As support from Western governments continues to prop up Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, people of conscience continue to mobilize at the grassroots to pressure their political leaders to change course. On Friday, Sept. 27, students, NGO staff, and workers from over 200 unions across Spain waged a 24-hour general strike to demand the Spanish government cut ties with Israel and end all forms of military aid. The Real News reports from the streets of Madrid.
Producer, Videographer, Editor: María Artigas Assistant Producer: Sato Díaz Translation, Narrator: Pedro Rubio
Transcript
Protesters: Resistance! Resistance! Long live the Palestinian people’s fight!
Reporter: Tens of thousands of people across Spain took to the streets to protest the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The CGT and Solidaridad Obrera unions called a general strike, backed by hundreds of associations and organizations. The MATS union (Health Workers Assembly Movement) joined the protests with a gathering at the 12 de Octubre Hospital in Madrid, demanding an end to the genocide and the military, commercial, and diplomatic relations between the Spanish government and Israel.
Edurne Prado: From the union we have called for this rally because we are seeing a live genocide of the Palestinian people. Now also to the Lebanese people. And we, as health workers, cannot forget not only the thousands of families and children who have died, but also that we have colleagues there risking their lives day by day, without any resources and working out of pure vocation and saving people’s lives. And for us it is also important today to call names, to denounce the complicity of all European governments, of our own government, which claims to be progressive but then does not break commercial or diplomatic relations with the state of Israel. And for us today is also a day to denounce.
Reporter: Pickets, marches, and various protests were held throughout the morning. Around 150 towns and cities across the country organized actions in support of the general strike, with notable mobilizations in cities like Barcelona, Granada, Valencia, Zaragoza, and Seville.
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In Madrid, hundreds of participants gathered at the doors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand action from the Spanish government.
Protesters: Boycott, boycott, boycott Israel! Military budgets for schools and hospitals! Break, break, break with Israel!
José Luis Carretero: We called for a general strike and a day of protest because we understand that, in the first place, public services must be defended. In the face of the fact that public money is being used to sustain wars, to sustain a situation of growing warlike confrontation in Europe and the Mediterranean as a whole. And we also raise it in defense of human rights, of children’s rights in Palestine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, especially in Palestine. We raise it because, at the end of the day, we workers have the right to state that our interests are not only limited to wage increases or working conditions, vacations, and leaves, but also in the defense of fundamental rights and what was traditionally known as workers’ internationalism. And in that sense we also defend the right of workers to express their solidarity with all subjugated peoples. We ask the Spanish government to do everything possible to stop this genocide. We understand the severance of relations with the state of Israel, the severance of diplomatic relations with the state of Israel and also the denunciation of the international trade treaty that it has with the European Union, with the state of Israel, we understand that it is absolutely necessary, and also to do everything possible to comply with international arrest warrants that are already on the table by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice against those responsible for this genocide.
Protesters: It is not a war, it is genocide! No more complicity! Israel murders, Europe sponsors!
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Carmen Arnaiz: We are here mainly because Palestinian workers sent a call many months ago to all European workers asking us what we were going to do about the genocide that was taking place in their land. So, based on that call, from our organization we initially decided that the biggest response we could give as a union is to call a general strike. But obviously it had to be with other comrades, because otherwise it would not have made sense for us to call a strike. In the end, 218 organizations have adhered to the call. And what we intended with this day of general strike and struggle, because they are organizing rallies, marches, as well as picket lines and other things, is to denounce that the Spanish government is spending enormous amounts of money on arms, much more than on social services, much more than on education, health, aid for dependency, fair pensions, regularization of so many comrades who are in an irregular situation, migrants, and yet it is redirecting all that money to the arms business, to the sale of arms — and, on top of that, with a genocidal state that, according to all international legislation, we should have broken off all diplomatic relations of all kinds with it. The embassy is still open here, arms are still being sold, despite the fact that they say it is not true and they have recognized the state of Palestine. But it has been an act of posturing, because at the moment of truth they continue negotiating with Israel, they continue supporting all that barbarity that is there with our taxes. They are making us accomplices of a genocide. So, as civil society, as many people around the world outraged by this, we have organized ourselves to try to raise our voices and demand, of course, that the genocide ends and for all and that, in the meantime, as a means of pressure, immediately cut off all relations with any government that is committing genocide against a people.
Protesters: From the river to the sea, Palestine shall overcome!
Reporter: Universities also responded to the strike call. After the sit-ins in May, students and professors organized again for this day of action. Under the slogan “We will no longer study to the sound of bombs,” the Complutense Professors’ Network and the students from the Madrid sit-in took to the streets to condemn the genocide in Gaza. The day featured roundtable discussions, campus walkouts, rallies, and protests.
