Month: February 2021

In Myanmar, a Cult of Persona Meets Its Downfall

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Post date February 4, 2021

In Myanmar, a Cult of Personality Meets Its Downfall

BANGKOK – When an election landslide led the National League for Democracy to a position of power in Myanmar for the first time, the party was given a robust mandate to pull the country out of the grip of the army after decades of ruthless military rule.

The challenge was to find a way to continue his agenda without inciting retaliation from the military. Under the country’s military-drafted constitution, the party had to share power with the army that once imprisoned many of its leaders.

It pushed hard on its primary goal – to strengthen the power of its unique leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. In other respects it was in step with the military and left many of its repressive laws in place. But it also lived in fear, and the party acted cautiously after a key legal adviser was murdered.

For the National League for Democracy (NLD), one fundamental truth could not escape: the generals always had the upper hand. They handled it boldly on Monday and regained full power in a coup d’état.

“It has always depended on the goodwill of a single person, the commander in chief, not to use force to achieve its goal,” said Richard Horsey, a political analyst in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city. “The National League for Democracy always believed that a coup was about to happen, even if it wasn’t. This time it was. “

The commander in chief, Maj. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, claimed the November elections were fraudulent, declared a state of emergency on Monday, asserted himself as the nation’s leader and imprisoned Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders.

For the military known as the Tatmadaw, the final straw seems to have been the one-sided outcome of that election, which led the NLD to an even greater victory than the one that first brought them to power in 2015’s crushing defeat.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest for 15 years during the previous era of military rule, now faces a possible prison sentence for illegally importing walkie-talkies. The country has appeared largely peaceful in the days since the coup, despite a government ministry ordering Facebook to be blocked until Sunday.

The NLD, which began as a broad-based anti-military movement, became a vehicle for the ambitions of one woman: Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi.

The NLD was co-founded by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in 1988 during a wave of pro-democracy protests that helped make it known around the world and was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize three years later. With her at its head, the party united a broad coalition, from leftists to ex-military officers, that opposed the dominance of the army.

While the word “democracy” remains part of his name and origins, the party has been less than a beacon of democratic values for years.

In the November elections, the party-appointed electoral commission banned millions of people of different ethnicities, including persecuted Rohingya Muslims, from the ballot box.

Over the years, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi built the NLD in her own image. Critics called it a personality cult. Often criticized for her stubbornness and authoritative style, she has kept the party firmly under her command and is known for demanding loyalty and obedience from its supporters.

Initially, the party’s top-down structure was based on its need to survive under military rule as many of its leaders were picked up and sentenced to long prison terms. The allegations were obscure at times – like a bodyguard’s briefing in martial arts – but the effect was no less severe.

“The rigid nature of the NLD was forged by military persecution,” said David Scott Mathieson, a longtime Myanmar analyst. “They could only trust each other.”

This strict hierarchy also reflected the party’s military legacy.

The other four co-founders of the NLD were senior retired military officers, including U Tin Oo, a former commander in chief of Tatmadaw. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, General Aung San, was the founder and leader of the nation’s independence movement until he was assassinated in 1947.

While the organization started as a grassroots movement, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi always showed respect for the institution her father founded, even when her generals imprisoned her.

“She saw it as her destiny to end her father’s business,” said Mr. Horsey. “The NLD was more about Suu Kyi than about being a party.”

In the first days after the party’s 2015 election victory, its leaders were cautious about challenging the military. However, others say they could have done more, such as repealing repressive laws and protecting the rights of activists and ethnic groups.

“They could have done many things while in power,” said Nyo Nyo Thin, a former regional lawmaker. “You could have passed a law to limit the commander-in-chief’s power.”

However, party leaders were concerned that any move to undermine the Tatmadaw’s authority could spark a coup.

“The thought was if you do it too fast, the military has an excuse to come in,” said Myanmar analyst Mathieson. “They’d say, ‘It took us years to get here, we’re not going to screw it up now.'”

When the party formed its first government in 2016, one of its first challenges was circumventing a military constitutional provision that specifically excluded Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi from serving as president.

On the advice of a prominent human rights attorney, U Ko Ni, the party created the post of state advisor, which is not enshrined in the constitution but resembles the head of state. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi assumed the title of state advisor and promptly declared herself over the president.

“She shared many political instincts with the military,” said Horsey, the Yangon analyst. “There were many things that they agreed on. What challenged her was her firm belief that she should be president. “

Mr. Ko Ni also had a plan to replace the military-drafted constitution with a new version that would deprive the Tatmadaw of its extraordinary powers. But Mr. Ko Ni was shot dead in broad daylight at Yangon Airport in early 2017 while he was holding his grandchild. The plan was postponed.

“This bullet wasn’t just for Ko Ni,” said a colleague at the time, human rights lawyer U Thein Than Oo. “It was for the NLD”

Four men were convicted of the murder, including two former military officers, but it was never proven that the Tatmadaw ordered the murder. An ex-colonel was identified as a mastermind, but he was never arrested.

The attack – and the risk of further violent retaliation – hung like a cloud over relations between the party and the military. The party only presented the military constitutional authority with new challenges last year when it unsuccessfully proposed reducing the military’s seat in parliament.

“The result was that the NLD became much more cautious and they became even more convinced that they were in an existential battle,” said Horsey.

Ultimately, Myanmar’s controversial civil-military partnership disintegrated over the competing desires of two people to become president: the lady and the general.

General Min Aung Hlaing has promised to hold new elections within a year. Many doubt that he will keep his promise. A free election with all participating parties would probably not bring him the desired result.

“The military has two problems,” Horsey said. “Aung San Suu Kyi is incredibly popular and you are incredibly unpopular.”

