Latest news with #Hutchison
Herald Sun
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Herald Sun
AFL Caroline Wilson tells Craig Hutchy Hutchison to ‘grow up' in shock spray live on-air, Channel 7, The Agenda Setters
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News. Caroline Wilson bluntly told Craig Hutchison to 'grow up' during a feisty spat live on Channel 7. Hutchison, Wilson, Kane Cornes and Nick Riewoldt front The Agenda Setters on the network and the two footy greats sat silently while the media identities got into a squabble over one of Hutchy's recent business moves. FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1. The pre-planned segment, which Hutchison clearly did not know was going to happen, related to the media mogul's awkward appearance on radio network RSN last week after he announced a raft of sackings at the station. Earlier this month, the TV host's SEN group purchased RSN in a $3.25 million deal and immediately set about cutting costs, including giving popular hosts Daniel Harford and Michael Felgate the flick. Watch the Hutchy-Caro exchange in the video player above SEN owner Craig Hutchison didn't appreciate the line of questioning. Photo: Supplied Many long-time listeners of the station only learned the news when Hutchison fronted Felgate's Racing Pulse show last Thursday. So Wilson took the opportunity to make a cheeky plea over her own future on the Channel 7 show. Set up by Riewoldt in a section called The Spill, the former St Kilda captain put the vague question to Wilson: 'The hour on air of the Agenda Setters is the highest risk of all.' The long-time Age reporter replied: 'Well, certainly if you're on air with Craig Hutchison. 'This is no respect, disrespect I should say, to Michael Felgate or Daniel Harford for that matter. 'But if you're going to remove me from the show, can you please not do it with me on-air?' Daniel Harford (left) and Michael Felgate have been dumped from RSN. Wilson delivered the jab with a straight face and Hutchison did not take it well. 'This is not something to joke about,' he shot back. When Wilson said 'I'm not joking about it', Hutchy said: 'No, that's incredibly disrespectful and disappointing. That story is incorrect. It didn't happen.' Wilson, clearly surprised by Hutchison's reaction, stuck to her guns. 'Oh, don't. Craig, you walked into the studio, I know Michael Felgate already knew that his show would no longer be continuing,' she said. 'But if you're going to do it to me, I would rather it happen behind the scenes and not on air.' With Hutchison's production company directly involved in The Agenda Setters, perhaps Wilson just signed her own papers? Watch this space. But Hutchy wasn't taking the shot lying down. 'There was a press release the day before and there was a mature, two-way conversation on-air and you're making light of it, which is disappointing,' a seemingly hurt Hutchy replied. Wilson then had the last word, scoffing as she said: 'Oh, grow up.' Cornes and Riewoldt then did their best to keep the show moving, moving onto a story about Travis Boak and his habits in the bedroom the night before a game. Somehow, that topic was nowhere near as awkward as the exchange between the old journalists. In a bizarre segment last week, Felgate had the opportunity to grill Hutchison about why he was losing his job, with the latter doing his best to stress it wasn't a personal decision. Caroline Wilson, Craig Hutchison and Kane Cornes left Nine to join Channel 7. Picture: Channel 9 Felgate began the interview asking: 'I've got to start with the elephant in the room. An announcement yesterday which came out that there will be programming changes. 'Breakfast with Harf and this show, Racing Pulse, will no longer exist in the new regime. 'Just talk us through the reasoning. Why you don't want Breakfast with Harf and Racing Pulse on the new station?' Hutchison responded: 'First of all they're magnificent shows, so no disrespect at all to the quality of the programs and the identities involved, you in particular Michael and Daniel, who have been incredible servants of RSN. 'There's nothing personal about (cancelling) either of those programs … we need to invest, over time, into the racing product, it's a racing station. 'It's a different audience to the one that we have developed over on SEN Track, very different audience, very different experience, they don't really resemble each other after midday.' He went on to say: 'I know that won't be everyone's cup of tea on day one. 'You (Felgate) have got an enormous following, so does Daniel. The default position from many will be to have empathy for those programs and I respect that hugely. Hugely, because it's not about the quality of the shows.' Harford, who has been an icon of the network, said on his show last Thursday it had been 'a period of uncertainty' for those involved. 