Rub: We have come out to argue against the responsibility of the Spanish government for continuing to send economic and military support to the genocidal state of Israel, and also to denounce the complicity of our university, which continues to maintain relations with Israeli universities. It continues to keep companies that finance Israel’s genocide on the social councils and university boards of directors. Following the internationalist wake that the encampments were having and also picking up the fighting spirit of the students who were already going out to fight directly against governments as in the case of Sri Lanka, we decided to have an encampment also in Madrid, which denounced the complicity of our universities and, again, Spanish imperialism and how our government participates in it. And I think it is important to reemphasize all the struggle against the repression that took place in our encampment, but above all in the United States and in France and in Germany, where the repression was terrible, people were arrested, they tried to charge them as terrorists. And I think it is very important that we recover that spirit of struggle in the student movement and in the Spanish workers’ movement.
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Eva Aladro: The University cannot stand still in the face of a genocide of the size we are witnessing, which we are also seeing spreading to other countries and which continues with the same line of massacring civilian populations under the excuse of wanting to put an end to terrorism, as more terrorist acts are carried out by Israel. We professors started mobilizations together with the students, and our idea is to continue in the same line, because we believe that both the academics and the students, as well as the whole youth community in our country, which is mobilized, are the social conscience. And they are the ones who really have to make an effort in some way to awaken society, so that they refuse to accept a situation such as we are living, of hundreds of dead human beings, children, women, etc. every week. Unfortunately, the only way to stop the war is to make the war unprofitable. So there are three things to achieve this that are the key. The first is to disinvest in the companies, businesses, and universities that are contributing to a massacre like the one in Gaza. There is another option, which is also to block all the activities that have to do with and whose interest is based on that massacre. And another very important thing is to mobilize society and public sensibility not to accept products, etc. from communities or countries that are carrying out genocide. There is a very important legislative initiative that we, the professors of all the public universities of Madrid, are carrying out, which is a letter that we have sent to the high commissioners of both the European Parliament and the Committee on Research and Innovation, asking them to respect their own Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation Agreement, which states that no treaties or agreements or principles of cooperation can be established with countries that are violating democratic rights and democratic principles.
Therefore, the European Union has very specific legislation that must prevent any treaty of friendship and cooperation, with a country that is committing genocide. So we, the professors, have received a response letter in which they tell us that they are going to try to convene a meeting with Israel, but we want to force that, really, if the Euro-Mediterranean agreement itself is not complied with, we are going to take it to the European courts. And from there we will continue, because we believe that this is one of the initiatives that we believe must be developed, because it is at the legislative and court level where perhaps we will achieve the respect for international legality that we do not achieve at the political level or at the level of institutions.
Protesters: Gaza, hang on, Madrid rises up!
Reporter: Thousands attended the afternoon mass march through the heart of the capital, from Atocha Station to Callao Square. The organizing unions put the number of participants in the afternoon marches nationwide at more than 150,000 people. And more than 200 trade union and social organizations supported the strike call.
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Deva Mar Escobedo: I came here today with my colleagues from trans in fight quite excited about the strike. I was following the picket lines and the marches in other cities. I think they can be the most powerful things of today and of this new political course, that we can do more pressure, get a real change of positions in the government and stop this genocide. Because I think it is very important as citizens that we come to all protests, all mobilizations that we can, because, after all, we are witnessing a genocide live. I believe we have a duty as individuals to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
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An offer from US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice has beaten rivals, pursuing French pharmaceutical company Sanofi’s consumer healthcare division, in what is set to be the largest European healthcare deal this year, according to five people with direct knowledge of the process.
The American group on Thursday edged out a submission from a consortium led by French private equity firm PAI as it nears a deal with the French seller. Negotiations between Sanofi and CD&R will now continue, the people said. A deal could be reached within days but is not yet finalised.
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CD&R’s offer values the business, which makes over-the-counter pain management and allergy medications, such as Doliprane and Allegra, at €15.5bn. Sanofi would keep a stake of about 50 per cent in the business with a view to selling it in the next few years, the people said.
Sanofi did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CD&R and PAI declined to comment. The offer was first reported by French newspaper Les Echos.
A transaction would be the latest of several sales of consumer divisions by pharmaceutical companies, as large groups in the sector seek to dispose of steady but low-earning businesses to focus their resources on the riskier but more lucrative field of drug development.
Sanofi has been exploring options for a sale or a potential float since it announced plans to separate the division a year ago. The Opella consumer division accounts for a tenth of the group’s total sales.