Tags Cult, Downfall, meets, Myanmar, Personality

Business

Ford F-150 manufacturing reduce resulting from semiconductor chip scarcity

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Post date February 4, 2021

Ford began resuming vehicle production in the U.S. on May 18, 2020 with new coronavirus safety protocols like health assessments, personal protective equipment, and changes to facilities to increase social distancing.

ford

DETROIT – Ford Motor is significantly reducing production of its highly profitable F-150 pickup trucks due to a persistent shortage of semiconductor chips in the global automotive industry.

The automaker announced Thursday that its Dearborn, Michigan truck plant will decrease from three to one shift for one week starting Monday, while truck production at its Kansas City, Missouri assembly plant will decrease from three to two shifts. Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker said both plants are expected to return in three shifts by the week of February 15.

“We are working closely with suppliers to address potential production constraints associated with global semiconductor shortages and to prioritize key vehicle lines for production and make the most of our semiconductor allocation,” she said in a statement sent via email.

Ford shares appeared unaffected by the cuts, rising about 3% during intraday trading late Thursday morning. The automaker is expected to announce its fourth quarter results and forecast for 2021 after the market closed on Thursday.

Automakers and suppliers warned of a semiconductor shortage late last year after vehicle demand rose faster than expected following a two-month shutdown of production facilities due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Semiconductors are extremely important components of new vehicles in areas that range from infotainment systems to more traditional parts like power steering. They are also used in consumer electronics.

Ford’s confirmed plans come a day after General Motors announced it would cease production at four assembly plants in Fairfax, Kansas, next week. Ingersoll, Ontario; and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. GM will also operate a half capacity plant in South Korea this week.

Ford and other automakers – from Nissan Motor to Volkswagen – previously stopped vehicle production due to the shortage of chips.

Kumar Galhotra, Ford President for the US and International Markets, described the chip shortage earlier this week as a “very dynamic situation”. He said the company had been working with its suppliers to reduce the impact on its plants and resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“It’s changing all the time, but we believe we will look into it for at least the first half of this year,” he told CNBC.

Tags chip, cut, due, F150, Ford, production, Semiconductor, shortage

Health

Airways, labor unions search extra federal help with journey demand nonetheless low

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Post date February 4, 2021

Airlines, labor unions seek more federal aid with travel demand still low

Association of Flight Attendants International President Sara Nelson, along with airline executives, union colleagues and political leaders, urges Congress to extend the wage and salary support program during a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on September 22, 2020 Adopt Payroll To Save Thousands Of Jobs Washington, DC

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Some airline executives and unions are seeking a third round of billions in federal aid as tens of thousands of workers retire and demand for travel remains depressed amid the pandemic.

The current $ 15 billion bailout expires on April 1, and American Airlines and United Airlines warned last week that they could cut a total of 27,000 jobs. These funds can only be used to pay workers and require them to recall workers on leave and maintain their current jobs.

“Basic workers have lived with incredible chaos and insecurity. The vacation days are noticeable to the entire workforce,” said Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the country’s largest flight attendants union, in a written testimony at a house hearing Thursday . “A continuation of [payroll support] I can not wait any longer. “

Congress provided $ 25 billion in aid to keep employees on the payroll at the start of the pandemic last year, which required them to keep their jobs through October 1. The same terms through to March 31. Airlines and unions now want another $ 15 billion to guarantee jobs through September 30th.

“We are fully behind our union leaders’ efforts to fight for an extension and we will use our time and energy to support that effort in any way we can,” said Doug Parker, CEO of American Airlines and Robert Isom, president , in an employee statement announcing 13,000 holiday warnings on Wednesday. “Our nation’s leaders know the vital role the airline’s staff play in keeping the country moving. They showed their support last year, and we will encourage them to do the same again while the pandemic rises all over the world. “

Last week United Airlines announced to employees that they are “continuing to monitor demand and advocate for continued government support,” and we are all working hard on the day we can bring our employees back on permanent leave.

The demand for travel is still weak. U.S. airlines lost a record $ 34 billion in 2020 and have warned that if they adhere to new travel restrictions and testing requirements, they can expect a rocky start to 2021.

Last month, the US urged incoming travelers to test negative for Covid-19 in order to board flights to the US. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are now trying “actively” to make Covid tests mandatory for domestic travel, something the industry vehemently rejects.

When asked whether the industry should get a third round of government aid, Robin Hayes, CEO of JetBlue Airways, told CNBC on Monday that the hardest-hit travel and hospitality sector is among the hardest-hit parts of the economy.

“I think it is right and natural that specific support should be given here,” said Hayes.

Tags Aid, Airlines, demand, federal, Labor, Seek, travel, unions

Business

Inventory Market Dwell Updates: Jobless Claims, Merck CEO, 23andMe and Extra

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Post date February 4, 2021

Waiting for food donations in Pflugerville, Texas. Despite the rollout of coronavirus vaccines and a second federal relief package, applications for unemployment insurance remain high.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

The American job market continues to struggle, held back by the coronavirus, the slow rollout of vaccines and the loss of overall economic momentum.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week for the third straight week but remained at extraordinarily high levels by historical standards.

Last week brought 816,000 new claims for state benefits, compared with 840,000 the previous week. Adjusted for seasonal variations, last week’s figure was 779,000, an decrease of 33,000.

There were 349,000 new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally funded program for part-time workers, the self-employed and others ordinarily ineligible for jobless benefits. That total, which was not seasonally adjusted, was down 55,000 from the week before.

The easing of new diagnoses and the partial relaxation of restrictions in some places seems to have taken off a bit of the pressure on employers that was evident a few weeks ago.

“These numbers were slightly encouraging,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “While still alarmingly high, it’s better than the spike that occurred at the beginning of January.”

Mr. Daco noted that the wait in passing a new stimulus package in December amid partisan battles in Washington may have delayed some claims that ended up being filed in January after it was signed into law. Now that surge seems to be clearing.

