Image copyrightReutersImage caption The statue is part of a campaign to encourage companies to act against gender inequality
The statue of a young girl staring down Wall Street’s famous stock market bull was installed to draw attention to gender inequality and the pay gap in the corporate world.
But in an ironic twist the firm behind the Fearless Girl statue will pay $5m (£3.8m; €4.3m) in a row over equal pay.
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has been accused by the US Department of Labor of paying hundreds of female executives less than male colleagues.
The firm denies the claims.
It said it wanted to bring an end to the matter.
The fund manager will pay the settlement to more than 300 senior female staff which were paid less than their male counterparts, according to the Department of Labor.
The disparity was uncovered during a 2012 pay audit.
The settlement also covers allegations that the firm paid 15 black employees less than their white counterparts.
State Street has denied any pay discrimination for both its female and black employees.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption Mayor Bill de Blasio said the statue was “standing up to fear, standing up to power”
In a statement, the firm said it was “committed to equal pay practices” and that it “evaluates on an ongoing basis our internal processes to be sure our compensation, hiring and promotions programs are non-discriminatory.”
It’s not the first time that the statue has attracted controversy.
When State Street commissioned the statue by artist Kristen Visbal it said the girl represented the future.
It added that one in four of the 3,000 largest traded US companies did not have even one woman on their board.
But the sculptor behind Wall Street’s Charging Bull statue said that the new sculpture’s presence changes the artistic meaning of his famous statue.
Italian-born sculptor Arturo Di Modica Di Modica argued the girl is not a work of art, but rather an “advertising trick” since it was sponsored by investment firm State Street Global Advisers, and erected by advertising firm McCann.
Installed in 1989, the bronze bull was meant to represent the “strength and power of the American people” in response to the market crash in 1987.
Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS
Nigeria's Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed
By Amos Tauna
Kaduna (Nigeria) — Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has explained that the transition from analogue to digital broadcasting in the country is needed to give Nigerians a total television viewing experience that will transform their lives and change TV viewing forever.
Speaking in Calabar when he commissioned the ultra-modern Digital Set Box manufacturing plant, owned by Gospell Digital Technology, the Minister said, “I have continued to reiterate, and the quality of the service we launched goes to confirm, that our objective is not to just move Nigerians from analogue to digital in a simple technical sense, but to improve the viewing experience and give them increased variety of channels and services.
He challenged the manufacturers of Set Top Boxes/Decoders in the country to produce a multi-purpose television set that would help in transforming the TV experience of Nigerians.
“The average home today – in order to have access to the various types of entertainment will require a television, a Set Top Box and a VCD/DVD player. This era is about to end.
“I am challenging the industry to move to one device in the home – the television. Give us a TV with a built-in decoder and the requisite middle-ware inside it, being able to access Nollywood releases with or without the internet, and with a remote control that can convert the TV into a computer.
“And please not for the rich, but for every Nigerian home. With that, we will have succeeded in the reduction of the cost of access to television, information and education,” he said.
The Minister hailed Gospell Digital Technology for building the country’s largest electronic manufacturing and assembly plant, saying the investors and the managers of the manufacturing plant have exhibited absolute confidence, ”first in the future and economy prosperity of our beloved country, and of course in the Digital Switch Over (DSO) programme.
The plant, situated in the Calabar Export Free Trade Zone, has the capacity to produce 2.4 million Set Top Boxes annually, and has already provided 500 jobs.
”Going by its achievements in so short a time, the company’s vision of becoming the leading manufacturer of household electronic video, home entertainment and electrical appliances in Africa is very much within its reach,” Mr. Mohammed said.
Also present at the commissioning were the Executive Governor of Cross River State, Prof. Ben Ayade; the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Senator Suleiman Adokwe; Senator Shehu Sani, Senator Samuel Anyanwu; Senator Mao Ohuabunwa and the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Is’haq Modibo Kawu.
The National Rifle Association has called for “additional regulations” on bump-stocks, a rapid fire device used by the Las Vegas massacre gunman.
The group said: “Devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.”
Republicans have said they would consider banning the tool, despite years of resisting any gun control.
Lawmakers plan to hold hearings and consider a bill to outlaw the device.
The NRA called on Thursday for regulators to “immediately review whether these devices comply with federal law”.
President Donald Trump later told reporters his administration would be looking into whether to ban them “in the next short period of time”.
“In the aftermath of the evil and senseless attack in Las Vegas, the American people are looking for answers as to how future tragedies can be prevented,” NRA chiefs Wayne LaPierre and Chris Cox wrote in the statement.
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Media caption‘It was the scariest moment in my life’
They criticised politicians who are calling for gun control, writing that “banning guns from law-abiding Americans based on the criminal act of a madman will do nothing to prevent future attacks”.
The statement, the organisation’s first since Sunday’s attack in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and nearly 500 injured, noted that bump-stocks were approved by the Obama administration’s Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.
The NRA’s strategy for responding to the Las Vegas mass-shooting is now coming into focus.
