Month: June 2021

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Health

India’s new mortgage ensures might have restricted affect on the Covid-hit financial system

India's new loan guarantees may have limited impact on the Covid-hit economy

Indian People queue up at a COVID screening center at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital,(RML) after a case emerged in Delhi causing a panic situation in Delhi India, 04 March 2020.

Imtiyaz Khan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

India has rolled out a slew of measures amounting to 6.3 trillion rupees ($84.9 billion) aimed at boosting the Covid-struck economy — but economists are skeptical that it will have a major impact on short-term growth.

The impact of those policies — that amount to about 2.8% of GDP — on the country’s fiscal deficit target is expected to be comparatively small.

Economists pointed out that the bulk of the support comes in the form of loan guarantees — instead of direct stimulus such as checks that are paid directly to households. Besides, some of the measures were previously announced and have already been factored into calculations.

For the current fiscal year that ends in March 2022, India’s fiscal deficit target is around 6.8% of GDP. A fiscal deficit is the gap between a government’s income and spending, and implies that the country is spending more than its revenue.

“While the headline impact of the announcements is sizeable, for much part these were credit guarantees, making the net impact on the fiscal math smaller,” said Radhika Rao, an economist with Singapore’s DBS Group, in a note on Tuesday.

She explained that some measures — such as subsidies, free food grain and support toward pediatric health — may have a likely impact on the fiscal deficit. But, there might be “some wiggle room” from a higher nominal GDP and a likely reprioritization in existing spending to minimize the risk of exceeding the fiscal deficit target.

What was announced?

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday announced several support measures, including the provision of loan guarantees of around $35 billion to help small businesses and sectors adversely affected by the pandemic.

Sitharaman said the government will provide additional credit of 1.1 trillion rupees ($14.8 billion) to businesses in sectors such as health care, tourism and others.

The government will also expand the emergency credit line guarantee scheme by another 1.5 trillion rupees ($20.2 billion), from an earlier limit of 3 trillion to 4.5 trillion rupees.

The scheme allows banks and non-bank lenders to give emergency loans to eligible borrowers to run their businesses and those loans are guaranteed by the government, which covers default risks for lenders.

When first introduced, the scheme was seen as a relief for India’s micro, small and medium businesses that are under pressure due to the pandemic-hit crisis.

India also announced a credit guarantee scheme for micro finance institutions that typically lend to the smallest borrowers in the country, such as small business owners. The government will spend another $12.6 billion to provide free food grain to millions of people until November.

Stimulating growth

The latest support measures were similar to how the government responded to India’s first wave of coronavirus outbreak last year, Rao told CNBC by email. Monday’s announcement was aimed at improving the flow of credit to the worst-affected sectors and vulnerable households, she said.

“The fiscal push is predominantly on the supply side rather than a direct boost to demand, containing the extent of immediate boost to growth,” she said. The ongoing reopening of the economy and improving vaccination progress will likely be “bigger catalysts of near-term recovery,” she added.

India’s economy grew 1.6% from a year ago from January to March this year.

Economists have warned that the GDP print for April to June — the first quarter for the current fiscal year — may not paint the full picture of the crisis in South Asia’s largest economy as a result of a devastating second wave of coronavirus outbreak.

Aditi Nayar, principal economist at credit ratings agency ICRA, the Indian affiliate of Moody’s, also pointed out that the success of loan guarantees will depend on how many new loans are disbursed by the lenders.

Fiscal deficit target

Economists pointed out that the loan guarantees will have limited upfront costs for the government.

Nomura’s Sonal Varma and Aurodeep Nandi said in a note that the fiscal stimulus announced during the second wave of outbreak, including Monday’s measures, amount to about 0.59% of GDP. Along with the government’s additional spending on free Covid-19 vaccines, the total fiscal impact for the current year is expected to be around 0.65% of GDP, they said.

Still, Nomura expects India to overshoot its fiscal deficit target of 6.8% on the back of additional expenditures and potentially lower disinvestment figures. The Japanese investment bank revised up its fiscal deficit estimate to 7.1% of GDP for the current year.

Some of the economic measures from Monday, worth 2.4 trillion rupees, are spread over the next two to four years, according to ICRA’s Nayar. “Some of these had already been announced at the time of the Budget, and therefore, a portion of their cost has already been factored in,” she said in a note.

Rao from DBS estimated that there is a risk that the deficit may exceed the target by 0.3% to 0.5% of GDP.

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Entertainment

Violinist Apologizes for ‘Culturally Insensitive’ Remarks About Asians

Violinist Apologizes for ‘Culturally Insensitive’ Remarks About Asians

A master class by the renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman was supposed to be the highlight of a recent virtual symposium hosted by the Juilliard School.

Instead, Zukerman angered many of the roughly 100 students and teachers in the class on Friday when he invoked racist stereotypes about Asians, leading Juilliard to decide not to share a video of his master class afterward with participants, as it had initially intended.

At one point, Zukerman told a pair of students of Asian descent that their playing was too perfect and that they needed to add soy sauce, according to two participants in the class. At another point, in trying to encourage the students to play more lyrically, he said he understood that people in Korea and Japan do not sing, participants said. His comments were reported earlier by Violinist.com, a music site.