Nevertheless, for workers in the hardest-hit industries, conditions remain difficult.

“It’s been a rough winter, especially for folks in the leisure and hospitality sector and the food sector,” said David Deull, an economist at the research and analysis firm IHS Markit. “They were also the ones to suffer during the initial wave of shutdowns in the spring.”

The latest data strengthens the argument for more stimulus, economists say, a key policy position of the Biden White House. The $900 billion aid package passed in December helps many unemployed workers only through mid-March.

“I do think there is a need for more stimulus,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “It’s a crucial part of this rebound.”

Credit…Mike Cohen for The New York Times

Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of Merck who has led the pharmaceutical company for a decade, will step down from that post later this year, the company said Thursday.

Mr. Frazier will stay on after June as executive chairman during a transition period as Robert M. Davis, Merck’s chief financial officer since 2014, takes over as chief executive.

Shares of Merck, which also reported earnings that fell slightly short of analysts expectations on Thursday, were up a little less than 1 percent in premarket trading. The company’s share price has more than doubled since Mr. Frazier took the reins in January 2011, but this has lagged the S&P 500 index, which tripled over the same period.

Mr. Frazier is an outspoken advocate of racial justice. As Merck’s chief executive, he drew headlines for standing up to President Donald Trump over the violent Charlottesville demonstrations in 2017. As a Harvard-educated lawyer before that, he spent a decade successfully pushing for the exoneration of a wrongfully accused man on death row.

“The most important role of a leader is to safeguard the heritage and values of the company,” he told The New York Times in 2018.

He is one of just four Black chief executives of Fortune 500 companies, including Marvin R. Ellison at Lowe’s, René F. Jones at M&T Bank and Rosalind Brewer, who will take over at Walgreens next month.

The company said in a release announcing the transition that Mr. Frazier’s “belief in the importance of a strong, values-based culture, and his ability to attract and retain the best talent, will stand as an enduring testament to his concern and care for the people whose skill and commitment will be critical to Merck’s continued success.”

Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times

Janet Yellen, the Treasury Secretary, will meet on Thursday with officials from financial market regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission to discuss the market volatility created by retail traders, the Treasury Department said, after the remarkable rise in prices of “meme stocks” such as GameStop.

The meeting, which will also include the heads of the Federal Reserve, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is a sign of heightened scrutiny in Washington toward the frenzy in trading.

Shares in GameStop, a video game retailer, surged last week but have since fallen from their dizzying heights, testing the will of investors who joined in the fervor as a challenge to Wall Street investors. It shares soared 1,600 percent in January alone. Since Friday, the price of GameStop stock has plummeted to about $90 from $325.

The scrutiny in Washington comes as Gary Gensler, President Biden’s nominee to head the S.E.C., the principal overseer of capital markets, awaits Senate confirmation. Mr. Gensler served as head of the C.F.T.C. during the Obama administration and gained a reputation as a tough regulator.

Credit…Simon Dawson/Reuters

23andMe, one of the most popular consumer-DNA testing providers, said on Thursday that it planned to become a publicly traded company by merging with an investment fund backed by the British entrepreneur Richard Branson.

The company, which helped popularize at-home DNA testing after it was founded in 2006, will join the ranks of businesses that have found new homes in the public markets by merging with so-called special purpose acquisition companies. The company will be valued at $3.5 billion, including debt.

Commonly known as SPACs or blank-check funds, these vehicles have become one of Wall Street’s biggest crazes. They raise money from public-market investors for the sole purpose of buying a privately held company and giving them their stock tickers, bypassing the traditional cumbersome process of an initial public offering.

Last year, 248 blank-check funds raised $80 billion, shattering records, according to SpacInsider. They have grown so popular that their backers now include an array of unconventional figures, like the former Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane and the former House speaker Paul Ryan.

Mr. Branson was an early participant in the trend: In 2019, he took his Virgin Galactic space tourism company public by merging it with a SPAC. The company is now valued at more than $13 billion.

Now he is turning his attention to one of the biggest names in consumer DNA testing. 23andMe pitched itself as a way for people to screen their genetic data for potential health issues, but was temporarily ordered to stop by the Food and Drug Administration. The agency has since allowed it to offer those services.

Under the terms of the deal announced Thursday, 23andMe will combine with VG Acquisition Corporation, which is backed by Mr. Branson and his Virgin Group. Also investing in the transaction are the mutual fund giant Fidelity and 23andMe’s chief executive, Anne Wojcicki.

Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

The Bank of England has told British banks that they should take whatever steps are necessary to prepare their systems for negative interest rates, opening up a pathway for the central bank to use this additional policy tool to encourage more lending.

But policymakers cautioned on Thursday that they weren’t trying to send the signal that rates would be cut below zero imminently. The markets responded accordingly: The British pound and short-dated bond yield rose as traders pared back expectations for a rate cut.

The central bank held interest rates at 0.1 percent and continued its asset-buying program at the same pace.

For months, there has been a debate about whether the Bank of England could introduce negative interest rates as another mechanism to bolster the economy. Other central banks in Europe and Japan have had negative interest rates for several years, but there were questions about how effective this move would be in the British economy.

After consulting with banks about whether it would be feasible to cut rates further, it found that most firms would need to make some changes to their systems and processes. On Thursday, it asked the banks to begin making these changes.

“While the Committee was clear that it did not wish to send any signal that it intended to set a negative Bank Rate at some point in the future, on balance, it concluded overall that it would be appropriate to start the preparations to provide the capability to do so if necessary in the future,” the minutes from February’s monetary policy meeting said. Banks should prepare “to be ready to implement a negative Bank Rate at any point after six months.”