'So at the end of August this program will cease to exist,' he said. 'We'll be no longer required and there will be different programming on RSN which is very sad. Harford with David King. Photo: Supplied 'We've been doing this for a long time, which is very sad. We've had a lot of conversations about this internally for a little while. 'Certainly in the last couple of days when we found out what was going to be happening. 'So that's the reality of our situation.' The Hutchison-led group announced RSN will double dip from the Hutchison-backed SEN network and will broadcast SEN Breakfast. SEN's flagship breakfast slot, whish is shared between Cornes, David King, Tim Watson and Garry Lyon, will now be broadcast on two frequencies. Felgate's Racing Pulse will be replaced by Gareth Hall's Giddy Up. Those changes will be made from August 29. Originally published as Caroline Wilson tells Hutchy to 'grow up' in shock spray live on-air
Mint
3 days ago
- Business
- Mint
How China built a global port network
Chinese shipping giant Cosco has majority ownership of Spain's Port of Valencia. When a Hong Kong conglomerate set plans this year to sell its global network of shipping ports to an American-led investment group, two facilities in Panama got most of the attention. But the real action is in Europe, where Chinese business interests have spent decades accumulating port holdings. Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison agreed in March to sell more than 40 ports in 23 nations to an investor group led by American financial firm BlackRock, and the parties had aimed to reach a definitive agreement on the $23 billion deal at month-end. Now, Beijing is trying to muscle into the deal and carve out a stake for its giant shipping group Cosco, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Politics have hung over Hutchison's container-handling facilities at either end of the Panama Canal since it first began operating them in the 1990s. The sales plan came together after President Trump's vow to bring the canal under U.S. control. The most substantial impact on China's ambitions from the port deal might be in Europe, a continent crucial to Beijing's trade and diplomatic ambitions. Nearly half of the facilities on the block are in Europe or North Africa. Trump's trade tariffs, meanwhile, have Europe bracing for a deluge of Chinese goods that have been rerouted away from the U.S. Shipping volumes of items including electric vehicles are already up in places such as Spain. If the Hutchison deal goes through, the American-led investors would gain significant market share in a continent where the Chinese presence has grown large in recent years. Under the announced plan, BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners unit is buying the Hutchison ports with an investment partner, Italy's Aponte family, which runs giant MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company and its Terminal Investment Ltd. unit. Whether the deal goes through as planned or with Cosco's participation, China's port foothold in Europe would be concentrated under government-run companies similar to Cosco, which U.S. authorities consider a military-aligned enterprise. Exiting the region would be Hutchison, a private company controlled by the family of the 96-year-old Hong Kong billionaire capitalist Li Ka-shing, who hasn't always seen eye-to-eye with Beijing. China accelerated port investments after outlining the Belt and Road Initiative to modernize land and sea trade routes and reprise the Silk Road, which for centuries linked China with Europe through cities such as Valencia, Spain. The change in control of a port can alter trade routes and indicate economic power, not least of all because fewer than 10 shipping groups including Cosco, Swiss-based MSC, France's CMA CGM Group and Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk move nearly all of the world's containers. Ports with Chinese investment now dot the globe, according to a database produced by Zongyuan Zoe Liu at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Spain illustrates how Chinese business interests expanded port holdings in Europe, and what happens now. The southern European country was booming in 2006, when the government awarded Hutchison a contract to build and operate a new container terminal for the Port of Barcelona. Hutchison—which traces its origins to Hong Kong's own docks from the first days of 19th-century British colonialism—began investing in European ports in the 1990s. Its European holdings span the U.K., the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and Poland, plus Spain. The British managing director of Hutchison ports, John Meredith, called Barcelona 'our key port in southern Europe." The story was different with Spain's Port of Valencia in 2017, when a Chinese group took control. Cosco got 51% as a result of a Spanish debt crisis and U.S. private-equity investors looking for a profit. China's port expansion strategy in Europe has primarily featured opportunistic acquisitions—a possible reason the Hutchison sale looks inviting to Cosco. 