Zimbabwe, officials said on Tuesday following a rare crackdown on slave labor abroad.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it seized five different products this week based on information indicating the goods were made using slave labor overseas.

The other items included rubber gloves made in Malaysia, gold mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and bone black — charred animal bones — manufactured in Brazil.

Under a 2016 law, it is illegal to import goods into the United States that are made entirely or in part by forced labor — which includes prison work, bonded labor and child labor.

“A major part of CBP’s mission is facilitating legitimate trade and travel,” said Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan.

“CBP’s issuing of these five withhold release orders shows that if we suspect a product is made using forced labor, we’ll take that product off U.S. shelves,” he said in a statement.

A company hit with a withhold release order can decide to reroute the shipment and try to sell their products elsewhere or persuade CBP to change its decision by providing documents to demonstrate due diligence and argue the goods are slavery-free.

More than $400 billion worth of goods likely to be made by forced labor enter the U.S. market each year, according to estimates by the Human Trafficking Institute, a non-profit.

Yet reporting by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in April found that only $6.3 million worth of goods had been blocked since the law banning slave-made imports was passed in 2016.

Prior to the latest crackdown, the CBP had issued seven detention orders since 2016, including chemical compounds, peeled garlic and toys from China, and cotton from Turkmenistan.

‘Significant step’

“It’s exciting to see CBP’s progress towards robust enforcement of this law,” said Annick Febrey, head of government and corporate relations at the Human Trafficking Institute, who in April described the agency’s impact until then as “minimal.” “This is a clear signal to companies that they need due diligence procedures in place that prevent forced labor in their supply chain if they want to sell in the United States.”

Neha Misra, senior specialist in migration and human trafficking for advocacy group Solidarity Centre, welcomed the “significant step” and said economic pressure could boost the drive for full labor rights for workers in global supply chains.

The U.S. Department of Labor said last year it was boosting its fight against slave-made goods “to safeguard American jobs” for its 325 million citizens and that it was playing a key role in protecting vulnerable workers from abuse worldwide.

About 25 million people globally are victims of forced labor, according to the U.N. International Labor Organization.
 

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Ecuador, one of the smallest members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said on Tuesday it will leave the 14-nation bloc from Jan. 1 due to fiscal problems.

The Andean nation is attempting to increase crude production to raise more income and has on multiple occasions broken its output quota fixed by OPEC.

“The decision is based on the issues and internal challenges that the country must take on related to fiscal sustainability,” the energy ministry said in a statement, without providing further details.

“This measure is in line with the national government’s plan to reduce public spending and generate new income,” it added.

Ecuador produces about 545,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, but is struggling with tight liquidity because of a wide fiscal deficit and a hefty foreign debt load.

It reached a $4.2 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund in February which allowed it to receive an immediate disbursement of $652 million and opened the door for an additional $6 billion in loans from other multilateral institutions.

Despite its decision to leave OPEC, Ecuador will continue to support efforts to stabilize the world oil market, the ministry said.

OPEC, Russia and other producers have since Jan. 1 implemented a deal to cut output by 1.2 million bpd. The alliance, known as OPEC+, in July renewed the pact until March 2020.

Ecuador had in February asked OPEC for permission to produce above its quota, but the government never confirmed whether the organization responded to the request.

Quito has bet on new oil wells in its top-producing Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini block to help increase output.

The block recorded production of 82,658 bpd on Monday.

It is set to provide around $603 million in government income in 2020, assuming a crude price of $57 per barrel, according to state oil company Petroamazonas.

Ecuador joined OPEC in 1973, withdrew in 1992, then rejoined in 2007.

Other small former OPEC members have also left the organization for fiscal reasons. Indonesia suspended membership in 2016 as it sought to increase oil exports.

Ecuador’s debt grew under former leftist President Rafael Correa. His successor Lenin Moreno has implemented more market-friendly policies and begun an austerity plan that includes layoffs of workers at state-owned companies and cuts to gasoline subsidies.

The plan also includes efforts to find a private operator for state-run telecoms company CNT and other state-owned firms.

…