The central bank also updated its forecasts for the British economy, which is in the midst of the pandemic and also dealing with the initial impact of Brexit, its divorce from the European Union’s single market and customs union. It said the economy didn’t suffer as badly at the end of 2020 as previously expected, but there would be a downturn in the first quarter of 2021 because of the long lockdown while vaccinations are rolled out.

Gross domestic product was forecast to fall 4.2 percent in the first three months of the year. That’s a downgrade from November’s forecast, when the central bank had predicted more than 2 percent growth.

Credit…David Zalubowski/Associated Press

Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, joined other energy giants this week in reporting sharply lower earnings on Thursday as the pandemic weighed on oil and gas prices and consumption.

Shell said that its adjusted earnings, a metric followed by analysts, fell 87 percent in the 4th quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, to $393 million. By the same metric, Shell’s profit for all of 2020 fell by 71 percent to $4.8 billion.

When including enormous write-downs on oil and gas fields and other assets during the year, Shell reported a loss of $21.7 billion for 2020.

Despite the disappointing results, Shell said it would increase its dividend payout by 4 percent in the first quarter of 2021. It had already increased its dividend by a similar amount in the third quarter of 2020 after a two-thirds cut earlier in the year, the company’s first since World War II.

Shell says it is able to afford the dividend increases because it pulled in about $21 billion in cash over the year after expenditures.

Shell is one of the largest oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico, but Ben van Beurden, the chief executive, said he did not “see any economic impact” on the company from the Biden administration’s decision to pause the granting of new leases on federal property. Mr. van Beurden, on a call with reporters, said that Shell had some 300 lease positions in the Gulf, giving the company “enough running room for the rest of the decade.”.

He did suggest that the administration’s approach might be shortsighted because it could lead to the United States importing oil and gas produced with greater carbon emissions from elsewhere.

Credit…Emile Ducke for The New York Times

U.S. markets

The S&P 500 index rose 0.3 percent at the start of trading after a small gain on Wednesday.
On Friday, the first major report on unemployment and hiring for 2021 will be released by the Labor Department. Despite the vaccine rollout, there are still signs that the labor market is struggling. This week, congressional Democrats and the Biden administration moved forward with their $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package.
Trading in “meme stocks” like GameStop and AMC Entertainment has calmed in the past few days. GameStop shares fell about 7 percent in early trading. Later on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet with financial market regulators to discuss the recent volatility caused by retail trading.

Europe

Most European stock indexes were little changed. The Stoxx Europe 600 was slightly higher with gains in health care stocks offset by losses in consumer and utilities companies.
Deutsche Bank posted its first annual profit in six years thanks to an increase in fixed-income trading revenue. But investors showed little interest in the beleaguered German bank’s stock, and its shares fell on Thursday.
Royal Dutch Shell reported a nearly 90 percent drop in its profit in the fourth quarter, the latest in a string of big oil and gas companies that have been beaten down by the pandemic, which has sapped demand. It adds pressure to the industry’s transition to greener energy.
Oil prices rose. Brent crude, the European benchmark, gained 0.7 percent, reaching $58.84 a barrel, the highest in nearly a year.

Asia

Credit…via YouTube

A regulator in Massachusetts wants to know if Keith Gill, an early endorser of GameStop also known as Roaring Kitty, broke any rules pertaining to his former day job when he promoted the video-game retailer on social media platforms.

Mr. Gill is a registered securities broker who worked for the insurer MassMutual as a financial wellness education director, and the company has told the state’s securities regulators that it was unaware that he had spent more than a year posting about GameStop on social media, online message boards and YouTube. The insurer also told regulators that had it known about Mr. Gill’s outside activities, it would have asked him to stop or possibly fired him, The New York Times’s Matt Goldstein reports.

Inspired in part by Mr. Gill’s cheerleading, thousands of small investors pushed stock in GameStop to as high as $483 a share and made Mr. Gill fabulously rich on paper. A picture he posted last week on the Reddit WallStreetBets forum showed his GameStop investment was worth $48 million, though his actual returns could not be independently verified.

Mr. Gill may also be summoned to testify before the House Financial Services Committee later this month, Representative Maxine Waters, the chairwoman of the committee, said on the Cheddar financial news channel on Wednesday.

Credit…David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Andy Jassy, the Amazon executive who will take over the company as chief executive when its founder, Jeff Bezos, steps aside later this year, spent more than two decades learning from Mr. Bezos.

In 2002, as a young executive, began following Mr. Bezos everywhere, including board meetings, and sat in on his phone calls, The New York Times’s Karen Weise and Daisuke Wakabayashi report.

The idea, said Ann Hiatt, who was Mr. Bezos’ executive assistant from 2002 to 2005, was for Mr. Jassy to be “a brain double” for Mr. Bezos so that he could challenge his boss’s thinking and anticipate his questions.

As Mr. Jassy followed Mr. Bezos, he also spearheaded Amazon’s move into a new field: cloud computing. That project became Amazon Web Services, now Amazon’s largest source of profit.

Tags 23andMe, CEO, Claims, jobless, Live, market, Merck, Stock, Updates

Business

Kohl’s sees holiday-quarter income down 10%, however gross sales strengthening

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Post date February 4, 2021

Kohl's sees holiday-quarter revenue down 10%, but sales strengthening

A view outside of a Kohls store in Miramar, Florida.

Johnny Louis | Getty Images

Kohl’s announced Thursday that fiscal fourth quarter sales will be down about 10% year over year and sales in the same store will decrease 11%. However, the retailer said sales are gaining momentum.

According to a survey compiled by Refinitiv, analysts had called for a decline in sales of 8.9%.

The department store chain expects earnings per share in the range of $ 1.00 to $ 1.05 for the fourth quarter before considering the effects of tax planning strategies. Analysts had demanded an adjusted profit of 70 cents per share.

Kohl’s shares gained more than 2% in premarket trading.

