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Business

Twilight of Entrepreneurs in China as Extra Depart the Nation

Twilight of Entrepreneurs in China as More Leave the Country

BEIJING – Wealthy and powerful entrepreneurs in China were once idolized by the public, revered by the government and courted by foreign investors. They helped build the Chinese economy into a powerhouse, becoming the global face of Chinese business in a freer era, amassing billions of dollars in fortunes, buying villas abroad and holding court at elite international gatherings.

Now, billionaire tycoons are the underdogs in an increasingly state-run economy that prioritizes politics and national security over growth. As the government cracks down on businesses and the economy falters, they keep a low profile, stepping down from their businesses or leaving the country altogether.

In the latest exodus, two of China’s best-known entrepreneurs, Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, resigned as chairman and CEO, respectively, of their Soho China real estate empire this week. Both had relocated to the United States early in the pandemic and were trying to manage their business with late-night callbacks to China.

It’s been a tough year for your company. A deal to sell a majority stake to the Blackstone Group in New York fell through when regulators didn’t approve it. Soho China stock has lost more than half of its value over the past year.

“Highly successful entrepreneurs in the early 21st century generally have to ask themselves whether it’s in their best interest to keep running their businesses and stay in China,” said Michael Szonyi, former director of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies University. “For these company founders, the writing is clearly on the wall.”

The husband-and-wife couple had embodied the broader rise of China’s economy from rags to riches. Mr. Pan was born into a poor family in Gansu Province, while Ms. Zhang worked in a garment factory in Hong Kong as a teenager.

They started their real estate business on the island of Hainan in China’s far south, a place that has a reputation, even by Chinese standards, for having experienced dizzying ups and downs in house prices. They then quickly focused on China’s largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, building luxury apartment and retail complexes in some of the most expensive neighborhoods.

Many real estate developers built rectangular boxes with architectural palettes often limited to garish color choices for the glass and eccentric roofs in poor imitation of European mansions. Instead, Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang enlisted star architects from the West like Zaha Hadid, a friend of Ms. Zhang’s, and created buildings with curved but minimalist façades.

Their resignations underscore growing concerns among private entrepreneurs that China is moving away from the free-wheeling capitalism pioneered by Deng Xiaoping and former Premier Zhu Rongji. Mr. Deng turned to entrepreneurs in the late 1970s to rebuild the economy after the devastation of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and Mr. Zhu then ushered China into the World Trade Organization and to its role as the world’s largest exporter.

Xi Jinping, head of state since 2012, has instead led China towards a much more authoritarian, state-run society, where national security concerns increasingly take precedence over economic growth. Both business leaders and human rights activists who dared to publicly question Mr. Xi have been jailed as China tightened the reins on the private sector.

Very wealthy entrepreneurs used to be “able to operate as they wanted as long as they didn’t cross certain political boundaries, but those boundaries were fairly loose even during Xi Jinping’s first term in office,” which ended in 2017, said Victor Shih, a specialist in Chinese Economics and Politics from the University of California San Diego. “That has all changed. They’re not such stars anymore.”

Jack Ma, a co-founder of Alibaba who later led the company to dominance in China’s e-commerce sector, has resigned from top positions at the company. Colin Huang, founder of Pinduoduo, a rival of Alibaba, resigned as chairman early last year, less than a year after stepping down as chief executive.

A year ago, Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, said he would step down as CEO to focus on long-term strategy. And when Shanghai went into a two-month lockdown earlier this spring as part of China’s “zero Covid” strategy, Zhou Hang, another prominent tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, left the city for Vancouver, British Columbia, where he had a strong case against she spelled out China’s current policy.

The problems in Soho China are piling up. The company announced on July 7 that police are investigating its chief financial officer over possible insider trading in Soho stock. Over the past year, Soho has been repeatedly accused of overcharging tenants for electricity and has been fined nearly $30 million.