Zukerman’s remarks were widely denounced by musicians and teachers, with many saying they reinforced ugly stereotypes facing artists of Asian descent in the music industry.

Juilliard tried to distance itself from the matter, describing Zukerman as a guest instructor and saying his “insensitive and offensive cultural stereotypes” did not represent the school’s values. Zukerman apologized Monday for what he called his “culturally insensitive” comments.

“In Friday’s master class, I was trying to communicate something to these two incredibly talented young musicians, but the words I used were culturally insensitive,” he said in a statement. “I’m writing to the students personally to apologize. I am sorry that I made anyone uncomfortable. I cannot undo that, but I offer a sincere apology. I learned something valuable from this, and I will do better in the future.”

Asian and Asian American performers have long dealt with racist tropes that their playing is too technical or unemotional. A wave of anti-Asian hate in the United States in recent months has heightened concerns about the treatment of Asian performers.

Zukerman is a celebrated violinist and conductor whose career has spanned five decades. He was the biggest name at the Juilliard event, known as the Starling-DeLay Violin Symposium, which is focused on violin teaching and attracts promising young musicians, many of them teenagers, to take part in master classes.

He made the remarks on Friday while offering feedback to a pair of sisters of Japanese descent.

After the sisters played a duet, Zukerman told them they should try bringing more of a singing quality to their playing, according to participants in the class. When he said that he knew Koreans did not sing, one of the sisters interrupted to say that they were not Korean, adding that they were partly of Japanese descent. Zukerman replied by saying that people in Japan did not sing either, according to participants.

His remarks prompted an outcry among Asian and Asian American musicians, with some sharing stories on social media about their experiences dealing with stereotypes and bias.

A Rise in Anti-Asian Attacks

A torrent of hate and violence against people of Asian descent around the United States began last spring, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

    • Background: Community leaders say the bigotry was fueled by President Donald J. Trump, who frequently used racist language like “Chinese virus” to refer to the coronavirus.
    • Data: The New York Times, using media reports from across the country to capture a sense of the rising tide of anti-Asian bias, found more than 110 episodes since March 2020 in which there was clear evidence of race-based hate.
    • Underreported Hate Crimes: The tally may be only a sliver of the violence and harassment given the general undercounting of hate crimes, but the broad survey captures the episodes of violence across the country that grew in number amid Mr. Trump’s comments.
    • In New York: A wave of xenophobia and violence has been compounded by the economic fallout of the pandemic, which has dealt a severe blow to New York’s Asian-American communities. Many community leaders say racist assaults are being overlooked by the authorities.
    • What Happened in Atlanta: Eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were killed in shootings at massage parlors in Atlanta on March 16. A Georgia prosecutor said that the Atlanta-area spa shootings were hate crimes, and that she would pursue the death penalty against the suspect, who has been charged with murder.

Hyeyung Yoon, a violinist who last year founded Asian Musical Voices of America, an alliance of artists, said Zukerman’s remarks represented a type of thinking that “dehumanizes a group of people without actually getting to know who they are.”

“It’s so prevalent in classical music, but also prevalent in the larger society,” she said in an interview.

Keiko Tokunaga, a violinist, said she and many other Asian musicians had heard comments similar to Zukerman’s.

“We are often described as emotionless or we just have no feelings and we are just technical machines,” she said in an interview. “And that is very offensive, because we are as human as anyone else on the planet.”

Categories
World News

Hong Kong’s Safety Regulation: One 12 months Later, a Metropolis Remade

Hong Kong's Security Law: One Year Later, a City Remade

HONG KONG – With each passing day, the border between Hong Kong and the rest of China is fading faster.

The Chinese Communist Party is rebuilding this city, permeating its once lively, irreverent character with ever more open signs of its authoritarian will. The structure of daily life is attacked as Beijing shapes Hong Kong into something more familiar, more docile.

Local residents are now teeming with police hotlines with reports of disloyal neighbors or colleagues. Teachers were told to fill students with patriotic zeal through 48-volume book sets entitled “My Home Is In China.” Public libraries have withdrawn dozens of books, including one on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

Hong Kong has always been an improbability. It was a flourishing metropolis on a headland of inhospitable land, an oasis of civil liberties under iron rule. As a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, the city was promised freedom of speech, assembly and press unimaginable on the mainland in an agreement that Beijing called “one country, two systems”.

But under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, the Communist Party is fed up with Hong Kong’s dueling identities. For the party, they made the city unpredictable and even brought it to the brink of rebellion in 2019 when anti-government protests erupted.

Now, armed with the sweeping national security law it imposed on the city a year ago, Beijing is pushing to transform Hong Kong into yet another of its mainland megacities: economic engines that instantly stifle disagreements.

“Hong Kong people from all walks of life have also recognized that ‘one country’ is the foundation and foundation of ‘two systems’,” said Luo Huining, Beijing’s senior official in Hong Kong, this month.

Hong Kong today is a montage of unfamiliar and for many unsettling scenes. Police officers were goose-stepped in the Chinese military style, replacing decades of British-style marching. City guides regularly denounce “external elements” that seek to undermine the country’s stability.