'The European ports are the best in terms of asset and infrastructure, of international importance for trade," said Liu of the Council on Foreign Relations, making them appealing investments. Government-run China Merchants took one of the boldest steps in 2013, buying 49% of a port business called Terminal Link from CMA CGM for 400 million euros. The deal gave China Merchants a minority share in a range of facilities, especially in Europe, and slivers in Miami and Houston. In developing countries throughout Africa and Asia, and more recently in South American nations such as Peru and Brazil, China's government-run companies have established wholly new shipping ports. Some of the construction deals have saddled host countries with large amounts of debt and were designed as gateways to haul away mineral commodities. Liu said China has adopted a build-it-and-they-will-come strategy in many developing nations based on its domestic infrastructure model of integrating new ports into new networks of expressways and railroads. Cosco first entered Europe as a ports investor in bought a concession to run operations in Piraeus, Greece, and turned it into a world-class facility. Cosco itself first entered Europe as a ports investor in 2004 with a minority stake in a container facility in Antwerp, Belgium. Cosco then made inroads starting in 2008 buying a concession to run facilities south of the Greek capital Athens at Piraeus, which it transformed into a world-class port. Pertinent to today's situation, Valencia in the 1980s was quick to adopt containerized shipping, which has been crucial to spurring world trade—and helped make China the world's top exporter for 16 years. Beijing gained control of the Port of Valencia in a European financial crisis. Wall Street's 2008-09 financial crisis had sparked major debt problems for corporate Europe, including for Spanish construction giant ACS Group. In 2010, ACS sold its interests in the Spanish ports of Valencia and Bilbao, plus various logistics operations, to a group led by J.P. Morgan Asset Management for 720 million euros, around $950 million at the time. As a private-equity investor with little interest in owning ports over the long-term, J.P. Morgan approached Cosco about buying, in part because of Cosco's success in Greece, a former executive involved said. Cosco agreed in 2017 to pay 200 million euros for 51% of the Valencia and Bilbao ports venture. Cosco called Valencia the natural port for Madrid and a 'perfect strategic fit" for its plans at 'developing a global terminals portfolio." A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan declined to comment. As if to underscore Beijing's designs on Spain, a year after the deal Xi Jinping flew to Madrid to meet Spain's King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the first visit to the country for a Chinese leader in 13 years. He discussed the Mediterranean's role in his Belt and Road Initiative and pledged China would import goods worth $70 billion over the next five years. In fact, China's imports were closer to $45 billion in that period, nearly as much as it exports per year to Spain. Today, Valencia sits in the middle of a European network of Cosco ports that includes some of the region's biggest, including Greece's Piraeus, Italy's Genoa, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Belgium's Zeebrugge and Germany's Hamburg. As Cosco's own ships began calling at Valencia, the port emerged as a busier container facility than its vaunted Piraeus operation, last year handling 5.47 million TEUs, or shipping container equivalents, versus the Greek port's 4.22 million. Also huge on the Mediterranean are Spain's Algeciras and Morocco's Tanger Med ports, though they are still smaller than northern European ports. Valencia now also ranks as the most connected port in the Mediterranean, based on its integration with container lines, according to a United Nations index. 'China is the largest trading economy in the world," said Liu of the Council on Foreign Relations and, 'if you want to export more, you need the infrastructure." Write to James T. Areddy at Daniel Kiss at and Ming Li at
Express Tribune