The government’s efforts to stem a housing bubble, coupled with frequent lockdowns in Chinese cities as part of the country’s crackdown on the pandemic, have seen the entire property market stumble — and with it, the fortunes of Soho China. Soho China announced that the average occupancy rate of its investment properties in Beijing and Shanghai had fallen to 80 percent as of June 30.

updated

Aug 2022 7:04pm ET

Soho China and Ms. Zhang, who frequently speaks for the company, did not respond to calls and texts asking for comment. Two executives at the company, each with Soho for about two decades, Xu Jin and Qian Ting, have been promoted to co-chief executives, according to a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday. A private equity manager, Huang Jingsheng, has been appointed non-executive chairman of the company.

Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang will remain as executive directors at Soho, Soho China said in its filing, without specifying senior positions for them.

Her resignation comes as the Chinese Communist Party prepares to hold its national congress for the first time in five years, beginning Oct. 16. Congress is expected to give Mr Xi a third five-year term and possibly amend the party’s charter to further tighten its grip on the country’s private sector.

But China’s economy is on the wane and tensions with the United States are high. This combination has made it difficult for Mr. Xi to present himself to Congress as a successful leader.

“Here he is, six weeks before a convention, and things are tense, so that’s exactly what he didn’t want,” said Barry Naughton, a professor at the University of California, San Diego.

The troubles also make China a less attractive place for wealthy investors like Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang to hold their money, he noted. “What a good time for her to step down.”

Over the past quarter century, Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang had benefited from China’s rapid urbanization. When they founded Soho China in 1995, the country had 352 million urban residents — a number that had more than doubled by the last year. For many Chinese, housing has become the most important investment, accounting for two-thirds of household wealth.

The pair catered to China’s wealthiest elite with projects such as Galaxy Soho and Wangjing Soho in Beijing and Sky Soho in Shanghai, all designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. These ambitious projects were a symbol of the central role real estate plays in China’s economy, a sector that soon accounted for nearly a third of China’s total economic activity.

As Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang’s wealth increased, so did their notoriety as the faces of a new generation of sophisticated, cosmopolitan Chinese business leaders. On his social media account Weibo, Mr. Pan has attracted more than 18 million followers and has used his influence for years to call for changes like cleaner air in Chinese cities. Ms. Zhang, who earned a master’s degree in economics from Cambridge and worked at Goldman Sachs early in her career, became a featured speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The couple’s penthouse duplex in Beijing has become one of China’s hottest lounges for dinner parties, drawing intellectuals, artists and government leaders from across the country and the world.

But China’s entrepreneurs have come under pressure as Mr Xi has continued his “shared prosperity” campaign for corporations and tycoons to share more wealth with their compatriots in a bid to reduce inequality. Mr. Xi has asserted the Communist Party’s control over the private sector and demanded political allegiance from corporations and businesspeople.

Ren Zhiqiang, another wealthy real estate developer and friend of Mr. Pan, was sentenced to 18 years in prison after criticizing Mr. Xi. Some entrepreneurs have been silenced on social media. While Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang’s Weibo accounts are still active, they have rarely posted, sticking to mundane, boring topics.

“This is part of the development of the Communist Party,” said Drew Thompson, visiting scholar at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. “Private entrepreneurs — high-profile, wealthy people — are increasingly inconsistent with ‘common prosperity’ and the direction that Xi Jinping has taken.”

Li You contributed to the research.

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World News

Desperation as Afghans Search to Flee a Nation Retaken by the Taliban

Desperation as Afghans Seek to Flee a Country Retaken by the Taliban

On Saturday morning, a former interpreter for an American company in Kabul plunged into a mass of humanity outside a gate at the Kabul airport with her family in tow.

Even as she was jostled and elbowed by people in the throng, she pushed ahead, desperate to secure a flight out of the country for everyone accompanying her — her husband, 2-year-old daughter, disabled parents, three sisters and a cousin.

Then the crowd surged. The entire family was slammed to the ground. People trampled them where they lay, the woman recalled just hours later.

She remembered someone smashing her cellphone and someone else kicking her in the head. She couldn’t breathe, so she tried to tear off her abaya, a robe-like dress.