Senior officials in Hong Kong have gathered with their hands raised to pledge allegiance to the country, just as mainland bureaucrats are regularly called to “biao tai”, Mandarin, to “express their position”.

When the government ordered ordinary employees to sign a written version of the oath, HW Li, a seven-year-old civil servant, resigned.

The new requirements not only require loyalty professions; they also warn of dismissal or other vague consequences in the event of violations. Mr. Li heard some supervisors nag their co-workers to fill out the form right away, and employees vie for how quickly they complied.

“The rules that should protect everyone – as employees and as citizens alike – are being weakened,” said Mr. Li.

In some corners of society the rules have been completely rewritten. However, Beijing denies failing to keep its promises to Hong Kong and insists on reiterating them.

When China revised Hong Kong’s electoral system to purge disloyal candidates, Beijing described the change as “Hong Kong’s perfecting electoral system.” When Apple Daily, a major pro-democracy newspaper, was forced to close after police arrested its senior executives, the party said the publication had abused “so-called freedom of the press”. When dozens of opposition politicians organized an informal pre-election, Chinese officials accused them of subversion and arrested them.

China’s power has become so ubiquitous that Chan Tat Ching, once a hero of the Hong Kong democracy movement, spent the past year urging his friends not to challenge Beijing.

Three decades ago, after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, Chan, a Hong Kong businessman, helped direct an operation that smuggled students and academics from the mainland.

But Beijing is more demanding today than it was in 1989, Chan said. It had intimidated Hong Kong without even sending troops; that demanded respect.

He admitted that the security law was enforced too strictly, but said that nothing could be done.

“Some young people don’t understand. They think the Communist Party is a paper tiger, ”he said. “The Communist Party is a real tiger.”

China’s new power has also established itself in the Hong Kong business community. For decades, the mainland economy had tried to catch up with that of Hong Kong, the financial center so proud of its global identity that its government dubbed it “Asia’s metropolis.”

Now China’s economy is booming, and officials are increasingly turning Hong Kong’s global identity towards that one country.

Chinese state-owned companies have recently moved into offices in Hong Kong’s iconic skyscrapers that have been vacated by foreign banks. In November, Meituan, a Chinese grocer, ousted Swire, a British conglomerate, from the city’s main stock index. Financial analysts have called it the end of an era.

The rush on the mainland money has brought some new conditions with it.

After Beijing ruled that only “patriots” could run for office in Hong Kong earlier this year, the Bank of China International – a state-run institution – posted an advertisement for a director-level position stating that candidates should be “the country.” love”.

The central government is trying to convince Hong Kongers that the compromises on the mainland’s promise of prosperity are worthwhile. Officials encourage young Hong Kong residents to study and work in southern China’s cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, saying that those who do not go risk missing out on opportunities.

Toby Wong, 23, grew up in Hong Kong and had never considered working on the mainland. Her mother came from the mainland for work decades earlier. The salaries there were significantly lower.

But recently, Ms. Wong saw a subway advertisement promoting open positions in Shenzhen, in which the Hong Kong government promised to subsidize nearly $ 1,300 from a $ 2,300 monthly wage – more than at many entry-level positions at home. A high-speed rail link between the two cities allowed her to return to her mother at the weekend, who has to support Ms. Wong financially.

Ms. Wong applied to two Chinese technology companies.

“It’s not a political question. It’s a practical question, ”she said.

After all, the government is hoping to make the motivation political. At the heart of Beijing’s campaign is an attempt to educate future generations who will never think of separating the party’s interests from their own.

China’s firm grip

    • Behind the Hong Kong acquisition: A year ago, the city’s freedoms were being curtailed at breakneck speed. But the crackdown took years and many signals were overlooked.
    • Mapping China’s Post-Covid Path: China’s leader Xi Jinping tries to balance trust and caution as his country moves forward while other places continue to grapple with the pandemic.
    • A challenge for US global leadership: As President Biden predicts a battle between democracies and their adversaries, Beijing seeks to defend the other side.
    • ‘Red Tourism’ is flourishing: New and improved attractions dedicated to the history of the Communist Party, or an adjusted version of it, draw crowds ahead of the party’s centenary.

The Hong Kong government has issued hundreds of pages of new curriculum guidelines designed to “inspire affection for the Chinese people.” The geography class must confirm China’s control over the disputed areas of the South China Sea. Schoolchildren from the age of 6 learn the criminal offenses according to the Security Act.

Lo Kit Ling, who teaches a citizenship course at a high school, now makes sure to say only positive things about China in class. Although she has always tried to offer multiple perspectives on any subject, she feared that a critical perspective could be taken out of context by a student or parent.

Ms. Lo’s subject is particularly sensitive – city leaders have accused her of poisoning Hong Kong’s youth. The course had encouraged students to critically analyze China and convey the country’s economic successes alongside topics such as the Tiananmen Square raid.

Officials have ordered that the subject be replaced with an abbreviated version that emphasizes the positive.

“It’s not a class. It’s like brainwashing, ”said Ms. Lo. Instead, she will teach an elective in Hospitality Studies.

Not only school children are asked to watch out for dissenting opinions. In November, Hong Kong police opened a hotline to report suspected security law violations. “#YouCanHelp #SaveHK,” wrote the police on Twitter. An official recently applauded residents for leaving more than 100,000 messages in six months.

