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New Scania S and R series trucks launched Commercial Motor / August 23, 2016 Two eagerly anticipated new Scania models have been revealed, heralding a generation of more efficient and spacious trucks from the manufacturer. New R and S models were unveiled in Paris tonight (23 August), with the S truck said to be up to 5% more efficient than the manufacturer’s most recently launched product, the Streamline in 2013. The trucks have been designed to provide enhanced aerodynamic performance, and following years of testing Scania believes they will be the most aerodynamic trucks on the market. There are new engines, with greater efficiency, and a redesigned cab, providing more space for the driver. A range of new drag-reduction features appear in the S-series, now the largest truck in the range, with three adjustable air deflectors to improve the alignment between the cab and the trailer roof, as well as new smaller gaps between the lights and other external components. The windscreen has been mounted flush to the cab and there are integrated auxiliary lights and end-marker lamps placed above the windscreen.The rear-view mirrors have also been redesigned to optimise airflow and create less drag. The R-series adopts the same principles on its slightly smaller frame. The full engine line-up will see power outputs from 410hp to 730hp, with the redeveloped powertrains getting new fuel injectors, revised combustion chambers and a reconfigured cooling system, all of which have been tested over more than 10 million km during the development process. Three 13-litre engines will be SCR-only (410hp, 450hp and 500hp) with the new 13-litre 500hp unit a new engine. The 16.4-litre V8s will continue with the same power ouputs found in the current R-series with 520hp, 580hp and 730hp, all using a combination of EGR and SCR. The additional space means the interior has been totally overhauled, with more room for the driver thanks to a new seating position, as well as more storage and greater visibility. Scania said the trucks had been under development for 10 years, at a cost of more than SEK20bn (£1.8bn) and promised that its customers will be able to “carry out their work in the most sustainable and profitable way, regardless of industry and area of application”. Scania will continue to sell its current range of P-, G- and R-series trucks while production of the new models ramps up and the new designs and technology are transferred and launched in the other models. .

The Scania truck interior is the best in the world......period. Volvo interior design, well, they haven't a clue. Scania has the most advanced truck production system, and the world's best truck engineers.

Scania introduces new truck range Scania Group Global Press Release / August 23, 2016 Ten years of development work, SEK 20 billion in investments More than 10 million kilometres of test driving Global launches in five phases 40,000 customers to be invited to experience Scania’s range first-hand on site in Södertälje A strong focus on customer profitability, through precisely cust­om­ised transportation solutions in the form of sustainable products and services The new truck delivers 5% lower fuel consumption on average Scania’s entire range is re-defining the market’s view of the term ‘premium’ Scania is introducing a new truck range, the result of ten years of development work and investments in the region of SEK 20 billion. With the new range, Scania is extending its offering and can now, thanks to its unique modular system, supply more performance stages, connectivity and a comprehensive palette of productivity-enhancing services as well as sustainable transportation solutions that are precisely customised for each type of customer in the highly comp­etitive transportation industry. The promise is that Scania’s customers will always be able to carry out their work in the most sustainable and profitable way, regardless of industry and area of application. “It is undoubtedly the biggest investment in Scania’s 125 year history,” declares Henrik Henriksson, President and CEO of Scania. “It is with hearts bursting with pride that my colleagues and I are now presenting the products and services that will bring Scania to new levels regarding market shares and carry us far into the next decade. “Today we are not just launching a new truck range but also a unique, ingenious toolbox of sustainable solutions in the form of products and services that Scania is first in the industry to be able to deliver – and I feel I can claim this with confidence. We are focusing firmly on our main task: to give our customers the necessary tools for achieving profitability in the one business that really means something to them, namely their own.” Production of the new trucks starts immediately at Scania’s final assembly plant in Södertälje. Initially the focus will be on vehicles and services for long-haul transportation, but additional options will be continually introduced as more Scania plants readjust and additional options emerge. “There is a tremendous amount of development work by our engineers behind this introduction,” emphasises Henrik Henriksson, Scania’s President and CEO. “The most noticeable features are of course the new cabs, but the real innovation is that we are now introducing new technologies, services and insights that will help our customers gain an overview of both their costs and their revenues. Our goal is for our customers to be able to achieve sustainable profitability, regardless of assignment type or the conditions in which they work. Our customers’ vehicles always constitute a link within the bigger picture; Scania embraces this through quality, accessibility and a range of physical or connected services. Our new range of products and services re­defines the term ‘premium’ within the truck industry.” Scania is launching its new range in phases, with a clear focus on various customer segments and according to a carefully planned schedule. The introductions will continue after the first unveiling in Europe, with more customer options, before the entire process concludes with simultaneous launches on markets outside Europe. Among the improvements Scania is introducing, one that is particularly noticeable is a 5% reduction in diesel fuel consumption, thanks to factors such as improved powertrains and better aerodynamics. The express goal is for at least 40,000 customers and prospective customers to have test driven the new vehicles themselves in connection with the launches, and to have been introduced to Scania’s entire range, covering everything from sustainability optimisation to financing, insurance and maintenance. Other channels are online communication, the media and Scania’s approximately 1,700 dealers in more than 100 countries. The unveiling was held earlier tonight in Paris, live in front of roughly 1,500 special guests and globally to the online community. Scania Press Release (PDF) - http://mb.cision.com/Main/209/2063800/552667.pdf Downloadable images of the New Scania - https://www.scania.com/group/en/images-next-generation-scania/ Downloadable information on the New Scania - https://www.scania.com/group/en/documents-nextgenscania/ High resolution video of the New Scania - https://www.scania.com/group/en/highres-images-nextgenscania/ Scania Trucks - https://www.scania.com/group/en/section/solutions/trucks/ Scania V8 - https://www.scania.com/group/en/section/solutions/trucks/v8/ .

The New Premium Scania Group Global Press Release / August 23, 2016 With a completely new truck range Scania is setting a new standard for what is premium in the transport industry. “It is with hearts bursting with pride that my colleagues and I are presenting the products and services that will carry us and our customers far into the next decade,” says Henrik Henriksson, President and CEO of Scania. With the new truck generation Scania takes a giant step into the future, introducing new technologies, services and insights that help customers to get an overview of both costs and revenues. Sustainable profitability, regardless of the type of assignment or the conditions they work in; That’s Scania´s goal for its customers to achieve. “Customer first is a true core value for Scania. While developing this new truck, our customer’s operations and their resource efficiency has been at the centre in every single step we have taken; from research and development, sourcing and production to tailoring the services meeting up to each customer´s needs. This will take us closer to our aim – that in partnership with our customers change the world of transport,” Henrik Henriksson declares. Customised solutions The new truck range is the result of ten years of development work and project costs of more than 2 billion Euro. With it, Scania is extending its offering and can now, thanks to its unique modular system, more performance steps, connectivity and a comprehensive palette of productivity enhancing services, offer sustainable transport solutions that are precisely customised for each type of customer in the highly competitive transportation industry. From now on, Scania’s customers will always be able to carry out their work in the most sustainable and profitable way, regardless of industry and area of application. “This is not just a new truck range. It´s also a unique, ingenious toolbox of sustainable solutions in the form of products and services that Scania is first in the industry to really be able to deliver. We are directly focusing on our main task: to give our customers the necessary tools for achieving profitability in the one business that really means something to them, namely their own,” Henrik Henriksson continues. All connected Among the improvements Scania is introducing in the new trucks is a 5% reduction in fuel consumption, thanks to factors like improved powertrains and better aerodynamics. Production of the new trucks has already started. Initially the focus will be on vehicles and services for long-haulage transportation, but additional options will be continually introduced over the coming months, until the entire range is in place, throughout the world. The new trucks are all connected, for the benefit of customers and drivers, but also for the planet. More than 200,000 connected Scania vehicles are rolling around the world and their number is rapidly increasing. These connected vehicles provide valuable insight into operating conditions as well as the necessary intelligence to develop vehicles for even better performance – useful insight for Scania´s continuous research and development work. A strong position “But of course, this new truck generation also builds on the values, strategies, techniques and innovations which for the past 125 years made Scania the industry leader we are today. We often say that Scania is a “small big company”. Something that distinguishes us is our exceptionally dedicated employees – and customers. This all puts Scania in a very strong position as we take our next important steps into the future.” “This is undoubtedly the biggest investment Scania has made in its 125-year history. It is with hearts bursting of pride that I, and all my colleagues, are presenting the products and services that will carry Scania well into the next decade!” Henrik Henriksson concludes. .