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Chief executive Paul Hudson told the Financial Times last year that a future as a publicly listed entity was “the most likely path” for the division, but Sanofi seems to now be moving towards a private equity-led takeover.
In 2021, GSK and Pfizer listed their joint-venture consumer healthcare business Haleon in London, while Johnson & Johnson of the US separated off its consumer company Kenvue in 2022.
In keeping a large stake in Opella, Sanofi would seek to benefit from the reliable earnings it offers. GSK and Pfizer also both maintained large stakes in Haleon on listing, which they have since sold down.
Hudson will now focus on improving the company’s research and development output. The executive took investors by surprise last October when he decided to scrap Sanofi’s margin target for 2025 and unveiled plans to spend an additional €2bn on research in 2024 and 2025, leading to a 19 per cent hit to the company’s share price.
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Sanofi is heavily reliant on income from its blockbuster asthma and allergy treatment Dupixent; developed by US drugmaker Regeneron, the drug accounted for almost a quarter of sales in 2023, but will lose patent protection around 2031.
Hudson has outlined 12 potential blockbuster candidates to shareholders in a bid to convince them that he can deliver on the company’s R&D ambitions.
Reporting by Ian Johnston, Adrienne Klasa, Ivan Levingston, Oliver Barnes and Alexandra Heal
THE Prime Minister’s axed Chief of Staff today misses a first big meeting in her new envoy role.
Sue Gray will skip the inaugural get-together in Edinburgh of the Council of Nations and Regions.
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Sue Gray will miss her first big meeting in her new envoy roleCredit: Getty
She was forced to quit amid major infighting in Downing Street over the freebies scandal that has dogged the Government.
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Ms Gray said that negative headlines around her role had risked her becoming a distraction.
She is taking a break before working with devolved administrations and regional leaders.
Earlier in the week, Gray dramatically quit as chief of staff after finding herself in the eye of a political storm.
Ms Gray said she didn’t want to become a “distraction” and would serve as the Prime Minister’s envoy for the regions and nations.
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Her departure followed weeks of hostile briefings targeting her alleged micromanagement style, Labour’s perceived lack of readiness for Government, and her inability to prevent or manage the donations row.
The former Whitehall propriety and ethics chief said in a statement: “After leading the Labour party’s preparation for government and kickstarting work on our programme for change, I am looking forward to drawing on my experience to support the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to help deliver the government’s objectives across the nations and regions of the UK.
Ms Gray added: “Throughout my career my first interest has always been public service. However in recent weeks it has become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the Government’s vital work of change.
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“It is for that reason I have chosen to stand aside, and I look forward to continuing to support the Prime Minister in my new role.”
Fury as Home Secretary watched Taylor Swift for FREE days after urging cops to give star VIP blue light escort
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Britain’s Labour government came to power facing a balancing act between its manifesto commitment to offer a “new deal for working people”, and fulfilling its pledge to be pro-growth and pro-business. Employers have sounded alarms over the impact of its landmark employment rights bill; the Federation of Small Businesses called it “rushed, chaotic and poorly planned”. But by moderating some promises and committing to further consultation, Labour has shown itself ready to listen to business — even at risk of irking its union allies. It should continue to heed corporate concerns as it thrashes out how the bill will be implemented. Above all, it must not undermine the priority of boosting UK growth, productivity and competitiveness in its quest to bolster workers’ rights.
The government’s biggest concession is to soften the day-one protection for employees against unfair dismissal that has been a centrepiece of its plans. Companies had worried they could face costly employment tribunals simply for dismissing new hires who proved unsuitable — a potential disincentive to take on workers, especially for small business. There will now be a statutory probation period during which employers need follow only a “lighter-touch” dismissals process than the more onerous procedure that currently kicks in after two years of employment. The probation period is to be consulted on, but ministers have signalled they favour nine months — an apparent victory for pro-business voices in the cabinet.
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The bill will deliver day-one rights to parental, paternity and bereavement leave for millions of workers, as Labour had promised. Employers will have to pay statutory sick pay from the first day of illness, rather than after three days as now. But some promised steps are tempered or postponed. A default right to flexible working will apply only where practical. A “right to disconnect”, barring employers from contacting staff outside hours, is sensibly now expected to be addressed separately through a statutory code of practice.
Some abusive practices will rightly be curbed, including the “exploitative” use of zero-hours contracts. More than 1mn people on such arrangements will gain new rights to a contract reflecting a pattern of regular hours they build up over time — though workers, some of whom prefer zero hours, do not have to accept. Loopholes that businesses have used to fire workers then rehire them on worse pay or terms will be closed, except where companies can show they are at genuine risk of failing. Less positive is the repeal of Conservative legislation designed to preserve minimum levels of public services during strikes.