Constant neighborhood surveillance by informants is one of the Communist Party’s most effective tools for social control on the mainland. It’s supposed to keep people like Johnny Yui Siu Lau, a radio host in Hong Kong, from being so free in his criticism of China.

Mr. Lau said a producer recently told him that a listener reported him to the Broadcasting Authority.

“It will be a competition or a struggle to see how people in Hong Kong can protect freedom of expression,” Lau said.

Other freedoms that were once at the core of Hong Kong’s identity are disappearing. The government announced that it would censor films that are considered a threat to national security. Some officials have called for works of art by dissidents like Ai Weiwei to be banned from museums.

However, Hong Kong is not just another metropolis on the mainland. Residents have proven extremely reluctant to give up their freedom, and some have rushed to preserve totems of a discreet Hong Kong identity.

Masks labeled “Made in Hong Kong” are very popular. A local boy band, Mirror, has become a source of hope and pride as interest in canto pop resurfaces.

Last summer, Herbert Chow, who owns the children’s clothing chain Chickeeduck, installed a two-meter-tall protester figure – a woman with a gas mask and a protest flag – and other protest art in his shops.

But Mr Chow, 57, has come under pressure from his landlords, several of whom have refused to renew his leases. Last year there were 13 chickeeduck stores in Hong Kong; now there are five. He is unsure how long his city can withstand the burglaries of Beijing.

“Fear – it can make you stronger because you don’t want to live under fear,” he said. Or “it can kill your desire to fight.”

Joy Dong contributed to the research.

Categories
Health

Three Research, One End result: Coronavirus Vaccines Level the Manner Out of the Pandemic

Three Studies, One Result: Coronavirus Vaccines Point the Way Out of the Pandemic

Three scientific studies released on Monday offered fresh evidence that widely used vaccines will continue to protect people against the coronavirus for long periods, possibly for years, and can be adapted to fortify the immune system still further if needed.

Most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need boosters, one study found, so long as the virus and its variants do not evolve much beyond their current forms — which is not guaranteed. Mix-and-match vaccination shows promise, a second study found, and booster shots of one widely used vaccine, if they are required, greatly enhance immunity, according to a third report.

Scientists had worried that the immunity conferred by vaccines might quickly wane or that they might somehow be outrun by a rapidly evolving virus. Together, the findings renew optimism that the tools needed to end the pandemic are already at hand, despite the rise of contagious new variants now setting off surges around the globe.

“It’s nice to see that the vaccines are recapitulating what we’ve also seen with natural infection,” said Marion Pepper, an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona, said, “Remember all that stuff at the beginning where people were panicking over antibodies vanishing?” With all the good news now, he said, “it’s hard for me to see how and why we would need boosters of the same thing every six to nine months.”

The coronavirus may be evolving, but so are the body’s defenders. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers discovered that the vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna set off a persistent immune reaction in the body that may protect against the coronavirus for years, in part because important immune cells continue to develop for longer than thought.

Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his colleagues reported last month that immunity might last for years, possibly a lifetime, in people who were infected with the coronavirus and later vaccinated.

But it was unclear whether vaccination alone might have a similarly long-lasting effect.

In the new study, his team found that 15 weeks after the first vaccination, immune cells in the body were still organizing — becoming increasingly sophisticated and learning to recognize a growing set of viral genetic sequences.

The longer these cells have to practice, the more likely they are to thwart variants of the coronavirus that may emerge. The results suggest that the vast majority of vaccinated people will be protected over the long term — at least, against the existing coronavirus variants.

Older adults, people with weak immune systems and those who take drugs that suppress immunity nonetheless may need boosters. But people who survived Covid-19 and were later immunized may never need additional shots, because their immune responses seem to be particularly powerful.

The study looked at mRNA vaccines and did not consider the vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca. Dr. Ellebedy said he expected the immune responses produced by those vaccines to be less durable than those produced by mRNA vaccines.

New research suggests that a mix-and-match approach may work as efficiently. People who have had a dose of the Johnson & Johnson or AstraZeneca vaccines may do well to opt for an mRNA vaccine as the second dose.

In a British vaccine study published on Monday, volunteers produced high levels of antibodies and immune cells after getting one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and one dose of the AstraZeneca shot.

Updated 

June 28, 2021, 9:05 p.m. ET

Administering the vaccines in either order is likely to provide potent protection, Dr. Matthew Snape, a vaccine expert at the University of Oxford, said at a news conference on Monday. “Any of these schedules, I think could be argued, would be expected to be effective,” he said.

Dr. Snape and his colleagues began the trial, called Com-COV, in February. In the first wave of the study, they gave 830 volunteers one of four combinations of vaccines. Some got two doses of either Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca, both of which have been shown to be effective against Covid-19. Others got a dose of AstraZeneca followed by one of Pfizer, or vice versa.

Those who got two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech produced levels of antibodies about 10 times greater than in those who got two doses of AstraZeneca. Volunteers who got Pfizer-BioNTech followed by AstraZeneca produced antibody levels about five times greater than in those who received two doses of AstraZeneca.