As she struggled to her feet, she said, she searched for her toddler. The girl was dead, trampled to death by the mob.

“I felt pure terror,” the woman said in a telephone interview from Kabul. “I couldn’t save her.”

In the six days since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, Afghans have negotiated a terrifying new reality after enduring 20 years of war and suicide bombings. Their world has been upended, and something as prosaic as a trip to the airport now inspires terror. Just stepping outside the front door can be jarring and disorienting.

With the situation increasingly chaotic, the U.S. embassy warned American citizens to stay away from the airport, citing “potential security threats outside the gates.”

Across the country, Afghans who served the American military effort in Afghanistan, or the American-backed former government, are in hiding, many of them threatened with death by the Taliban. Gunmen have gone door-to-door, searching for “collaborators” and threatening their family members, according to human rights groups.

A 39-year-old former interpreter for the U.S. military and Western aid groups was hiding Saturday inside a home in Kabul with his wife and two children. He said the Taliban had telephoned, telling him, “Face the consequences — we will kill you.”

The interpreter, whose identity was shielded like others in this article for safety concerns, said he had given up trying to secure a flight after a harrowing and ultimately futile attempt to force his way past Taliban gunmen and unruly mobs at the airport the day before. He has been spending his time calling and texting American soldiers and officers in the United States who are struggling to find ways to rescue him and his family.

“I’m losing hope,” he said by telephone. “I think maybe I will have to accept the consequences.”

Another former interpreter for the U.S. military was also in hiding in Kabul Saturday. He, too, said he had abandoned any hope of getting a flight for him, his wife and young son after two terrifying forays to the airport.

“I’ve lost hope,” he said. “I’ve lost trust in the U.S. government, which keeps saying, ‘We will evacuate our allies.’”

Updated 

Aug. 22, 2021, 12:03 p.m. ET

“Evacuation is impossible,” he added.

Afghans who have been crowding airport gates tend to panic every time tear gas is released or shots are fired into the air to disperse the crowds, the former interpreter said.

“Your child could get trampled,” he said. “If the U.S. gives me the entire universe after I lose a child, it is worthless.”

To cope with the expected flood of Afghan refugees, the Biden administration wants to enlist commercial airlines to ferry those arriving in Gulf states from Kabul to transport them to countries willing to offer them resettlement.

In the Shar-e-Naw neighborhood of Kabul, a female Afghan journalist said she finally ventured outside after hiding indoors since last Sunday. Trying to obey randomly enforced Taliban strictures on women, she wore a full-body abaya.

“It was so heavy it made me feel sick,” she said. And in the street, she said, “There is no music, nothing. All you hear is the Taliban talking on TVs and radios.”

She said her sister-in-law appeared in front of male family members with her hair uncovered. Her brother-in-law gave her a vicious kick and told her, “Put your bloody scarf on!”

Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan

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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be.

What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are signs that, at least in some areas, they have begun to reimpose the old order.

Also in hiding was a former Interior Ministry police officer who had seen Taliban fighters ransack the ministry, combing through paperwork that contained detailed information about employees. He worried that they would come looking for him.

“Kabul has become a city of fear,” the officer said.

In Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan, a journalist said he was hiding inside his home Saturday, afraid to show his face. He had reported on Taliban atrocities when the government controlled the province. Now the Taliban were in charge and on the prowl for journalists, he said.

“The Taliban will kill me and members of my family, just like they’ve killed my colleagues,” the journalist said.

In the eastern province of Khost, another journalist was also in hiding, moving between his home and the home of a family member. Taliban fighters were roaring through the province in American-supplied vehicles captured from Afghan security forces, he said. He feared they would find him soon.

“I’m out of hope,” he said. “Pray for me.”

In Kabul, the woman whose daughter was killed said the family was able to bring the girl’s body back for burial. She wept as she recalled how she would try to ease her daughter’s fears whenever gunshots rang out in their neighborhood: She had told her they were “crackers” — firecrackers.