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Associated Press / August 24, 2016 More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president. At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million. Donors who were granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton's help with a visa problem and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm's corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa. The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors. The AP's findings represent the first systematic effort to calculate the scope of the intersecting interests of Clinton foundation donors and people who met personally with Clinton or spoke to her by phone about their needs. The 154 did not include U.S. federal employees or foreign government representatives. Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity, but they were not included in AP's calculations because such meetings would presumably have been part of her diplomatic duties. Last week, the Clinton Foundation moved to head off ethics concerns about future donations by announcing changes planned if Clinton is elected. On Monday, Bill Clinton said in a statement that if his wife were to win, he would step down from the foundation's board and stop all fundraising for it. The foundation would also accept donations only from U.S. citizens and what it described as independent philanthropies, while no longer taking gifts from foreign groups, U.S. companies or corporate charities. Clinton said the foundation would no longer hold annual meetings of its international aid program, the Clinton Global Initiative, and it would spin off its foreign-based programs to other charities. Those planned changes would not affect more than 6,000 donors who have already provided the Clinton charity with more than $2 billion in funding since its creation in 2000. "There's a lot of potential conflicts and a lot of potential problems," said Douglas White, an expert on nonprofits who previously directed Columbia University's graduate fundraising management program. "The point is, she can't just walk away from these 6,000 donors." Former senior White House ethics officials said a Clinton administration would have to take careful steps to ensure that past foundation donors would not have the same access as she allowed at the State Department. "If Secretary Clinton puts the right people in and she's tough about it and has the right procedures in place and sends a message consistent with a strong commitment to ethics, it can be done," said Norman L. Eisen, who was President Barack Obama's top ethics counsel and later worked for Clinton as ambassador to the Czech Republic. Eisen, now a governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that at a minimum, Clinton should retain the Obama administration's current ethics commitments and oversight, which include lobbying restrictions and other rules. Richard Painter, a former ethics adviser to President George W. Bush and currently a University of Minnesota law school professor, said Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton should remove themselves completely from foundation leadership roles, but he added that potential conflicts would shadow any policy decision affecting past donors. Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon did not respond to the AP's questions about Clinton transition plans regarding ethics, but said in a statement Tuesday the standard set by the Clinton Foundation's ethics restrictions was "unprecedented, even if it may never satisfy some critics." Some of Clinton's most influential visitors donated millions to the Clinton Foundation and to her and her husband's political coffers. They are among scores of Clinton visitors and phone contacts in her official calendar turned over by the State Department to AP last year and in more-detailed planning schedules that so far have covered about half her four-year tenure. The AP sought Clinton's calendar and schedules three years ago, but delays led the AP to sue the State Department last year in federal court for those materials and other records. S. Daniel Abraham, whose name also was included in emails released by the State Department as part of another lawsuit, is a Clinton fundraising bundler who was listed in Clinton's planners for eight meetings with her at various times. A billionaire behind the Slim-Fast diet and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace, Abraham told the AP last year his talks with Clinton concerned Mideast issues. Big Clinton Foundation donors with no history of political giving to the Clintons also met or talked by phone with Hillary Clinton and top aides, AP's review showed. Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering low-interest "microcredit" for poor business owners, met with Clinton three times and talked with her by phone during a period when Bangladeshi government authorities investigated his oversight of a nonprofit bank and ultimately pressured him to resign from the bank's board. Throughout the process, he pleaded for help in messages routed to Clinton, and she ordered aides to find ways to assist him. American affiliates of his nonprofit Grameen Bank had been working with the Clinton Foundation's Clinton Global Initiative programs as early as 2005, pledging millions of dollars in microloans for the poor. Grameen America, the bank's nonprofit U.S. flagship, which Yunus chairs, has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation — a figure that bank spokeswoman Becky Asch said reflects the institution's annual fees to attend CGI meetings. Another Grameen arm chaired by Yunus, Grameen Research, has donated between $25,000 and $50,000. As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton, as well as then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and two other senators in 2007 sponsored a bill to award a congressional gold medal to Yunus. He got one but not until 2010, a year after Obama awarded him a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Yunus first met with Clinton in Washington in April 2009. That was followed six months later by an announcement by USAID, the State Department's foreign aid arm, that it was partnering with the Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit charity run by Yunus, in a $162 million commitment to extend its microfinance concept abroad. USAID also began providing loans and grants to the Grameen Foundation, totaling $2.2 million over Clinton's tenure. By September 2009, Yunus began complaining to Clinton's top aides about what he perceived as poor treatment by Bangladesh's government. His bank was accused of financial mismanagement of Norwegian government aid money — a charge that Norway later dismissed as baseless. But Yunus told Melanne Verveer, a long-time Clinton aide who was an ambassador-at-large for global women's issues, that Bangladesh officials refused to meet with him and asked the State Department for help in pressing his case. "Please see if the issues of Grameen Bank can be raised in a friendly way," he asked Verveer. Yunus sent "regards to H" and cited an upcoming Clinton Global Initiative event he planned to attend. Clinton ordered an aide: "Give to EAP rep," referring the problem to the agency's top east Asia expert. Yunus continued writing to Verveer as pressure mounted on his bank. In December 2010, responding to a news report that Bangladesh's prime minister was urging an investigation of Grameen Bank, Clinton told Verveer that she wanted to discuss the matter with her East Asia expert "ASAP." Clinton called Yunus in March 2011 after the Bangladesh government opened an inquiry into his oversight of Grameen Bank. Yunus had told Verveer by email that "the situation does not allow me to leave the country." By mid-May, the Bangladesh government had forced Yunus to step down from the bank's board. Yunus sent Clinton a copy of his resignation letter. In a separate note to Verveer, Clinton wrote: "Sad indeed." Clinton met with Yunus a second time in Washington in August 2011 and again in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka in May 2012. Clinton's arrival in Bangladesh came after Bangladesh authorities moved to seize control of Grameen Bank's effort to find new leaders. Speaking to a town hall audience, Clinton warned the Bangladesh government that "we do not want to see any action taken that would in any way undermine or interfere in the operations of the Grameen Bank." Grameen America's Asch referred other questions about Yunus to his office, but he had not responded by Tuesday. Earlier this month, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau acknowledged that agency officials are "regularly in touch with a range of outside individuals and organizations, including nonprofits, NGOs, think tanks and others." But Trudeau said the State Department was not aware of any actions that were influenced by the Clinton Foundation. In another case, Clinton was host at a September 2009 breakfast meeting at the New York Stock Exchange that listed Blackstone Group chairman Stephen Schwarzman as one of the attendees. Schwarzman's firm is a major Clinton Foundation donor, but he personally donates heavily to GOP candidates and causes. One day after the breakfast, according to Clinton emails, the State Department was working on a visa issue at Schwarzman's request. In December that same year, Schwarzman's wife, Christine, sat at Clinton's table during the Kennedy Center Honors. Clinton also introduced Schwarzman, then chairman of the Kennedy Center, before he spoke. Blackstone donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Eight Blackstone executives also gave between $375,000 and $800,000 to the foundation. And Blackstone's charitable arm has pledged millions of dollars in commitments to three Clinton Global aid projects ranging from the U.S. to the Mideast. Blackstone officials did not make Schwarzman available for comment. Clinton also met in June 2011 with Nancy Mahon of the MAC AIDS, the charitable arm of MAC Cosmetics, which is owned by Estee Lauder. The meeting occurred before an announcement about a State Department partnership to raise money to finance AIDS education and prevention. The public-private partnership was formed to fight gender-based violence in South Africa, the State Department said at the time. The MAC AIDS fund donated between $5 million and $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2008, Mahon and the MAC AIDS fund made a three-year unspecified commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative. That same year, the fund partnered with two other organizations to beef up a USAID program in Malawi and Ghana. And in 2011, the fund was one of eight organizations to pledge a total of $2 million over a three-year period to help girls in southern Africa. The fund has not made a commitment to CGI since 2011. Estee Lauder executive Fabrizio Freda also met with Clinton at the same Wall Street event attended by Schwarzman. Later that month, Freda was on a list of attendees for a meeting between Clinton and a U.S.-China trade group. Estee Lauder has given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation. The company made a commitment to CGI in 2013 with four other organizations to help survivors of sexual slavery in Cambodia. MAC AIDs officials did not make Mahon available to AP for comment. When Clinton appeared before the U.S. Senate in early 2009 for her confirmation hearing as secretary of state, then- Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana, questioned her at length about the foundation and potential conflicts of interest. His concerns were focused on foreign government donations, mostly to CGI. Lugar wanted more transparency than was ultimately agreed upon between the foundation and Obama's transition team. Now, Lugar hopes Hillary and Bill Clinton make a clean break from the foundation. "The Clintons, as they approach the presidency, if they are successful, will have to work with their attorneys to make certain that rules of the road are drawn up to give confidence to them and the American public that there will not be favoritism," Lugar said.

Radical Islamist attack in Virginia Associated Press / August 23, 2016 The FBI has launched a terrorism investigation after a radical Islamist attempted to behead a man and stabbed a woman outside an apartment complex in Virginia. The incident happened on Saturday night in Roanoke. Witnesses say the suspect, 20-year-old Wasil Rafat Farooqui, shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) while attempting to decapitate the male victim, who was able to fight off the armed assailant. The man and woman suffered 'permanent impairment' following the random attack by he suspect who had previously tried to enter Syria for terrorist training. Police arrested Farooqui, a US-born citizen, when he walked into the same hospital as the two victims to seek medical treatment for his own injuries. The suspect has been charged with two counts of malicious wounding causing permanent impairment. He is being held without bond at the Western Virginia Regional Jail. Farooqui had previously traveled to Turkey intending to cross the border into Syria and joining ISIS. A US intelligence source tells CBS News that Farooqui, who is believed to be self-radicalized, only got as far as Europe in his travels and returned home earlier this year. It was that aborted trip to Syria that made the FBI take notice of Farooqui. The incident in Virginia took place around 8pm at The Pines apartments in the 4300 block of Banbury Lane. Adam Lee, special agent in charge of the FBI's Richmond Division, said: 'The FBI is working with the police department following the incident that occurred on Saturday evening. 'While I cannot discuss details of the investigation at this time, I do want to reassure the community that we are working to determine the nature of the incident.' Police responded to emergency calls on Saturday saying that a male and a female were attacked as they attempted to enter The Pines apartment complex. According to a statement released by police: “While officers were at the hospital with the victims, a male, subsequently identified as 20-year-old Wasil Farooqui of Roanoke County, came into the emergency room suffering from injuries of his own. He met the description of the suspect in the stabbing.” Police say Farooqui “had no connection to the two victims”. .