And volunteers who got AstraZeneca followed by Pfizer-BioNTech reached antibody levels about as great as in those who got two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech.

Another promising result came when the researchers looked at levels of immune cells primed to attack the coronavirus. Mixing the vaccines produced higher levels of the cells than two doses of the same vaccine.

Dr. Snape said it wasn’t clear yet why mixing brought that advantage: “It’s very intriguing, let’s say that much,”

Dr. Snape and his colleagues have begun another similar mixing trial, including vaccines from Moderna and Novavax on the list of possibilities. But he stopped short of recommending a routine mix-and-match strategy. For now, he said, the best course of action remains getting two doses of the same vaccine.

Large clinical trials have clearly demonstrated that this strategy reduces the chances of getting Covid-19. “Your default should be what is proven to work,” Dr. Snape said.

But for many people, that may not always be possible. Vaccine shipments are sometimes delayed because of manufacturing problems, for example. Younger people in some countries have been advised not to get a second dose of AstraZeneca, because of concerns about the small risk of developing blood clots.

In such situations, it’s important to know whether people can switch to another vaccine for a second dose. “This provides reassuring evidence that should work,” Dr. Snape said.

Despite the encouraging news that most people may not need boosters of mRNA vaccines, there may be some circumstances in which third shots are needed. So vaccine manufacturers have been testing booster doses that could be deployed just in case.

The results make for good news. Researchers reported on Monday that a third dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine generated a strong immune response in clinical trial volunteers.

Ninety study volunteers in Britain were among the first to receive the shots in a clinical trial last year. This past March, they were given a third dose, roughly 30 weeks after their second. Laboratory analyses showed that the third dose raised antibody levels to a point higher than seen even a month after their second dose — an encouraging sign that a third shot should provide new protection even if the potency of the first two doses were to wane.

The study was posted online in a preliminary preprint form, but has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal.

“We do have to be in a position where we could boost, if it turned out that was necessary,” Andrew Pollard, an Oxford University vaccine researcher, said at a news briefing on Monday. “I think we have encouraging data in this preprint to show that boosters could be used and would be effective at boosting the immune response.”

But if booster shots are deemed necessary in the coming months, availability could be severely limited, especially in poorer countries that are lacking enough supply to give even first doses to their most vulnerable citizens.

Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health announced that it had begun a new clinical trial of people fully vaccinated with any of the three authorized vaccines in the United States. The goal is to test whether a booster shot of the vaccine made by Moderna will increase antibodies against the virus. Initial results are expected later this summer.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has won authorization in 80 countries since last December but is not approved for use in the United States, which already has more than enough doses of three other authorized vaccines to meet demand.

Categories
Politics

Supreme Court docket Justice Clarence Thomas says federal marijuana legal guidelines could also be outdated

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says federal marijuana laws may be outdated

Clarence Thomas, Assistant Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, listens during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, the United States, on Monday, October 26, 2020.

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Monday that federal laws against the sale and cultivation of marijuana are inconsistent, making a national ban unnecessary.

“A ban on the interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or appropriate to support the federal government’s piecemeal approach,” wrote Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative judges, in a statement.

The court’s decision not to hear a new case related to tax deductions alleged by a medical marijuana dispensary in Colorado prompted Thomas to issue a statement relating more broadly to federal marijuana laws.

Thomas stated that a 2005 judgment in the Gonzales v. Raich, which stated that the federal government could enforce the ban on marijuana possession, may be out of date.

“Federal policy over the past 16 years has severely undermined its rationale,” added Thomas. “The federal government’s current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that both tolerates and prohibits the local use of marijuana.”

Thomas referred to several guidelines that contradict the 2005 ruling. These include Justice Department memoranda from 2009 and 2013 stating that the government would not interfere with state marijuana legalization programs or prosecute individuals for marijuana activities if it was in accordance with state law.

He added that since 2015, Congress has repeatedly banned the Justice Department from using federal funds to meddle in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

“Given all these developments, one can understand why a normal person might think that the federal government has withdrawn from its once absolute ban on marijuana,” he wrote.

With 36 states allowing medical marijuana use and 18 recreational use, Thomas claimed marijuana companies do not experience “equal treatment” under the law.

The problem is a provision in tax law that prohibits companies that deal in marijuana and other controlled substances from deducting their business expenses. The IRS is cracking down on marijuana companies like the Colorado medical marijuana dispenser by conducting investigations into their tax deductions.

“Under this rule, a company that is still in the red after paying its workers and leaving the lights on could still owe a sizable federal income tax,” wrote Thomas.

The judiciary also found a consequence of the federal marijuana ban, stating that most marijuana companies operate entirely in cash due to restrictions preventing state financial institutions from providing banking services to these companies. This makes these companies more vulnerable to break-ins and robberies, according to Thomas.

All of these questions regarding federal marijuana laws threaten, Thomas argues, the principles of federalism.

“If the government is now satisfied with allowing states to ‘act as laboratories, then it may no longer have authority to enter the[t]The central police powers of the states. . . Define criminal law and protect the health, safety and wellbeing of its citizens, “said Thomas.

Legal experts like Joseph Bondy, a cannabis law expert on the board of directors of the National Organization for the Reform of Marihuana Laws, agreed with the judiciary’s testimony, predicting that arguments about the injustice of federal marijuana laws would continue. Law & Crime reported on Monday.