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Courtney Stodden breaks down in tears, sharing emotional update on third day of her sobriety journey
Courtney Stodden recently opened up emotionally about her ongoing struggle with sobriety and the painful memories tied to her past, including her marriage to much-older actor Doug Hutchison. In a raw video shared on Thursday, the 30-year-old reality TV star, makeup-free and visibly emotional, revealed she is on day three of her journey to give up alcohol. Along with physical changes such as breakouts on her face and chest, Stodden said difficult memories from her past are resurfacing, particularly those involving Hutchison, whom she described as her former 'groomer.' Stodden, a Washington native, shared that Hutchison, 65 at the time of their marriage, consumed large amounts of alcohol daily and pressured her to drink as a way to exert control over her. Determined not to feel "out of control" anymore, Stodden is committed to sobriety despite the challenges. She acknowledged that some friends are uncomfortable with her healthier lifestyle, but remains firm in her decision. 'If people don't get it, then maybe they shouldn't be around,' she said. Earlier this week, Stodden told she is 'very happy' with her decision to stop drinking and emphasized how it has improved her mental health. She explained that alcohol was initially an escape from the pressures of fame and trauma, but eventually became a trap that increased her feelings of shame and confusion. 'This breakup isn't just with a substance—it's with a version of myself I'm ready to leave behind,' she said. Stodden described alcohol as 'total toxic ex energy' and expressed her commitment to cutting ties with it for good. Stodden's announcement on Instagram on Tuesday was met with support, including from Hugh Hefner's ex-girlfriend Crystal Hefner and former talk show host Ricki Lake. The model also reflected on her turbulent teenage marriage to Hutchison, whom she married at 16 when he was 51. She called the marriage emotionally abusive and vowed to use her voice to empower other survivors. 'I am living life on my own terms now,' Stodden said, highlighting her strength and resilience as she continues her healing journey. Over the years, Stodden has appeared on reality shows like Couples Therapy, Celebrity Big Brother, and Hollywood Hillbillies, sharing parts of her life with the public.
Straits Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
China threatens to block Panama ports deal unless its shipping giant gets stake, WSJ reports
Find out what's new on ST website and app. Chinese officials have told BlackRock, MSC and Hutchison that if Cosco is left out of the deal, Beijing would take steps to block Hutchison's proposed sale of the ports. Bengaluru - China is threatening to block the sale of more than 40 ports, owned by Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, to BlackRock and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) if Chinese shipping company Cosco does not get a stake, the Wall Street Journal reported on July 17, citing unnamed sources. BlackRock declined to comment on the report, when contacted by Reuters. CK Hutchison, MSC and Cosco did not immediately respond to Reuters requests, while the Chinese government could not be immediately reached outside office hours. Chinese officials have told BlackRock, MSC and Hutchison that if Cosco is left out of the deal, Beijing would take steps to block Hutchison's proposed sale of the ports, the newspaper said. Tycoon Li Ka-shing's CK Hutchison in March announced it would sell its 80 per cent holding in the ports business, which encompasses 43 ports in 23 countries. The business has an enterprise value of US$22.8 billion (S$29.3 billion), including debt. After much scrutiny and criticism in China, Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison confirmed in May that Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte's family-run MSC, one of the world's top container shipping groups, was the main investor in a group seeking to buy the ports. BlackRock, MSC and Hutchison all are open to Cosco taking a stake, WSJ said. However, the parties would likely not reach a deal before a previously agreed upon July 27 deadline for exclusive talks between BlackRock, MSC and Hutchison, the report added. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. World Trump diagnosed with vein condition causing leg swelling, White House says World Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. What is it? Singapore Driverless bus in Sentosa gets green light to run without safety officer in first for S'pore Asia Malaysia's King appoints Wan Ahmad Farid as new Chief Justice Singapore SPCA appoints Walter Leong as new executive director World US strikes destroyed only one of three Iranian nuclear sites, says new report Opinion Is your child getting drawn to drugs? Don't look away and don't give up Business Granddaughter of late Indonesian tycoon pays $25 million for Singapore bungalow The proposed sale has also drawn the attention of US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his desire to reduce Chinese influence around the Panama Canal and termed the deal a 'reclaiming' of the waterway after it was first announced. Reuters could not immediately verify the WSJ report. REUTERS