VW Facing Uphill Battle Outside the U.S. in Emissions Claims The Wall Street Journal / August 23, 2016 Governments, investors and car owners around the world are gaining ground in efforts to pressure Volkswagen AG for settlements over its emissions-cheating scandal, aiming for terms similar to a $15 billion U.S. agreement. From Australia to South Korea to Ireland, governments and consumers are ratcheting up legal and regulatory demands in part because similar moves in the U.S. yielded a speedy shift to contrition from combativeness. In many of the countries where Volkswagen still faces legal action, it is arguing the defeat device on its diesel engines wasn’t illegal or the car emissions didn’t violate local rules, according to court records and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. If the efforts succeed, the costs to resolve the diesel scandal could rise well beyond the €18.4 billion ($20.5 billion) the company has set aside. Of the roughly 11 million Volkswagen vehicles affected by its years long effort to cheat on diesel emissions standards, around 10.4 million are outside the U.S. While outcomes are still unclear, the company’s position has been chipped away by recent decisions. In Germany, the cost could rise as much as €4 billion following a ruling earlier this month by a court in Braunschweig, near Volkswagen’s headquarters. The court said it would address more than 170 suits filed by hundreds of Volkswagen investors who allege the company failed to quickly inform them of the diesel probe. Volkswagen has rejected the allegation. Another German court this month dismissed Volkswagen’s objections and ruled that local owners of tainted diesel vehicles had a right to return their cars to dealers for a full refund because of Volkswagen’s “massive fraud” with its diesel-powered cars. South Korea also this month banned the sale of 80 Volkswagen models, affecting more than 80,000 vehicles, and around 4,400 Korean consumers are suing Volkswagen and its luxury car unit Audi for damages from its false emissions claims. Korean authorities also fined Volkswagen and indicted a local executive on charges of fraud linked to the diesel scandal. Volkswagen faces additional class-action lawsuits, investigations by prosecutors and punitive damages in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Johannes Thammer, CEO of Volkswagen’s Korean unit, recently apologized for misleading Korean authorities, saying: “We will do everything, faithfully, to cooperate with the prosecutor.” Attorneys outside the U.S. are striving to build on the success of American legal action against Volkswagen. European lawyers working with Michael Hausfeld, a leading U.S. class-action lawyer who was part of the plaintiff’s committee that won the U.S. settlement, are assisting Australian and Irish attorneys. Australia has become a significant battleground because its vehicle-emission regulations are almost identical to European Union laws. If an Australian court determines that Volkswagen’s emissions system contained an illegal element known as a defeat device, Australia could become a precedent for billions of euros in claims in Europe. In the U.S., Volkswagen admitted to using a defeat device. Australian Federal Judge Lindsay Foster, who is presiding over a class-action suit in Sydney brought by law firms Maurice Blackburn and Bannister Law, chastised Volkswagen’s lawyers at a hearing on April 29, saying company executives in Germany “obviously think this is some kind of backwater,” according to the court transcript. He accused Volkswagen of intentionally stalling to delay a ruling in the Australian case until it was able to “bed down” lawyers and regulators in a settlement in the U.S. “That’s what’s going on, I think, and I’m not having it,” he said, according to the transcript. An attorney for Volkswagen denied Judge Foster’s charge. Maurice Blackburn attorney Jason Geisker said the two sides are fighting over “the definition of what is a defeat device” and Volkswagen’s legal team isn’t yielding as it did in the U.S. “A lot of effort is being put into this case by Volkswagen because of the broader consequences across Europe,” Mr. Geisker said. In July, Volkswagen’s attorneys in Australia denied the existence of illegal software to manipulate emissions. “There is no defeat device. That’s our case,” Noel Huntley, an Australian barrister representing Volkswagen, told the court, according to an official transcript of the hearing. In Europe, Volkswagen has denied that its customers suffered any damages and has ignored or denied claims seeking compensation. European lawyers say Volkswagen is stalling. They note that the one-year statute of limitations for damages suits in many European countries expires on Sept. 18. “Before that, Volkswagen will do nothing so that as many claims as possible will just go away,” said Eric Breiteneder, an attorney preparing class-action suits in the Netherlands on behalf of 106,000 European car owners and funds with more than €13 billion invested in Volkswagen stocks and bonds. Volkswagen has declined to enter settlement negotiations with Mr. Breiteneder. Evan O’Dwyer, an Irish attorney, has filed 20 individual claims against Volkswagen in low-level Irish courts, seeing damages that could go as high as €15,000 a vehicle. Under Irish law, Mr. O’Dwyer is not permitted to comment on the cases to the media. A&L Goodbody, a law firm representing Volkswagen in Ireland, has threatened to sue Mr. O’Dwyer and his clients for legal fees if he takes the cases to trial. In a letter dated Dec. 16, Goodbody urged Mr. O’Dwyer to drop a lawsuit on behalf of Eithne Higgins, a car owner, saying her complaint was without merit.

Germany to accept hundreds of migrants to boost EU program [Why?] Reuters / August 23, 2016 Germany has agreed to take in hundreds of [economic] migrants who are blocked in Italy in a move that might revive the European Union's failed relocation program, Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said on Tuesday. As part of a deal to relieve pressure on Europe's frontline states in the migration crisis, the European Commission last year devised a plan aimed at moving thousands of new arrivals away from Italy and Greece towards other EU members. Under the scheme, up to 40,000 migrants could be relocated from Italy over two years, but so far only a few hundred have been flown out with many EU allies apparently reluctant to welcome in asylum seekers and refugees. "Up until now, the relocation has been a real flop," Alfano told la Repubblica TV. "(But) today we have heard that from September hundreds of refugees will be able to go each month to Germany. If things go well with Germany, we think they will also go well with other countries," he added. Italy has taken in more than 420,000 boat migrants since the start of 2014, official figures show. Many of the newcomers move swiftly on, looking to reach wealthier northern European nations, but a crackdown on border crossings has slowed the flows, leading to overcrowding in Italy's transit camps and refugee centers. "We must remember that Germany already took in more than one million migrants in 2015. If it also takes in some of our (refugees) ... the message will be extremely strong, because if Germany can do it, then so can all those who have not put in the huge effort that Germany already has," Alfano said. Merkel has faced criticism in Germany for being too open to migrants, and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to perform well in local elections in two German regions next month. Only Syrians, Eritreans and Iraqis qualify for the relocation program, meaning the bulk of migrants reaching Italy, many from West Africa, are not be eligible for relocation. According to latest data, some 3,915 Eritreans, 787 Syrians and 686 Iraqis reached Italy in the first seven months of 2016.

Associated Press / August 23, 2016 Another former Secretary of State -- Condoleezza Rice -- has been drawn into the fray over who advised Hillary Clinton to use a private email server while she was America's top diplomat. An aide to Rice told reporters that Rice has "no recollection" of a conversation between Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell that reportedly took place at a 2009 dinner party of former Secretaries of State, during which Powell allegedly recommended that Clinton use a private email account. Georgia Godfrey, Rice's chief of Staff at StanfordUniversity where she teaches, told the conservative news outlet that "Dr. Rice isn't doing any media right now. I can tell you, though, that she has no recollection of that conversation either." Powell, for his part, has also said he has "no recollection" of the reported dinner party conversation.

Merkel tells Turks in Germany to ‘develop a high level of loyalty’ The Financial Times / August 23, 2016 Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned Germany’s Turkish population to “develop a high level of loyalty” to their new homeland, in the latest sign of political concern about divided allegiances in the Turkish community. Her remarks on Tuesday come amid fears that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pressing Turks living abroad to show greater loyalty to Ankara and its brand of Islamism as part of the wide-ranging crackdown following the failed military coup. “We expect from people of Turkish origin, who have already lived in Germany a long time, that they develop a high level of loyalty to our country,” Ms Merkel said in an interview with a regional newspaper group. She also warned both supporters and opponents of the authoritarian Turkish president to avoid stirring political violence. “The freedom of thought and of holding demonstrations is valid in Germany for everybody who lives here, but of course all their differences of opinion must be argued out peacefully.” Ms Merkel’s unusually tough message is clearly designed to give her conservative CDU party a boost in two regional elections next month — in rural Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin — where the rightwing anti-migration, anti-Islam Alternative for Germany is gaining ground. But it also reflects government fears about political radicalisation among the country’s 3 million ethnic Turks, who are split roughly 50-50 between German and Turkish citizens. The political controversy could complicate Ms Merkel’s efforts to keep in place the EU-Turkey refugee pact, which is under growing criticism in Germany for the concessions made to Mr Erdogan, including the soft-pedaling of criticism of his post-coup crackdown. The Bundestag’s intelligence committee agreed this week to examine the possible role of Turkish intelligence in Germany following claims from an unnamed security expert that Ankara has a network of 6,000 informants spying on the Turkish community and is possibly applying pressure on Mr Erdogan’s critics. Last week, a leaked German government report described Ankara as a “central platform of action” for radical Islamist groups. Berlin has long co-operated with Ankara in the fight against Islamist terror groups and the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), the armed separatist group. But it is concerned that Mr Erdogan is widening his “terrorist” definition to include a range of political enemies, notably followers of Fethullah Gulen, a self-exiled US-based imam. Michael Müller, Berlin mayor, recently said that he had rejected a request from a “Turkish government representative” to take action against Gulenists. The Turkish president also has considerable influence over community organisations, including Ditib, an umbrella body for 900 Turkish mosques. Alongside it stands the UETD, an EU-wide political lobby group representing émigré Turkish interests, closely linked to Mr Erdogan’s ruling AKP party. Ditib rejects any claims that suggest it is an instrument of a foreign country. However, some German political leaders are questioning its influence, notably over Muslim education in schools, where in some regions it assists with appointing teachers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Most of these "economic migrants" (alleged refugees) have no loyalty whatsoever to Germany. They're there for all of the free welfare handouts and the higher pay jobs. For them, it's like working "out of town". They never really adapt to the German way of life, rather, they stick to themselves. The Germans are to blame for all their woes. They don't like the Turks and other migrants in their country, and yet they want them there to do all the menial jobs that Germans now largely refuse to do.