Many measures are subject to further consultation over secondary legislation required to implement them; some will not take effect before 2026. That means workers will wait two years for some rights, and businesses face further uncertainty. But it allows time to hammer out the balance between employees’ and employers’ rights, and iron out wrinkles in a bill ministers scurried to publish within a 100-day deadline.
Striking the right balance on employment rights is, however, only one part of a broader picture. Whether Labour lives up to its pro-business billing will depend, too, on avoiding burdening companies with excessive taxes in the Budget, finding money to invest in infrastructure, training and skills, and coming up with a credible industrial strategy. After a rocky start, the government will hope publishing the employment bill, on top of efforts to get a grip on its Downing Street operation this week, marks a reset. Business, much of which gave Labour the benefit of the doubt due to frustration with the Conservatives, still needs some convincing about its growth credentials.
For a limited time at participating Krispy Kreme shops, guests can enjoy the new doughnuts in a limited-edition custom Ghostbusters dozens box.
The new treats include:
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Ghostbusters (from £3.15) – an Original Glazed dipped in chocolatey icing, topped with dark biscuit crumb, silver sugar and a No Ghost logo plaque.
Slimer (from £3.15) –filled with green lemon filling, dipped in purple icing, piped with green icing and a Slimer plaque.
Ecto-Sprinkles (Feature Pack exclusive) – an Original Glazed dipped in orange icing and half rolled in Halloween sprinkles.
Spooky Sprinkles (from £2.65) – Original Glazed dipped in chocolatey icing and topped with Halloween sprinkles.
Dave Skena, Global Chief Brand Officer for Krispy Kreme, said: “Yes it’s true, these treats are no trick.
“When it comes to Halloween this year, you know who to call.
“Krispy Kreme is the gatekeeper to Halloween sweetness and Sony Pictures Consumer Products is the key master to bring spooky-sweet Ghostbusters doughnuts to our fans this year.
“You’re welcome, Gozer.”
The UK shop that top star says should be on ‘UK Heritage List’ – as it’s better than the Eiffel Tower
Krispy Kreme and Ghostbusters fans can also get a limited time Krispy Kreme dozen (from £ 25.95) featuring the Ghostbusters, Slimer, Ecto-Sprinkles and Original Glazed Doughnut.
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The dozen are delivered fresh daily to all Krispy Kreme shops, selected grocery shops, and are also available for delivery straight to your door via nationwide delivery.
Venu Krishna, Barclays head of U.S. equity strategy, said while talking to CNBC in a latest program that he is not revising his S&P 500 year-end projection of 5,600 because he believes stock valuations are “full.”
“If you see what’s happening, numbers (earnings) have been cut sharply going into the end. What is still anchoring the market is big tech, even though their earnings themselves are kind of decelerating. Then seasonality comes into play. October is the weakest month, and you don’t want to get ahead of that.”
Asked whether he does not believe the market really broadened out, Krishna said while there were some signs of market broadening, the “anchor” of the rally remains big tech, which according to him, are just six stocks.
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Moving beyond the earnings and valuations debate, another factor still impacting investor sentiment is the Federal Reserve’s next moves.
Talking about the latest Fed minutes released October 9, Wolfe Research’s Stephanie Roth said on CNBC that a “substantial” majority of Fed officials wanted a 50-basis-point rate cut. However, she said in the next meeting, a 50bps rate cut is “off the table.”
For this article we picked 10 AI stocks trending on latest news. With each stock we mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA): Leading AI Chip Demand Despite Blackwell Delay
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has yet again reiterated that NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) will be among the top beneficiaries of the huge AI spending.
“The supply chain is seeing unparalleled demand for AI chips led by the Godfather of AI Jensen and NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) and ultimately leading to this tidal wave of enterprise spending as AI use cases explode across the enterprise,” analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note to clients. “We believe the overall AI infrastructure market opportunity could grow 10x from today through 2027 as this next generation AI foundation gets built, with our estimates [showing] a $1 trillion of AI cap-ex spending is on the horizon [over] the next 3 years.”
Nvidia’s declines after the Q2 results were more or less expected amid Blackwell delay reports confirmed by management. However, the delays were mainly due to a change in Blackwell GPU mask. That does not affect the main functional logic or design of the chip, according to analysts. While Blackwell has been delayed for a few months, it does not change the core growth thesis for Nvidia.
Nvidia is set to see huge growth on the back of the data center boom amid the AI wave.