By recommending that an executive branch agency conduct a review of the legality of bump stock devices, the extremely influential gun rights lobby is seeking to direct efforts towards administrative, not legislative, solutions.
If Congress were to start drafting new laws, the process may be more difficult for the NRA to control. Democrats, who have been clamouring for the opportunity to debate new gun-control laws, could have their chance. Republican congressional leadership may try to clamp down on the proceedings, but there’s a chance other proposals -like limits on magazine capacity, military-style rifle features and new background check requirements – could come up for consideration.
These types of provisions are popular with the public at large but vigorously opposed by the NRA and their supporters in Congress. It could make for difficult votes for some conservative legislators.
The White House and many congressional Republicans are pledging to have a “conversation” about the issue and “look into” the details. That, for the moment, is a far cry from action.
The NRA is now suggesting an alternative route.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who spoke to reporters moments after the NRA statement was issued, said: “Members of both parties and multiple organisations are planning to take a look at bump-stocks. We welcome that and would like to be part of that conversation.”
In the same statement the NRA urged Congress to pass their longstanding pet proposal to expand gun rights nationwide, so-called right-to-carry reciprocity.
The lobby group wants gun-owners with concealed-carry permits from one state to be allowed to take their weapons into any other US state, even if it has stricter firearms limits.
Another NRA policy priority, the deregulation of silencer attachments, appears to have stalled in Congress in the wake of the Las Vegas attack, after Republican sponsors withdrew their bill.
A bill to ban bump-stocks was submitted to the US Senate on Wednesday by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein.
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Media captionHow US mass shootings are getting worse
A Republican-led version of the bill may be submitted for debate as early as Thursday, Florida Republican Carlos Curbelo told reporters.
He said there was growing bipartisan consensus and that his office had been “flooded” with calls from other lawmakers interested in the bill.
“I think we are on the verge of a breakthrough when it comes to sensible gun policy,” he told reporters.
Bump-fire stocks, also called bump-stocks and slide-fire adapters, allow semi-automatic rifles to fire at a high rate, similar to a machine gun.
But they can be obtained without the extensive background checks required of automatic weapons.
Gun control ‘a touchy subject’
By James Cook, BBC News, Las Vegas
Ask survivors of the Las Vegas massacre about gun control and you may well hear the sound of silence.
The cultures of country music and shooting overlap and many concert-goers remain strong supporters of the right to bear arms.
“It’s obviously kind of a touchy subject,” singer and performer Krystal Goddard, 35, told me after recounting the horror of her escape from the gig.
“I think that guns are just a symptom of other things going on,” she said, although she added that she did not understand why anyone needed to own an assault rifle.
There is some support among survivors for banning bump-stocks but there is also a realisation that doing so does not amount to serious gun control.
And all the while the killing continues. Fifty-nine people died here on Sunday.
By Thursday afternoon at least 87 more people had been shot and killed across the US, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That’s a Las Vegas massacre every three days.
Stephen Paddock, the gunman in Las Vegas, had fixed the accessories to 12 rifles used in his attack.
Bump-stocks typically cost less than $200 (£150) and allow nearly 100 high-velocity bullets to be fired in just seven seconds, according to one company advert.
One of the most popular manufacturers of bump-stocks, Slide Fire, said they had sold out “due to extreme high demands” since the Las Vegas shooting.
Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS
Film producer Harvey Weinstein has issued an apology as a newspaper reported a number of sexual harassment allegations against him.
“I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologise for it,” said the movie mogul’s statement.
But he later disputed a New York Times report that claimed he harassed female employees over nearly three decades.
The newspaper reported he had reached at least eight settlements with women.
Mr Weinstein, a married father-of-five, said he planned to take a leave of absence from his company and had hired therapists to deal with his issue.
“My journey now will be to learn about myself and conquer my demons,” the 65-year-old’s statement on Thursday said.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption Weinstein is married to English fashion designer Georgina Chapman
“I so respect all women and regret what happened,” he added in the statement initially given to the New York Times, and later sent to the BBC.
It continued: “I cannot be more remorseful about the people I hurt and I plan to do right by all of them.”
The Miramax and Weinstein Company co-founder has produced a number of Oscar-winning blockbusters, including Shakespeare in Love, The King’s Speech and The Artist.
Mr Weinstein’s lawyer, Lisa Bloom, said in another statement that he denies many of the allegations against him as “patently false”.
She also said that as a women’s rights advocate she had been blunt with him that some of his conduct “can be perceived as inappropriate, even intimidating”.
“He has acknowledged mistakes he has made,” said Ms Bloom. “He is reading books and going to therapy. He is an old dinosaur learning new ways.”
But another Weinstein lawyer, Charles Harder, said in a separate statement to the Hollywood Reporter that his client was preparing to sue the New York Times.
The attorney said the newspaper’s report was “saturated with false and defamatory statements”.
The statement also said the report “relies on mostly hearsay accounts and a faulty report, apparently stolen from an employee personnel file, which has been debunked by 9 different eyewitnesses”. It did not specify which particular parts of the Times article were disputed.