Bosch calls VW owners' diesel-cheating claims in U.S. 'wild and unfounded' Bloomberg / August 23, 2016 Robert Bosch rejected U.S. car owners' claims that 38 of its employees conspired with Volkswagen Group for a decade to develop technology that enabled diesel vehicles to evade pollution-control tests. Bosch will defend itself against the "wild and unfounded" allegations made in a lawsuit in San Francisco, the German component manufacturer said in a federal court filing. Bosch also asked that the employees not be named in legal documents. Lawyers for Volkswagen car owners in the U.S. revised an earlier lawsuit against the German auto producer to name Bosch employees they said participated in the emissions-manipulation scandal that came to light in September. Even after VW's $15.3 billion settlement with U.S. authorities in July, pressure remains on multiple fronts as the carmaker still faces criminal probes in several countries, civil suits in Europe and a sales ban on many models in South Korea. VW disclosed in September that several models of its diesel-powered passenger vehicles carried software that switched pollution-control systems on only during official tests, a setup known as a defeat device. Settlements to get 482,000 tainted diesel cars off U.S. roads cover car owners, the U.S. government and 44 states, and will cost Volkswagen about $15.3 billion if fully adopted. 'Ingeniously designed' The "ingeniously designed defeat devices" were armed with software provided by Bosch, vehicle owners said in their filing in San Francisco court. The technology was crafted to recognize when the car was being tested in a lab or smog station to feign clean emissions and compliance with pollution standards. All the while, according to the filing, Bosch marketed "clean diesel" technology in the U.S. and lobbied regulators to approve the vehicles included in VW's settlement. The filing asserts that Bosch also participated in the scheme to prevent U.S. regulators from uncovering the device's true functionality. Bosch isn't part of VW's U.S. settlement. Even so, the parts maker doesn't see the need to put more money aside for legal costs, leaving its provisions for such issues at 650 million euros ($737 million), spokesman Rene Ziegler said last Thursday. Volkswagen continues to be the target of criminal probes in the U.S., Germany and South Korea. The carmaker has said it's working to reach a final settlement with the U.S. Justice Department and other regulators. It also faces lawsuits by car owners in Europe, where most of the 11 million rigged vehicles were sold, as well as environmental claims in the U.S. The U.S. case is In Re: Volkswagen "Clean Diesel" Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2672, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

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CAT Trucks Australia / Navistar Auspac Press Release / August 22, 2016 . .

Steve Brooks, Trade Trucks AU / August 23, 2016 Isuzu Australia’s market dominance is poised for even greater grip as its vastly refurbished medium-duty F-series trucks now hit the streets. There’s a lot to like says Steve Brooks, especially a batch of gutsy new four cylinder toilers Writing about an Isuzu drive program isn’t always easy. In fact, it can be decidedly difficult trying to define and describe a range of different models all assembled for a one-day ‘suck it and see’ driving event. The new F-series was no exception. No question, this is a hugely important and all-together impressive range of new and updated medium-duty models, so it stood to reason that Isuzu would want to showcase as many versions as possible during a drive program in and around Brisbane. Still, with eight different derivatives to drive plus a new ‘Service Pack’ model from the light-duty N-series line-up, any attempt at a detailed test report after just half an hour or so in each model would be somewhat futile. There were, however, a few significant factors about this particular exercise that set it apart from the norm in drive days. Perhaps the most insightful was the almost total lack of mention of competitors or how the new range measures up to others. Right now there’s no more positive example of the pressure from IAL’s internal microscope than the extraordinary success of Isuzu’s FX and FY models in 6x4 and 8x4 rigid configurations, notably in the hotly contested concrete agitator industry. It’s no secret IAL engineers and executives nagged Japan for some time about the need for an eight-wheeler specifically designed for Australian needs and with several blue chip concrete companies now on the books, the value of that effort is undeniable. Transmission trends Further on market trends, there’s no escaping the fact that self-shifters of both the automated and automatic kind are today an accepted and in many cases, preferred transmission in everything from top-shelf linehaulers to ‘round-town delivery trucks. Consequently, it was no idle coincidence that every one of the nine trucks in Isuzu’s drive program stirred through either an automated or automatic transmission. Nor is it a secret that Isuzu has had some issues with its AMT (automated mechanical transmission) technology but on this occasion there was no hiding the intent to demonstrate the new-found smoothness and refinement of its latest AMT-TC units fitted with a torque converter function. As for the fully automatic class, the modern-day Allison auto transmission has no peer and has a predictably strong presence in Isuzu’s new F-series family. But so, too, does the AMT-TC, not least behind the all-new 4HK1 four cylinder engine described by Isuzu as ‘the star’ of its bigger and undeniably bolder medium-duty range. Quick F-Series Background We’ll get to the 4HK1 shortly but to recap on the new range first previewed just a few months back, Isuzu is quick to state its latest candidates cover more medium-duty bases than ever before. "It is the largest range of medium-duty trucks in Australia," said an emphatic Isuzu Australia CEO Phil Taylor. Furthermore, Taylor points out that not only are there now around 180 specification variations across the brand’s entire light and medium-duty offerings but it also has the largest line-up of automated and automatic transmission options in the business, bar none. Simply explained, four cylinder F-series models with gross vehicle mass (GVM) ratings between 10.7 and 14 tonnes are available with either a six-speed manual box or the six-speed AMT-TC transmission. Meantime, most six cylinder versions offer a six-speed Isuzu manual box as standard with the option of the fully automatic Allison 2500 six-speed shifter. The exceptions are the heavier rated FVR and FVD models which drive through either a ZF manual transmission or the Allison MD 3000 six-speed auto. The new four-cylinder and six-cylinder engines The six cylinder engine is the 7.8 litre 6HK1 which comes in two ratings; 191kW (256hp) at 2400 rpm with 761Nm (561 lb-ft) of torque from 1450 to 2400 rpm. 221kW (296hp) at 2400 rpm with 981Nm (724 lb-ft) of torque at 1450rpm. The four cylinder engine displaces 5.2 litres and uses two-stage turbocharging and an intercooler to produce two performance ratings; 154kW (207hp) at 2400 rpm accompanied by 726Nm (535 lb-ft) of torque at 1600 rpm. 177kW (237hp) at 2400 rpm with 765Nm (564 lb-ft) of torque at 1600 rpm. For emissions compliance, the 6HK1 runs an EGR system fitted with a diesel oxidation catalyst (DOC) rather than a diesel particulate filter, or diesel particulate diffuser (DPD) as Isuzu refers to it. In fact, the company asserts the 6HK1 is, ‘the only medium-duty engine in the Australian market with neither a diesel particulate filter nor SCR.’ What’s more, it is the sort of emissions technology said by Isuzu to be ‘… suited to vocational applications requiring high idle time, high PTO use and frequent stop-start duties.’ In other words, the DOC deletes the need for the diesel particulate regeneration process which has been problematic for Isuzu and most others in those applications unable to generate sufficient heat for the regeneration process to occur without interrupting the truck’s normal work routine. Yet while the new 4HK1 engine does use an EGR emissions system with a diesel particulate diffuser (filter), Isuzu is entirely confident of the engine’s environmental and efficiency credentials, and critically, its ability to avoid regeneration problems. As a company statement explains, the 4HK1 employs Isuzu’s ‘… latest diesel particulate diffuser system with a dedicated fuel injector in the manifold to take care of regenerations.’ There is, however, far more to the new engine than an enhanced emissions system which effectively meets the Japanese equivalent of Euro 6. As IAL chief engineer Simon Humphries enthused, "There’s nothing like the 4HK1 on the medium-duty truck market today and it really marks the advent of a new generation of power plant. "There’s clear evidence of a global trend towards lower displacement engines across the automotive world as people gravitate towards lighter, more profitable and more efficient engine technology." Apart from claiming high ground on the emissions front, fuel consumption was also a high priority in development of the 4HK1 according to Simon Humphries. "We have data from the Isuzu domestic market (Japan) to show the 4HK1 can deliver a seven percent overall fuel saving. "What we’ve achieved," he continued, "is a clear leap forward in engine technology and undeniable evidence of the trend towards higher output and lower displacement power plants." At this point it’s also worth pointing out that both four and six cylinder engines share the same bore and stroke dimensions which suggests that in hardware terms at least, the four is basically a shortened version of the six. As already mentioned, each rating can be coupled to either an Isuzu six-speed manual transmission or the automated AMT-TC shifter which is the third generation of Isuzu’s automated transmission technology. More than engines and gearboxes Even a cursory glance at the updated F-series family reveals an impressive list of standard features which, depending on the model, range from anti-lock brakes and anti-skid regulator to a hill start aid, electric mirrors, cruise control, cornering lamps and in the case of models with the 4HK1 engine, an idle-stop system to enhance fuel economy. Wisely, the idle-stop function can be switched on or off through a dash-mounted switch. Testing Performance There were three four cylinder models in the F-series drive program with GVMs from 10.7 to 11 and 12 tonnes, and according to Isuzu, all trucks in the exercise were loaded to around 80 per cent of capacity. Again, time in each model was short and while all versions handled the event with ease, the new four cylinder versions certainly left a favourable first impression. Hopefully, we’ll soon be able to get behind the wheel for at least a day or two for a more detailed evaluation. For now though, I’ll just refer to a few rough notes made on the day. Take the smallest of the four cylinder models, for example, the FRR 107-210 fitted with a 10-pallet tray body: ‘Incredibly tenacious. Displays the traits of a bigger engine, digs deep and very willing to hold on down to 1,000 – 1,200rpm especially with transmission in ‘Econ’ mode.’ The same comments were equally applicable to the other two four-lungers in the line-up, namely the FRR 110-240 fitted with an eight-pallet curtain-sided body and the FSR 120-240 with a 12-pallet curtain-sider. Fitted to all three, of course, was the AMT-TC transmission and in each example it was quickly apparent that the addition of a torque converter has made the automated shifts significantly smoother. ‘Much better than before. A really impressive bit of gear’ was the opinion noted on the day. Actually, they’re comments equally applicable to all the F-series trucks driven on the day. But if you think that’s the end of Isuzu’s evolution for the year, well, think again. An upgraded range of light-duty N-series trucks is just around the corner. Isuzu has many characteristics but complacency is definitely not one of them. Isuzu F-Series Engine Specs Isuzu 4HK1 Type: 4 cylinder 16 valve SOHC Displacement: 5,193 cc Bore x Stroke: 115mm x 125mm Power & Torque: 154kW (207hp) and 726Nm (535 lb-ft). 177kW (237-hp) and 765Nm (564 lb-ft). Induction system: Low pressure turbocharger and high pressure Variable Geometry System (VGS) turbocharger sequentially operated and with air-to air intercooler. Fuel injection: Direct injection high pressure common rail system. Exhaust pipe fuel injection for DPD regeneration. Emission system: Cooled EGR with exhaust Diesel Particulate Diffuser. Isuzu 6HK1 Type: 6 cylinder 24 valve SOHC Displacement: 7,790 cc Bore x Stroke: 115mm x 125mm Power & Torque: 191kW (256hp) and 761Nm (561 lb-ft) 221kW (296hp) and 981Nm (724 lb-ft) Induction system: Electronically controlled variable nozzle turbocharger with air-to-air intercooler. Fuel injection: Direct injection high pressure common rail system. Emission system: Cooled EGR with exhaust Diesel Oxidation Catalyst .