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At Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in March 2024, CEO Jensen Huang estimated annual spending on data center infrastructure at about $250 billion. Over the next decade, this could total between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, depending on how long this level of investment continues. During the same Q&A session, Bank of America’s Vivek Arya echoed this estimate, suggesting the total addressable market would fall in the $1-2 trillion range, particularly as countries invest in their own AI infrastructure. By the end of the decade, spending could be at the high end of that range.
Of course, Nvidia won’t dominate the entire $2 trillion opportunity, as it faces competition from companies like AMD and internally developed AI accelerators from Google, Amazon, and even Apple. Some analysts believe Nvidia’s data center market share between 2025 to 2029 will be over $950 billion—less than half of the total market—but still enough to make it the leader in the sector.
Generation Investment Management Global Equity Strategy stated the following regarding NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Recent net performance is behind market averages. However since the fund’s inception, we have spent only about 8% of the time underperforming on a rolling five-year basis.1 We do not enjoy these spells. A number of different factors has contributed to the current period of underperformance. The fact that we do not own NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is one. That single company accounted for roughly 25% of returns in the benchmark so far this year, meaning almost everyone who does not own Nvidia has lost out. Year-to-date, not owning Nvidia explains about a third of our relative underperformance.
Nvidia is, clearly, an earnings juggernaut. In the past year its revenue has more than tripled, as cloud companies load up on hardware to power AI models. So while its earnings multiple has increased, we are not seeing a repeat of the dotcom mania of the late 1990s. This company’s valuation is backed by cold, hard cash…” (Click here to read the full text)
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Overall, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) ranks 5th on Insider Monkey’s list titled Top 10 AI Stocks Investors are Talking About in October. While we acknowledge the potential of NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than NVDA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Private equity groups including Platinum Equity, Clearlake Capital and Apollo Global are struggling with the hefty debt loads of their holdings, Moody’s said on Thursday.
In a new analysis, the agency indicated that recent increases in interest rates have put the assets held by some of the world US’s fastest-growing PE groups under strain.
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It said more than half of the companies in the portfolios of Platinum and Clearlake, both Los Angeles-based, are at heightened risk of default, with a rating of B3 or below.
Moody’s said the holdings of Clearlake, a co-owner of Chelsea Football Club, and Platinum had the highest leverage ratios of the firms it surveyed, while others had begun to reduce their debt loads.
The two groups have attracted tens of billions of dollars in recent years from top institutional investors in North America, transforming them from niche middle-market firms into dealmaking powerhouses.
While Clearlake grew from about $1bn in assets in 2008 to $90bn today, the size of Platinum’s funds has nearly quintupled during that time to almost $50bn in assets.
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The report found that overall in the two years to August, portfolio companies of the top dozen buyout groups defaulted at a rate of 14.3 per cent, a figure twice as high as that for companies not backed by private equity.
Private capital powerhouses including Apollo Global and Ares Management have had buyouts suffer. Nearly a quarter of the Apollo-owned companies that Moody’s rates have defaulted since 2022, while 47 per cent of Ares-backed companies they follow are distressed, the agency said.
Platinum did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Representatives of Apollo and Clearlake disputed Moody’s definition of a default and said it was overly broad.
A representative for Ares Management declined to comment.
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The industry has been hit by the swiftest interest rate increases in a generation, which brought down valuations that had soared during the pandemic and pummelled the balance sheets of thousands of highly leveraged private equity-backed companies.
Between January 2022 and August of this year, more than a third of the Platinum-owned companies rated by Moody’s underwent restructuring or a debt default. Seventeen per cent of Clearlake’s portfolio suffered the same outcome.
Clearlake also became an active user of so-called continuation funds, where the group in effect sells the company to itself and other investors — novel deals that will be tested by higher rates for the first time.
Earlier this year, car parts supplier Wheel Pros, one of Clearlake’s largest fund-to-fund deals, went bankrupt. Moody’s report said it considers similar deals by the group, including for software companies like Symplr, as distressed.
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The fast-growing market for private credit has impeded rating agencies’ task, since such loans are more difficult to track than more traditional forms of borrowing.
As a result of the increased difficulty of analysis, buyout groups including Vista Equity, Carlyle and Thoma Bravo — historically among Moody’s most-frequently rated companies in the US — have now “nearly disappeared”, the agency said.
Private credit can “mask some issues” in a private equity firm’s portfolio, Julia Chursin, vice-president at Moody’s, said in an interview. “There could be some opaque credit risk which is absorbed by the private credit sector, although they claim they only pick good ones.”
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