More customers visited Kohl’s website during the pandemic. According to Michelle Gass, general manager, digital sales accounted for more than 40% of net sales for the reporting period, up more than 20% year over year.

“Our fourth quarter performance exceeded our expectations on all key metrics and boosted sales over the period,” she said in a statement. The company tightened its spending management and helped strengthen its financial position for the New Year.

“If we continue this momentum through 2021, we are confident that our key strategic initiatives will accelerate,” said Gass, highlighting Kohl’s upcoming fall launch with Sephora and the bet that the partnership will bring more buyers to its stores.

At the close of trading on Wednesday, Kohl shares were up more than 8% in the past 12 months. Kohl’s has a market cap of $ 7.35 billion, which is larger than Nordstrom and Macy’s.

Kohl’s is expected to release fourth quarter results on March 2nd.

The full press release from Kohl’s can be found here.

This story evolves. Please try again.

Tags holidayquarter, Kohls, Revenue, sales, Sees, strengthening

Health

Some Child Meals Might Comprise Poisonous Metals, U.S. Studies

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Post date February 4, 2021

Some Baby Food May Contain Toxic Metals, U.S. Reports

While heavy metals are naturally found in some grains and vegetables, levels can be increased when food manufacturers add other ingredients to baby foods such as enzymes as well as high-metal vitamin and mineral mixtures, the report said. Manufacturers rarely test ingredients for mercury.

On August 1, 2019, investigators also described a so-called “secret” presentation by the industry to the FDA. Representatives from Hain told the regulatory authorities that testing only individual ingredients in baby food led to an underestimation of the heavy metal content in the end product.

For example, the inorganic arsenic in Hain’s finished baby formula was between 28 and 93 percent higher than estimated by testing the individual ingredients. Half of the brown rice products were over 100 parts per billion, according to the report.

Robin Shallow, a spokeswoman for Hain Celestial, said the company has not yet seen the report and cannot comment on the details, adding that Hain is continuously developing its internal testing procedures in collaboration with the FDA to ensure our products are safe safety and nutrition exceed standards, including screening for harmful amounts of substances that occur naturally. “

Beech nut, which used ingredients high in arsenic to improve properties like “crumb smoothness” in some products, set very liberal thresholds for arsenic and cadmium in their additives, according to the report: 3,000 ppb cadmium in additives such as vitamin mix and 5,000 ppb lead in one Enzyme additive called BAN 800.

The company used cinnamon, which contained 886.9 ppb lead, according to the report. The company’s standards for cadmium and lead in additive ingredients “far exceed any existing legal standard,” investigators said. Other added spices such as oregano and cumin were also high in lead.

For comparison, the FDA has stated that lead should not exceed 5 ppb in bottled water, 50 ppb in juices, and 100 ppb in candy. Cadmium shouldn’t exceed 5 ppb in bottled water, the agency said. The European Union limits cadmium in infant formula to 15 ppb.

Tags Baby, food, Metals, reports, Toxic

Entertainment

A Critic and a Pianist, Shut however Not Fairly Mates

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Post date February 4, 2021

A Critic and a Pianist, Close but Not Quite Friends

The pianist Peter Serkin made his New York debut when he was only 12 years old. His real introduction to the public – as an artist of his special merits, not just as the son of the well-known pianist Rudolf Serkin – took place six years later, in 1965, 1965. with his recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” variations.

Critics praised the lively, elegant and clear game. Many pointed to the extraordinary maturity of this teenager’s interpretation.

I was very impressed by this recording. Just a year younger than Serkin, I was a serious pianist at the time, planning on making music in college. But our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different. There were no musicians in my family; My talent and passion seemed to come from nowhere. Serkin had inherited the mantle of classical music as a birthright for generations and received the best education imaginable.

Even so, I felt that he and I were kindred spirits, though I couldn’t explain why at the time. When I hear this remarkable Bach recording today, I better understand what touched me so deeply.

From his relaxed lyrical design of the opening theme to his quiet but subtly restrained playing of the first variation of the jump, he approached this impressive masterpiece with unspoiled directness and sincerity. His performance combined an almost spiritual equilibrium with subtle joy. He sent the brilliant variations clearly and neatly, without a trace of conspicuousness.

This breakthrough was reissued as part of a 35 disc box set of his full recordings on the RCA label (and some on Columbia) made during the first three decades of his career. It was released last year, just four months after he died of pancreatic cancer in February. The collection offers a large selection of solo pieces, chamber works and concerts by Beethoven, Berio, Chopin, Mozart, Takemitsu, Stravinsky, Schönberg and others – in exploratory, clear, often intoxicating performances. I did not know some of these recordings; I hadn’t heard others in years. The set has strong memories of Peter – how I met him – and revived his great artistry and the intersection of our lives and professions.

Since his recordings kept coming out after these “Goldberg” variations, I eagerly bought them and followed Peter’s journey. There was his spacious, searching, yet seductively playful account of Schubert’s late, long Sonata No. 18 in G, which was recorded during the same sessions as Bach but published in 1966. There were exciting collaborations with Seiji Ozawa and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Bartok’s First and Third Piano Concertos and Schönberg’s Piano Concerto, a piece that overwhelmed me at the time. The Schönberg album from 1968 contained the five piano pieces (op. 23). Peter’s convincing performance inspired me to learn this job, which I ended up doing, with tremendous effort, to graduate from college.

Rudolf Serkin was a childhood hero to me and I will always appreciate his impressive art. But in my early 20s, a generation change brought me to solidarity with his son. Peter seemed to be the unimpressed pianist leader of our emerging generation, claiming classical music on his own terms. I wanted to meet him, hang out. I had a hunch that we could become friends.

