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Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Sissi ‘certain’ Trump can bring peace to Mideast as Arab leaders weigh $20B Gaza reconstruction

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said he’s “certain” President Trump can broker peace in the Middle East on Tuesday as the country presented a $20 billion reconstruction plan for war-torn Gaza.

At a summit of Arab leaders in Cairo on Tuesday, the Egyptian government offered an alternative to Trump’s controversial plan to move Palestinians out of Gaza and redevelop it under US control.

The proposal involves raising billions from the oil-rich Arab states and the international community to invest in the Palestinian enclave over the next two years.

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The plan garnered support from the Arab League nations. It calls for the money to be used to build 200,000 housing units in Gaza, where nearly 70% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed by the war.

But an elephant in the room remains: The Israel-Hamas cease-fire expired over the weekend and the two sides have not agreed to extend the truce — though they have not resumed fighting yet, either.

The proposal comes after Trump pushed a plan to evacuate the more than 2 million residents living in Gaza, calling the enclave uninhabitable and tapping the US to take it over and rebuild it into a “Riviera.”

Trump’s proposal earned widespread backlash and allegations of “ethnic cleansing,” with the US administration repeatedly suggesting that the Palestinians would be moved to Egypt and Jordan with no word on whether they would ever be allowed to return to Gaza.

The Trump administration has maintained that the president’s proposal was meant to pressure leaders in the Middle East to come up with their own alternative plans to the reconstruction issue.

Egypt’s counter has been met with praise as it calls for reconstruction without the need to displace the Palestinian inhabitants who have been forced to relocate repeatedly during the war.

“I welcome and strongly endorse the Arab-led initiative to mobilize support for Gaza’s reconstruction, clearly expressed in this summit,” UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

“The UN stands ready to fully cooperate in this endeavor.”

Both the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas also appeared to welcome the Egyptian plan, which also called for elections to be held in Gaza within a year.

Hamas halted the voting when it came into power in 2006.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas said his group, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas, was the only legitimate governing and military force able to rule the enclave.

Abbas said he is ready to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in Gaza.

Questions over who will rule Gaza have become the biggest sticking point of achieving a permanent end to the Gaza war and the return of all Israeli hostages.

Israeli said that Hamas must be wiped out in Gaza, and cannot return to power. However, the Jewish state also opposes the Palestinian Authority taking over.

Hamas has agreed to abide by whatever reconstruction plan gains the most support from Palestinian and Arad leaders, spokesman Hazem Qassem told Turkish news outlet Anadolu.

“Hamas does not necessarily have to be part of these arrangements, nor is it interested in being involved in them at all,” Qassem said of the postwar plans.

The terror group said it would not support the plans being proposed by “external forces,” referencing Trump’s plan, which has been touted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “visionary and innovative” idea that must be carried out.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/04/world-news/egyptian-president-sissi-says-hes-certain-trump-can-bring-peace-to-the-middle-east/

United Auto Workers union praises Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union praised President Trump’s new tariffs on Tuesday, claiming it’s necessary for America to “end the free trade disaster.”

The union, with more than 1 million members, touted Trump’s decision to place a new round of 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, where America imports tens of billions of dollars worth of cars and parts every year.

“Tariffs are a powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals,” the union said in a statement.

“We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class.”

Although the union has historically supported Democrats, endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024, the UAW has said it’s eager to start negotiating with the Trump administration to discuss the auto tariffs and how it’ll benefit their members.

The UAW, which has come to embrace Trump’s America-first policy, is hoping the tariffs prompt American automakers to bring jobs and factories back to the US.

American automakers have kept the cost of business down by investing in production plants north and south of the border, savings that would effectively be undone by the new tariffs.

The US imported $87 billion worth of cars and another $64 billion in parts from Mexico last year, according to the US Commerce Department.

America also imported nearly $57 million in cars and parts from Canada, according to the Census Bureau.

Trump’s tariffs are expected to see the cost of vehicles rise, along with a plethora of goods across the US.

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, previously warned last month that the new tariffs could undo all the savings automakers have enjoyed thus far, leaving the sector fuming as there’s little recourse other than to raise prices at the consumer’s expense.

The UAW said that despite the looming price increases, it will be companies that raise the costs that are ultimately to blame, not Trump.

“There’s been a lot of talk of these tariffs ‘disrupting’ the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don’t want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision,” the UAW said.

Economists have repeatedly predicted that the American auto industry could be among the biggest victims of the trade wars, with Kelley Blue Book estimating that the price of the average new car could spike by $3,000 more.