“My baby was such a brave child,” she said. “When she heard the gunshots, she would just yell out, ‘Crackers!’”

She said she and her family were unlikely to return to the airport anytime soon. “I’d rather die a dignified death here at home than die in such an undignified way.”

Inside the Kabul house where the 39-year-old former interpreter was hiding, hope was fading. He said he was gratified by persistent attempts at assistance by the American soldiers he once served, but had concluded they could do nothing.

“If the Taliban kill me, OK, I can accept that,” he said. “I only ask them to spare my children.”

Jim Huylebroek, Sharif Hassan, Fahim Abed and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting.

Categories
Entertainment

Nanci Griffith, Singer Who Blended People and Nation, Dies at 68

Nanci Griffith, Singer Who Blended Folk and Country, Dies at 68

Nanci Griffith, a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter with one foot in folk and the other in country and blessed with an aspiring voice who was equally at home in both genres, died Friday. She was 68.

Her death was announced by her management company, Gold Mountain Entertainment. The statement did not specify where she died or the cause of death, only: “It was Nanci’s wish that no further formal statement or press release be made a week after her death.”

While Ms. Griffith often wrote political and denominational material, her most popular songs were closely watched stories of small town life, sometimes with painful detail in the lyrics but typically sung with a deceptive beauty. Her song “Love at the Five and Dime”, for example, traces a couple’s romance from its teenage origins when “Rita was 16 / hazel eyes and auburn hair / she made the Woolworth counter shine” to old age when “Eddie traveled”. with the pub ribbons / until arthritis took his hands / Now he’s selling insurance on the side. “

The song was a country hit in 1986 – but for Kathy Mattea, not Ms. Griffith. While Ms. Griffith was the first person to record “From a Distance” by Julie Gold, the song later became a huge hit for Bette Midler.

Ms. Griffith sometimes displayed a folky nonchalance towards mainstream success. She told Rolling Stone in 1993 that she didn’t mind that Ms. Mattea had the hit version of “Love at the Five and Dime”: “It feels great that Kathy has to sing this for the rest of her life and I not T. “

Nanci Caroline Griffith was born on July 6, 1953 in Seguin, Texas, about 35 miles northeast of San Antonio, to Marlin Griffith, a book publisher and singer in barbershop quartets, and Ruelen Strawser, a real estate agent and amateur actress. “I come from a basically very dysfunctional family,” she told Texas Monthly in 1999. “I had very, very irresponsible parents.”

When she was a child, her family moved to Austin; her parents divorced in 1960.

When she was 12, Ms. Griffith wrote songs and played in Austin clubs. A formative experience was when, as a teenager, she saw a performance by the melancholy Texas troubadour Townes Van Zandt; She particularly identified with his song Tecumseh Valley, about a doomed young woman named Caroline, and it became an integral part of her songbook.

In 1988 she told the New York Times, “When I was young, I listened to Odetta records for hours. Then when I started high school, Loretta Lynn came with me. Before that, country music hadn’t had a guitar-playing woman who wrote her own songs. “

After attending the University of Texas, Ms. Griffith stayed in Austin. She worked as a kindergarten teacher while devoting herself to music and performing alongside artists such as Lucinda Williams, Lyle Lovett and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. She put aside finger paints when she won a songwriting award at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas; In 1978 she released her first album “There’s a Light Beyond These Woods”. It was the first of four folk albums that she released for tiny labels in eight years, during which she also toured continuously.

In 1985 she moved to Nashville, where she was rewarded with a major label contract. Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times in 1987 praising her signing with MCA Nashville as a positive harbinger for the country music industry, calling her “one of the most gifted writers to carry on a southern country version of denominational singer-songwriter mode.” that dominated Los Angeles rock in the early and mid-1970s. “

She put together a band, the Blue Moon Orchestra, that stayed together for over a decade, and spiced up their finely crafted songs with country pop muscles, a mix she called “folkabilly”.