However, we didn’t meet until the summer of 1987, just a few weeks before he turned 40. Until then, I was a freelance critic for The Boston Globe, and he taught young artists at Tanglewood Music Center. He was known to be interview-shy, burned by the derogatory reactions of critics in the 1970s when he wore a ponytail and a thread-like goatee. often performed with Nehru shirts and love pearls; and despised the virtuoso touring route, which he compared to a “monkey who performs his trained action again and again with the same pieces”.

In 1973 he and three like-minded young musicians founded Tashi, an ensemble that focused on contemporary music. These adventurous players put on dozens of intriguing performances and made a best-selling recording of their signature track, Messiaen’s mystical “Quartet for the End of Time”.

Peter wanted to shake up classical music, which in his opinion was far too indebted to the old repertoire and traditional protocols. Even so, he found it difficult to keep himself from being seen as “the reluctant ambassador of the counterculture for the pure concert world,” as critic Donal Henahan put it in a 1973 profile in the New York Times. And he was fed up with being asked about his complicated relationship with his father.

I knew all of this in our interview and was a little careful. But from the moment we met, I felt good. We sat on the grass under the sun on the Tanglewood grounds and talked for a few hours about everything: his memories of how intensely he experienced music as a child; his trips to India, Thailand and Mexico in the early 20s when he stopped performing and even practicing for a while to “find out who I am without her”; the satisfaction he gained that summer in coaching a new generation of musicians who seemed to share his innate curiosity about new music; and his enthusiasm for an ambitious project he was planning to tour a program of 11 new works written for him. It also learned to deal with difficult fathers. We met the following week in Tanglewood – which, as we would have said at the time, was really cool.

At that point, however, our relationship was defined and, to some extent, constrained by our respective roles as performer and critic. (Actually, I was still performing actively at the time, and Peter wanted to know everything about my work and hear some concert recordings that I shared with him.) Had I not been a critic, we might have developed a real friendship; Had I not been a critic, I might never have met him. In a way, I already felt that I could do more for the music and for Peter by being an informed observer of his remarkable work.

For years after that first meeting, he and I spoke on the phone occasionally, exchanged emails, and sometimes found opportunities to meet. He was so fond of teaching in Tanglewood that summer that he bought a house in the Berkshires and lived there with his wife and children. He invited me to visit. Right now I wish I had accepted. But even he understood, I think, that it was better to keep a certain amount of professional distance.

People may assume that, as a critic, there is no way I can be objective about an artist whom I feel very much about. But just as a writer can tell the truth about problematic aspects of a manuscript to a friend of a writer, perhaps I, who admired Peter’s play so much, could see when his take on a piece wasn’t quite clicking.

For example, the new collection includes three albums of Chopin works recorded between 1978 and 1981 when Peter revisited a composer he was not known for performing. He brought out the ruminant, poetic elements of the music, even in mazurkas and waltzes that might seem smooth on the surface. His recording of the 14-minute polonaise fantasy, one of Chopin’s most elusive and original scores, is overwhelming. Peter makes the piece seem like a dark, restless, fantastic reflection on the deeper legacy of the polonaise, a defining dance of Chopin’s war-torn homeland.

But he also applied this thoughtful approach to Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante with less success. This was perhaps the next step Chopin took to write an unabashed virtuoso showpiece. I understand what Peter wanted and it’s fascinating. But the performance is so testing it feels a little grounded. You want the effortless glare of a Vladimir Horowitz.

Peter’s extraordinary recording of Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésu” from 1973 remains final for me. This two-hour work, which consists of 20 pieces, presents astonishing technical challenges, as the music alternates between meditative timelessness and exuberant, almost frenzied spirituality, which is traversed by the calls of birds. Peter took it on tour, played it completely and by heart, sometimes accompanied by atmospheric lighting. When we first spoke, he remembered Messiaen hearing him play the piece. After that the composer was “really too nice,” said Peter: “He told me that I respect the score, but if I don’t, it’s even better.”

The album that perhaps meant the most to Peter was “… in real time” with works written for him, including some of the 11 scores he had on this commissioned program from Henze, Berio, Takemitsu, Kirchner, Alexander Göhr and Oliver Knussen and Peter’s childhood friend Peter Lieberson played. He lets the swirling busyness and the sour sounds of Berio’s “fire piano” sound like a crackling fire; He dives under the surging grace and tenderness of Lieberson’s “Breeze of Delight” to reveal the eerie pull of the music.

Peter began teaching at the Bard College Conservatory of Music in 2005 and loved working with the curious students that the program attracted. Even while enduring debilitating cancer treatments, he continued to try to teach and play. In an email to me in April 2019, he wrote of “terrible pain and exhaustion, much worse than last time”. Nevertheless, he had forced himself to attend a performance of Brahms’ piano quartet in C minor because the cellist Robert Martin, a close colleague, was playing his final concert as director of the Conservatory. “It went well enough,” he wrote. In fact, it’s a profound performance hit, as a video makes clear.

I had agreed to visit him at his home near Bard in August, on my way back to New York, after covering Tanglewood’s contemporary music festival for a few days. But on the morning of our scheduled meeting, Peter wrote that he was miserable. The next day he texted me again to tell me how sad he was that he canceled.

“I brought out a little four-handed music in case you wanted to play, but I think I’ll bring it back down now for possibly another time,” he wrote.

There was no other time. We tried to reschedule, but his health was too shaky. The last email he sent me three months before he died was a brief reply to a message I had sent. “Yes, we are good friends,” he said, “and I look forward to seeing you.”

Friends in our own way indeed.

Tags close, critic, Friends, Pianist

Politics

Cracking down on China’s shady shell corporations

Post author By
Post date February 4, 2021

Cracking down on China's shady shell companies

A Chinese policeman guards a giant portrait of the late Chairman Mao Zedong at Tiananmen Gate in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

Getty Images

When you think of anonymous shell companies, you might think of illegal activities by shady criminal groups, or tax evaders trying to hide their money, or crooked foreign officials trying to defraud the population.