The Timaru Herald / August 23, 2016 The truck driver licensing process is a major stumbling block preventing school-leavers entering the transport industry, South Canterbury transport company managers say. The claim follows the release of a regional labour market survey that found "licensing constraints, compliance and health and safety issues were restricting for businesses employing directly from schools and tertiary institutions". According to the survey, the region's transport industry and the industries that depended on it were threatened by a lack of trained younger drivers adequately licensed to drive heavy vehicles. The growth problem was compounded by an ageing population of existing qualified drivers. With projected economic growth for South Canterbury, increased traffic from PrimePort and dairy factories, and businesses expanding in the Washdyke industrial park, South Canterbury was identified as having one of the biggest demands for transport nationwide. Yet the average age for class five licensed drivers in companies surveyed was 57. All transport businesses interviewed for the survey had staff over the age of 65. One had 11 over this age, another had six. Rural Transport Ltd manager Crouchley hoped to attract younger drivers when advertising a position for a flat-bed truck driver. The ad said the role "would suit a young person entering the industry". However, only two of the 10 who applied were under 20 - the rest were between 30 and 50, with most being in their 40s, he said. Rural Transport Ltd had two smaller vehicles which it used to help younger drivers who were not yet able to apply for higher class licenses due to mandatory six-month waiting times between each achieved licence classification, Crouchley said. The company had taken on two younger people; one had decided the industry was not right for him, while the other was "right into it" - but he was "a rare find", Crouchley said. Younger people could not be blamed for being reluctant to join the transport industry with the "licensing regime" being what it was, he said. "When I was 18 years of age I could have got my truck and trailer license and be driving a full rig, and kids can't do that now," he said. There had also been a potential change of attitude within schools among both school pupils and the adults advising them about careers, Crouchley said. Information technology was now being promoted more, other career paths were paying more for less hours of work, and there was now a probable stigma around how the trucking industry was perceived, Crouchley said. The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) was asked if it understood the extent of the perceived skills problem and what was being done to address it. A spokeswoman said NZTA had developed ways to ensure truck drivers did not have to wait too long to obtain their full class five licences, including "pro-active pathways", "employer sponsorship" and accelerated courses. She referred Fairfax to Road Transport Association president Peter McAuley, of ProDriver Timaru, who said the process could not realistically be made any faster. "If people don't spend time gaining experience we're going to end up with disaster," McAuley said. He noted transport vehicles now carried much heavier loads and that transport companies had tighter profit margins and could not always afford to take on apprentices. Hobbs Banks and Mayfield Transport owner-operator Peter Hobbs said the main problem was the two year gap between leaving school and being able to become licensed, even though training was available at Ara Polytechnic and ProDriver Training school. Another contributing problem was that trucks on the road were getting bigger and carrying heavier loads, so the higher class licences were more often required. Any school-aged pupil interested in a career in trucks soon lost interest when the delays and restrictions created by the licensing process became apparent, Hobbs said. Hobbs also believed it should not be left to transport companies alone to take on all the work and expense of fostering trainee drivers, and that the government should provide some sort of incentives. Already there were noticeably more positions to fill within the transport industry, but there were not enough skilled drivers to fill them, he said. "Somehow when years ago we all wanted to be truck drivers - kids love trucks but nowadays they lose interest," he said.

Absolutely, Volvo Group board chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg (who personally lured Martin Lundstedt away from Scania) would like to divest Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE). But as the construction market is tanked, they can't find a buyer who will offer them any more than a fire sale price. VW's (ex-Daimler) Renschler wants to begin the process of getting into the US. But VW is up to its ears in mess right now. You're right all the way. Navistar only wants a strategic partner, and Paccar (Pigott Inc.) would indeed be expensive. VW Group "IS" the most inefficient "car" manufacturer in the world. That is a fact. MAN is inefficient as well, thanks to Germany's social welfare policies and its co-determination act of 1976 (Mitbestimmungsgesetz) which requires that half the seats on a company's board be held by Works Council (union) members (companies with over 2,000 employees). Scania, and Paccar, are by far the two most efficient and profitable truckmakers in the world.