The vehicle valuation and automotive research company also estimated that the price of some full-size pickup trucks could shoot up by $10,000.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/04/us-news/united-auto-workers-union-praises-trumps-tariffs-on-canada-and-mexico/

Allurion New U.S. Patents on Next-Generation Weight Loss Device for the Treatment of Obesity

Allurion Technologies, Inc. (“Allurion” or the “Company”) (NYSE: ALUR), a company dedicated to ending obesity, today announced that it has received two Issue Notifications from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) dated February 19, 2025 for U.S. Patent No. 12,246,163 titled “Automatic-Sealing Balloon-Filling Catheter System” and U.S. Patent No. 12,245,962 titled “Balloon Sealing and Fill Valve”. These patents, both of which are scheduled to issue on March 11, 2025, provide additional claims for an enhanced, next-generation version of Allurion’s proprietary Balloon technology for the treatment of obesity that includes an enhanced valve for Balloon filling and an innovative mechanism that controls balloon opening. These patents are expected to provide protection through April 2043. With the issuance of these patents, the Company now has 22 patents issued in the U.S. and 64 patents issued globally.

The Allurion Program is a weight-loss platform that combines the Allurion Gastric Balloon, the world’s first and only swallowable, procedure-lessTM gastric balloon for weight loss with the Allurion Virtual Care Suite, including the Allurion Mobile App and Connected Scale for consumers and Allurion Insights for healthcare providers featuring the Iris AI Platform. Patients on the Allurion Program lose 10-15% of their total body weight and in certain studies have been shown to increase their muscle mass.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250304954371/en/Allurion-Announces-Notification-of-Issuance-of-New-U.S.-Patents-on-Next-Generation-Weight-Loss-Device-for-the-Treatment-of-Obesity

Clinical hold on BioNTech malaria vaccine trial

BioNTech said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has placed a clinical hold on an early-to-mid stage trial of. it malaria vaccine.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/BIONTECH-SE-66771992/news/U-S-FDA-places-clinical-hold-on-BioNTech-s-malaria-vaccine-study-49235955/

Musk Says All Government Agencies 'Cooperating With DOGE'

by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Adviser to President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, said Saturday that some federal agencies will respond on behalf of employees to an email asking what federal workers did in the past week and that all agencies are cooperating with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was created last month to cut waste, fraud, and excess spending.

“All federal government departments are cooperating with DOGE,” he wrote.

For the Departments of State, Defense Department, and “a few others, the supervisors are gathering the weekly accomplishments on behalf of individual contributors,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X.

Over the weekend, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent out a second round of emails to multiple agencies asking all federal employees to list five things they accomplished that week.

Earlier on Saturday, Musk said in a separate X post that responding to the email “is mandatory for the executive branch” and that “anyone working on classified or other sensitive matters is still required to respond if they receive the email, but can simply reply that their work is sensitive.”

An email that was sent to Defense Department civilian employees, seen by The Epoch Times, provided guidance to the “what you did last week” email and said employees must respond to it within 48 hours. “A response to this email satisfies all OPM requirements for the past two weeks,” the email to Pentagon employees added.

Musk, with Trump’s backing, has pressed for the emails as a means to hold workers accountable and as a “pulse check” to make sure all federal employees on the payroll actually exist.

The emails are part of broader efforts by Musk and DOGE to downsize the federal government and reduce spending. Musk and Trump have said that the organization is needed to find and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. Democratic lawmakers and labor unions have criticized DOGE, saying that widespread cuts could hamper crucial government functions and services.

Musk and DOGE have been targeted by multiple lawsuits seeking to block them from accessing government systems and confidential data. The suits allege that Musk and DOGE are violating the Constitution by wielding the kind of vast power that only comes from agencies created through the Congress or appointments made with confirmation by the Senate.

At the first Trump Cabinet meeting held last week, Musk explained the role that DOGE will play. He also addressed the mass emails that were sent to federal employees.

“I think that email perhaps was misinterpreted as a performance review, but, actually, it was a pulse check review,” Musk said, adding that “this is not a high bar.”

“What we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond,” he said.

Shortly before the first round of emails were sent out last month, Trump had called on Musk to “get more aggressive” with spending cuts and reform to the government. After they were sent out, Trump told reporters in the White House, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, that those who do not answer the email are at risk of termination.

Musk is not a Cabinet-level official and has been listed as a presidential adviser to Trump with a special government employee status. The Trump administration has given conflicting statements on the exact role that Musk plays within DOGE or whether he actually heads it.

In court papers last month, a senior White House official said that Musk is not in charge of DOGE, nor an employee of the department. Trump later said that Musk is effectively leading the organization.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/musk-says-all-government-agencies-cooperating-doge