However, her record label was confused by her. She told Rolling Stone in 1993 that “the radio person at MCA Nashville told me I would never be on the radio because my voice hurt people’s ears.” After two albums targeting the country market received positive reviews but only sold mediocre sales, she made two albums trying to reach pop fans, an effort that was successful in Ireland but not in the United States States. Her breakthrough came when she switched the label to Elektra and returned to her folk roots.

Her 1993 album “Other Voices, Other Rooms” (named after Truman Capote’s debut novel) included 17 versions of songs by her folk ancestors, including Malvina Reynolds and Woody Guthrie. Hailed by critics as a homely delight, it won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and was awarded gold for sales of more than 500,000 copies.

Ms. Griffith followed in 1998 with the album “Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back to Bountiful)” and the book “Nanci Griffith’s Other Voices: A Personal History of Folk Music”, which was less successful, however.

Ms. Griffith was a living link not only with previous songwriters, but also with the music of Ireland (she played with the Chieftains) and Texas (she toured with the surviving members of Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets).

She repeatedly played through two cancer attacks and a painful case of Dupuyten’s contracture, an abnormal thickening of the skin on the hand that severely restricted the mobility of her fingers.

In 2008 the Americana Music Association presented her with the Lifetime Americana Trailblazer Award. In 2012, the year in which she released her 18th and final studio album “Intersection”, she explained her motivation to the New York Times: “I put things into music and words that have annoyed and hurt me. Suddenly they were there and ready to come out. “

Mrs. Griffith was married to the Texan singer-songwriter Eric Taylor from 1976 to 1982. Complete information on the survivors was not immediately available.

In 1993, at the age of 39, before she had won a Grammy and her commercial prospects were uncertain, Ms. Griffith told Rolling Stone what motivated her:

“Longevity – that’s probably the brass ring for me. I still want to hear my music come back to me at 65. “

Jordan Allen contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Politics

Mexico sues U.S. gun producers, alleging they trigger huge harm to nation

Mexico sues U.S. gun manufacturers, alleging they cause massive damage to country

Mexican soldiers guard a crime scene.

Guillermo arias | AFP | Getty Images

The Mexican government on Wednesday sued several US arms manufacturers for contributing to the illegal arms trade in Mexico.

The lawsuit was filed in US federal court in Boston. Among the defendants named in the lawsuit are Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta USA, and Colt’s Manufacturing Company.

The companies did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

The arms manufacturers are accused of negligent business practices that facilitate the smuggling of arms to Mexico and cause “massive damage” to the country. The lawsuit alleges that they knowingly supply the criminal arms market in Mexico. Military-style companies’ weapons often end up in the hands of drug cartels and other criminals who harm civilians and government personnel.

Mexico has reported historically high murder rates in recent years, some of which in the lawsuit are attributable to the arms trade from the United States in violation of Mexican gun laws.

“The consequences in Mexico were dire. In addition to the exponential increase in the murder rate, the behavior of the defendants has had an overall destabilizing effect on Mexican society,” the lawsuit said.

The Mexican government is demanding compensation for the financial toll and bloodshed caused by the alleged wrongful conduct of the defendants. Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said at a press conference on Wednesday that the government is targeting an estimated $ 10 billion, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Mexico’s Secretary of State Marcelo Ebrard watches during a press conference to announce that Mexico has sued several arms manufacturers in a U.S. federal court accusing them of negligent business practices that resulted in the illegal arms trade that took place in Mexico in Mexico City, Mexico, on 4th, 2021.

Luis Cortes | Reuters

“For decades, the government and its citizens have been the victims of a deadly flood of military and other particularly lethal weapons that have passed from the United States across the border into criminal hands into Mexico,” the lawsuit said.

“This flood is not a natural phenomenon or an inevitable consequence of the gun business or US gun laws. It is the predictable result of the willful acts and business practices of the defendants, ”it said.

The compensation would cover, among other things, the cost of deaths and injuries to Mexican police and military personnel, social services for victims of gun crimes and their families, and strengthening law enforcement to prevent the gun trade, the lawsuit said.

