EnBW head urges speed on new German power plant plan
ESSEN, Germany, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Germany's next government must pick up a stalled draft law on the development of new gas-powered generation capacity quickly, the head of major utility EnBW (EBKG.DE), opens new tab said at an industry event on Monday.
EnBW is one of a number of companies wanting to build new power stations, along with Uniper and STEAG.
A bill for the construction and modernisation of 12.5 gigawatts (GW) of gas power plants was dropped by the now dissolved government coalition last year as it could not reach consensus internally, and with the industry, on its details.
A general election is scheduled for February 23, with coalition talks likely to follow as polls suggest no party will have an absolute majority.
Any new government "must decide on the power plant strategy," said Georg Stamatelopoulos, CEO of the south-western company that provides services such as power and gas and electric mobility infrastructure, on the sidelines of the E-World conference in Essen.
"The message has been received that it must be quick," he added.
Stamatelopoulos said the industry needs clarity on an accompanying market design by 2027/28 so that power generators can compete in government tenders to build new capacity.
EnBW estimates 20 GW of new capacity are needed up to 2030 to safeguard system stability on the power grids, which by that stage should receive 80% of their supply from wind or solar panels, while carbon-polluting coal plants are being shut.
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BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Frederick Forsyth: Life as a thriller writer, fighter pilot, journalist and spy
Frederick Forsyth, who has died at the age of 86, wrote meticulously researched thrillers which sold in their millions.A former fighter pilot, journalist and spy, many of his books were based on his own wove intricate technical details into his stories, without detracting from the lightning pace of his research often embarrassed the authorities, who were forced to admit that some of the shady tactics he revealed were used in real-life espionage. Frederick McCarthy Forsyth was born on 25 August 1938 in Ashford, Kent. The only child of a furrier, he dealt with loneliness by immersing himself in adventure his favourites were the works John Buchan and H Rider Haggard, but Forsyth adored Ernest Hemingway's book on bullfighters, Death in the was so captivated that - at the age of 17 - he went to Spain and started practising with a cape. He never actually fought a bull. Instead, he spent five months at the University of Granada before returning to do his national service with the spent years dreaming of becoming a pilot, Forsyth lied about his age so he could fly de Havilland Vampire 1958, he joined the Eastern Daily Press as a local journalist. Three years later, he moved to the Reuters news Tonbridge School, Forsyth had excelled in foreign languages but little else. Fluent in French, German, Spanish, and Russian, he was a born foreign correspondent. Posted to Paris, he covered a number of stories relating to assassination attempts on the life of France's President Charles de Gaulle, by members of the Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS).The group of ex-army personnel were angered at de Gaulle's decision to give independence to Algeria after many of their comrades had died fighting Algerian called the OAS "white colonialists and neo-fascists".And he decided that, if they really wanted to kill de Gaulle, they would have to hire a professional assassin. Forsyth joined the BBC in 1965. Two years later, he was sent to Nigeria to cover the civil war that followed the secession of the south-eastern region of the fighting dragged on far longer than had been expected, Forsyth asked permission to stay and cover it. According to his autobiography, the BBC told him "it is not our policy to cover this war"."I smelt news management," he said. "I don't like news management." He quit his job and continued to cover the war as a freelance reporter for the next two chronicled his experiences in The Biafra Story, which was published in 1969. He later claimed that, while in Nigeria, he began working for MI6, a relationship that continued for two decades. He also become friendly with a number of mercenaries, who taught him how to get a false passport, obtain a gun and break an enemy's these tricks of the trade would be incorporated in a tale of an attempted assassination of President de Gaulle, The Day of the Jackal, which he pounded out in his bedsit on an old typewriter in just 35 spent months trying to get it published but faced a string of rejections. "For starters, de Gaulle was still alive," he said, "so readers already knew a fictional assassination plot set in 1963 couldn't succeed."Eventually, a publisher risked a short print run and sales of the book, described once as "an assassin's manual", took off, first in the UK and then in the US. The Day of the Jackal showcased what would become the traditional hallmarks of a Forsyth thriller. It wove together fact and