7NEWS
6 days ago
- Business
- 7NEWS
Media mogul Craig Hutchison dumps RSN presenters Michael Felgate and Daniel Harford as takeover begins
Media mogul Craig Hutchison is ringing in the changes for his newly acquired asset, RSN, revealing in a live radio slot that the network's long-serving presenters Daniel Harford and Michael Felgate will be dumped. The news was actually announced on Wednesday but Hutchison, the chief executive of SEN, told RSN listeners about the changes on Thursday when he was appearing on Felgate's Racing Pulse show. WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Craig Hutchison confirms changes to RSN. 'I've got to start with the elephant in the room,' Felgate said in his interview with Hutchison. 'An announcement yesterday came out that there will be programming changes. Breakfast with Harf and this show Racing Pulse will no longer exist under the new regime. 'Just talk us through, what's the reasoning (behind that)?' Felgate asked. Earlier this month (on July 8), Victoria Racing announced that the Sports Entertainment Network had purchased the Racing & Sport Network (RSN) as part of a 'new strategic partnership'. In the deal worth around $3.25 million, SEN will now become the sole audio broadcaster of racing in Victoria across all three codes (thoroughbred, harness and greyhound). Hutchison said on Thursday that decision to drop former Hawthorn star Daniel Harford and Felgate was 'nothing personal'. 'They're both magnificent shows, so no disrespect at all to the quality of the programming and to the identities involved, you in particular Michael (Felgate) and also Daniel, who have been incredible servants to RSN,' Hutchison told listeners. 'There's nothing personal about (cancelling) either of those programs (Breakfast with Harf or Racing Pulse) … we need to invest, over time, into the racing product, it's a racing station. 'It's a different audience to the one that we have developed over on SEN Track, very different audience, very different experience, they don't really resemble each other after midday. 'I know that won't be everyone's cup of tea on day one. The default position from many will be to have empathy for those programs and I respect that hugely. 'It's not about the quality of the shows. We're going to be investing in racing … we want to invest in content.' Hutchison confirmed that some SEN shows would now simulcast on RSN, including the popular Fireball where AFL experts Kane Cornes and David King thrash out footy's hot topics on a Monday and a Friday. The SEN Breakfast show with Garry Lyon and Tim Watson will also be heard on RSN from Tuesday to Thursday. And Giddy Up host Gareth Hall — who was on RSN — will now be back on those airwaves. Hutchison also said he would 'love' to keep working with Felgate and Harford in some capacity and hinted that Felgate had some 'bigger and broader' opportunities in racing that he was considering. 'This network is 100 years old, it's got an incredible history in Melbourne, it's been a part of the beat of the city for a long time,' Hutchison said. 'It served racing especially well, I think Saturdays are just an unbelievable part of the Melbourne way of life here at RSN. 'There's also a regional network that is tremendous in its distribution, frequencies and signals. Those towns are an opportunity to invest in, to put resources in and to put people in and be a deeper part of country racing in Victoria. 'We intend to invest in those areas and we want to be a regional business as much as a metro business. 'We will do more racing in breakfast and in the mornings. Long term, even earlier presents a lot of opportunity. 'You've got a lot of industry up at 5-5.30 in the morning who are at track work or who are on the road or who are travelling around the state, so edging even earlier into the morning in the state is a long term, and potentially short term, opportunity. 'The legacy of this place is a huge responsibility ongoing, and our job is to preserve it, protect it and enhance it. So we will absolutely be investing in the racing coverage. 'We're going to be in racing long term. My word: we're in racing for the long haul.'