While Bondy noted that Thomas’ testimony may not have actual legal implications, he told Law & Crime that it was still “sending out a message that may temper the views of some people in Congress,” including “one of our Republican senators.” “

Categories
Health

South Korea on Covid-19 herd immunity and journey bubble packages

South Korea on Covid-19 herd immunity and travel bubble programs

Customers wearing protective masks pay for their purchase at a vegetable stall in Mangwon Market in Seoul, South Korea on Tuesday, February 9, 2021.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea wants to open up its economy and work on travel bubble programs as it has been relatively successful in controlling the spread of Covid-19, its deputy prime minister told CNBC in an exclusive interview.

The government plans to boost consumption and further boost the economy in the second half of this year – and steps are being taken to achieve that goal, said Hong Nam-ki, who is also South Korea’s economy and finance minister.

“I would say the current government has been relatively successful at both infection control and vaccination,” he told CNBC’s Chery Kang on Friday, according to a CNBC translation of his Korean remarks. “Based on the achievements, the current government now wants to promote economic growth while maintaining such health measures.”

In fact, he said that South Korea is aiming for herd immunity by November, which means the virus will no longer be able to spread rapidly as most of the population is either fully vaccinated or has become immune from infection.

By last week, 30% of the South Korean population had received their vaccinations and Hong says the country can reach 70% by September.

Our plan now is to achieve herd immunity by November – but in my personal opinion we will be able to move the schedule forward.

Hong Nam-ki

South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister

The country has reported more than 155,500 cases and at least 2,015 deaths as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University – numbers that are relatively controlled compared to most Asian countries.

In contrast, India – with the highest number of cases in Asia – officially reported more than 30.2 million cases on Monday, according to Hopkins. Indonesia has 2.11 million cases while the Philippines has nearly 1.4 million case numbers, the data showed.

“Our plan now is to achieve herd immunity by November – but in my personal opinion we will be able to move the schedule forward,” said Hong.

“If the vaccination goes as planned, we believe the Covid-19 situation is under control. Then the measures to support consumption and economic recovery can be carried out without interruption from July onwards.

However, should the pandemic worsen, it would be difficult to push these growth-promoting measures, he warned.

Travel bubble?

The South Korean government plans to support travel bladder programs for fully vaccinated people, Hong said. A travel bubble is a pre-agreed agreement with another country that provides that travelers from both countries are allowed quarantine trips if certain conditions are met – such as negative Covid tests or full vaccinations.

However, whether the travel bubble will pop depends on vaccination progress and conversations with other countries, he said, declining to name those countries.

In early June, the Singaporean newspaper Straits Times reported that South Korea is exploring travel bladders with some countries, including Singapore and Taiwan, to enable quarantine-free travel for vaccinated people.

“I believe that depending on their health status, vaccination rates and the convenience of immigration, more countries will be on the list of countries in demand,” Hong told CNBC.

“I think we need to continue working with private tour operators to investigate the virus situation to decide exactly which countries,” he added.

One initiative that citizens can at least indulge in for the time being could be “flights to nowhere”, a target-free concept that some countries introduced during the pandemic.

“Even if you cannot travel abroad, no landing flights have been offered,” said Hong. “Passengers could fly all the way to Japan, hover over the Japanese sky, and then come back without landing. Lots of people showed interest in it and it was used a lot, ”he said, referring to such flights that were introduced in South Korea last year.

“So if the health situation improves and the vaccination campaign accelerates more strongly, we believe that we are going in (that) direction.”

Categories
World News

‘Get as many shares as you possibly can’

'Get as many shares as you can'

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday advocated going public for Didi, the Uber-like Chinese company whose shares are set to go public in the US this week.

“I think the rating appears immediately appropriate,” said the Mad Money presenter. “If you want to speculate on a Chinese IPO, you have my blessings on Didi. I would try to get as many stocks as possible.”

Didi will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday under the ticker symbol DIDI. The company predicts its stock will range between $ 13-14 per share, which could earn the ridesharing giant a valuation of more than $ 60 billion. The IPO could gross the company more than $ 4 billion, which would make it one of the largest of 2021.

“There are some antitrust concerns here, but as long as you stay on the good side of the Communist Party,” said Cramer. “I doubt they’ll have much trouble with regulators.”

The antitrust concerns stem from a report that China’s market regulator is investigating whether Didi wrongly wiped out smaller competitors and whether its pricing practices are sufficiently transparent. The investigation comes after the country scrutinized other companies like Alibaba and Tencent.

Didi reported sales of $ 21.6 billion last year. The company also said it posted a profit of $ 6.4 billion in revenue for the last quarter.

Didi was ranked 5th on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list.

Categories
Politics

Home Passes Payments to Bolster Scientific Analysis, Breaking With Senate

House Passes Bills to Bolster Scientific Research, Breaking With Senate

WASHINGTON — The House on Monday passed two bipartisan bills aimed at bolstering research and development programs in the United States, setting up a battle with the Senate over how best to invest in scientific innovation to strengthen American competitiveness.