Trump vows 'fair, but firm' approach to illegal immigration Associated Press / August 22, 2016 Republican Donald Trump promised Monday to be "fair, but firm" toward the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally, a shift in tone that raised questions on whether he's backtracking from previous pledges to push for mass deportations. The billionaire businessman, whose hard-line approach to immigration and fierce rhetoric propelled him to the GOP presidential nomination, insisted that he's not "flip-flopping" on the divisive issue as he works to broaden his support two-and-a-half months before the general election. But in a meeting with Hispanic activists Saturday, Trump indicated he was open to considering allowing those who have not committed crimes, beyond their immigration offenses, to obtain some form of legal status - though attendees stressed Trump has yet to make up his mind. [Illegal immigrants committed a crime when they entered the United States......illegally. So here is Trump indicating that he will grant amnesty to criminals who have not committed an “additional” crime while illegally living in the United States. We've already given amnesty to illegal immigrants on two big occasions in my lifetime, rather than stand by our immigration laws. Reagan granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986, and George H.W. Bush likewise to 1.5 million in 1990. Continuing down the wrong path, Obama's executive order would allow 5 million more illegal immigrants to laugh at our enforcement of immigration law and stay in the United States.] "The impression I got was that the campaign is working on substantive policy to help the undocumented immigrants that are here, including some type of status so they would not be deported," said Pastor Mario Bramnick, president of the Hispanic Israel Leadership Coalition, who was in attendance. [Note how the phrase “illegal immigrant” continues to be erased, as if it never existed, and replaced with the far gentler phrase “undocumented immigrant”. Illegal immigrant, which is exactly what these people are, correctly implies that they are criminals. However, undocumented immigrant, which has no criminal implication, sounds like nothing more than a library book misplaced onto the wrong shelf.] Any walk-back would mark a dramatic reversal for Trump. During the GOP primary, Trump vowed to use a "deportation force" to round up and deport the millions of people living in the country illegally - a proposal that excited many of his core supporters, but alienated Hispanic voters who could be pivotal in key states. Trump said in an interview with "Fox & Friends" on Monday that he was "working with a lot of people in the Hispanic community to try and come up with an answer." "We want to come up with a really fair, but firm answer. It has to be very firm. But we want to come up with something fair," he said. Later, he told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, "I just want to follow the law." "The first thing we're gonna do, if and when I win, is we're gonna get rid of all of the bad ones. We've got gang members, we have killers, we have a lot of bad people that have to get out of this country. We're gonna get them out," he said. "As far as everybody else, we're going to go through the process," he said, citing the policies of President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush as examples. Asked whether Trump's plan still included a deportation force, his new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, said Sunday it was "to be determined." "Even Sen. Jeff Sessions," a hard-liner on immigration, "he doesn't deport 11 million people in his plan," Conway said on CNBC Monday. Trump had been scheduled to deliver a speech on the topic Thursday in Colorado, but has postponed it. There have been signs for weeks now that Trump was shifting course. Hispanic business and religious leaders who would like to see Trump move in a more inclusive direction have reported closed-door conversations with Trump in which they say he has signaled possibly embracing a less punitive immigration policy that focuses on "compassion" along with the rule of law. At last month's GOP convention, the Republican National Committee's director of Hispanic communications, Helen Aguirre Ferre, told reporters at a Spanish-language briefing that Trump had already said he "will not do massive deportations" - despite the fact that Trump had never said so publicly. Instead, Aguirre Ferre said, "he will focus on removing the violent undocumented who have criminal records and live in the country." Indeed, Trump's first television ad of the general election specifically singles out illegal immigrants with criminal records, claiming that, if Clinton is elected, "Illegal immigrants convicted of committing crimes get to stay." Trump's campaign has pushed back on the notion that he's reversing course. "Mr. Trump said nothing today that he hasn't said many times before, including in his convention speech," rapid response director Steven Cheung said after the meeting. At a rally in Akron, Ohio, Monday evening, many Trump supporters seemed unfazed by Trump's potential shift. "Mr. Trump is a smart man who uses common sense," said Jennifer Carter, a small business owner from Barberton, Ohio. "He knows he can't break up families and round up people on buses to kick them out." But Robin Luich, 52, a stay-at-home mother from Medina, Ohio, said those who've broken the law should be permanently barred. "There can be no exceptions. If you are here illegally, you have to stay out." she said. When asked how she would feel if Trump softened his stance to allow some illegal immigrants to remain, she said: "That would be a disappointment. That's not what he is supposed to be about." And amid talk of a shift, Trump made clear he had no interest in compromising another piece of his immigration plan - a massive wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "We're going to build the wall, folks," Trump said at the rally. "That wall will go up so fast your head will spin. You're going to say 'He meant it!'" Clinton, meanwhile, is spending the next three days fundraising across California. She'll stop by the home of actors Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel in Los Angeles, address donors with NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson in Beverly Hills and join Apple CEO Tim Cook and other business leaders in Silicon Valley. But Clinton's email scandal continues to haunt her. In the latest revelations, the State Department said Monday it is reviewing nearly 15,000 previously undisclosed emails. They were recovered as part of the FBI's now-closed investigation into the handling of sensitive information that flowed through Clinton's private home server during her time as secretary of state. Lawyers for the department said they anticipate releasing the first batch of these new emails in mid-October, raising the prospect new messages sent or received by Democratic nominee could become public just before Election Day.

Trump: inner cities run by Democrats are more dangerous than war zones The Guardian / August 22, 2016 Donald Trump veered off the teleprompter on Monday night to claim that “inner cities run by the Democrats” were more dangerous than countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republican nominee was meant to be delivering a scripted speech calling for Hillary Clinton be investigated by a special prosecutor. However, once again he veered off message in an attempt to appeal to minority voters in apocalyptic terms. “You can go to war zones in countries that we are fighting and it is safer than living in some of our inner cities that are run by the Democrats,” Trump said. The Republican nominee also promised if elected, “we’ll get rid of the crime. You’ll be able to walk down the street without getting shot. Now, you walk down the street, you get shot.” Trump has made increased appeals for support from African Americans in recent days. Despite that, a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed Trump receiving the support of only 1% of African American voters, a historically low total. The poll did have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5%. Trump has repeatedly argued that African American voters should support him in the past week, saying: “What have you got to lose?” In contrast, Trump has railed against what he called “the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, who sees people of color only as votes and not as human beings worthy of a better future”. The intended focus of the Republican nominee’s message on Monday was his call for a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton’s leadership of the state department. Trump claimed that the FBI and Department of Justice could not be trusted to investigate “Hillary Clinton’s crimes”. The FBI in July decided not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton for her use of an unsecured private email server while secretary of state. However, in doing so, FBI Director James Comey rebuked Clinton for the “extremely careless” way in which she handled her emails. In the speech, Trump also said he was “fighting for peaceful regime change in our country” and warned gravely of potential election fraud. “You got to go out and watch. You know what I’m talking about.” Trump has long made unsubstantiated claims about “a rigged election” and warned of in-person voter fraud recently at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania. However, an exhaustive investigation of in-person voter fraud in the United States found only 31 cases since 2000 out of more than 1 billion ballots cast. Trump spoke in the blue collar city of Akron, Ohio. The Buckeye State has 18 electoral votes, and no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. According to data complied by Real Clear Politics, Clinton has not trailed in a single statewide poll of Ohio since April. However, despite these sagging poll numbers and cryptic warnings about election fraud, Trump was still confident of victory: “I just get the feeling that we’re going to win in a landslide.”

Emails reveal how foundation donors got access to Clinton and her close aides at State Dept. The Washington Post / August 22, 2016 A sports executive who was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and whose firm paid Bill Clinton millions of dollars in consulting fees wanted help getting a visa for a British soccer player with a criminal past. The crown prince of Bahrain, whose government gave more than $50,000 to the Clintons’ charity and who participated in its glitzy annual conference, wanted a last-minute meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. U2 rocker and philanthropist Bono, also a regular at foundation events, wanted high-level help broadcasting a live link to the International Space Station during concerts. In each case, according to emails released Monday from Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, the requests were directed to Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and confidante, Huma Abedin, who engaged with other top aides and sometimes Clinton herself about how to respond. The emails show that, in these and similar cases, the donors did not always get what they wanted, particularly when they sought anything more than a meeting. But the exchanges, among 725 pages of correspondence from Abedin disclosed as part of a lawsuit by the conservative group Judicial Watch, illustrate the way the Clintons’ international network of friends and donors was able to get access to Hillary Clinton and her inner circle during her tenure running the State Department. The release of the correspondence follows previous disclosures of internal emails showing a similar pattern of access for foundation contributors, and it comes as Republicans allege that Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, used her perch in the Obama administration to trade favors for donations. Clinton and the foundation have vigorously denied the charge. The disclosures also cast new doubts on Clinton’s past claim that she turned over all her work-related email from her private server to the State Department for eventual release to the public. Judicial Watch said Monday’s release from Abedin’s inbox included 20 previously undisclosed exchanges with Clinton that were not included in the approximately 55,000 pages of correspondence the former secretary gave to State. Also Monday, the State Department said the FBI had turned over nearly 15,000 emails and other documents that investigators discovered during a probe of Clinton’s email setup that she had not previously returned to State. Clinton has said about 30,000 personal emails were deleted from the server. The FBI batch includes emails and attachments that were sent directly to or from Clinton, or that were part of email chains. FBI Director James B. Comey has said there is no evidence that emails were purposefully deleted with an intent to conceal them, and a State Department spokesman said Monday that some of the records included emails that were purely personal. It is not clear when the documents discovered by the FBI will become public, but attorneys for the State Department and Judicial Watch are negotiating a release that is likely to begin before the election and continue long after. Josh Schwerin, a Clinton campaign spokesman, said in a statement Monday that Judicial Watch is a “right-wing organization that has been going after the Clintons since the 1990s” and that the group is “distorting facts to make utterly false attacks.” “No matter how this group tries to mischaracterize these documents, the fact remains that Hillary Clinton never took action as Secretary of State because of donations to the Clinton Foundation,” he said. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters Monday that there is “no clear sign” donors received access for their contributions. The emails released Monday showed how requests from donors would often come through Doug Band, a longtime Bill Clinton aide who helped create the foundation, with Abedin as a primary point of contact. Band declined to comment on the newly released emails, and attorneys for Abedin did not respond to a request for comment. There is no indication from the emails that Abedin intervened on behalf of Casey Wasserman, an L.A. sports executive who in 2009 asked Band for help getting a visa for a British soccer star trying to visit Las Vegas. Band indicated that the office of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had already declined to help, given the player’s criminal record. A Boxer spokesman described the request to her office as “routine” but one with that Boxer did not assist, “given the facts of the case.” “Makes me nervous to get involved but I’ll ask,” Abedin wrote to Band in May 2009 after he forwarded to her an email from Wasserman. Band responded: “then dont.” Wasserman’s charitable foundation has given the Clinton Foundation between $5 million and $10 million. In 2009 and 2010, his investment company paid Bill Clinton $3.13 million in consulting fees. A spokeswoman for Wasserman said the businessman never contacted Bill Clinton on the matter and the visa was never granted. Band and Abedin also responded dismissively when asked if they had any ideas on how to help Bono get his space station transmission: “No clue,” they each responded in turn. The appeal appears to have had more success in the case of Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, the crown prince of Bahrain. In June 2009, Band emailed Abedin that the prince would be in Washington for two days and was seeking a meeting with Hillary Clinton. “Good friend of ours,” he added. Abedin responded that the prince had already requested a meeting “through normal channels” but that Clinton had been hesitant to commit. Two days later, Abedin followed up with Band to let him know that a meeting with the prince had been set. “If u see him, let him know. We have reached out thru official channels,” she wrote to Band. Bahrain has a spotty human rights record but full relations with the U.S. government. In a statement, the court of the crown prince said his participation at a 2005 foundation event “happened years before and was wholly unrelated to any meeting with Secretary Clinton,” adding that the prince is deputy head of state of an American ally and so he often meets with U.S. officials. The new disclosures come as the Clinton Foundation and its international network of powerful donors have returned to the forefront of the presidential campaign. On Monday, Bill Clinton sent an email to foundation staff and supporters outlining new steps and offering a defense of the foundation’s accomplishments. He wrote that the foundation would stop accepting corporate and foreign donations if Hillary Clinton was elected and that he would step down from the charity’s board, along with the board of a related Boston-based health organization. While he said his role would change, “the work itself should continue because so many people are committed to it and so many more are relying on it.” The announcements did little to quell Republican attacks. The GOP nominee, Donald Trump, on Monday called for the foundation to be shut down altogether, describing the charity as “the most corrupt enterprise in political history.” The newly released emails underscored the central role played by Abedin, a top adviser to Clinton’s campaign who has been working for her since Clinton’s time as first lady. When S. Daniel Abraham, a major Democratic donor who had also given to the foundation, was visiting Washington in May 2009 and wanted to see Clinton, the emails showed that he placed a call to Abedin. “Do u want me to try and fit him in tomorrow?” Abedin emailed Clinton, who appeared to indicate in her response that she was willing to make time. Abraham said in an interview Monday that he talked with Clinton about the Middle East and that his status as a donor had nothing to do with his ability to secure time with the secretary. “It was about the issue that I have worked hard on for many, many years, Israeli-Palestinian peace,” he said. “I have been friendly with the Clintons since their White House days. As far as I am concerned it was all good. She never asked me for anything.” Longtime Clinton friend and fundraiser Maureen White wrote Abedin in July 2009, saying that she would be in Washington three days later. “Would she have any time to spare?” White wrote. “Yes I’ll make it work,” Abedin responded. White went on to serve in the State Department under Clinton. White said she and her husband, Steven Rattner, gave $31,000 to the foundation before 2009 and $25,000 to the foundation in 2012. White said that she did not remember the specific exchange but that she has met often with Clinton as a longtime supporter and has worked on refugee and humanitarian issues in several capacities in and out of government. “Usually when I told Huma I wanted to meet with Hillary Clinton, Huma made it happen,” White said. In another email exchange, Democratic donor and activist Joyce Aboussie of St. Louis wrote to Abedin requesting a meeting between Clinton and a top executive of St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, one of the world’s largest coal producers. “Huma, I need your help now to intervene please,” Aboussie wrote in June 2009. “We need this meeting with Secretary Clinton, who has been there now for nearly six months. This is, by the way, my first request.” Abedin responded: “We are working on it and I hope we can make something work . . . we have to work through the beauracracy [sic] here.” It is not clear whether the meeting took place. Neither Peabody officials nor Aboussie, who donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation, responded to requests for comment.