fiction, often using the names of real individuals and Jackal's forgery of a British passport, using the name of a dead child taken from a churchyard, was perfectly feasible in the days before electronic databases and tale was made into an award-winning film in 1973, staring Edward Fox as the anonymous gunman. Forsyth followed up his success with The Odessa File, the story of a German reporter attempting to track down Eduard Roschmann - a notorious Nazi nicknamed the "Butcher of Riga" - who is protected by a secret society of former SS men known as part of his research, Forsyth travelled to Hamburg posing as a South African arms dealer. "I managed to penetrate their world and was feeling rather proud of myself," he later said."What I didn't know was that the (contact) had passed a bookshop shortly after our meeting. And there, in the window, was The Day of the Jackal, with a great big picture of me on the back cover."The film of the book led to the identification of the real "Butcher of Riga", who was living in Argentina - after one of his neighbours went to see it at the local cinema. He was arrested by the Argentinian authorities, but skipped bail and fled to book also mentioned a hoard of Nazi gold that was exported to Switzerland in 1944. Twenty-five years after publication, the Jewish World Congress discovered this passage and, eventually, located gold valued at £1bn. According to the Sunday Times, Forsyth's third novel, The Dogs of War, drew on his experience of organising a coup in newspaper reported that Forsyth had once spent $200,000 hiring a boat and recruiting European and African soldiers of fortune for a raid designed to oust the President of Equatorial Guinea in plan was said to have failed when the arrangements broke down and the soldiers were intercepted by the Spanish police in the Canary Islands, 3,000 miles from their came Devil's Alternative, in which Britain's first female prime minister, Joan Carpenter, was firmly based on Margaret Thatcher, a politician Forsyth greatly admired. She later appeared, under her real name, in four Forsyth was a move into biography in 1982 with Emeka, the life story of Forsyth's friend Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the head of state of Biafra during that country's brief independence. In 1984, he returned to the novel with The Fourth Protocol: a complex tale of a Soviet plot to influence the British general election and install a hard-left Labour book so impressed Sir Michael Caine that he persuaded Forsyth to allow a film version, in which the veteran actor starred alongside Pierce the late 1980s, Forsyth separated from his first wife, the former model Carole Cunningham and was photographed alongside the actress Faye Negotiator, published in 1991, continued the successful run while The Deceiver, the tale of a maverick but brilliant MI6 agent, was made into a BBC two more thrillers, The Fist of God and Icon, Forsyth took an abrupt detour with The Phantom of Manhattan: a sequel to the Phantom of the Opera, which had been a successful was not a great success but, in 2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber took elements of it for his musical follow-up to Phantom, Love Never Dies. A second set of short stories, The Veteran, also had mixed reviews but Forsyth bounced back in his usual style with Avenger, a 2003 political thriller and, three years later, The Afghan, which had links with the earlier Fist of now, Forsyth had established a reputation as a broadcaster and political pundit. He was a frequent guest on the BBC's topical debate programme Question Time, as someone who held views on the right of the political spectrum.A committed Eurosceptic, he once derailed former Prime Minister Ted Heath on the programme - after proving that he had indeed, despite his denials, once signed a document agreeing to transfer UK gold reserves to Frankfurt. On turning 70, the pace of his writing began to slow. The Cobra, published in 2010, saw the return of some of the characters from 2013, Forsyth published The Kill List, a fast-moving tale built round a Muslim fanatic called The Preacher, whose online videos encouraged young Muslims to carry out a series of wrote all his books on a typewriter and refused to use the internet for his research. Ironically, his 18th novel, The Fox - published in 2018 - was a spy thriller about a gifted computer announced it was to be his final book, but he later came out of self-imposed retirement after the death of his second wife, Sandy, in said he was writing another adventure, and even suggested a raffle might give someone the chance to name a character after sold the film rights for £20,000 in the 1970s, Forsyth received no payment for Eddie Redmayne's version of The Day of the Jackal when it was re-imagined for television last year on into his 80s, he had long since agreed to stop research trips to far-flung parts of the world - when a trip to Guinea-Bissau left him with an infection that nearly cost him a leg."It is a bit drug-like, journalism," he admitted. "I don't think that instinct ever dies."It was an instinct that made his life as full and exciting as his thrillers.