The bills are the House’s answer to the sprawling Endless Frontier Act that the Senate overwhelmingly passed this month, which would sink unprecedented federal investments into a slew of emerging technologies in a bid to compete with China. But lawmakers who drafted the House measures took a different approach, calling for a doubling of funding over the next five years for traditional research initiatives at the National Science Foundation and a 7 percent increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Science.

The contrast reflected concerns among House lawmakers that the Senate bill placed an outsize and overly prescriptive focus on developing nascent technologies and on replicating Beijing’s aggressive moves to gain industrial dominance. Instead, the lawmakers argued, the United States should pour more resources into its own proven research and development abilities.

“If we are to remain the world leader in science and technology, we need to act now,” said Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Democrat of Texas and the chairwoman of the Science Committee. “But we shouldn’t act rashly. Instead of trying to copy the efforts of our emerging competitors, we should be doubling down on the proven innovation engines we have at the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.”

Lawmakers and their aides must try to reconcile the Senate-passed legislation with the two bills passed on Monday, prompting a major debate on Capitol Hill about industrial policy and how to strengthen American competitiveness, a goal with broad bipartisan support.

The two bills passed 345-67 and 351-68.

“One of the core disagreements or tensions between the House and the Senate version is that the Senate version is really focused on China,” said Robert D. Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Ms. Johnson’s bills, he added, prioritize “more social policy issues,” including science, technology, engineering and mathematics education and climate change.

The House bills omit a number of provisions that are centerpieces of the Senate legislation, including $52 billion in emergency subsidies for semiconductor makers and a slew of trade provisions. Instead of creating regional technology hubs across the country, as the Senate measure would do, one of the House bills would establish a designated directorate for “science and engineering solutions” in the National Science Foundation.

While singling out several emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence and advanced computing, lawmakers on the House Science Committee have mostly focused on research and funding a holistic approach to scientific innovation.

“History teaches that problem-solving can itself drive the innovation that in turn spawns new industries and achieves competitive advantage,” Ms. Johnson wrote.

William A. Reinsch, the Scholl chair in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said with sections on public health challenges and the STEM work force, the House had taken “a broader definition of how to get our innovation capabilities up and running.”

The Senate legislation, passed by a vote of 68-32, was steered through the chamber by Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, a longtime China hawk who has been eager to enact what would be the most significant government intervention in industrial policy in decades. It was powered in large part by bipartisan concern about China’s chokehold on global supply chains, which has grown particularly acute amid shortages brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. President Biden applauded its passage and said that he hoped to sign it into law “as soon as possible.”

It would allocate hundreds of billions more into scientific research and development pipelines in the United States, create grants, and foster agreements between private companies and research universities to encourage breakthroughs in new technology.

As the legislation moved through the chamber, echoing similar concerns from lawmakers on the House Science Committee, senators shifted much of the $100 billion that had been slated for a research and development hub for emerging technologies at the National Science Foundation to basic research, as well as laboratories run by the Energy Department. The amount for cutting-edge research was reduced to $29 billion, with the rest of the original funds funneled toward research and labs.

Those changes may assuage House lawmakers as they seek to reconcile the two bills in the coming months.

Categories
Health

Juul Settles N.C. Vaping Case, Agrees to Pay $40 Million

Juul Settles N.C. Vaping Case, Agrees to Pay $40 Million

Mr. Tobias said he was not surprised that Juul did not admit to wrongdoing.

“That almost always happens in these kinds of settlements — that’s a standard clause,” he said.

Juul has not begun other serious settlement talks, however, because none of the other 2,600 lawsuits against the company have been scheduled to begin during 2021. The company is waiting for the F.D.A. ruling before deciding how to move forward. If the F.D.A. will permit Juul’s products to stay on the market to help adult smokers quit, executives believe their negotiating stance will be strengthened.

But settling with numerous plaintiffs would be expensive. Juul has seen sales plummet during the past year, analysts say. The company is private so does not disclose its financial data.

Marc Scheineson, a lawyer with Alston & Bird, whose practice includes small tobacco companies, called the $40 million in the North Carolina settlement “a relatively small sum to pay to avoid mounting legal fees and the plaintiff pile-on syndrome.”

He also noted that most of the steps Juul agreed to take in the consent degree, such as not advertising near schools and behind-the-counter sales, are actions that it has already taken in an effort to gain public favor. Mr. Scheineson also said that electronic nicotine delivery products, such as Juul, “still have an important public health use by adults as a proven effective tool to quit smoking more harmful cigarettes.”

Juul faces other legal threats, too. The Federal Trade Commission is suing Juul, along with the big tobacco company Altria and related parties, seeking to unwind the 2018 deal that gave Altria 35 percent of Juul. Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, paid $12.8 billion for that stake, but it has since written down the value of the investment to $1.5 billion.

The commission says that the two companies entered into a series of agreements, including Altria’s investment, that eliminated competition in violation of federal antitrust laws. The F.T.C. also claims that Altria and Juul started as competitors in the e-cigarette market, but that as Juul became more popular, Altria dealt with the threat by taking its own Mark Ten e-cigarette off the market in exchange for a share of Juul’s profits. Both Altria and Juul have denied the charges.

