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SAAB BANKRUPT

TURKEY

Turkish firm pulls Saab bid over GM ‘rebuff’

Turkish private equity firm Brightwell Holdings has withdrawn a bid to buy bankrupt Swedish carmaker Saab owing to a lack of cooperation from former owner GM, a Swedish daily reported Tuesday.

Turkish firm pulls Saab bid over GM 'rebuff'

“We have withdrawn the bid… We cannot continue due to GM’s attitude,” Brightwell Holdings board member and spokesman Zamier Ahmed told financial daily Dagens Industri (DI).

Ahmed told AFP last month the private equity firm was planning a bid to purchase all of the Swedish carmaker that filed for bankruptcy on December 19th, and according to DI the plan had been to rehire most of Saab’s old employees.

But Ahmed said that talks late on Monday had faltered with GM, which has blocked previous attempts to sell the carmaker by refusing to transfer the necessary technology licences.

GM first bought 50 percent of Saab in 1990 and fully owned it from 2000 until it sold the Swedish brand already on the brink of bankruptcy to Dutch carmaker Spyker — now called Swedish Automobile — in early 2010.

Saab administrator Hans Bergqvist reiterated during a telephone conference on Tuesday that a number of “indicative bids” had come in for the bankrupt company, both from abroad and from within Sweden, but would not comment on where the bids came from or whether any potential bidders had pulled out.

Bergqvist, who had previously said there were as many as seven interested parties, would not provide numbers Tuesday but said said new parties had voiced interest for Saab over the past week.

Chinese carmaker Youngman, which had been negotiating to buy Saab before it filed for bankruptcy and which has continued to express interest in the company, meanwhile confirmed to public broadcaster SVT that it had placed a preliminary bid for all of Saab of about two billion kronor ($298 million).

Reports have also surfaced that Indian commercial utility vehicles manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra has placed a bid as well.

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ISLAM

Erdogan calls French separatism bill ‘guillotine’ of democracy

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday denounced a planned French law designed to counter "Islamist separatism" as a "guillotine" of democracy.

Erdogan calls French separatism bill 'guillotine' of democracy
Erdogan has already denounced the proposed measures as "anti-Muslim". Photo: Adem ALTAN/AFP

The draft legislation has been criticised both inside France and abroad for stigmatising Muslims and giving the state new powers to limit speech and religious groups.

“The adoption of this law, which is openly in contradiction of human rights, freedom of religion and European values, will be a guillotine blow inflicted on French democracy,” said Erdogan in a speech in Ankara.

The current version of the planned law would only serve the cause of extremism, putting NGOs under pressure and “forcing young people to choose between their beliefs and their education”, he added.

READ ALSO: What’s in France’s new law to crack down on Islamist extremism?

“We call on the French authorities, and first of all President (Emmanuel) Macron, to act sensibly,” he continued. “We expect a rapid withdrawal of this bill.”

Erdogan also said he was ready to work with France on security issues and integration, but relations between the two leaders have been strained for some time.

France’s government is in the process of passing new legislation to crack down on what it has termed “Islamist separatism”, which would give the state more power to vet and disband religious groups judged to be threats to the nation.

Erdogan has already denounced the proposed measures as “anti-Muslim”.

READ ALSO: Has Macron succeeded in creating an ‘Islam for France’?

Last October, Erdogan questioned Macron’s “mental health”, accusing him of waging a “campaign of hatred” against Islam, after the French president defended the right of cartoonists to caricature the prophet Mohammed.

The two countries are also at odds on a number of other issues, including Libya, Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.

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