Prospect of Trump win threatens to put US Asian pivot in a spin The Financial Times / August 23, 2016 Asia faces a redrawing of the geopolitical order if Republican Donald Trump becomes US president — a prospect that scares Washington’s allies while handing a gift to China, its principal rival. Tokyo and Seoul braced for change after the US elections, with some in the region fearing that even a Hillary Clinton win could herald unwelcome shifts. That includes bigger defence bills and the likely demise of President Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which pointedly excludes China. But it is a Trump presidency, which would herald a strong new strain of isolationist politics, that stands to wreak more damage over Asia, a continent of emerging superpowers such as China, home to more than half the world’s population and target of Obama’s Asian “pivot”. A group of Republican foreign policy experts sounded the alarm last week. “We especially fear a Trump presidency’s impact on America’s future in Asia where China’s influence in the region, now the global economy’s centre of gravity, grows apace with its power,” they wrote. “Should Trump become president and put his nostrums into practice, Asia’s response will be prompt and epochal,” the Republican advisers added. “Asia’s big or small countries will be forced to tilt towards . . . the Chinese. Some of them may move quickly to seek security in a new proliferation of nuclear weapons.” Chinese nationalists now see China usurping the US as the pre-eminent power in the region in less than a decade, should Trump win the election and follow through on his “you pay up or we pull out” ultimatum to Seoul and Tokyo. “If Trump distances the US from its allies, particularly Japan, objectively that can be a good thing for China’s strategic position,” says Shi Yinhong, an international affairs specialist at Renmin University in Beijing. Beijing has recently chafed at the Obama administration’s endorsement of an international tribunal ruling that dismissed almost all of its expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea — and the deployment of a missile defence system that Washington and Seoul say is aimed at defending South Korea from North Korea, not Beijing. Kuni Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat and expert on the Japan-US security treaty, says that “the dark side has awakened in the US” — a reference to blue-collar and middle-class angst about globalisation, inequality and immigration. These forces have produced a strong strand of “neo-isolationism” in the US of a type that the Japanese find especially troubling. “Whether Trump is elected or not, this dark side will continue to run in US politics and could make it more inward-looking,” he says. “That could raise the incentives for a US president to request additional burden-sharing on security — not only from Japan but [also] South Korea and even Nato allies.” Kim Ji-yoon at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul agrees that “whoever becomes president, it is inevitable that South Korea will have to bear more costs to sustain the [US] alliance”. In China the ruling Communist party has also learnt over the years that US presidential candidates tend to say one thing during an election campaign and do the opposite after they are in the Oval Office. Campaigning for the White House just three years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Mrs Clinton’s husband railed against the “butchers of Beijing”. But by the end of his second term Bill Clinton had helped lay the foundations for China’s rise as an economic and military power by agreeing to its accession to the World Trade Organisation. Prof Shi at Renmin University notes that Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton are likely to take tougher stances than the Obama administration on territorial issues in the South China Sea — something US allies in the region would welcome — but adopt more protectionist trade policies. Their stance on trade is likely to cause short-term problems for Beijing but has already delivered at least one windfall — the likely demise of the TPP, the economic complement to Obama’s military pivot towards the region. Both Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton have expressed strong opposition to the TPP, which Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong calls a “litmus test of [US] credibility and seriousness of purpose” in the Asia-Pacific region. Asian analysts also generally believe that the US government’s institutional checks and balances will grant at least a short-term buffer against any dramatic realignment of regional power. “Even with Trump’s unpredictability and the power of the presidency, the current system of alliances wouldn’t be shaken by him alone,” says Min Jeong-hun at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul. “Congress, his cabinet and public opinion are all likely to play an important role in [regional] diplomacy.” Xie Tao, a US expert at Beijing Foreign Studies University, agrees that a sudden withdrawal of US military forces from South Korea and Japan is a “fantasy”. “If he really does that, half a century’s work by the US in Asia would vanish like smoke and ashes,” Prof Xie said. “Congress and all sorts of interest groups would strongly oppose it.”