Mr Harder’s statement said the New York Times had ignored the “facts and evidence” and any proceeds from the lawsuit would be donated to women’s organisations.
Mr Weinstein has been married since 2007 to London-born fashion designer Georgina Rose Chapman, and they have two children.
Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS
Image copyrightReutersImage caption Mike Pence delivers his statement in front of Space Shuttle Discovery
US Vice-President Mike Pence has expressed the intention for America to send humans back to the Moon’s surface.
Speaking to the National Space Council, he said Earth’s satellite would be a “stepping stone” to the wider exploration of the Solar System.
“We will return astronauts to the Moon – not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond,” he stated.
The statement drew loud applause.
Mr Pence said something similar when he visited the Kennedy Space Center in July, but he was less specific then about boots on the lunar soil.
It may give stronger hints to the direction of thinking that will be pursued when the Trump White House finally gets its nomination in place for Nasa administrator.
Representative Jim Bridenstine, a Republican from Oklahoma, is the Trump pick to take the job but has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
In his speech to the newly re-established advisory body (this was the first time it had convened in nearly a quarter of a century), Mr Pence said US space policy had lost its edge and needed to reassert itself.
“The president has charged us with laying the foundation for America to maintain a constant commercial human presence in low-Earth orbit. From there, we will turn our attention back toward our celestial neighbours,” he said.
The speech, delivered in front of Space Shuttle Discovery at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, was backed up by an earlier op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
But neither speech nor the newspaper article mentioned timelines or funding numbers.
President Obama had rejected the Moon as a return destination.
“We’ve been there,” he said bluntly, and told Nasa to take a more direct route to the Red Planet, setting the ambition to “send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth” by the mid-2030s.
He approved the development of a big new rocket, the Space Launch System, and a deep space capsule called Orion. All of this hardware is still some years away from carrying people.
A project to use the systems, when they became available, to visit and capture a small asteroid, was promptly dropped when Donald Trump became president.
Instead, Nasa has recently started looking at the feasibility of building some kind of lunar space station that it refers to as the Deep Space Gateway.
This would be a testing ground for astronauts and their equipment as they move away from Earth and the low-orbiting International Space Station.
International partners, such as Russia, Europe and Canada, have been asked to think about the technologies they could contribute.
Nasa’s acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, issued a statement later on Thursday, which read: “Nasa has been directed to develop a plan for an innovative and sustainable programme of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the Solar System, returning humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilisation, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.”
Speaking last week at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, the US rocket entrepreneur Elon Musk said he hoped to send humans to Mars stating in 2024.
The SpaceX company’s CEO and chief designer has plans for a rocket that is even bigger than the SLS. This behemoth, which he says could carry 100 people, is dubbed the BFR, or “Big Falcon Rocket”.
The last astronaut mission to the Moon was Apollo 17, which saw Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt spend 75 hours on the lunar surface. With budgets tightening, Nasa was instructed by then US president Richard Nixon to direct its future efforts away from the Moon to the Skylab space station and the development of the shuttle.
Image copyrightNASAImage caption Humans have not been on the surface of the Moon since 1972
Kaduna (Nigeria) — Speaker of Nigeria’s House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has hailed his country’s teachers for their service to the development of the Nigerian child,
Dogara who made the commendation in a statement to mark the 2017 World Teachers’ Day called for improved welfare, including opportunities of continuous training and retraining, provision of requisite infrastructure, as well as facilities for the teachers to impart knowledge on students in line with global standards.
The statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media & Public Affairs, Turaki Hassan, quotes the Speaker saying empowerment of teachers remains a top priority in all education and development strategies.
Dogara who noted with delight that security in the North East had improved significantly, enabling teachers to resume work, however, called on security agencies to provide adequate protection to all schools in the region.
He further implored security agencies to step up security in schools to end the harrowing incidents of kidnappings of teachers and students.
“Teachers are the most important people in the development of any individual and by implication the society .This confers a priority status on them which, sadly, has not reflected in their conditions of service or living standards.
“It is therefore important that proper training, remuneration and provision of requisite infrastructure and facilities for teachers to impart knowledge on students in line with global standards are provided. Their salaries and allowances must be paid when and as due to encourage them to continue to put in their best in this all important task that they carry out. This will engender improvement in the education sector of Nigeria and produce better trained teachers, as well as finely baked graduates.
“Security of our schools remain a priority. Thanks to the determination of the present administration and the bravery of our military troops, students and teachers in the North East can now go to schools freely in most areas.”
“On our part, the House of Representatives will continue to pursue all measures that will promote the development, empowerment and security of the Nigerian teacher.
This is evident in our timely response to issues between our teachers and the government that threatened to clog the wheel of progress of the education sector including increasing their retirement age from 60 to 65 years as requested by leadership of the Nigerian Union of Teachers when they visited me few months ago.”
The Speaker who had his post primary training as a Grade II teacher, said, the House of Representatives will not relent in supporting legislative measures aimed at improving the education sector, including the welfare of teachers, to take it to a point where it can compete favourably with its global counterparts,”
Image copyright Reuters 