But there is one other thing to keep in mind: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

While it hasn’t received nearly as much attention as some other topics related to the Chinese government, anonymous shell companies have proven to be a key component in the country’s recent rise.

More importantly, these shell companies preventing investigators from successfully tracking financial flows have proven to be key tools for both the CCP’s corrupt and heightened influence in the country and its expansive overseas efforts, all of which are aimed at this increasing the influence of the People’s Republic of China and eroding American power and American interests.

Take a look at Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for example. While the CCP spins the initiative as mere economic expansion and global integration, further investigation reveals far more suspicious and far more corrupt deals – often with anonymous Shell companies at their core.

From Southeast Asia to Africa to Europe, the BRI has relied on anonymous Shell companies to hide payments to corrupt officials overseas and smear their palms to sign love agreements with representatives of the PRC and state-affiliated companies.

These shell companies, which prevent investigators from successfully tracking financial flows, have proven to be key tools both in the corrupt and heightened influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the country and in its expansive efforts abroad.

According to a report by the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative has “loaded the kleptocracy in developing countries with bribes and unprecedented embezzlement opportunities” – much of it relied on anonymous Shell companies, which are both journalists and anti-corruption activists blocked from exposing the details of crooked deals.

Not only has the BRI further undercut American efforts elsewhere, but the CCP has relied on anonymous Shell companies to prop up the rogue regime in North Korea. As recently as this year, the Justice Department charged dozens of people with laundering billions of dollars through anonymous corporations to help develop North Korea’s nuclear program.

Or look at the role anonymous Shell companies are playing in the CCP’s domestic stranglehold. Like other corrupt authoritarian powers in countries like Russia and Iran, the CCP often seems more interested in looting its people than in providing things like basic freedoms.

Most of the time, anonymous shell companies are at the center of these corrupt, oligarchic schemes. To take just one example, the Panama Papers revealed global transplant operations that were hidden behind anonymous Shell companies. Around 40,000 anonymous shells were directly linked to politically influential Chinese nationals, including Chinese President’s brother-in-law Xi Jinping.

The revelations also pulled the curtain back on a number of other CCP majors, all of whom are hiding their looted millions behind anonymous Shell companies.

Even the CCP’s biggest human rights violations rely on anonymous Shell companies. In Xinjiang, where the CCP set up the largest concentration camp system in the world since World War II and where the CCP forcibly detained millions of Uyghurs and Kazakhs for their ethnicity, Beijing has relied on anonymous shell companies to hide their funding.

A paramilitary organization set up by the CCP in Xinjiang relied on hundreds of thousands of anonymous Shell companies to cover up how Beijing is funding its massive crimes.

Easier than getting a library card

Shell anonymous companies are clearly key to the CCP’s designs. But in all of these details and the way China uses and abuses anonymous shell companies, there is an unfortunate reality.

The largest provider of anonymous shell companies is not in Beijing or other traditional offshore ports. Right here in the US, getting an anonymous shell company is often easier than getting a library card – and the Chinese government has turned over and over again for many of their anonymous needs.

Fortunately, the US is finally on the verge of eliminating this scourge. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021, which went into effect January 1, 2021, contained our legislation – the ILLICIT CASH Act – effectively banning anonymous shell companies once and for all. The move will not only be the largest anti-corruption reform in the US in decades, it will also eliminate one of the world’s most popular tools for the criminals and corrupt.

Needless to say, there are many reasons to celebrate the passing of our laws. It will finally end one of the favorite tools used by cartels trying to hide their profits and oligarchs hiding their plundered wealth from battered populations. And it will include critical reforms of the anti-money laundering tools in our country that will bring our anti-money laundering laws into the 21st century.

It will also exemplify American unity and strength, thanks to its strong support from both parties. And perhaps most importantly, the Chinese Communist Party leaders who bribe officials overseas are building concentration camps at home and undermining American interests wherever they get a chance.

Sens. Mark R. Warner, D-VA and Mike Rounds, R-SD.

Tags Chinas, companies, Cracking, shady, shell

Business

E.V.s Power Carmakers to Reinvent the Wheel, and Brakes, and Mirrors …

Post author By
Post date February 4, 2021

E.V.s Force Carmakers to Reinvent the Wheel, and Brakes, and Mirrors …

There are other problems too. “They have a parallel goal: On the one hand, you have to cope with and withstand the weight of a battery-powered car with stronger brakes, stronger axles and strong suspension,” Dahncke added. “At the same time, you have to optimize everything for aerodynamics.”

These “basic practices” involve collaboration between suppliers and manufacturers, Coke said. You need to consider the brakes, the wheels, the side mirrors, wind noise, chassis noise, and tire noise. The problems do not only affect one manufacturer. In his case, Pirelli, whose home base is in Milan, worked closely with Rivian in Michigan to assemble tires for its products.

Tires are, of course, Mr. Coke’s only concern. One of his priorities in developing electric vehicles is reducing a tire’s rolling resistance, a key factor in extending battery life. Longer battery life means less range anxiety and a larger potential market for electric cars.

“Our compounds are engineered with high silica content for very low durability,” said Coke. Silica reduces the energy consumption of the tire. “And our challenge is to reconcile this with handling, braking in wet and dry conditions and the service life of the tires. And in an electric vehicle, we try to adapt the tires to the application: When the vehicle has front, rear or all-wheel drive; when it is used for summer, winter or all season. “

Then there is torque. “There’s an immense amount of torque in electric vehicles,” said Mr. Coke. “The tendency to set foot and deliver that power is obviously a tendency that tires wear out very quickly. So you have to have a grip, but you don’t want too much resistance. “And around and around.