Trump’s Empire: A Maze of Debts and Opaque Ties The New York Times / August 20, 2016 On the campaign trail, Donald Trump has sold himself as a businessman who has made billions of dollars and is beholden to no one. But an investigation by The New York Times into the financial maze of Trump’s real estate holdings in the United States reveals that companies he owns have at least $650 million in debt — twice the amount than can be gleaned from public filings he has made as part of his bid for the White House. The Times’s inquiry also found that Trump’s fortunes depend deeply on a wide array of financial backers, including one he has cited in attacks during his campaign. For example, an office building on Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, of which Trump is part owner, carries a $950 million loan. Among the lenders: the Bank of China, one of the largest banks in a country that Trump has railed against as an economic foe of the United States, and Goldman Sachs, a financial institution he has said controls Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, after it paid her $675,000 in speaking fees. Real estate projects often involve complex ownership and mortgage structures. And given Trump’s long real estate career in the United States and abroad, as well as his claim that his personal wealth exceeds $10 billion, it is safe to say that no previous major party presidential nominee has had finances nearly as complicated. As president, Trump would have substantial sway over monetary and tax policy, as well as the power to make appointments that would directly affect his own financial empire. He would also wield influence over legislative issues that could have a significant impact on his net worth, and would have official dealings with countries in which he has business interests. Yet The Times’s examination underscored how much of Trump’s business remains shrouded in mystery. He has declined to disclose his tax returns or allow an independent valuation of his assets. Earlier in the campaign, Trump submitted a 104-page federal financial disclosure form. It said his businesses owed at least $315 million to a relatively small group of lenders and listed ties to more than 500 limited liability companies. Though he answered the questions, the form appears to have been designed for candidates with simpler finances than his, and did not require disclosure of portions of his business activities. Beyond finding that companies owned by Trump had debts of at least $650 million, The Times discovered that a substantial portion of his wealth is tied up in three passive partnerships that owe an additional $2 billion to a string of lenders, including those that hold the loan on the Avenue of the Americas building. If those loans were to go into default, Trump would not be held liable, the Trump Organization said. The value of his investments, however, would certainly sink. Trump has said that if he were elected president, his children would be likely to run his company. Many presidents, to avoid any appearance of a conflict, have placed their holdings in blind trusts, which typically involves selling the original asset, and replacing it with different assets unknown to the seller. Trump’s children seem unlikely to pursue that option. Richard W. Painter, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota and, from 2005 to 2007, the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, compared Trump to Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs whom Bush appointed as Treasury secretary. Professor Painter advised Paulson on his decision to sell his Goldman Sachs shares, saying it was clear that Paulson could not simply have placed that stock in trust and pretended it did not exist. If Trump were to use a blind trust, the professor said, it would be “like putting a gold watch in a box and pretending you don’t know it is in there.” ‘We Overdisclosed’ “I am the king of debt,” Trump once said on CNN. “I love debt.” But in his career, debt has sometimes gotten the better of him, leading to at least four business bankruptcies. He is, however, quick to stress that these days his companies have very little debt. Trump indicated in the financial disclosure form he filed in connection with this campaign that he was worth at least $1.5 billion, and has said publicly that the figure is actually greater than $10 billion. Recent estimates by Forbes and Fortune magazines and Bloomberg have put his worth at less than $5 billion. To gain a better understanding of Trump’s holdings and debt, The Times engaged RedVision Systems, a national property information firm, to search publicly available data on more than 30 properties in the United States. The Times identified these assets through Federal Election Commission filings, information provided by the Trump Organization and records, such as filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The search covered thousands of pages of public information, including loan documents, land leases and property deeds. It concentrated on Trump’s commercial holdings, including office towers, golf courses, a vineyard in Virginia and even an industrial building in South Carolina that he ended up with after a troubled business venture involving Donald Trump Jr. The inquiry also examined some of Trump’s residential properties, including his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue and a house he owns in Beverly Hills, Calif. The examination did not include Trump’s dealings outside the United States. That Trump seems to have so much less debt on his disclosure form than what The Times found is not his fault, but rather a function of what the form asks candidates to list and how. The form, released by the Federal Election Commission, asks that candidates list assets and debts not in precise numbers, but in ranges that top out at $50 million — appropriate for most candidates, but not for Trump. Through its examination, The Times was able to discern the amount of debt taken out on each property, and its ownership structure. At 40 Wall Street in Manhattan, a limited liability company, or L.L.C., controlled by Trump holds the ground lease — the lease for the land on which the building stands. In 2015, Trump borrowed $160 million from Ladder Capital, a small New York firm, using that long-term lease as collateral. On his financial disclosure form that debt is listed as valued at more than $50 million. Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, said that Trump could have left the liability section on the form blank, because federal law requires that presidential candidates disclose personal liabilities, not corporate debt. Trump, he said, has no personal debt. “We overdisclosed,” Weisselberg said, explaining that it was decided that when a Trump company owned 100 percent of a property, all of the associated debt would be disclosed, something that he said went beyond what the law required. Filing Taken at ‘Face Value’ For properties where a Trump company owned less than 100 percent of a building, Weisselberg said, those debts were not disclosed. Trump, for example, has a 50 percent stake in the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. In 2010, the company that owns the hotel refinanced a $190 million loan, according to Real Capital Analytics, a commercial real estate data and analytics firm. Weisselberg said that a Trump entity was responsible for half the debt, and that all but $6.4 million of the loan had been paid off. The Times found three other instances in which Trump had an ownership interest in a building but did not disclose the debt associated with it. In all three cases, Trump had passive investments in limited liability companies that had borrowed significant amounts of money. One of these investments involves an office tower at 1290 Avenue of Americas, near Rockefeller Center. In a typically complex deal, loan documents show that four lenders — German American Capital, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank; UBS Real Estate Securities; Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company; and Bank of China — agreed in November 2012 to lend $950 million to the three companies that own the building. Those companies, obscurely named HWA 1290 III LLC, HWA 1290 IV LLC and HWA 1290 V LLC, are owned by three other companies in which Trump has stakes. Ultimately, through his investments, Trump is a 30 percent owner of the building, records show. Vornado Realty Trust owns the other 70 percent and is the controlling partner. A similar ownership structure is in place at 555 California Street in San Francisco, formerly the Bank of America Center. There, Pacific Life Insurance Company and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company lent $600 million in 2011 to a limited liability company of which Vornado owns 70 percent and Trump owns 30 percent. Green Street Advisors, a real estate research firm, estimates the combined value of the two buildings to be about $3.7 billion. On a smaller scale, Trump also has a 4 percent partnership interest in a company that has an interest in a large Brooklyn housing complex, and owes roughly $410 million to Wells Fargo, according to Bloomberg data. The full terms of Trump’s limited partnerships are not known. The current value of the loans connected to them is roughly $1.95 billion, according to various public documents. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, said that neither Trump nor the company were responsible for the debt associated with the limited partnerships. Still, as with all of the properties in which Trump holds an interest, the value of the buildings as well as the terms and magnitude of their debt could have a major impact on his personal fortune. Trump, Weisselberg added, was liable for a “small percentage of the corporate debt” listed on the federal filing but would not elaborate. Other instances in which Trump could be personally responsible can be found in public filings. He guaranteed as much as $26 million for the loan taken out against his land lease at 40 Wall Street, money the lender could take if certain things went wrong. The United States Office of Government Ethics, which reviewed Trump’s financial filing before the F.E.C. released it, said it does not comment on submissions by individual candidates. The agency’s procedures for staff members reviewing presidential submissions, a copy of which was obtained by The Times through a Freedom of Information Act request, say the Office of Government Ethics does not audit reports for accuracy. “Disclosures are to be taken at ‘face value’ as correct, unless there is a patent omission or ambiguity or the official has independent knowledge of matters outside the report,” the procedures say. A Web of Investments Tracing the ownership of many of Trump’s buildings can be a complicated task. Sometimes he owns a building and the land underneath it; sometimes, he holds a partial interest or just the commercial portion of a property. And in some cases, the identities of his business partners are obscured behind limited liability companies — raising the prospect of a president with unknown business ties. At 40 Wall Street, Trump does not own even a sliver of the actual land; his long-term ground lease gives him the right to improve and manage the building. The land is owned by two limited liability companies; Trump pays the two entities a total of $1.6 million a year for the ground lease, according to documents filed with the S.E.C. The majority owner, 40 Wall Street Holdings Corporation, owns 80 percent of the land; New Scandic Wall Limited Partnership owns the rest, according to public documents. New Scandic Wall Limited Partnership’s chief executive is Joachim Ferdinand von Grumme-Douglas, a businessman based in Europe, according to these documents. The people behind 40 Wall Street Holdings are harder to identify. For years, Germany’s Hinneberg family, which made its fortune in the shipping industry, controlled the property through a company called 40 Wall Limited Partnership. In late 2014, their interest in the land was transferred to a new company, 40 Wall Street Holdings. The Times was not able to identify the owner or owners of this company, and the Trump Organization declined to comment. Trump has long-term ground leases on several other properties, including a golf course in New York’s Hudson Valley and retail space in Midtown Manhattan. Private owners are also behind these leases, their identities sometimes obscured by L.L.C.s. Trump’s status in these situations is indicated by the word tenant, which is listed under his signature on many of the relevant documents. Trump also holds a ground lease on the almost-completed Trump International Hotel in the Old Post Office building in Washington, a few blocks from the White House. The federal government, which owns the land, gave a 60-year lease to Trump Old Post Office, a limited liability company controlled by Trump and members of his family. In return, the government receives a minimum of $3 million a year from the company. Weisselberg said that despite his holdings, Trump should not be held to the same standards that might apply to the heads of companies in highly regulated industries. “If you take away all the fancy stuff and so on and so forth, and the five-star ratings, you are basically down to a closely held family-run business that is fundamentally different from IBM or Exxon,” Weisselberg said, quoting from an email he had received from Donald F. McGahn, a lawyer and former chairman of the F.E.C. who advised Trump on his federal filing. McGahn did not return calls for comment. Others disagree. Trump’s opaque portfolio of business ties makes him potentially vulnerable to the demands of banks, and to business people in the United States and abroad, said Professor Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer. “The success of his empire depends on an ability to get credit, to get loans extended to his business entities,” he said. “And we simply don’t know a lot about his financial dealings, here or around the world.” Related reading - http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/20/us/elections/donald-trump-owns-and-owes-debt-properties.html

Trump calls for special prosecutor to investigate Clinton Foundation Reuters / August 22, 2016 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump urged the Justice Department on Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if donors to the Clinton Foundation got special treatment from the State Department when it was run by his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Trump made the appeal at a rally before thousands of cheering supporters in Akron, Ohio, as he tries to rebound from a slide in national opinion polls with little more than two months to go until the Nov. 8 election. Trump accused former President Bill Clinton and his wife of turning the Clinton Foundation charity into a "pay-for-play" scheme in which wealthy donors, foreign and domestic, got favors from the State Department during Hillary Clinton's 2009-2013 tenure as the country's top diplomat. Trump faulted both the Justice Department and FBI for not indicting Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey cited her careless handling of classified emails but opted not to prosecutor her. "The Justice Department is required to appoint a special prosecutor because it has proved to be, sadly, a political arm of the White House," Trump said. "Nobody has ever seen anything like it before." Trump's appeal came the same day a conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, released 725 pages of State Department documents, including some it said were examples of preferential treatment provided to donors at the request of former Clinton Foundation executive Douglas Band. Trump's call for an independent investigation followed an announcement by the Clinton Foundation that it would no longer accept foreign donations should Clinton be elected president. The Clinton campaign fired back at Trump, saying the foundation had already laid out "the unprecedented steps the charity will take if Hillary Clinton becomes president." Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement that Trump "needs to come clean with voters about his complex network" of businesses that are in debt to big banks, including the state-owned Bank of China, after a New York Times report on the subject. "Donald Trump should stop hiding behind fake excuses and release his tax returns and immediately disclose the full extent of his business interests," Podesta said.