Laws in Mexico severely restrict the sale of firearms, and the Mexican government issues fewer than 50 gun permits each year, according to the lawsuit.

But the defendants are undermining these laws, the lawsuit says. An estimated half a million weapons are smuggled into Mexico from the United States each year, and the defendants produce over 68% of them, the lawsuit said.

That means they sell more than 340,000 firearms to criminals annually, which flow across the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that the defendants do not regulate their gun distribution practices. They sell guns to any distributor or dealer with a US license, regardless of whether they illegally sold guns to Mexico, the lawsuit says.

The defendants are also charged with marketing their weapons in a way that attracts transnational criminal organizations such as Mexican drug cartels. Barrett Firearms, for example, markets one of its rifles as a “weapon of war,” but sells it to the general public without restrictions, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit alleges that it enabled criminals to attack the Mexican military and police, and increased extortion and kidnapping.

Ebrard on Wednesday urged U.S. arms manufacturers to end their business practices which he believes are contributing to violence and deaths in his country, Reuters reported. He said he believed the US government, not mentioned in the lawsuit, was ready to work with Mexico to curb the illegal arms trade.

Categories
World News

Japan’s Various Olympic Stars Mirror a Nation That’s Altering (Slowly)

Japan’s Diverse Olympic Stars Reflect a Country That’s Changing (Slowly)

But Tokyo itself remains remarkably monochromatic. According to the city government, only about 4 percent of residents were born outside Japan – about twice as many as in the country. (In contrast, more than 35 percent of London and New York residents were born abroad.)

Marie Nakagawa, a former Senegalese-Japanese model, said she felt like a “foreigner” who grew up in Japan. Even today, she regularly endures shouts from men saying she is a doorbell for Ms. Osaka, whose advocacy for racial justice has forced the country to confront a problem that many here think does not apply to her.

Basics of the Summer Olympics

“I hear experts say all the time that things have changed since Naomi Osaka, but the tyrants are still the same,” Ms. Nakagawa said. “You weren’t reeducated.”

In 2019, when Ms. Osaka won her second Grand Slam at the Australian Open, Nissin featured her pale skin and brown hair in a marketing cartoon, leading to whitewash allegations.

“It’s obvious that I’m tanned,” Ms. Osaka replied. Nissin apologized.

Takeshi Fujiwara, a sprinter who specializes in the 400 meters, grew up in El Salvador, where his Japanese name raised his eyebrows. His mother is from there and his father is Japanese. Even after Mr. Fujiwara took part in the Olympic Games in Athens for El Salvador, the whispers about his nationality continued.

In 2013 he switched his loyalty to Japan and moved to his father’s homeland. The greeting was not immediate, he said, even if people commented positively on his “macho-macho” muscles.

“When I came to Japan, I thought, ‘Hey, I’m here in my country.’ They said, ‘Hey, where are you from?’ ”Said Mr. Fujiwara. “It’s gotten better, but we’re still a long way from a place where multiracial Japanese are considered normal.”

Categories
Entertainment

Lovecraft Nation Will Not Be Returning For a Second Season

Lovecraft Country Will Not Be Returning For a Second Season

Despite a terrifyingly good first season, Lovecraft Country has not been renewed at HBO. On Friday, the network announced its decision to end the series with season one. “We will not be moving forward with a second season of Lovecraft Country,” HBO confirmed in a statement. “We are grateful for the dedication and artistry of the gifted cast and crew, and to Misha Green, who crafted this groundbreaking series. And to the fans, thank you for joining us on this journey.”

Shortly after the news broke, Green, the showrunner, shared a glimpse of what she imagined season two would be about. “Wish we could have brought you #LovecraftCountry: Supremacy,” she tweeted, along with a screenshot of the next generation. “Thank you to everyone who watched and engaged.” According to the image, Lovecraft Country‘s “new world” is a reimagined “Sovereign States of America” divided by the Tribal Nations of the West, the Whitelands, the New Negro Republic, and the Jefferson Commonwealth.