Recognition…Pirelli

While weight reduction is important for all cars and trucks, it is especially important for electric vehicles, mainly because of the battery charge. And because the batteries in the vehicle are often low, the focus of the electrics differs from that of a conventionally powered car. Is this change in sensation worrying for some drivers?

Tags Brakes, Carmakers, EVs, Force, Mirrors, Reinvent, Wheel

World News

Russia, Putin and Alexei Navalny: What occurs subsequent?

Post author By
Post date February 4, 2021

Russia, Putin and Alexei Navalny: What happens next?

Riot police during an unauthorized rally in support of Alexei Navalny in central Moscow on February 2, 2021.

Mikhail Tereshchenko | TASS | Getty Images

The arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Russia has been widely awaited by Russian observers, but experts say what comes next will likely depend on the dynamics of the protests in support of Navalny, whether the West decides to punish Russia and how the Kremlin does responded to growing unrest in the country.

Navalny, who is widely regarded as one of Putin’s most prominent critics, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on Tuesday for breaking parole. The allegations he and his team made were fabricated and politically motivated.

The judge said the year Navalny has already spent under house arrest (around 10 months) will be deducted from his prison sentence. Navalny’s defense team has announced that it will appeal the court ruling.

Protests against Navalny’s first imprisonment in mid-January and immediately after his return from Germany to Russia, where he had been treated for nerve agent poisoning since last summer, were carried out over the last two weekends in Russia and again outside the US on Tuesday in the Moscow Court, where the Judgment was made.

The verdict was widely condemned by Western governments, but the US and Europe did not threaten further sanctions against Russia for the time being, as both demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Navalny.

US Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, indicated in a tweet that further sanctions could be imposed on Russia, which is already operating under Western restrictions due to the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and, among other things, has entered the US Meddles in 2016 elections.

Timothy Ash, a leading emerging markets strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, believes more sanctions will come.

“We may not see this promotion this week, it may take weeks / months, but I think when it comes we will be surprised by its scope / scope,” Ash said via email.

“This is not a case of a step-by-step approach, but an overall picture, a common approach to countering the Russian threat. And hit Russia hard from the start – to make it clear to Putin, we know what you’re doing, we know when you get your card we know all you understand is power, and here it is. “

Ash said he expected “a rolling approach to roll back Putin’s offensive campaign against western liberal market democracies.”

More protests?

The scale and extent of the West’s reaction against Russia remains to be seen, but this could also affect the dynamism of the pro-navalny protests in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said police had the right to use harsh methods to break off protests by supporters of Navalny who had gathered outside the Moscow court where the hearing took place.

Peskov also said calls from Navalny’s allies for Russians to take to the streets after he was jailed on Tuesday were a provocation, Reuters reported. More than 1,400 supporters of Navalny in 10 cities were arrested on Tuesday, according to the OVD-Info monitoring group.

The US, Germany and France are among the Western nations that have condemned the violence against protesters in Russia and called for Navalny to be released immediately.

Russia has rejected this criticism, defended the police’s response to protests and accused Western countries of double standards.

“With regard to the events in Russia and not only in Navalny, the reporting of the West is selective and one-sided,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a press conference on Wednesday, Tass news agency reported.

“The hysteria we heard about the Navalny trial is far exaggerated,” he added.

Daragh McDowell, Russia’s chief analyst at risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft, said the conviction and imprisonment of Navalny would “represent a massive blow to the opposition that has lost one of its most effective organizers and communicators.”

The movement continued to suffer as other members of the Navalny National Organization were also arrested and detained. Whether the protests can continue at their current level is unknown.

“The key question is whether the current wave of protests sparked by Navalny’s arrest has reached a point where they will support themselves and continue even if he and his team are removed from the field. The decision to imprison him , will certainly likely be hit. ” at least a short-term spike in street protests, accompanied by a corresponding increase in arrests and aggressive police brutality, “noted McDowell.

Political stalemate

Experts warn Putin of concern that the protests so far also reflect general public dissatisfaction with the Russian ruling class, widespread corruption and kleptocracy, and a decline in living standards.

McDowell said a “major cause for concern for the Kremlin should be that the protests sparked by Navalny’s arrest are more the result of longer-term social and economic stagnation … the protesters are driven less by Navalny’s political program than by them driven are a general feeling of being fed up with the status quo. “

Although there is allegedly a lack of political alternatives to Putin, whom McDowell viewed as not in immediate danger of falling, “his political regime is based less on active support than on tolerance and acceptance, and it appears that the Russian population is rapidly approaching its limits.”

Protesters hold a banner reading “FREE NAVALNY” as around 2,500 supporters of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny protest to demand his release from Moscow prison on January 23, 2021 in Berlin.

Omer Messinger | Getty Images News | Getty Images

This sentiment was confirmed by Christopher Granville, executive director of EMEA and global political research at TS Lombard, but warned of a possible “stalemate” between the Kremlin and the opposition.

“The main cause of the current political ferment in Russia is Vladimir Putin’s long reign, which is entering its final phase. Far from eliminating uncertainties (even at the expense of more acute short-term turbulence), this final is now more likely to drag on.” social tension and polarization, “he said in a note on Tuesday.

Granville said its discouraging outlook for Russia, which also negatively impacted the country’s economic growth prospects and valuations of the country’s assets, “stems from a key feature of Alexey Navalny’s challenge to Putin’s ruling establishment: stalemate.”

“The support base of either side in Russian society is too solid to allow for quick or easy victories. Removing Navalny from the board of directors, be it by murder or, as before, by imprisonment, is not a ‘solution’: far from a cult of personality being the movement he’s galvanized marks a generation change. The Putin base, still a plurality, is now cemented by rational fears of instability, “he said.

Tags Alexei, Navalny, Putin, Russia