Categories
Entertainment

Honk if Helen Mirren and Vin Diesel Ought to Have Kissed in ‘F9’

Honk if Helen Mirren and Vin Diesel Should Have Kissed in ‘F9’

Cheer for the petitions. Inform the lobbyists. When the 10th “Fast and Furious” movie is made, I’ll have a suggestion that really demands more: Vin Diesel and Helen Mirren have to kiss.

This was my main takeaway from watching the latest installment, “F9,” in which 75 year old Mirren and 53 year old Diesel share a chase and show more sizzling chemistry than any other duo in the movie. She flirts with him, he beams at her, and Diesel’s obvious delight in having Oscar-winning Mirren as a scene partner is just delicious. At the end of the sequence, as her Queenie Diesels Dom Toretto was driving through the streets of London, I couldn’t help but hope that she would lean over and knock our hero.

And why not? In the previous “Fast” movie, Diesel kissed another Oscar winner, Charlize Theron. Imagine the hickey that could be developed if even more Best Actress winners were persuaded to join the franchise: After Mirren, we might romanticize Diesel with Frances McDormand! (Of course, Diesel’s serial star Michelle Rodriguez would issue a hall pass for this.)

Sometimes you have to be the change you want to see in the world, which is why I video chat with Mirren this month to direct this character linkage to her. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Your scene with Vin is the best in the movie and it’s clear that he loves you. Still, I have a note: There should have been a kiss, don’t you think?

A very chaste kiss would be nice, yes.

Listen, I’ll be content with that. Perhaps part of the thrill of this pairing is that it’s so rare to see Vin Diesel in someone else’s passenger seat.

This is true. What an honor to drive and very intimidating too. Vin doesn’t make it intimidating – he was so simple and lovable – but the technology of this type of filming is very complex, and I don’t know this world at all. It was certainly a great help to have a good friend sitting next to me. And just to hear that voice!

Tell me about it.

I mean, Vin has the most incredible voice. I get a little sticky when I hear it. That velvety brown rumble in your ear is so fabulous to experience for a full day or two. It’s like hearing the incredibly well-oiled engine.

You’ve always had good screen chemistry with bald action stars – Vin, Jason Statham (especially in “Hobbs & Shaw”), Bruce Willis (“Red” and other films). Is there something about you that just goes well with this stoic action hero guy?

There could be! First of all, I approach these things with great respect for these guys because what they do is very different from anything I’ve done in my career. Her dedication and deep knowledge of how these films work is very impressive. I always feel that I can learn from them. Maybe it’s the fact that I really have a lot of respect that makes it work, but I think it’s great.

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Even so, the mood you have with Vin is a bit higher.

I think it is that we are so opposite on almost every level. But at the same time there is a great mutual respect that goes both ways. I also met Vin’s mother, who is very nice, and I think there’s something there too: he’s very, very close to his mother and obviously loves her. She is lovely, very sweet and gentle. Not like Vin, but he loves her very much!

And your character seems to love Vins, or at least have some affection for him. I think of your last line to him when he got out of your car: “Don’t get killed, OK? You are my favorite American. “

He’s not my favorite American, Vin. My favorite American is my husband Taylor Hackford. My next favorite Americans are my stepsons. But after that comes Vin.

This is your third film in the franchise after “The Fate of the Furious” and “Hobbs and Shaw,” but it is the first to put you in a real chase. What was the stop?

Oh my god, that’s why I really wanted to go to the cinema! In reality, they wrote beautiful scenes for me, and I was primarily part of the making of the character – I wanted her to be called Queenie and come from that kind of East End family I know a little about – but I wanted her to mostly sitting behind the wheel of a car, and of course that wasn’t the case in two of the films. Somehow they did it for this movie, which was fantastic.

Did you stand up for this scene every time they brought you back?

I take it as it comes. And I moan a little and moan and sniff, and it works.

And you actually had to shoot the sequence in London, didn’t you?

To be out and about on the real streets of London, my hometown, was extraordinary for me. Seeing Vin in this context was surreal: the elegance and familiarity of London and Vin there were very contradicting! But I was thrilled that the sequence was taking place in the heart of London and I couldn’t believe the mall to the Palace was closing. I’m sure the queen must have been outside with the binoculars, don’t you think how she observed everything from the top bedroom window: “Oh my god, what are they doing there?”

Or say: “Mirren again?”

“Mirren again, really? Will this woman ever leave me alone? “

How long did filming take?

Three or four days that I was involved, and then of course all the brilliant stunt driving that is obviously done by experienced drivers. By the way, I’m a big proponent of stunt people getting an Oscar. I think there should be a category for that because stunt people’s contribution to so many films these days is so huge and extraordinary.

Your film family has gotten pretty sprawling on this series, with Jason Statham, Luke Evans, and Vanessa Kirby all playing your children. Have you ever thought about who your ex-husband might be?

I don’t know if I can say that, but apparently Vin got the idea with Michael Caine. I mean, wouldn’t that be awesome? That would be just so cool and absolutely perfect. So we’ll see.

Let’s then swap that out into the ether. And while we do that, let me get back to my first request: if a chaste kiss can be arranged in the next film, would you be open to it?

With Vin? Oh my god, of course I would! But only if he talks to me before and after, because it’s the voice I’m honest with.