A taste of the Season 2 Bible. Wish we could have brought you #LovecraftCountry: Supremacy. Thank you to everyone who watched and engaged. 🖤✊🏾 #noconfederate pic.twitter.com/BONbSfbjWg

— Misha Green (@MishaGreen) July 3, 2021

Judging by Green’s response and the cast’s past interview, this cancelation news came as a surprise. Although HBO does house a few limited series like The Undoing and Mare of Easttown, fans anticipated a continuation of Lovecraft Country. Perhaps we’ll see this world return on another network and another time, but for now, we’ll just have to imagine what hair-raising storylines Green had in store for future episodes.

Categories
World News

Saudi Arabia Limits Hajj to 60,000 From Inside the Nation

Saudi Arabia Limits Hajj to 60,000 From Within the Country

The annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca next month will be limited to 60,000 due to the coronavirus pandemic and to people living in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi press agency said on Saturday, as authorities host an event that normally attracts millions of people , strictly restrict each year from all over the world.

The event was almost completely abandoned last year when only about 1,000 people with social distancing and masking requirements were able to attend the ritual.

The Hajj, which all physically and financially capable Muslims should complete at least once, is scheduled to begin in mid-July. The press agency announced that participation is limited to vaccinated pilgrims between the ages of 18 and 65.

The Saudi authorities announced last month that the ritual would not return to normal this year. Fahad Nazer, a spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, said on Twitter that “there will be preventive and preventive measures to ensure the health and safety of pilgrims”.

The decision, attributed to the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, will disappoint many Muslims, who often save up and wait for years for the pilgrimage in hopes of obtaining a Hajj visa. Getting a spot can be difficult as demand is exceptionally high and Saudi Arabia limits the number of pilgrims who can attend from each country each year.

Saudi Arabia has reported 7,537 coronavirus deaths, according to a New York Times database. It recently reopened to international air travel but also said vaccination will be required to enter most buildings and public transportation as of August.

In other news from around the world:

  • In France, Officials granted an exception to the country’s pandemic curfew on Friday night, which allowed 5,000 fans to stay for the remainder of the French Open semi-final game between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

  • In the United States, Fully vaccinated lawmakers and House staff no longer need to wear a mask or maintain a two-meter social distance after updated Congressional physician guidelines were issued on Friday.

  • In Canada, 300,000 doses of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine have been rejected by the country’s health product regulatory agency due to contamination issues at the U.S. facility where it was manufactured.

  • In Brasil, At least a dozen players and employees of the Venezuelan national soccer team tested positive for the corona virus the day before the Copa America opener against Brazil.

  • In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The country’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, said Saturday that the hospitals in the state capital Kinshasa were “overwhelmed,” Reuters reported. The Congo reported one of the highest daily case numbers since the pandemic began on Friday.

Categories
World News

Larger rates of interest can be good for the nation, Treasury Secretary Yellen says

Higher interest rates would be good for the country, Treasury Secretary Yellen says

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks during a news conference, after attending the G7 finance ministers meeting, at Winfield House in London, Britain June 5, 2021.

Justin Tallis | Rueters

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that President Joe Biden’s $4 trillion spending proposal would be positive for the country, even if it leads to a rise in interest rates.

During an interview with Bloomberg News, the former Federal Reserve chair said the president’s plans would total about $400 billion each year — a level of spending she argued was not enough to create an inflation over-run.

“If we ended up with a slightly higher interest rate environment it would actually be a plus for society’s point of view and the Fed’s point of view,” Yellen told Bloomberg.

“We’ve been fighting inflation that’s too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade,” she said. She added that if the packages help at all to “alleviate things then that’s not a bad thing — that’s a good thing.”

Read the full Bloomberg report here.