The Independent
4 hours ago
- The Independent
TNT Sports chief rubbishes ‘delusional' plans for breakaway rugby competition
A top TNT Sports executive has suggested that proposals for a new breakaway rugby competition are 'delusional' and 'commercially unsustainable', and have little chance of getting off the ground. Details have begun to emerge about a mooted franchise competition titled 'R360', with England's World Cup-winning centre Mike Tindall among those involved in a radical venture that is aiming to recruit top men's and women's players. The proposals are understood to include plans to visit a number of locations around the world from established rugby cities to new territories, offering significant salary increases and a shorter schedule to players. Organisers claim to have already secured significant investment and have possible franchise owners lined up. Deals would be expected to be agreed to allow for players to be released for international duty but the proposals would almost certainly distort the existing club game in Europe and around the world. This is far from the first proposed competition of a similar ilk, with past ventures including World 12s failing to materialise. A key question, as ever, will be how the event can generate the revenues required to sustain it – though comparisons have been made with the disruptive elements of LIV Golf, that series has been funded by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, has now poured more cold water on the competition, questioning if it could ever prove a sustainable venture. 'I've been involved in sport for 25 years. I can't tell you how many of these PowerPoint presentations I've come across my desk with people who were absolutely certain that what they had on that page was going to be the new thing,' Georgiou said. 'I don't know the details of what's happening – no one's come to us and made a presentation, no one's told us what the new format is, no one told us what the new schedule is. But the one question that I think we should be asking is, how are they going to grow the revenue by putting this event on? Where's the money coming from? The media industry is going through a massive generational change. There's been a bigger change in the media industry in the last five years than there has been since the invention of cable television in the late 70s and early 80s. 'If these folks believe that they are going to grow the revenue by putting this thing on, I think they're delusional. I really do. What it will do is further complicate what is already a well-functioning rugby ecosystem. I would just ask some pretty fundamental questions around is this a commercially sustainable model? The fact that it's being likened to LIV Golf, I think is a perfect analogy. It's a perfect comparison to what this is really going to be: commercially unsustainable.' TNT Sports have renewed their television deal with Premiership through to 2031, continuing a long-running relationship and underlining their commitment to the English top flight. After some turbulent seasons, the Premiership has enjoyed another strong campaign, with the number of sell-out fixtures rising from 18 to 30 and this weekend's final between Bath and Leicester again set to be watched by a capacity crowd at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham. There has been significant audience growth on TV and in the key 18-35 demographic. Senior staff at the league are highly encouraged by the direction they are heading, with fresh investment from Red Bull into Newcastle thought to be moving closer to confirmation, and a rebrand of the league expected to also follow soon enough. Simon Massie-Taylor, chief executive, has therefore played down the threat that R360 might pose. 'There hasn't been any engagement,' he explained. 'It's not a threat per se, but we have no idea how it could ever work full stop. But definitely for the club game. In England, in France, URC, Southern Hemisphere, how would it actually work and help develop the club game? 'I think the thing that I agree with is that rugby has the opportunity for global growth and it needs innovation. Hopefully we've demonstrated our appetite for it and we've worked with people who definitely innovate and are anticipating to arm the ball. 'But rugby needs roots, it doesn't need pop-ups. The complicated thing about rugby is there's an international game, there's a club game that relies on, there's a community game. The whole thing's linked, the community game's inspired by both. Funding comes down to help the community game and there's this whole sort of connectedness to it. And that sometimes is an inhibitor to growth because you have to find a solution that compromises all these types of things. 'But without those roots, it's very difficult to understand how a system could ever work. The whole phrase, it takes a village, right? That one person who's going to turn up and go out on to the field, there's a whole system, a whole team, a whole grassroots network that needs to develop that person beyond just rocking up.'
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Reuters
US wholesale inventories in April revised higher
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - U.S. wholesale inventories increased in April amid stockpiling of prescription medication in anticipation of tariffs from the Trump administration. Stocks at wholesalers rose 0.2% instead of being unchanged, as estimated last month, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said on Monday. Economists polled by Reuters had expected last month's estimate would be unrevised. Inventories, a key part of gross domestic product, climbed 0.3% in March. They advanced 2.3% on a year-over-year basis in April. Wholesale stocks of prescription medication surged 1.3% in April. There were also increases in apparel, motor vehicle, groceries and professional equipment inventories. President Donald Trump has said he would impose tariffs on imports of pharmaceutical products that have long been spared from past trade disputes due to the potential for harm to patients. Apart from drugmakers, businesses front-loaded imports in the first quarter, seeking to avoid Trump's sweeping duties on foreign goods, resulting in a large trade deficit that subtracted a record 4.90 percentage points from GDP. The front-running faded in April, leading to a record decline in imports and the overall trade deficit. While the contraction in the deficit at face value suggests trade could significantly add to gross domestic product in the second quarter, economists say some of the boost could be offset by low inventories. Inventory accumulation increased at a rate of $163.0 billion in the first quarter. The economy contracted at a 0.2% annualized rate in the January-March period, the first GDP decline in three years. It grew at a 2.4% pace in the fourth quarter. Sales at wholesalers edged up 0.1% in April after jumping 0.8% in March. At April's sales pace it would take wholesalers 1.30 months to clear shelves, unchanged from March.