Categories
World News

El Salvador seems to change into the primary nation to undertake bitcoin as authorized tender

El Salvador looks to become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender

Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, delivers a speech to Congress at the Legislative Assembly building in San Salvador, El Salvador, on Tuesday, June 1, 2021. Photographer: Camilo Freedman/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

MIAMI — El Salvador is looking to introduce legislation that will make it the world’s first sovereign nation to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the U.S. dollar.

In a video broadcast to Bitcoin 2021, a multiday conference in Miami being billed as the biggest bitcoin event in history, President Nayib Bukele announced El Salvador’s partnership with digital wallet company, Strike, to build the country’s modern financial infrastructure using bitcoin technology.

“Next week I will send to congress a bill that will make bitcoin a legal tender,” said Bukele.

Jack Mallers, founder of the Lightning Network payments platform Strike, said this will go down as the “shot heard ’round the world for bitcoin.”

“What’s transformative here is that bitcoin is both the greatest reserve asset ever created and a superior monetary network. Holding bitcoin provides a way to protect developing economies from potential shocks of fiat currency inflation,” continued Mallers.

Speaking from the mainstage, Mallers said the move will help unleash the power and potential of bitcoin for everyday use cases on an open network that benefits individuals, businesses, and public sector services.

El Salvador is a largely cash economy, where roughly 70% of people do not have bank accounts or credit cards. Remittances, or the money sent home by migrants, account for more than 20% of El Salvador’s gross domestic product. Incumbent services can charge 10% or more in fees for those international transfers, which can sometimes take days to arrive and that sometimes require a physical pick-up.

Bitcoin isn’t backed by an asset, nor does it have the full faith and backing of any one government. Its value is derived, in part, from the fact that it is digitally scarce; there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin in existence.

While details are still forthcoming about how the rollout will work, CNBC is told that El Salvador has assembled a team of bitcoin leaders to help build a new financial ecosystem with bitcoin as the base layer.

Bukele’s New Ideas party has control over the country’s Legislative Assembly, so passage of the bill is very likely.

“It was an inevitability, but here already: the first country on track to make bitcoin legal tender,” said Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream.

Back said he plans to contribute technologies like Liquid and satellite infrastructure to make El Salvador a model for the world.

“We’re pleased to help El Salvador on its journey towards adoption of the Bitcoin Standard,” he said.

This isn’t El Salvador’s first move into bitcoin. In March, Strike launched its mobile payments app there, and it quickly became the number one downloaded app in the country.

Bukele has been very popular, with his populist New Ideas party sweeping recent elections. However, the new assembly recently came under fire after it ousted the attorney general and top judges. The move prompted the U.S. Agency for International Development to pull aid from El Salvador’s national police and a public information institute, instead re-routing funds to civil society groups.

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Health

Shares commerce decrease as nation for ‘whole’ lockdown

Stocks trade lower as country for 'total' lockdown

A man wearing a facemask as a protection against Covid-19 walks past two Malaysian flags in capital city Kuala Lumpur.

Faris Hadziq | SOPA Images | LightRocket via Getty Images

Stocks in Malaysia fell in early Monday trade as the government announced a nationwide “total lockdown” to curb the rapidly rising daily Covid-19 infections in the country.

The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index fell around 1.5% at the open before settling around 1.1% — underperforming most Asia-Pacific markets.

Malaysia has been struggling to control a surge in Covid infections. Last week, the country reported five-consecutive days of record increases in coronavirus cases, taking cumulative infections to more than 565,500 cases with 2,729 deaths as of Sunday, health ministry data showed.

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced Friday after market close that the country will enter a two-week lockdown starting Tuesday.

During the period, individuals are generally only allowed to leave their homes to buy essential items or seek medical services. For companies, those offering essential services will remain open while certain segments of the manufacturing sectors can operate with a reduced capacity.

Brian Tan, an economist at Barclays Bank in Singapore, estimated that the measures will cost the Malaysian economy between 0.5 to 1 percentage point every two weeks.

Tan wrote in a Monday note that he has lowered Malaysia’s 2021 growth forecast from 6.5% to 5.5% — below the central bank’s projection range of 6% to 7.5%.